Man has done much during the sixty-eight centuries which represent his history. This assumes the first Egyptian Empire, following the pre-historic, to begin with B. C. 5000, and to end with B. C. 3249. It was the Old, as opposed to the Middle, the New, and the Low: it contained the Dynasties from I. to X., and it was the age of the Pyramids, at once simple, solid, and grand. When the praiser of the Past contends that modern civilization has improved in nothing upon Homer and Herodotus, he is apt to forget that every schoolboy is a miracle of learning compared with the Cave-man and the palæolithic race. And, as the Past has been, so shall the Future be. The Pilgrim’s view of life is that of the Soofi, with the usual dash of Buddhistic pessimism. The profound sorrow of existence, so often sung by the dreamy Eastern poet, has now passed into the practical European mind. Even the light Frenchman murmurs,— Moi, moi, chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête Je passe—et refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, Je m’en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux. But our Hâjî is not Nihilistic in the “no-nothing” sense of Hood’s poem, or, as the American phrases it, “There is nothing new, nothing true, and it don’t signify.” His is a healthy wail over the shortness, and the miseries of life, because he finds all created things— Measure the world, with “Me” immense. He reminds us of St. Augustine (Med. c. 21). “Vita hæc, vita misera, vita caduca, vita incerta, vita laboriosa, vita immunda, vita domina malorum, regina superborum, plena miseriis et erroribus . . . Quam humores tumidant, escæ inflant, jejunia macerant, joci dissolvunt, tristitiæ consumunt; sollicitudo coarctat, securitas hebetat, divitiæ inflant et jactant. Paupertas dejicit, juventus extollit, senectus incurvat, importunitas frangit, mæror deprimit. Et his malis omnibus mors furibunda succedit.” But for _furibunda_ the Pilgrim would perhaps read _benedicta_.