The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-03-13
ANCIENT EGYPT.
4 Nation go Old That It's Beginning II Lost
in Obscurlty.

The story of the Egyptian religion
proper has for its mise-en-scene tha
Nile from the first cataract to the sea.
Follow it course as it flows past the
colossal stones of Thebes, the ranged
columns and obelsks of Karnak, the
temples of Luxor in Upper Egypt, and
the statues of Memphis, the city Of
Cairo, the pyramids of Gizeh, and the
vast Lybian Metropolis in Lower Egypk
The river itself reaches an average
breadth of three-quarters of mile; in
its periodical overflow it waters and
fertilizes an alluvial plain nine to ten
miles wide; beyond this, for five or ten
miles, lies the yellow drifting sand Of
the desert, edged by rocky plateau
twenty to twenty-five miles wide. Upon
this ledge are ranged the pyramids, and
beneath it is followed the million-caved
Metropolis of Memphis. Beyond are
seen the Lybian hills, forming pale
blue or lilac background, but flushed
with yellow or crimson in the rising and
setting sun; these are the same as they
were in the days of Cheops, or Sene-
freu, or Joseph, and our eyes may still
look upon what they saw.
Egypt has no beginning. A Caucas-
ian race (not Shemite or negro) from
the steppes of Asia settled in the inn
memorial past on the fertile banks Of
the Nile. The cave-man became tent
man, and the tent-man a house-man.
But of these indispensable stages,
which must have ranged over vast cy-
cles of time, there are no traces left in
Egypt. When the capricious bulls
eye lantern of history first strikes Egypt
it falls upon an accomplished civiliza-
ton, quite as refined and complex, and
under certain physical aspects even
mightier than our own. Six thousand
years ago the figure of King Mena
stands out, ruling over people who
knew geometry, invented an unsurpass--
ed system of irrigation, built temples to
the sun, pyramids to the Kings-the,
stepped pyramid is reckOned to be six
thousand years old-wrote in hero
glyphics thes acred picture writings. and
possessed, at all events, the first two
chapters of the Book of the Dead, that
sacred ritual which was infinitely clab-
grated later on, and formed kind of
Egyptian mssal, rule of faith, creed
and funeral service all in one.
1t was only in 1899 that window was
opened in the present through which the
life of that remote past could be seen
with something like chronological dis
tinctness. This window was the famous
Rosetta Stone. M. Boussard, French
engineer, discovered, lying amidst the
ruins of an old temple near Alexandria,
while excavating for a fort, a smooth
fat stone. Itlay there as it lies now in
the British Museum. 1t is of black ba-
salt, about three feet seven inches long
and two feet six wide; the side and upper
part is broken away, but what is left ia
more priceless than any Skyline book
1t contains an inscription in three lam
guages-O the previously undecipher-
able hieroglyph; (2) the Greek; and (S)
| the Roman. 1t is decree in honor of
Ptolemy Epiphanes, and it was set up.
by the priests of Memphis in the year
B. C. 1875. The discovery of what con-
stitued the name of Ptolemy in the hie
roglyph led to the deciphering of all the
rest. The key of the unknown tongue
was found, and the archives of prehis-
\ toric Egypt were suddenly unlocked. 1t
was like coming upon the records of
the world before the flood. From that
moment Egypt has been the new all
absorbing center of antiquarian re-
search.
Four thousand years ago Abraham
was driven by famine into Egypt. 1t
was in the early days of the shepherd
Kings, a hardy northern race which
ruled Egypt until finally expelled by the
Persians under Darius; but Abraham
found there the stepped pyramid, which
had been standing for, at least, two
thousand years. He found, too, some
of those temples upon which we still
gaze, and, regret to say, scribble our
names. Three thousand seven hundred
years ago Joseph was carried down to
Egypt, and met with the shepherd Kings
at their zenith. He saw the ancient pile
beneath which Senefreu 5000 b. c.
still sleeps undisturbed. He looked
upon the sphinx, which then stood out
uncovered with a temple between its
paws; he saw the mighty Chephren and
Cheops pyramids shining and wholly
incased in white alabaster-like marble,
fragments of which we shuttle into our
traveling-bags and make into paper
weights. Three thousand six hundred
and fifty years ago Moses floated down
the Nile in his basket, and grew up
amid the glories of Karnak, Thebes and
Memphis-the oppression growing I'M
der the two Rameses, with whose por-
traits the British Museum has made us
familiar.
From Zoan, now buried beneath the
sands, the Israelites on an eventful night
set out three thousand six hundred year:
ago, in the reign of Maneptha l. The
last thing which impressed them as they
passed out of the land of bondage wa.
probably the newly-erected colossa
statue of Rameses, monolith theI
erect, now lying PROSTATE, and weighing