in affluence. On the other hand was a smooth water-way within half a dozen miles or less of every field in the country. There was also motive power for shipping, since the river-current carried vessels northward, and the Etesian winds—known 
Fig. 2.—A coastal navigation drawn to the same scale as the river navigation opposite. on the ocean as the trade winds—brought them southward again. Fertility and a line of communications—man-power and facilities for its organisation; there are the essential ingredients for a kingdom.
We are asked to picture the early condition of Egypt as that of a valley held by a chain of tribes, who fought with one another in fleets of great war-canoes, just as later tribes have fought on the river Congo in our own time. Some one of these tribes, having defeated its neighbours, gained possession of a longer section of the valley, a more extensive material basis for its man-power, and on that basis organised further conquests. At last
