CHAPTER XIIL 



IN the next place, I shall proceed to examine the 

 clelta of the Nile. The land which, from a marsh, 

 became the birth-place of emperours and kings, whose 

 ephemeral sway was marked with despotick rule; 

 and under whose reign, millions of vassal subjects 

 dragged a miserable existence. That land, on the 

 surface of which, numerous and splendid cities have 

 been reared, whose sumptuous palaces and temples, 

 with their gorgeous summits, were, from afar, seen 

 towering in the air Whose sculptured walls, and 

 massy columns, were richly wrought to glut the insa- 

 tiable pride and pageantry of man. That soil, on 

 which fostered genius shed her choicest gifts. That 

 emporium of the arts that seat of science, whence 

 Greece and Rome derived their boasted wisdom.* 

 That once the wonder of the world. 



But this has since become the land, over which the 

 frantick genius of war hath spread her baleful influence, 



* See Herodotus, Diodorus, Shaw, and others 



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