St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-03-13
ANCIENT EGYPT.
A Nation SO Old That Its Beginning Is Lost
in Obscurity.

The story of the Egyptian religion
o1oper has for its mise-en-scene the
Nile from the first cataract to the sea.
Follow it course as it flows past the
colossal stones of Thebes, the ranged
columns and obelisks 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 Lvbian,Necropoli in Lower Egypt.
The river itself reaches an average
breadth of three-quarters OF a 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 a 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
settinp 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 Oot Shemite or negro from
the steppes of Asia settled III the M
memorial past on the fertile banks OF
the Nile. The caye-man became tent
man, and the tent-man house-man.
But of these indispensable stages,
which must have ranged over vast cy-
Giles of time, there are no traces left in
Eoypt. When the capricious bulls
eve lantern of history first strikes Egypt
it falls upon an accomplished civiliza-
ton. quite as refined and complex, and
under certain physical aspects even
mignticr than our own. Six thousand
wears 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 wears old-wrote in HERO
glvphics thes acred picture writings. and
possessed, at all events, the first two
| chapters of the Book of the Dead, that
sacred ritual which was minutely clab-
Grated later on, and formed kind of
| Egyptian missal, 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 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 is
more priceless than any Sibylline book.
1t contains an inscription in three lam
guages-O the previously undecipher-
able hieroglyph; (2) the Greek; and (3)
| the Roman It is decree in honor of
Ptolemv 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 HE
roglyph led to the deciphering OF all the
rest The key of the unknown tongue
was found, and the archives OF prefls-
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 10000 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 akabaster-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 foated 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