times--southwestward to Lake Rudolf, and round Lake Rudolf to the present Turkana country, the neighbourhood of Mount Elgon, and even to the northeastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza. The Ancient Egyptians seem to have known the main Nile as far as Khartum, and the Blue Nile up to its source in Lake Tsana. They exercised intermittently some kind of rule over the northern and western escarpment of Abyssinia, and are said to have sent criminals and political exiles to die of cold on the snowy heights of the Samien range. But they appear to have displayed little knowledge or curiosity concerning the ultimate source of the _White_ Nile. No doubt the vast marshes and obstructions of the sudd which characterised the course of the Nile above its confluence with the Bahr-al-Ghazal, the generally hopeless nature of this country with its utter absence of anything like high land, of minerals, or of a trading population, discouraged the practical-minded Egyptians from pursuing their researches in that direction. The Nile itself they called _Hapi_, which was also the name of the Nile God. It was sometimes spoken of as _Pi Yuma_, or “the River.”[3] Its valley they called Atr, Atur, Aur (Modern Coptic = _Eiōr_).[4] Several foreign dynasties ruled over Ancient Egypt,--Arabian and Libyan,--and for centuries at a time the energies of Egypt were mainly concentrated on domestic work under these foreign task-masters or insurrections to expel the hated rulers. The original civilisation of Egypt rose rapidly to a great and wonderful height at a period which may be as remote, historically, as about seven thousand years ago. The main source of their civilisation seems to have been the introduction into the country of copper implements instead of and in addition to those of improved stone and flint manufacture. A wonderful development of pictorial art occurred concurrently with this brilliant rise in civilisation, and this early Egyptian art is of a realistic character from which all subsequent Egyptian pictorial or sculptured art has been a degeneration. At this time they easily impressed the Negroes of the south and the Libyans of the west with their power, and it was no doubt a matter of ease for Egyptian expeditions to penetrate into the Sudan from the countries of Abyssinia and Galaland. Gold and precious or gaudy stones were sought for in the east and southeast. Ivory, slaves, gums, perfumes, and strange beasts were obtained from the south and southwest. But no doubt Ancient Egyptians in their extensions of political or commercial influence introduced amongst the Negro tribes the knowledge of working metals. They also gave to them all those domestic animals and cultivated plants now existing in Tropical Africa which are not of a far later American or Indian origin (that is, introduced by the Portuguese and Arabs). By instructing the Negroes in this indirect manner in the arts of civilisation, and by spreading