“You did not hear from me earlier because my too close occupation prevented my studying your book as thoroughly as I wished, and contributing, as I hoped to, something on the threshold question. Even now I have to write hastily. “I have found your book most interesting and suggestive, so that I heartily recommend its publication. I hope to be able to read it more carefully, and to give a more detailed criticism, after a while. “A few remarks: “Page 103.–_Per-ao_ [Pharaoh]–gate, door. Not to be proved. Strangely, the root _pire_ means ‘to go out.’ Originally _pr_ may have been ‘door,’ but not in historic times. “Page 161.–[Calling the region of Sinai, the ‘land of God’.] A mistake! The ‘land of God’ is only the land on the Red Sea. No such records known of Mt. Sinai. “Page 180, line 5.–[A memorial stone spoken of as marking the boundary line.] How do you know it was a boundary stone? “There is rich material of better and earlier passages on boundary stones than that given on page 180. “_El gisr_ means ‘bridge.’ The dictionaries do not give ‘threshold.’ “Page 184.–Sinai, an ‘Egyptian boundary line’? Still less did the ‘holy mountain’ (p. 185) ever mark the southern frontier. The threshold sacrifices are evidently a mistake. But I do not have at hand Brugsch’s book–a very fanciful and unreliable book. “I hope that as soon as a very pressing work has been finished, I shall be able to revise all your passages bearing on Egypt. But even if I should find some more of these minor faults, they would not change the good general impression of the book.” It will be seen that none of the points questioned by Professor Müller are vital to the main thesis of the book, or essential to its illustration of the prevalence of the threshold covenant customs in Egypt. Moreover, it will be observed, by a reference to my authorities at the pages mentioned, that the facts and opinions I have presented at these points are on the authority of Brugsch Bey and other scholars. The scholarship of Professor Müller, of course, gives him the right to question the testimony of any other Egyptologist. As to the boundary line of Egypt in the Sinaitic peninsula, that simply refers to the famous tablet and inscription, in Wady Maghara, of Snefru, the great king of the fourth dynasty, when he had first extended his dominions thus far.[714] What was then Egypt’s boundary line of conquest in that direction may, indeed, not have continued to be so. The same may be said of the southern boundary of Egypt on the Nubian frontier.[715] My reasons for giving “the threshold” as a meaning of _el gisr_ are to be found in full in my “Kadesh-barnea,” at pages 50, 339, 341 f. It is to be noted that Professor Müller had already pointed out to me the existence of a temple at Thebes bearing the name of the “Silver Threshold,”[716] after the days of the eighteenth dynasty. He promises other notes in this direction when he has time for further research. ----- Footnote 713: