Poole, Reginald S.: The cities of Egypt (London, 1882)

ZOAN.

67

defended the Wall against the barbarians in the utmost
limits of the Empire as stoutly as those who in after time
followed the banners of the Howards and the Percies
against the Scots.

In Egypt, whether by settled design of the Pharaohs,
or by emigration and conquest, the disputed border fell
to the share of Shemite settlers; and from Abraham's
time to our own, a brave people, larger in bone, and
stronger in muscle, and of broader shoulders than the
Egyptians, and of a more independent temper, has
pastured its herds in the vast luxuriant plain, and fished
the prolific waters of the great eastern lake.

It is hard to define a border-land. We know how
with ourselves it shifted with the two Roman Walls, and
the changing overlordship of Northumberland. Yet it
may always be roughly sketched out, allowing for its
narrowness in times of peace, and its extension in the
strife of war, by the pressure of a conqueror from without,
or of a strong government from within. But the Egyp-
tian border never varied on its outer side : we have only
to determine its depth. Nature had drawn the boundary-
line on the east with final precision. Egypt, whether
ruled by native or by stranger, could never extend be-

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