LETTERS
BETWEEN REMESES AND OTHER PERSONS,
COVERING A PERIOD OF FIVE YEARS.
LETTER I.
REMESES TO AARON THE HEBREW.
City of Tyre, Syria, Month Athyr.
My elder and dear Brother:
It is with emotions wholly new to me, awakened by those fraternal ties to which I have been hitherto entirely a stranger, that I take up my pen to address you, inscribing at the commencement of my letter the endearing words, "my brother!" It is true I have lost much in many respects; but I have also gained much in the affection of my newly discovered kindred.
After you left us below Memphis, the galley of the Prince Sesostris sped swiftly down the Nile, and ere noon we had entered the Pelusian branch. As I passed the old city of Bubastis, and Pythom, the new treasure-city, which is rising upon its ruins, I groaned with heaviness of heart! Around and upon its walls, I beheld the thousands of my oppressed countrymen toiling, like Nubian slaves, under the lash of their taskmasters! I could only groan in heart; for what was I now able to do for them,—myself an exile, and flying from the land? May the prophecy which exists among your people (my people), as you asserted in the last long and interesting conversation we held together, on the day I embarked, be soon fulfilled! This bondage cannot continue many years! There is not room in Egypt for two nations!
At Pelusium we found the prince's fleet awaiting him. It set sail shortly after our arrival, and coasting by the shores of Arabia, and passing Askelon, in Philistia, in seven days we entered the port of Tyre; which is built upon a rocky isle and peninsula, and rises from the sea with imposing magnificence.