877 



EGYPT. 



EGTPT. 



878 



sweeps away the mud-built cottages of the Arabs, drowns their cattle, 

 and involves the whole population in ruin. Again, should it fall short 

 of the ordinary height, bad crops and dearth are the consequences. 

 The inundations having remained stationary for a few days begin to 

 subside, and about the end of November most of the fields are left 

 dry and covered with a fresh layer of rich brown slime : this is the 

 time when the lands are put under culture. During our winter 

 months, which are the spring months of Egypt, the Delta, as well as 

 the Valley of the Nile, looks like a delightful garden, smiling with 

 verdure, and enamelled with the blossoms of trees and plants. Later 

 in the year the soil becomes parched and dusty ; and in May the 

 suffocating khamseen begins to blow frequently from the south, 

 sweeping along the fine sand, and causing various diseases, until the 

 rising of the beneficent river comes agahi to refresh the land. 

 Showers are very rare in Egypt, except on the sea-coast ; it rains 

 three or four times in the year at Cairo, and once or twice in Upper 

 Egypt, but perhaps not every year. The nights however are cool, and 

 the dews heavy. Strong winds blow from the north during the sum- 

 mer, at the period of the inundation, and are very useful in propelling 

 vessels up the Nile against the current. 



Whatever may have been once the case, it appears to be ascertained 

 that the coast of the Delta does not now advance ; the currents 

 which sweep along the north coast of Africa preventing any per- 

 manent accession of alluvial soil to the Egyptian shore. The gradual 

 elevation of the soil of the Delta and? Valley of the Nile has also 

 been much exaggerated. From the most careful calculations the land 

 since the time of the Ptolemies at the first or lowest cataract only 

 appears to have been raised about 9 feet, at Thebes about 7 feet, at Cairo 

 < feet 1 inches, and thence, as the inundation spreads over an 

 increasingly wider space east and west along the Delta, the elevation 

 continually diminishes, till at Rosetta and the mouths of the Nile it 

 is hardly perceptible : but the effect of the accumulation of soil on 

 the Delta appears to be also counterbalanced by the gradual sub- 

 sidence of the land along the coast here. With this raising of the 

 soil from the alluvial deposits the bed of the river has also risen in 

 proportion. The height of the inundation requisite for the irrigation 

 of the land, making allowance for the difference of measures, appears 

 to be nearly the same aa in the time of Herodotus. The vertical 

 increase of the cultivated soil must not be confounded with the 

 accumulation of sand in some particular places, as round the great 

 sphinx, Ac. which has been in many instances the work of the wind. 



3. The Western or Libyan Deiert. The nominal limits of Egypt 

 along the sea-coast west of Alexandria are the mountains at Akabah- 

 el-Soloum, the Catabathmus Magnus of the ancients, about 25 

 E. long., where the nominal limits of the pashalic of Tripoli begin, 

 but this extensive tract of country is occupied by independent tribes 

 of nomadic Arabs. Inland to the south is the oasis of Siwah, or 

 Ammon. [SrwAH.] Farther to the south-east, and nearer to the 

 Valley of the Nile, is a succession of oases, beginning with the Little 

 Oasis, now called Wah-el-Bahryeh, or Wah-el-Behnesa, having been 

 colonised by people from Behnesa, or Oxyrhynchus. The chief town 

 or village is El-Kasr, about 28 16' N. lat., 28 51' E. long. It is 

 three caravan days' journey S.W. from Faioum, across the desert. 

 This Wah is fertilised by irrigation from plentiful and never-failing 

 springs ; it produces wheat, rice, barley, clover, liquorice, and a variety 

 of fruit-trees. A short day's journey to the south of it is the small 

 wah of El-Hayz, and three days further south is that of Farafreh. 

 Five or six days west of the road to Farafreh is another oasis, called 

 Wadi Zerzoora, abounding in springs and palms. Gerbabo, another 

 wah, lies six days still farther to the west, and twelve days from 

 Augila : the inhabitants are said to be black, probably Tibboos, and 

 are far removed beyond the dominion of Egypt. Four days south 

 of Farafreh is the Wah-el-Gharbee, or Wah-el-Dakhleh, which 

 although mentioned by Arab writers was unknown to recent Europeans 

 till discovered by Sir A. Edmonstone in 1819. It has however a 

 temple of Roman date, with the names of Nero and Titus upon it. 

 The condition and population of this oasis is superior to those of the 

 others already mentioned : it contains 11 villages or towns, and a 

 population of 6000 male inhabitants. It abounds with fruit, particu- 

 larly olives and apricots; but dates, as in all the oases, form the 

 principal produce of the district. The principal village, El-Kasr 

 Uakhel or Dakhleh, is in aboxit 25 35' N. lat., 28 55' E. long., above 

 three degrees W. from Thebes. There is a warm spring of the tempe- 

 rature of 102 Fahr., which supplies several baths attached to the 

 mosque. Three days to the eastward of Dakhleh, in the direction of 

 Esneh, is the Great Oasis, or Wah-el-Khargeh. It extends in length 

 from 24 30' to near 26 N. lat., and has many villages and springs, as 

 well as ruins of the ancient Egyptian time, of the Roman period, and 

 of the Christian and the Saracenic eras. Several roads lesid from the 

 Great Oasis to the Nile, to Esneh, Siout, Farshout, and Thebes. The 

 road to Dar-fur passes through it. This oasis, as well aa that of 

 Dakhleb, are Dearly on the same level as the Valley of the Nile, 

 while the Little Oasis is about 200 feet higher than the Nile in the 

 latitude of ISenisouef. 



4. The Eastern Country. The large tract between the Valley of 

 the Nile aud the Red Sea has a different character from the western 

 or Libyan Desert. Its general character is that of a mountainous 

 region, which, although generally rocky and barren, is intersected by 



numerous wadis, or ravines, fertilised by springs and clothed with 

 vegetation. Several Arab tribes divide among themselves the whole 

 tract, which cannot therefore be called properly a desert. In ancient 

 times the roads leading from the Valley of the Nile to the shores of 

 the Red Sea passed by regular stations, and villages and towns with a 

 resident population. Mines of various metals and quarries of por- 

 phyry and other valuable stones are scattered among the mountains, 

 and were once regularly worked. At present the only fixed habitations 

 are at the port of Cosseir, and at the Coptic monasteries of St. 

 Anthony and St. Paul. The convent of St. Anthony is about 17 miles 

 from the shore of the Mersa, or Bay of Zaffarana, which terminates 

 the Wadi Arabah. From St. Anthony to Deir Bolos, or St. Paul, is a 

 distance of about 14 miles by the road. The Kolzim ridge lies 

 between the two. Deir Bolos is only 9 miles from the sea to the 

 south-east of Deir Antonios, and at Wadi Girfi between it and the 

 sea are the remains of houses and catacombs which appear to belong 

 to the Greek period. At Jebel Tenesep, about 15 miles S.E. from 

 Deir Bolos, the mountains diverge into the interior to the south and 

 south-west towards the Nile, and are succeeded near the sea by a range 

 of primitive mountains which run down the whole way to Cosseir, at 

 a distance of from about 20 to 30 miles from the coast, the inter- 

 vening space being occupied in some places by low limestone aud 

 sandstone hills. Jebel Ghrarib, about 28 15' N. lat., in the primitive 

 range, is described as resembling in its lofty peaks the Aiguilles of 

 Chamouny ; its height is estimated at nearly 6000 feet above the sea. 

 About 20 miles farther south, in a range of low hills, are copper 

 mines, which appear to have been once extensively worked. At Jebel 

 Dokhan, 27 26' N. lat., and about 25 miles from the sea, are the 

 ruins of a town, and vast quarries of porphyry, with ancient roads 

 crossing the mountains in all directions, and two wells cut through a 

 solid porphyry rock. A small temple of red granite, with an inscrip- 

 tion of the time of Hadrian, and dedicated to Serapis, has been left 

 unfinished ; all the materials are on the spot, but not a column was 

 ever put up, and nothing was completed. A road led from Dokham 

 to Coptos, now Koft, on the Nile, about 100 miles to the south-west, 

 and another road to the port of Myos Hormos, once a great mart on the 

 Red Sea, but which was already deserted in the time of Pliuy. There 

 are some fine valleys in these mountains, but the sea-coast is marshy 

 and unwholesome. At Fateereh, about 40 miles S.E. from Dokhan, 

 in the old road to Cosseir, are ruins of a Roman station, with a 

 temple of the time of Trajan, and quarries of granite. South of 

 Cosseir the mountains continue to run parallel to the coast as far as 

 Jebel Zabarah, or the Mountain of Emerald, which is about eight 

 hours from the coast, and farther south-east to the ruins of BERENICE. 

 The coast of the Red Sea was surveyed in 1830-33 by Commander 

 Moresby and Lieutenant Carless, H.E.I. C. service. 



Ancient History. Egypt was one of the countries earliest civilised 

 and brought under a fixed, social, and political system. The first 

 king mentioned as having reigned over that country is Menes or Men, 

 who is supposed to have lived above 2000 years B.C. The records of the 

 Egyptian priests, as handed down to us by Herodotus, Manetho, Era- 

 tosthenes, and others, place the era of Menes several thousand years 

 farther back, reckoning a great number of kings and dynasties after 

 him, with remarks on the gigantic stature of some of the kings and of 

 their wonderful exploits, aud other characteristics of mystical and 

 confused tradition. (See Eusebius, ' Chronicorum Canonum libri 

 duo,' edited by A. Mai aud Zohrab, Milan, 1818.) The chronology of 

 this early period is very uncertain. It has been conjectured that 

 several of Manetho's dynasties were not successive, but contempora- 

 neous, reigning over various parts of the country. Something li'-.o a 

 chronological series has however been made out from the time of 

 Menes by Champollion, Wilkinson, and other Egyptian archseologists, 

 partly from the list of Manetho and partly from the phonetic inscrip- 

 tions on the monuments of the country. Lepsius, Buusen, and others 

 have arranged the ancient history of Egypt under the Old, Middle, 

 and New Monarchies : the Old extending from the foundation of the 

 kingdom of Menes to the invasion of the Hyksos ; the Middle from 

 the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos to their expulsion ; the 

 New from the re-establishment of the monarchy by Amosis to the 

 final conquest of Egypt by Persia, B.C. 350. 



Meiies was of This in Upper Egypt ; soon after his death the countiy 

 appears to have been divided into a southern and a northern kingdom, 

 governed respectively by a Thinite and a Meniphite dynasty. Othur 

 independent principalities appear to have existed at the same time. 

 Of these the most famous were the Memphite kings, Suphis and his 

 brother or brothers, to whom the great pyramid is attributed, and 

 who are supposed to be the same as the Cheops and Cephren of 

 Herodotus, although that historian has placed them much later, after 

 Sesostris and Mooris, and Osirtasen I., who reigned about B.C. 2080, 

 who appears to have become confounded with Rameses II., to whom 

 also his name under the form of Sesostris was transferred. Abraham 

 visited Egypt about B.C. 1920, and wo have the testimony of the 

 Scripture as to the high and flourishing state of that country at that 

 early period. The Scripture calls the kings of Egypt indiscriminately 

 Pharaohs, which is now ascertained to be not the proper name of the 

 individual monarchs, but a prefix like that of Csesar and Augustus 

 given to the Roman emperors. The word Phra iu the Egyptian lan- 

 guage meant the sun. Little or nothing is known of several successive 



