SCRIPTURE ETHNOLOGY. THE EGYPTIANS. ETHNOLOGY is the description of human races, or of the numerous tribes of mankind, that make up the nations, peoples, and social communities of this our world. Under the title " Scripture Ethnology" it is our purpose to give a brief description of the various nations, peoples, and tongues, of whom mention is made in the Bible; and in carrying out our design, we shall usually invite the reader's attention, first, to the structural peculiarities of the race under consideration, e.g. the form, stature, colour of the skin, aspect of the countenance, shape of the head, character of the hair, &c.; secondly, to their habits; and thirdly, to their modes. of communication, that is, their languages, written or spoken. We begin with the Egyptians, on account of their close connexion with the patriarchs of the Jewish people. Indeed, we are told that the first patriarch, Abraham, the son of Terah, had transactions with them very soon after he was selected from all his contemporaries to become the head of the Hebrew race, and was commanded to go forth from his own country. In the same chapter of Genesis in which this honourable distinction is recorded, it is stated, that "Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land." Besides this, the handmaid of his long childless wife Sarah was an Egyptian woman, "whose name was Hagar;" and she, with his wife's consent, becoming his concubine, and bearing him a son, his first-born child had thus Egyptian blood flowing in his veins. Egypt was at that time an agricultural country, and the mode of life of the Hebrew patriarch was eminently, if not THE NILE AND THE NATIVES. 205 exclusively, pastoral; but the reception he met with amongst the Egyptians was at once welcome and hospitable. The sovereign of the district in which Abraham sojourned was named Pharaoh,- a title given to the kings of Egypt so far down as the sixth century before the birth of Christ. Throughout the three thousand years and upwards, during which its history has been known, Egypt has retained pretty nearly the same geographical boundaries. As in the days of the earliest Greek travellers, so now Egypt itself is little more than a narrow, waving band of territory, subject every year to an overflow of its enriching river. On the north bounded by the Mediterranean, it extends southward as far as the Cataracts of the Nile. This strip of alluvial land with the Nile running down its midst, and dividing it into two unequal portions of uncommon and extraordinary fertility, is enclosed on both sides by desert. In the days of Abraham, as we are informed by the sacred historians, this fertile, corn-yielding valley was peopled by a tribe or offshoot from an older ethnological stock, also mentioned in Genesis as emigrating to Egypt from Asia; and all that we learn of them subsequently, either from Scripture, classical authors, or from recent researches, corroborates the statement. Their general physical characters and their well-known habits and modes of life combine to convince us that, in these respects, they far more resemble the inhabitants of Asia than their less civilised neighbours, who inhabited the adjacent deserts, or the regions of Africa lying to the south of Egypt, the Ethiopians and Abyssinians. Nor are the ancient Egyptians less widely dissevered from their nearest Asiatic neighbours, the Arabians; for, in place of the sharp, well-defined features of the latter, with their keen, animated, and lively countenances, and spare and active frames, so thoroughly indicative of vigour and energy, both bodily and mental, the characters of the Egyptians, as seen in their paintings and sculptures, indicate, as M. Dénon remarks, a race, having full, but delicate and voluptuous figures, with sedate, tranquil, and placid countenances. They have round and soft features; eyes that are long, almond-shaped, half shut, and languishing, turned up at the outer angles, as though habitually fatigued by the light and heat of the sun; their cheeks are round, with thick, full, and prominent lips; the mouth is large, yet cheerful and smiling; and the complexion and colour of the skin are dark, ruddy, and of a coppery hue. Though what we Europeans should designate as a dark-coloured people, and though their abode was in Africa, they were by no means black. Dr. Prichard mentions two old Egyptian deeds of sale lately discovered, which afford a curious testimony. A copy of one of these deeds may be seen in Berlin, and the original of the other in Paris. Although they refer to a period as recent as the reign of the Ptolemies, and therefore long subsequent to the more ancient Egyptians, yet the names of the persons mentioned in the documents show them to have been native Egyptians. The parties to the contract are described according to their external appearance and colour. In one of these documents, the seller, who is named Paminthes, is described as of a darkbrown colour, and the buyer, who is named Osarreres, is denoted by a term which may be rendered yellow, or honeycoloured. Of a complexion universally dark, but not black, there were amongst them great varieties of hue, as is the case among the Abyssinians and the Hindoos in the present day. The features and figures of the Egyptians are well represented in their paintings and sculptures, and these all display a very distinctive and peculiar character of countenance, as well as of bodily conformation. Dr. Morton states that the monuments from Meroë to Memphis present a pervading type of physiognomy, which is ever distinguished at a glance from the varied forms which not unfrequently EGYPTIAN PHYSIOGNOMY. 207 attend it, and which possess so much nationality, both in outline and expression, as to give it the highest importance in Nilotic ethnography. It consists in an upward elongation of the head, with a receding forehead, delicate features, but rather sharp and prominent face, in which a long and straight or gently aquiline nose forms a principal feature. The eye is sometimes oblique, the chin short and retracted, the lips rather thinnish, and the hair, whenever it is represented, long and flowing. This style of features pertains to every class, kings, priests, and people, and can be readily traced through every period of monumental decoration, from the early Pharaohs down to the Greek and Roman dynasties. W. C. SONNET. "One star differeth from another star in glory." FROM heaven's high centre to the horizon's line W. W. B. PAPERS ON THE AIR AND SKY. No. III. AN AERIAL VOYAGE. SEVENTY-TWO years ago, Montgolfier, a paper-maker of Paris, was ascending one of the hills in the neighbourhood of that city, when, looking at the large clouds sailing majestically above his head, the thought occurred to him,—“ What if I could harness one of these clouds to a car, or clothe it with a garment, and make it lift me with it into that blue ocean?" Thinking erroneously, but naturally enough, that the cloud was but condensed smoke, he and his brother set about accomplishing the feat; and with the hot gases given off from burnt straw, filled a huge paper bag, and there rose through the unresisting air the first fire-balloon. The idea of the brothers Montgolfier was soon extended and improved upon. Animals were first sent up, and then adventurous mortals suffered themselves to be lifted into the air by the imprisoned cloud. Even in the same year hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, was substituted for the hot smoke. Presently the French took up ballooning with great zeal, and introduced it into their military tactics, and the battle of Fleurus was gained by means of observations taken from a balloon. Let us, in imagination, ascend, not emulating the birds on their air-cleaving pinions, but in the only way available to us wingless and heavy-boned bipeds,-dragged up by the imprisoned gas. Let us ascend, not for our amusement merely, but to observe more closely the phenomena of the air and sky, and get material for our third paper. Just so |