﻿l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



5. VITAL STATISTICS OF THE KHARGA OASIS 

 POPULATION IN 1907 



The following data are based mainly on records furnished to the 

 writer by the Kharga authorities, 1 and on the last two Egyptian 

 censuses. 



In 1897 the total population of the Oasis, according to the Egyptian 

 Census of that year, 2 was 7,220. At the beginning of 1907, it was 

 8,424, and at the beginning of 1909, near 8,495. 3 The increase for 

 the decade to 1907 amounted to 16.7 per cent, but during the last 

 four years of the period it was in all probability, due to the absence 

 of epidemics and hence lesser mortality, more rapid, being equal 

 to 22 per cent per decade. This last is a rate of natural increase 

 not equalled in any of the larger territorial groups of whites ; but 

 even the rate of 16.7 (or 16.1 per cent), is a very high one, being 

 reached among the whites only in some localized areas in Germany 

 and one or two other countries. But this rate is almost exactly like 

 that of Egypt as a whole, the net increase of population in that 

 country from 1897 to 1907 being 16 per cent. 



This relatively rapid augmentation in numbers of the Oasis people 

 is due, as will be seen from later tables, on one hand to a large 

 birth-rate and on the other to an unexpectedly moderate death-rate, 

 in years free from epidemics, 



The distribution of the population according to the four districts 

 of the Kharga Oasis, and the population per dwelling, was in 1907 

 as follows : 



POPULATION OF THE KHARGA OASIS, AT THE BEGINNING 

 OF 1907, ACCORDING TO THE DISTRICTS 



■p.. . Total number of Total number of 



1Jlstnct houses inhabitants 



Kharga 1,285 5,322 



Gennah 97 520 



Boulac 195 J. 016 



Beris 452 1,566 



Total 2,029 dwellings. 8,424 inhabitants. 



(A little over 4.1 to a dwelling.) 



x The writer is especially indebted in this connection to M. Mohammed 

 Cherif, the Maowen of the Oasis. The data were said to be entirely accurate. 



2 Recensement general de l'Egypte, Vol. 2, Le Caire, 1898, pp. 215, 274, etc. 

 Ball (1. c, p. 46) and after him Beadnell ("An Egyptian Oasis," etc., p. 61), 

 give 7,856. The difference between the number given by the census and that 

 of Ball is not explainable, but the census number, judging by the increase of 

 the population from 1904 to 1908, is the more correct. 



s The 1907 census of Egypt (4°, Cairo, 1909), gives 41 less or 8,383, which 

 would correspond to an increase for the decade of 16. 1 per cent. As the 

 figure given to the writer is substantiated by the detailed data on births and 

 deaths, it will be used in preference. The difference, after all, is small. 



