Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt

Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt

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Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt
Author: R. Talbot Kelly
Release Date: June 21, 2006 [EBook #18647]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: BY STILL WATERS.]
[Illustration: SEBIL OF THE MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN KELAUN.]
PEEPS AT MANY LANDS
EGYPT

BY
R. TALBOT KELLY R.I., R.B.A., F.R.G.S. COMMANDER OF THE MEDJIDIEH
WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY
THE AUTHOR

LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1916
* * * * *

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
ITS ANTIQUITY
II. THE LAND
III. CAIRO--I
IV. CAIRO--II
V. THE NILE--I
VI. THE NILE--II
VII. THE NILE--III
VIII. THE MONUMENTS
IX. THE PEOPLE
X. THE DESERT
* * * * *

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SEBIL OF THE MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN KELAUN frontispiece
AN IRRIGATED FIELD
AN ARAB CAF��, CAIRO
A MOSQUE INTERIOR
A STREET IN CAIRO
A WATERING-PLACE
THE FIRST CATARACT FROM ELEPHANTINE ISLAND
THE PYRAMIDS OF GHIZEH FROM THE DESERT
THE COLOSSI OF THEBES--MOONRISE
A NILE VILLAGE
DESERT ARABS
BY STILL WATERS on the cover
* * * * *
[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF EGYPT.]
* * * * *

EGYPT
CHAPTER 1
ITS ANTIQUITY
Every boy or girl who has read the history of Joseph must often have wondered what kind of a country Egypt might be, and tried to picture to themselves the scenes so vividly suggested in the Bible story.
It must have been a startling experience for the little shepherd boy, who, stolen from his home among the quiet hills of Canaan, so suddenly found himself an inmate of a palace, and, in his small way, a participator in the busy whirl of life of a royal city.
No contrast could possibly have been greater than between his simple pastoral life spent in tending the flocks upon the hillsides and the magnificence of the city of Pharaoh, and how strange a romance it is to think of the little slave boy eventually becoming the virtual ruler of the most wealthy and most highly cultured country in the world!
And then in course of time the very brothers who had so cruelly sold him into bondage were forced by famine to come to Joseph as suppliants for food, and, in their descendants, presently to become the meanest slaves in the land, persecuted and oppressed until their final deliverance by Moses.
How long ago it all seems when we read these old Bible stories! Yet, when 4,000 years ago necessity compelled Abraham, with Sarah his wife, to stay awhile in Egypt, they were lodged at Tanis, a royal city founded by one of a succession of kings which for 3,000 years before Abraham's day had governed the land, and modern discoveries have proved that even before that time there were other kings and an earlier civilization.
How interesting it is to know that to-day we may still find records of these early Bible times in the sculptured monuments which are scattered all over the land, and to know that in the hieroglyphic writings which adorn the walls of tombs or temples many of the events we there read about are narrated.
Many of the temples were built by the labour of the oppressed Israelites, others were standing long before Moses confounded their priests or besought Pharaoh to liberate his people. We may ourselves stand in courts where, perhaps, Joseph took part in some temple rite, while the huge canal called the "Bahr Yusef" (or river of Joseph), which he built 6,300 years ago, still supplies the province Fayoum with water.
Ancient Tanis also, from whose tower Abraham saw "wonders in the field of Zoan," still exists in a heap of ruins, extensive enough to show how great a city it had been, and from its mounds the writer has often witnessed the strange mirage which excited the wonder of the patriarch.
Everywhere throughout the land are traces of the children of Israel, many of whose descendants still remain in the land of Goshen, and in every instance where fresh discovery has thrown light upon the subject the independent record of history found in hieroglyph or papyrus confirms the Bible narrative, so that we may be quite sure when we read these old stories that they are not merely legends, open to doubt, but are the true histories of people who actually lived.
As you will see from what I have told you, Egypt is perhaps the oldest country in the world--the oldest, that is, in civilization. No one quite knows how old it is, and no record has been discovered to tell us.
All through the many thousands of years of its history Egypt has had a great influence upon other nations, and although