From the Persian conquest to the present day,
although the. scene of continual strife, Egypt has been
an example of almost uninterrupted productiveness. Its
geographical position afforded peculiar advantages for
commercial enterprise. Bounded on the east by the Bed
Sea, on the north by the Mediterranean, while the
fertilizing Nile afforded inland communication, Egypt
became the most prosperous and civilized country of
the earth. Egypt was not only created by the Nile,
but the very existence of its inhabitants depended upon
the annual inundation of that riv e r: thus all that
related to the Nile was of vital importance to the
people ) it was the hand that fed them.
Egypt depending so entirely upon the river, it was
natural that the origin of those mysterious waters
should have absorbed the attention of thinking men. It
was unlike all other rivers. In July and August, when
European streams were at their lowest in the summer
heat, the Nile was at the flood! In Egypt there
was no rainfall—not even a drop of dew in those
parched deserts through which, for 860 miles of latitude,
the glorious river flowed without a tributary.
Licked up by the burning sun,: and gulped by the
exhausting sand of Nubian deserts, supporting all
losses by evaporation and absorption, the noble flood
shed its annual blessings upon Egypt. An anomaly
among rivers; flooding in the driest reason; everlasting
in sandy deserts; where was its hidden origin ?
where were the sources of the Nile ?
This was from the earliest period the great geographical
question to be solved.
In the advanced stage of civilization of the present
era, we look with regret at the possession by the
Moslem of the fairest portions of the world,—of countries
so favoured by climate and by geographical position,
that, in the early days of the earth’s history, they were
the spots most coveted; and that such favoured places
should, through the Moslem rule, be barred from the
advancement that has attended lands less adapted by
nature for development. There are no countries of
the earth so valuable, or that would occupy so important
a position in the family of nations, as Turkey
in Europe, Asia Minor, and Egypt, under a civilized
and Christian government.
As the great highway to India, Egypt is the most
interesting country to the English. The extraordinary
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