Its population was peaceful and industrious.

Its scholars were famed throughout the world for their learning, their science, and their philosophy.
It was in these ages, before other nations had intruded upon its peaceful seclusion, that the Pyramids were built, and the enormous monoliths carved, and those vast temples reared whose ruined columns are now the wonder of mankind.

During these remote ages, too, Egypt was, as now, the land of perpetual fertility and abundance.

There would always be corn in Egypt, wherever else famine might rage.

The neighboring nations and tribes in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria, found their way to it, accordingly, across the deserts on the eastern side, when driven by want, and thus opened a way of communication.