to say here concerning a structure of which almost all natural and artificial objects, there is so little now to be seen; but there were freely sculptured; and battles by sea is another marvellous palace, or temple, and land, as well as an infinite variety of or both, at Karnac- a part of what was peaceful scenes, are found on the bas-reonce Thebesthe grandeur of which a liefs. Those who could perceive a soul in visitor may see for himself. The ground these productions were unmeasured in their covered by this mass of buildings is nearly approval. Dr. Richardson, speaking of the square, and the side measures about 1800 temple of Dendera, says: "The female English feet. Travellers one and all ap-figures are so extremely well executed that pear to have been unable to find words to they do all but speak, and have a mildness express the feelings with which these sub- of feature and expression that never was lime remains inspired them. They have surpassed." It need not be added that been astounded and overcome by the mag- there was hardly a wrought stone in Egypt nificence and the prodigality of workman- that was not sculptured with hieroglyphics. ship here to be admired. Courts, halls, gate-Most of these the older ones especially ways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic figures, were accurately and beautifully chiselled. sculptures, rows of sphinxes, are massed It is stated of the obelisks of Luxor that in such profusion that the sight is too much the Arabs climb them by sticking their for modern comprehension. Champollion, feet into the excavated hieroglyphics, which the great French Egyptologist, says of it are two inches or more in depth, and cut "Aucun peuple ancien ni moderne n'a with the highest degree of perfection. conçu l'art d'architecture sur une échelle aussi sublime, aussi grandiose, que le firent les vieux Egyptiens; et l'imagination qu'en Europe s'élance bien au-dessus de nos portiques, s'arrête et tombe impuissante au pied des 140 colonnes de la salle hypostyle de Karnak."* In one of its halls, we are told, the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris might stand and not touch the walls. Denon, another Frenchman, says: It is hardly possible to believe, after having seen it, in the reality of the existence of so many buildings collected on a single point, in their dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction required, and in the incalculable expenses of so much magnificence." And again: "It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake." There were lakes and mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. These two edifices have been selected as examples from a list which is next to inexhaustible. The whole valley and Delta of the Nile, from the Cataracts to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, and pillars. 66 The works that have been cited were all executed before the exodus of Israel, some of them before the visit of Abraham; and the Egyptians were capable of executing them at the remotest epoch at which we can show that there were Egyptians. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that their first introduction to us is as a people already possessing the same settled habits as in later times. He can trace no primitive mode of life, no barbarous custom, not even the habit, so slowly abandoned by all people, of wearing arms when not on military service, nor any archaic art. Can it, then, be otherwise than an interesting study to trace downwards the achievements in mechanism, science, and art of the different accomplished nations of the earth since the days of Moses, and to ascertain by what steps, and to what extent, they have outdone the subjects of the early Pharaohs? But the works above alluded to are only those which, from their magnitude, compel attention. There are others equally astonishing which research has brought to light. First among these (as being an indispensable preparation for free and rapid writing,) we may consider the art of papermaking. This the Egyptians practised- we will not say discovered, for we know nothing about the invention - as early as they practised anything that we know of. They took out the pith of the papyrus, dissected it with a pointed instrument, and then flattened it into strips, which they glued together. These they strengthened by cross strips, also glued together, and the surface so prepared was fit to receive writing. Such surfaces did receive writing, and some of those written on in the days of the early Pharaohs are yet in existence. Howbeit, our knowledge of these precious records is entirely new. Till lately, it was believed that the use of the papyrus for writing was introduced about the time of Alexander the Great; then Lepsius found the hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus-roll on monuments of the twelfth dynasty; afterwards he found the same sign on monuments of the fourth dynasty, which is getting back pretty close to Menes the protomonarch; and, indeed, little doubt is entertained that the art of writing on papyrus was understood as early as the days of Menes himself. The fruits of investigation in this, as in many other subjects, are truly most marvellous. Instead of exhibiting the rise and progress of any branches of knowledge, they tend to prove that nothing had any rise or progress, but that everything is referable to the very earliest dates. The experience of the Egyptologist must teach him to reverse the observation of Topsy, and to "spect that nothing growed," but that as soon as men were planted on the banks of the Nile, they were already the cleverest men that ever lived, endowed with more knowledge and more power than their successors for centuries and centuries could attain to. Their system of writing, also, is found to have been complete from the very first. They not only wrote, but they had a passion for writing, as the learned of these latter days have, to their great delight, found out. Every surface that would receive hieroglyphics was covered with inscriptions. Rocks, stones, walls, furniture, implements, coffins, tombs, as well as the papyri, were all left in a condition to tell their wondrous tales; and, mirabile dictu! we did not know till about fifty years ago that they had any tale to tell! Yes: for about fifty years only we have known that they had an accessible meaning; and they have been there, some of them, for fifty centuries, challenging the regard of races, which nevertheless grew more and more darkened, until at last the oracles were dumb, and in the very midst of copious flashing light men walked in a vain shadow. By surpassing patience and penetration the key to the enigmas was at last rediscovered; then the pursuit of hieroglyphic literature was entered upon with ardour, and with such success that now year by year the mists are clearing away, and such tableaux are unfolding themselves of life under the Pharaohs as it cannot have entered into the mind of any modern to conceive. The well-known exploits of Sesostris go to prove that he and his people were well versed in the science and practice of war: Their armies marched from home, subdued Asia, Asia Minor, and part of Europe, and then returned. They maintained great wars too in their own land, sometimes Egpytian being arrayed against Egyptian, and sometimes against troublesome neighbours. If we may entirely believe the inscriptions and pictures, they were a very formidable people indeed, terribly rough customers to meet in anger. But there is much reason to suppose that the language of the inscriptions is unwarrantably tall, and that the tableaux exhibit a decidedly partial view of operations. And this exaggeration has so damaged their reputation that some writers doubt whether the great Sesostris's expeditions be not fables, and whether the exploits of the professing conqueror were not confined to the neighbourhood of the Nile. That this people constructed warchariots there can be no doubt. Homer says that through each of the hundred gates of Thebes issued two hundred men with horses and chariots; and we know that there were six hundred chariots with the army that pursued after Israel. These warchariots appear to have been of a magnificent construction, though they were very light — the smooth level roads of Egypt not demanding clumsy strength. Mr. Kenrick says in general terms: In short, as all the essential principles which regulate the construction and draft of carriages are exemplified in the war-chariots of the Pharaohs, so there is nothing which modern taste and luxury have devised for their decoration to which we do not find a prototype in the monuments of the eighteenth dynasty." It is presumed the springs are included in this ascription of refinements. The warriors in chariots were, as far as is known, the only cavalry; and students have as yet come upon no record of the strategical principles observed in war. The battle-pieces in the bas-reliefs and pictures exhibit only the melees in which acts of individual prowess are being performed by the king. The heavy-armed men fought in coats of mail, but the infantry in general had quilted tunics, and helmets without metallic coverings. The bow was a favourite weapon, but the soldiers wore double-edged swords and daggers, and carried shields more or less cumbrous according to the class of troops. They used also javelins, spears, Mr. Kenrick should, it is thought, have made an exception in regard to springs, as we understand that appliance Some means certainly were used for mitigating the jolting of the chariot; but the elaborate description of chariots by Sir G. Wilkinson, which has been examined since the observation supposition that the vehicles were set on metallic in the text was written, gives no countenance to the springs. * sufficient skill to divide the Holy Land after he had conquered it. It is on record that they made maps. They were also most observant astronomers, watching the periods of planets and constellations, and calculating eclipses. The rotundity of the earth, the sun's central place in our system, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the starry composi tion of the Milky Way, and the borrowed light of the moon, are thought by Wilkinson to have been no secrets to them. In dividing time they were very accurate. The true length of the year appears to have been known by them at a very early period, and Mr. Kenrick thinks that the precession of the equinoxes was also a fact understood by them. Records were made every day of the rising and setting of stars, and particular influences were believed to proceed from these positions and conjunctions of the heavenly bodies: moreover, the priests claimed the power of prophecy through as and pikes. The light troops had darts and slings. The charioteers wield maces and battle-axes. Siege operations were sometimes executed: the assailants advanced by a passage covered with boards, and pushed huge spears, worked each by a squad of men from the approaches, against the defenders on the walls. The covered passages had trap-doors in the roofs to enable the besiegers to reconnoitre, or possibly to muster on the top and shoot from a vantagepoint. Scaling-ladders and all the arts of escalade were perfectly understood. The battering-ram was a common expedient; and the Egyptians, being such adepts in quarrying, were not slow to attach the miner to an obstructive wall, and bring it scientifically down. There is only one representation of a naval combat, where the fight is by soldiers on board ship; in this each mast-head has a basket with an archer in it run up. According to the present state of Egyp-tral motions. The true meridian had been tian science, the great flourishes about vic-correctly ascertained before the first tories were not borne out by corresponding pyramid was built, and there were clocks attention to, or knowledge of, the art of and dials for measuring time. The cubit war; but it is much safer to mention what was the established unit of linear measure — the Pharaohs and their people did, than what being 1.707 feet of English measure; but they did not, for research is so fruitful that the unit of weight is not known, although, the discovery of to-morrow may contradict of course, they had weights. Arithmetical the negative of to-day. If we were to find notation and calculation they managed less that they had been using Armstrong guns, cleverly than the Arabians,† and (what is the circumstance would not be more aston- certainly astonishing among so many refineishing than many that have already come to ments), their money was in gold and silver light. rings estimated by weight. They had both The proficiency of the Egyptians in math- the decimal and duodecimal modes of calcuematical science has not been defined. In lation from the earliest times, but there is proof of their having been foremost in this no appearance of algebra; and notwithas in most, we have the testimony of the standing the immense mechanical power Greek authors, and the fact that the ancient which they could bring into operation, it mathematicians whom we revere as the cannot be ascertained that they understood fathers of geometry went to Egypt to be in- the philosophy of what are called the structed therein. May it not indeed be mechanical powers. now admitted that the regions which we have been fond of designating as the cradles of sciences were second-hand cradles? Our former belief and doctrine were that "the arts of War and Peace" had risen in the Isles of Greece, as Byron sang. Some rudimentary knowledge was ascribed to Egypt; but Greece was credited with the first cultivation of art and science from their very elements. Yet before Greece was, the arts were ripe and old. Though the nations at large were in darkness, though Greece was at its hornbook, there sat on the other side of the Levant sea a power already at her meridian-in wisdom pre-eminent, in works a giant! Land-surveying, an art resting on geometry, the Egyptians undoubtedly understood, since Joshua took away with him What has been written concerning irrigation is sufficient to show how interested the Eyptians were about agriculture. Corn and Egypt are so associated in the minds of most of us, that the connection is proverbial. Nature did astonishingly for Egypt, giving her a fruitful soil and the swelling Nile; and yet her gift would have been useless if she had not raised there a highly intelligent, enterprising people. The Nile, left to its natural channels and its natural ebb and flow, would fertilise but a fraction of what had become corn-bearing Egypt in patriarchal times. The elements of plenty *See Appendix II. chap. vii. of Rawlinson's Herodotus. There have been writers who asserted that the Arabians learned their notation from the Egyptians; but this belief is getting old-fashioned. Twenty years make a striking difference in Egyptology. are always there, but they want the regula- | deserts. These they cut and polished ting hand of man to fructify them. The beautifully, and learned to imitate with means of making the land bear were very great success in glass. But all the foreign different from those which are approved in gems of the East were known, and quanEurope; hoeing almost sufficed for turning tities of them acquired. Egypt had its the soil, instead of ploughing: once the gold and silver mines. The revenue deriver had risen, nature had done her part rived from them was immense. The gold toward production; and art and skill were was dug and separated with very great applied to the retention and dispersion of labour and skill; the silver would seem to the waters. No manuring, no management have been more simply procured. Besides of the soil, was necessary; husbandry was these precious metals, they also found copalmost entirely proved in regulating irriga- per, lead, and iron near the Red Sea. tion, and it was practiced with surpassing is uncertain whether they could temper effect. steel, but Wilkinson thinks that they could; and he very fairly says that, whether they could steel iron or not, they certainly had some secret equally profound and equally useful, by means of which their exquisite chiselling was achieved. There is enough of negative proof that they were familiar with steel, since they wrought sculpture which, as far as we know, nothing but steel could effect. After corn, flax seems to have been the chief crop; and with this the Egyptians wrought not by halves nor rudely, but, according to their wont in the highest style. When Joseph first found favour in the eyes of Pharaoh, he had the monarch's own ring put on his hand, a chain of gold thrown over his neck, and a vesture of fine linen given to array his person. Now, what one may call fine another may call coarse; the epithet alone, therefore, does not carry much weight; but it is a fact that the linen of Egypt was celebrated all over the world; and, what is more, it may be seen and handled to this day, for the mummies were nearly all wrapped in it, and the wrappings are in excellent preservation. Mummycloths do not, of course, represent the finest linen, but we have a clear idea conveyed by Pliny of what was considered fine in the days of King Amasis; that is, six hundred years B.C. Each single thread of a certain garment sent to Lindus by King Amasis was composed of 365 minor threads twisted together, so that Egyptian fineness was fine indeed. Not only was linen spun, but it was dyed and richly embroidered in the very earliest times. So far as we can trace, however, this work was all done by hand. And here it may be well to note that all the workmanship of which the Israelites in their wanderings between Egypt and Canaan showed themselves capable was due to the teaching of the Egyptians; and any one who will refer to the embellishment of the holy tabernacle, and to the vestments of the high priest in the sacred books, will see in how many ornamental arts Egypt must have been accomplished. The spoil which Israel got from the natives in their flight consisted of jewels of silver and jewels of gold; and these jewels, it turns out, were very unlike what the country was in the habit of producing if they were not beautifully wrought. Cutting, polishing, and setting precious stones was done in excellent style by Egyptian lapidaries. Emeralds were found in the neighbouring It The most curious, if not the most useful, of the arts of Egypt, was that by which they disposed of their dead. Let us not tarry now to inquire into the belief or fancy which urged them to the practice, nor into the remarkable ceremonies with which funerals were solemnised, but let us regard mummification simply as an art. It was, then, the will of the Egyptians, to have their bodies, or the principal portions of them, preserved as long as possible from decay; and this was effected so successfully, that the sight-seer of to-day may examine the corpses of men and women over whom thousands upon thousands of years have rolled without bringing to them corruption, or depriving them of the human form. Indeed, we know of no limit to the endurance of the mummy if left in Egypt, the climate for which it was prepared. The processes (for there were three processes) of embalming required from two to three months to complete them. The body was never embalmed whole. Some portions were always removed, and not always, there is reason to suppose, preserved; but commonly the separated portions were preserved by themselves and placed in jars. The exterior body was then filled with myrrh, cassia, and other gums, and after that saturated with natron. Then there was a marvellous swathing of the embalmed form, so artistically executed that professional bandagers of the present day are lost in admiration of its excellence. According to Dr. Granville, there is not a single form of bandage known to modern surgery, of which examples are not seen in the swathings of the Egyptian mummies. The strips of linen 66 Greek vases, and whose invention is ascribed to the Greeks, were, Mr. Kenrick says, only copies from the Egyptian vases. The figures of them are to be seen on the walls of a tomb of the age of Amunoph I, a period when Greece did not yet exist. Metallurgy the Egyptians understood before the earliest period of their history known to us. Colonel Howard Vyse found mid, placed there, without doubt, when the pyramid was built. The mines of iron and copper were in the sandstone at Sinai, where to this day may be seen in large heaps the scoriæ produced by sinelting. It may fairly be presumed that the chemistry and metallurgy, as understood by the philosophers, were at the bottom of the magic. have been found extending to 1000 yards | country; for Egypt through all her vicissiin length. Rossellini gives a similar testi- tudes, kept alive the knowledge of chemismony to the wonderful variety and skill try, and had it all to herself up to the time with which the bandages have been applied of the Arabian conquest, when it became and interlaced."* The exclusion of the air generally understood through Europe and from the surface of the body was the object Asia. The decorative borders found on of this patient labour, and every proper expedient was resorted to to make the cerements fit tightly. Not the large limbs only, but the fingers and toes, have been separately bandaged in the more elaborate mummies. The body was generally labelled, having its card, so to speak, placed within the linen folds, and generally on the breast. The identification was usually a plate of metal engraved, but sometimes it was aa piece of iron in a joint of the Great Pyrasmall image of a god, or an animal with the name of the mummy on it, and this has been found sometimes within the body. Beads, earrings, necklaces are frequently turned out from among the wrappings. The bandaging effected, the next thing was to fit the mummy's surtout, which was made of layers of cloth pasted or glued together till they formed a pasteboard. Before it The Egyptians paddled about a good could be called a board, however that is deal on the Nile, whether expanded or to say, while it was yet moist and pliable - shrunken, but they are not known to have it was placed about the wearer, whose shape had any great liking for, or acquaintance it was made to take accurately. As soon with, the salt sea. Some of their monarchs, as the artist was satisfied with the fit, the about the time of the exodus, built fleets, garment was sown up at the back, and then and made incursions into foreign lands, allowed to harden. A mask, representing but these were only forced movements; the the features of the deceased, was put over nation never took kindly to the briny," the head, and continued some way over the if one may take the liberty of using Mr. shoulders. Male mummies wore a reddish- Swiveller's expression. Sea-going nations brown, and female a yellowish-green mask have generally been, in their early times, as a rule; but the faces of some mummies, such as could find very little to attract them and sometimes even their whole surfaces, in their own lands, and a good deal that was were gilded over. Commonly the paste- attractive in the lands of others. It must board case was painted in bright colours, be confessed, although the avowal reflects whose brilliancy was as lasting as the somewhat pointedly on many of our own mummy itself. Hieroglyphics were em-respected progenitors, that ancient mariners blazoned on it, and it was in some instances stuck over with beads and spangles. The legend would describe the departed, or include a prayer or invocation. The mummy was thus complete, but it was boxed up afterwards in three coffins made to follow its shape as nearly as could be. From the particular chemistry adopted for the pickling of ancestors to chemistry at large is a natural transition; and it will be found on inquiry that the successful embalming was not a chance discovery, or an art known by rule of thumb only, but that it was as fairly brought out from definitions and maxims as was any induction of Faraday's. The word "chemistry" comes from Chemi, and Chemi means Egypt. The science was rightly named after the were, for the most part, ancient robbers, who found that ships were convenient means of descending upon a neighbour's coast, and of carrying away the plunder there to be procured. After sowing their wild oats in a course of freebooting, piracy, usurpation, and roystering, such races have occasionally settled down into loudly-professing moralists and sticklers for the rights of humanity, with a holy yearning for peace at any price; though, happily, a leaven of the old buccaneers' spirit may be left ready to rise through the lump at times, and confound canting Puritans. But old Egyptians, it is clear, had learned before the times of which we have knowledge to see in Egypt herself all that could be desired, and to devote all their energies to the improvement and embellishment of their native land. They developed so much wealth, |