Now at this place there was no retreat for the Israelites by land. They were compelled to effect their escape from their pursuers by crossing the sea to the opposite shore. Seeing the dangerous position they were in, Moses, the man gifted with supernatural resources, contrived to make a passage through the sea, and, a strong east wind assisting him throughout the night, he accomplished the construction of a road for himself and his followers, which should also serve as a trap to engulph their enemies after they had effected their own escape. He, the builder of the monuments now extant in Ethiopia and Upper Egypt, and in other parts of the habitable earth (of which mention will be made in the course of this narrative)—he it was who contrived and made this passage during the night, while the Egyptians rested after their weary march. It was the sublimest effort of mechanical skill! When day dawned the passage was ready, and Moses stood by and saw all his people walk down from the Egyptian shore into the dry road in the sea prepared for them. The waters were divided; “and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.” When the Israelites gained the Arabian shore, and the Egyptians were in the middle between the two shores, Moses threw back the waters that were driven aside, and the waters returned and covered all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea; there escaped not so much as one of them! And the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore; “and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and His servant Moses.” At this crisis there were only women and children left in Egypt, and these in the deepest grief for the death of their first-born sons. No one came back from the camp to relate the terrible catastrophe to these unfortunate widows and orphans; and there was neither priest nor grown-up man to record the events of this period in the sacred books of the nation. Consequently, when Manetho compiled his history from the sacred records, he was unable to relate the events of this period clearly and without contradiction. He accounts for the non-appearance of the King Amenophis and his forces in Egypt, after his pursuit of the Hebrews, by saying that he retired into Ethiopia, and remained there thirteen years as the guest of the king and people of Ethiopia. The son of this Pharaoh, whom Manetho calls Sethos, was at this time, when his father was drowned, five years old; so that at the end of these thirteen years he attained his majority, and the children that were his contemporaries were old enough to help themselves. These thirteen years form a gap in the history of Egypt.