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THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.—When the curtain that hides the far distant past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language, though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians designated as Amu. On the south, in what was called Ethiopia, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the widely diffused Cushites.

THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.—Egypt (styled by its ancient inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile, Kem or the Black Land, and by the Hebrews called Mizraim) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the course of Egyptian history—the occupations, habits, and religion of the people—was largely determined by the characteristics of the river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, the Albert and Victoria Nyanzas. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its shape, the Delta. Above the Delta the fringe of productive land has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory, annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, canals, and reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts—Upper Egypt, as it is now called, with Thebes for its principal city, extending from the first cataract, near Syene, to the Memphian district; and Lower Egypt, embracing the rest of the country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was further divided into nomes, or districts, about forty in all, but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a capital, and a center of worship.

EARLY CULTURE.—At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of tradition.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS.—We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. The first, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval for the mouth. The second sort of characters, the hieratic, and the third, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or manuscripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly, style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in historical times. First, there were the primary, representational characters, the literal pictures. Secondly, the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O, meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing," etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it—as the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt. Thirdly, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon explain), and a picture be added to determine, or make clear, what was meant. After proper names, they designated the sex; after the names of other classes, as animals, they specified the particular genus. Fourthly, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle, akhôm, represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone—a large black slab of stone—with an identical inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to Champollion (1810) and to Young the clew to the deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.—These are (1) the inscriptions on the monuments. These, it must be remembered, are commonly in praise of the departed, and of their achievements. (2) The list of kings in the Turin papyrus, a very important Egyptian manuscript, discovered by Champollion. (3) Manetho. An Egyptian priest, he wrote, about 250 B.C., a history. Only his lists of dynasties are preserved as given in an Armenian version of Eusebius, a writer of the fourth century, and in George Syncellus, a writer of the eighth century, who professed to embody the statements of Eusebius and of another author, Julius Africanus, probably of the second century, who had also quoted the lists of Manetho. Manetho is of great importance; but we do not know accurately what his original text was, it being so differently reported. His details frequently clash with the monuments. Moreover, the method adopted by him in making his lists is, in essential points, subject to doubt. (4) The Greek historians. Herodotus had visited Egypt (between 460 and 450 B.C.), and conferred with Egyptian priests. Diodorus, also, in the time of Julius Caesar, had visited Egypt. He is largely a copyist of Herodotus. (5) The Old Testament. Here we have many instructive references to Egypt. But, until Rehoboam, the kings of Egypt have in the Scriptures the general name of Pharaoh. Hence it is not always easy to identify them with corresponding kings on the Egyptian lists.

CHRONOLOGY.—The date of the beginning of the first dynasty of Egyptian rulers is a controverted point; there are advocates of a longer and of a shorter chronology. The data are not sufficient to settle accurately the questions in dispute. Some judicious scholars put the beginning of the first dynasty as early as 5000 B.C.; others have wished to bring it down even lower than 3000 B.C. Egyptian history, prior to the Persian conquest (525 B.C.), divides itself into three sections—the Old Empire, having its seat at Memphis; the Middle Empire, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, the Hyksos; and the New Empire, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall.

The expedition of Shishak, king of Egypt, against Rehoboam, is ascertained, from both Egyptian and Hebrew sources, to have been not earlier than 971 B.C., and within twenty-five years of that date. The nineteenth Egyptian dynasty began about the year 1350 B.C. The Middle Empire is thought by some to have commenced as early as 2200 B.C.; by others as late as 1720 B.C. When we go backward into the Old Empire, the sources of uncertainty are multiplied. The main difficulty is to determine whether the lists of dynasties are consecutive throughout, or in part contemporary. One class of scholars place the date of the first historic king, Menes, two or three thousand years earlier than the point assigned by the other class! The date of Menes given by Böckh is 5702 B.C.; by Lenormant, 5004 B.C.; by Brugsch, 4455 B.C.; by Lepsius, 3852 B.C.; by Bunsen, 3623 or 3059 B.C.; E. Meyer makes 3180 B.C. the lowest possible date for Menes; 3233 B.C. is the date assigned by Duncker. On the contrary, R. S. Poole gives 2717 B.C.; Wilkinson, 2691 B.C.; and G. Rawlinson, between 2450 and 2250 B.C. There are no means of fully determining the controversy, as Rawlinson has shown (History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., p. 19). It appears to be well ascertained that Egyptian civilization was in being at least as far back as about 4000 B.C.

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.—The bulk of the people were farmers and shepherds, indisposed to war. The land was owned in large estates by the nobles, who were possessed of multitudes of serfs and of cattle. They had in their service, also, artisans, oarsmen, and traffickers. The centers of industry were the numerous cities. Here the nobles had their mansions, and the gods their temples with retinues of priests. But the Nomes had each its particular jurisdiction. The traces of two original communities are preserved in the mythological legends and in the titles of the kings. The oldest inscriptions discover to us a systematic organization of the state. The king is supreme: under him are the rulers of the two halves of the kingdom. He creates the army, and appoints its generals. The whole strength of the kingdom is given to him for the erection of the temples which he raises to the gods, or of the stupendous pyramid which is to form his sepulcher. The nobility make up his court; from them he selects his chief officers of state—his secretary, his treasurer, his inspector of quarries, etc. The princes and princesses are educated in connection with the children of the highest nobles. A body-guard protects the monarch: he shows himself to the people only in stately processions. All who approach him prostrate themselves at his feet. He is the descendant of the gods. The Pharaohs are even looked upon as gods incarnate. They are clothed with all power on earth. When they die, they go to the gods; and rites of worship are instituted for them. That there was a well-ordered and efficient civil administration admits of no doubt. Whether there existed a thrifty middle class or not we can not decide. The tendency was for the child to follow the vocation of the parent, but there were no rigid barriers of caste. Not until the New Empire, was there an attempt to build up such a wall even about the priesthood.

THE RELIGION.—With the Egyptians, religion was a matter of supreme and absorbing interest. There was a popular religion; and there arose early, in connection with it, an esoteric or secret doctrine relative to the gods and to the legends respecting them—a lore that pertained especially to the priesthood. Moreover, while the religious system, from the earliest date, is polytheistic, we have proof that the educated class, sooner or later, put a monotheistic interpretation upon it, and believed in one supreme deity, of whom all the particular gods were so many forms and manifestations, or that one being under different names. Whether this more elevated faith preceded the reigning system, or was a later offspring of it, is a matter of dispute. For a long period the two co-existed, and without collision.

The great divinities of Egypt are pre-eminently gods of light. They are associated with the SUN. With the agency of that luminary, with his rising and setting, they stand in a close relation. All Egypt worships the sun under the names of Ra and Horus. Horus is the adversary of Seth (called Typhon by the Greeks), the god of darkness, and is born anew every morning to attack and conquer him. In honor of Ra, the lofty obelisks, or symbols of the sun's rays, are erected, each of which has its own name and priests. With the sun-gods are joined the goddesses of the heavens—Nut, Hather, Isis, and others. But Osiris became the most famous sun-god. His worship was originally at Abydos and Busiris. At length his cult spread over the whole land. In the legend, he is murdered by Seth; but Horus is his avenger. Horus conquers the power of darkness. Henceforward Osiris reigns in the kingdom of the West, the home of the dead. He is the sun in the realm of the shades. He receives the dead, is their protector, and the judge whose final award is blessedness or perpetual misery. The departed, if their lives have not been wicked, become one with him. They are each of them called by his name. To Osiris, all sepulchral inscriptions are addressed. His career, with the victory of the power of darkness over him, and his glorious revival in the regions of the West, typifies human life and destiny. The principal god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun. Thoth is the chief moon-god, who presides over the reckoning of time. He is the god of letters and of the arts, the author of sacred books. The Nile is worshiped under the name of Hapi, being figured as a man with pendent breasts, an emblem of the fertility of the river. The gods were often connected in triads, there being in each a father, a mother, and a son. To bring to them the right offerings, and to repeat the right formulas, was a matter of momentous concern. Homage was directed to the material objects with which the activity of the god was thought to be connected, and in which he was believed to be present. All nature was full of deities. There were sacred trees, stones, utensils. Above all, animals, in their mysterious life, were identified with the divinities. Worship was offered to the crocodile, the cat, the bull, etc. In the temples these creatures were carefully tended and obsequiously served.

EMBALMING.—Believing that the soul survives death, the Egyptians linked its weal with the preservation of the body, from which they could not conceive its destiny to be wholly dissevered. Thus arose the universal practice of embalming, and of presenting, at intervals, offerings of food and drink to the departed. The tomb contains a room for sacred services to the dead. The most ancient structures are sepulchers. They were the germ of the pyramid, in which rested the sarcophagus of the king.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.—The leading gods were held to be the makers of the world and of men, the givers of good, the rulers and disposers of all things. Morality was not separated from religion. The gods punished unrighteousness and inhumanity. In the age of the pyramid-builders, family life was not wanting in purity; the wife and mother was held in respect: monogamy prevailed. Ma-t was the goddess of truth: in the myth of Osiris, it is in her hall that the dead are judged.

THE PRIESTS.—The priests are the guardians of religious rites. They are acquainted with the origin and import of them. Their knowledge is communicated only to select believers. It was a body of traditions, guarded as a mysterious treasure. But the priests, certainly until a late period, do not control the king. The civil authority is uppermost.