POPULATIONe 
193 
than 2^50 square leagues, comprehending both 
the Oases, so extravagant an exaggeration, which 
allows nearly ten towns to every square league, 
must be admitted to betray the features of orien- 
tal fiction. Nature will not make her ancient 
mountains and deserts of sand recede to confirm 
the romances of the historian or the traveller. 
The calculation of the ancients will appear still 
more incredible, if we reflect, that from the culti- 
vated land must be deducted the site of so many 
cities, the ground occupied by that " street of 
" magnificent edifices," which seems to have ex- 
tended along the banks of the Nile from Sy^ne to 
Alexandria aod the harbours of the Delta. From 
an authentic Arabian document, D'Anville esti- 
mates the number of towns and villages at ^696, 
and of these many were situated beyond the pro-* 
per limits of Egypt.* An Arabian geographer 
enumerates only ^495 towns and villages, at a 
period when Egypt still flourished under the 
Arabian government.! Thus the application of 
geographical science assists us to correct the in- 
accuracy of ancient writers, separates truth from 
the exaggerations of vanity or the fables of tradi- 
* D'Anville, Memoires sur I'Egypte, p. 29. — Mr Browne 
reckons two millions and a half for the population of Egypt. 
—Ed. 
t Jacuti ap. Inaic. Oeogr. Bohadmi, aa verb. ^GYPTUS, 
VOL, II. N 
