First among these peoples, in point of time, were the Egyptians. Three thousand years before Christ, at the time when the great pyramids were built, this people had already attained a developed civilization, which, in the opinion of modern scholars, can be traced back even thousands of years more. The Egyptians, however, were not a commercial people. Their main resource was agriculture, and though they developed some of the industrial arts to great efficiency they used the products for direct consumption rather than for trade. Their country, a strip of the Nile valley over five hundred miles long, and but a few miles wide, was so much alike in its different parts that it offered little inducement to internal exchange over great distances; while its isolation by deserts was a bar to the growth of foreign commerce. The sea, in this early period, was a hindrance, rather than a help, to communication. =7. Rise of Egyptian commerce; characteristic wares.=—Egypt never became a commercial country so long as it remained under its native rulers. With the period known as the New Empire, however, beginning about 1600 B.C., commerce at least became more important than it had been before. Regular communication was established with Asia, and caravans brought to the country the products of Phœnicia, Syria, and the Red Sea district. Before the eyes of Joseph and his brethren “behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt”; to this caravan Joseph was sold as a slave. The wares named here were characteristic imports of Egypt; among others were precious woods, ivory, gold, wine, and oil. Among the exports of the country were grain, linen, and manufactured wares like weapons, rings, and chains. Even to a late period trade was carried on by barter, the use of coins being rare, and many of the imports came as tribute, for which the Egyptians needed to make no return. =8. Development of Egyptian commerce in a later period.=—Only in the last period of Egyptian independence, a few centuries before the country was conquered by Alexander, did commerce bind it closely to other portions of the ancient world. The government, which formerly had discouraged trade, now permitted and encouraged it; Greek merchants came in considerable numbers to Egypt; and an active commerce sprang up. It is said that Necho, the king who ruled about 600 B.C., sent out Phœnician sailors to attempt the circumnavigation of Africa; and the same king took up the work of cutting a canal across the isthmus of Suez which was completed shortly afterward. The canal was allowed to fill up with sand, but was reopened later, and its course may be distinctly traced, it is said, along the route of the modern canal.