INTRODUCTION
In the northeastern corner of Africa lies Egypt, that land of mostancient civilization. Three, four, and even five thousand years ago,when the savages of Central Europe wore untanned skins for clothingand were cave-dwellers, Egypt had a high social organization,agriculture, crafts, and literature. Above all, it carried outengineering works and reared immense buildings, the remnants of whichrouse admiration in specialists of our day.
Egypt is that rich ravine between the Libyan sands and the Arabiandesert. Its depth is several hundred metres, its length six hundredand fifty miles, its average width barely five. On the west the gentlysloping but naked Libyan hills, on the east the steep and brokencliffs of Arabia form the sides of a corridor on the bottom of whichflows the river Nile.
With the course of the river northward the walls of the corridordecrease in height, while a hundred and twenty-five miles from the seathey expand on a sudden, and the river, instead of flowing through anarrow passage, spreads in various arms over a broad level plain whichis shaped like a triangle. This triangle, called the Delta of theNile, has for its base the shore of the Mediterranean; at its apex,where the river issues from the corridor, stands the city of Cairo,and near by are the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital.
Could a man rise one hundred miles in the air and gaze thence uponEgypt, he would see the strange outlines of that country and thepeculiar changes in its color. From that elevation, on the backgroundof white and orange colored sands, Egypt would look like a serpentpushing with energetic twists through a desert to the sea, in whichit has dipped already its triangular head, which has two eyes,--theleft Alexandria, the right Damietta.
In October, when the Nile inundates Egypt, that long serpent would beblue, like water. In February, when spring vegetation takes the placeof the decreasing river, the serpent would be green, with a blue linealong its body and a multitude of blue veins on its head; these arecanals which cut through the Delta. In March the blue line would benarrower, and the body of the serpent, because of ripening grain,would seem golden. Finally, in the first days of June the line of theNile would be very narrow and the serpent's body gray from dust anddrought. The chief climatic feature in Egypt is heat. During Januaryit is 57 deg. above zero, in July 991/2 deg.; sometimes the heat reaches 149 deg.which answers to the temperature of a Roman bath. Moreover, in theneighborhood of the Mediterranean, on the Delta, rain falls barely tentimes a year; in Upper Egypt it falls once during ten years.
In these conditions Egypt, instead of being the cradle ofcivilization, would have been a desert ravine like one of those whichcompose the Sahara, if the waters of the sacred Nile had not broughtlife to it annually. From the last days of June till the end ofSeptember the Nile swells and inundates almost all Egypt; from the endof October to the last days in May the year following it falls andexposes gradually lower and lower platforms of land. The waters of theriver are so permeated with mineral and organic matter that theircolor becomes brownish; hence, as the waters decrease, on inundatedlands is deposited fruitful mud which takes the place of the bestfertilizer. Owing to this mud and to heat, Egyptian earth-tillers,fenced in between deserts, have three harvests yearly and from onegrain of seed receive back about three hundred.
Egypt, however, is not a flat plain, but a rolling country; someportions of its land drink the blessed waters during two or threemonths only; others do not see it every year, as the overflow does notreach certain points annually. Besides, seasons of scant water occur,and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit.Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man hasto irrigate out of vessels.
In view of all these conditions people inhabiting the Nile valley hadto perish if they were weak, or regulate the water if they had genius.The ancient Egyptians had genius, hence they created civilization.
Six thousand years ago they observed that the Nile rose when the sunappeared under Sirius, and began to fall when it neared theconstellation Libra. This impelled them to make astronomicalobservations and to measure time.
To preserve water for the whole year, they dug throughout theircountry a network of canals many thousand miles in length. To guardagainst excessive waste of water, they built mighty dams and dugreservoirs, among which the artificial lake Moeris occupied threehundred square kilometres of surface and was fifty-four metres deep.Finally, along the Nile and the canals they set up a multitude ofsimple but practical hydraulic works; through the aid of these theyraised water and poured it out upon the fields; these machines wereplaced one or two stories higher than the water. To complete all,there was need to clear the choked canals yearly, repair the dams andbuild lofty roads for the army, which had to march at all seasons.
These gigantic works demanded knowledge of astronomy, geometry,mechanics, and architecture, besides a perfect organization. Whetherthe task was the strengthening of dams or the clearing of canals, ithad to be done and finished within a certain period over a great area.Hence arose the need of forming an army of laborers, tens of thousandsin number, acting with a definite purpose and under uniformdirection,--an army which demanded many provisions, much means, andgreat auxiliary forces.
Egypt established such an army of laborers, and to them were due worksrenowned during ages. It seems that Egyptian priests or sages createdthis army and then drew out plans for it, while the kings, orpharaohs, commanded. In consequence of this the Egyptians in the daysof their greatness formed as it were one person, in which the priestlyorder performed the role of mind, the pharaoh was the will, the peopleformed the body, and obedience gave cohesion.
In this way nature, striving in Egypt for a work great, continuous,and ordered, created the skeleton of a social organism for thatcountry as follows: the people labored, the pharaoh commanded, thepriests made the plans. While these three elements worked unitedlytoward the objects indicated by nature, society had strength toflourish and complete immortal labors.
The mild, gladsome, and by no means warlike Egyptians were dividedinto two classes,--earth-tillers and artisans. Among earth-tillersthere must have been owners of small bits of land, but generallyearth-tillers were tenants on lands belonging to the pharaohs, thepriests, and the aristocracy. The artisans, the people who madeclothing, furniture, vessels, and tools, were independent; those whoworked at great edifices formed, as it were, an army.
Each of those specialties, and particularly architecture, demandedpower of hauling and moving; some men had to draw water all day fromcanals, or transport stones from the quarries to where they wereneeded. These, the most arduous mechanical occupations, and above allwork in the quarries were carried on by criminals condemned by thecourts, or by prisoners seized in battle.
The genuine Egyptians had a bronze-colored skin, of which they werevery proud, despising the black Ethiopian, the yellow Semite, and thewhite European. This color of skin, which enabled them to distinguishtheir own people from strangers, helped to keep up the nation's unitymore strictly than religion, which a man may accept, or language,which he may appropriate.
But in time, when the edifice of the state began to weaken, foreignelements appeared in growing numbers. They lessened cohesion, theysplit apart society, they flooded Egypt and absorbed the originalinhabitants.
The pharaohs governed the state by the help of a standing army and amilitia or police, also by a multitude of officials, from whom wasformed by degrees an aristocracy of family. By his office the pharaohwas lawgiver, supreme king, highest judge, chief priest; he was theson of a god, a god himself even. He accepted divine honors, not onlyfrom officials and the people, but sometimes he raised altars to hisown person, and burnt incense before images of himself.
At the side of the pharaoh and very often above him were priests, anorder of sages who directed the destinies of the country.
In our day it is almost impossible to imagine the extraordinary rolewhich the priests played in Egypt. They were instructors of risinggenerations, also soothsayers, hence the advisers of mature people,judges of the dead,
to whom their will and their knowledge guaranteedimmortality. They not only performed the minute ceremonies of religionfor the gods and the pharaohs, but they healed the sick as physicians,they influenced the course of public works as engineers, and alsopolitics as astrologers, but above all they knew their own country andits neighbors.
In Egyptian history the first place is occupied by the relations whichexisted between the priests and the pharaohs. Most frequently thepharaoh laid rich offerings before the gods and built temples. Then helived long, and his name, with his images cut out on monuments, passedfrom generation to generation, full of glory. But many pharaohsreigned for a short period only, and of some not merely the deeds, butthe names disappeared from record. A couple of times it happened thata dynasty fell, and straightway the cap of the pharaohs, encircledwith a serpent, was taken by a priest.
Egypt continued to develop while a people of one composition,energetic kings, and wise priests co-operated for the common weal. Buta time came when the people, in consequence of wars, decreased innumber and lost their strength through oppression and extortion; theintrusion of foreign elements at this period undermined Egyptian raceunity. And when the energy of pharaohs and the wisdom of priests sankin the flood of Asiatic luxury, and these two powers began to strugglewith each other for undivided authority to plunder the toiling people,then Egypt fell under foreign control, and the light of civilizedlife, which had burnt on the Nile for millenniums, was extinguished.
The following narrative relates to the eleventh century before Christ,when the twentieth dynasty fell, and after the offspring of the sun,the eternally living Rameses XIII., San-Amen-Herhor, the high priestof Amon and ever-living offspring of the sun, forced his way to thethrone and adorned his head with the ureus.