850 NOETÏÏ-EAST AFRICA. 



been profound "peace and absolute security in these inhospitable tracts. Before 

 this time, these and all other Bedouins were much dreaded marauders. They made 

 inroads from time to time into the cultivated territories, and the merchants and 

 pilgrims, as late even as the time of Burckhardt's visit, never ventured to cross the 

 wilderness except when armed and banded together in large caravans. All this 

 has now been so much changed for the better that articles even lost on the road 

 may now be recovered by giving due notice to the Ababdeh sheikhs. " * 



In the Libyan desert west of the Nile delta, the dominating tribe is that of the 

 Aulad-Ali. The Hawarahs of Upper Egypt, who furnish to the Egyptian army 

 nearly all its irregular cavalry, are of Tuareg (Berber) origin. According to the 

 census of 1882, the number of all the nomad and semi-nomad Bedouins, hitherto 

 estimated at from 70,000 to 100,000 at the utmost, was found to be about 246,000, with 

 a considerable preponderance of the male sex. The men were said to outnimiber the 

 women by 11 per cent., a proportion nowhere else presented by any country where 

 regular returns have been made, except in certain districts of the Japanese Archi- 

 pelago.! But it may be presumed that in several instances inaccurate statements 

 were made by the Arabs to the Government officials. 



The Turks, although the official masters of the country since its conquest by 

 Sultan Selim in 1517, are still looked upon as strangers. They have always held 

 aloof from the mass of the people either in their military or bureaucratic capacity. 

 They are far from numerous, numbering according to the various estimates from 

 about 12,000 to 20,000. But the statement currently made that the offspring of 

 these strangers are condemned by the climate to a premature end appears to be 

 groundless. No doubt infantile mortality is excessive in families imperfectly 

 acclimatised ; but the issue of mixed marriages almost invariably follows the 

 nationality of the mothers. It becomes Egyptian in the phj'sical type as well as in 

 speech, and the name of the foreigner merges in the local element. Accurate 

 statistics have shown that the former Mameluks had very small families. But that 

 all the Mameluks, whether Georgians, Circassians, or Albanians, did not become 

 extinct is evident from the case of Mohammed Ali, the very man who pitilessly 

 massacred these mercenaries. Although himself an Albanian from a Macedonian 

 island he left a numerous progeny, founding in his own family the dynasty which 

 is still supposed to rule in Egypt. 



The Levantines, Europeans, and Nubians. 



Even the Levantines, that is to say, the Syrian, Greek, Italian, or Spanish 

 Christians long settled in the country, have certainly established themselves for 

 several generations on the banks of the Nile, as have also their rivals in trade, the 

 Yahud, or Jews. Although for many centuries marrying only within their own 

 circles, they have in no respect lost their vital energies. The Europeans also settled 



* Klunziffer, " Upper Egypt," p. 255. 



t Proportion of the sexts amongst the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt in 1882 : men, 3,216,247; 

 women, 3,252,869. 



