he easy navigation
of the Nile, in which the boats were sailing up the river by the force
of the wind and floating down by the force of the stream. The villages
on the river side were large and thickly set, each in the bosom of its
own grove of palm-trees; and the crowded population was well fed and
well clothed. The Roman statesman saw that nothing was wanting but a
good government to make Egypt what it used to be, the greatest kingdom
in the world.

Scipio went no higher than Memphis; the buildings of Upper Egypt, the
oldest and the largest in the world, could not draw him to Thebes, a
city whose trade had fallen off, where the deposits of bullion in the
temples had lessened, and whose linen manufacture had moved towards the
Delta. Had this great statesman been a Greek he would perhaps have gone
on to this city, famous alike in history and in poetry; but, as it was,
Scipio and his friends then sailed for Cyprus, Syria, and the other
provinces or kingdoms under the power of Rome, to finish this tour of
inspection.

For some time past, the Jews, taking advantage of the weakness of Egypt
and Syria, had been struggling to make themselves free; and, at the
beginning of this reign Simon Maccabaeus, the high priest, sent an
embassy to Rome, with a shield of gold weighing one thousand _minae_, as
a present, to get their independence acknowledged by the Romans. On this
the senate made a treaty of alliance with the family of the Maccabees,
and, using the high tone of command to which they had for some time past
been accustomed, they wrote to Euergetes and the King of Syria, ordering
them not to make war upon their friends, the Jews. But in an after
decree the Romans recognise the close friendship and the trading
intercourse between Egypt and Judaea; and when they declared that they
would protect the Jews in their right to levy custom-house duties, they
made an exception in favour of the Egyptian trade. The people of Judaea
in these struggles were glad to forget the jealousy which had separated
them from their brethren in Egypt, and the old quarrel between the
Hebrews and the Hellenists; the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem wrote to the
Sanhedrim of Alexandria, telling them that they were going to keep the
Feast of the Tabernacles in solemn thanksgiving to the Almighty for
their deliverance, and begging for the benefit of their prayers.

The Jews, however, of Judaea, on their gaining their former place as a
nation, did not, as before,