374 
IRRIGATION IN EGYPT. 
to the operations of nature, there is no doubt that trees, the 
roots of which penetrate deeply, would in time establish them¬ 
selves on the deserted soil, fill the valley with verdure, and 
perhaps at last temper the climate, and even call down abun¬ 
dant rain from the heavens.* But the immediate effect of 
discontinuing irrigation would be, first, an immense reduction 
of the evaporation from the valley in the dry season, and then 
a greatly augmented dryness and heat of the atmosphere. 
Even the almost constant north wind—the strength of which 
would be increased in consequence of these changes—would 
little reduce the temperature of the narrow cleft between the 
burning mountains which hem in the channel of the Nile, so 
that a single year would transform the most fertile of soils to 
the most barren of deserts, and render uninhabitable a terri¬ 
tory that irrigation makes capable of sustaining as dense a 
population as has ever existed in any part of the world.f 
Whether man found the valley of the Nile a forest, or such a 
waste as I have just described, we do not historically know. 
In either case, he has not simply converted a wilderness into 
* The date and the doum palm, the sont and many other acacias, the 
caroub, the sycamore, and other trees, grow well in Egypt without irri¬ 
gation, and would doubtless spread through the entire valley in a few 
years. 
t Wilkinson has shown that the cultivable soil of Egypt has not been 
diminished by encroachment of the desert sands, or otherwise, but that, on 
the contrary, it must have been increased since the age of the Pharaohs. 
The Gotha Almanac, for 1862 states the population of Egypt in 1859 at 
5,125,000 souls; but this must be a great exaggeration, even supposing the 
estimate to include the inhabitants of Nubia, and of much other territory 
not geographically belonging to Egypt. In general, the population of that 
country has been estimated at something more than three millions, or 
about six hundred to the square mile ; but with a better government and 
better social institutions, the soil would sustain a much greater number, 
and in fact it is believed that in ancient times its inhabitants were twice, 
perhaps even thrice, as numerous as at present. 
Wilkinson (Handbook for Travellers in Egypt, p. 10) observes that the 
total population, which two hundred years ago was estimated at 4,000,000, 
amounted till lately only to about 1,800,000 souls, having been reduced 
since 1800 from 2,500,000 to that number. 
