The frontier was then approached.  We learn from the history of Abusha, as well as from other scattered notices in the papyri, how carefully the eastern border was always guarded, and what precautions were taken to apprise the Court when any considerable body of immigrants arrived.  The chief official upon the frontier, either Khnumhotep or some one occupying a similar position, would receive the in-comers, subject them to interrogation, and cause his secretary to draw up a report, which would be forwarded by courier to the capital.  The royal orders would be awaited, and meantime perhaps fresh reports would be sent by other officials of the neighbourhood.  In the present instance, we are told that several “princes of Pharaoh,” having been struck with the beauty of Sarah, commended her to their royal master, who sent for her and had her brought into his own house.  Abraham himself was well received and treated with much distinction “for her sake.”  According to Eupolemus, he and his were settled in the sacred city of On or Heliopolis; and there, in that seat of learning and religion, the Patriarch, as the same authority declares, lived peacefully for many years and taught the Egyptians the sciences of astronomy and arithmetic.  The author of Genesis says nothing of the place of his abode, but simply informs us of his well-being.  “Pharaoh entreated Abram well for Sarai’s sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.”  The collocation of the clauses implies that all these were presents from the king.  The pleased monarch lavished on his brother-in-law such gifts of honour as were usual at the time and suitable to his circumstances.  Abraham became “very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold” (Gen. xiii. 2).  He flourished greatly, whether for months or for years the scripture does not say.  He was separated from his wife, and she was an inmate of Pharaoh’s hareem; but he kept his secret, and no one betrayed him.  Apparently, he was content.

Ere long, however, a discovery was made.  Calamity came upon the royal house in some marked way, probably either in the form of sickness or of death.  The king became convinced that he was the object of a Divine chastisement, and cast about for a cause to which his sufferings might reasonably be attributed.  How had he provoked God’s anger?  Either, as Josephus thinks, the priests had by this time found out the truth, and made the suggestion to him, that he was being punished for having taken another man’s wife into his seraglio; or possibly, as others have surmised, Sarah herself divined the source of the calamities, and made confession of the truth.  At any rate, by some means or other, the facts of the case became known; and the Pharaoh thereupon hastened to set matters right.  Sarah, though an inmate of the hareem, was probably still in the probationary condition, undergoing the purification necessary before the final completion of her nuptials (Esth. ii. 12), and could