| vol. iii.—no. 147. | Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. | price four cents. |
| Tuesday, August 22, 1882. | Copyright, 1882, by Harper & Brothers. | $1.50 per Year, in Advance. |
THE LITTLE SISTERS.
[EGYPTIAN HISTORY.]
BY EUGENE LAWRENCE.
Egypt is the most interesting of countries, because it is probably the oldest. We borrow from it nearly all our arts and sciences, and have only improved upon what the Egyptians taught us. Our alphabet and the art of writing came from the banks of the Nile. It was carried to Phœnicia, then to Greece and Rome, and then to Europe and America. The Egyptians invented the lever, by which all engines are moved, and electricity and steam made useful. Egyptian glass-makers, goldsmiths, painters, weavers, builders and stone-cutters, miners, gardeners, and even poets and historians, have taught their arts to all the Western nations; Moses studied in the Egyptian colleges, and Joseph and his father looked upon its Pyramids and temples with wonder.
The land of Egypt is a deposit of mud brought down by the floods of the Nile from the mountains of Middle Africa. Every year the river overflows its banks, and renews the fertility of the soil by a new deposit, and these regular inundations have been so provided for by embankments and canals as to be seldom dangerous. The Nile scarcely ever sweeps away the flocks and harvests of the farmers, like the Mississippi. It would be well if the Mississippi could be made as useful as the Nile.
This flat land of mud rests on rocks and sand. On each side of it is a desert, bare, hot, and stifling. A desert divides it from Asia. It is isolated from the world, and here for several thousand years the Egyptian Pharaohs ruled over an obedient people, and their people invented and practiced those useful arts which they were afterward to teach to others. The first King of Egypt is supposed to have been Menes; he reigned about 3000 b.c. Thirty-one dynasties or families of Kings follow Menes, and the Egyptian kingdom had lasted more than two thousand five hundred years when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. The Assyrians, Persians, and even the Ethiopians had conquered it before, but had been driven out by the rising of the people. For two thousand years the Egyptians were free and united. The oldest modern kingdom counts scarcely eight hundred years, and our own government nearly one hundred.
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.
[A GOOD SWORD-STROKE;]
OR, HOW COLONEL DE MALET MET HIS MATCH.
BY DAVID KER.
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.
The chief attraction of the fair, however, seemed to be a tall, gaunt man, with an unmistakably Italian face, who was standing on a low platform beside the fountain. He had been exhibiting some wonderful feats of swordsmanship, such as throwing an apple into the air and cutting it in two as it fell, tossing up his sword and catching it by the hilt, striking an egg with it so lightly as not even to break the shell, and others equally marvellous. At length, having collected a great throng around him, he stepped forward, and challenged any one present to try a sword bout with him, on the condition that whichever was first disarmed should forfeit to the other half a livre (ten cents).
Several troopers who were swaggering about the market-place, for there was a cavalry regiment quartered in the town, came up one after another to try their hand upon him. But to the great delight of the crowd they all got the worst of it; and one might have guessed from the eagerness with which the poor Italian snatched up the money, as well as from his pale face and hollow cheeks, that he did not often earn so much in one day.
Suddenly the crowd parted to right and left as a handsome young man in a fine gold-laced coat and plumed hat, with a silver-hilted sword by his side, forced his way through the press, and confronted the successful swordsman.
"You handle your blade so well, my friend," cried he, "that I should like to try a bout with you myself, for I'm thought to be something of a swordsman. But before we begin, take these two livres and get yourself some food at the French Lily yonder, for you look tired and hungry, and it's no fair match between a fasting man and a full one."
"Now may Heaven bless you, my lord, whoever you may be!" said the man, fervently; "for you're the first who has given me a kindly word this many a day. I can hardly expect to be a match for you, but if you will be pleased to wait but ten minutes, I'll gladly do my best."
The fencer was as good as his word, and the moment he was seen to remount the platform the lookers-on crowded eagerly around it, expecting a well-fought bout; for they had all seen what he could do, and they now recognized his new opponent as the young Marquis de Malet, who had the name of being the best swordsman in the whole district.
Their expectations were not disappointed. For the first minute or so the watching eyes around could hardly follow the swords, which flickered to and fro like flashes of lightning, feinting, warding, striking, parrying, till they seemed to be everywhere at once. De Malet at first pressed his man vigorously, but finding him more skillful than he had expected, he began to fight more cautiously, and to aim at tiring him out.
This artful plan seemed likely to succeed, for the Italian at length lowered his weapon for a moment, as if his hand was growing wearied. But as De Malet made a rapid stroke at him, the other suddenly changed the sword from his right to his left hand, and catching the Marquis's blade in reverse, sent it flying among the crowd below.
"Well done!" cried the young man, admiringly. "I thought I knew most tricks of fence, but I never saw one like that before."
"I could teach it to your lordship in a week," said the Italian. "For a man of your skill nothing is needed but practice."
"Say you so?" cried De Malet. "Then the sooner we begin, the better. Come home with me, and stay till you've taught me all you know. One doesn't meet a man like you every day."
And so for a month to come Antonio Spalatro was the guest of Henri de Malet; and the young Marquis learned to perform the feat which had excited his wonder quite as dexterously as the Italian himself.
White lay the snow upon the fields outside the blazing city of Moscow. The Russians had fired their own capital. The veteran bands of Napoleon were fleeing from fire to perish amid ice and snow.
"Down with the French dog!"
"Cut him to pieces!"
"Send a bullet through him!"
A dozen arms were raised at once against the solitary man, who, with his back against a wall, and one foot on the body of his horse, sternly confronted them. Henri de Malet (now Colonel De Malet, of the French Cuirassiers) was still the same dashing fellow as ever, though twenty-three years had passed since he took his first lesson in fencing from Spalatro, the Italian, of whom he had never heard a word all this while. But if Spalatro was gone, his teaching was not, and De Malet's sword seemed to be everywhere at once, keeping the swarming Russians at bay, as it had done many a time already during the terrible retreat which was now approaching its end.
"Leave him to me," cried a deep voice from behind; "he's a man worth fighting, this fellow!"
"Ay, leave him to the Colonel," chorussed the Russians. "He'll soon settle his fine fencing tricks."
A tall dark man, whose close-cropped black hair was just beginning to turn gray, stepped forward, and crossed swords with De Malet, who, feeling at once that he had met his match, stood warily on the defensive. The Russian grenadiers watched eagerly as the swords flashed and fell and rose again, while the combatants, breathing hard, and setting their teeth, struck, parried, advanced, and retreated by turns. At length De Malet, finding himself hard pressed, tried the blow taught him by Spalatro; but the stranger met it with a whirling back stroke that whisked the sword clean out of his hand. Instead of cutting him down, however, the Russian seized him by the hand with a cry of joy.
"There's but one man in the French army who knows that stroke," cried he, "and I'm glad to see you remember so well what I taught you. Now at last Spalatro the officer can repay the kindness shown to Spalatro the vagabond. When I came over here with the Russian Prince to whom you so kindly recommended me, they soon found out that I could handle soldiers as well as swords, and gave me a commission in the army, and here I am, Colonel Spalatro, with the Cross of St. George, and a big estate in Central Russia. Now if you fall into the hands of our soldiers you'll be killed to a certainty, so you'd better come with me to head-quarters, where I'll report you as my prisoner. You will be safe under my charge until there's a chance of sending you home, and then you are welcome to go as soon as you please."
And Colonel Spalatro was as good as his word.
[THE RIVER GETS INTO TROUBLE.]
BY CHARLES BARNARD.
A short time ago I told you something about a strange fight that took place between a travelling beach and a river. The beach got the best of it, and the river was obliged to turn aside, and find a way out to sea in another direction. No doubt if there were Indians living there at the time, they thought it a great disaster. Perhaps they were in the habit of sailing down the river to the sea in search of fish and oysters. When the beach closed up the mouth of the river, they thought it a strange and terrible event. If it had happened last summer, the people who live up the river would have called it a great calamity. The river would have found a new outlet, and perhaps have torn up the land, swept away farms and houses, and caused great destruction of property. There were no farms there at the time, for it all happened a long time ago.
There are many places in the world where the sea has cast up sand-bars and beaches, and has changed the whole face of the country. These travelling beaches and growing sand-bars sometimes close up the rivers, and sometimes turn bays into lakes, and these lakes in time turn into dry land. The great South Bay, on Long Island, is one of these places where great changes are going on; the meadow back of Chelsea Beach, near Boston, is another.
When a beach makes trouble for a river, the river behaves very strangely. At first it is quiet, and does not say much. It rests awhile, as if to gain strength, and then some day it makes a grand rush, and tries to break down the barrier the beach has thrown across its mouth. If it fails, it turns aside and goes out another way; but it soon settles down into a kind of sullen silence. It seems to be discouraged, and instead of a swift and pleasant river, it turns into a sluggish stream that does not seem to care for anything except to creep along in a lazy fashion.
Now a great and wonderful change begins. Before, it was swift and muddy. Now, the dull water begins to grow clearer, and the mud and fine sand in the water sink softly down to the bottom. The water spreads wider and wider on each side, and instead of a river running into the sea, there is a broad pool or lagoon behind the beach. Then month by month, year after year, the river brings down the mud and sand from the country and drops them far and wide over the broad salt-water lake.
Perhaps the beach in cutting off the river shut in a part of the sea, so that there are fish and oysters, sea-mosses and crabs, shut in behind the beach. They do not seem to care. They grow all the better in the still water, safe from those terrible waves that used to tear them from the sand in storms. The oysters find the quiet water a good home, and they grow there by millions on millions. As the old fellows die or are killed by the star-fish, the young oysters build their homes on top of the shells of their fathers. Millions of other fish, hermit-crabs, lobsters, and clams, live and die there, and they too cover the bottom of the lagoon with their dead shells. Thus it happens that even the fishes begin to fill up the place by covering the bottom with their empty houses.
Far up the river are weeds and grasses growing along the edge of the water. They drop their seeds in the river, and the seeds float down till they reach the smooth water behind the beach. The sea-birds find the warm waters of the lagoon a good feeding-place, and they gather there by hundreds. They too bring seeds from distant places and drop them here. Perhaps in quiet corners where the water is not quite as salt as in the sea these seeds find a chance to grow. They spring up on the banks of mud left here by the tide. The poor things find their new home very different from the place where they were born, and they have a hard struggle to live. Still they make a brave fight for existence, and even if they die, their dead stalks and leaves serve as a bed for new seeds to live still longer another year.
Then comes another change. The sea plants growing under water find the still water very different from the open sea where they grew before the beach cut them off from their home. The river is all the time bringing down fresh-water, and as the beach cuts off the sea, the water in the lagoon begins to grow fresh. From year to year the water tastes less like sea water, and more like river water. The poor plants were meant for the sea, and the brackish water does not suit them. The beautiful purple mosses, the long brown weeds, and the bright green sea-lettuce fade and die. They fall down, and make a black mould on the bottom of the lake. The poor fish feel it too. The clams and oysters miss the salt-water. Then the terrible mud smothers and chokes them, and they and the other fish die, and their empty shells cover the muddy bottom of the still water.
All this may take years and years, yet the change goes steadily on. The grasses grow higher, and higher, and tiny spears of marsh grass stand up out of water where once it was quite deep. The lake is filling up, and year by year the grass spreads over the water.
OFF BARNEGAT, NEW JERSEY COAST.
In this picture you see just such a place as this near Barnegat, on the coast of New Jersey. The grass has already begun to form islands in the water. The river appears to get discouraged, and wanders about as if it did not know what to do. The grass spreads wider and wider, and the lake begins to look like a green and level meadow. Men come in long boots wading through the shallow water and cut the grass. When it is dried, it is called salt hay. Cattle like to eat it, for it has a flavor of the old, old sea that once rolled over the place.
Every year the black wet soil grows firmer. Men dig trenches through it to let the water drain away. Along the banks of the river they pile the black peaty sods in long rows. This makes a dike or dam to keep the river from spreading over the grass in floods. Now the land begins to dry very fast. Wild cranberries, "cat-o'-nine-tails," and young bushes spring up. Perhaps a road is laid out over the meadows, and then houses are built, and boys and girls come to live on the smooth plain that grew out of the sea.
If you should visit the meadows at Chelsea, in Massachusetts, you would see just such a lagoon shut in by a travelling beach. It is nearly dry now, and in summer you will see the farmers cutting the salt grass. The Great South Bay on Long Island is another place where the change is going on. If you cross the Hackensack Meadows near Jersey City, you will see the work nearly finished. This vast level plain was once all water. The Passaic and the Hackensack rivers still wind through the level fields, but the work has gone so far that the land is now nearly dry. How it happened that all this great lake came to be filled up we can not tell, but we can plainly see that it was once water and is now turning to dry land.
How do we know all this about these meadows along the coast? Some of the places look very nearly the same to-day as two hundred years ago. The Indians never said that the water once flowed here. There is no record of these things. Indeed! There are plenty of records.
In the first place, you can almost always find the beach at the outside of the meadows. Nearly all the beaches on Long Island have meadows behind them. There may not be a river near, but that makes no difference, for sometimes a beach may grow across a bay between two capes.
If we dig a hole deep down into such a meadow we may find the whole story. First we turn up the black sod full of stems and roots of the grass. Under this the soil is finer, for the roots and leaves have moulded away. What's that? The spade strikes something hard. It is flat and rough, and covered with fine black mould. Wash it well, and we find it is a shell—an oyster shell. Strange that it should be there. Dig deeper, and we find more, perhaps a great quantity of them, bedded thickly one over the other. Here's the truth of the matter. This is an old oyster bed. These oysters did not come there by chance. They must have lived there, and as they live under salt-water, it is plain that where we stand was once a part of the sea.
We may dig deeper, and find more records of the old lake. See those black stones. How smooth and round they are! You remember the smooth stones we saw rolling in the surf on the beach? We can not help thinking that these stones were once tumbled about in the surf on some old beach. This is the way the marsh tells its own story, and repeats the wonderful tale of its birth from the sea.
