indestructible.

=Sculpture.=--Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The
oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are
doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting
scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the
sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it,
but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the
statues resemble one another--parallel legs, the feet joined, arms
crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often
majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce
nature and is become a conventional symbol.

=Painting.=--The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years
they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring
designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting,
like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore
monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made
them all alike.

=Literature.=--The literature of the Egyptians is found in the
tombs--not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also
poems, letters, accounts of travels, and even romances.

=Destiny of the Egyptian Civilization.=--The Egyptians conserved their
customs, religion, and arts even after the fall of their empire.
Subjects of the Persians, then the Greeks, and at last of the Romans,
they kept their old usages, their hieroglyphics, their mummies and
sacred animals. At last between the third and second centuries A.D.,
Egyptian civilization was slowly extinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Following the curves of the stream.--ED.

[7] In some localities, _e.g._ Thebes, the flood is even higher.--ED.

[8] An enclosing case.

[9] 525 B.C.--ED.

[10] The chronology of early Egyptian history is uncertain. Civilization
existed in this land much earlier than was formerly supposed.--ED.

[11] According to Petrie ("History of Egypt," New York, 1895, i., 40)
_twenty years_ were consumed.--ED.

[12] Perrot and Chipiez ("History of Ancient Egyptian Art," London.
1883, i., 365) give 340 feet by 170.--ED.

[13] Probably much earlier than this.--ED.

[14] The Louvre Museum in Paris has an excellent collection of Egyptian
subjects.

CHAPTER IV

ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS

CHALDEA

=The Land.=--From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two
deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to th