458 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



self far too aloof to ever really get into intimate contact with the 

 native. Edward Lane did much to record the manners and cus- 

 toms of the Cairene Egyptian, but he never lived among the fellahin, 

 and his book contains little about the modern dweller on the banks of 

 the Nile outside Cairo. A rich harvest awaits any student who, 

 knowing the language, will settle and live throughout the year 

 among the peasants in any village or town in the Lower Nile Valley 

 or Delta. It is only in this way that a real knowledge of the people 

 can be obtained. Far less is known about them than about many a 

 tribe in Central Africa. 



Thucydides, in the preface to his "History," proposed to record 

 past facts as a basis of rational provision in regard to the future, 

 but he was not the first to whom this great thought had occurred. 

 A thousand years before the Greek historian was born an old vizier 

 of Egypt said of himself that he was " skilled in the ways of the 

 past," and that " the things of yesterday " caused him " to know to- 

 morrow." Anthropology, the science of man and civilization, aims 

 at discovering the general laws which have governed human history 

 in the past and may be expected to regulate it in the future. The 

 Egyptian vizier had, at most, a couple of thousand years of recorded 

 history before him. Since his time the area of history has been ever 

 widening, and we ourselves can look back over nearly six thousand 

 years of human endeavor. We know considerably more of the past 

 than did our forefathers, and though those who hold the reins of 

 government do not usually learn by experience, the anthropologist 

 ought to be able to predict a little better than the politician about 

 the future. For thousands of years Egypt has been under foreign 

 rule. It has been under the yoke of Ethiopian and Persian kings, 

 under the Greek and Roman, Arab and Ottoman conquerors. Its 

 people suffered three thousand years of oppression. For the last 

 forty years it has had English justice. Egypt has this year been 

 handed back to the Egyptians. It is an Oriental country. What 

 will be the immediate future of its people? It is not difficult to 

 predict. Seventy years ago, when Egypt was under the sway of 

 Said Pasha, there was current among the fellahin of Thebes a little 

 parable, and with this I will conclude. I quote it as it was taken 

 down by Rhind in the fifties of last century, but the story was still 

 remembered when I lived among the natives of Upper Egypt twenty- 

 eight years ago. It runs thus : 



" It happened once that a sultan captured a lion, which it pleased 

 him to keep for his royal pleasure. An officer was appointed 

 especially to have in charge the well-being of the beast, for whose 

 sustenance the command of His Highness allotted the daily allow- 

 ance of 6 pounds of meat. It instantly occurred to the keeper that 



