t when, after traveling many miles toward it, it seems still
as distant as ever. Now, in tracing the history of the pyramids, the
obelisks, the gigantic statues, and the vast columnar ruins of the Nile,
we may go back twenty-five hundred years, without, apparently, making
any progress whatever toward reaching their origin.

Such was Egypt. Isolated as it was from the rest of the world, and full
of fertility and riches, it offered a marked and definite object to the
ambition of a conqueror. In fact, on account of the peculiar interest
which this long and narrow valley of verdure, with its wonderful
structures, the strange and anomalous course of nature which prevails in
it, and the extraordinary phases which human life, in consequence,
exhibits there, has always excited among mankind, heroes and conquerors
have generally considered it a peculiarly glorious field for their
exploits. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, contemplated the
subjugation of it. He did not carry his designs into effect, but left
them for Cambyses his son. Darius held the country as a dependency
during his reign, though, near the close of his life, it revolted. This
revolt took place while he was preparing for his grand expedition
against Greece, and he was perplexed with the question which of the two
undertakings, the subjugation of the Egyptians or the invasion of
Greece, he should first engage in. In the midst of this uncertainty he
suddenly died, leaving both the wars themselves and the perplexity of
deciding between them as a part of the royal inheritance falling to his
son.

Xerxes decided to prosecute the Egyptian campaign first, intending to
postpone the conquest of Greece till he had brought the valley of the
Nile once more under Persian sway. He deemed it dangerous to leave a
province of his father's empire in a state of successful rebellion,
while leading his armies off to new undertakings. Mardonius, who was the
commander-in-chief of the army, and the great general on whom Xerxes
mainly relied for the execution of his schemes, was very reluctant to
consent to this plan. He was impatient for the conquest of Greece. There
was little glory for him to acquire in merely suppressing a revolt, and
reconquering what had been already once subdued. He was eager to enter
upon a new field. Xerxes, however, overruled his wishes, and the armies
commenced their march for Egypt. They passed the land of Judea on their
way, where the captives wh