The Israelites in Sinai

In my recently published book I have advanced a theory as to the Wanderings of the Israelites and the loss of the Egyptian Host, which if not entirely original contains a considerable amount of fresh evidence based on ten years’ experience of the Peninsula. Like all theories that tend to upset old beliefs this has resulted in a considerable amount of criticism and comment. The assumption briefly is that the Israelites never went to southern Sinai as has been firmly believed for the last 1900 years, but remained for the whole of the period of the Wanderings in the comparatively small cultivable area in the northeast corner of Sinai where they could grow corn for making bread and find grazing for their flocks. This part of my theory is by no means new as the same views have been expounded already by several students of the Wanderings, and I have merely corroborated their opinion and brought forward new evidence and arguments to prove the theory by virtue of my long residence in the Peninsula and knowledge of the country and climate. The explanation I have given of the loss of the Egyptian Host, however, is a novel one, and so far as I know has never been published previously though Sir William Willcocks assumes that the disaster occurred in a lake in northern Sinai and not in the Red Sea; but the lake he selects is not the Bardawil as I maintain, and the incidents that caused the flooding were totally different from those I have suggested.