Sentence:  Being somewhat delicate in health , at the age of sixteen he was sent to Southern Europe , for which he at once developed a passion , so that he spent nearly all of the following ten years abroad , at first in Italy , then in Greece , <WSD>Egypt</WSD> , Asia Minor , and Palestine . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a republic in northeastern Africa known as the United Arab Republic until 1971; site of an ancient civilization that flourished from 2600 to 30 BC