to a deep blue-grey. The yellow moon rises into the vast expanse. A
softened light diffuses itself over earth and sky. The orb of night
walks in brightness through a firmament of sapphire; or, if the moon is
below the horizon, then the purple vault is lit up with many-coloured
stars. Silence profound reigns around. A phase of beauty wholly
different from that of the day-time smites the sense; and the monotony
of feature is forgiven to the changefulness of expression, and to the
experience of a new delight.

Man has also done his part to overcome the dulness and sameness that
brood over the "land of Mizraim." Where nature is most tame and
commonplace, man is tempted to his highest flights of audacity. As in
the level Babylonia he aspired to build a tower that should "reach to
heaven" (Gen. xi. 4), so in Egypt he strove to startle and surprise by
gigantic works, enormous undertakings, enterprises that might have
seemed wholly beyond his powers. And these have constituted in all ages,
except the very earliest, the great attractiveness of Egypt. Men are
drawn there, not by the mysteriousness of the Nile, or the mild beauties
of orchards and palm-groves, of well-cultivated fields and gardens--no,
nor by the loveliness of sunrises and sunsets, of moonlit skies and
stars shining with many hues, but by the huge masses of the pyramids, by
the colossal statues, the tall obelisks, the enormous temples, the
deeply-excavated tombs, the mosques, the castles, and the palaces. The
architecture of Egypt is its great glory. It began early, and it has
continued late. But for the great works, strewn thickly over the whole
valley of the Nile, the land of Egypt would have obtained but a small
share of the world's attention; and it is at least doubtful whether its
"story" would ever have been thought necessary to complete "the Story of
the Nations."