“I see that you are strangers, and not Romans,” he added apologetically, “and old age likes to speak of the past when it can do so safely.” And he looked around as if to assure himself that they were alone.
Cimon politely thanked the Egyptian, and said that he had just been telling his young friend Aleph that the structure before them was once a royal residence.
“That is so,” said the old man; “not only a residence of the Ptolemies, but also of our native kings. You see that the material is stone from Syene, and that the style of building is old Egyptian. It passed to the Ptolemies with the crown of the Pharaohs, but was restored to a direct descendant of the old owners as an act of justice by Cleopatra. For a generation it continued in his family; but at last the Roman governor took a liking to the place and took it. The Romans are apt to take what they like.”
“Not a very uncommon thing for conquerors anywhere to do,” said Cimon. “Perhaps the site of this very palace was taken without purchase or leave by the Pharaoh who built it, from a weak subject or from another defeated Pharaoh.”
“I think not,” decidedly said the Egyptian. “I could show you papyri and parchments in the Serapeum proving that the property has been in the possession of the same priestly family to which it now belongs almost as long as we have been historically a people; and that, you know, is a great while, and nearly connects us with the time when vacant Misraim was divided among our fathers.”
“Certainly,” said the young man whom we have heard his companion call Aleph, “no people between this and the Pillars of Hercules holds its land by so ancient and original a tenure as does the people of Misraim. The Egyptian is older than the Roman, older than the Greek; indeed, was wise and powerful ages before Rome or Greece was born. And, if I mistake not, there is no tradition, nor other reason for thinking, that your fathers dispossessed any other people. They must stand as original proprietors. If immemorial possession, without hint of wrong, does not give a just title, the world knows of no such title, whether the party be a nation or an individual.”
“That seems to me well said,” came slowly from the old man, as his eye rested on the ingenuous face of the youth. “We came to the valley of the Nile so early that we did not have to inhabit at the expense of any other nation. We may be said to hold our country directly from the immortal gods.”
“You say we came,” said Cimon. “So, in your opinion, this was not the original site of the Egyptians. From whence do you suppose them to have come, and at how early a period? For my part, I have no doubt that you were here, and were here as a great and accomplished people, long before the Greeks, or even the Phenicians, had any political existence.”
“Your question would be variously answered among us,” returned the Egyptian. “Some would claim for our past hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of years; would say that such a civilization as ours was at the date of our oldest monuments could not have ripened from that savagery and even brutality which they fancy to have been the primitive human condition in anything short of such immense periods. But such is not my view. I see that you are surprised at this!”