CHAPTER XXX. EGYPT -ITS EARLY PROSPERITY-ITS ABASEMENT-HIEROGLYPHICS SESOSTRIS. GYPT was settled shortly after the flood by Mizraim, EGYPT himself. The origin of the name is unknown. We get it from the Greeks and Romans, who called it Egyptus. The Egyptians called their country Cham or Chamia, after Ham. The Hebrew word for it in the Bible is Mizraim; and the Turks and Arabians still call it Mizr, after Mizraim. It is repeatedly called in the scriptures "the land of Ham." Like Cain under the curse, Ham probably went away from his father, and from the place where the true God was worshipped. Josephus ascribes to him the first introduction of idolatry after the flood. Bringing up his children godlessly, they were led to look back to him as their god, and after his death worshipped him. The most ancient of the gods of Egypt was called Amm, or Amoun, who is recognized by scholars as the Zeus of the Greeks, and the Jupiter of the Romans. From the first, Egypt has occupied an interesting place in history. A long, narrow strip of land, about seven hundred miles in length; shut in by the Red Sea and the desert, east and west, and by the Mediterranean and the mountains, north and south; made exceedingly fertile by the annual overflowing of the celebrated river, the Nile; trading with other countries, through caravans obtaining the productions of Asia, and enriched by the spoils of war, Egypt speedily 'Psalms cv. 23, 27; lxxviii. 51; cvi. 22. 2 Gen. xxxvii. 25. became powerful and prosperous. With a cloudless sky, an atmosphere almost too brilliant for the eye, a burning sun, and trees which hardly cast a shade; the land, long since would have become a desert, had it not been for the regular annual inundations of the Nile, which more than takes the place of rain. These inundations, so mysterious in the view of ancient ignorance and superstition, are caused by periodical rains in the countries farther south. The river begins to rise about the middle of June, overflows its banks in August, and reaches its highest point early in September. From the middle of August till towards the end of October, the most of the land of Egypt resembles a great lake or sea, in which the towns appear as islands. The land is not only by this means watered; but, when the waters recede, a deposit is left on the soil of thick slimy mud, which serves as a rich coat of manure, causing it to be exceedingly fruitful. In place of the flood, almost immediately, a beautiful garden appears. Egypt had its princes and its Pharaoh in the time of Abraham; many cities in the time of Joseph; and its immense standing army of chariots and horsemen in the time of Moses. It was said afterwards to have contained twenty thousand cities. Some of them, No-Ammon or Thebes, Zoan, On or Heliopolis, Noph or Memphis, etc., will always live in history. Of Thebes, Homer wrote, nearly three thousand years ago: "The world's great empress on the Egyptian plains, That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states, The historical pictures on the walls of the palaces in Thebes, although painted three thousand years since, are as bright in their colors, and as fresh in their appearance, as if just finished. On the outer wall of one of these palaces, are pictures extending eight hundred feet in length. Like the |