Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt | Page 2

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 the ancient Persians,
Greeks, and Romans successively dominated it, these conquering races
have each in turn disappeared, while Egypt goes on as ever, and its
people remain.

Egypt has been described as the centre of the world, and if we look at
the map we will see how true this is. Situated midway between Europe,
Africa, and Asia in the old days of land caravans, most of the trade
between these continents passed through her hands, while her ports on
the Mediterranean controlled the sea trade of the Levant.
All this helped to make Egypt wealthy, and gave it great political
importance, so that very early in the world's history it enjoyed a greater
prosperity and a higher civilization than any of its neighbours. Learned
men from all countries were drawn to it in search of fresh knowledge,
for nowhere else were there such seats of learning as in the Nile cities,
and it is acknowledged that the highly trained priesthood of the
Pharaohs practised arts and sciences of which we in these days are
ignorant, and have failed to discover.
In 30 B.C. the last of the Pharaohs disappeared, and for 400 years the
Romans ruled in Egypt, many of their emperors restoring the ancient
temples as well as building new ones; but all the Roman remains in
Egypt are poor in comparison with the real Egyptian art, and, excepting
for a few small temples, little now remains of their buildings but the
heaps of rubbish which surround the magnificent monuments of
Egypt's great period.
During the Roman occupation Christianity became the recognized
religion of the country, and to-day the Copts (who are the real
descendants of the ancient Egyptians) still preserve the primitive faith
of those early times, and, with the Abyssinians, are perhaps the oldest
Christian church now existing.
The greatest change in the history of Egypt, however, and the one that
has left the most permanent effect upon it, was the Mohammedan
invasion in A.D. 640, and I must tell you something about this, because
to the great majority of people who visit Egypt the two great points of
interest are its historical remains and the beautiful art of the
Mohammedans. The times of the Pharaohs are in the past, and have the
added interest of association with the Bible; this period of antiquity is a
special study for the historian and the few who are able to decipher
hieroglyphic writing, but the Mohammedan era, though commencing

nearly 200 years before Egbert was crowned first King of England,
continues to the present day, and the beautiful mosques, as their
churches are called (many of which were built long before there were
any churches in our own country), are still used by the Moslems.
Nothing in history is so remarkable as the sudden rise to power of the
followers of Mohammed. An ill-taught, half-savage people, coming
from an unknown part of Arabia, in a very few years they had become
masters of Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and Egypt, and presently
extended their religion all through North Africa, and even conquered
the southern half of Spain, and to-day the Faith of Islam, as their
religion is called, is the third largest in the world.
Equally surprising as their accession to power is the very beautiful art
they created, first in Egypt and then throughout Tunis, Algeria,
Morocco, and Spain. The Moslem churches in Cairo are extremely
beautiful, and of a style quite unlike anything that the world had known
before. Some of my readers, perhaps, may have seen pictures of them
and of the Alhambra in Spain, probably the most elegant and ornate
palace ever built.
No country in the world gives one so great a sense of age as Egypt, and
although it has many beauties, and the life of the people to-day is most
picturesque, as we will presently see, it is its extreme antiquity which
most excites the imagination, for, while the whole Bible history from
Abraham to the Apostles covers a period of only 2,000 years, the
known history of Egypt commenced as far back as 6,000 years ago!
From the sphinx at Ghizeh, which is so ancient that no one knows its
origin, to the great dam at Assuan, monument of its present day, each
period of its history has left some record, some tomb or temple, which
we may study, and it is this more than anything