"I have in vain tried to settle upon some policy, to be pursued—when I come to the throne, if it please Heaven that my mother depart this life before me, (I pray the god to keep her to a good old age)—in reference to them. But my wisdom is at fault. When I take the sceptre I shall feel that the bondage of the Hebrew, which I inherit with it, will make it lead in my hand."
While he was speaking, the impatient pawing of his spirited chariot-horses, restrained with difficulty by three footmen, reminded him that we were delaying at Raamses when we ought to be on our way back to On.
"Come, Sesostris, let us get upon the chariot and return, for I promised to dine with my mother and the Lord Prince Mœris to-day; and it is already past noon by the shadow of that obelisk."
We stood upon the silver-chased chariot, and taking the leopard-skin reins in his left hand, he made a sign to his footmen, who, springing away from the heads of the fretting and frothing horses, let them fly. Away, like the wind, we swept the plain in front of the treasure-city; along the plateau where had stood the palace and gardens of Joseph, the lord of Egypt; past the ruined strangers' fountain, where I had talked with the venerable Ben Isaac and his handsome son; past a well beside which Jacob had his great house, during the seventeen years he lived in Goshen, the ruins of which were visible a little ways off to the east. On we rolled, preceded and followed by the fleet-footed runners, across the plain of the Hebrew brick-makers, who still bent to their labors. Women and children, with dark fine eyes and raven hair, gathering straw by the wayside or in the stubble-fields, were passed in vast numbers. Crossing an open space, I saw before me a black mass on the ground, which, as we advanced, proved to be a crowd of vultures or carrion eagles, that slowly and reluctantly moved aside at our coming; and the next moment our horses shied at the dead body of a man, around which they had been gathered feasting upon the flesh. The long beard and dark hair, the coarse blue loin-cloth, and the pile of bricks at his side, told the whole tale. It was an emaciated Hebrew, who had perished on the road-side under his burden.
I did not look at Remeses. I knew that he saw and felt. He reined up, and sternly commanded two of his footmen to remain and bury the body.
"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.
As we re-entered the City of the Sun, we passed by the base of an obelisk which Queen Amense is erecting to mark the era and acts of her long reign. Upon it were sculptured representations of her battles with the Ethiopians, her wars with Libya, and her conquest of Arabia. The work was executed by Phœnician and Egyptian artists; and I am rejoiced to see that the painters of Tyre and the sculptors of Sidon are greatly esteemed for the delicacy and perfection of their work. When these persons saw me, they dropped their pencils and chisels, and with their hands upon their bosoms, manifested every sign of delight. You may suppose I responded with more than usual gratification to the homage thus paid me; for in a foreign land the sight of the humblest of one's own countrymen, refreshes the eye and warms the heart.
But I have too long occupied your time, dearest mother, with one letter.
Your devoted son,