to a nomadic people to settle and commence a national life. Accordingly, amid the obscurity of antiquity, we catch sight of Memphis, Thebes, Nineveh, and Babylon,-the ear

liest cities of the world. The traveler of to-day, wandering among their ruins, looks upon the records of the infancy. of civilized man.

EGYPT.

1. THE POLITICAL HISTORY.

The Origin of the civilization which grew up on the banks of the Nile is uncertain. The earliest accounts represent the country as divided into nomes, or provinces, and having a regular government. About 27001 B. c. Menes (me'-neez), the half-mythical founder of the nation, is said to have conquered Lower Egypt and built Memphis, which he made his capital. Succeeding him, down to the conquest of Egypt by the Persians under Camby'ses (527 B. C.), there were twenty-six dynasties of Pharaohs, or kings. The history of this long period of over 2000 years is divided into that of the Old, Middle, and New Empires.

1. The Old Empire (2700-2080 B. c.).—During this

Geographical Questions.-Locate the capitals of the five early kingdoms of Egypt: This, Elephantine (fan'-të-nà), Mem'phis, Heracleop'olis, Thebes; the Pyramids of Gizeh; the Nile's first cataract. Why is southern Egypt called Upper? Describe Egypt. Ans. A flat valley, 2 to 10 miles wide, skirted by low, rocky hills; on the west, the desert; on the east, a mountainous region rich in quarries, extending to the Red Sea. Through this narrow valley, for 600 miles, the Nile rolls its muddy waters northward. About 100 miles from the Mediterranean the hills recede, the valley widens, and the Nile divides into two outlets,-the Damietta and Rosetta. These branches diverge until they enter the sea, 80 miles apart. Anciently there were seven branches, and the triangular space they inclosed was called the Delta, from the Greek letter A. As the Nile receives no tributary for the last 1100 miles of its course it becomes smaller toward its mouth.

1 Before the discoveries of the last century, the chief sources of information on Egypt were (1) Herod'otus, a Greek historian who traveled along the Nile about 450 B. C.; (2) Diodorus Sic'ulus, another Greek historian, who visited Egypt in the 1st century B. C.; and (3) Man'etho, an Egyptian priest (3d century B. C.) of whose history only fragments now remain. Manetho, who compiled his accounts from archives preserved in the Egyptian temples, has been the main authority on chronology. How many dynasties were contemporaneous is a subject of dispute

epoch the principal interest clusters about the IVth or Pyramid dynasty, so called because its chief monarchs built

the three great pyra

zeh).

mids at Gizeh (ghe'The bestknown of these kings was Khu'fu, termed Cheops (ke'-ops) by Herodotus. In time, Egypt broke up into kingdoms, Memphis lost its preeminence, and Thebes became

the favorite capital.

2. The Middle Empire (2080 B. C.1525 B. C.). When the hundred-gated

city, Thebes, rose to Sovereign power, a

new epoch began in Egyptian history. The XIIth dynasty claimed all the district watered by the Nile, and under its

among Egyptologists, who differ over 3000 years-from 5702 B. C. to 2691 B. C.-on the date for Menes. As the Egyptians themselves had no continuous chronology, but reckoned dates from the ascension of each king, the monuments furnish little help. Of the five recovered lists of kings, only one attempts to give the length of their respective reigns, and this is in 164 fragments. All early Egyptian dates are there. fore extremely uncertain, although most Egyptologists differ less than 200 years on those following the foundation of the New Empire. The Egyptian Exploration Fund (founded 1883) and the Archæological Survey (1890) are now systematically investigating monuments and papyri. In this book, what is called the "Short Chro nology" has been followed.

great kings, the Sesorta'sens and the Amenem'hes, Ethiopia was conquered. To this dynasty belong the famous Lake Moris and the Labyrinth (p. 39). The brilliant XIIth dynasty was followed by the weak XIIIth. The divided country invited attack, and the Hyksos ("shepherd kings"), a rude, barbarous race that had already conquered Lower Egypt, finally overran the whole region, and ruled it for 400 years. When at last they were driven out, they left to Egypt a strong, centralized government.

3. The New Empire (1525-527 B. C.).—The native kings having been restored to the throne, Egypt became a united people, with Thebes for the capital. Then followed a true national life of 1000 years. The XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties exalted Egypt to the height of its glory. Thothmes I. (tot'-meez) began a system of great Asiatic expeditions, which lasted 500 years. Thothmes III.,' the Egyptian Alexander the Great, was a magnificent warrior-king. In the sculptures, Nineveh and Babylon pay him tribute; while his ships, manned by Phoenician sailors, sweep the Mediterranean. The Great Temple of Karnak (p. 26) was largely built by him. Am'unoph III. was also a famous warrior and builder. Among his structures there remains the Vocal Memnon, which was said to sing when kissed by the rising sun. Khu-en-A'ten, the heretic king, rejected the Theban gods for the one-god (Aten) sun-worship of his foreign mother. He founded a new capital (now Tel-el-Amarna ruins), but neither capital nor religion long survived him. Seti (Mineptah I.) subdued Mesopotamia, and built the Great Hall of Columns at Karnak. At an early age his son,

1 In 1881, between 30 and 40 royal mummies, including those of Thothmes III., Seti I., and Rameses II., were found in a concealed mummy-pit near Thebes. The official records on the cases and bandages show that these precious relics had been moved from tomb to tomb, probably for safety, until at some crisis they had been hurriedly deposited here. The great Rameses had thus been shifted many times,

Ram'eses II., was made joint king with him, and they reigned together until Mineptah's death. Rameses II., the Sesostris the Great of the Greek historians, carried his conquering arms far into Africa. The greatest builder1 of all the Pharaohs, his gigantic enterprises exhausted the nation. Annual slave-hunting expeditions were made into Ethiopia; prisoners of war were lashed into service; and the lives of the unhappy Hebrews were made "bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick" (Exod. i. 14). He founded a library inscribed "The Dispensary of the Soul," and gathered about him many men of genius, making his time a golden age of art and literature.

The Decline of Egypt began with the XXth dynasty, when it was no longer able to retain its vast conquests. The tributary peoples revolted, and the country was subdued in turn by the Ethiopians and the Assyrians (p. 49). After nearly a century of foreign rule, Psammetichus of the XXVIth dynasty threw off the Assyrian yoke, and restored the Egyptian independence. This monarch, by employing Greek

only to land at last in the Gizeh museum, where "his uncovered face now lies for the whole world to gaze upon." In 1891, over 60 mummies of the same period (XVIIth to XXIst dynasties) were found in another tomb near the first. These had escaped the eyes of modern trafficking thieves, and were found as they were left over 3000 years ago. In 1892, Khu-en-Aten's tomb was uncovered. His enemies had shattered his sarcophagus, torn his mummy-wrappings to shreds, and effaced every token of his hated religion. Babylonian clay-tablet dispatches (p. 65) dug up in 1887 at Tel. el-Amarna fix Khu-en-Aten's reign at about 1430 B. C.

1 Though most of the monuments in Egypt bear his name, it is often inscribed over the erased cartouch (p. 22) of a previous king. One of his first acts after Seti's death was to complete the unfinished temple of Ab ́ydus, where his father was buried. A long inscription which he placed at the entrance, ostensibly in praise of the departed Seti, is a good example of his own boastfulness and habit of self-glorification. He says, "The most beautiful thing to behold, the best thing to hear, is a child with a thankful breast, whose heart beats for his father. Wherefore my heart urges me to do what is good for Mineptah. I will cause them to talk forever and eternally of his son, who has awakened his name to life." The filial zeal of Rameses so declined in his later years, that, true to his ruling propensity, he chiseled out his father's name and memorials in many places on the temple walls, and substituted his own in their place. Rameses II. is supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Israelitish Oppression, and his son, Mineptah II., to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus.