346 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. 



and as hospitable as his misery will permit him. Even if he has recourse to fraud 

 or falsehood, the usual weapons of the weak against their oppressors, he seldom 

 succeeds. His little tricks and subterfuges are easily seen through, and frequently 

 serve only to redouble the brutal treatment of his masters. The Copt is as a rule; 

 more adroit in this respect than the Mussulman fellahîn ; for he has not only had 

 to endure all kinds of hardships, like his Mohammedan neighbours, but has had 

 over and above to cringe and play the hypocrite in order to escape from religious 

 persecution. To avoid wholesale plimder he has had to conceal the few effects 

 laboriously scraped together, carefully economising the fruits of a life condemned 

 to ceaseless toil, slratagem, and beggary. 



The Arabs of Egypt. 



The Semitic element has been largely represented amongst the Egyptian popu- 

 lations, even from times long anterior to the Arab conquest. Thus, according to 

 Mariette, the indigenous communities settled on the southern shore of Lake 

 Menzaleh are possibly the direct descendants, with but little intermixture, of the 

 Hyksos, those "people of low race," who overran Egypt over forty centuries ago. 

 Their type is said exactly to resemble that of the i-o^'al statues and sphinxes' heads 

 discovered at San, the ancient Tanis, amid the alluvia of the lake. These supposed 

 Asiatics inhabit the townships of Menzaleh, Matarieh, Salkieh, and the neighbour- 

 ing villages. They are described as of tall stature and strong muscular development, 

 with very broad features in comparison with the round cranium, large nose, prominent 

 cheek-bones, very open facial angle, high forehead, intelligent glance and smile. 

 According to Bayard Taylor, the descendants of the Hyksos would appear to be also 

 very numerous in the Fayum depression. 



But to the Arab and Syrian Mussulmans who arrived under the leadership of 

 Amru, the population of Egypt is indebted for the largest proportion of its Semitic 

 blood. Doubtless these Arabs have nowhere preserved themselves in a perfectly 

 pure state amid the Egyptian communities ; but they and their successors were 

 numerous enough profoundly to modify the aboriginal element, especially in the 

 towns, where all the Muslims who are neither Turks nor Circassians are uniformly 

 spoken of under the general appellation of Arabs. 



On the Red Sea coast the Abs, the Awasim, the Irenat, and other more recent 

 immigrant tribes from Arabia, live on fishing and the coasting trade. In the rural 

 districts on the verge of the desert, many Bedouin tribes collectively known as Ahl- 

 el-Wabar, or " People of the Tents," have jjroudly preserved their lineage intact, 

 tracing their genealogies back to the early conquerors. The Arab will no doubt at 

 times take a wife from the family of a fellah, but will never condescend to give 

 him a daughter in return. Leading a half -nomad life between the reclaimed lands 

 and the wilderness, he despises the wretched peasant condemned to ceaseless labour 

 in the furrow. Should he himself abandon his wandering habits, he w^ould be at 

 once looked upon by the nomad Bedouins as a mere fellah, like all the rest. But 

 he usually dwells in the settled village communities only during a portion of the 



