TWENTY-THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. 283. 
and where are to be seen columns and capitals carved with a delicacy 
and fidelity to nature not excelled in the palmiest days of Grecian 
Art. . 
In the Egyptian language there is a subject of deep interest to 
every philologist, as well as to every investigator into the origin and 
development of the early races to whom we owe so much. 
In order to determine the fundamental nature of the Egyptian 
language, it would be of immense advantage could we determine the 
original locus of the race prior to its immigration into the Nile valley. 
One theory is that the race was Hamitic, and came into the Nile 
valley and the Delta from Ethiopia, which probably represented 
modern Nubia and Abyssinia. The race, however, seems to have 
come westward from the Accadian Highlands and the Euphrates 
valley. They could reach Ethiopia by two ways, either by taking 
a south-westerly route until they came to the Mediterranean, and 
thence to the fertile plain of the Delta, or by coming south 
through Arabia, and then crossing the Arabian Gulf, they could have 
penetrated the desert, near Suakim, or any suitable landing place in 
that region, and thence reached any part of the interior. It is 
scarcely credible, however, that any branch of the primitive stock 
would have undertaken a march through the terrible desert of the 
Arabian Peninsula, and would have accomplished a much more peril- 
ous task of crossing the Arabian Gulf. A long march southward 
along the Persian Gulf, and then a passage over the Indian Ocean, 
south of the Arabian Peninsula, would have been a much more 
improbable enterprise. The ancient line of travel, between Egypt 
and the countries on the north-east of her, extended along the 
Mediterranean shore, through Pheenicia and Syria to Babylon and 
Nineveh. Moreover, it is an admitted fact that the oldest monu- 
ments are in lower or northern Egypt. The Pyramids, the monuments 
of Memphis, the temple of Heliopolis, and the ancient one at 
Denderah, are much older than those of the south. This would seem 
to indicate that the original Egyptians settled first in the north, and 
gradually moved southward as enterprise or social necessity or war 
forced them. 
Besides it is a logical and forcible inference that there would have 
been Nigritic blood in the veins of the early Egyptians if they had 
been either the original inhabitants of Ethiopia, or had by conquest 
or treaty settled in pre-historic times among the original inhabitants 
