obtain “knowledge” or understand “the language of birds”. In an Egyptian folk tale Ahura, after killing the “Deathless Snake”, similarly understands “the language of birds, fishes”, &c. Harpocrates appears to be the god Horus as the dragon-slaying Sutekh, the imported legend being preserved in the Ahura tale of the Empire period, when Egypt received so many Asiatic immigrants that the facial type changed as the statuary shows. Professor Elliot Smith considers that while the early Egyptian was “the representative of his kinsman the Neolithic European . . . the immigrant population into both Europe and Egypt” represented “two streams of the same Asiatic folk”. Racial myths appear to have followed in the tracks of the racial drift.
In our historical narrative the reader is kept in touch with the great civilizations of the Cretans, Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, &c., which influenced and were influenced by Egypt. Special attention is also devoted to Palestine and the great figures in Biblical narrative—Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, and the notable kings of Israel and Judah. There are numerous quotations from the Old Testament, and especially from the prophets who dealt with the political as well as the religious problems of their times. To students of the Bible this part of the volume should make special appeal. It is impossible to appreciate to the full the power and sagacity of Isaiah’s sublime utterances without some knowledge of the history of ancient Egypt.
DONALD A. MACKENZIE.
