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 CAFÉ, 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