The Egyptians were a dark-colored race, and came probably from Asia. They lived alone upon the banks of the Nile, shut out from the world. All Europe was then a wilderness filled with wild beasts and a few savage men. All was waste and desolate. The savage people who surrounded Egypt were like our American Indians, ignorant and treacherous. Had they been able they would have broken in upon the industrious Egyptians, sacked and burned their cities, and robbed them of all they possessed. They would have destroyed temples and palaces, houses and gardens, ships and factories, and left us without any of the Egyptian inventions and improvements. But fortunately the deserts and the sea for two thousand years at least kept the savages away. The country grew rich and flourishing; the banks of the Nile were lined with fine farms as fertile as those of Kansas or Dakota. The wheat was full and white. The gardens of Egypt produced beans, onions, cabbages, and were filled with flowers. Countless towns and cities sprang up along the Nile. Some of them were as large, perhaps, as Chicago or New York. The rich land swarmed with people. The families of the Egyptians lived in comfortable houses; the children were usually taught in the temples to read and write; all were taught to work; they were well dressed and very neat; and when Joseph governed the land with discretion and good sense, there was no part of the Western world that could equal the intelligence and civilization of Egypt. Its cities, temples, palaces, farms, and gardens were the wonder of the ancient historians.
To-day Egypt is an impoverished country, distracted by civil war. Alexandria, once one of the most magnificent cities of the world, lies in ashes, and the people throughout the land are suffering all the horrors of famine amidst their plundered and ruined homes. Long ages of mis-rule and ignorance have brought the fruitful and prosperous land to this terrible condition. In the days of Joseph the armies of Egypt might have withstood the world. Now the conqueror is at her gates, disorder rages within, and peace and prosperity can return to her borders only under the protection of a foreign power.
There was high frolic going on in a small town of Southern France one fine summer morning toward the end of the last century. The great local fair, which only came once in six months, was in full swing, and the queer little market-place of the town, with its old-fashioned fountain in the middle, and its tall dark houses, all round, was crowded to overflowing. Here was a juggler eating fire, or pulling ribbons out of his mouth by the yard, amid a ring of wondering peasants. There an acrobat was turning head over heels, and then walking on his hands with his feet up in the air. A little farther on a show of dancing dogs had gathered a large crowd; and close by a sly-looking fellow in a striped frock, leaning over the front of a wagon, was recommending a certain cure for toothache, which, however, judging from the wry faces of those who ventured to try it, must have been almost as bad as the complaint itself.