The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1876-02-16

such smother gateway for the transit and
trafls that must pass between all the
Ieontiucnts, like that to which Egypt
Holds the key. Alexandria becomes
once more ali that the hopes and ambi-
ton Of it's Macedonian founder ever
could have cherished for the city upon
which he proudly conferred his own all
conquering name. There the PHAR0s,
the first lighthouse that the eye OF mari
nef ever saw upon earth, and that too
lighted by Egyptian hands, will be re-
turned and again shine as a guide to q
Ecommerce richer far than Alexander ever
knew.
Egypt is agricultural by necessity, but
Eintensely commercial BY nature. Her
present small area Of but about seven
thousand five hundred square miles of
inhabitabls territory, less than one-fifth
of the size of the State OF Ohio, has once
supported eight millions of people. But
let commerce be superadded to her other
capabilities, and that Land OF the Mile
caR sustain thrice eight millions. Egypt
lis crowded for territorial space while
confined to the valley Of her only river.
So were her eognate, families of the great
Hamitic race, the Sidonians, the Tyri-
ans, the Phenicians, and the Carthagin-
ians; and they were all, as the Hamitic
race was always and every here, the
great merchants Of the world.
With attributes and capabilities such
as these, with an Opportunity such as
must ere long come to her hand, with
the spirit Of the modern genius Of civili
zation, and with the moral support and
public protection Of the Great Powers of
Europe, this land Of the Nile bids fair to
rise once more to illuminate, with a
splendor all unknown to their past,
those granite coIossi sitting on granite
thrones, those images OF her Pharaohs
who lived in the morning of the world,
and which are still looking down with
stony gaze upon the land which thous-
ands of years ago they had ruled. Up
the course Of the Mile, along whose
doecnoard course her ancestors first
made their way to the delta, the destiny
Of Egypt lies. Nubia, Ethiopia, and
Abyssinia have already felt and are
now feeling the power Of her hand.
These are but the stopping places to-
wards the vast interior, of that unex-
plored continent whose physical char.
acter, condition, and resources have
been the puzzling problem Of all the
ages.
Let us look kindly, then, upon that
land through whica Africa may yet be
brought into civilized communion with
the sister continents; that land which
was the birth place OF the great Lawgiv-
er Of the Hebrews; the land which was
once the asylum OF their Patriarchs and
of our Messiah; the land that was the
Schoolmaster of Greece, and the Archi-
teet for Reme,-the land from which,
through all the ages, all the world has
borrowed and which all the world has
not even yet exhausted. The peninsulas
Of the globe have ever been the great
foci Of the worlds illumination.
Egypt is, to all intents and
purposes, peninsula stretching down
from the interior OF Africa, between the
Red Sea ON the one hand aud a sea of
sand upon the other. And, as her past
has been the most wonderful, presenting
a civilization antedating all history, the
Father OF History himself coming to her
monuments to study history, so it may
again COME to pass that this Land of the
Nile, literally the offspring of its river,
will ence more become focus for the
dissemination OF enlightment through
those regions Of Africa whose doom has
been darkness from the dawnings OF
time,