Joshua | Page 2

historical event of equally momentous result taken place. For thousands
of years the story of the Exodus has lived in the minds of numberless
people as something actual, and it still retains its vitality. Therefore it
belongs to history no less certainty than the French Revolution and its
consequences."
Notwithstanding such encouragement, for a long series of years I
lacked courage to finish the story of the Exodus until last winter an
unexpected appeal from abroad induced me to resume it. After this I
worked uninterruptedly with fresh zeal and I may say renewed pleasure
at the perilous yet fascinating task until its completion.

The locality of the romance, the scenery as we say of the drama, I have
copied as faithfully as possible from the landscapes I beheld in Goshen
and on the Sinai peninsula. It will agree with the conception of many of
the readers of "Joshua."
The case will be different with those portions of the story which I have
interwoven upon the ground of ancient Egyptian records. They will
surprise the laymen; for few have probably asked themselves how the
events related in the Bible from the standpoint of the Jews affected the
Egyptians, and what political conditions existed in the realm of
Pharaoh when the Hebrews left it. I have endeavored to represent these
relations with the utmost fidelity to the testimony of the monuments.
For the description of the Hebrews, which is mentioned in the
Scriptures, the Bible itself offers the best authority. The character of the
"Pharaoh of the Exodus" I also copied from the Biblical narrative, and
the portraits of the weak King Menephtah, which have been preserved,
harmonize admirably with it. What we have learned of later times
induced me to weave into the romance the conspiracy of Siptah, the
accession to the throne of Seti II., and the person of the Syrian Aarsu
who, according to the London Papyrus Harris I., after Siptah had
become king, seized the government.
The Naville excavations have fixed the location of Pithom-Succoth
beyond question, and have also brought to light the fortified
store-house of Pithom (Succoth) mentioned in the Bible; and as the
scripture says the Hebrews rested in this place and thence moved
farther on, it must be supposed that they overpowered the garrison of
the strong building and seized the contents of the spacious granaries,
which are in existence at the present day.
In my "Egypt and the Books of Moses" which appeared in 1868, I
stated that the Biblical Etham was the same as the Egyptian Chetam,
that is, the line of fortresses which protected the isthmus of Suez from
the attacks of the nations of the East, and my statement has long since
found universal acceptance. Through it, the turning back of the
Hebrews before Etham is intelligible.
The mount where the laws were given I believe was the majestic Serbal,
not the Sinai of the monks; the reasons for which I explained fully in
my work "Through Goshen to Sinai." I have also--in the same volume--
attempted to show that the halting-place of the tribes called in the Bible

"Dophkah" was the deserted mines of the modern Wadi Maghara.
By the aid of the mental and external experiences of the characters,
whose acts have in part been freely guided by the author's imagination,
he has endeavored to bring nearer to the sympathizing reader the
human side of the mighty destiny of the nation which it was incumbent
on him to describe. If he has succeeded in doing so, without belittling
the magnificent Biblical narrative, he has accomplished his desire; if he
has failed, he must content himself with the remembrance of the
pleasure and mental exaltation he experienced during the creation of
this work.
Tutzing on the Starnberger See, September 20th, 1889. GEORG
EBERS.

JOSHUA.

CHAPTER I.
"Go down, grandfather: I will watch."
But the old man to whom the entreaty was addressed shook his shaven
head.
"Yet you can get no rest here......
"And the stars? And the tumult below? Who can think of rest in hours
like these? Throw my cloak around me! Rest--on such a night of
horror!"
"You are shivering. And how your hand and the instrument are
shaking."
"Then support my arm."
The youth dutifully obeyed the request; but in a short time he
exclaimed: "Vain, all is vain; star after star is shrouded by the murky
clouds. Alas, hear the wailing from the city. Ah, it rises from our own
house too. I am so anxious, grandfather, feel how my head burns!

Come down, perhaps they need help."
"Their fate is in the hands of the gods--my place is here.
"But there--there! Look northward across the lake. No, farther to the
west. They are coming from the city of the dead."
"Oh, grandfather! Father--there!"