may have been an outlying and little-considered province _at that
time._ In Central Asia the Sanskrit-speaking tribe begins to
increase and multiply furiously. They pour down into Iberian
Hindustan. They are strong, and the Gods are leading them; the
Iberians have grown world-weary with the habit of long empire.
The Iberian power goes down before them; the Iberians become a
subject people. But there is one Menes among the latter, of the
royal house perhaps, who will not endure subjection. He stands
out as long as he may; then sails west with his followers for
Iberian lands that the Aryans have not disturbed, and are not
likely to. In their contests with the invaders of India, they
have thrown off all world-weariness, and become strong; Prince
Menes is hailed in Egypt (as the last of the Ommevads, driven out
from the East by the Abbasids, was hailed in Spain); he wakens
Egypt, and founds a new monarchy there.--I am telling the tale of
very ancient and unknown conditions in terms of historic
conditions we know about and can understand; it is only the
skeleton of the story I would stand for.

And to put Menes back at 160,000 years ago--what an amusing idea
that will seem!--But the truth is we must wage war against this
mischievous foreshortening of history. I have no doubt there have
been empires going, from time to time, in Egypt, since before
Atlantis fell; people have the empire-building instinct, and it
is an eminently convenient place for empire-building. I have no
doubt there have been dozens of different Meneses--that is,
founders of Egyptian monarchies,--with thousands of years
between each two. But I think probably the one that came from
India to do it, came about the time when the fifth sub-race rose
to supplant the fourth as that section of humanity in which