DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14564#0084
08
CITIES OF EGYPT.
yond the limits of the great plain. No enemy could
establish himself within these limits unless he conquered
the whole Delta, for the broad desert was left behind
him. In prosperous times, the Pharaohs affected to rule
the waste of sand; but all that they controlled was a
chain of castles which commanded the great road. They
could no more make the barren desert a part of fruitful
Egypt, than they could catch and tame the wild Arabs
who there roamed at their will. But while the eastern
limit was thus fixed, it is hard to say how far the border-
land, with its peculiar population, stretched to the west
and to the south. If we are guided by the names of
towns, which are either Shemite, or both Shemite and
Egyptian, by local worship, and by the peculiarities of
race, we may put the Tanitic branch of the Nile as the
general western limit, continuing the border along the
edge of Lake Menzeleh to its farther extremity, and may
take the old canal of the Red Sea as the southern
boundary. This is but a fragment of Lower Egypt, but
it is ' the best of the land;' once wealthy in towns, each
a treasure-house of history, in part already told, but far
more lying beneath the earth awaiting the tardy explorer.
In the centre is the land of Goshen, southward of the
CITIES OF EGYPT.
yond the limits of the great plain. No enemy could
establish himself within these limits unless he conquered
the whole Delta, for the broad desert was left behind
him. In prosperous times, the Pharaohs affected to rule
the waste of sand; but all that they controlled was a
chain of castles which commanded the great road. They
could no more make the barren desert a part of fruitful
Egypt, than they could catch and tame the wild Arabs
who there roamed at their will. But while the eastern
limit was thus fixed, it is hard to say how far the border-
land, with its peculiar population, stretched to the west
and to the south. If we are guided by the names of
towns, which are either Shemite, or both Shemite and
Egyptian, by local worship, and by the peculiarities of
race, we may put the Tanitic branch of the Nile as the
general western limit, continuing the border along the
edge of Lake Menzeleh to its farther extremity, and may
take the old canal of the Red Sea as the southern
boundary. This is but a fragment of Lower Egypt, but
it is ' the best of the land;' once wealthy in towns, each
a treasure-house of history, in part already told, but far
more lying beneath the earth awaiting the tardy explorer.
In the centre is the land of Goshen, southward of the