There is one source of interest which belongs to the study of the antiquities of Egypt in a higher degree than to the study of the antiquities of any other country. Every object on which the eye may rest, whether great or small, from the grandest architectural monument down to a glass bead, is thoroughly, and genuinely Egyptian. Not a tool with which the compact limestone, or intractable granite was cut; not a colour with which the sculptures or walls were decorated; not a form in their architectural details; not a thought, or practice, or scene the sculptures and paintings represent, was, as far as we know, borrowed, or could have been borrowed, from any neighbouring people. The grand whole, and the minutest detail, everything seen, and everything implied, was strictly autochthonous; as completely the product of the Egyptian mind, as Egypt itself is of the Nile. CHAPTER XIX. RAMESES THE GREAT GOES FORTH FROM EGYPT. Why, then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.—SHAKSPEARE. Rameses the Great was the Alexander of Egypt. His lot was cast in the palmiest days of Egyptian history. He was the most magnificent of the Pharaohs. None had such grand ideas, or gave them such grand embodiment. He carried the arms of Egypt to the utmost limits they ever reached. As one stands at Karnak, Thebes, and Abydos, before the sculptures he set up, and reads in them the records of his achievements, and of the thoughts that stirred within him, the mind is transported to a very distant past—but though so distant, we still may, by the aids we now possess, recover much of its form and features. Let us then endeavour to construct for ourselves some conception of his great expedition from the materials with which the monuments and history supply us. Egypt is very flourishing. Pharaoh has an army of 700,000 men and great resources, and so he becomes dissatisfied at remaining idle in his happy valley. There is a wonderful world up in the north-east. He would like to be to that world what we might describe as an Egyptian Columbus and Cortez in one. He wishes to signalize the commencement of his reign with some achievement that will be for ever famous. But these distant people have never wronged him: they had never burnt his cities, or driven off his cattle. If they have ever heard of the grandeur of Egypt, they can hardly tell whether it belongs to this world of theirs, or to some other world. Considerations, however, of this kind do not affect him.