314 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. 



Egypt is ofBcially said to possess a superficial area of 400,000 square miles, 

 omitting the Asiatic possessions beyond the Suez Canal, but including all the 

 Xilotic region between Assuan and "Wady-Halfa. The population of 6,800,000, 

 according to the census of 1882, would be very small in proportion to this immense 

 space, much less, in fact, comparatively speaking, than that of Scandinavia. But 

 the inhabitable part of Eg\-pt, resembling in shape a triangular kite with a long 

 sinuous tail, is scarcely 12,000 square miles in extent, which gives the country 

 a density of population three times greater than that of France, and even superior 

 to that of Belgium and Saxony. 



Egypt is the !Xile, and its very name is that by which the river was formerly 

 known. The most ancient name of the country, that of Kem, or Kemi, that is to 

 say, '• Black," also comes indirectly from the Xile, because it was derived from the 

 violet tint of the allu\-ia deposited by the current, forming a contrast with the 

 " red " sands and rocks of the desert. The term Kam, or Kham, applied to 

 the African peoples in Genesis, is probably nothing more than the name of Egj-pt 

 itself. 



From this black soil, composed of fluvial deposits, spring forth the nutritive 

 plants ; whilst, according to an ancient legend, man himself issued from it. All 

 the towns and villages of Egypt are disposed along the banks of the river and its 

 canals, depending for their existence on its life-giving waters. Communications 

 between Upper and Lower Egypt could recently be effected only by the Xile, 

 which is easily navigable, since boats ascend and descend with equal facility, 

 either driven up stream by the north wind, or else drift down with the current. 

 Shipwrecks or prolonged stoppages are likely to occur more especially at abrupt 

 turnings, and on navigating the ravines, whence irregular winds sweep across the 

 course of the stream. 



The Arabian or Coast Range. 



Here and there, from Assuan to Cairo, the banks of the Xile are commanded 

 either by the slopes of mountains, or by the edges of plateaux, whose height 

 ranges from 300 to 2,300 feet. From these heights a whole section of Egypt lies 

 at the feet of the traveller, from the eastern to the western frontier, with all its 

 villages, canals and cultivated lands. Lower down the yellow walls of the rocks 

 in many places bear the aspect of quarries, whose cleared spaces are now laid out 

 in garden-plots. It is especially towards the east that the cliffs here and there 

 assume an imposing appearance, although nowhere rising to any great elevation. 



The traveller must penetrate some distance from the Xile to the neighbourhood 

 of the Red Sea before he reaches the coast range or border chain, which, however, 

 has been very imperfectly explored. It forms a northerly continuation of the 

 Etbaï range, some of whose peaks are said to attain a height of considerably over 

 6,000 feet. These highlands of the Arabian desert, commonly spoken of simply as 

 El-Jebel, or " The Mountain," consist of crystalline rocks, such as granite, gneiss, 

 mica schist, porphyry, and diorite. The\^ are disposed in several distinct groups, 

 separated from each other by the ramifications of sandy wadies. One of these 



