The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-11-28

TINE old race passed by marriage
u with other stocks; and their
ancient streets and temples know
now only the feet of Moslem anc
Englishmen, of weary travellers who
come from thousands of miles away
to find that the Pyramids are heaps
of stones.
Perhaps greatness could grow
again in that fair climate if the
distant East should flower once
more, and the turn of the tide make
Egypt the halfway house Of a hem
spheres commerce. 81
But of the morrow, as Lorenzo
sang, there is no certainty; and OF
today the only certainty is desola-
ton. On every side gigantic ruins
memorials of a savage and titanic
energy; and all about them the en-
quilting sands blown about forever
by the hot winds, and resolved tc
cover everything in the end.
PSammeticuS I. effected tempo
rary restoration" rich in decadent
literature and art, and Amasis II
STAYED off destruction for half GEN.
fury by his genius in organization
and diplomacy; but the tide of his
tory was against them, and when
the Persians crossed Suez in 525
B. G. it marked the death of ancient
Egypt.
For two centuries the proud ma
ton that had held its head SO high
for three thousand years was vassal
OF an Oriental empire; and when
change came it was only a change
of masters; in 800 B. G. from Persia
to Greece, in 80 B. G. from Greece
to Rome.
The last picture, symbolizing the
death of an entire civilization, shows
Cleopatra, lover of luxuries and
vendor of her charms, putting the
serpent to her breast as Anthony
dies and Augustus, too tired for
temptations, stations his conouering
legions along the Nile.
Today there is a place called
Egypt, but the Egyptian people dc
not dwell there. Long since thew
have been scattered over the earth
and merged beyond identity in mar
IF the chief function of war is II
Il teach the people geography. the
Weltgeist has lavished war too flu
emily in these years upon familiar
Europe, and has insufficiently illu-
minated that strange region of the
map which is constituted TODAY BIZ
Asia Minor, Arabia and Persia.
Lawrence and Allenby have made
Arabia fashionable; but most of the
Near East" remains a phrase q
t1lmy realm of sheiks and massacres
belonging to fiction rather than to
terrestrial reality.
Once that obscure area was the
heart of the world and the home OF
powerful empires: now it is an al
most abandoned desert, rich in rocks
anu sano, kept alive only by wild
courage and the remembrance OF
ancient glory.
But look at the map again. 70,
here genius passed once and we
must follow it, even if only in super
fetal fight.
Cross from Egypt into Asia at Suez:
to the right the Peninsula of Sinai
lies, where the Pharaohs turned
copper into sold, and Moses in the
legend coined a mortality out Of
stone.
To the left the blue Mediterran-
can; and as one follows that golden
shore northward, treading the oath
OF the Jews through the wilderness
Canaan appears; and to the east
OF it the land of Judah and the sea
called Dead.
Still farther north, along the
coast, Tyre and Sidon, where the
Phoenicians once sheltered the trade
OF the world, thrive yet with har-
bors filled and markets humming;
and again, fifty miles to the east
ADJUSTMENTS