hundred chambers and vaults, into which whoso entered without a clue never again escaped, but in the sameness and solitude of those endless windings found his sepulchre. It is impossible for us to appreciate the sentiment of religious awe with which the Mediterranean people looked upon the enchanted, the hoary, the civilized monarchy on the banks of the Nile. As Bunsen says, "Egypt was to the Greeks a sphinx with an intellectual human countenance." [Sidenote: Its history: the old empire; the Hycksos; the new empire.] [Sidenote: Opening of the Egyptian ports.] Her solitude, however, had not been altogether unbroken. After a duration of 1076 years, and the reign of thirty-eight kings, illustrated by the production of the most stupendous works ever accomplished by the hand of man, some of which, as the Pyramids, remain to our times, the old empire, which had arisen from the union of the upper and lower countries, had been overthrown by the Hycksos, or shepherd kings, a race of Asiatic invaders. These, in their turn, had held dominion for more than five centuries, when an insurrection put an end to their power, and gave birth to the new empire, some of the monarchs of which, for their great achievements, are still remembered. In the middle period of this new empire those events in early Hebrew history took place--the visit of Abram and the elevation of Joseph--which are related with such simplicity in the Holy Scriptures. With varied prosperity, the new empire continued until the time of Psammetichus, who, in a civil war, having attained supreme power by the aid of Greek mercenaries, overthrew the time-honoured policy of all the old dynasties, and occasioned the first grand impulse in the intellectual life of Europe by opening the ports of Egypt, and making that country accessible to the blue-eyed and red-haired barbarians of the North. [Sidenote: This compels Egypt to become a maritime state,] [Sidenote: and brings on collisions with the Babylonians.] [Sidenote: Opening of the Suez Canal.] [Sidenote: Circumnavigation of Africa.] [Sidenote: History of the Great Canal.]