116 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



are neglected, that the soil is ill cultivated, and that the 

 means of subsistence, and consequently the population, are 



S*eatly reduced. But such is the natural fertility of the 

 elta from the inundations of the Nile, that even without 

 any capital employed upon the land, without a right ot 

 succession, and consequently almost without a right of 

 property, it still maintains a considerable population in 

 proportion to its extent, sufficient, if property were secure, 

 and industry well directed, gradually to improve and 

 extend the cultivation of the country and restore it to its 

 former state of prosperity. It may be safely pronounced 

 of Egypt that it is not the want of population that has 

 checked its industry, but the want of industry that has 

 checked its population. 



The immediate causes which keep down the population 

 to the level of the present contracted means of subsistence, 

 are but too obvious. The peasants are allowed for their 

 maintenance only sufficient to keep them alive *. A 

 miserable sort of bread made of doura without leaven or 

 flavour, cold water, and raw onions make up the whole of 

 their diet. Meat and fat, of which they are passionately 

 fond, never appear but on great occasions, and among those 

 who are more at their ease. The habitations are huts made of 

 earth, where a stranger would be suffocated with the heat 

 and smoke ; and where the diseases generated by want of 

 cleanliness, by moisture, and by bad nourishment, often 

 visit them and commit great ravages. To these physical 

 evils are added a constant state of alarm, the fear of the 

 plunder of the Arabs, and the visits of the Mamelukes, 

 the spirit of revenge transmitted in families, and all the 

 evils of a continual civil war f. 



In the year 1783 the plague was very fatal, and in 1784 

 and 1785 a dreadful famine reigned in Egypt, owing to a 

 deficiency in the inundation of the Nile. Volney draws 

 a frightful picture of the misery that was suffered on this 

 occasion. The streets of Cairo, which at first were full of 

 beggars, were soon cleared of all these objects, who either 

 perished or fled. A vast number of unfortunate wretches, 



* Voyage de Volney, torn. i. c. xii. p. 172. 



t Volney, torn. i. c. xii. p. 173. This sketch of the state of the 

 peasantry in Egypt given by Volney seems to he nearly confirmed by 

 all other writers on this subject ; and particularly in a" valuable paper 

 entitled Considerations gene"rales sur 1'Agriculture de 1'Egypte, par 

 L. Reynier (Me"moires sur 1'Egypte, torn. iv. p. 1). 



