EXTENT AND POPULATION. 813 



ChampoUion's discovery revealed the mystery of the hieroglyphics so long and so 

 earnestly sought for, and when the savants were able at last to decipher the inscriptions 

 which cover in thousands the walls and columns of the immense architectural library 

 of Egypt, they plunged with rapture into this hitherto almost unknown field of 

 inquiry. To the works of Herodotus and of the Greek geographers were now added 

 still more precious documents, the so-called " tables," and the papyri written forty 

 centuries ago by the Egyptians themselves. 



Thanks to the investigations of Mariette, now continued by M. Maspero, and 

 thanks to the interpretations of Lepsius, Birch, Chabas, Emmanuel de Rouge, 

 Diimichen, and so many other Egyptologists, the history of the ancient land of the 

 Nile is being gradually reconstituted. The Western nations are beginning to become 

 acquainted with the private life, the deep moral character, and as it were the very 

 soul of this people, from whom they have inherited such a large part of their ideas. 



Whatever may be said to the contrary, great changes have taken place since the 

 times represented on the oldest monuments. Doubtless the same type of face and 

 figure may be found amongst many descendants of the Retu, and even fashions have 

 survived, if not amongst the Egyptians at least amongst the Nubians whom they 

 had subjugated. The art of husbandry has not been modified, at least amongst the 

 peasantry, and as formerly " the unchanging temperature of Egypt endows the 

 people," as Bossuet has remarked, "with solid and constant minds." But the series 

 of historic events could not have been accomplished without producing a correspond- 

 ing effect on the Egyptian people ; immigrants of all races have completely 

 modified the urban civilisation. After acting as the teacher of the surrounding 

 nations, Egypt had to be taught in her turn, and the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, 

 and European peoples successively became her masters. 



Extent and Population. 



Egypt may possibly now possess a smaller population than she did when at the 

 height of her power ; but towns and villages have always been numerous on the 

 banks of the Nile, and they follow in close proximity along the banks of the river, 

 as in the time of Herodotus. In comparison with its extent of arable land, Egypt 

 possesses one of the densest populations in the world. Indeed, Egypt proper 

 consists entirely of lowlands which could be brought within the zone of irrigation. 

 The rocky or sandy tracts which stretch beyond the valley of the Nile form a 

 portion of Libj^a on the west, or of ''Arabia," as it is called, on the east. The 

 narrow strip of "golden thread," with its "fringes" in the delta, composes the 

 whole of the domain of the fellahin, and the only inhabitable spots beyond these 

 limits are a few oases to the west, and the pasturages found in the eastern 

 uplands. The triangle of the delta and the winding river valley, which a pedes- 

 trian traverses easily in a few hours, provided he can find a boat in which to cross 

 the Nile, compose all the rest of the country, which Amru described to the Caliph 

 Omar in these words : ■' Imagine an arid desert and a verdant plain between two 

 mountainous ramparts; that is Egypt." 



