Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/415

 which the Arab of our days could not venture to penetrate into the burning wastes. Before the arrival of the Hyksos they were even unacquainted with the horse or the sheep, and possessed the laborious ox alone.

The Egyptians of that remote epoch had not yet become the herd of serfs, such

as they are depicted on the bas-reliefs and wall-paintings of subsequent times. They were still a light-hearted peasantry, lovers of feasts and the dance, ignorant of the hateful arts of war. All this would seem to justify the hypothesis that they