The dates of the expulsion of the Phœnican shepherds from Egypt, and of the reign of Sesostris, in years of the æra of our computation, have been favourite subjects of discussion with chronologists: Archbishop Usher fixed the former of these events in the year B. C. 1825; which would make the commencement of the reign of Sesostris about B. C. 1483. The reign of Sesostris is connected with the early Grecian chronology by the migration of Danaus, brother of Sesostris, who, according to the Parian marbles, arrived in Greece in 1485, which is a very few years earlier than the dates of Usher would assign to that event. M. Champollion Figeac, brother of the M. Champollion to whom the greater part of the discoveries made by the interpretation of hieroglyphics are owing, himself a distinguished chronologist, has assigned the year B.C. 1822 to the expulsion of the Phœnicians, which Usher had placed in 1825: the date of M. Champollion being derived from Manetho’s statement, that the Phœnician invasion took place in the 700th year of the Sothiacal period, viz., B.C. 2082, and that their dominion in Egypt continued 260 years. Historical accuracy may make it desirable, that the exact year of the most ancient as well as of more modern events should be determined, if it be possible: but for purposes of general interest, and especially for comparison with the chronology of cotemporary nations, which at that early period is in every case more unsettled than the Egyptian, the period seems sufficiently determined. The date before Christ 1822, pursued downwards through the dynasties of Manetho, conducts with very close approximation to the known period B.C. 525 of the conquest of Egypt by the Persians; and intermediately, accords very satisfactorily with the dates, according to the Bible chronology, of the conquest of Jerusalem in the reign of Jeroboam by Shishak, king of Egypt, and of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia and Egypt, who made war against Sennacherib; these are the Sesonchis of Manetho, and Sh.sh.n.k of hieroglyphic inscriptions on a temple at Bubaste, and on one of the courts of the [p186] palace at Karnac,—and the Taracus of Manetho, and T.h.r.k of hieroglyphic inscriptions existing in Ethiopia and in Egypt[33].

In respect to the connexion of the events of the Jewish and Egyptian histories, the period between the expulsion of the Phœnicians and the reign of Sesostris possesses a peculiar interest, as being that of the residence of the Israelites in Egypt, and of the Exodus. In the history of Josephus, we have an extract from Manetho, in which this latter event is expressly stated to have taken place under the father of Sesostris, a king whose name, in Manetho’s list, is Amenophis, (the third of that name,) and on the monuments Ramses. The date which chronologists are generally agreed in assigning to the Exodus is 1491; that of the termination of the reign of Amenophis, according to Champollion, is 1473, or, if the correction of his chronology which we have suggested in a note be just, 1478: it is singular that the difference of thirteen years (between 1491 and 1478) should be precisely the duration of a very suspicious interval which Manetho states to have taken place, after Amenophis had gone with his army in pursuit of the Israelites; and during which interval neither the king nor his army returned to [p187] Egypt, but are stated to have been absent in Ethiopia. If the Exodus occurred during the reign of any of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty, it could only have been in the reign of the immediate predecessor of Sesostris; since his conquests in Phœnicia, and his expeditions against the Assyrians and Medes, must have brought him in contact with the Israelites, had they been then residing in the Holy Land, so as at least to have caused some mention to have been made in their history of the passages of so great a conqueror. But presuming Amenophis, father and predecessor of Sesostris, to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus, the wandering of the Israelites in the desert for forty of the fifty-five years ascribed to the reign of Sesostris, is a sufficient explanation of his being unnoticed in the Jewish history; whilst the fact of that nation having been subject to the Egyptians during the reign of Ousirei, commencing 124 years before the death of Amenophis, is attested by the paintings on the wall of one of the chambers of the tomb of that king, discovered by Belzoni, and with which we are so well acquainted by means of the model exhibited in England.

Whilst recalling to recollection the peculiar physiognomy of the Jews pourtrayed in that tomb,—and which is as characteristic of their present physiognomy as if it had been painted in the present age, instead of above 3000 years ago,—the equally well characterized, but very different physiognomy of the Phœnician shepherds, represented on the monuments of the same period, is decisive of the error of Josephus, who imagined the Jews and the Shepherds to be the same people. The Phœnician shepherds, long the inveterate enemy of the Egyptians, form a leading feature as captives, in the representations of the exploits of the monarchs who conducted the warfare against them. These people are always painted with blue eyes and light hair; and it is not a little curious to see assembled on the wall of the same apartment, different races, so distinctly characterised as the Jew, the Phœnician, the Egyptian, and the Negro; the latter in colour, and in the outline of the features, in painting and in sculpture, precisely as at present; all, moreover, inhabitants of countries not very distant from each other, and at a period when not more than twelve or thirteen centuries had passed since all these races had descended from a single parent. In the writings which attempt to explain from natural causes [p188] the diversity of race amongst mankind, much power has been ascribed to the effects of time and climate: but the facts with which we are now becoming better acquainted than before, do not appear to admit of explanation from those circumstances. It is worthy of notice that the negro, and the light-haired and blue-eyed people, the two races who might be deemed at the greatest distance apart amongst the varieties of man, are, equally with the intermediate Egyptians, the descendants of Ham.

Of the succession of kings in Manetho’s chronology, from Sesostris to the Persian conquest, a space of nine centuries and a half, about one half the names have been already identified on different monuments: four of the Persian monarchs, subsequent to the conquest, have also been traced in inscriptions in phonetic characters; their names are written, as nearly as can be spelt with our letters, Kamboth, (Cambyses); Ntariousch, (Darius); Khschearscha, (Xerxes); and Artakschessch, (Artaxerxes.)

The ascent by monumental evidence to yet more remote antiquity than the expulsion of the Phœnician shepherds, (B.C. 1822), is not altogether without hope, notwithstanding the general demolition of the temples of the gods, which took place according to Manetho, during the long dominion of the Phœnicians in Egypt. We learn from the Description de l’Egypte that even the most ancient structures at Thebes are themselves composed of the debris of still more ancient buildings, used as simple materials, on which previously sculptured and painted hieroglyphics are still existing; these are doubtless the remains of the demolished temples, but the inscriptions will require to be studied on the spot. There is also reason to believe, that there exists amongst the ruins of the palace of Karnac, a portion of still more ancient construction than the palace itself; which, having escaped demolition, was incorporated with the more recent building. The inscriptions on this apparently very ancient ruin present the name and title of a king, which form a very interesting subject for future elucidation. The title does not accord with any one now extant on the table of Abydus, but possibly may have been one of those which were destroyed with a portion of the wall, and which are of kings of earlier date than the expulsion of the shepherds. The name is Mandouei, which name occurs in the dynasty anterior to Sesostris, but coupled [p189] with a different title, an effectual distinction; nor does the name recur in any subsequent dynasty. M. Champollion Figeac has, with much ingenuity, shown the probability of the identity of the Mandouei of the ancient ruin with the Osymandyas, Ousi-Mandouei, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus as an Egyptian king greatly distinguished by his conquests, whose reign M. Champollion infers, from the historical passages relating to him, to have commenced 190 years before the Phœnician invasion, or B.C. 2272 years; a prodigious antiquity, and of the very highest interest should it be established, since there exist of this individual no less than three statues in European collections, distinguished by the same name and title: two of these are colossal, one at Turin, and a second at Rome: a third is in the British Museum; and as all particulars must interest which relate to a statue, of which there is at least probability that is the most ancient existing in the world,—the date attributed to it being earlier than the birth of Abraham,—we copy from Burckhardt the following short description of its discovery: “Within the inclosure of the interior part of the temple at Karnac, Belzoni found a statue of a hard, large-grained sandstone: a whole length naked figure sitting upon a chair with a ram’s head upon the knees: the face and body entire; with plaited hair falling down to the shoulders. This is one of the first, I should say, the first Egyptian statue I have seen: the expression of the face is exquisite, and I believe it to be a portrait.”—(J. L. BURCKHARDT, Travels in Nubia, lxxvii. Letter to Mr. W. Hamilton, 20th February, 1817.)—This statue is in the farthest corner on the right hand side after entering the gallery of the Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum; and compared with other statues in the same gallery, which are of kings of the eighteenth dynasty, the dissimilarity of the features from the very characteristic ones of the latter family is too striking to be questioned. The problem of the age of this king Mandouei is, at all events, a highly curious one; and will probably receive its solution amongst the many other valuable discoveries which cannot fail to result from M. Champollion’s projected visit to Egypt, in which he will be accompanied by the sincere good wishes of every one in every country, who feels an interest in the restoration of authentic history. E. S.

[33] It appears to us that a slight inaccuracy has crept into the deduction of all the dates in M. Champollion’s Chronology subsequent to the expulsion of the shepherds. The date of that event is the foundation of the subsequent dates, and is supposed to have taken place B.C. 1822; after which, according to the extract of Manetho in Josephus cited by M. Champollion, Thoutmosis, the king by whom they had been expelled, reigned 25 years and 4 months, followed by the other kings of the eighteenth dynasty, making altogether 342 years and 9 months: (including the 2 years and 2 months additional of Horus, in compliance with the version of the passage in the Armenian text of the Chronicle of Eusebius.) This number, 342 years and 9 months, falling short of the 348 years attributed to the eighteenth dynasty in Eusebius and Syncellus, M. Champollion has suggested that Thoutmosis may have reigned the five years which constitute the difference, before the expulsion of the shepherds, since, according to the record, he did reign, some years before that event, over all the parts of Egypt not possessed by the shepherds. So far, so well: but in such case, the year B.C. 1822, being the epoch of the expulsion of the shepherds, and not of the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty, must surely correspond to the fifth year of the reign of Thoutmosis, and not to the first, as M. Champollion makes it. We have hesitated to venture this remark on a matter to which M. Champollion must have given much attention, believing that mistake in us is much more probable than an accidental inadvertence in him; but we have returned frequently to the consideration, without having been able to satisfy ourselves; and the rectification of our mistake, if it is one, may prevent others falling into the same. [p190]

Proceedings of the Horticultural Society. [◊]

June 19th.

AT this meeting a paper was read from the President, T. A. Knight, Esq., upon the culture of the mango and cherimoyer. Its object was to suggest some improvements in the management of these and other trees cultivated in stoves, deduced from an application of Dutrochet’s electrical theory of vegetation to practice. It has now become generally known that this observer is of opinion that the motion of the fluids in plants depends upon two currents of electricity, setting with very unequal force between the denser fluid of the tree and the lighter fluid of the soil in which the tree is planted; the more powerful current setting from the latter to the former, and so producing absorption, by conveying aqueous particles into the roots, through the vegetable membrane of the epidermis. In applying this theory to practical purposes, Mr. Knight recommends that the pot in which the cherimoyer or mango is planted, should itself be surrounded by a medium through which an equable and regular supply of fluid may be conveyed to the roots, and that the naked surface of the pot should by no means be exposed to the free action of the atmosphere. Without entering upon any question of the accuracy of the French philosopher’s observations, it is quite certain that such a mode of cultivation is that which is most congenial to plants, and which is indispensable to those of a habit at all delicate. The common practice of plunging pots into a tan-bed, or among sand, if in glass-houses, or in the earth if in open borders, is a proof of the necessity that gardeners have found, of securing as regular a temperature and degree of humidity as is possible for the outside of their flower-pots; through the pores in which, moisture is chiefly conveyed to the roots, which always cling to the inside surface of the pot.

Specimens of roses produced by branches budded upon the Rosa indica, were exhibited by Alexander Evelyn, Esq. We notice these not only on account of their extraordinary beauty, but also for the sake of recommending most strongly the adoption of the practice where delicate roses are found difficult of cultivation per se. If we consider what happens when the operation of budding, or grafting has succeeded, the reason of the advantage derived from such an operation will be apparent. When a bud of one variety is inserted under the bark of another variety, a union takes place between the cellular substance of the two; the bud is then placed in the same [p191] situation with regard to the stock, as the seed when sown is with regard to the earth. It immediately derives its nutriment from the ascending sap of the new tree, and begins to form its wood and branches, and to secrete its proper juices in proportion to the supply of food it now receives. If a plant from any cause produces roots with difficulty, its whole habit will be delicate, and its flowers if formed, will, as in the case of that most lovely of flowers, the double yellow rose, probably fall off without expanding, from the want of an adequate supply of nutriment from its roots; but, as in all trees, every bud is, when fully formed, in itself a perfect and distinct individual, if such an individual be removed from its own root, and placed where it will be supported by the healthy vigorous roots of another species of variety, which happens in budding, it will no longer have to depend upon a source, the supplies from which are imperfect, but on the contrary, like a seed removed from barren fertile ground, it will flourish in a degree before unknown. The contrary effect takes place when a vigorous plant is transferred to one less vigorous. And hence, the whole effect of stocks upon the scions, or buds inserted upon them.