Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. EGYPT AND THE PIIAR.YOHS. The first country to which Moses refers, in connection nie orizirmi with the Hebrew history, is Egypt. This favored inhahitants ' , , ,. of Egypt, land was the seat of one of the oldest monarchies of the world. Although it would seem that Assyria was first peopled, historians claim for Egypt a more remote antiquity. Whether this claim can be substantiated or not, it is certain that Egypt was one of the primeval seats of the race of Ham. Mizraim, the Scripture name for the country, indicates that it was settled by a son of Ham. But if this is true even, the tide of emigration from Armenia probably passed to the southeast through Syria and Palestine, and hence the descendants of Ham had probably occupied the land of Canaan before they crossed the desert between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. I doubt if Egypt had older cities than Damascus, Hebron, Zoar, and Tyre. But Egypt certainly was a more powerful monarchy than any existing on the earth in the time of Abraham. Its language, traditions, and monuments alike point to a Their pecu- high antiquity. It was probably inhabited by a iiartties. mixed race, Shemitic as well as Hamitc; though the latter had the supremacy. The distinction of castes indicates a mixed population, so that the ancients doubted whether Egypt belonged to Asia or Africa. The people were not black, but of a reddish color, with thick lips, straight black hair, and elongated eye, and sunk in the degraded superstitions of the African race. The geographical position indicates not only a high antiquity, but a state favorable to great national The fertiiity wealth and power. The river Nile, issuing from of hi!Jpt . a great lake under the equator, runs 3,000 miles nearly due north to the Mediterranean. Its ann...