Other hypotheses, however, which have been, or may be, entertained must not be passed by unnoticed, in order that it may be understood that they do not account for the phenomena; or, to put it reversely, that the phenomena contradict them. When history begins to dawn, the first object the light strikes upon, and which for a long time alone rears its form above the general gloom, is the civilization of Egypt. It stands in isolation, like a solitary palm by the side of a desert spring. It is also like that palm in being a complete organism, and in producing abundance of good fruit. All around is absolute desert, or the desert sparsely marked with the useless forms of desert life. On inquiry we find that this thoroughly-organized civilization, fully supplied with all the necessaries, and many of the embellishments of life, and which is alone visible in the dawning light, must have existed through ages long prior to the dawn. It recedes into unfathomable depths of time far beyond the monuments and traditions. Some salient particulars at once arrest our attention. The people, though African by situation, do not, at first sight, strike us as possessing, preponderantly, African affinities. If there be any, they are not so much moral, or intellectual, as physical. They appear to be more akin to the inhabitants of the neighbouring Arabian peninsula, from which there is a road into Egypt. But here also the resemblances are not great: even that of language is far from conclusive. Their complexion, too, is fairer. On neither side is there any suspicion, or tradition of kindred. There is even deep antipathy between the two. Their religion, again, and religion is the _summa philosophia_—the outcome of all the knowledge, physical and moral, of a people, is unlike that of their neighbours. The Greeks, however, and this is worthy of remark, thought it only another form of their own. They were laborious, skilful, and successful agriculturists; and there was no record of a time when it had been otherwise with them. They were great builders. They had always practised the ordinary arts of life, spinning and weaving, metallurgy, pottery, tanning, and carpentering. They had always had tools and music. They had a learned and powerful priesthood. Their form of government was that of a monarchy supported by privileged classes, or of an aristocracy headed by a king, and resting on a broad basis of slavery, and a kind of serfdom. Their social order was that of castes.