The Hieroglyphics. 79 tombs still remain Pthah, the creator, and Neph, the divine spirit, sitting at the potter's wheel, turning clay to form men; and Athor, who receives the setting sun into her arms; and Osiris, the judge of the dead. The granite statues have outlived the gods! Moreover, the hieroglyphics furnish us with intrinsic evi- The hieroglyphics. dence that among this people arose the earliest attempts at the perpetuation and imparting of ideas by writing. Though doubtless it was in the beginning a mere picture-writing, like that of the Mexicans, it had already, at the first moment we meet with it, undergone a twofold developement-ideographic and phonetic; the one expressing ideas, the other sounds. Under the Macedonian kings the hieroglyphics had become restricted to religious uses, showing conclusively that the old priesthood had never recovered the terrible blows struck against it by Cambyses and Ochus. From that time forth they were less and less known. It is said that one of the Roman emperors was obliged to offer a reward for the translation of an obelisk. To the early Christian the hieroglyphic inscription was an abomination, as full of the relics of idolatry, and indicating an inspiration of the devil. He defaced the monuments wherever he could make them yield; and we are indebted to the excess of his zeal for hiding the diabolical records on temples consecrated to his use by plastering them over, which has preserved them for us. In those enigmatical characters an extensive literature once existed, of which the celebrated books of Hermes were perhaps a corruption or a relic; a literature embracing compositions on music, astronomy, cosmogony, geography, medicine, anatomy, chemistry, magic, and many other subjects that have amused the curiosity of man. Yet of those characters the most singular misconceptions have been entertained almost to our own times. Thus, in 1802, Palin thought that the papyri were the Psalms of David done into Chinese, Lenoir that they were Hebrew documents; it was even asserted that the inscriptions in the temple of Denderah were the 100th Psalm, a pleasant ecclesiastical conceit, reminding him who has seen in Egyptian museums old articles of brass and glass, of the Antiquity of the 80 Causes of its Early Civilization. story delivered down from hand to hand, that brass was first made at the burning of Corinth, and glass first discovered by shipwrecked mariners, who propped their kettle, while it boiled, on pieces of nitre. but Thousands of years have passed since the foundation of the Egyptian first Egyptian dynasty. The Pyramids have seen the old monarchy. empire, the Hyksos monarchs, the new empire, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman, the Mohammedan. They have stood while the heavens themselves have changed. They were already "five hundred years old when the Southern Cross disappeared from the horizon of the countries of the Baltic." The pole-star itself is a new-comer to them. Well may Humboldt, referring to these incidents, remark, that "the past seems to be visibly nearer to us when we thus connect its measurement with great and memorable events." ." No country has had such a varied history as this birthplace of European civilization. Through the darkness of fifty centuries we may not be able to discern the motives of men, through periods very much longer we can demonstrate the conditions of Nature. If nations, in one sense, depend on the former, in a higher sense they depend on the latter. It was not without reason that the Egyptians took the lead in civilization. Mediterranean civilization. The geographical structure of their country surpasses even its hoary monuments in teaching us the conditions under which that people were placed. Nature is a surer guide than the traces of man, whose works are necessarily transitory. The aspect of Egypt has changed again and again; its structure, since man has inhabited it, The fields have disappeared, but the land remains. Why was it that civilization thus rose on the banks of the Nile, and not upon those of the Danube or Mississippi? Civilization depends on climate and agriculture. In Egypt the harvests may ordinarily be foretold and controlled. Of few other parts of the world can the same be said. In most countries the cultivation of the soil is uncertain. From seedtime to harvest, the meteorological variations are so numerous and great, that no skill can predict the amount of yearly produce. Without any premonition, the crops may be cut off by Causes of the rise of never. Agriculture in a Rainless Country. 81 long-continued droughts, or destroyed by too much rain. Nor is it sufficient that a requisite amount of water should fall; to produce the proper effect, it must fall at particular periods. The labour of the farmer is at the mercy of the winds and clouds. With difficulty, therefore, could a civilized state originate under such circumstances. So long as life is a scene of uncertainty, the hope of yesterday blighted by the realities of to-day, man is the maker of expedients, but not of laws. In his solicitude as to his approaching lot, he has neither time nor desire to raise his eyes to the heavens to watch and record their phenomena; no leisure to look upon himself, and consider what and where he is. In the imperious demand for a present support, he dare not venture on speculative attempts at ameliorating his state; he is doomed to be a helpless, isolated, spell-bound savage, or, if not isolated, the companion of other savages as care-worn as himself. Under such circumstances, if, however, once the preliminary conditions and momentum of civilization be imparted to him, the very things which have hitherto tended to depress him produce an opposite effect. Instead of remaining in sameness and apathy, the vicissitudes to which he is now exposed urge him onward; and thus it is that, though the civilization of Europe depended for its commencement on the sameness and stability of an African climate, the conquests of Nature which mark its more advanced stage have been made in the trying life of the temperate zone. in a rain There is a country in which man is not the sport of the Agriculture seasons, in which he need have no anxieties for his future well- less counbeing, a country in which the sunshines and heats vary very try. little from year to year. In the Thebaid, heavy rain is said to be a prodigy. But, at the time when the Dog-star rises with the sun, the river begins to swell; a tranquil inundation by degrees covering the land, at once watering and enriching it. If the Nilometer, which measures the height of the flood, indicates eight cubits, the crops will be scanty; but if it reaches fourteen cubits, there will be a plentiful harvest. In the spring of the year it may be known how the fields will be in VOL. I. G Rainless countries of the autumn. Agriculture is certain in Egypt, and there man first became civilized. The date, moreover, furnishes to Africa a food almost without expense. The climate renders it necessary to use, for the most part, vegetable diet, and but little clothing is required. It is said that it costs less than fourteen shillings to rear a child to maturity. The American counterpart of Egypt in this physical condithe West. tion is Peru, the coast of which is also a rainless district. Peru is the Egypt of civilization of the Western continent. There is also a rainless strand on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It is an incident full of meaning in the history of human progress, that, in regions far apart, civilization thus commenced in rainless countries. Inunda tions of the Nile. It is the hydrographic state of Upper Egypt, the cradle of civilization, that interests us. Here the influence of atmospheric water is altogether obliterated, for, in an agricultural point of view, the country is rainless. Variable meteorological conditions are here eliminated. Where the Nile breaks through the mountain gate at Essouan, it is observed that its waters begin to rise about the end of the month of May, and in eight or nine weeks the inundation is at its height. This flood in the river is due to the great rains which have fallen in the mountainous countries among which the Nile takes its rise, and which have been precipitated from the trade-winds that blow, except where disturbed by the monsoons, over the vast expanse of the tropical Indian Ocean. Thus dried, the east wind pursues its solemn course over the solitudes of Central Africa, a cloudless and a rainless wind, its track marked by desolation and deserts. At first the river becomes red, and then green, because the flood of its great Abyssinian branch, the Blue Nile, arrives first; but, soon after, that of the White Nile makes its appearance, and from the overflowing banks not only water, but a rich and fertilizing mud is discharged. It is owing to the whole coun- solid material thus brought down that the river has raised its own bed in countless ages, and has embanked itself with shelving deposits that descend on either side toward the desert. For this reason it is that the inundation is seen on Gradual rise of the try. the edge of the desert first, and, as the flood rises, the whole He In the recent examinations made by the orders of the Vice- Geological age of roy of Egypt, close by the fallen statue of Rameses II., at Egypt. Memphis, who reigned, according to Lepsius, from в.c. 1394 to B.c. 1328, a shaft was sunk to more than 24 feet. The water which then infiltrated compelled a resort to boring, which was continued until 41 feet 4 inches were reached. The whole consisted of Nile deposits, alternate layers of loam and sand of the same composition throughout. From the greatest depth a fragment of pottery was obtained. Ninetyfive of these borings were made in various places, but on no occasion was solid rock reached. The organic remains were all recent; not a trace of an extinct fossil occurred, but an abundance of the residues of burnt bricks and pottery. In their examination from Essouan to Cairo, the French estimated the mud deposit to be 5 inches for each century. From an examination of the results at Heliopolis, Mr. Horner makes it 3.18 inches. The Colossus of Rameses II. is surrounded by a sediment 9 feet 4 inches deep, fairly estimated. Its date of erection was about 3215 years ago, which gives 31⁄2 inches per century. But beneath it similar layers continue to the depth of 30 feet, which at the same rate, would give 13,500 years, to A.D. 1854, at which time the examination was made. Every precaution seems to have been taken to obtain accurate results. The extent of surface affected by the inundations of the Its geogra phy and toNile is, in a geographical point of view, altogether insignifi- pography. |