358 WARS OF THE CALIPHS. 



and moon. .When the annual dispensation of Pro- 

 vidence unlocks the springs and fountains that nou- 

 rish the earth, the Nile rolls his swelling and sound- 

 ing waters through the land. The fields are over- 

 spread by the salutary flood, and the villagers 

 communicate with each other in their painted barks. 

 The retreat of the inundation deposites a fertilizing 

 mud for the reception of the various seeds; the 

 crowds of husbandmen who blacken the fields may 

 be compared to a swarm of industrious ants ; and 

 their native indolence is quickened by the lash of 

 the taskmaster, and the promise of the flowers and 

 fruit of a plentiful increase. According to the vicis- 

 situdes of the seasons, the face of the country is 

 adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, or 

 the deep yellow of a golden harvest."* The phe- 

 nomenon of a country alternately a garden and a 

 sea was new to the dwellers in the Desert. Their 

 imagination took a license from these wonders ; but 

 a more accurate inquiry has enabled us to rectify 

 many of their fabulous and exaggerated statements. 

 Their 20,000 cities and villages are limited, by an 

 authentic estimate of the twelfth century, to 2700 ; 

 the 20,000,000 of inhabitants have collapsed to one- 

 fifth of that calculation ; and the 300,000,000 pieces 

 of gold or silver that were annually paid to the trea- 

 sury of the caliph have been found to be an error 

 of Elmacin, and reduced by Renaudot to the more 

 moderate revenue of 4,300,000 pieces of gold, of 

 which 900,000 were consumed by the pay of the 

 soldiers, t 



The ambition of Amru was not content with a 

 single conquest ; he began to extend his victories 

 westward into the kingdoms of A frica, and in a 

 short time made himself master of all the country 

 which hes between the Nile and the desert of Barca. 



* Murtadi, Merveilles de I'Egypte. 

 t Hist,, Patriarch. Alex. p. 334. , 



