24 ANNUAL ADDRESS: 



close to the line of the present Mahmudiyeh Canal, which 

 connects the Nile with Alexandria^ but its channel is now 

 dry. A more remarkable change in the main river has 

 been observed in Nubia, near Semneh, about 25 miles 

 above Wady Haifa, where there are temples and inscriptions 

 of the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties. The Nile runs 

 through a gorge between high cliffs which appear originally 

 to have met, forming a rocky barrier, and damming the water 

 80 that it stood some 25 feet above its present level, and 

 flooded a wide plain to the south and east. Here, in the now 

 arid desert, are alluvial deposits similar to those of Egypt ; 

 and it may be that before the barrier was rent a branch flowed 

 across the plain. This could only be ascertained by a careful 

 survey. 



Histoo'i/ of the People. 



As the physical geography of Egypt is unique, so is its 

 history. The records inscribed on its temples and tombs, 

 and written upon venerable papyri that have come down to us 

 from remote ages, detail events which occurred 1,000 years 

 or more before the time of Abraham. Accurate dates cannot 

 be determined ; we have not as yet suflBcient data for a full 

 and trustworthy chronology. But one thing is certain, that 

 some of the extant written records of Egypt are long antecedent 

 to the Pentateuch. And those records show that at that early 

 period the Egyptians had attained to a very high degree of 

 civilisation. Their learning was proverbial. In letters, art, 

 sculpture, architecture, engineering, astronomy, mathematics, 

 medicine, political science, mental and moral philosophy, they 

 seem to have been the original educators of the world. 



I cannot venture upon even a sketch of the general history 

 of Egypt. An outline would be tedious and uninteresting, 

 and details would take volumes. I propose, however, just to 

 glance at a few salient points which touch upon important 

 epochs in Bible history or the history of other great nations. 

 I shall also mention a few facts of exceptional interest. 



The Hebrew name of Egypt is Mizraim, and in Genesis 

 (x. 6) we read that Mizraim was a son of Ham. This 

 statement, however, must not, I think, be taken in a strictly 

 ethnical sense, as if it meant that the Egyptians were all 

 descendants of Ham. It probably only means that the 

 country was at first occupied by, and got one of its names 

 from, a Hamite colony, just as England took its name from 

 the comparatively small colony of Angli. The physical type 

 of the native Egyptian, as figured on the ancient monuments 

 md seeR in the modern peasantry, indicates a Japhetic rather 



