Transcriber’s Note: The original copy of this book wasn’t very wellproofread, if at all. A large number of printing errors have beencorrected, including transposed full lines of text. In one place(noted below) at least one line was omitted completely: it wasn’tpossible to source another edition to check what the missing wordsmight have been. The spelling and hyphenation of Egyptian names areoften inconsistent.
Cleopatra.
PREDECESSORS
OF CLEOPATRA
BY
LEIGH NORTH
5 Drawings by G. A. Davis
BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO.
AT
835 BROADWAY, N. Y.
1906
Copyrighted, 1906.
by
Broadway Publishing Co.,
All Rights Reserved.
TO
MY HUSBAND
INTRODUCTION.
In attempting even a brief and imperfect outlineof the history of Egyptian queens the authorhas undertaken no easy task and craves indulgencefor its modest fulfillment. The aimhas been merely to put the little that is knownin a readable and popular form, to gather frommany sources the fragments that remain, partlyhistoric, partly legendary, of a dead past. Topresent—however imperfectly—sketches of thewomen who once lived and breathed as Queensof Egypt, which has been more ably and completelydone—as the period was less remote andthe sources of information fuller, for their royalsisters of other lands.
A short article published some years ago inLippincott’s Magazine may be said to be the nucleusof the present volume, the writer’s interestin the subject having been awakened by thestudy necessary to its preparation.
We enter a house through the portico or vestibule.We form acquaintances on somewhatthe same principle. We begin perhaps with theweather, we exchange comments on trifles, wepass through an introductory stage of intercoursebefore we reach the real heart of the manor woman who, in time, becomes our dearestfriend. Skip the introduction if you will, busy[ii]reader, but metaphorically it forms the porticoor vestibule of the Egyptian House.
From the darkness which envelopes the centuriesmodern research has brought to lightmuch that was unknown or forgotten. With almostthe creative touch it has made the drybones to live again and link by link drawn outthe long chain of the years. What was once amere roll of names with a wide hiatus here andthere has grown to be a record of the words anddeeds of men of like passions with ourselves.We feel once more in touch with the past, as it isthe aim of the highest altruism to beat responsiveto the heart of the present and the by-gonefaces look forth by the side of modern man andclaim the universal brotherhood.
Well may we marvel at the faith, the patience,the ingenuity which has unraveled so much ofthe tangled skein in “The Story of the Nations.”Like Cuvier, from a single bone elaboratin