Page images
PDF
EPUB

light, the evidence will become more satisfactory in favour of an early intercourse between Hindoostan and the upper regions of the Nile. It is already ascertained that the arts, as practised in the Thebaid, and even in the neighbourhood of Memphis, must have descended from Ethiopia,-the style of sculpture in the latter being in several respects superior to any specimen of that kind of workmanship hitherto discovered in Egypt. The temples, too, on the banks of the river above the cataracts bear a closer resemblance to those of India than the corresponding edifices in the lower parts of the country, while they exhibit the undoubted marks of a more remote antiquity. The same conclusion is further supported by the celebrity which the Ethiopians had acquired in the earliest age that tradition or poetry has re vealed to us. The annals of the Egyptian priests were full of them. The nations of Asia, in like manner, on the Tigris and Euphrates, mingled Ethiopian legends with the songs which commemorated the exploits of their own heroes. At a time, too, when the Greeks scarcely knew Italy or Sicily by name, the virtues, the civilization, and the mythology of the Ethiopians supplied to their poets a subject of lofty description. Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, relates that Jupiter, at a certain season of the year, departed from his chosen seat on Olympus to visit this remote and accomplished people. For twelve days the god was absent in their pious and hospitable region. It is probable that some annual procession of the priests of Ammon up the Nile, to the primitive scene of their worship, was the groundwork of this legend adopted into the popu lar creed of the older Greeks. Diodorus himself expresses a similar opinion, when he states that the Ethiopians were said to be the inventors of pomps, sacrifices, solemn assemblies, and other honours paid to the gods; that is, that they were the religious parents of the Egyptians, to whom the countrymen of Homer and Hesiod looked up as to their instructers in sacred things as well as in the principles of civil polity. It has therefore been thought probable that ancient Meröe was the original seat of the religion, the political institutions, the arts, and the letters, which afterward shed so bright a lustre on the kingdom of the Pharaohs.*

*Heeren's Ideas on the Politics and Commerce of Ancient Nations.

There is nothing more remarkable in the history of Egypt than that the same people who distinguished themselves by an early progress in civilization, and who erected works which have survived the conquests of Persia, the triumphs of Roman art, and all the architectural labours of Christianity, should have degraded their fine genius by the worship of four-footed beasts, and even of disgusting reptiles. The world does not present a more humbling contrast between the natural powers of intellect and the debasing effect of superstition. Among the Jews, on the other hand, a people much less elevated by science and mechanical knowledge, we find a sublime system of theology, and a ritual which, if not strictly entitled to the appellation of a reasonable service, was yet comparatively pure in its ordinances, and still further refined by a lofty and spiritual import. It has been said of the Hebrews, that they were men in religion, and children in every thing else. This observation may be reversed in the case of the Egyptians; for, while in the greater number of those pursuits which give dignity to the human mind, and perpetuate the glories of civilized life, they made a progress which set all rivalry at defiance, in their notions and adoration of the invisible Powers who preside over the destinies of man, they manifested the imbecility, the ignorance, and the credulity of childhood.

In reviewing the annals of the great nations of antiquity, it is interesting to observe that nearly all the knowledge we possess of their manners and institutions may be attributed to a circumstance so very trivial as the choice which they made of their materials for building. As the rise of Egyptian power and wisdom preceded a long time the era of letters, the history of the more ancient kings, like that of the Babylonians and Assyrians, must have been lost, had the architectural monuments of the former people not been constructed of more imperishable substances than were to be found in the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia. In connexion with these reflections, we are naturally led to remark, that the recent discoveries in hieroglyphics justify the hope that the darkness which has so long hung over the annals and chronology of Egypt will be at length so far dispelled as to enable the historian to ascertain at least the order of events and the succession of monarchs.

C

CHAPTER II.

Physical Properties and Geographical Distribution of Egypt. General Description of Egypt-Origin of the Name-Opinions of the Ancients-Egypt the Gift of the Nile-Depth of the Soil-Attempts to ascertain the mean Rate of Deposition-Opinions of Shaw, Savary, Volney, and Bruce-Speculations of the French Philosophers-Proof that Egypt has acquired an Elevation of Surface-Fear of Dr. Shaw in regard to the eventual Sterility of the Land-Constancy of the Inundations-Frauds by the Government-Qualities of the WaterAnalysis of the Mud-Accident witnessed by Belzoni-Seasons in Egypt-Heat-Infrequency of Rain-The Winds, Simoom-The Political Geography of Egypt-Mouths of the Nile-Natron LakesWaterless River.

THE physical qualities of Egypt are not less remarkable than its stupendous works of art and its early civilization. It presents itself to the eye of the traveller as an immense valley, extending nearly 600 miles in length, and hemmed in, on either side, by a ridge of hills and a vast expanse of desert. Viewed as an alluvial basin, it owes its existence entirely to the Nile, which flows through it from south to north, conveying annually to the inhabitants the main source of their agricultural wealth, salubrity to their climate, and beauty to their landscape. The breadth of the cultivable soil varies, of course, according to the direction of the rocky barriers by which its limits are determined,-spreading, at some parts, into a spacious plain, while at others it contracts its dimensions to less than two leagues. The mean width has been estimated at about nine miles; and hence, including the whole area from the shores of the Delta to the first cataract, the extent of land capable of bearing crops has been reckoned to contain ten millions of

acres.

The learning of geographers has long been employed in the intricate field of etymology to discover the origin of the term by which Egypt is known among the moderns. It is asserted, by the Greeks, that a celebrated king of this name

bequeathed it to his dominions, which had formerly passed under the appellation of Aëria, or the land of heat and blackness. In the sacred writings of the Hebrews it is called Mizraim, evidently the plural form of the oriental noun Mizr, the name which is applied to Egypt by the Arabs of the present day. The Copts retain the native word Chemia, which, perhaps, has some relation to Cham, the son of Noah; or, as Plutarch insinuates, may only denote that darkness of colour which appears in a rich soil or in the human eye. Mizraim, it ought also to be observed, was one of the children of Cham; and it is therefore not improbable that the epithet applied to his inheritance may have arisen from the respect usually paid to the founders of nations. Bruce remarks that Y Gypt, the term used by the Ethiopians when they speak of Egypt, means the country of canals,-a description very suitable to the improved condition of that singular valley under her ancient kings. At all events, it is perfectly clear, that in the heroic age of Greece the word Egyptus was employed in reference to an ancient sovereign, to the land, and also to the river.

The Nile, we may observe, was described, even among the descendants of Jacob, by the term Sichor, which also signifies black; and hence the Greeks called it Melas, and the Latins Niger, words which express the very same idea. But it is worthy of remark, as one of the many instances in which the perceptions of the ancients as to colour are not clearly comprehended in our days, that the modern name, used by the Arabs, denotes blue; the very tint, perhaps, which was indicated by Plutarch when he compared it to the organ of vision. The Greeks, indeed, who interpreted all languages on the principles recognised by their own, derived this epithet from an imaginary event, the reign of King Nileus. But this hypothesis is disproved by the familiar fact that the great Abyssinian branch is denominated by the inhabitants, in their vernacular tongue, the Bahr-el-Nil, the Blue River, or more commonly the Bahr-el-Azrek, an appellation almost strictly synonymous.

The stream itself, as if it were doomed for ever to share the obscurity which covers the ancient history of the land to which it ministers, still conceals its true sources from the eager curiosity of modern science. The question which was agitated in the age of the Ptolemies has not yet been

solved; and although 2000 years have elapsed since Eratosthenes published his conjectures as to the origin of the principal branch, we possess not more satisfactory knowledge on that particular point than was enjoyed in his days by the philosophers of Alexandria. The repeated failures which had already attended the various attempts to discover its fountains convinced the geographers of Greece and Rome that success was impossible, and that it was the will of the gods to conceal from all generations this great secret of nature. Homer, in language sufficiently ambiguous, describes it as a stream descending from heaven. Herodotus made inquiry in regard to its commencement, but soon saw reason to relinquish the attempt as altogether fruitless. Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Philadelphus engaged in the same undertaking, and despatched persons well qualified by their knowledge for the arduous task; but who, nevertheless, like the great father of history himself, travelled and inquired in vain. Pomponius Mela was doubtful whether it did not rise in the country of the antipodes. Pliny traced it in imagination to a mountain in the Lower Mauritania, while Euthemenes was of opinion that it proceeded from the borders of the Atlantic, and penetrated* through the heart of Africa, dividing it into two continents. Virgil appears to have favoured a conjecture, which has also found supporters at a later period, that the Nile proceeded from the East, and might be identified with one of the great rivers of Asia.

Quaque pharetratæ vicinia Persidis urget,

Et viridem Ægyptum nigra fœcundat arena,
Et diversa ruens septem discurrit in ora

Usque coloratis amnis devexus ab Indis.-Georg. iv. 290.

And where the stream from India's swarthy sons,
Close on the verge of quivered Persia runs,

Broods o'er green Egypt with dark wave of mud,
And pours through many a mouth its branching flood.
SOTHEBY.

Lucan indulges in his usual mysticism, and appears satisfied that, by a decree of the fates, the glory of no nation will ever be increased by drawing aside the veil in which the Naiads of this mighty stream have been pleased to conceal themselves. The conceptions of Lucretius, the poet of physical nature, were perhaps more correct, although

« PreviousContinue »