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LAND AND PEOPLE: Egypt, as Herodotus has said, is "the gift of the
Nile," one of the latest of the earth's geological formations, and yet
one of the earliest countries to be settled and dominated by man. It
consists now, as in the ancient days, of the valley of the Nile,
bounded on the east by the Arabian mountains and on the west by the
Libyan desert. Well-watered and fertile, it was doubtless at first a
pastoral and agricultural country; then, by its riverine traffic, a
commercial country, and finally, by conquest, a land enriched with the
spoils of warfare.
Its earliest records show a strongly established monarchy. Dynasties
of kings called Pharaohs succeeded one another by birth or conquest.
The king made the laws, judged the people, declared war, and was
monarch supreme. Next to him in rank came the priests, who were not
only in the service of religion but in that of the state, as
counsellors, secretaries, and the like. The common people, with true
Oriental lack of individuality, depending blindly on leaders, were
little more than the servants of the upper classes.


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