THE HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS. CHAPTER I. THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF EGYPT. EGYPT is generally reckoned within the limits of Africa, though several geographers have considered it as more naturally belonging to Asia. It is situated between latitude 24° 3′ and 31° 37'. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean; on the east by the little river El Arish, (supposed to be the scriptural" River of Egypt," Numb. xxxiv. 5,) on the borders of Palestine, and the Syrian or Arabian desert, which extends from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Suez, and from thence, southwards, by the west coast of the Red Sea; and on the west by the Libyan desert. From the earliest ages, its boundary to the south has been fixed at the rapids or cataracts of Assouan, the ancient Syene, which are formed by a number of granite rocks that stretch across the bed of the Nile, over which this great river rolls its foaming stream. The length of Egypt is very disproportionate to its breadth: its extent from the mouth of the Nile to Syene, the border of Nubia under the tropic of Cancer, is about 500 miles, but it is little wider than the valley through which the Nile flows in Upper Egypt, until it reaches Lower Egypt, at some distance above the head, or vortex of the Delta, (a plain so called by the Greeks from its resemblence to the letter 4,) where the valley expands itself. The average breadth of the valley, from one mountain range to the other, between Cairo in Lower, and Edfou in Upper Egypt, is only about seven |