EGYPT.—AN INTRODUCTION. 
the Red Sea, with our vast possessions in India. The new means afforded by the 
application of steam-power to the increased rapidity and facilities of intercourse will 
probably do more to establish a powerful dynasty in Egypt, and ameliorate the condition of 
her people, than any other that we can imagine could have arisen; and it is not too 
much to hope that religion and morals, the arts and the sciences of more advanced 
civilisation; may be destined to find in Egypt a fitting soil for their extension. 
Until within a few years, the traveller who intended to ascend the Nile undertook 
a journey of great inconvenience and some peril; now Thebes has become to the English 
traveller what Rome formerly was, and a visit to the Nile is not an adventure but 
an excursion. Alexandria is reached in less than twenty days, and a boat, with 
an efficient crew and an experienced Reis, is always to he found, and all the necessary 
arrangements for comfort are now well understood. Every winter brings an increase 
of visitors to the land of the Pharaohs. The vigorous find excitement and enjoyment— 
the valetudinarian a genial climate and a pure air; and all are deeply alive to the 
immensity, the grandeur, and the beauty of the remains of the Pharaonic and the 
Ptolemaic periods, strewn in the Valley of the Nile. A voyage from Alexandria 
to Wady Haifa will reward the traveller, by the emotions which the scenes and 
objects will excite, far beyond any power of promise. Neither the learning of the 
antiquary nor the taste of the artist is essential to this enjoyment, though either, or 
both, will enhance it. The striking novelties and impressive grandeur of the objects 
presented will alone recompense this journey; but to the artist, to whom these illustrations 
will show what materials he has for study, and to the learned, especially, those who 
have studied the hieroglyphic records, what a source of unmeasured enjoyment is 
open! How deep, then, should our gratitude he to those, to whose patient perseverance 
we are indebted for having cleared away the mists of time, and given the power to 
study the history of Egypt in her own language. Honour to the earliest of these 
in the names of Dr. Thomas Young and Champollion! 
The inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone were the basis of this discovery. This celebrated 
relic was deposited in the British Museum in 1802. It had been found by General 
Menou among the ruins of Fort St. Julian, on the Rosetta branch of the Nile. When 
the French army capitulated to General Hutchinson and the British forces at Alexandria, 
in 1801, the Rosetta Stone was given up to us, together with all the other objects 
collected in Egypt by the Savans of the French Institute appointed to accompany their 
army. 
The stone is a piece of black basalt, much broken at the edges, to the serious injury 
of the inscriptions, which were cut upon its flat face. These were three in number, 
but one in import. The first was in Hieroglyphic, or sacred character: the second in 
Enchorial, or the character of the country; and the third in Greek, which latter 
states that each recorded the same decree. The enchorial was believed to be the 
Coptic, the supposed ancient language of Egypt. And this has been confirmed by the 
deciphering of the hieroglyphics, to which it was the clue. 
Upon the arrival in England of this stone it became an object of the deepest 
interest to the Egyptian archaeologists. Among these. Dr. Thomas Young devoted 
