that might have
seemed wholly beyond his powers. And these have constituted in all ages,
except the very earliest, the great attractiveness of Egypt. Men are
drawn there, not by the mysteriousness of the Nile, or the mild beauties
of orchards and palm-groves, of well-cultivated fields and gardens--no,
nor by the loveliness of sunrises and sunsets, of moonlit skies and
stars shining with many hues, but by the huge masses of the pyramids, by
the colossal statues, the tall obelisks, the enormous temples, the
deeply-excavated tombs, the mosques, the castles, and the palaces. The
architecture of Egypt is its great glory. It began early, and it has
continued late. But for the great works, strewn thickly over the whole
valley of the Nile, the land of Egypt would have obtained but a small
share of the world's attention; and it is at least doubtful whether its
"story" would ever have been thought necessary to complete "the Story of
the Nations."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] R. Stuart Poole, "Cities of Egypt," p. 4.

[2] Translation by F.C. Cook.

[3] Adapted from Mr. Kinglake's "Eothen," p. 188.

II.

THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT.

Where the Egyptians came from, is a difficult question to answer.
Ancient speculators, when they could not derive a people definitely from
any other, took refuge in the statement, or the figment, that they were
the children of the soil which they had always occupied. Modern
theorists may say, if it please them, that they were evolved out of the
monkeys that had their primitive abode on that particular portion of the
earth's surface. Monkeys, however, are not found everywhere; and we have
no evidence that in Egypt they were ever indigenous, though, as pets,
they were very common, the Egyptians delighting in keeping them. Such
evidence as we have reveals to us the man as anterior to the monkey in
the land of Mizraim Thus we are thrown back on the original
question--Where did the man, or race of men, that is found in Egypt at
the dawn of history come from?

It is generally answered that they came from Asia; but this is not much
more than a conjecture. The physical type of the Egyptians is different
from that of any known Asiatic nation. The Egyptians had no traditions
that at all connected them with Asia. Their language, indeed, in
historic times was partially Semitic, and allied to the Hebrew, the
Phoenician, and the Aramaic; but the relationship was remote, and may be
partly accounted for by lat