gypt and the Holy
Land; _Ballou_, Due West; _Clarke_, Ten Great Religions; _Ebers_, Uarda;
and Egyptian Princess; _Curtis_, Nile Notes of a Howadji.

=Geography and History.=--Egypt consists of a narrow strip of land about
six hundred miles long, lying in the northeastern part of Africa. Its
geographical importance is due to the river Nile, which flows through
it, and which, by its annual overflow, enriches the soil, and makes one
of the most productive portions of the globe. For many centuries
reservoirs for the storage of water in time of the overflow, and
irrigation canals for its later distribution, have secured the country
against drought, and thus abundant harvests were always assured
"independent of the seasons and the skies." This, with the mild climate
and exceedingly rich soil, made food attainable with slight labor,
furnishing an abundance, not only for its own population, but making
Egypt the granary of the Mediterranean countries. We learn from the
Scriptures, of the visits of the sons of Jacob to Egypt to buy corn of
Joseph when famine existed in their own land. These conditions, which
made living so cheap, were doubtless the main causes of the early
settlement of the valley of the Nile, and the rapid increase in its
population. In confirmation of the foregoing we have the testimony of
Diodorus Siculus, a Greek writer, who visited Egypt nearly two thousand
years ago. He tells us that the entire cost to bring up a child to
manhood was not more than twenty drachmas (less than four dollars of our
money).[13]

Of the antiquity of Egyptian history we have abundant evidence. Swinton
says, "Egypt is the country in which we first find a government and
political institutions established. Egypt itself may not have been the
oldest _nation_, but Egyptian history is certainly the oldest _history_.
Its monuments, records, and literature surpass in antiquity those of
Chaldea and India, the two next oldest nations."[14] The records of the
history of Egypt are found in abundance carved on her monuments, tombs,
buildings, implements, etc. They were written in hieroglyphics, the
meaning of which was unknown until the discovery of the "Rosetta stone,"
which furnished the key to their interpretation.

The ancient Egyptians excelled in mechanics and arts. It is doubtful
whether to-day we know as much of certain sciences as they did four
thousand years ago. Their applications of mechanics, engineering,
dyeing, and embalming