To the Oliver of the Nonru-Cinya Danny News." cading a cops of your esteem-paper, dated dub April, 1902, dracted by an article, headed Civilisation: its dawn in Bgypt-" Tt was a report of a very excellent paper on the above subject, said to have been read by Mr. KO. 1. Ezra, before the Union Chureit Lirorary and Social Guild of Shanghai.
do not know who may have written the report, but the last clause was as follows "It is still a question, however. whether the dawn of civilisation was in Egypt. aliother Eaypt itself was not colonized by some highly civilised people that has now utterly vanished." Revan, I bell "When one thinks of Hgyptian civilisation. at least six thousand five hi Gla from the present day; that it has no known infancy; that its art, of which there remain innumerable monuments lias no archaic period: that the Eeypt of Cheops and of Chep! rior i yhren is superior in sense to all that followed, one is seized anth giddiness.
Rawlinson, in his "Origin of Nations" says, "In Egypt it is notorious that there is no indication of an carly period of savagery or barbarism." And again, "the Egyptians themselves claimed their' ancestors were strangers who, very remote ages, settled on the banks of the Nile, bringing there, with the civilisation of their mother countts, the art of writing, and a polished language that ther had come from the direction of the setting sun." And Diodorus sas they claimed "their ancestors were the most ancient men."
If as claimed, their ancestors were the most ancient men. we would naturally suppose, if the oldest. dry land on th planet could be located, we might expect to find on it traces of the oldest human race, that is if they attained any degree of civilisation. If in addition to finding trac." of an ancient race, they should find cv dences of a very high culture, which lets its records on the monuments of ther own country, and the impress of its name, language, customs, worship. reac ings, upon the ancient Egyptians, i motest times, not anis on other peoples as well; if in a that there could be found en. ments explanations of what h solved problems to Ezyptolozi in of the Exyptian God sand his sister wife, the Goddess Isis could found there, showing they were the King and Qree n of the country, and that it was} only after having received the honor of apotheosis, after their death, that te tore erected to their memory, and divine paid them: if. hieratic alphabets of found all Bords: if in addition to all this a ye problem in t t Table Sphins. a prototype it mar be of the ever mysterious Sp plims could be found, and that 3 din, the mau-solemn of ancient ug. the record of found on resee and stone, where dear ith the store told of the would ta an God Osiris, woul Na death of the Ezeptia there not he some reas on for people of age to bell that the record of the people who gave Earpt its cir n has not utterly perishes "Ail that T have stated above, and vers mach more has been found, explored, Tadied, photographed, and traced on the Continent of America. so often regard fsanew country, but conceded by the Jeating geologists of the world, T believe, to be the oldest dry land on this planet. Lam, ete.. Wa. Marrs.
20th April
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.