Another of the early hindrances to advancement arose out of the difficulties of communication, which prevented either a military force from maintaining itself away from home, or a single governing mind from acting at a distance. Of course in matters of this kind the effects of the want of sufficient means of communication are greatly aggravated by the want of foresight, and the distrust men have in each other, which belong to such times and circumstances. Nothing but the organization of tribes and cities can be accomplished then. Egypt, however, had advantages in the great and varied gifts of nature to which our attention is now directed, which enabled her, in some remote prehistoric period, to emerge from this politically embryonic condition, and to form a well-ordered and homogeneous state, embracing a population of several millions, who were in possession of many of the elements of wealth and power, and had attained to a condition that would suggest, and encourage culture. Of these advantages, that which came next in order to the soil and climate, was that its good fortune had conferred upon it a ready-made means of communication, absolutely complete and perfect; no part of the country, either in the valley of Egypt, or in the Delta, being more than a few miles distant from one of the most easily navigable rivers in the world. And that nothing might be wanting, this advantage was equalised to all by a provision of nature that, at a certain season of the year, the descending current of the river should, for the purposes of navigation, be overbalanced by a long prevalence of northerly winds; thus giving every facility, by self-acting agencies, to both the up and the down traffic. I may also observe that the river ran precisely in that direction in which it could serve most effectually as a bond of union, by serving most largely as a channel of commerce. If its course had been along the same parallel of latitude, that is, from East to West, or reversely, then throughout its whole length the productions of its banks would have been the same. It would, therefore, have been of little use as a means of commercial interchange. Where there was no variety of productions there would have been no commodities to exchange. But as its course was in the direction of a parallel of longitude, its stream offered a highway for the exchange of the varying products of the different degrees of latitude it passed through. This difference in the direction of their courses already constitutes a vast difference in the comparative utility of the streams of the Amazon and of the Mississippi; and must ensure to them very dissimilar futures.