c utensils, in grand engineering works,
in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in
navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces
of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors
of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,--especially by such
wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the
mariner's compass, and the art of printing,--the modern world feels its
immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet,
considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was
accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury
of man than we naturally might suppose.

Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization,
and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world
was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago
the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known
afterward to the Greeks,--especially the spear and bow, which were the
most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages.
Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel
or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the
battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow.
One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six
hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three
thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and
bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the
present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and
adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with
hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays
of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they
rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick
and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or
besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to
battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.

The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united
rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of
workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and
magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erec