The modern Egyptologist is reforming the false and one-sided theories based upon the meagre studies of anthropological literature in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Yet in the Nile Valley we are only upon the threshold of exploration—topographical, linguistic, and scientific. Of its proto-Egyptians and its primæval workmanship as yet we know little; and it is truly preposterous to suppose that man began his artistic life by building pyramids, cutting obelisks, and engraving hieroglyphs. The ‘Cushite School,’ based upon the Asiatic Ethiopians of Eusebius the Bishop,[451] and unfortunately represented by Bunsen, Maspero, Wilkinson, Mariette, Brugsch, and a host of minor names, has determined that the old Nilotes ‘undoubtedly came from Asia.’ The theory utterly lacks proof; and the same may be said of the popular assertion, based upon Biblical grounds—‘The early colonists of Egypt came thither from Mesopotamia.’ We seem to be reading fable when told (by William Osburn[452]), ‘The skill of these primitive artists of Egypt was a portion of that civilisation which its first settlers brought with them when they located themselves in the Valley of the Nile.’ My conviction is that the ancient Egyptians were Africans, and pure Africans; that the Nile-dwellers are still negroids whitened by a large infusion of Syrian, Arabian, and other Asiatic blood; and that Ethiopia is its old racial home. Æschylus had already robed their black limbs in white raiment when Herodotus (ii. 104) made them dark-skinned compared with the Arabs[453] and North Africans. Every traveller finds his description hold good to the present day. Blumenbach declared the old Egyptians to be of Berber origin, the race of Psametik, or the Son of the Sun. Hartmann opined that they were not Asiatics but Africans, and Dr. Morton modified his first opinion, finding the cranium to be negroid. I hope to prove their correctness by making a large collection of mummy skulls.[454] It is certain that the modern Egyptian’s hair—that great characteristic of race, according to Pruner Bey—is not silky, as Professor Huxley says, but wiry like that of his forefathers.[455] Moreover, his type, as distinctly shown by the Sphinx, is melanochroic-negroid. Lastly, there are other signs, which need not here be noticed, distinguishing the African—horse as well as human—from the Arabian. [Heading: _ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT._]