Connecticut western news., 1891-10-29


 boarded. It would not be hailed on any of our rivers with any rapture of admiration. It fortunately had but lit tie speed. for twice we ran aground and the sailors jumped into the water and on their shoulders pushed her out. But what yacht of gayest sportsman, what deck of swiftest ocean queen could give such thrill of rapture as sail on the Nle2 The pyramids in sight. the remains of cities that are now only a name. the villages thronged with population. Both banks crowded with historical deeds of forty or sixty centuries. Oh. what a book the Bible is when read on the Nile!
 As we slowly move up the majestic river see on each bank the wheels. the pumps, the buckets for irrigation, and see a man with his foot on the treadle of wheel that fetches up the water for garden, and then for the first time understand that passage in Deuteronomy which says of the Israel ties after they had got back from Egypt, The land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot"
 Then I understood how the land could be watered with the foot. How do you suppose felt when on the deck of that steamer on the Nile looked of upon the canals and ditches and sluices through which the fields are irrigated by that river, and then read in Isaiah, ''The burden of Egypt; the river shall turn the rivers far away and the brooks of defense shall be emptied and dried up; and they shall be broken in the purposes thereof. all that make sluices and ponds for fish," That Thanksgiv- ing morning on the Nile I found my text of today .-.
 Pharaoh in this chapter is compared to the dragon or hippopotamus sug- gested by the crocodiles that used to line the banks of this river: Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said my river is mine own. and I have made it for myself But will put hooks in thy jaws and will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers. and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales, and the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that 1 am the Lord. because he hath said the river is mine and have made it.
 AS IN BIBLE TIMES.
 While sailing on this river or stopping at one of the villages, we see people on tine banks who verify the Bible descrip- ton, for they are now as they were in Bible times. Shoes are now taken of in reverence to sacred places. Chil- dren carried astride the mothers shoul- der as in Hagars time. Women with profusion of jewelry as when Rebecca was aftianced Lentils shelled into the pottage. as when Esau sold his birth right to get such a dish. The same habits of s:alutation as when Joseph and his brethren fell on each others necks. Courts of law held under big trees as in olden times People making bricks without straw. compelled by circum- stances to use stubble instead of straw.
 Flying over or standing on the banks, as in Scripture days, are halningoes, os preys. eagles, pelicans, herons, cuckoos and bullfnches. On all sides of this river sepulchers. Villages of sepulchers. Cities of sepulchers. Nations of sepul ciers. And one is tempted to call it an empire of tombs. I never saw such place as Egypt is for graves. And now we understand the complaining sarcasm of the Israelites when they were on the way from Egypt to Canaan, Because there are no graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the wildernessf" Down the river bank come the buffalo and the cattle or kine to drink, and it was the ascestors of these cattle that inspired Pharaoh's dream of the lean kine and the fat Kline.
 Here we diselnbark a little while for Memphis. off from the Nile to the right. Memphis founded by the first king of Egypt and for long while the capital. X city of marble and gold. Home of the Pharaohs. City nineteen miles in cir cumference Vast colonnades through which imposing processions marched. Here stood the Temple of the Sun, it. self in brilliancy sun shone on by an other sun. Tllebes in power over thousand one hundred years, or nearly ten times as long as the United States have existed Here is a recumbent :tatue seventy-tive feet long. Bronzed gateways. \ metropolis called ''the haven Of the blest." Here Joseph was prime minister Here Pharaoh received Jacob. All possible splendors were built up into this royal city. Hosea, Ezekiel. Jeremiah and Isaiah speak of it SIS something wonderful.
 Never did 1 visit city with such ex- alted anticipations and never did my anticipations drop so fat. Not pillar stands. Not a wall is unbroken. Not a fountain losses ill the sun. Even the ruins have been ruined, and all that remains are chips of marble, small pieces of fractured sculpture and splin tered human bones. Here and there a letter of some elaborate inscription, a toe or ear of statue that once stood in niche of palace wall. Ezekiel proph- esied it's plotting out, and the prophecy has been fulfilled.
 Ride on." I said to our party, land don't wait for me-" And as I stood there alone the city of Memphis in the glory of past centuries returned. And heard tine rush of her chariots, and the dash of her fountains, and the con- vitality of her palaces, and saw the drunken nobles roll on the floors of mo- saic while in startling contrast amid