EGYPT.—CHAPTER 2.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume II, Issue 11, 27 November 1856, Page 11

EGYPT.—CHAPTER 2.

About the time that Samuel was judging Israel, there was n very bad man reigning in Egypt, whose name was Cheops, He wished to gain a great name for himself by building a large tomb that should last as long as the world lasts. So he shut up all the temples, and sent all the grown men into Arabia to quarry stone, and drag the blocks all the way from Pelra to the River Nile. There he made them build the largest Pyramid, and cut a canal from it to the Nile, so that the sacred waters of that stream should flow uuderneath his tomb. When he died he was buried there; The men were 20 years building that great* Pyramid, They were even glad of his death; for they thought, poor people, thai now they should have rest. But alas \ his brother Chepbren was no better than him-and he set about building another Pyramid, and he made slaves of all the people and shut up the temples for 20 years more. Between 1 these two Pyramids stands a smaller one built by Cheops' daughter, who married every man that would give nor money to help to build a Pyramid. After the death of Chephren, his son Myeerinus was made king, and he was a good man at first and opened all the temptes; but still he made slaves of the people and made ihem build him a Pyramid. This king thought to himself, "surely now the gods will bless me and give me a long life, because I have opened rhe temples, and offered sacrifices to them." So he prayed to Jupiter and asked this Maori god how long he should reign. The Priest said '• 12 years." So then Mvcerinus began to complain,and said, "My fa'ther and uncle shut up the iemples and offered no sacrifices,

and ihey reigned oO years each. While I have only 12 years given me, though I have worshipped the gods/' The priest answered. " It is because you have served the gods, that they grant you a short life—for it is not life but death that is happiness." ButMycerinus was angry and sad, and instead of continuing bis good course of life, be became very wicked, and said like the bad men St. Paul speaks of I Cor. x*, "Let me do nothing but eat and drink now, for tomorrow I die/' The fifth-great Pyramid was built a little later by a king named Asychis. The others were all built of stone, which the people had had to- fetch all the way from Petra - but this fifth was built of brick, made of the mini of the River Nile. Therefore this king boasted that though the other four stone Pyramids were taller than bis brick one, yet his was the best, for two reasons— Ist, because he had not made his people slaves and killed them by hard work in building it—2nd, because his was built of mud taken out of the sacred River Nile. All these and several other Pyramids were built on the west bank of the River Nile, near where the town of Cairo now stands, just at the point where the Nile branches off into seven channels; only two or which are now open—the two outer ones. The other five are dammed up with mud. Many kings have tried to cut a canal from the Eastermost branch of the Nile to the Red Sea—so thatships might sail from the Mediterranean Sea up the Nile into the Red Sea. Pharoah Necho (of whonvwe read in the Old Testaments kings xxiii. 29,) began to make this canal—and a great Roman Emperor many years later finished it, and the Romans called the canal 'the River of Trajan. Bat the mud has filled it up. The Ruler of Egypt is now trying to make another caual, and the French surveyors offer to do it for him. They: intend to bring ships up the western branch of the Nile from Alexandria to Cairo, and then cut a canal from those Pyramids to Suez at the north of. the Red Sea. The reason why it is so-difficult a work is that the water of the Red Sea is 32 feet higher than the water in the Mediterranean Sea—and unless great care is taken, when a canal is cut from the Red Sea, the waters would rush, down, and overthrow all Egypt with a deluge—so that they will have to dam back the water with, many locks, and prevent H from rushing too violently. I tell you ail about this, because some day ©p other the English people will try and cut a canal, like that, across Otahuhu from the

Manukau to Tamaki—and it will have to be done in the same way--and then ships will sail across from the Waitema'a to Manu&au, instead of going: all round the North Cape.