(3) Climate. In no other country do the same climatic conditions exist as in Egypt. In some lo calities the temperature hardly varies as much as fifty degrees during the year, while for eight months refreshing winds temper the heat. In Up per Egypt rains and snow are impossible and clouds are never seen, while further down the val ley an occasional cloud floats southward. The at mosphere is remarkably dry and clear, except on the seacoast, and the climate equable. In some portions of the country the heat is extreme dur ing the greater part of the year and the winter comparatively severe in its cold.
(4) Cities. The chief city of the south was the "hundred-gated" Thebes. the ruins of which extend for seven miles on both banks of the Nile. The southernmost points of Egypt were Syene and the Island of Elephantine, in the Nile. The lead ing city of Middle Egypt was Memphis. famous for its ruins, and in the vicinity of which existed the famous Labyrinth and the Great Pyramids of Ghizeh—the most imposing monuments ever erect ed by human hands. The Delta was in ancient times thickly studded with cities, including, on the western side the famous Greek City of Alexandria. This city in the later days of antiquity was the metropolis of Egypt and the commercial center of the civilized world, besides at the same time being the seat of learning and civilization.
2. Origin and History. There are many the ories as to the origin of the Egyptians. -Accord ing to the early Greek and Roman writers, the Egyptians themselves held the belief that they were the original inhabitants of their land.
Early Beginnings. So far as the historical record on the surviving monuments of Egypt reaches back, their beginnings coincide with the first age of the stone period. Relics have been discovered in various parts of the country from Cairo to Luxor, in great numbers. They are the same sort of prehistoric implements which prove to us the existence of man in so many other parts of the world at a geological period so remote that the figures given by our chronologists are but trivial. We find sculptured upon the early monu ments types of various races—Egyptians, Israel ites, Negroes and Libyans—as clearly distinguish able in these paintings and sculptures of from four to six thousand years ago as the same types are the question, To what race do the Egyptians be long' still remains open. Ethnologists and an
thropologists have decided after long study of skulls of mummies that they belong to the Cau casian race. It is now generally believed that some thousands of years before the Christian era the nation which afterward inhabited the Nile valley set out from Asia, and journeyed westward, crossing the Isthmus of Suez; entered Africa and settled upon the banks of the Nile, and founded there a mighty kingdom. They arc believed to have been kindred with other races of Southwest ern Asia, such as the primitive Chaldanns and the Southern Arabs. In Gen. x 5, 6, where the table of nations is mentioned, it is stated: These are the generations of the sons of Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. By these were the isles of the Gentiles at the present day No one can look at these sculptures upon the Egyptian monuments. or even the facsimiles of them as given by Lep sms, without being convinced that they indi cate even at that remote period a difference of races so great that long previous ages must have been required to produce it. Professor Rudolph Virchow, the distinguished German scientist, says. "I thought that I could obtain some e idences of the change of the Egyptians in historic time, by comparative investigation of the living with the re mains and likenesses of the dead. I return with the conviction that so far as historical and pre historic evidences reach, so far as man has been discovered. ancient Egypt and its neighboring lands have not essentially changed their popula tions." All that we are allowed to suppose on thts subject is confined to the assumption that Egypt's pre-historic age must of necessity correspond to the time of the first development of arts and handicraft. and of human science.
Egypt is designated in the old inscriptions, as well as in the books of the Christian Egyptians of later years, as the "Black Land." which is read in the Egyptian language as Rem or Kami. When the earliest settlers on the Nile first made the "black land" their home is unknown. Accordingly di% ided in their lands; every one after his tongue-. after their families, in their nations. And the sonn of Ham; Cush, and Nlizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.