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808 HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER XX EGYPTIANS. IF, on one side, the Phenicians were separated fl'om the produc* tive Babylonia by the Arabian desert ; on the other side, the western portion of the same desert divided them from the no less productive valley of the Nile. In those early times which pre- ceded the rise of Greek civilization, their land trade embraced both regions, and they served as the sole agents of international traffic between the two. Conveniently as their towns were situated for maritime commerce with the Nile, Egyptian jealousy had excluded Phenician vessels not less than those of the Greeks from the mouths of that river, until the reign of Psammetichus (G72-C18 B. c.) ; and thus even the merchants of Tyre could then reach Memphis only by means of caravans, employing as their instruments, as I have already observed, the Arabian tribes, 1 alternately plunderers and carriers. Respecting Egypt, as respect- ing Assyria, since the works of Hekataeus are unfortunately lost, our earliest information is derived from Herodotus, who visited Egypt about two centuries after the reign of Psammetichus, when it formed part of one of the twenty Persian satrapies. The Egyptian marvels and peculiarities which he recounts, are more numerous, as well as more diversified, than the Assyrian, and had the vestiges been effaced as completely in the former as in the latter, his narrative would probably have met with an equal degree of suspicion. But the hard stone, combined with the dry climate of Upper Egypt (where a shower of rain counted 1 Strabo, xvi, pp. 766, 776, 778 ; Pliny, H. N. vi, 32. "Arabes, mirum dictu, ex innumeris populis pars acqua in commcrciis aut latrociniis degunt: in nniversum gentes ditissimae, ut apud quas maxima) opes Romanorum Parthorumque subsistant, vcndentibus qune a mari aut sylvis caj iunt, nihil inviccm redimentibus/ 5 The latter part of this passage of Pliny presents an enunciation sufficiently distinct, though by implication only, of what has been called the mercantfa tlieory in political economy.