i : } | nha Ny grater ae ps 4 i i % og ‘ i i 4 i a inaimin A Sinton A ae 2 4 , | * i Hy es A i. ; it (S$ Ky fm heel neon (G7 / be Ab 2620 HIS74R- LOB} THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN. BY WINWOOD) Ree ADE LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., 8 & 60 PATERNOSTER ROW. 1872. All rights reserved. PRHE ACE. In 1862-3 I made a tour in Western Africa, and afterwards desired to revisit that strange country with the view of opening up new ground, and of studying religion and morality among the natives. I was, how- ever, unable to bear a second time the great expenses of African travelling, and had almost given up the hope of becoming an explorer, when I was introduced by Mr Bates, the well-known Amazon traveller, and Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, to one of its Associates, Mr Andrew Swanzy, who !had long desired to do something in the cause of African Dis- covery. He placed unlimited means at my disposal, and left me free to choose my own route. I travelled in Africa two years (’68-’70), and made a journey which is mentioned in the text. The narrative of my travels will be published in due course ; I allude to them now | in order to show that I have had some personal experi- -ence of savages, and I wish also to take the first oppor- tunity of thanking Mr Swanzy for his assistance, which was given not only in the most generous but also in the most graceful manner. With respect to the present work, I commenced it intending to prove that Negro- land or Inner Africa is not cut off from the, main- stream of events as writers of philosophical history have always maintained, but that it is connected by means of Islam with the lands of the East, and also that it lV PREFACE. has, by means of the slave-trade, powerfully influenced the moral history of Europe, and the political history of the United States. But I was gradually led from the history of Africa into writing the history of the world. I could not describe the Negroland of ancient times without describing Egypt and Carthage. From Egypt I was drawn to Asia and to Greece, from Carthage I was drawn to Rome. That is the first chapter. Next, having to relate the progress of the Mahometans in Central Africa, it was necessary for me to explain the nature and origin of Islam ; but that religion cannot be understood without a previous study of Christianity and Judaism, and those religions cannot be understood without a study of religion among savages. That is the second chapter. Thirdly, I sketched the history of the slave-trade, which took me back to the dis- coveries of the Portuguese, the glories of Venetian commerce, the Revival of the Arts, the Dark Ages, and the Invasion of the Germans. Thus finding that my outline of Universal History was almost complete, I determined in the last chapter to give a brief summary of the whole, filling up the parts omitted, and adding to it the materials of another work suggested several years ago by the “Origin of Species.” One of my reasons for revisiting Africa was to collect materials for this work, which I had intended to call “The Origin of Mind.” However, Mr Darwin’s “Descent of Man” has left little for me to say respecting the birth and in- fancy of the faculties and affections. I, therefore, merely follow in his footsteps, not from blind veneration for a Great Master, but because I find that his conclusions are confirmed by the phenomena of savage life. On certain minor points I venture to dissent from Mr Darwin’s views, as I shall show in my personal narrative, and PREFACE. Vv there is probably much in this work of which Mr Darwin will disapprove. He must, therefore, not be made responsible for all the opinions of his disciple. I intended to have given my authorities in full, with notes and elucidations, but am prevented from doing so by want of space, this volume being already larger than it should be. I wish therefore to impress upon the reader that there is scarcely anything in this work which I can claim as my own. I have taken not only facts and ideas, but phrases and even paragraphs from other writers. I cannot pay all my debts in full, but I must at least do myself the pleasure to mention those authors who have been my chief guides. On Egypt, Wilkin- son, Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Bunsen; EHthiopiu or Abyssinia, Bruce, Baker, Lepsius; Carthage, Heeren’s African Nations, Niebuhr, Mommsen; Kast Africa, Vincent’s Periplus, Guillain, Hakluyt Society’s Publica- tions; Moslem Africa (Central), Park, Caillié, Den- ham and Clapperton, Lander, Barth, Ibn Batuta, Leo Africanus; Guinea and South Africa, Azurara, Barros, Major, Hakluyt, Purchas, Livingstone; Assyria, Sir H. Rawlinson, Layard; India, Max Muller, Weber ; Persia, Heeren’s Asiatic Nations ; Ventral Asia, Burnes, Wolff, Vambéry ;1 Arabia, Niebuhr, Caussin de Perceval, Sprenger, Deutsch, Muir, Burckhardt, Burton, Pal- grave ; Palestine, Dean Stanley, Renan, Dollinger, Spinoza, Robinson, Neander; Greece, Grote, O. Miiller, Curtius, Heeren, Lewes, Taine, About, Becker’s Charicles ; Rome, Gibbon, Macaulay, Becker's Gallus; Dark Ages, Hallam, Guizot, Robertson, Prescott, Irving; Philosophy of History, Herder, Buckle, Comte, Lecky, Mill, Draper; Science, Darwin, Lyell, Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Vestiges of Creation, Wal- lace, Tylor, and Lubbock. All the works of the above- Vi PREFACE. named authors deserve to be carefully read by the student of Universal History, and in them he will find references to the original authorities, and to all writers of importance on the various subjects treated of in this work. As for my religious sentiments, they are ex- pressed in opposition to the advice and wishes of several literary friends, and of the publisher, who have urged me to alter certain passages which they do not like, and which they believe will provoke against me the anger of the public. Now, as a literary workman, I am thankful to be guided by the knowledge of ex- perts, and I bow to the decisions of the great public, for whom alone I write, whom alone I care to please, and in whose broad unbiassed judgment I place im- plicit trust. But in the matter of religion, I listen to no remonstrance, I acknowledge no decision save that of the divine monitor within me. My conscience is my adviser, my audience, and my judge. It bade me write as I have written, without evasion, without dis- guise ; it bids me to go on as I have begun, whatever the result may be. If, therefore, my religious opinions should be condemned, without a single exception, by every reader of the book, it will not make me regret having expressed them, and it will not prevent me from expressing them again. It is my earnest and sincere conviction that those opinions are not only true, but also that they tend to elevate and purify the mind. One thing at all events I know, that it has done me good to write this book: and, therefore, I do not think that it can injure those by whom it will be read. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. WAR. Egypt, Western Asia, The Persians, . . The Greeks, The Macedonians, Alexandria, The Pheenicians, Carthage and Rome, Roman Africa, The Arabs, CHAPTER II. RELIGION. The Natural History of Religion, The Israelites, . The Jews, The Prophets, Character of Jesus, The Christians, Arabia, Mecca, Character of Mahomet, Description of Africa, . The Mahometans in Central Africa, PAGE 1-48 48-55 55-62 62-83 83-94 94-106 106-111 111-153 153-161 161-163 164-182 182-198 198-214 214-221 221-228 228-249 250-255 255-258 258-269 270-286 287-296 Vill CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. LIBERTY. Ancient Europe, Invasion of the Germans, The Castle, The Town, The Church, Venice, Arab Spain, The Portuguese Discoverers, The Slave Trade, Abolition in Europe, . Abolition in America, : Materials of Human History, . CHAPTER IV. INTELLECT. Animal Period of the Earth, Origin of Man, and Early History, Summary of Universal History, The Future of the Human Race, The Religion of Reason and of Love, . PAGE 298-300 300-301 301-306 307-309 309 314 316-319 320-324 225-341 341-348 348-369 370-386 388-394 395-418 418-463 463-502 502-515 515-544 CHAPTER I. WAR. THE land of Egypt is six hundred miles long, and is bounded by two ranges of naked limestone hills which sometimes approach, and sometimes retire from each other, leaving between them an average breadth of seven miles. On the north they widen and disappear, giving place to a marshy meadow plain which extends to the Mediterranean Coast. On the south they are no longer of limestone, but of granite; they narrow to a point; they close in till they almost touch; and through the mountain gate thus formed, the river Nile leaps with a roar into the valley, and runs due north towards the sea. In the winter and spring it rolls a languid stream through a dry and dusty plain. But in the summer an extraordinary thing happens. The river grows troubled and swift; it turns red as blood, and then green ; it rises, it swells, till at length overflowing its banks, it covers the adjoining lands to the base of the hills on either side. The whole valley becomes a lake from which the villages rise like islands, for they are built on artificial mounds. This catastrophe was welcomed by the Egyptians with religious gratitude and noisy mirth. When their fields had entirely disappeared they thanked the gods and kept their harvest-home. The tax-gatherers © measured the water as if it were grain, and announced A e 2, THE WATER HARVEST. what the crops and the budget of the next year would be. Gay barges with painted sails conveyed the merry husbandmen from village to village, and from fair to fair. It was then that they had their bull fights, their boat tournaments, their wrestling matches, their bouts at single-stick and other athletic sports. It was then that the thimble-riggers and jack- puddings, the blind harpers and nigger minstrels from Central Africa amused the holiday-hearted crowd. It was then that the old people sat over draughts and dice-box in the cosy shade, while the boys played at mora, or pitch and toss, and the girls at a game of ball, with forfeits for the one who missed a catch. It was then that the house-father bought new dolls for the children, and amulets, or gold ear-rings, or neck- laces of porcelain bugles for the wife. It was then that the market stalls abounded with joints of beef and venison, and with geese hanging down in long rows, and with chickens hatched by thousands under heaps of dung. Salted quails, smoked fish, date sweetmeats, doora cakes and cheese; leeks, garlic, cucumber and onions; lotus seeds mashed in milk, roasted stalks of papyrus, jars of barley beer and palm wine, with many other kinds of food were sold in unusual plenty at that festive time. It was then also that the white robed priests, bear- ing the image of a god, and singing hymns, marched with solemn procession to the water side, and cast in a sacrifice of gold. For the water which had thus risen was their life. Egypt is by nature a rainless desert, which the Nile, and the Nile only, converts into a garden every year. Far far away in the distant regions of the south, in the deep heart of Africa, lie two inland seas. These THE SOURCES OF THE NILE. 3 are the head waters of the Nile; its sources are in the sky. For the clouds, laden with waters collected out of many seas, sail to the African equator, and there pour down a ten months’ rain. This ocean of falling water is received on a region sloping towards the north, and is conveyed by a thousand channels to the vast rocky cisterns which form the Speke and Baker Lakes. They, filled and bursting, cast forth the Nile, and drive it from them through a terrible and thirsty land. The hot air lies on the stream and laps it as it flows. The parched soil swallows it with open pores ; but ton after ton of water is supplied from the gigantic reservoirs behind, and so it is enabled to cross that vast desert, which spreads from the latitude of Lake Tchad to the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. The existence of the Nile is due to the Nyanza Lakes alone, but the inundation of the river has a distinct and separate cause. In that phenomenon the lakes are not concerned. Between the Nile and the mouth of the Arabian Gulf are situated the Highlands of Abyssinia, rising many thousand feet above the level of the sea, and intercepting the clouds of the Indian Ocean in their flight towards the north. From these mountains, as soon as the rainy season has set in, two great rivers come thundering down their dried up beds, and rush into the Nile. The main stream is now forced im- petuously along; in the Nubian desert its swelling waters are held in between walls of rock ; as soon as it reaches the low-lying lands of Egypt it naturally overflows. The Abyssinian tributaries do even more than this. The waters of the White Nile are transparent and pure; but the Atbara and Blue Nile bring down 4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEISURE. from their native land a black silt, which the flood strews over the whole valley as a kind of top-dressing or manure. On that rich and unctuous mud, as soon as the waters have retired, the natives cast their seed. Then their labours are completed; no changes of weather need afterwards be feared, no anxious looks are turned towards the sky; sunshine only is required to fulfil the crop, and in Egypt the sun is never covered by a cloud. Thus, were it not for the White Nile, the Abys- sinian rivers would be drunk up by the desert ; and were it not for the Abyssinian rivers, the White Nile would be a barren stream. The River is created by the rains of the equator; the Land by the tropical rains condensed in one spot by the Abyssinian mountain pile. In that fair Egyptian valley, fattened by a foreign soil, brightened by eternal sunshine, watered by ter- restial rain, the natives were able to obtain a year’s food in return for a few days’ toil, and so were pro- vided with that wealth of time which is essential for a nation’s growth. A people can never rise from low estate as long as they are engrossed in the painful struggle for daily bread. On the other hand, leisure alone is not suffi- cient to effect the self-promotion of men. The savage of the primeval forest burns down a few trees every year, his women raise an easy crop from the ashes which mingle with the soil. He basks all day in the sunshine, or prostrates himself in his canoe with his arms behind his head and a fishing line tied to his big toe.. When the meat-hunger comes upon him he takes up bow and arrow and goes for a few days into the bush. His life is one long torpor, with spasms of AGRICULTURAL MONOGAMY. o activity. Century follows century, but he does not change. Again, the shepherd tribes roam from pasture to pasture: their flocks and herds yield them food and dress, and houses of hair, as they cail their tents. They have little work to do: their time is almost entirely their own. They pass long hours in slow conversation, in gazing at the heavens, in the sensuous passive oriental reverie. The intellectual capacities of such men are by no means to be despised, as those who have lived among them are aware. They are skilful interpreters of nature’s language, and of the human heart: they compose beautiful poems; their religion is simple and sublime; yet time passes on, and they do not advance. The Arab sheik of the present day lives precisely as Abraham did three thousand years ago; the Tartars of central Asia are the Scythians whom Herodotus described. It is the first and indispensable condition of human progress that a people shall be married to a single land: that they shall wander no more from one region to another, but remain fixed and faithful to their soil. Then if the Earth-wife be fruitful, she will bear them children by hundreds and by thousands; and then, Calamity will come and teach them by torture to invent. The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were roated in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits; and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage - state. ; It may appear strange that Egypt should have suf- - fered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. 6 THE LAW OF MASSACRE. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants ; and on the borders of the desert, thick groves of date palms which love a neutral soil, embowered the villages, and formed live granaries of fruit. But however plentiful food may be in any country, the population of that country, as Malthus discovered, will outstrip it in the long run. If food is unusually cheap, population will increase at an unusually rapid rate, and there is no limit to its ratio of increase ; no limit, that is to say, except disease and death. On the other hand, there is a limit to the amount of food that can be raised, for the basis of food is land, and land is a fixed quantity. Unless some discovery is made, by means of which provisions may be manu- factured with as much facility as children, the whole earth will some day be placed in the same predica- ment as the island in which we live, which has out- grown its food-producing power, and is preserved from starvation only by means of foreign corn. At the time we speak of Egypt was irrigated by the Nile in a natural, and therefore imperfect manner. Certain tracts were overflooded, others were left com- pletely dry. The valley was filled with people to the brim. When it was a good Nile, every ear of corn, every bunch of dates, every papyrus stalk and lotus root, was pre-engaged. There was no waste and no surplus store. But sometimes a bad Nile came. The bread of the people depended on the amount of inundation, and that on the tropical rains, which vary more than is usually supposed. If the rainy season in the Abyssinian highlands happened to be GOD MADE ALL MEN UNEQUAL. 7 slight, the river could not pay its full tribute of earth ana water to the valley below; and if the rainfall was unusually severe, houses were swept away, cattle were drowned, and the water, instead of returning at the usual time, became stagnant on the fields. In either case, famine and pestilence invariably ensued. The plenty of ordinary years, like a baited trap, had pro- duced aluxuriance of human life, and the massacre was proportionally severe. Encompassed by the wil- derness, the unfortunate natives were unable to escape ; they died in heaps; the valley resembled a field of battle ; each village became a charnel-house ; skeletons sat grinning at street corners, and the winds clattered among dead men’s bones. A few survivors lingered miserably through the year, browsing on the thorny shrubs of the desert, and sharing with the vultures their horrible repast. | God made all men equal is a fine-sounding phrase, and has also done good service in its day ; but it is not a scientific fact. On the contrary, there is nothing so certain as the natural inequality of men. Those who outlive hardships and sufferings which fall on all alike owe their existence to some superiority, not only of body, but of mind. It will easily be conceived that among such superior minded men there would be some who, stimulated by the memory of that which was - past, and by the fear of that which might return, would strain to the utmost their ingenuity to control and guide the fickle river which had hitherto sported _ with their lives. We shall not attempt to trace out their inventions step by step. Humble in its beginnings, slow in its improvements, the art or science of Hydraulics was finally mastered by the Egyptians, They devised a 8 FAMINE THE MOTHER OF ASTRONOMY. system of dikes, reservoirs, and lock-canals, by means of which the excessive waters of a violent Nile were turned from the fields and stored up to supply the wants of a dry year; thus also the precious fluid was conveyed to tracts of land lying above the level of the river, and was distributed over the whole valley with such precision that each lot or farm received a just and equal share. Next, as the inundation destroyed all landmarks, Surveying became a necessary art in order to settle the disputes which broke out every year. And as the rising of the waters was more and more carefully observed, it was found that its com- mencement coincided with certain aspects of the stars. This led to the study of Astronomy and the discovery of the solar year. Agriculture became a mathematical art: it was ascertained that so many feet of water would yield so many quarters of corn ; and thus, be- fore a single seed was sown, they could count up the harvest as correctly as if it had been already gathered in. A natural consequence of all this was the separation of the inventor class, who became at first the coun- sellors, and afterwards the rulers of the people. But while the men of mind were battling with the forces of Nature, a contest of another kind was also going on. Those who dwell on the rich banks of a river flowing through desert lands are always liable to be © attacked by the wandering shepherd hordes who resort to the waterside in summer, when the wilderness pas- ture is dried up. There is nothing such tribes desire better than to conquer the corn-growing people of the river lands, and to make them pay a tribute of grain when the crops are taken in. The Egyptians, as soon as they had won their harvests from the flood, were obliged to defend them against the robbers of the CRUELTY THE NURSE OF CIVILIZATION. 9 desert, and out of such wars arose a military caste. These allied themselves with the intellectual caste, who were also priests, for among the primitive nations religion and science were invariably combined. In this manner the bravest and wisest of the Egyptians rose above the vulgar crowd, and the nation was divided into two great classes, the rulers and the ruled. Then oppression continued the work which war and famine had begun. The priests announced, and the armies executed, the divine decrees. The people were reduced to servitude. The soldiers discovered the gold and emerald mines of the adjoining hills, and filled their dark recesses with chained slaves and savage overseers. They became invaders; they explored dis- tant lands with the spear. Communications with Syria and the fragrant countries at the mouth of the Red Sea, first opened by means of war, were continued by means of commerce. Foreign produce became an element of Egyptian life. The privileged classes found it necessary to be rich. Formerly the priests had merely salted the bodies of the dead; now a fashion- able corpse must be embalmed at an expense of two hundred and fifty pounds, with asphalt from the Dead Sea and spices from the Somauli groves ; costly incense must be burnt on the altars of the gods; aristocratic heads must recline on ivory stools; fine ladies must glitter with gold ornaments and precious stones, and must be served by waiting-maids and pages with woolly hair and velvety black skins. War and agriculture were no longer sufficient to supply these patrician wants. It was no longer sufficient that the people should feed on dates and the coarse doura bread, while the wheat which they raised was sold by their masters 10 JESUITICAL NATURE. for gew-gaws and perfumes. Manufactures were estab- lished ; slaves laboured at a thousand looms ; the linen goods of Egypt became celebrated throughout the world. Laboratories were opened; remarkable dis- coveries were made. The Egyptian priests distilled brandy and sweet waters. They used the blow-pipe, and were far advanced in the chemical processes of art. They fabricated glass mosaics, and counterfeited precious stones and porcelain of exquisite transparency and delicately blended hues. With the fruits of these inventions they adorned their daily life, and attracted into Egypt the riches of other lands. Thus when Nature selects a people to endow them with glory and with wealth her first proceeding is to massacre their bodies, her second, to debauch their minds. She begins with famine, pestilence, and war ; next, force and rapacity above; chains and slavery below. She uses evil as the raw material of good ; though her aim is always noble, her earliest means are base and cruel. But, as soon as a certain point is reached, she washes her black and bloody hands, and uses agents of a higher kind. Having converted the animal instinct of self-defence into the ravenous lust of wealth and power, that also she transforms into ambition of a pure and lofty kind, At first knowledge is sought only for the things which it will buy, the daily bread indispensable to life; and those trinkets of body and mind which vanity demands. Yet those low desires do not always and entirely possess the human soul, Wisdom is like the heiress of the novel who is at first courted only for her wealth, but whom the fortune-hunter learns afterwards to love for herself alone. ; At first sight there seems little in the arts and LABOUR LOVED. 11 sciences of Egypt which cannot be traced to the en- lightened selfishness of the priestly caste. For, in the earlier times it was necessary for the priests to labour unceasingly, to preserve the power which they had usurped. It was necessary to overawe not only the people who worked in the fields, but their own dangerous allies, the military class; to make religion not only mysterious, but magnificent: not only to predict the precise hour of the rising of the waters, or the eclipses of the moon, but also to adopt and nurture the fine arts, to dazzle the public with temples, monu- ments, and paintings. Above all, it was necessary to prepare a system of government which should keep the labouring classes in subjection, and yet stimulate them to labour indefatigably for the state, which should strip them of all the rewards of industry and yet keep that industry alive. Expediency will therefore account for much that the Egyptian intellect produced ; but it certainly will not account for all. The invention of hieroglyphics is alone sufficient to prove that higher motives were at work than mere political calculation and the appetite of gold. For writing was an inven- tion which at no time could have added in a palpable manner to the wealth or power of the upper classes, and which yet could not have been finished to a system without a vast expenditure of time and toil It could not have been the work of a single man, but of several labouring in the same direction, and in its early beginnings must have appeared as unpractical, as truly scientific to them, as the study of solar chemistry and the observation of the double stars to us. Besides, the intense and faithful labour which is conspicuous in all the Egyptian works of art could only have been in- spired by that enthusiasm which belongs to noble minds. 12 THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE. We may fairly presume that Egypt once possessed its chivalry of the intellect, its heroic age, and that the violent activity of thought generated by the love of life, and developed by the love of power was raised to its full zenith by the passion for art and science, for the beautiful and the true. At first the Nile valley was divided into a number of independent states, each possessing its own corpora- tion of priests and soldiers, its own laws and system of taxation, its own tutelary god and shrine ; but each a member of one body, united by the belief in one religion, and assembling from time to time to worship the national gods in an appointed place. There, according to general agreement, ratified by solemn oaths, all feuds were suspended, all weapons laid aside. There also, under the shelter of the sanctuary, property was secure, and the surplus commodities of the various districts could be conveniently interchanged. In such a place, frequented by vast crowds of pilgrims and traders, a great city would naturally arise ; and such it seems probable was the origin of Thebes. But Egypt, which possesses a simple undivided form, and which is nourished by one great arterial stream, appears destined to be surmounted by a single head, and we perceive in the dim dawn of history a revolu- tion taking place, and Menes, the Egyptian Charle- magne, founding an empire upon the ruins of local governments, and inspiring the various tribes with the sentiment of nationality. Thebes remained the sacred city ; but a new capital, Memphis, was built at the other end of the valley, not far from the spot where Cairo now stands. By degrees the Egyptian empire assumed a con- solidated form. A regular constitution was established THE ESTATES. 13 and a ritual prescribed. The classes were organised in a more effective manner, and were not at first too strictly fixed. All were at liberty to intermarry, excepting only the swineherds, who were regarded as unclean. The system of the government became masterly, and the servitude of the people became com- plete. Designs of imperial magnitude were accom- plished, some of them gigantic but useless, mere exploits of naked human strength ; others were struc- tures of true grandeur and utility. The valley was adorned with splendid monuments and_ temples; colossal statues were erected, which rose above the houses, like the towers and spires of our cathedral towns. An army of labourers was employed against the Nile. The course of the mighty stream was altered; its waters were snatched from its bosom, and stored up in the Lake Meeris, an artificial basin, ‘hollowed out of an extensive swamp, and thence were conducted by a system of canals into the neighbouring desert, which they changed to smiling fields. For the Sahara can always be revived, It is barren only because it receives no rain. The Empire consisted of three estates; the Monarch, the Army, and the Church. There were in theory no limits to the power of the king. His authority was derived directly from the gods. He was called the Sun ; he was the head of the religion and the state ; he was the supreme judge and lawgiver; he com- manded the army and led it to war. But in reality his power was controlled and reduced to mere pagean- try by a parliament of priests. He was elected by the military class; but as soon as he was crowned he was initiated into the mysteries and subjected to the severe discipline of the holy order. No slave or 14 KING. hireling might approach his person: the lords in waiting, with the state parasol, and the ostrich feather fans, were princes of the blood; his other attendants were invariably priests. The royal time was filled and measured by routine: laws were laid down in the holy books for the order and nature of his occupa- tions. At daybreak he examined and despatched his correspondence ; he then put on his robes and attended divine service in the temple. Extracts were read from those holy books which contained the sayings and actions of distinguished men, and these were followed by a sermon from the High Priest. He extolled the virtues of the reigning sovereign, but criticised severely the lives of those who had preceded him ; a post mortem examination to which the king knew that he would be subjected in his turn. He was forbidden to commit any kind of excess : he was restricted to a plain diet of veal and goose, and to a measured quantity of wine. The laws hung over him day and night; they governed his public and private actions ; they followed him even to the recesses of his chamber, and appointed a set time for the embraces of his queen. He could not punish a single person except in accordance with the code ; the judges took oath before the king that they would disobey the king if he ordered them to do anything contrary to law. The ministry were responsible for the actions of their master, and they guarded their own safety. They made it impossible for him to forfeit that reverence and affection which the ignorant and religious always entertain for their anointed king. He was adored as a god, when living, and when he died he was mourned by the whole nation as if each man had lost a well-beloved child. During seventy-two days the ARMY. 15 temples were closed ; lamentations filled the air: and the people fasted, abstaining from flesh and wine, cooked food, ointments, baths, and the company of their wives. The Army appears to have been severely disciplined. To run twenty miles before breakfast was part of the ordinary drill. The amusements of the soldiers were athletic sports and martial games. Yet they were not merely fighting men: they were also farmers; each warrior received from the state twelve acres of choice land: these gave him a solid interest in the prosperity of the fatherland and in the maintenance of civil peace. The most powerful of the three estates was un- doubtedly the Church. In the priesthood were in- cluded not only the ministers of religion, but also the whole civil service and the liberal professions. Priests were the royal chroniclers and keepers of the records, the engravers of inscriptions, physicians of the sick and embalmers of the dead; lawyers and lawgivers, sculptors and musicians. Most of the skilled labour of the country was under their control. In their hands were the linen manufactories and the quarries between the Cataracts. Even those posts in the army which required a knowledge of arithmetic and penmanship were supplied by them: every general was attended by young priest scribes, with papyrus rolls in their hands and reed pencils behind their ears. The clergy preserved the monopoly of the arts which they had invented ; the whole intellectual life of Egypt was in them. It was they who, with their Nilometers, took the measure of the waters, proclaimed good harvests to the people, or bade them prepare for hungry days. It was they who studied the diseases of the country, 16 CHURCH. compiled a Pharmacopeia, and invented the signs which are used in our prescriptions at the present day. It was they who judged the living and the dead, who enacted laws which extended beyond the grave, who issued passports to paradise, or condemned to eternal infamy the memories of men that were no more. - Their power was immense ; but it was exercised with justice and discretion: they issued admirable laws, and taught the people to obey them by the example of their own humble, self-denying lives. Under thetutelage of these piousand enlightened men, the Egyptians became a prosperous, and also a highly moral people. The monumental paintings reveal their whole life, but we read in them no brutal or licentious scenes. Their great rivals, the Assyrians, even at a. later period, were accustomed to impale and flay alive their prisoners of war. The Egyptians granted honours to those who fought gallantly against them. The penalty for the murder of a slave was death ; this law exists without parallel in the dark slavery annals both of ancient and of modern times. The pardoning power in cases of capital offence was a cherished pre- rogative of royalty with them, as with us; and with them also as with us, when a pregnant woman was con- demned to death the execution was postponed until after the birth of the guiltless child. It is a sure cri- terion of the civilization of ancient Egypt that the soldiers did not carry arms except on duty, and that the private citizens did not carry them at all. Women were treated with much regard. They were allowed to join their husbands in the sacrifices to the gods; the bodies of man and wife were united in the tomb. When a party was given, the guests were received by the host and hostess seated side by side in a large arm- TRIAL OF THE DEAD. 17 chair. In the paintings their mutual affection is por- trayed. Their fond manners, their gestures of endear- ment, the caresses which they lavish on their children, form sweet and touching scenes of domestic life. Crimes could not be compounded as in so many other ancient lands by the payment of a fine. The man who witnessed a crime without attempting to prevent it, was punished as partaker. The civil laws were administered in such a manner that the poor could have recourse to them as well asthe rich. The judges received large salaries that they might be placed above the temptation of bribery, and might never dis- grace the image of Truth which they wore round their necks, suspended on a golden chain. But most powerful of all, to preserve the morality of the people by giving a tangible force to public opinion, and by impeaching those sins against society which no legal code can touch, was that sublime police insti- tution, the Trial of the Dead. When the corpse had been brought back from the embalming house, it was encased in a sycamore coffin covered with flowers, placed in a sledge and drawn by oxen to the sacred lake. The hearse was followed by the relations of the deceased, the men unshorn and casting dust upon their heads, the women beating their breasts and singing mournful, hymns. On the banks of the lake sat forty-two judges in the shape of a cres- cent; a great crowd was assembled; in the water floated a canoe, and within it stood Charon the ferry- man awaiting the sentence of the chief judge. On the other side of the lake lay a sandy plain, and beyond it a range of long low hills, in which might be discerned ’ the black mouths of the caverns of the dead. It was in the power of any man to step forward B 18 THE PAINTED TOMB. and accuse the departed before the body could be borne across. If the charge was held to be proved, the body was denied burial in the consecrated ground, ‘and the crowd silently dispersed. If a verdict of not guilty was returned, the accuser suffered the penalty of the crime alleged, and the ceremony took its course. The relatives began to sing with praises the biography of the deceased ; they sang in what manner he had been brought up from a child till he came to man’s estate, how pious he had been towards the gods; how righteous he had been towards men. And if this was true, if the man’s life had indeed been good, the crowd joined in chorus, clapping their hands and sang back in return that he would be received into the glory of the just. Then the coffin was laid in the canoe, and the silent ferryman plied his oar, and a priest read the service of the dead : and the body was deposited in the cemetery caves. If he was a man of rank he was laid in a chamber of his own, and the sacred artists painted on the walls an illustrated catalogue of his possessions, the principal occupations of his life, and scenes of the society in which he moved. For the priests taught, that since life is short and death is long, man’s dwelling house is but a lodging, and his eternal habitation is the tomb. Thus the family vault of the Egyptian was his picture gallery, and thus the manners and customs of this singular people have, like their bodies, been preserved through long ages, by means of religious art. There are also still existing on the walls of the temples, and in the grotto tombs, grand historical paintings which illuminate the terse chronicles en- graved upon the granite. Among these may be remarked one subject in particular, which appears THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT. 19 to have been a favourite with the artist and the public, for it again and again recurs. The Egyptians, distin- guished always by their smooth faces and shaven heads, are pursuing an enemy with long beards and flowing robes, who are surrounded by flocks and herds. The Egyptians here show no. mercy, they appear alive with fury and revenge. Sometimes the "victor is depicted with a scornful air, his foot placed upon the ueck of a prostrate foe; sometimes he is piercing the body through and through with a spear. Certain sandals have also been discovered, in which the figure of the same enemy is painted on the inner sole, so that the foot trod upon the portrait when the sandal was put on. Those bearded men had inflicted on Egypt long years of dreadful disaster and disgrace. They were the Bedouins of the Arabian peninsula; a pastoral race, who wandered eternally in a burning land, each tribe or clan within an orbit of its own. When they met they fought, the women uttering savage cries, and cursing their husbands if they retreated from the foe. Accustomed to struggle to the death for a handful of withered grass, or for a little muddy water at the bottom of a well, what a rich harvest must Egypt have appeared to them! In order to obtain it they were able to suspend all feuds, to take an oath of alliance, and to unite into a single horde. They de- scended upon their prey and seized it at the first swoop. ‘There does not appear to have been even one great battle, and this can be explained, if as is pro- bable enough, the Egyptians before that invasion had never seen a horse. The Arab horse, or rather mare, lived in her mas- ter’s tent, and supped from the calabash of milk, and 20 THE HORSE OF WAR. lay down to sleep with the other members of the family. She was the playmate of the childrén; on her the cruel, the savage Bedouin lavished the one tender feeling of his heart. He treasured up in his mind her pedigree as carefully as his own; he com- posed songs in honour of his beloved steed ;_ his friend, his companion, his ally. He sang to her of the gazelles which they had hunted down, and of the battles’ which they had fought together; for the Arab horse was essentially a beast of war. When the signal was given for the charge, when the rider loudly yelling, couched his spear, she snorted and panted and bounded in the air. With tail raised and spreading to the wind, with neck beautifully arched, mane flap- ping, red nostrils dilating, and glaring eyes, she rushed like an arrow into the midst of the melée. Though covered with wounds she would never turn restive or try to escape, but if her master was compelled to take to flight she would carry him till she dropped down dead. It is quite possible that when the mounted army appeared in the river plain the inhabitants were para- lysed with fright, and believed them to be fabulous animals, winged men. Be that as it may, the conquest was speedy and complete; the imperial Memphis was taken ; Egypt was enslaved ; the king, and his family and court, were compelled to seek a new home across the sandy seas, On the south side of the Nubian desert was the land of Ethiopia, the modern Soudan, which had been conquered by the Egyptians, and which they used as an emporium in their caravan trade with Central Africa and the shores of the Red Sea. But it could be reached only by means of a journey which is not pita eile op THE TERRIBLE SAHARA. ali without danger at the present day, and which must have been inexpressibly arduous at a time when the camel had not been introduced. The Nile, it is true, flows through this desert, and joins Ethiopia to Egypt with a silver chain, But from the time of its leaving Soudan until it reaches the black granite gate which marks the Egyptian frontier, it is confined within a narrow, crooked, hollow way. Navigation is impossible, for its bed is continually broken up by rocks, and the stream is walled in; it cannot overflow its banks. The reign of the Sahara is uninterrupted, undisturbed. On all sides is the desert, the brown shining desert, the implacable waste. Above is a ball of fire ascending and descending in a steel blue sky ; below a dry and scorching sea, which the wind ripples into gloomy waves. The air is a cloud which rains fire, for it is dim with perpetual dust—each molecule a spark. The eye is pained and dazzled ; it can find no rest. The ear is startled ; it can find no sound. In the soft and yielding sand the footstep perishes unheard ; nothing murmurs, nothing rustles, nothing sings. ‘This silence is terrible, for it conveys the idea of death, and all know that in the desert death is not far off. When the elements be- come active they assume peculiar and portentous forms, If the wind blows hard a strange storm arises; the atmosphere is pervaded by a dull and lurid glare ; pillars of sand spring up as if by magic, and whirl round and round in a ghastly and fantastic dance. Then a mountain appearing on the horizon spreads upward in the sky, and a darkness more dark than night falls suddenly upon the earth. To those who gasp with swelled tongues and blackened lips in the last agonies of thirst, the mirage, like a mocking 22, THE BLACK COUNTRY. dream, exhibits lakes of transparent water and shady trees. But the wells of this desert are scanty, and the waters found in them are salt. The fugitives concealed the images of the gods, and taking with them the sacred animals, embarked upon their voyage of suffering and woe. After many weary days they again sighted land: they arrived on the shores of Ethiopia, the country of the blacks, Once more their eyes were refreshed with green pastures ; once more they listened to the rustling of the palms, and drank the sweet waters of the Nile. Yet soon they discovered that it was not their own dear river, it was not their own beloved land. In Egypt nature was a gentle handmaid; here she was a cruel and capricious queen. The sky flashed and bellowed against them ; the rain fell in torrents, and battered down the houses of the Ethiopians, wretched huts like hay-ricks, round in body with a cone-shaped roof, built of grass and mud. The lowlands changed be- neath the flood, not into meadows of flowers and fields of waving corn, but into a pestilential morass. At the rising of the dog-star came a terrible fly which drove even the wild beasts from the river banks and de- stroyed all flocks and herds. At that evil season the Egyptian colonists were forced to migrate to the forests of the interior, which were filled with savage tribes. Here were the TYroglodytes who lived under ground; an ointment was their only dress; their language- resembled the hissing of serpents and the whistling of bats. Every month they indulged in a carouse ; every month they opened the veins of their sheep and drank of the warm and gurgling blood as if it had been delicious wine. They made merry when they buried their dead, and, roaring with THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 93 laughter, cast stones upon the corpse until it was concealed from view. Here were the voot-eaters, the twig-eaters, and the seed-eaters, who lived entirely on such wretched kinds of food. Here were the elephant- eaters, who, sitting on the tops of trees like birds, watched the roads, and when they had sighted a herd, crept after it, and hovered round it till the sleepy hour of noon arrived. Then they selected a victim, stole up to it:snake-like from behind, hamstrung the enormous creature with a dexterous cut from a sharp sword, and, as it lay helpless on the ground, feasted upon morsels of its live and palpitating flesh. Here were the locust-eaters, whose harvest was a passing swarm ; for they lit a smoky fire underneath, which made the insects fall like withered leaves: they roasted them, pounded them, and made them into cakes with salt. The fish-eaters dwelt by the coral- line borders of the Red Sea; they lived in wigwams thatched with sea-weed, with ribs of whales for the rafters and the walls. The richest men were those who possessed the largest bones. There was no fresh water near the shore where they hunted for their food. At stated times they went in herds like cattle to the distant river-side, and singing to one another discord- ant songs, lay flat on their bellies, and drank till they were gorged. Such was the land to which the Pharaohs were exiled. In the meantime the Bedouins established a dynasty which ruled a considerable time, and is known in hieroglyphic history as that of the Hyskos or Shepherd Kings. But those barbarians were not domiciled in Egypt. They could not breathe inside houses, and could not understand how the walls remained upright. The camp 24 THE RESTORATION. was their true fatherland. They lived aloof from the Egyptians; they did not ally themselves with the country gods; they did not teach the people whom they had conquered to regard them as the successors of the Pharaohs. Their art of government began and ended with the collection of a tax, The Shepherd Kings were associated in the minds of the Egyptian fellahs, not with their ancient and revered religion, not with the laws by which they were still governed under their local chiefs, but only with the tribute of corn which was extorted from them every harvest by the whip. The idea of revolution was always present in their minds. Misfortune bestowed upon them the ferocious virtues of the desert, while the vice of cities crept into the Bedouin camp. The invaders became corrupted by luxurious indolence and sensual excess, till at length a descendant of the Pharaohs raised an army “in Ethiopia and invaded Egypt. The uprising was general, and the Arabs were driven back into their own harsh and meagre land. The period which followed the Restoration is the most brilliant in Egyptian history. The expulsion of the Bedouins excited an enthusiasm which could not be contained within the narrow valley of the Nile. Egypt became not only an independent but a conquer- _ing power. Her armies overran Asia to the shores of the Euxine and of the Caspian Sea. Her fleets swept over the Indian Ocean to the mud-stained shallows at the Indus mouth. On the monuments we may read the proud annals of those campaigns. We see the Egyptian army, with its companies of archers shooting from the ear like the Englishmen of old ; we see their squadrons of light and heavy chariots of war, which skilfully skirmished or heavily charged the dense PHARAOH TRIUMPHANT. 25 masses of the foe; we see their remarkable engines for besieging fortified towns ; their scaling ladders, their moveable towers, and their shield-covered rams. We see the Pharaoh returning in triumph, his car drawn by captive kings, and a long procession of prisoners bearing the productions of their respective lands. The nature and variety of those trophies suffi- ciently prove how wide and distant the Egyptian con- quests must have been; for among the animals that figure in the triumph are the brown bear, the baboon, the Indian elephant, and the giraffe. Among the prisoners are negroes of Soudan in aprons of bull’s hides, or in wild beast skins with the tails hanging down behind. They carry ebony, ivory, and gold; their chiefs are adorned with leopard robes and ostrich feathers, as they are at the present day. We see also men from some cold country of the north with blue eyes and yellow hair, wearing light dresses and long- fingered gloves; while others clothed like Indians are bearing beautiful vases, rich stuffs, and strings of pre- cious stones. When the kings came back from their campaigns, they built temples of the yellow and rose-tinted sand- stone, with obelisks of green granite, and long avenues of sphinxes, to commemorate their victories and im- mortalise their names. They employed prisoners of war to erect these memorials of war; it became the fashion to boast that a great structure had been raised without a single Egyptian being doomed to work. By means of these victories the servitude of the lower classes was mitigated for a time, and the wealth of the upper classes was enormously increased. The con- quests, it is true, were not permanent; they were merely raids on a large scale. But in very ancient 26 AN EGYPTIAN DRAWING-ROOM. times, when seclusion and suspicion formed the foreign policy of States, and when national intercourse was scarcely known, invasion was often the pioneer of trade. The wealth of Egypt was not derived from military spoil, which soon dissolves, however large it may appear, but from the new markets opened for their linen goods. It is certain that the riches contained in the country were immense. The house of an Egyptian gentleman was furnished in an elegant and costly style. The cabinets, tables, and chairs were beautifully carved, and were made entirely of foreign woods; of ebony from Ethiopia, of a kind of mahogany from India, of deal from Syria, or of cedar from the heights of Lebanon. The walls and ceilings were painted in gorgeous patterns similar to those which are now woven into carpets. Every sitting room was adorned with a vase of perfumes, a flower-stand and an altar for unburnt offerings. The house was usually one storey high: but the roof was itself an apartment sometimes covered, but always open at the sides. There the house-master would ascend in the evening to breathe the cool wind, and to watch the city waking into life when the heat was past. The streets swarmed and hummed with men; the river was covered with gilded gondolas gliding by. And when the sudden night had fallen, lamps flashed and danced below ; from the house-yards came sounds of laughter and the tinkling of castanets; from the stream came the wailing music of the boatmen and the soft splash- ing of the lazy oar. The Egyptain grandee had also his villa or country house. Its large walled garden was watered by a canal communicating with the Nile. One side of the AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE. pel canal was laid out in a walk shaded by trees; the leafy sycamore, the acacia with its yellow blossoms, and the dowm or Theban palm. In the centre of the garden was a vineyard, the branches being trained over trellis work so as to form a boudoir of green leaves with clusters of red grapes glowing like pictures on the walls. Beyond the vineyard, at the further end of the garden, stood a summer house or kiosk; in front of it a pond which was covered with the broad leaves and blue flowers of the lotus and in which water fowl played. It was also stocked with fish which the owner amused himself by spearing; or sometimes he angled for them as he sat on his camp stool. Adjoining this garden were the stables and coach houses, and a large park in which gazelles were preserved for coursing. The Egyptian gentry were ardent lovers of the chase. They killed wild ducks with throw sticks, made use of decoys, and trained cats to retrieve. They harpooned hippopotami in the Nile ; they went out hunting in the desert with lions trained like dogs. They were enthusiastic pigeon fanciers, and had many different breeds of dogs. Their social enjoyments were not unlike our own. Young ladies in Egypt had no croquet ; but the gentle sport of archery was known amongst them. They had also boating parties on the Nile, and water pic-nics beneath the shady foliage of the Egyptian bean. They gave dinners, to which, as in all civilized countries, the fair sex were invited. The guests arrived for the most part in palanquins, but the young men of fashion drove up to the door in their cabs, and usually arrived rather late. Each guest was received by a cluster of servants who took off his sandals, gave him water to wash his hands, anointed and perfumed 28 AN EGYPTIAN DINNER PARTY. him, presented him with a bouquet, and offered him some raw cabbage to increase his appetite for wine, a glass of which was taken before dinner—the sherry- and bitters of antiquity. The gentlemen wore wigs and false beards: their, bands were loaded with rings. The ladies wore their own hair plaited in a most elaborate manner, the result of many hours between their little bronze murors, and the skilful fingers of their slaves. Their eyelashes were pencilled with the antimonial powder, their finger nails tinged with the henna’s golden juice —fashions older than the Pyramids, and which still govern the women of the East. The guests met in the dining room, and grace was said before they sat down. They were crowned with garlands of the lotus, the violet and the rose; the florists of Egypt were afterwards famous in Rome.