Just at that time it was
occupied by a race called the Kenites, who were more or less closely
related to the Amalekites, who were Bedouins and who relied for their
living upon their flocks, as the Israelites had done in the time of
Abraham. Although Arabia Patrea was then, in the main, a stony waste, as
it is now, it was not quite a desert. It was crossed by trade routes in
many directions along which merchants travelled to Egypt, as is described
in the story of Joseph, whose brethren seized him in Dothan, and as they
sat by the side of the pit in which they had thrown him, they saw a
company of Ishmaelites who came from Gilead and who journeyed straight
down from Damascus to Gilead and from thence to Hebron, along the old
caravan road, toward Egypt, with camels bearing spices and myrrh, as had
been their custom since long beyond human tradition, and which had been
the road along which Abraham had travelled before them, and which was
still watered by his wells. This was the famous track from Beersheba to
Hebron, where Hagar was abandoned with her baby Ishmael, and if the
experiences of Hagar do not prove that the wilderness of Shur was
altogether impracticable for women and children it does at least show that
for a mixed multitude without trustworthy guides or reliable sources of
supply, the country was not one to be lightly attempted.
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