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Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A LAND OF OLD RENOWN 1
II. A DAY IN THEBES 6
III. A DAY IN THEBES (_continued_) 11
IV. PHARAOH AT HOME 17
V. THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER 24
VI. CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT 33
VII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO 41
VIII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO
(_continued_) 47
IX. EXPLORING THE SOUDAN 54
X. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 59
XI. EGYPTIAN BOOKS 66
XII. TEMPLES AND TOMBS 72
XIII. AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN 82

* * * * *

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE

*1. AN EGYPTIAN GALLEY, 1500 B.C. _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

2. THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING 9

3. THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK 16

*4. RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT--SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT 25

*5. ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET 32

6. GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II. 35

7. NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK 38

*8. "AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED" 41

*9. AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE 48

10. STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III. 51

11. THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID 54

*12. A DESERT POSTMAN 57

*13. THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES 64

14. GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU 73

15. WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB 80

*16. PHARAOH ON HIS THRONE 20

_Sketch-Map of Ancient Egypt on page viii_

* These eight illustrations are in colour; the others are in black
and white.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF ANCIENT EGYPT.]

ANCIENT EGYPT

CHAPTER I

"A LAND OF OLD RENOWN"

If we were asked to name the most interesting country in the world, I
suppose that most people would say Palestine--not because there is
anything so very wonderful in the land itself, but because of all the
great things that have happened there, and above all because of its
having been the home of our Lord. But after Palestine, I think that
Egypt would come next. For one thing, it is linked very closely to
Palestine by all those beautiful stories of the Old Testament, which
tell us of Joseph, the slave-boy who became Viceroy of Egypt; of Moses,
the Hebrew child who became a Prince of Pharaoh's household; and of the
wonderful exodus of the Children of Israel.

But besides that, it is a land which has a most strange and wonderful
story of its own. No other country has so long a history of great Kings,
and wise men, and brave soldiers; and in no other country can you see
anything to compare with the great buildings, some of them most
beautiful, all of them most wonderful, of which Egypt has so many. We
have some old and interesting buildings in this country, and people go
far to see cathedrals and castles that are perhaps five or six hundred
years old, or even more; but in Egypt, buildings of that age are looked
upon as almost new, and nobody pays very much attention to them. For the
great temples and tombs of Egypt were, many of them, hundreds of years
old before the story of our Bible, properly speaking, begins.

The Pyramids, for instance, those huge piles that are still the wonder
of the world, were far older than any building now standing in Europe,
before Joseph was sold to be a slave in Potiphar's house. Hundreds upon
hundreds of years before anyone had ever heard of the Greeks and the
Romans, there were great Kings reigning in Egypt, sending out their
armies to conquer Syria and the Soudan, and their ships to explore the
unknown southern seas, and wise men were writing books which we can
still read. When Britain was a wild, unknown island, inhabited only by
savages as fierce and untaught as the South Sea Islanders, Egypt was a
great and highly civilized country, full of great cities, with noble
palaces and temples, and its people were wise and learned.

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Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt