"Sesostris," he said, as we went forward again, "what can be done? Humanity, piety, and every element of the soul call for the deepest commiseration of this unhappy people. I sometimes feel that it would be better to send them in a mass out of Egypt into Arabia, and follow them with an army to see that they went beyond our boundaries, and then establish a cordon of military posts from Ezion-Geber, on the Arabian Sea, to the shores of the Great Sea, north. But how could we provide food for such a host, now amounting to two and a half millions of people? Thousands would perish in the wilderness for want of water and food. Only a miracle of the gods could preserve them, their women and children, from a lingering death. And would not this be more cruel than the edict of Amunophis; only executing it in an indirect way, and on a gigantic scale? I would, were I Pharaoh to-day, give the half of my kingdom to the wise man who could devise a practicable way of freeing Egypt from the Hebrews, without destroying them or suffering them to die in the wilderness. If men are ever deified, such a benefactor would deserve the honor." These words, my dear mother, were spoken with deep feeling, and showed me that the heart of Remeses is manly and tender, that his sentiments are always elevated and noble, and that the oppression of the Hebrew is not so much the fault of himself or of the queen mother, as it is the irresistible sequence of causes which were in action before they were born; and to the effects of which they must yield, until the gods in their wisdom and power make known to them the way to remove from the land so great an evil: for none but the Deity Supreme is wise enough to solve this intricate problem of Egypt. Certain it is, that if the Hebrews go on multiplying and growing as they now do, in another generation they will outnumber the Egyptians, and will need only a great leader like their warlike ancestor Prince Abram, or the hero king of Philistia, who established the Phœnician dynasty, to enable them to subvert the kingdom, and upon its ruins establish another Syro-Hebraic dynasty. One of their ancestors has already ruled Egypt, and another may yet sit in the very seat of the Pharaohs.