Egypt and the Egyptians. By the Rev. J. 0. Bevan.
(G. Allen and Sons. 5s. net.)—Mr. Bevan covers in the three hundred and twenty-four pages of his book a very wide range of subject. He writes about Egypt- from the dim beginning of its life down to the barrages which have been made to economise the water of the Nile. Touching so many things, he has to touch them lightly ; but his work will be, as Sir G. H. Darwin puts it in his preface, "an introduction of surpassing interest." One naturally turns to what a clerical writer has to say about the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt. Evidently he recognises the difficulties of the subject, though it did not come within the plan of the work to set them forth in detail. It is not an unlikely explanation of the actual Exodus that the "Israelites broke through the swampy brakes at the mouth [does he mean the head ?] of the gulf." But it is quite clear that this was not the kind of escape that the writer in Exodus had in his mind. "The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left," he says. Is it possible to state this discrepancy clearly ? But by far the greater part of the volume is given to subjects which stand outside the region of controversy. Here Mr. Bevan's very practical guidance will be found highly useful.
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