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“ D e a b M o k t o n :
n This is the fourth day I have been in the land of tbe Pharaohs..................."Well, now for
the Egyptian problem.
“ Your October letter is now before me, and the left-hand drawing bears a most astonishing
resemblance to my long-legged valet, Ali! (whom I intend to get daguerreotyped, if
such a thing can be found at Cairo). The Kobber Race has swept away everything at
A l e x a n d r i a ¡^-nevertheless, by means of a specimen here and there, I had not been three
hours in the country before I arrived at the conclusion, that the ancient Egyptians were
neither Malays nor Hindoos, but .------------------------------------------------------------—
_________ Egyptians. . . . . . . Yours, truly,
“ C h a b l e s P ic k e b in g / ’ £
So inferred C h ampollion-l e - J e u n e ; 303 so pronounced M okton,
after a formal recantation of his published views; so,- finally and
deliberately, think the authors of this volume; viz.: that the primitive
Egyptians were nothing more nor less than — EGYPTIANS.
Objectors must restrict themselves henceforward merely to cavils as
to the antiquity of these Egyptian records. In Part HL their claims
to reverence are superabundantly set forth. Eor ourselves we are
content to rest the chronological case upon the authority of Baron
A l e x a n d e r vo n H umboldt : —
1 The valley of the Nile, which has occupied so distinguished a place in the history of
Man, yet preserves authentic portraits of kings as far back as the commencement of the
IVth dynasty of Manetho. This dynasty, which embraces the constructors of the great
pyramids of Ghiza, Chefren or Schafra, Cheops, Choufou, and Menkara or Menkerds,
commences more than 3400 years b. o., and twenty-four centuries before the invasion of
Peloponnesus by the Heraclides.” 3®4