This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII. WHO WERE THE GODS. TO determine the race representatives of the Egyptian gods, will go far toward deciding the disputed questions as to who were the first inhabitants of Egypt and builders of the pyramids, catacombs and sphinxes. Who were the people in so remote a period susceptible of such intellectual development as to capacitate them for such a work? Says the Duke of Argyll, in his able dissertation on the original development of human faculties' "In any case we may safely assume that man must have begun his course in some one or more of these portions of the earth, which are genial in climate, rich in natural fruits, capable' of yielding the most abundant return to the very simplest act. It is under such conditions that the first establishment of the human race can be easily understood; nay, it is under such conditions only that it is conceivable at all, and as these are the conditions which would favor the first establishment and most rapid increase of man, so also are these the conditions under which knowledge would most rapidly accumulate, and the earliest possibilities of material civilization would arise." And at last, and for once, we have the admission from a highly cultivated, able, eminent and popular author, that such a climate as that of the country upon which we are now treating--Africa, the land of our fathers --is favorable to rapid intellectual development, and the advancement of progressive civilization. And how true is this! It has long been known to the natural scientist that Africa, as a continent, excels all others in natural productions--animal, vegetable and mineral--that its fauna and flora are the most profuse and best developed of any quarter of the globe; indeed, so far from stupefying and de...