The greatest traveller of olden times now comes upon the scene--Herodotus, the Greek, the "Father of History." He is a traveller as well as a writer. He has journeyed as one eager for knowledge, with a "hungry heart" and a keen, observant eye. He tells us what he has seen with his eyes, what he has heard with his ears. He insists that the world is flat, he acknowledges that it is divided into two parts--Europe and Asia; but he can afford to laugh at those who draw maps of the world "without any sense to guide them," in which they make the whole world round as if drawn with a pair of compasses, with the ocean stream running round it, making Europe and Asia of equal size. His first journey is to Egypt. "I speak at length about Egypt," he says, "because it contains more marvellous things than any other country--things too strange for words. Not only is the climate different from that of the rest of the world and the rivers unlike any other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, reverse the common practice of mankind. The women are employed in trade and business, while the men stay at home to spin and weave. Other nations in weaving throw the woof up the warp, but an Egyptian throws it down. In other countries, sons are constrained to make provision for their parents; in Egypt it is not only the sons, but the daughters. In other countries the priests have long hair; in Egypt their heads are shaven. Other nations fasten their ropes and hooks to the outside of their sails, but the Egyptians to the inside. The Greeks write and read from left to right, but the Egyptians from right to left." After sailing for some seven hundred miles up the river Nile from the coast, past Heliopolis, the once famous city of Ancient Egypt, past Memphis, the old capital, past Thebes, with its hundred gates, to Elephantine, the "ivory island," opposite to what is now Assuan, he is more than ever puzzled about its course and the reason of its periodical floods. "Concerning the nature of the river, I was not able to gain any information from the priests. I was particularly anxious to learn from them why the Nile, at the commencement of the summer solstice, begins to rise and continues to increase for a hundred days--and why, as soon as that number is past, it forthwith retires and contracts its stream, continuing low during the whole of the winter until the summer solstice comes round again. On none of these points could I obtain any explanation from the inhabitants, though I made every inquiry."