[148] Some of the names of the tribes near the Caspian, as the Arimaspi, bear names which are compounded of the Sanscrit word for “horse.”
[149] Herod. i. 203.
[150] Heeren’s “Asiatic Nations,” vol. ii. p. 32.
[151] There seems reason to doubt whether the Oxus ever flowed into the Caspian Sea—it now flows into the Aral. (See Alex. Burnes’s “Journey to Bokhara,” ii. p. 188.) On the other hand, Conolly believed he crossed the bed of the river which did formerly flow by one branch into the Caspian. (“Travels,” i. p. 50.) Dr. Vincent goes so far as to express his belief that communication between the west and east, by one of the routes specified above, was even more ancient than that by the Red Sea. (“Commerce of the Euxine,” p. 113.)
CHAPTER III.
Egypt—Commerce—Sesostris—Naucratis—The Nile—Sailors of Egypt—Their boats—How navigated—Mode of building them—Cargo barges—Their rig—Steering—Passage and cargo boats—Boat for the conveyance of the dead—Variety of boats, and their superiority—Prosperity of Egypt under the Ptolemies, B.C. 283—Canal over the Isthmus—Ptolemy’s great ship—Analysis of her dimensions—The Thalamegus, her size and splendour—Great size of other Egyptian monuments—Probability of such vessels having been constructed—Hiero’s great ship—Not unlike a modern inland American steamer—Details of her construction, accommodation, outfit, and decorations—Greek ships—Habits of piracy—Corinth—Athens—The size of her ships as described by Herodotus—Discrepancy between the different accounts.
Egypt.
The ancient history of Egypt is to be found almost exclusively in the works of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus; but it has been materially supplemented, and in many respects confirmed by the researches of modern scholars. Moreover, from the time when Young[152] discovered the key to the hieroglyphical writings, a flood of light has been thrown upon it by the labours of Champollion, Lepsius, Bunsen, Birch, De Rougé, Chabas, Goodwin and Wilkinson; the works of the last-named writer being especially full of information with reference to its ships and commerce.
Of the period of the commencement of civilization in Egypt there is no reliable information, nor are modern scholars at all agreed as to the evidence deducible from Herodotus, as compared with the monuments. There is no certainty about the age of Menes, or about the reign in which the Exodus took place; even the date of the invasion of Judæa by Shishak is not undisputed; and it would require more materials than are yet at our disposal to harmonize all the Biblical with the Monumental records. There can be no doubt, however, that the country was richly cultivated and fully peopled many centuries before the classical nations, or even the Phœnicians, were known as merchants or warriors. As already noticed, there is further reason for believing that the populations depicted on the sculptures were not originally natives of the Valley of the Nile, but immigrants thither from Chaldæa and its neighbourhood.
The skulls of Egyptians from the mummy-pits are Caucasian, and have no affinity with those of Africa, and the grammar of their language is not Semitic. Again, the name “Egypt” is not found on any of the early monuments: the country is simply called “Cheme,” the “black-land”; the “land of Ham,” the “Caphtorim” (Genesis x. 14). Moreover, the complexion and features of the people prove that the immigrants did not appreciably mingle with the primitive population, the lineaments of many of even the existing inhabitants still showing these marks of Asiatic origin.