THE RISE AND FALL OF EGYPT

We often hear it said that "civilization travels westward." What we mean
is that hardy pioneers have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled along
the shores of New England and New Netherland--that their children have
crossed the vast prairies--that their great-grandchildren have moved
into California--and that the present generation hopes to turn the vast
Pacific into the most important sea of the ages.

As a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot.
It is always going somewhere but it does not always move westward by any
means. Sometimes its course points towards the east or the south. Often
it zigzags across the map. But it keeps moving. After two or three
hundred years, civilization seems to say, "Well, I have been keeping
company with these particular people long enough," and it packs its
books and its science and its art and its music, and wanders forth in
search of new domains. But no one knows whither it is bound, and that is
what makes life so interesting.

[Illustration: THE SOIL OF THE FERTILE VALLEY.]

In the case of Egypt, the center of civilization moved northward and
southward, along the banks of the Nile. First of all, as I told you,
people from all over Africa and western Asia moved into the valley and
settled down. Thereupon they formed small villages and townships and
accepted the rule of a Commander-in-Chief, who was called Pharaoh, and
who had his capital in Memphis, in the lower part of Egypt.

After a couple of thousand years, the rulers of this ancient house
became too weak to maintain themselves. A new family from the town of