26 ANNUAL ADDliESS : 



from its own monuments and papyri. These have been 

 wonderfully preserved. The dry climate has been the grand 

 conservator ; but another important factor in their preserva- 

 tion has been this^ that many of the tombs and rock-hewn 

 temples, which contain on their sculptured and inscribed walls, 

 and in their sepulchral chambers, precious records, were shut 

 up for ages by concealed doors, or by sand-drifts. It is only 

 within the last quarter of a century that a vast number of the 

 most important records have been exhumed ; and I believe 

 that many more still lie hid, to reward the researches of future 

 explorers. In the British Museum, in Berlin and Turin, in 

 the Louvre and in the Museum of Boulak, the Egyptologist 

 can read for himself inscriptions on stone and records on 

 papyrus, containing historic annals and incidents, and short 

 literary, scientific, and religious treatises, of a period long 

 anterior to the era of Greece or Rome. The ordinary reader 

 may gleaii the leading facts from the works of Botta, Wilkin- 

 son, Rawlinson, Birch, Brugsch, Smith, Sayce, Lenormant, 

 Mariette, Maspero, and others. The handy little volumes, 

 " Records of the Past," published by Bagster, contain transla- 

 tions ,of a number of most interesting inscriptions and docu- 

 ments which give a general idea of the nature and value of 

 the ancient literature of Egypt. 



It is important to observe that from the earliest ages the 

 learned Egyptians who erected the grand monuments, and 

 developed by their engineering skill and enterprise the 

 resources of the country, were as clearly distinguished from 

 the nomads of Libya and Arabia, and from the black races of 

 Nubia and Ethiopig,, as are the modern fellahin"and citizens of 

 Cairo and Damietta from the shepherds of the desert and the 

 dusky warriors of the Soudan. They were distinct in physique, 

 in lineage, in mental characteristics and occupations. They 

 never amalgamated, or attempted to amalgamate, with the 

 dark races. They were obliged, from time immemorial, to 

 defend their fertile territory from the predatory inroads of 

 those restless neighbours, while, at the same time, they traded 

 with them, and obtained from the Ethiopians many of the 

 most valuable products of Central Africa, just as the modern 

 Egyptians did under the firm rule of Mehemed Ali, and may 

 do again when a settled government is established in the 

 country. The commerce from the upper tributaries of the 

 Nile, and from the wide region of the Soudan, forms an 

 essential factor in the prosperity and progress of Egypt. So 

 long as the Soudan remains disturbed, just so long will Egypt 

 be unsettled, and so long will its prosperity be retarded and 

 its finances ruinously affected. 



