Ebook Early Egyptian History for the Young

My dear Boys, -

Since I returned from Egypt, you have asked me several times to teach you some Egyptian history. We made an attempt at it last holidays, but I think without any very signal success. On some rainy afternoons, and on one or two hot mornings, I succeeded in collecting you all together in one room, and in opening before you, Rawlinson's "Herodotus." or the first volume of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's "Ancient Egypt;" but the lecture I intended to give you on the subject never prospered as I could have wished.

You had always so many questions to ask, and so many objections to make, - you grew so impatient over the long lists of hard names, and over the contradictory opinions of the various authorities on disputed points, - that it was hardly possible that much progress should be made; and I was not surprised, though a little mortified, when one of you remarked, that you thought you knew rather less about Egyptian history, at the end of the last lecture, than you did when our readings commenced.