the country was always in ancient times a sort of granary of the world.
The noble river, bringing annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil,
and furnishing a supply of water, which is sufficient, if carefully
husbanded, to produce a succession of luxuriant crops throughout the
year, makes Egypt--what it is even at the present day--one of the most
fertile portions of the earth's surface--a land of varied products,
all excellent--but especially a land of corn, to which the principal
nations of the world looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at
any rate in times of difficulty.

West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but
otherwise only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the
Persian Empire was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly
in the lowest condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The
geographical extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that
of Egypt; but its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but
dates and hides. The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however,
further productive of a commodity, which, until the world is
christianized, will probably always be regarded as one of high
value--the commodity of negro slaves, which were procured in the Sahara
by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase in Nigritia.

Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in
this direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20°, and the
Ras al Tynn (long. 23° 15'), there rises above the level of the adjacent
regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs
and rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in
places, is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders,