The Greek and European name (?) Alyvirroc, JEgyp. tils'), Egypt, is of uncertain origin and signification (Champollion, V Egypte, i, 77). It appears, howev- er, to have some etymological connection with the modern name Copt, and is perhaps nothing more than "land of the Copts" (the prefix «/- being perhaps for aia=^ya~ia or yi)). In Homer the Nile is sometimes (fidys. iv, 351, 355 ; xiv, 257, 258) called Egypt (Ai- yi'TTT-ot;).
EGYPT
EGYPT
Modern Egypt.
I r. Extent and Popuhitlon. — Eiiypt occupies the north-eastern ansle of Africa, lictween N. lat. 31° 37' and 24° 1', and E. long. 27° 13' and 34° 12'. On the E. it is l)ounded hy Palestine, Iduni:ea, Arabia Tetraja, and the Arabian Gulf. On the W., the moving sands of the wide Libyan desert obliterate the traces of all political or physical limits. Inhabited Egypt, how-
ever, is restricted to the valley of the Nile, which, hav- ing a breadth of from two to three miles, is enclosed on both sides by a range of hills : the chain on the eastern side disappears at l\Iokattani, that on the west extends to the sea. Its limits appear to have always been very nealy the same. In Ezekiel (xxix, 10; XXX, 6), according to the obviously correct rendering
EGYPT
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EGYPT
Kgypt under tlie Koiuans.
(see Migdol), the whole country is spoken of as ex- tending from Migdol to Syone, ^vhich indicates the same limits to the east and the south as at present. Egj'pt seems, however, to have alwaj'S been held, ex- cept bj' the modern geographers, to include no more than the tract irrigated by the Nile lying within the limits we have specified. The deserts Avere at all times wholly different from the valley, and their tribes more or less independent of the rulers of Egi'pt. Sy- ene, now Aswan, is also assigned by Greek and Ara- bian writers as the southern limit of Egypt. Here the Nile issues from the granite rocks of the cataracts, and enters Egypt proper. The length of the countrj', therefore, in a direct line, is 45G geographical miles. The breadth of the valley between Aswan and the Delta is very unequal ; in some places the inundations of the river extend to the foot of the mountains ; in other parts there remains a strip of a mile or two in breadth, which the water never covers, and which is therefore always dry and barren. Originally the name Egypt designated only this valley and the Delta ; but
at a later period it came to include also the region be- tween this and the Red Sea from Berenice to Suez, a strong and mountainous tract, with only a few spots fit for tillage, but better adapted to pasturage. It in- cluded also, at this time, the adjacent desert on the west, as far as to the oases, those fertile and inhabit- ed islands in the ocean of sand. The name Delta, also, was extended so as to cover the districts between Pelusium and the border of Palestine, and Arabia Petraja ; and on the west it included the adjacent tract as far as to the great deserts of Libya and Barca, a region of sand of three days' journey east and west, and as many north and south.
Egypt, in the extensive sense, contains 115,200 square geographical miles, yet it has only a superfi- cies of about 9582 square geographical miles of soil, which the Nile either does or can water and fertilize. This computation includes the river and lakes as well as sandy tracts which can be inundated, and the whole space either cultivated or fit for cultivation is no more than about 5C2G square miles. Anciently 2735 square
EGYPT
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EGYPT
miles more ma}' have been cultivated, and now it would be possible at once to reclaim about 1295 square miles. These computations are those of Colonel Ja- cotin and M. Esteve, given in the Memoir of the for- mer in the great French work {Descnption de VEijypte, 2d ed. xviii, pt. ii, p. 101 sq.). They must be very nearly true of the actual state of the country at the present time. Mr. Lane calculated the extent of the cultivated land in A.D. 1375-G to be 5500 square geo- graphical miles, from a list of the cultivated lands of towns and villages appended to De Sacy's Ahd-Alhitif. He thinks this list may be underrated. M. Mengin made the cultivated land much less in 1821, but since then mucli waste territory has been reclaimed (Mrs. Poole, Enffl./sltwoinan in Egypt, i, 85). The chief dif- ferences in the character of the surface in the times before the Christian era were that the long valley through which flowed the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea was then cultivated, and that the Gulf of Suez perhaps extended further north than at present.
As to the number of its inhabitants, nothing very definite is known. Its fertility would doubtless give birth to and support a teeming population. In very remote times as many as 8,000,000 souls are said to have lived on its soil. In the days of Diodorus Sicu- lus they were estimated at 3,000,000. Volney made the number 2,300,000. A late government estimate is 3,200,000, which seems to have been somewhat below the fact (Bowring's Rejiort on Egypt and Candia, p. 4). According to the census taken in 1867, the inhabitants are 4,911,(519. Among them are half a million of Copts, descendants of the ancient occupants of the country' ; 400,000 Bedouins ; 250,000 Europeans and Syrians ; and 500,000 Turks. In Alexandria, at the close of the last century, scarceh' 40,000 inhabitants were counted, wliercas at present that citj' contains 300,01)0, about half of whom are Arabs and half Euro- peans. The nationality of the latter has been ascer- tained to bo as follows (the figures represent thou- sands): Greeks, 25; Italians, 18; French, IG; Anglo- Maltese, 13 ; Sj'rians and natives of the Levant, 12 ; Germans and Swiss, 10; various, G. Cairo, the Ciip- ital, contains upwards of 400,000 inhabitants ; with- in its walls are 140 schools, more than 400 mosques, IIGG cafes, 65 public baths, and 11 bazars. The other towns of importance, from their population, are, in Lower Egypt, Damietta, 45,000; Rosetta, 20,000 ; and in Upper Egypt, Syout, on the left bank of the Nile, numliering 20,000 souls.