366 
Lower Egypt. 2. The number of deaths in the wilderness 
must have been nearly fifty per day. This, he thinks, not 
probable: not because the death-rate is unusually high, but 
because the number of corpses in a limited space would be 
enormous. 3. The total number did not increase during the 
forty years' wilderness wandering (§13—15). 
46. Let us examine these seriatim.. Dr. Thornton, taking 
2,000,000 as the entire population required by 600,000 fighting 
men, asks if we can “ suppose so many to have been able to 
find habitations ? The present population of Lower Egypt is 
about 2 000,000. But at the time of the Exodus there must 
have been Egyptians as well as Hebrews living in the country. 
We cannot put them at less than 1,000,000. Now, as the 
present population of Lower Egypt gives 340 to a square 
mile, a population half as large again would give 510 tea 
square mile, which is considerably m excess of 438, the 
number per square mile inhabiting Belgium, the most thickly- 
populated country known in the world.'' „ 
‘ 47 On turning to Professor Hughes s . Manual of 
Geography" (London, 1869), the latest authority I have, 1 
find him saying, “ The population of Egypt numbers upwards 
of 5 000 000." Of course, the great majority are resident m 
Middle and Lower Egypt. Wiry Dr. Thornton limits his 
inquiry to Lower Egypt I do not know; for the Pharaohs 
reigned over all Egypt, as is shown by their statues and 
pictureswearing the crowns of both the Upper and Lower 
provinces. The population in their days was, of course, iar 
greater than under Moslem rule. Josephus sets it down as 
feven and a half millions in his time, and Diodorus at nearly 
the same. These facts sufficiently refute Dr. Thornton s first 
48 His second I am somewhat at a loss to appreciate, ks 
I read it, it is this:— Since 600,000, the generation of men 
above twenty years, perished in the forty years, the daily death- 
rate, including women, but excluding those who perished bj 
pestilence, must have been fifty per day. He again asks 
« Is this probable ? ” Is what probable ? The death-rate of 
fifty per day, which is 15,000 per annum, or two and a halt 
per cent. ? No ; there is nothing unusual in this, which is >n 
fact exceeded by the death-rate of Paris or London. Wha„ 
appears enormous is not the population, but the actual 
number of dead bodies collected within a limited space. X 
confess this surprises me, that a charge— at least a sus- 
* T)r Thornton has correctly given the population of the whole of Belgium 
as 43? mile. Butlts most fertile and best-cultivated province, 
East Flanders, maintains upwards of 700 to the square mile. (Hug .) 
