The native name of Egypt was Khem, the black land. The name came not so much from the color of the soil as the hue of the inhabitants. Egypt was called the "Gift of the Nile," because Lower Egypt was formed out of soil brought down by the mighty river. Without the Nile, Egypt would be but a desert. The ancient peoples seemed to know more about the sources of the Nile than later nations. In our age Livingston explored the branches of the White and Blue Nile far into the highlands of the equator. The land through the ages has been raised by the deposits left by each annual overflow. Failure of the river to rise means drouth and famine. At the time of overflow Egypt is a vast sea with her cities on the tops, of continuous natural mounds. Numerous canals traverse the country connecting the natural channels. Egypt was inhabited in ancient days by two races or two distinct divisions of one race. Ancient records all testify that the ruling class in those times was the Ethiopian. They founded the powerful priest caste. "This priesthood included the judges, physicians, astrologers, architects--in a word they united within themselves all the highest culture and the most distinguished offices of the land." (Biblical Literature.) This testimony is corroborated by geology. Rennel after scientific investigation says, "The configuration and composition of the low lands of Egypt leave no room to doubt that the sea once washed the base of the rocks on which the pyramids of Memphis stand; the present base of which is, reached by the inundations of the Nile at an elevation of seventy or eighty feet above the Mediterranean." How remote, must be the period when Egypt was not the gift of the Nile. Renan Sphinx and the pyramids were symbols of some form of religion of the Old Race. Baldwin quotes from Diodorus Siculus, "The laws, customs, religious observances and letters of the ancient Egyptians closely resembled the Ethiopians, the colony still observing the customs of their ancestors." Egyptians in later days affirmed, that they and their civilization came from the black tribes of Punt. Some scholars seek to derive Egyptian civilization from some Oriental source. There is evidence that the culture of Egypt was not developed in Egypt from their traditions and their earliest remains. It did not come from the north or east but must have been imported from the south for as Budge affirms, Egyptians had all the characteristics of an African race. Sergi shows that the discoveries of Flinders Petrie and De Morgan prove that prehistoric Egypt was not influenced by any Oriental civilization. The primitive people of Egypt, as revealed by archaeology, dressed in skins and used rude stone implements of the stone age men. They lived in mud and reed buts and hunted wild animals. We do not And any such rude beginnings for the race of the Soudan. From these people of Punt, came Cushite colonists bearing to the children of Mizraim
Again the significant questions arise, why were the Greeks so ignorant as to their ancestors, and why did Egypt hold the knowledge of earlier Hellenic life? It must have been that the historic Greeks were but emigrants into Hellenic lands; that in prehistoric ages had been filled with the rich culture of another race Akin to the Egyptians. That the deluge did not reach this portion of the human race, may be the reason why Ethiopia was able to introduce civilization to the other races. All of the races of the earth have their traditions of a universal deluge but the African. They may have brought over to us the knowledge of the arts and wisdom of the ante-diluvian world.. Reclus also declares, "All the marvels of Egypt were not tire work of the Retu. Neither Usher's. chronology nor the little country Phoenicia can suffice to explain that mighty and widespread influence of the Cushite race in human affairs, whose traces are visible from Farther India to Norway." The Egyptian in general is simple, cheerful and supremacy by the Ethiopian element, which today is much more warlike than the fellah. Egyptians make themselves cripples to escape military service. This would also lead us to decide that it was the Old Race, not these, who extended themselves over so great an area of the ancient world. Because of mistreatment the Egyptian of today resorts to fraud, trickery, and subterfuge, that is easily detected. Nubians are frank and honest. We have every reason to see why the nature of the Egyptian can be no better. Niebhur says, "When we reflect that Egypt has been successively subdued by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and Turks, and has enjoyed no interval of tranquility or freedom but has been Reclus says, "The Retu still greatly resemble their fathers, in spite of interminglings, the Copts are still known as the people of Pharaoh. Under the Ptolemies they must have been greatly mixed. The Copts concentrate chiefly in Upper Egypt. They possess whole villages to themselves. In the towns they are artizans, money changers, and employers. They marry later than other Egyptians and regard more the family ties and their children. The old Coptic language, key to the hieroglyphics, is no longer spoken anywhere. Since the seventeenth century, Arabic is the general language throughout Egypt, simply the language imposed upon them by conquerors. Scribes and notaries are found among the Copts. They constitute the lower official class, and are
PREHISTORIC EGYPT, THE LAND OF WONDERS.