the continent; for Herodotus, in his account of the enterprise, says that
the voyagers upon their return reported that, when they were rounding the
cape, the sun was on their right hand (to the north). This feature of the
report, which led Herodotus to disbelieve it, is to us the very strongest
evidence possible that the voyage was really performed.

THE LAST OF THE PHARAOHS.--Before the close of his reign, Necho had come
into collision with the king of Babylon, and was forced to acknowledge his
supremacy. A little later, Babylon having yielded to the rising power of
Persia, Egypt also passed under Persian authority (see p. 77). The
Egyptians, however, were restive under this foreign yoke, and, after a
little more than a century, succeeded in throwing it off; but the country
was again subjugated by the Persian king Artaxerxes III. (about 340 B.C.),
and from that time until our own day no native prince has ever sat upon
the throne of the Pharaohs. Long before the Persian conquest, the Prophet
Ezekiel, foretelling the debasement of Egypt, had declared, "There shall
be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." [Footnote: Ezek. xxx. 13.]

Upon the extension of the power of the Macedonians over the East (333
B.C.), Egypt willingly exchanged masters; and for three centuries the
valley was the seat of the renowned Graeco-Egyptian Empire of the
Ptolemies, which lasted until the Romans annexed the region to their all-
absorbing empire (30 B.C.).

"The mission of Egypt among the nations was fulfilled; it had lit the
torch of civilization in ages inconceivably remote, and had passed it on
to other peoples of the West."


2. RELIGION, ARTS, AND GENERAL CULTURE.