The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . ng the new Nile. The river begins to 15 16 EGYPT [§10 rise in July, swollen by tropical rains at its upper course indistant Abyssinia; and it does not fully recede into its regular-channel until November. During the days while the flood isat its height, Egypt is a sheet of turbid water, spreading be-tween two lines ofrock and waters aredotted with townsand villages, andmarked off intocompartments byraised roads, run-ning from town totown; while froma sandy plateau,at a distance, thepyramids lookdown upon thescene, as they havedone
The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800 AD . ng the new Nile. The river begins to 15 16 EGYPT [§10 rise in July, swollen by tropical rains at its upper course indistant Abyssinia; and it does not fully recede into its regular-channel until November. During the days while the flood isat its height, Egypt is a sheet of turbid water, spreading be-tween two lines ofrock and waters aredotted with townsand villages, andmarked off intocompartments byraised roads, run-ning from town totown; while froma sandy plateau,at a distance, thepyramids lookdown upon thescene, as they havedone each seasonfor five thousandyears. As thewater retires, therich loam dressing,brought down fromthe hills of Ethi-opia, is left spreadover the fields, re-newing their won-derful fertilityfrom year to year;while the long soaking supplies moisture to the soil for thedry months to come. 10. The Inhabitants. — The oldest records yet found inEgypt reach back to about 5000 At that time the useof bronze was already well advanced. Eemains in the soil. 110] THE NILE 17 show that there had been earlier dwellers using rude stoneimplements and practising savage customs. How many thou-sands of years it took for this savagery to develop into theculture of 5000 we do not know. Culture is almost a synonym for civilization; but it is also used in a some-what broader sense, to include the stages of savagery and barbarism thatprecede true civilization. It is common to speak of the invention of pot-tery as the point at which savagery passes into barbarism, and the invention of the alphabet as the transition from barbarism to civilization.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecthistoryancient, booky
