Page:Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians Volume 1.djvu/51

Rh CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE EGYPTIANS. 3

by introducing him as a son of Noah. But it is more reasonable to suppose that a colony of Asiatics settled in Egypt at a subsequent period, and that to this cause we ought to attribute the marked distinction between the head of the Egyp- tians and the Blacks. Conjecture, however, is un- able to fix the time when the event took place ; and though it may be ascribed to an era when parts of the earth were already thickly peopled, yet probability suggests that it occurred when nations were in their infancy, and at a period far beyond the reach of history.

There has always been a striking resemblance between the Egyptians and Asiatics, both as to their manners, customs, language, and religion ; and some authors have considered the valley they inliabited to belong to Asia rather than to Africa* : others, again, have divided the country into two parts, the east and west banks of the Nile, assign- ing the former to Asia, the latter to Africa, and taking the river as the boundary line of the two continents. In manner, language, and many other respects, Egypt was certainly more Asiatic than African ; and though there is no appearance of the Hindoo and Egyptian religions having been bor- rowed from one another, which many might be induced to conchide fiom their great analogy in some points, yet it is not improbable that those two nations may have proceeded from the same original stock, and have migrated southwards from their parent country in central Asia.

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 * Plin. V. 9.