portance of these viziers, Mr Petrie says that yet one further document may be quoted as giving and receiving light on this question: the account of Joseph in the Book of Genesis undoubtedly refers to the Hyksos period, and there we read, "Let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt"—not, let Pharaoh give orders to his own officers. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph. . . . Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his signet-ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, 'Abrech;' and he set him over all the land of Egypt." Here we read of the investiture of a vizier under the Hyksos, creating him royal seal-bearer, and giving him the honour of the second chariot. This we now see was not an extraordinary act of an autocrat, but the filling up of a regular office of the head of the native administration.
Excavations at Tell Basta, the ancient Bubastis. A little to the south of Zagazig, Mr Naville and Mr Griffith have made important discoveries. Bubastis was the seat of the worship of Bast or Pasht, the cat-headed goddess, whose temple is described by Herodotus as the most beautiful in Egypt. It was surrounded, he tells us, by a low wall, having figures engraved upon it. Here, accordingly, in April 1887, our explorers began their work, in the rectangular depression surrounded on all sides by the mounds of houses, which must have been higher than the temple. In a short time they disclosed the site of a grand hypostyle hall, strewn with fallen monolithic columns of twelfth dynasty workmanship, and a hall without columns, but lined, as it
