as the Indians on the western shores of the Atlantic?

The answers which history will give to these questions will say that
the first emigrants who landed on our shores brought with them much of
the same knowledge and many of the same customs and memories which
emigrants bring nowadays and which we also have. It is true that since
the time the first settlers came men have found out how to make many
new things. The most important of these are the steam-engine, the
electric motor, the telegraph, and the telephone. But it is surprising
how many important things, which we still use, were made before
Columbus saw America.

[Illustration: A MODERN STEAMSHIP AND AN EARLY SAILING VESSEL
The early emigrants came in small sailing vessels and suffered great
hardships]

For one thing, men knew how to print books. This art had been
discovered during the boyhood of Columbus. Another thing, men could
make guns, while the Indians had only bows and arrows. The ships in
which Columbus sailed across the ocean seemed very large and wonderful
to the Indians, who used canoes. The ships were steered with the help
of a compass, an instrument which the Indians had never seen.

Some of the things which the early emigrants knew had been known
hundreds or thousands of years before. One of the oldest was the art
of writing. The way to write words or sounds was found out so long ago
that we shall never know the name of the man who first discovered it.
The historians tell us he lived in Egypt, which was in northern
Africa, exactly where Egypt is now. Some men were afraid that the new
art might do more harm than good. The king to whom the secret was told