Thus, even under the Old Kingdom, Egypt is a country in a high state of civilisation; a centralised government, a high level of technical skill, a religion in exuberant development, an art that has reached its zenith, a literature that strives upward to its culminating point,--this it is that we see displayed in its monuments. It is an early blossom, put forth by the human race at a time when other nations were yet wrapped in their winter sleep. In ancient Babylonia alone, where conditions equally favourable prevailed, the nation of the Sumerians reached a similar height. Any one who will compare these two ancient civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt cannot fail to see that they present many similarities of custom; thus in both the seal is rolled upon the clay, and both date their years according to certain events. The idea that some connection subsisted between them, and that then, as in later times, the products of both countries were dispersed by commerce through the world about them, is one that suggests itself spontaneously. But substantial evidence in support of this conjecture is still lacking and will probably ever remain so. The great age of the Old Kingdom ends in a collapse, the body politic breaks up into its component parts, and the level of civilisation in the provinces sinks rapidly. But it rises again no less rapidly, when, at the close of the third millennium B.C., Egypt is once more united under a single sovereign. The Middle Kingdom, as we customarily call this epoch, is a second season of efflorescence; indeed, it is the time upon which the Egyptians of succeeding generations looked back as the classic period of their literature; and many centuries later, boys at school were still patiently copying out the wise lessons which the first king of the period imparted to his son, or the adventures of his contemporary, Sinuhe, and thereby learning the elegance of style in which the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom were such adepts. This, moreover, is the epoch in which, so far as we know, the Egyptian arms were first carried to remoter lands; at this time Nubia became an Egyptian province, and the gold of its desert thenceforth belonged to the Pharaohs. The memory of this extension of the sway of Egypt survived among the Egyptians of later days, embodied in the semi-mythical figure of the great King Sesostris. When legend reports that this monarch likewise subjugated distant lands to the north, we have now no means of judging how much truth there may be in the tale. But this we can see, that at that time Egypt maintained commercial relations with the countries of the Mediterranean; for their dainty vases are found in Egyptian rubbish heaps of the period, and may have been imported into the Nile valley then, as later, as vessels for containing delicate foreign oils.