THE SPREAD OF CONQUEST IN THE ANCIENT WORLD In a companion volume of this series, "The Story of Extinct Civilisations in the East," will be found an account of the rise and development of the various nations who held sway over the west of Asia at the dawn of history.

Modern discoveries of remarkable interest have enabled us to learn the condition of men in Asia Minor as early as 4000 B.C.All these early civilisations existed on the banks of great rivers, which rendered the land fertile through which they passed.
We first find man conscious of himself, and putting his knowledge on record, along the banks of the great rivers Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris, Ganges and Yang-tse-Kiang.

But for our purposes we are not concerned with these very early stages of history.

The Egyptians got to know something of the nations that surrounded them, and so did the Assyrians.

A summary of similar knowledge is contained in the list of tribes given in the tenth chapter of Genesis, which divides all mankind, as then known to the Hebrews, into descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japhet--corresponding, roughly, to Asia, Europe, and Africa.