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94 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Of all the beautiful women of history, none has left us such convincing proofs of her charms as Cleopatra, for the tide of Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world, turned aside because of her beauty. Julius Caesar, whose legions trampled the conquered world from Canopus to the Thames, capitulated to her, and Mark Antony threw a fleet, an empire and his own honor to the winds to follow her to his destruction. Disarmed at last before the frigid Octavius, she found her peerless body measured by the cold eye of her captor only for the triumphal procession, and the friendly asp alone spared her Rome's crowning ignominy.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819915140
Langue	English

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PREFACE
Of all the beautiful women of history, none has leftus such convincing proofs of her charms as Cleopatra, for the tideof Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world, turned asidebecause of her beauty. Julius Caesar, whose legions trampled theconquered world from Canopus to the Thames, capitulated to her, andMark Antony threw a fleet, an empire and his own honor to the windsto follow her to his destruction. Disarmed at last before thefrigid Octavius, she found her peerless body measured by the coldeye of her captor only for the triumphal procession, and thefriendly asp alone spared her Rome's crowning ignominy.
CHAPTER I - THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.
The parentage and birth of Cleopatra. - Cleopatra'sresidence in Egypt. - Physical aspect of Egypt. - The eagle's wingsand science. - Physical peculiarities of Egypt connected with thelaws of rain. - General laws of rain. - Causes which modify thequantity of rain. - Striking contrasts. - Rainless regions. - Greatrainless region of Asia and Africa. - The Andes. - Map of therainless region. - Valley of the Nile. - The Red Sea. - The oases.- Siweh. - Mountains of the Moon. - The River Nile. - Incessantrains. - Inundation of the Nile. - Course of the river. -Subsidence of the waters. - Luxuriant vegetation. - Absence offorests. - Great antiquity of Egypt. - Her monuments. - The Deltaof the Nile. - The Delta as seen from the sea. - Pelusiac mouth ofthe Nile. - The Canopic mouth. - Ancient Egypt. - The Pyramids. -Conquests of the Persians and Macedonians. - The Ptolemies. -Founding of Alexandria. - The Pharos.
The story of Cleopatra is a story of crime. It is anarrative of the course and the consequences of unlawful love. Inher strange and romantic history we see this passion portrayed withthe most complete and graphic fidelity in all its influences andeffects; its uncontrollable impulses, its intoxicating joys, itsreckless and mad career, and the dreadful remorse and ultimatedespair and ruin in which it always and inevitably ends.
Cleopatra was by birth an Egyptian; by ancestry anddescent she was a Greek. Thus, while Alexandria and the Delta ofthe Nile formed the scene of the most important events andincidents of her history, it was the blood of Macedon which flowedin her veins. Her character and action are marked by the genius,the courage, the originality, and the impulsiveness pertaining tothe stock from which she sprung. The events of her history, on theother hand, and the peculiar character of her adventures, hersufferings, and her sins, were determined by the circumstances withwhich she was surrounded, and the influences which were brought tobear upon her in the soft and voluptuous clime where the scenes ofher early life were laid.
Egypt has always been considered as physically themost remarkable country on the globe. It is a long and narrowvalley of verdure and fruitfulness, completely insulated from therest of the habitable world. It is more completely insulated, infact, than any literal island could be, inasmuch as deserts aremore impassable than seas. The very existence of Egypt is a mostextraordinary phenomenon. If we could but soar with the wings of aneagle into the air, and look down upon the scene, so as to observethe operation of that grand and yet simple process by which thislong and wonderful valley, teeming so profusely with animal andvegetable life, has been formed, and is annually revivified andrenewed, in the midst of surrounding wastes of silence, desolation,and death, we should gaze upon it with never-ceasing admiration andpleasure. We have not the wings of the eagle, but thegeneralizations of science furnish us with a sort of substitute forthem.
The long series of patient, careful, and sagaciousobservations, which have been continued now for two thousand years,bring us results, by means of which, through our powers of mentalconception, we may take a comprehensive survey of the whole scene,analogous, in some respects, to that which direct and actual visionwould afford us, if we could look down upon it from the eagle'spoint of view. It is, however, somewhat humiliating to our pride ofintellect to reflect that long-continued philosophicalinvestigations and learned scientific research are, in such a caseas this, after all, in some sense, only a sort of substitute forwings. A human mind connected with a pair of eagle's wings wouldhave solved the mystery of Egypt in a week; whereas science,philosophy, and research, confined to the surface of the ground,have been occupied for twenty centuries in accomplishing theundertaking.
It is found at last that both the existence of Egyptitself, and its strange insulation in the midst of boundless tractsof dry and barren sand, depend upon certain remarkable results ofthe general laws of rain. The water which is taken up by theatmosphere from the surface of the sea and of the land byevaporation, falls again, under certain circumstances, in showersof rain, the frequency and copiousness of which vary very much indifferent portions of the earth. As a general principle, rains aremuch more frequent and abundant near the equator than in temperateclimes, and they grow less and less so as we approach the poles.This might naturally have been expected; for, under the burning sunof the equator, the evaporation of water must necessarily go onwith immensely greater rapidity than in the colder zones, and allthe water which is taken up must, of course, again come down.
It is not, however, wholly by the latitude of theregion in which the evaporation takes place that the quantity ofrain which falls from the atmosphere is determined; for thecondition on which the falling back, in rain, of the water whichhas been taken up by evaporation mainly depends, is the cooling ofthe atmospheric stratum which contains it; and this effect isproduced in very various ways, and many different causes operate tomodify it. Sometimes the stratum is cooled by being wafted overranges of mountains, sometimes by encountering and becoming mingledwith cooler currents of air; and sometimes, again, by being drivenin winds toward a higher, and, consequently, cooler latitude. If,on the other hand, air moves from cold mountains toward warm andsunny plains, or from higher latitudes to lower, or if, among thevarious currents into which it falls, it becomes mixed with airwarmer than itself, its capacity for containing vapor in solutionis increased, and, consequently, instead of releasing its hold uponthe waters which it has already in possession, it becomes thirstyfor more. It moves over a country, under these circumstances, as awarm and drying wind. Under a reverse of circumstances it wouldhave formed drifting mists, or, perhaps, even copious showers ofrain.
It will be evident, from these considerations, thatthe frequency of the showers, and the quantity of the rain whichwill fall, in the various regions respectively which the surface ofthe earth presents, must depend on the combined influence of manycauses, such as the warmth of the climate, the proximity and thedirection of mountains and of seas, the character of the prevailingwinds, and the reflecting qualities of the soil. These and othersimilar causes, it is found, do, in fact, produce a vast differencein the quantity of rain which falls in different regions. In thenorthern part of South America, where the land is bordered on everyhand by vast tropical seas, which load the hot and thirsty air withvapor, and where the mighty Cordillera of the Andes rears its icysummits to chill and precipitate the vapors again, a quantity ofrain amounting to more than ten feet in perpendicular height fallsin a year. At St. Petersburg, on the other hand, the quantity thusfalling in a year is but little more than one foot. The immensedeluge which pours down from the clouds in South America would, ifthe water were to remain where it fell, wholly submerge andinundate the country. As it is, in flowing off through the valleysto the sea, the united torrents form the greatest river on theglobe - the Amazon; and the vegetation, stimulated by the heat, andnourished by the abundant and incessant supplies of moisture,becomes so rank, and loads the earth with such an entangled andmatted mass of trunks, and stems, and twining wreaths and vines,that man is almost excluded from the scene. The boundless forestsbecome a vast and almost impenetrable jungle, abandoned to wildbeasts, noxious reptiles, and huge and ferocious birds of prey.
Of course, the district of St. Petersburg, with itsicy winter, its low and powerless sun, and its twelve inches ofannual rain, must necessarily present, in all its phenomena ofvegetable and animal life, a striking contrast to the exuberantprolificness of New Grenada. It is, however, after all, notabsolutely the opposite extreme. There are certain regions on thesurface of the earth that are actually rainless; and it is thesewhich present us with the true and real contrast to the luxuriantvegetation and teeming life of the country of the Amazon. In theserainless regions all is necessarily silence, desolation, and death.No plant can grow; no animal can live. Man, too, is forever andhopelessly excluded. If the exuberant abundance of animal andvegetable life shut him out, in some measure, from regions which anexcess of heat and moisture render too prolific, the total absenceof them still more effectually forbids him a home in these. Theybecome, therefore, vast wastes of dry and barren sands in which noroot can find nourishment, and of dreary rocks to which not even alichen can cling.
The most extensive and remarkable rainless region onthe earth is a vast tract extending through the interior andnorthern part of Africa, and the southwestern part of Asia. The RedSea penetrates into this tract from the south, and thus breaks theoutline and continuity of its form, without, however, altering, oressentially modifying its character. It divides it, however, and tothe different portions which this d