INTRODUCTION ,. 
xxiv 
fidelity to one wife is a bar to Christianity. Thus, in 
tropical climates there will always be a slower advance 
of civilization than in more temperate zones. 
The highest civilization was originally confined to 
the small portion of the globe comprised between 
Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In those countries 
was concentrated the world’s earliest history; and 
although changed in special importance, they preserve 
their geographical significance to the present day. 
The power and intelligence of man will have their 
highest development within certain latitudes, and 
the natural passions and characters of races will be 
governed by locality and the temperature of climate. 
There are certain attractions in localities that induce 
first settlements of man; even as peculiar conditions 
of country attract both birds and animals. The first 
want of man and beast is food ; thus fertile soil and 
abundant pasture combined with good climate and 
water communication always ensure the settlement 
of man ; while natural seed-bearing grasses, forests, 
and prairies attract both birds and beasts. The earth 
offers special advantages in various positions to both 
man and beast; and such localities are, with few excep¬ 
tions, naturally inhabited. From the earliest creation 
there have been spots so peculiarly favoured by nature, 
by geographical position, climate, and fertility, that 
man has striven for their occupation, and they have 
become scenes of contention for possession. Such coun¬ 
tries have had a powerful influence in the worlds 
history, and such will be the great pulses of civili¬ 
zation,—the sources from which in a future, how¬ 
ever distant, will flow the civilization of the world. 
Egypt is the land whose peculiar capabilities have 
thus attracted the desires of conquest, and with whom 
the world’s earliest history is intimately connected. 
Egypt has been an extraordinary instance of the 
actual formation of a country by alluvial deposit; it 
has been created by a single river. The great Sahara, 
that frightful desert of interminable scorching sand, 
