The city was, however, a reality, the embankment was a reality, the temple of Phthah was a reality, and the founding of a kingdom in Egypt, which included both the Upper and the Lower country some considerable time before the date of Abraham, was a reality, which the sternest criticism need not—­nay, cannot—­doubt.  All antiquity attests that the valley of the Nile was one of the first seats of civilization.  Abraham found a settled government established there when he visited the country, and a consecutive series of monuments carries the date of the first civilization at least as far back as B.C. 2700—­probably further.

If the great Menes, then, notwithstanding all that we are told of his doings, be a mere shadowy personage, little more than magni nominis umbra, what shall we say of his twenty or thirty successors of the first, second, and third dynasties?  What but that they are shadows of shadows?  The native monuments of the early Ramesside period (about B.C. 1400-1300) assign to this time some twenty-five names of kings; but they do not agree in their order, nor do they altogether agree in the names.  The kings, if they were kings, have left no history—­we can only by conjecture attach to them any particular buildings, we can give no account of their actions, we can assign no chronology to their reigns.  They are of no more importance in the “story of Egypt” than the Alban kings in the “story of Rome.”  “Non ragionam di loro, ma guarda e passi.”

The first living, breathing, acting, flesh-and-blood personage, whom so-called histories of Egypt present to us, is a certain Sneferu, or Seneferu, whom the Egyptians seem to have regarded as the first monarch of their fourth dynasty.  Sneferu—­called by Manetho, we know not why, Soris—­has left us a representation of himself, and an inscription.  On the rocks of Wady Magharah, in the Sinaitic peninsula, may be seen to this day an incised tablet representing the monarch in the act of smiting an enemy, whom he holds by the hair of his head, with a mace.  The action is apparently emblematic, for at the side we see the words Ta satu, “Smiter of the nations;” and it is a fair explanation of the tablet, that its intention was to signify that the Pharaoh in question had reduced to subjection the tribes which in his time inhabited the Sinaitic regions.  The motive of the attack was not mere lust of conquest, but rather the desire of gain.  The Wady Magharah contained mines of copper and of turquoise, which the Egyptians desired to work; and for this purpose it was necessary to hold the country by a set of military posts, in order that the miners might pursue their labours without molestation.  Some ruins of the fortifications are still to be seen; and the mines themselves, now exhausted, pierce the sides of the rocks, and bear in many places traces of hieroglyphical inscriptions The remains of temples show that the expatriated colonists were not left without the consolations of religion, while a deep well indicates the care that was taken to supply their temporal needs.  Thousands of stone arrow-heads give evidence of the presence of a strong garrison, and make us acquainted with the weapon which they found most effectual against their enemies.