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THE NILE

ANCIENT EGYPT:

ITS MONUMENTS AND HISTORY.

"Speak thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn
The power of years-pre-eminent, and placed
Apart, to overlook the circle vast."

LONDON:

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY;

Instituted 1799.

221. C. 49.

[blocks in formation]

ANCIENT EGYPT:

ITS MONUMENTS AND HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT.

Divisions of the country-Mountains-The Nile, its sources, cataracts, and inundation-Climate-Fertility-Calendar of Egypt-The Oases-Siwah, and its oracle of Jupiter Ammon --The Red Sea-Passage of the Israelites, and the canal between the two seas.

THE land of Egypt occupies an intermediate position between Asia and Africa. Territorially belonging to the latter continent, some geographers have, however, reckoned it in connexion with the former, and others have assigned to Asia the eastern, and to Africa the western bank of the Nile. The Valley of Egypt, properly so called, is only about a third of the entire district watered by the Nile in its course from south to north; the whole of which district lies as a fertile land between two deserts. The Valley of Egypt commences at Assouan and the Island of Elephantine, at the spot known as the first cataract. At this

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