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THE BEGINNING OF CIVILISATION IN THE VALLEY OF THE NILE
THE history of man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food. Wherever food was plentiful, thither man has travelled to make his home.
The fame of the Valley of the Nile must have spread at an early date. From the interior of Africa and from the desert of Arabia and from the western part of Asia people had flocked to Egypt to claim their share of the rich farms. Together these invaders had formed a new race which called itself “Remi” or “the Men” just as we sometimes call America “God’s own country.” They had good reason to be grateful to a Fate which had carried them to this narrow strip of land. In the summer of each year the Nile turned the valley into a shallow lake and when the waters receded all the grainfields and the pastures were covered with several inches of the mostfertile clay.
In Egypt a kindly river did the work of a million men and made it possible to feed the teeming population of the first large cities of which we have any record. It is true that all the arable land was not in the valley. But a complicated system of small canals and well-sweeps carried water from the river-level to the top of the highest banks and an even more intricate system of irrigation trenches spread it throughout the land.
THE VALLEY OF EGYPT（埃及的尼罗河流域）
While man of the prehistoric age had been obliged to spend sixteen hours out of every twenty-four gathering food for himself and the members of his tribe, the Egyptian peasant or the inhabitant of the Egyptian city found himself possessed of a certain leisure. He used this spare time to make himself many things that were merely ornamental and not in the least bit useful.
More than that. One day he discovered that his brain was capable of thinking all kinds of thoughts which had nothing to do with the problems of eating and sleeping and finding a home for the children. The Egyptian began to speculate upon many strange problems that confronted him. Where did the stars come from? Who made the noise of the thunder which frightened him so terribly? Who made the River Nile rise with such regularity that it was possible to base the calendar upon the appearance and the disappearance of the annual floods? Who was he, himself, a strange little creature surrounded on all sides by death and sickness and yet happy and full of laughter?
He asked these many questions and certain people obligingly stepped forward to answer these inquiries to the best of their ability. The Egyptians called them “priests” and they became the guardians of his thoughts and gained great respect in the community. They were highly learned men who were entrusted with the sacred task of keeping the written records. They understood that it is not good for man to think only of his immediate advantage in this world and they drew his attention to the days of the future when his soul would dwell beyond the mountains of the west and must give an account of his deeds to Osiris, the mighty God who was the Ruler of the Living and the Dead and who judged the acts of men according to their merits. Indeed, the priests made so much of that future day in the realm of Isis and Osiris that the Egyptians began to regard life merely as a short preparation for the Hereafter and turned the teeming valley of the Nile into a land devoted to the Dead.
In a strange way, the Egyptians had come to believe that no soul could enter the realm of Osiris without the possession of the body which had been its place of residence in this world. Therefore as soon as a man was dead his relatives took his corpse and had it embalmed. For weeks it was soaked in a solution of natron and then it was filled with pitch. The Persian word for pitch was “Mumiai” and the embalmed body was called a “Mummy.” It was wrapped in yards and yards of specially prepared linen and it was placed in a specially prepared coffin ready to be removed to its final hom But an Egyptian grave was a real home where the body was surrounded by pieces of furniture and musical instruments (to while away the dreary hours of waiting) and by little statues of cooks and bakers and barbers (that the occupant of this dark home might be decently provided with food and need not go about unshaven).
Originally these graves had been dug into the rocks of the western mountains but as the Egyptians moved northward they were obliged to build their cemeteries in the desert. The desert however is full of wild animals and equally wild robbers and they broke into the graves and disturbed the mummy or stole the jewelry that had been buried with the body. To prevent such unholy desecration the Egyptians used to build small mounds of stones on top of the graves. These little mounds gradually grew in size, because the rich people built higher mounds than the poor and there was a good deal of competition to see who could make the highest hill of stones. The record was made by King Khufu, whom the Greeks called Cheops and who lived thirty centuries before our era. His mound, which the Greeks called a pyramid (because the Egyptian word for high was pir-em-us) was over five hundred feet high.
THE BUILDING OF THE PYRAMIDS（金字塔的建成）
It covered more than thirteen acres of desert which is three times as much space as that occupied by the church of St. Peter, the largest edifice of the Christian world.
During twenty years, over a hundred thousand men were busy carrying the necessary stones from the other side of the river—ferrying them across the Nile (how they ever managed to do this, we do not understand), dragging them in many instances a long distance across the desert and finally hoisting them into their correct position. But so well did the King’s architects and engineers perform their task that the narrow passage-way which leads to the royal tomb in the heart of the stone monster has never yet been pushed out of shape by the weight of those thousands of tons of stone which press upon it from all sides.
尼罗河流域开化之始
人类的历史是饥民求食的记载。哪里食物多，人就找到哪里去住家。
尼罗河流域的著名必在极早时即已传扬了。从非洲内部、阿拉伯沙漠、亚细亚西部先后来了许多人民到埃及要求分润富饶的农产。这些侵入的人民联合起来成为一种新民族。我们很应该感谢命运把他们带到这个狭窄的地方来。每年夏天尼罗河在它的流域泛滥一次。水退之后，所有的稻田、牧场都积起一层几寸厚的肥土。
埃及有这一条仁慈的河流为这百万人民工作，养活这些最古的大城内繁盛的居民（关于这些大城的历史，我们有些记载）。但是适于耕种的土地并不全在流域一带。因为还有许多错综的小河与更复杂的纵横全地的灌溉的渠沟。
当史前的人一天二十四点钟之内须费十六点钟为他自己与他的家族寻食的时候，埃及农民与市民，已经得到相当的空闲了。他们利用这空闲制造许多物品，但是这些物品只是为装饰的，一点不是为实用的。
不但如此。有一天他发现他的脑筋可以发生与衣、食、住问题无关系的各种思想。从此埃及人便开始研究在他眼前的种种稀奇的问题：天空的星斗是从哪里来的？使他害怕的雷声是谁做的？尼罗河潮水的涨落有如此的规则，可以根据它定年历的，这是谁管的？他自己，一个渺小的怪物，一生中无非是死亡疾病的苦痛，依然在那里高兴快乐，究竟是谁呢？
他提出这许多问题之后，便有人出来愿尽他们的力答复这些问题。埃及人称这班人为“僧侣”。他们做了人类思想的保卫者，很受社会的尊敬。他们都是极有学问的人，负有保管历史的神圣责任。他们觉得人只顾世上的利益是于他无益的，所以引他注意到死后：人的灵魂要住在西方高山的那边，他的生前一切行为要在乌悉利斯
神前受审判。这位全能的上帝是生者与死者的治理者，他必按照各人的功过审判他们。这些僧侣说了许多关于将来在爱西斯
与乌悉利斯国内的情形，因此使埃及人渐渐把生命看作暂时的只于为将来的准备，而尼罗河富饶的流域遂变成崇拜死者的地方了。
很奇怪的，埃及人相信肉体是灵魂在今世的住宅，没有肉体的灵魂不能入乌悉利斯的国境。所以人一死，他的亲属立刻把他的尸体敷以香膏，浸在曹达水里
数星期，再盛满松脂。松脂这字在波斯为“木米爱”，所以敷过松脂的尸体便称“木乃伊”。这个木乃伊缠以数丈特制的细麻布，然后盛在一个特制的，准备抬往他最后的家去的棺材里。埃及的坟墓是一个真的家，尸体的周围有器皿、乐器（为消遣惨淡的光阴）与厨子、面包师、剃头师的小像（使这黑屋子里的主人有很像样的饭菜，出门时脸上不至于长满胡子）。
原先的坟墓都是在西方山上挖掘而成，自从埃及人迁居到北方，便不得不把坟墓筑在沙漠上。但沙漠上是些凶猛的野兽，还有同样凶猛的偷棺盗尸的匪徒。埃及人为防止这类亵渎神圣的行为，便在坟上筑起一个小石丘，这类小石丘后来渐渐加高，因为富者要与贫者比赛，看谁的造得最高。结果以生在纪元前三千年的皇帝可富
的为最高，一直高至五百尺，就是我们所称的金字塔（Pyramid）。
这塔在沙漠上占据面积十三亩，比基督教会的建筑最大的罗马圣彼得教堂的面积还大三倍。
费了二十年的工夫，十多万的工人天天忙着到尼罗河那边去搬运石块（他们怎样费力做的，我们可不知道），常须经过长的距离，穿过沙漠，才安放到适当的地位。可是金字塔的工程非常坚固，那条直达皇陵的甬道，周围虽有数千吨重石的压力，而它的形象，从没有丝毫改变。