The civilisation of a country is always largely determined by its geographical character and the latter, in the case of Egypt, is of exceptional significance. Herodotus called Egypt the “Gift of the Nile.” The great river created it and has continued to preserve it. For the country comprises a narrow strip of soil varying from 4 to 16 miles in width, bordering the two sides of the stream, and extending in ancient times, as far as the second cataract, a distance of some 900 miles; approximating, that is to say, the distance from New York to Chicago or from London to Florence. It is bounded by rocky hills, and, as it reaches the Mediterranean, fans out into a delta of flat lands, the various streams being kept in place by dykes. The only thing that has saved this country from being swallowed up in the desert is the annual rise of the river, succeeding the tropical rains in the interior and the melting of the snow in the mountains of Abyssinia. This floods the lowlands and leaves behind an alluvial deposit, so richly fertile that the soil, warmed by constant sunshine, yields three harvests annually. Meanwhile, it is a remarkable fact that the records of ancient times tally with those of to-day, both showing that the amount of the rise varies but little from year to year. Before considering how these natural features of the country affected the civilisation of its inhabitants, a fact is to be noted. At the point of time when Manetho commenced his history of the Egyptians, variously estimated from about 4000 to about 6000 years before the Christian Era, they appear as a people already possessed of a high degree of civilisation, surrounded by inferior races. An immense interval of progress separates them from the earliest conditions that we considered in the previous chapter. By what stages did they reach this footing of superiority and through what length of time; moreover, what was the origin of their race? To these questions of profound interest there is no answer forthcoming. Some recent scholars are disposed to believe that the civilisation of Egypt, as we first meet with it, had been preceded by a still more remote civilisation in Babylonia; but as yet they have not shaken the accepted view that priority in civilisation belongs to the Land of the Nile. So far as knowledge exists, civilisation appeared first in Egypt and by a wonderful combination of circumstances, continued up to historic times.