ecord their phenomena; no leisure to look upon himself, and
consider what and where he is. In the imperious demand for a present
support, he dares not venture on speculative attempts at ameliorating
his state; he is doomed to be a helpless, isolated, spell-bound savage,
or, if not isolated, the companion of other savages as care-worn as
himself. Under such circumstances, however, if once the preliminary
conditions and momentum of civilization be imparted to him, the very
things which have hitherto tended to depress him produce an opposite
effect. Instead of remaining in sameness and apathy, the vicissitudes to
which he is now exposed urge him onward; and thus it is that, though the
civilization of Europe depended for its commencement on the sameness and
stability of an African climate, the conquests of Nature which mark its
more advanced stage have been made in the trying life of the temperate
zone.

[Sidenote: Agriculture in a rainless country.]

There is a country in which man is not the sport of the seasons, in
which he need have no anxieties for his future well-being--a country in
which the sunshines and heats vary very little from year to year. In the
Thebaid heavy rain is said to be a prodigy. But, at the time when the
Dog-star rises with the sun, the river begins to swell; a tranquil
inundation by degrees covering the land, at once watering and enriching
it. If the Nilometer which measures the height of the flood indicates
eight cubits, the crops will be scanty; but if it reaches fourteen
cubits, there will be a plentiful harvest. In the spring of the year it
may be known how the fields will be in the autumn. Agriculture is
certain in Egypt, and there man first became civilized. The date-tree,
moreover, furnishes to Africa a food almost without expense. The climate
renders it necessary to use, for the most part, vegetable diet, and but
little clothing is required.

[Sidenote: Rainless countries of the West.]

The American counterpart of Egypt in this physical condition is Peru,
the coast of which is also a rainless district. Peru is the Egypt of
civilization of the Western continent. There is also a rainless strand
on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It is an incident full of meaning in the
history of human progress, that, in regions far apart, civilization thus
commenced in rainless countries.

In Upper Egypt, the cradle of civilization, the influence of atmospheric
water is altogether obliterated, for, in an a