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 Illustrations have been included from the print version. THE NILE: Notes for Travellers in Egypt E. A. WALLIS BUDGE

8th ed.

 xxvi, 674 p. : ill., map ; 19 cm. T. Cook & Son London ; Cairo 1902 Fondren Library, DT45 .B9 1902

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THE NILE.

Notes for Travellers in Egypt.

Illustration of title-page
THE NILE Notes for Travellers in Egypt. BY E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., LITT.D., D.LIT., F.S.A., FORMERLY TYRWHITT HEBREW SCHOLAR, AND SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES, BRITISH MUSEUM. EIGHTH EDITION. WITH TWO MAPS, PLANS OF TEMPLES, AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: THOS. COOK & SON (EGYPT), LTD. LUDGATE CIRCUS. CAIRO: THOS. COOK & SON (EGYPT), LTD. 1902. [Entered at Stationers' Hall.]

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON.

INTRODUCTION.

Having for some years felt the insufficiency of the information given by Dragomans to travellers on the Nile, and finding with one or two striking exceptions how limited is their knowledge of facts relating to the history of the antiquities in Upper Egypt, Messrs. Thos. Cook and Son have arranged with Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge to compile the following pages, which they have much pleasure in presenting to every passenger under their Nile arrangements on their Tourist Steamers and Dhahabiyyahs. In this way passengers will no longer be liable to be misled (unintentionally) by Dragomans, but will be able at their leisure to prepare themselves for what they have to see, and thus by an agreeable study add to the interest with which their visits to the various places are made.

EGYPTOLOGICAL WORKS BY E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., LITT.D., D.LIT., KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

The Book of the Dead. In three Volumes. Vol. I. The Egyptian Texts printed in hieroglyphics; Vol. II. Vocabulary; Vol. III. Translation. Illustrated by three large coloured facsimiles of sections of papyri, and eighteen plates in black and white. Demy 8vo. Price of the complete work £2 10s. Vols. I. and II. (not sold separately) £1; Vol. III. (may be sold separately) £1 5s. net. The Book of the Dead. The papyrus of Anni, in the British Museum. With translation and transliteration. 4to. Half-morocco, £1 10s. Egyptian Religion. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. Egyptian Magic. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. Egyptian Language. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. The Book of the Dead. With over 400 illustrations. English translation. 3 Vols., 3s. 6d. each. A History of Egypt. 8 Vols., 3s. 6d. each. The Book of the Dead (Papyri of Hunger, Anthia, Nu, Queen Netchemet, Kerâsher, etc.). Folio. £2 10s. First Steps in Egyptian. Demy 8vo. 9s. net. An Egyptian Reading Book for Beginners. With a Vocabulary. Demy 8vo. 15s. net. The Dwellers on the Nile. 8vo. 3s. The Sarcophagus of Ankhnesneferabra. On texts from the sarcophagus of this Queen, with translations, vocabulary, etc. 4to. 7s. 6d. The Mummy, or Chapters on Egyptian Archaeology. 8vo. 12s. 6d. Many illustrations. Catalogue of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Harrow School Museum. 8vo. 3s. Catalogue of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Fitz william Museum. Cambridge. 8vo. 10s. 6d. The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia. Coptic texts with English translation. 10s. 6d. St. Michael the Archangel. Three Encomiums in the Coptic texts, with translations. Imperial Svo. 15s. net. The Earliest-known Coptic Psalter. The text in the dialect of Upper Egypt, edited from the Unique Papyrus Codex Oriental 5000 in the British Museum. Imperial 8vo. 15s. The Edition is strictly limited to 350 copies.

ONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜNER & CO., LTD., Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road.

PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

The short descriptions of the principal Egyptian monuments on each side of the Nile between Cairo and Kharṭûm, printed in the following pages, are not in any way intended to form a “Guide to Egypt.” They are drawn up for the use of those travellers who have a very few weeks to spend in Egypt, and who wish to carry away from that country some of the more important facts connected with the fast-perishing remains of one of the most interesting and ancient civilizations that has been developed on the face of the earth. The existing guide books are too full, and they contain too many details for such travellers. Experience has shown that the greater number of travellers in Egypt are more interested in the remains and civilization of the ancient Egyptians than in the history of Egypt under the rule of the Persians, Ptolemies, Romans, Arabs, and Turks. It is for this reason that no attempt has been made to describe, otherwise than in the briefest manner possible, its history under these foreign rulers, and only such facts connected with them as are absolutely necessary for a right understanding of its monuments have been inserted.

In addition to such descriptions, a few chapters have been added on the history of the country during the rule of the Pharaohs, and on its people, and their buildings, their religion, and their methods of writing. The lists of hieroglyphic characters and their phonetic values, printed on pp. 133-139, will, it is hoped, be useful to those who may wish to spell out the royal names on tombs, and temples, and the commoner words which occur in the inscriptions.

In transcribing Arabic names of places, the system in general use throughout Europe has been employed, but well-known names like “Cairo,” “Luxor,” etc., have not been altered. Similarly, the ordinary well-known forms of Egyptian proper names such as “Rameses,” “Amenophis,” “Hophra,” etc., have been used in preference to the more correct transcriptions, “Rā-messu,” “Ạmen-ḥetep,” and “Uaḥ-ạb-Rā.”

The dates assigned to the Egyptian kings are those of the late Dr. Heinrich Brugsch, who based his calculations on the assumption that the average duration of a generation was thirty-three years. Hence it will be readily understood that the date assigned to Rameses II. (B.C. 1333), for instance, is only approximately correct. In recent years many attempts have been made to reduce the length of the historic period of Egypt, and to prove that the reigns of the historic kings of Egypt were considerably antedated by the early Egyptologists. Recent excavations, however, have shown that the historical Egyptians and their immediate ancestors have occupied the Nile Valley

for many thousands of years, and even if Manetho's list of kings were to be proved incorrect in every particular, and the total years of the reigns of the historical kings be reduced by 1500 years, the great antiquity of Egyptian civilization cannot be doubted.

In the last two editions of “Nile Notes,” considerable alterations and additions have been made. As a result of recent excavations many of the articles have been entirely re-written, and a brief description of the antiquities between Wâdî Ḥalfah and Kharṭûm has been included. So much general interest has been aroused in the Copts and Muḥammadans, that additional chapters on the religious history of these peoples have been added. In deference to many suggestions, the summary of the events which have taken place in Egypt under British influence has been considerably amplified, and the short chapter on “Progress in Egypt” will prove to what excellent purpose Lord Cromer has toiled in that land. The notes on the history and development of the idea of the Mahdi among the Muḥammadans, will, it is hoped, explain to the reader, who has not found time to examine into the Arabic sources, how religious fanaticism, acting on the minds of people who have been the victims of a long course of systematic misgovernment and oppression, has overthrown kings and deluged whole countries with blood. In compiling certain sections of this work for facts and figures I have drawn frequently from Lord Cromer's official Despatches, and from the reports and works

of Sir William Garstin, K.C.M.G., Major H. G. Lyons, R.E., Major Willcocks, C.M.G., and other officials in the service of the Egyptian Government. The works of Sir F. R. Wingate, K.C.B., etc., Sir Rudolf von Slatin Pâsha, K.C.B., Father Ohrwalder, and Mr. Royle have supplied many facts concerning Mahdiism and the reconquest of the Sûdân, and from Edward Lane's “Modern Egyptians” I have derived much information concerning phases of modern Egyptian life which have now passed away.

During recent years the positions of many of the antiquities exhibited in the Gîzeh Museum have been changed frequently, and no Guide, not even that issued by the officials of the institution, correctly described the places where all the objects could be found for more than a few months at a time. It is understood that at the present moment a number of the antiquities are packed up awaiting removal to the new Museum at Cairo, and as it is, therefore, impossible to make a complete description of the contents of the Gîzeh Museum, Messrs. Thos. Cook and Son have decided to reprint the description which appeared in the sixth edition of “Nile Notes.” When the antiquities have been re-arranged in their new home, a new and full account of them will, it is hoped, be included in the future editions of this work.

E. A. WALLIS BUDGE. June 16, 1902. CONTENTS.

PAGE Map of Egypt Introduction v Preface to the Seventh Edition vii-x Excavations in 1901-02 xvii-xxvi Egyptian History and its sources 1 Historical Summary— Ancient Empire 10 Middle Empire 13 New Empire 16 Persians 19 Macedonians 19 Ptolemies 19 Romans 21 The Byzantines 24 Muḥammadans 26 Dates assigned to the Egyptian Dynasties by Egyptologists 50 Progress in Egypt under British Rule 51 The Country of Egypt 57 The Nomes of Egypt 61 The Ancient Egyptians 64 The Nile 73 The Oases 94 Ancient Egyptian Buildings, Sculpture, Painting, etc. 98 Egyptian Writing 121 A list of some Hieroglyphic Signs 133 Arabic Alphabet 139 Coptic Alphabet 140 Egyptian Months 141

The Religion and Gods of Egypt 143 The Modern Egyptians 191 Sketch of Coptic History 200 The Arabs, Muḥammad, etc 211 Alexandria 247 The Pharos 248 Pompey's Pillar 251 Cleopatra's Needles 251 Catacombs 252 Damanhûr 253 Kafr ez-Zaiyât 254 Ṭanṭa 254 Benha el-‘Asal 254 Rosetta Stone 255 Suez and the Suez Canal 256 Shibîn el-Ḳanâṭir 261 Zaḳâzîḳ and Tell-Basṭa 262-264 Abu Ḥammâd 264 Tell el-Kebîr 264 Maḥsamah 264 Isma‘îlîya 265 Nefîsheh 265 Tanis 265-267 Cairo 268 Coptic Churches 269 Mosques 273 Tombs of the Khalifs 278 Tombs of the Mamelukes 278 The Citadel 278 Joseph's Well 279 The Library 279 Ezbekîyeh Garden 279 The Nilometer at Rôḍa 280 Heliopolis 281 The Pyramids of Gîzeh 283

The Great Pyramid 285 The Second Pyramid 289 The Third Pyramid 291 The Sphinx 294 The Temple of the Sphinx 295 The Tomb of Numbers 295 Campbell's Tomb 296 The Pyramids of Abu-Roâsh 296 The Pyramids of Abuṣir 296 Bedrashên, Memphis, and Saḳḳârah 298 The Statue of Rameses II. 301 The Step Pyramid 302 Pyramid of Unạs 303 Pyramid of Tetạ 303 Pyramid of Pepi I. 304 The Serapeum 305 The Tomb of Thi 307 Mariette's House 310 The Pyramids of Dahshûr 311 The Quarries of Ma‘ṣara and Ṭurra 319 The Pyramid of Mêdûm 319 Upper Egypt Railway 321 Wasṭa and the Fayyûm 325 Aṭfîḥ 329 Beni Suwêf 329 Maghâghah 330 Cynopolis 331 Convent of the Pulley 332 Minyeh 333 Beni Hasân 334 Rôḍa 343 Melâwî 345 Haggi Ḳandîl 345 Gebel Abu Faḍah 348 Manfalûṭ 348

Asyûṭ 349 Abu Tîg 350 Ṭahṭah 351 Sûhâg 351 The White and Red Monasteries 351-353 Akhmîm, Menshiah, Girgeh 353 Abydos 355 Temple of Seti I. 357 Temple of Rameses II. 360 Farshûṭ 363 Nag' Ḥamâdî 363 Ḳaṣr eṣ-Ṣayyâd 363 Ḳeneh 363 The Temple of Denderah 364 Ḳufṭ 367 Ḳûs 368 Naḳadah 368 Luxor and Thebes 370 The Temple of Luxor 374 The Temple at Karnak 381 The Temple at Ḳûrnah 392 The Ramesseum 392 The Colossi of Amenophis III. 394 Medînet Habû 395 The Temple of Rameses III. 396 Dêr el-Baḥari 403 Dêr el-Medînet 411 The Discovery of Royal Mummies at Dêr el-Baḥari 412 The Tombs of the Kings— Tomb of Seti I. 418 Tomb of Rameses III. 420 Tomb of Rameses IV 420 Tomb of Rameses VI. 420 Tomb of Rameses IX. 420 Tomb of Rameses I. 421

Tomb of Thothmes III. 421 Tomb of Amenophis II. 421 Tomb of Rechmạ-Rā 422 Tomb of Nekht 422 Erment 432 Gebelên 432 Esneh 433 El-Kâb 435 Edfû 438 Hagar Silsileh 439 Kom Ombo 439 Aswân 444 Elephantine 445 The First Cataract 453 Philae 455 The Nile between the First and Second Cataracts 466 Dabôd 467 Ḳartassi 467 Wâdi Tâfah 468 Kalâbshah 468 Bêt el-Walî 468 Dendûr 469 Gerf-Hussên 469 Dakkeh 470 Kubân 471 Kûrta 472 Miḥarrakah 472 Wâdi Sebûa 472 Korosko 473 Amada 473 Dêrr 474 Abû-Simbel 474 Map of the Country south of Wâdî Ḥalfah 480 Wâdî Ḥalfah 480 Wâdî Ḥalfah to Kharṭûm 481-518

Sûdân Military Railway 485 Sarras, Semneh, Kummeh 489 Mughrat Wells, Akasheh, Ferket, Kosheh, Sai, Amârah 491 Sedênga, Suarda, Gebel Dûsh, Soleb, Sesebi, Dalgo, Tombos 492 Al-Ḥafîr, New Donḳola or Ḳaṣr Donḳola 493 Old Donḳola 494 Abu Gûs, Al-Dabbah, Ḳûrṭa 495 Kurru, Zuma, Tanḳassi 496 Marawî and Gebel Barkal 497 Nuri 502 Fourth Cataract 503 Abu Ḥamed 504 Berber 505 Atbara 506 Meroë 507 Shendi 513 Nâga 514 Ben Nâga 514 Muṣawwarât aṣ-Ṣufra 515 Omdurmân 516 Kharṭûm and Tuti Island 517 List of Hieroglyphic names of Kings 519 Gîzeh Museum 555 Rôda Gauge 628 Index 629

EXCAVATIONS IN 1901-02.

The principal excavations carried on in Upper Egypt during the winter of 1900-01 are those of Mr. Garstang at Bêt Ḳhallâf, Messrs. Reisner, Mace, and Lithgow, on a site opposite the town of Girgeh, and of Professor Petrie at Abydos. The village of Bêt Khallâf lies about nine miles west of Girgeh, on the skirt of the desert, and some distance to the north of it Mr. Garstang beâan to work; in the course of his excavations he discovered several maṣṭaba tombs of the Early Empire. Three miles south-west of Bêt Khallâf, in the desert, he discovered in 1900-01 the two large maṣṭaba tombs of KHET-NETER and ḤEN NEKHT, kings of the IIIrd Dynasty. The first of these names is the Horus name of the well-known king Tcheser, who built a pyramid at Saḳḳâra, and is famous as the king who reigned over Egypt during a famine which lasted seven years. The skeleton of ḤEN-NEKHT was discovered in his tomb at Bêt Khallâf, and it is evident that the king was a man of extraordinary stature; Egyptian tradition has preserved many stories of kings of gigantic height, e.g., Osiris and Sesostris were said to be 8 cubits 6 palms and 3 fingers in height, and Sesochris was said to be 5 cubits high, and 3 cubits broad. The maṣṭaba of Tcheser is a very imposing building, and the labour expended in constructing it was enormous, for the interior is hewn out of the limestone to a depth which is almost equal to the height of the brick building above ground; it is well worth visiting and should be ascended: the descent into the interior, however, is unsafe, and without suitable tackle should not be attempted. Between the royal maṣṭabas and the neighbouring village of Bêt Da‘ûd lies an interesting tomb of an early ḥạ prince; it is approached by means of an inclined plane and is worth a visit.

Mr. Reisner excavated on sites of the predynastic period, and of the IVth Dynasty, and of the period following the VIth Dynasty. His works have been carried out with great care, and when his results are published, it will probably be found necessary to revise some of the existing ideas on the subject of the development of Egyptian civilization in the light of his discoveries. Professor Petrie, it is understood, has been excavating within the area of the Temple of Osiris at Arâbaṭ al-Madfûnah, north of the Temple of Rameses II. at Abydos, and is said to have discovered predynastic tombs on the slope of Kôm es-Sulṭân. In Lower Egypt excavations have been carried out by the German Archaeological Mission, under the direction of Dr. Borchardt, at Abuṣîr, near Gîzeh, with successful results.

THE RECENTLY DISCOVERED CATA-COMB AT ALEXANDRIA.

In the year 1900 a magnificent tomb of the Roman period was discovered at Kôm esh-Shuḳâfa, near Pompey's Pillar, in the quarry at this place, by some workmen, and thanks to the exertions of Dr. Botti, the Director of the Museum at Alexandria, this extremely interesting monument has been preserved in the state in which it was found. The tomb is divided into three stages, which descend into the living rock. It is entered by means of a circular staircase (A), which has been more or less restored, and when the visitor has passed through a narrow way with a semicircular recess (B) on each side, he arrives at a large rotunda (c) with a circular gallery (DDDD), out of which open a series of chambers (EEEE) which appear to have been dedicated to the worship of the dead. On the right the two chambers contain niches and sarcophagi; on the left is a large rectangular chamber, the roof of which is supported by four pillars, and it contains three tables hewn out of the solid rock,

A Circular staircase (entrance). B Corridor with semicircular recesses. C Rotunda. D Circular gallery. F Staircase to second stage. G Entrance to third stage. H Ante-chamber. I Funeral chamber. J Sarcophagus chamber. K Funeral chambers with cavities for dead bodies.
THE PRONAOS AND ENTRANCE TO THE FUNERAL CHAMBER.
which were used for festival purposes by the relatives and friends of the dead who assembled there at certain times during the year. From the circular gallery a staircase leads to the second stage of the tomb, which contains the chief sarcophagus chamber; but a little way down it forks, and passes round the entrance (G) to the third or lowest stage of the tomb. The ante-chamber (H) of the tomb, or pronaos, contains two Egyptian columns which support a cornice ornamented with the winged solar disk, hawks, etc., in relief. In each of the side walls of the chamber is a niche, in the form of an Egyptian pylon; that on the right contains the statue of a man, that on the left the statue of a woman. It has been thought that these niches are ancient openings in the walls which were closed up for the purpose of receiving the statues. The door of the actual funeral chamber (1) is ornamented with the winged solar disk, and a cornice of uraei; on each side of the door, on a pylon-shaped pedestal, is a large serpent wearing the double crown
, and with each are the caduceus of Hermes, and the thyrsus of Dionysos. These serpents are probably intended to represent the goddesses Uatchet and Nekhebet. Above each serpent is a circular shield with a Gorgon's head. The roof of the funeral chamber is vaulted, and the stone is of the colour of old gold; at each corner is a pilaster with a composite capital. In each of the three sides is a niche containing a sarcophagus, which is hewn out of the solid rock; the fronts of the three sarcophagi are ornamented with festoons of vine leaves and bunches of grapes, the heads of bulls, heads of Medusa, etc. Curiously enough no one seems to have been laid in them. In the principal relief of the right niche we see the figure of a king, or prince, wearing the crowns of the South and North, making an offering of a deep collar or breastplate to the Apis Bull, which stands on a pylon-shaped pedestal,
and has a disk between its horns; behind Apis stands Isis with a solar disk encircled by a uraeus upon her head, and holding in her right hand the feather of Maạt. The walls of the niches are ornamented with figures of Egyptian gods, and in the central niche is a scene in which the mummy of the deceased is represented lying upon its bier. The bier has the usual form
, but above the lion's head is the Atef crown of Osiris, and at the feet is the feather of Maạt. By the side of the bier stands Anubis, with the solar disk and uraei
on his head; at the head of the bier stands Thoth, and at the feet is Horus, and under the bier are vases containing the intestines of the deceased dedicated to Qebḥsennuf (hawk-headed), Mesthạ (human headed), and Ḥạpi (ape-headed). To the right and left of the door are figures of:-1. Anubis, standing upright, in human form, jackal-headed, with a solar disk on his head; his right hand rests upon the edge of a shield which stands on the ground by his side, and in his left he clasps a spear. Round his neck and shoulder hangs a belt from which is suspended a short sword. 2. Set (?), in the form of a human body with arms and hands of a man, and the head and tail of a crocodile; in his right hand he clasps a spear, and in the left the end of a cloak.

Round the funeral chamber in which these reliefs occur, on three sides, is a comparatively spacious gallery, in the walls of which are hollowed-out cavities, each large enough to hold three dead bodies; there are traces of names of those who were buried in them. At the north-west corner of this gallery is a corridor which leads into four other chambers, two of which have in them niches for sarcophagi, and two are provided with cavities wherein bodies might be laid on stone slabs at intervals, one above the other. We have already mentioned a third stage of the tomb, which was approached by an entrance situated just below the place where the staircase leading from the first to the second

stage forked; this is now filled with water, and cannot be investigated. The tomb is the most interesting of all the tombs of the Roman period which have been found in Alexandria, and is very instructive. It is, unfortunately, impossible to assign an exact date to it, but it was probably built in the first century B.C. or the first century A.D. The name of the man for whom it was built is unknown, but it is clear that he was of high rank, and there is no doubt that his religion was au fond Egyptian. The artistic treatment of the figures of the gods, and of the walls, pillars, etc., exhibits strong Roman influence, and the mixture of the two styles of funereal art is better illustrated in this tomb than in any other of the period to which it belongs. It is hard to explain why the sarcophagi in the niches of the main funeral chamber have not been occupied by the people for whom they were intended, and it is difficult to understand why others were made in other chambers of the tomb whilst these remained empty. It would appear that the tomb was made for the head of a large and powerful family, the members of which respected the places that had been left for certain members of it, and judging from the amount of space for burial which was actually occupied, we are justified in thinking that the tomb was used as a private mausoleum for about 150 or 200 years.

THE SÛDÂN IN 1901.

The revenue of the Sûdân was £E238,500, and the expenditure £E403,000; the revenue for the past three years was:- £E. 1899 126,500 1900 157,000 1901 238,500

In 1881 the amount of gum exported was 150,861

kantars (the kantars = 99.05 1bs.); in 1901 it was 170,781 kantars; the amount exported in 1900 was 60,912 kantars, and in 1899 41,963 kantars. The military charge on the Sûdân has been reduced from £E222,000 to £E122,000, and the general contribution of the Egyptian treasury to make good the Sûdân deficit, both civil and military, has been reduced from about £E417,000 in 1901 to about £E390,000 in 1902. The total receipts of the Sûdân railways were £E165,000, the working expenses being £E124,000; 6,703 passengers were carried in 1900, and 8,265 in 1901; 27,555 tons of goods were carried in 1900, and 63,874 in 1901. The imports are valued at £E370,852, and consist of:—

Tons. Value (£E). Cotton stuffs 1,387 217,482 Flour 431 6,034 Rice 76 760 Spirits 250 8,400 Provisions 163 6,520 Sugar 1,733 19,687 Perfumes 7 2,800 Soap 117 3,217 Oil 98 2,352 Tallow 7 230 Dates 851 6,195 Tea 26 2,912 Petroleum 90 583 Tobacco 115 31,280 Miscellaneous 1,950 62,400 7,301 370,852

On telegraphs the estimated revenue was £E4,500, and the expenditure £E15,000; had the Government telegrams been charged at the ordinary rates, the deficit of £E10,500 would have been turned into a surplus of about £E6,000. A new telegraph line from Suakin to Erkourt, a distance of 40 miles, has been constructed. The net revenue of the Post Office was rather less than £E5,000.

A tract of country about 300 miles long, and from 100 to 150 miles broad, has been made into a game preserve; it lies between the Blue and White Niles, the Sobat River, and the Abyssinian frontier. The wild animals killed under license in 1901 numbered 842. Small civil hospitals have been established at Omdurmân, Kharṭûm, Ḥalfa, Berber, Dongola, Suakin, and Kassala. On Military and Civil Works £E68,000 were spent, exclusive of £25,000 for barracks to house a British battalion at Kharṭûm, a charge which is borne by the British Government. The Gordon College will be finished in the present year (1902), and a primary school of 170 boys will be established in it. The material condition of the people has greatly improved. The population of Dongola in 1901 showed an increase of 14,046 over 1900; of this increase, 12,899 are children. “The point of chief importance in connexion with the government of the Sûdân since its reoccupation has been to avoid serious fiscal and administrative errors at starting, which it might possibly have been difficult to rectify later. I think it may be said that no such errors have been committed. The form of government is suitable to the present very backward condition of the country. It is not a military government, if I understand the use of that very vague and indefinite expression. It is a government which endeavours to carry out the ordinary principles of civil administration through the agency of a number of carefully selected officials, most of whom are military officers. It is only necessary to read the reports…to be convinced that … the spirit which inspires the whole administration is, in its essence, not military, but civil… Under all the circumstances of the case, the existing machine of government, taken as a whole, is probably as good as any that could be devised. Save in some few very remote localities, life and property may be said to be everywhere secure. The ordinary principles of civil and criminal justice are
applied throughout by far the greater part of the country In the second place, so far as I can gather, the people seem contented. Their contentment rests, I believe, on two main grounds. First, there has been no interference with their religion or religious customs; secondly, they are not overtaxed.… A somewhat long experience of the East has led me to attach more importance to low taxation than to reforms, however necessary these may, from the European point of view, appear. As the revenue grows, and as funds become available, these various reforms will be accomplished in the Soudan, as they have for the most part been already accomplished in Egypt, though I do not doubt that the process of reformation will be relatively slow.… The main requirement of the Soudan, for the moment, is, as I have already mentioned, the improvement of its communications, and notably the establishment of connexion by rail between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. When the Engineer officers can report with confidence as to the best method of attaining this latter object, the funds necessary for the execution of the work shall be forthcoming, and the very important question of the labour, through the agency of which the railway shall be constructed, will be fully considered.” See the Earl of Cromer in his Report on Egypt and the Soudan in 1901, Egypt, No. 1 (1902), pp. 75, 76.

NOTES FOR TRAVELLERS IN EGYPT. EGYPTIAN HISTORY.

THE history of Egypt is the oldest history known to us. It is true that the earliest of the Babylonian kings whose names are known lived very little later than the earliest kings of Egypt, nevertheless our knowledge of the early Egyptian is greater than of the early Babylonian kings. A large portion of Egyptian history can be constructed from the native records of the Egyptians, and it is now possible to correct and modify many of the statements upon this subject made by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and other classical authors. The native and other documents from which Egyptian history is obtained are:—

I. Lists of Kings found in the Turin Papyrus, the Tablet of Abydos , the Tablet of Ṣaịịâra, and the Tablet of Karnak . The Turin papyrus contained a complete list of kings, beginning with the god-kings and continuing down to the end of the rule of the Hyksos, about B.C. 1700. The name of each king during this period, together with the length of his reign in years, months and days, was given, and it would have been, beyond all doubt, the most valuable of all documents for the chronology of the oldest period of Egyptian history, if scholars had been able to make use of it in the perfect condition in which it was

discovered. When it arrived in Turin, however, it was found to be broken into more than one hundred and fifty fragments. So far back as 1824, Champollion recognized the true value of the fragments, and placed some of them in their chronological order. Its evidence is of the greatest importance for the history of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties, because in this section the papyrus is tolerably perfect; for the earlier dynasties it is of very little use.

On the monuments each Egyptian king has usually two names, the prenomen and the nomen; each of these is contained in a cartouche.*

* Cartouche is the name which is usually given to the oval

, in which the name of a royal person is enclosed.

Thus the prenomen of Thothmes III. is
Rā-men-Kheper, and his nomen is
Teḥuti-mes. Rā-men-Kheper means something like “Rā (the Sun-god) establishes becoming or existence”; Teḥuti-mes means “born of Thoth,” or “Thoth's son.” These names are quite distinct from his titles. Before the prenomen comes the title
suten net (or bāt), †

† The ordinary word for “king” is

suten. The word Pharaoh, פרעח, which the Hebrews called the kings of Egypt, is derived from the Egyptian
per āa, otherwise written
or

“King of the North and South,” and after it comes
sa Rā, “son of the Sun,” preceding the nomen. Each prenomen has a meaning, but it is at times difficult to render it exactly in English. Every king styled himself king of “the North and South,” and “son of the Sun.” The first title is sometimes varied by “Beautiful
god, lord of the two earths.”*

* Some kings had a large number of titles. Thus Thothmes III. is

styled “Horus, mighty bull, diademed with law, the lord, maker of things, Rā-men-kheper,” etc., etc. He is also called:
, “King of the North and South, mighty of terror in all lands”;
, “Horus, exalted one of the white crown, beloved of Rā”;
, “Golden Horus, mighty of valour, smiter of the Nine Bows,” etc.

In the earliest times the kings were named after some attribute possessed by them; thus Menȧ, the first king of Egypt, is the “firm” or “established.” In the Turin Papyrus only the prenomens of the kings are given, but its statements are confirmed and amplified by the other lists.

The Tablet of Abydos †

† See pp. 626, 627. There is a duplicate in the British Museum (Northern Egyptian Gallery, No. 117).

was discovered by Dümichen in the temple of Osiris at Abydos, during M. Mariette's excavations there in 1864. This list gives us the names of seventy-five kings, beginning with Menā or Menes, and ending with Seti I., the father of Rameses II.; it is not a complete list, and it would seem as if the scribe who drew up the list only inserted such names as he considered worthy of living for ever. The Tablet of Sakkâra ‡

‡ See page 587.

 was discovered at Ṣaịịâra by Mariette, in the grave of a dignitary who lived during the reign of Rameses II. In spite of a break in it, and some orthographical errors, it is a valuable list; it gives the names of forty-seven kings, and it agrees very closely with the Abydos list. It is a curious fact that it begins with the name of Mer-ba-pen, the sixth king of the Ist dynasty. The Tablet of Karnak was discovered at Karnak by Burton, and was taken to Paris by Prisse. It
was drawn up in the time of Thothmes III., and contains the names of sixty-one of his ancestors. They are not arranged in any chronological order, but the tablet is of the highest historical importance, for it records the names of some of the rulers from the XIIIth to the XVIIth dynasties, and gives the names of those of the XIth dynasty more completely than any other list.

II. Annals of Egyptian Kings inscribed upon the walls of temples, obelisks, and buildings. The narrative of such inscriptions is very simple, and practically these records merely represent itineraries in which the names of conquered and tributary lands and people are given; incidentally facts of interest are noted down. As the day and month and regnal years of the king by whom these expeditions were undertaken are generally given, these inscriptions throw much light on history. The lists of tribute are also useful, for they show what the products of the various countries were. The poetical version*

* See the notice of the official Egyptian account on page 478.

of the history of the famous battle of Rameses II. against the Kheta by the poet Pen-ta-urt is a pleasant variety of historical narrative. The inscription on the Stele †

† Preserved at Gîzeh. See page 583.

 of Piānkhi, the Ethiopian conqueror of Egypt, is decidedly remarkable for the minute details of his fights, the speeches made by himself and his conquered foes, and the mention of many facts ‡

‡ For example, it is stated that when Piānkhi had taken possession of the storehouses and treasury of Nemart (Nimrod) his foe, he went afterwards into the stables, and found that the horses there had been kept short of food. Bursting into a rage, he turned to Nimrod and said, “by my life, by my darling Rā, who revives my nostrils with life, to have kept my horses hungry is more heinous in my sight than any other offence which thou hast committed against me.” Mariette, Monuments Divers, pl. 3, 11. 65, 66.

 which are not commonly noticed by Egyptian annalists. The vigour and poetical nature of the narrative are also very striking.

III. Historical Stelae and Papyri, which briefly relate in chronological order the various expeditions undertaken by the king for whom they were made. Egyptian kings occasionally caused summaries of their principal conquests and of the chief events of their reign to be drawn up; examples of these are (a) the stele of Thothmes III.,*

* Preserved at Gîzeh; see page 587.

and (b) the last section of the great Harris Papyrus, in which Rameses III. reviews all the good works which he has brought to a successful issue to the glory of the gods of Egypt and for the benefit of her inhabitants. This wonderful papyrus measures 135 feet by 17 inches, and was found in a box in the temple at Medînet Habû, built by Rameses III.; it is now in the British Museum.

IV. Decrees, Scarabs, Statues of Kings and Private Persons are fruitful sources of information about historical, religious, and chronological subjects.

V. Biblical notices about Egypt and allusions to events of Egyptian history.

VI. The Cuneiform Inscriptions. In 1887 about 310 tablets †

† See the description of the Gîzeh Museum, pp. 592-595.

inscribed in cuneiform were found at Tell el-Amarna. The inscriptions relate to a period of Egyptian history which falls in the fifteenth century B.C., and they are letters from the kings of Babylon, and cities of Mesopotamia and Phaenicia relating to marriages, offensive and defensive alliances, military matters, etc., etc., and reports on the rebellions and wars which took place at that time, addressed to Amenophis III. and to his son Khut-en-āten or Amenophis IV. The Babylonian king who writes is called Kurigalzu. Thothmes III. had carried his victorious arms into Mesopotamia, and one of his successors, Amenophis III., delighted to go there and shoot the lions
with which the country abounded. During one of these hunting expeditions he fell in love with the lady
Thi (in cuneiform
), the daughter of Iuạa
and Thuạa
, and married her, and he brought her to Egypt, with another wife named
Kilịipa (in cuneiform
Gi-lu-khi-pa), accompanied by 317 of her attendants. It will require time to settle the historical and philological difficulties which are raised by these tablets, but the examination of them already made has thrown most valuable light upon the social condition of Egypt and of other countries. One of the tablets is written in the language of Mitani, and others are inscribed with cuneiform characters in a language which is at present unknown; and some of them have dockets in hieratic which state from what country they were brought. The discovery of these tablets shows that there must have been people at the court of Amenophis III. who understood the cuneiform characters, and that the officers in command over towns in Phaenicia subject to the rule of Egypt could, when occasion required, write their despatches in cuneiform. The greater part of these tablets are now in the Museums of London and Berlin, some are at the Gîzeh Museum, and a few are in private hands. Summaries of the contents of those preserved in the British Museum are given in the Tell el-Amarna Tablets (Bezold—Budge), London, 1892; and for translations of most of the tablets of the “find,” see the Tell el-Amarna Letters, by H. Winckler, London and Berlin, 1894.

The Assyrian kings Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal marched against Egypt; Tirhakah defeated Sennacherib at Eltekeh, but was defeated by Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, who drove him back into Ethiopia. Esarhaddon's son, Assurbanipal, also attacked Tirhakah and

defeated him. Thebes was captured, and Egypt was divided into twenty-two provinces, over some of which Assyrian viceroys were placed. A fragment of a Babylonian tablet states that Nebuchadnezzar II. marched into Egypt.

VII. The Greek and Roman writers upon Egypt are many; and of these the best known are Herodotus, Manetho, and Diodorus Siculus. Herodotus devotes the whole of the second and the beginning of the third book of his work to a history of Egypt and the Egyptians, and his is the oldest Greek treatise on the subject known to us. In spite of the attacks made upon his work during the last few years, the evidence of the hieroglyphic inscriptions which are being deciphered year after year shows that on the whole his work is trustworthy. A work more valuable than that of Herodotus is the Egyptian history of Manetho (still living in B.C. 271) of Sebennytus, who is said by Plutarch to have been a contemporary of Ptolemy I.; his work, however, was written during the reign of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (B.C. 286-247). According to words put into his mouth, he was chief priest and scribe in one of the temples of Egypt, and he appears to have been perfectly acquainted with the ancient Egyptian language and literature. He had also had the benefit of a Greek education, and was therefore peculiarly fitted to draw up in Greek for Ptolemy Philadelphus a history of Egypt and her religion. The remains of the great Egyptian history of Manetho are preserved in the polemical treatise of Josephus against Apion, in which a series of passages of Egyptian history from the XVth to the XIXth dynasties is given, and in the list of the dynasties, together with the number of years of the reign of each king, given by Africanus and Eusebius on his authority. At the beginning of his work Manetho gives a list of gods and demi-gods who ruled over Egypt before Menes, the first human king of Egypt; the thirty

dynasties known to us he divides into three sections:— I-XI, XII-XIX, and XX-XXX. Diodorus Siculus, who visited Egypt about B.C. 57, wrote a history of the country, its people and its religion, based chiefly upon the works of Herodotus and Hekataeus. He was not so able a writer nor so accurate an observer as Herodotus, and his work contains many blunders. Other important ancient writers on Egypt are Strabo,*

* About A.D. 15.

 Chaeremon,†

† About A.D. 50.

 Josephus,‡

‡ About A. D. 75.

 Plutarch§

§ About A.D. 100.

 and Horapollo.|

| About A.D. 400.

According to Manetho, there reigned over Egypt before Menā, or Menes, the first mortal king of that country, a number of beings who may be identified with the Shesu Ḥeru, or “followers of Horus”; of their deeds and history nothing is known. Some have believed that during their rule Egypt was divided into two parts, each ruled by its own king; and others have thought that the whole of Upper and Lower Egypt was divided into a large series of small, independent principalities, which were united under one head in the person of Menes. There is, however, no support to be obtained from the inscriptions for either of these theories. The kings of Egypt following after the mythical period are divided into thirty dynasties. For the sake of convenience, Egyptian history is divided into three periods:—I, the Ancient Empire, which includes the first eleven dynasties; II, the Middle Empire, which includes the next nine dynasties (XIIth-XXth); and, III, the New Empire, which includes the remaining ten dynasties, XXIst-XXXth, one being Persian. The rule of the Saïte kings was followed by that of the Persians, Macedonians, Ptolemies and Romans. The rule of the Arabs which began A.D. 641, ended A.D. 1517, when the country was conquered by the Turks; since this time Egypt has been nominally a pashalik of Turkey.

The date assigned to the first dynasty is variously given by different scholars: by Champollion-Figeac it is B.C. 5867, by Böckh 5702, by Bunsen 3623, by Lepsius 3892, by Lieblein 3893, by Mariette 5004, and by Brugsch 4400. As far as can be seen, there is much to be said in favour of that given by Brugsch, and his dates are adopted throughout in this book.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

ANCIENT EMPIRE. Dynasty I, from This.

B.C. 4400. Menà,* the first human king of Egypt, founded Memphis, having turned aside the course of the Nile, and established a temple service there.

* See under Abydos, page 356.

 4366. Tetà, wrote a book on anatomy, and continued buildings at Memphis. 4266. Semti
. Some papyri say that the 64th Chapter of the Book of the Dead was “found” in his time.

Dynasty II, from This.

4133. Neter-baiu,† in whose reign an earthquake swallowed up many people at Bubastis.

† Or

4100. Kakau, in whose days the worship of Apis at Memphis, and that of Mnevis at Heliopolis, was continued. 4066. Ba-en-neter, in whose reign, according to John of Antioch, the Nile flowed with honey for eleven days. During the reign of this king the succession of females to the throne of Egypt was declared valid. 4000. Sent. Sepulchral stelae of this king's priests are preserved at Oxford and at Gîzeh; see paèe 572. — Nefer-ka-Seker, in whose reign an eclipse appears to be mentioned.

Dynasty III, from Memphis.

3900. Tcheser, the builder of the famous “Step Pyramid” at Saịịâra.

Dynasty IV, from Memphis.

B.C. 3766. Seneferu. Important contemporaneous monuments of this king exist. During his reign the copper mines of Wâdî Ma‘ârah were worked. He built the pyramid of Mêdûm. 3733. Khufu (Cheops), who fought with the people of Sinai; he built the first pyramid of Gîzeh. 3666. Khā-f-Rā (Chephren), the builder of the second pyramid at Gîzeh. 3633. Men-kau-Rā (Mycerinus), the builder of the third pyramid at Gîzeh. The fragments of his coffin are in the British Museum. Some copies of the Book of the Dead say that the 64th chapter of that work was compiled during the reign of this king.

Dynasty V, from Elephantine.

3533. Saḥu-Rā, the builder of a pyramid at Abuṣîr. 3443. Rā-en-user, the builder of a pyramid at Abuṣîr. 3366. Ṭeṭ-ka-Rā. The Precepts of Ptaḥ-ḥetep were written during the reign of this king. 3333. Unas, whose pyramid at Saịịâra was explored in 1881.

Dynasty VI, from Memphis.

3266. Tetā, the builder of a pyramid at Ṣaịịâra. 3233. Pepi-meri-Rā, the builder of a pyramid at Ṣaịịâra. 3200. Mer-en-Rā. 3166. Nefer-ka-Rā. 3133 (?). Nit-ạqert (Nitocris), “the beautiful woman with rosy cheeks.” 3100. Dynasties VII and X, from Memphis . Nefer-ka. Nefer-Seḥ…. Ạb. Nefer-kau-Rā. Kharthi.

B.C. 3033. Nefer-ka-Rā. 3000. Nefer-ka-Rā-Nebi. 2966. Ṭeṭ-ka-Rā…. 2933. Nefer-ka-Rā-Khenṭu. 2900. Mer-en-Ḥeru. 2866. Se-nefer-ka-Rā. 2833. Ka-en-Rā. 2800. Nefer-ka-Rā-Tererl. 2766. Nefer-ka-Rā-Ḥeru. 2733. Nefer-ka-Rā Pepi Seneb. 2700. Nefer-ka-Rā-Ạnnu. 2633. Nefer-kau-Rā. 2600. Nefer-kau-Ḥeru. 2533. Nefer-āri-ka-Rā.*

* These names are obtained from the TABLET OF ABYDOS; seepage 3.

Dynasty XI, from Diospolis, or Thebes.

It is not at present possible to arrange in chronological order the names of the kings of this dynasty, although several of them are well known. Names common to several of them are Ạntef and Menthu-ḥetep. Some of the kings appear to have ruled for long periods, but their reigns were on the whole uneventful; the burial place of the kings of this dynasty is at Drah abu'l-Neịịah.

2500. Se-ānkh-ka-Rā. This king is known to us through an inscription at Ḥamâmât, which states that he sent an expedition to the land of Punt; this shows that at that early date an active trade must have been carried on across the Arabian desert between Egypt and Arabia. The other kings of the XIth dynasty bore the names of Ạntef-āa, Ạn-ạntef, Ạmentuf, Ạn-āa, and Mentu-ḥetep. Se-ānkh-ka-Rā appears to have been the immediate predecessor of the XIIth dynasty.

MIDDLE EMPIRE.

Dynasty XII, from Diospolis, or Thebes.

B.C. 2466. Ạmenemḥāt I. ascended the throne of Egypt after hard fighting; he conquered the Uaua, a Libyan tribe that lived near Korosko in Nubia, and wrote a series of instructions for his son Usertsen I. The story of Senehet was written during this reign. 2433. Usertsen I. made war against the tribes of Ethiopia; he erected granite obelisks and built largely at Heliopolis. He and his father built pyramids at Lisht, a necropolis situated about 30 miles south of Cairo. 2400. Ạmenemḥāt II. Khnemu-ḥetep, son of Neḥerạ, whose tomb is at Beni-hasân, lived during the reign of this king. 2366. Usertsen II. He built a pyramid at Illahûn. 2333. Usertsen III. 2300. Ạmenemḥāt III. During this king's reign special attention was paid to the rise of the Nile, and canals were dug and sluices made for irrigating the country; in this reign the famous Lake Moeris, in the district called by the Arabs El-Fayyûm, * was built. This rise of the Nile was marked on the rocks at Semneh, about thirty-five miles above the second cataract, and the inscriptions are visible to this day. He built a pyramid at Ḥawâra and the Labyrinth.

* In Arabic

, from the Coptic
, “the lake,”

2266. Ạmenemḥāt IV. 2233. Dynasties XIII-XVII. The so-called Hyksos Period.

According to Manetho these dynasties were as follows:— Dynasty XIII, from Thebes, 60 kings in 453 years. Dynasty XIV, from Xoïs,† 76 kings in 484 years.

† A town in the Delta.

Dynasty XV, Hyksos, 6 kings in 260 years. Dynasty XVI, Hyksos, 10 kings in 251 years. Dynasty XVII, from Thebes, 10 kings in 10 years.

Unfortunately there are no monuments whereby we can correct or modify these figures. The number of years assigned to the rule of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties seems excessive. The Hyksos appear to have made their way from the countries in and to the west of Mesopotamia into Egypt. They joined with their countrymen, who had already settled in the Delta, and were able to defeat the native kings; it is thought that their rule lasted 500 years, and that Joseph arrived in Egypt towards the end of this period. The name Hyksos is derived from the Egyptian

Ḥequ Shaạsu, i.e., “princes of the Shasu,” or nomad tribes on the east and north-east of Egypt. The principal Hyksos kings of the XVIth dynasty are Ạpepạ I. and Ạpepạ II.; Nubti and the native Egyptian princes ruled under them. Under Se-qenen-Rā, a Theban ruler of the XVIIth dynasty, a war broke out between the Egyptians and the Hyksos, which continued for many years, and resulted in the expulsion of the foreign rulers.

Dynasty XVIII, from Thebes.

B.C. 1700. Ạāḥmes I., who re-established the independence of Egypt. 1666. Ạmen-ḥetep (Amenophis) I. 1633. Teḥuti-mes (Thothmes) I. 1600. Teḥuti-mes (Thothmes) II. 1600. Ḥāt-shepset, sister of Thothmes II. She sent an expedition to Punt. Teḥuti-mes (Thothmes) III. made victorious expeditions into Mesopotamia. He was one of the greatest kings that ever ruled over Egypt. 1566. Ạmen-ḥetep II. 1533. Teḥuti-mes IV.

1500. Ạmen-ḥetep III. warred successfully in the lands to the south of Egypt and in Asia. He made it a custom to go into Mesopotamia to shoot lions, and, while there he married a sister and daughter of Tushratta, the king of Mitani, and a sister and a daughter of Kadashman-Bêl (?), king of Karaduniyash; he afterwards made proposals of marriage for another daughter of this latter king called Sukharti. The correspondence and despatches from kings of Babylon, Mesopotamia, and Phaenicia were found in 1887 at Tell el-Amarna , and large portions of them are now preserved in the Museums of London, Berlin, and Gîzeh. Ạmen-ḥetep IV. or Khu-en-Ạten (“brilliance, or glory of the solar disk”), the founder of the city Khuạten, the ruins of which are called Tell el-Amarna , and of the heresy of the disk-worshippers. He was succeeded by a few kings who held the same religious opinions as himself.

Dynasty XIX, from Thebes.

B.C. 1400. Rameses I. 1366. Seti I. conquered the rebellious tribes in Western Asia, and built the Memnonium at Abydos. He was famous as a builder, and attended with great care to the material welfare of his kingdom. He is said to have built a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. 1333. Rameses II. subjugated Nubia and Mesopotamia. He was a great builder, and a liberal patron of the arts and sciences; learned men like Pentaurt were attached to his court. He is famous as one of the oppressors of the Israelites. 1300. Seti Meneptaḥ I. is thought to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus; his mummy was found in the tomb of Amenophis II. at Thebes.

NEW EMPIRE.

Dynasty XX, from Thebes.

1200. Rameses III. was famous for his buildings, and for the splendid gifts which he made to the temples of Thebes, Abydos and Heliopolis. His reign represented an era of great commercial prosperity. 1166-1133. Rameses IV.-XII.

Dynasty XXI, from Tanis and Thebes.

B.C. I. Tanis. II. Thebes. 1100-1000. Sa-Mentu. Pasebkhānu I. Ạmen-em-ạpt. Pasebkhānu II. Ḥer-Ḥeru, the first priest-king. Pi-ānkhi. Pai-net'em I-III.

Dynasty XXII, Libyans who ruled the country from Bubastis (Tell-Basṭa).

966. Shashanq (Shishak) I. (See 1 Kings, xiv. 25-28; 2 Chron., xii. 2-13) besieged Jerusalem, and having conquered it, pillaged the Temple and carried away much spoil. 933. Uasarken I. Under the rule of these kings Egypt finally lost most of her foreign possessions, and the feebleness of their rule made her an easy prey for the warlike. 900. Takeleth I. 866. Uasarken II. 833. Shashanq II. Takeleth II. Shashanq III. 800. Pamai Shashanq IV.

Dynasty XXIII, from Tanis.

766. Peṭā-Bast. Uasarken III.

Dynasty XXIV, from Saïs (Sâ el-Ḥagar).

733. Bak-en-ren-f (Bocchoris).

Dynasty XXV, from Ethiopia.

B.C. 700. Shabaka (Sabaco). See 2 Kings, xvii. 4. Shabataka. 693. Taharqa (Tirhakah, 2 Kings, xix. 9) is famous for having conquered Sennacherib and delivered Hezekiah; he was, however, defeated by Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, the son and grandson of Sennacherib. Tirhakah's son-in-law, Urdamanah, was also defeated by the Assyrians.

Dynasty XXVI, from Saïs.

666. Psemthek I. (Psammetichus) allowed Greeks to settle in the Delta, and employed Greek soldiers to fight for him. 612. Nekau II. (Necho) defeated Josiah, king of Judah, and was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar II. son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. See 2 Kings, xxiii, 29 ff; Jeremiah xlvi. 2. 596. Psammetichus II. 591. Uah-ạb-Rā, Apries (Hophra of the Bible, Gr. Apries) marched to the help of Zedekiah, king of Judah, who was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar II. His army rebelled against him, and he was dethroned; Amāsis, a general in his army, then succeeded to the throne. See Jeremiah, xliv. 30. 572. Ạāḥmes or Amāsis II. favoured the Greeks, and granted them many privileges; in his reign Naucratis became a great city. 528. Psammetichus III. was defeated at Pelusium by Cambyses the Persian, and taken prisoner; he was afterwards slain for rebellion against the Persians.

Dynasty XXVII, from Persia.

527. Cambyses marched against the Ethiopians and the inhabitants of the Oases.

B.C. 521. Darius I. (Hystaspes) endeavoured to open up the ancient routes of commerce; he established a coinage, and adopted a conciliatory and tolerant system of government, and favoured all attempts to promote the welfare of Egypt. 486. Xerxes I. 465. Artaxerxes I., during whose reign the Egyptians revolted, headed by Amyrtaeus. 425. Darius II. (Nothus), during whose reign the Egyptians revolted successfully, and a second Amyrtaeus became king of Egypt. 405. Artaxerxes II.

Dynasty XXVIII, from Saïs.

Ạmen-ruṭ (Amyrtaeus), reigned six years.

Dynasty XXIX, from Mendes.

399. Naifāauruṭ I. 393. Haịar. 380. P-se-mut. 379. Naifāauruṭ II.

Dynasty XXX, from Sebennytus.

378. Nekht-Heru-heb (Nectanebus I.) defeated the Persians at Mendes. 360. T'e-ḥer surrendered to the Persians. 358. Nekht-neb-f (Nectanebus II.) devoted himself to the pursuit of magic, and neglected his empire; when Artaxerxes III. (Ochus) marched against him, he fled from his kingdom, and the Persians again ruled Egypt.

PERSIANS.

B.C. 340. Artaxerxes III. (Ochus). 338. Arses. 336. Darius III. (Codomannus) conquered by Alexander the Great at Issus.

MACEDONIANS.

332. Alexander the Great founded Alexandria. He showed his toleration of the Egyptian religion by sacrificing to the god Ạmen of Libya.

PTOLEMIES.*

* For the chronology of the Ptolemies, see Lepsius, Königsbuch, Synoptische Tafeln 9.

323. Ptolemy I. Soter, son of Lagus, became king of Egypt after Alexander's death. He founded the famous Alexandrian Library, and encouraged learned Greeks to make Alexandria their home; he died B.C. 284. 285. Ptolemy II. Philadelphus built the Pharos, founded Berenice and Arsinoë, caused Manetho's Egyptian history to be compiled, and the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint) to be made. 247. Ptolemy III. Euergetes I. The stele of Canopus † was set up in the ninth year of his reign; he obtained possession of all Syria, and was a patron of the arts and sciences.

† This important stele, preserved at Gizeh, see page 590, is inscribed in hieroglyphics, Greek and demotic with a decree made at Canopus by the priesthood, assembled there from all parts of Egypt, in honour of Ptolemy III. It mentions the great benefits which he had conferred upon Egypt, and states what festivals are to be celebrated in his honour and in that of Berenice, etc., and concludes with a resolution ordering that a copy of this inscription in hieroglyphics, Greek and demotic shall be placed in every large temple of Egypt. Two other copies of this work are known.

B.C. 222. Ptolemy IV. Philopator defeated Antiochus, and founded the temple at Edfû. 205. Ptolemy V. Epiphanes. During his reign the help of the Romans against Antiochus was asked for by the Egyptians. Coelesyria and Palestine were lost to Egypt. He was poisoned B.C. 182, and his son Ptolemy VI. Philometor, died in that same year. The Rosetta Stone was set up in the eighth year of the reign of this king. — Ptolemy VI. Philometor did not reign a full year. 181. Ptolemy VII. Eupator was taken prisoner at Pelusium by Antiochus IV., B.C. 171, and died B.C. 146. He reigned alone at first, then conjointly (B.C. 170—165) with Ptolemy IX. Euergetes II. (also called Physcon), and finally having gone to Rome on account of his quarrel with Physcon, he reigned as sole monarch of Egypt (B.C. 165). Physcon was overthrown B.C. 132, reigned again B.C. 125, and died B.C. 117. 170. Ptolemy VIII. Neos Philopator is murdered by Physcon. 146. Ptolemy IX. Euergetes II. (Physcon). 117. Ptolemy X. Soter II. Philometor II. (Lathyrus), reigns jointly with Cleopatra III. Ptolemy X. is banished (B.C. 106), his brother Ptolemy XI. Alexander I. is made co-regent, but afterwards banished (B.C. 89) and slain (B.C. 87); Ptolemy X. is recalled, and dies B.C. 81. 88. Ptolemy XII. Alexander II. is killed. 81. Ptolemy XIII. Alexander II. is slain. 81. Ptolemy XIII. Neos Dionysos (Auletes), ascends the throne; dies B.C. 52.

B. C. 52. Ptolemy XIV. Dionysos II. and Cleopatra VII. are, according to the will of Ptolemy XIII., to marry each other; the Roman senate to be their guardian. Ptolemy XIV. banishes Cleopatra, and is a party to the murder of Pompey, their guardian, who visits Egypt after his defeat at Pharsalia. Caesar arrives in Egypt to support Cleopatra (B.C. 48); Ptolemy XIV. is drowned; Ptolemy XV., brother of Cleopatra VII., is appointed her co-regent by Caesar (B.C. 47); he is murdered at her wish, and her son by Caesar, Ptolemy XVI. Caesarion, is named co-regent (B.C. 45). 42. Antony orders Cleopatra to appear before him, and is seduced by her charms; he kills himself, and Cleopatra dies by the bite of an asp. Egypt becomes a Roman province B.C. 30.

ROMANS.

Caesar Augustus becomes master of the Roman Empire. Cornelius Gallus is the first prefect of Egypt. Under the third prefect, Aelius Gallus, Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, invades Egypt, but is defeated.

In the consulship of Marcus Silanus and Lucius Norbanus, Germanicus set out (A.D. 19) for Egypt to study its antiquities. His ostensible motive, however, was solicitude for the province. He sailed up the Nile from the city of Canopus, which was founded by the Spartans because Canopus, pilot of one of their ships, had been buried there, when Menelaus on his return to Greece was driven into a distant sea and to the shores of Libya. “Next he visited the vast ruins of ancient Thebes. There yet remained on the towering piles Egyptian inscriptions, with a complete account of the city's past grandeur.

One of the aged priests, who was desired to interpret the language of his country, related how once there had dwelt in Thebes 700,000 men of military age, and how with such an army Rhamses conquered Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and Scythia, and held under his sway the countries inhabited by the Syrians, Armenians, and their neighbours, the Cappadocians, from the Bithynian to the Lycian Sea. There was also to be read what tributes were imposed on these nations, the weight of silver and gold, the tale of arms and horses, the gifts of ivory and of perfumes to the temples, and the amount of grain and supplies furnished by each people, a revenue as magnificent as is now exacted by the might of Parthia or the power of Rome. But Germanicus also bestowed attention on other wonders. Chief of these were the stone image of Memnon, which, when struck by the sun's rays, gives out the sound of a human voice; the pyramids, rising up like mountains amid almost impassable wastes of shifting sand; raised by the emulation and vast wealth of kings; the lake (i.e., Moeris) hollowed out of the earth to be a receptacle for the Nile's overflow; and elsewhere the river's narrow channel and profound depth which no line of the explorer can penetrate. He then came to Elephantine and Syene, formerly the limits of the Roman empire, which now extends to the Red Sea.” — Tacitus, book ii., §§ 59-61 (Church and Brodribb).

A.D. 14. Tiberius. In his reign Germanicus visited Egypt. 37. Caligula. In his reign a persecution of the Jews took place. 41. Claudius. 55. Nero. In his reign Christianity was first preached in Egypt by Saint Mark. The Blemmyes made raids upon the southern frontier of Egypt. 69. Vespasian. Jerusalem destroyed A.D. 70.

A.D. 82. Domitian causes temples to Isis and Serapis to be built at Rome. 98. Trajan. The Nile and Red Sea Canal (Amnis Trajânus) re-opened. 117. Hadrian. Visited Egypt twice. 138. Antoninus Pius. 161. Marcus Aurelius caused the famous Itinerary to be made. 180. Commodus. 193. Septimius Severus. 211. Caracalla visited Egypt, and caused a large number of young men to be massacred at Alexandria. 217. Macrinus. 218. Elagabalus. 249. Decius. Christians persecuted. 253. Valerianus. Christians persecuted. 260. Gallienus. Persecution of Christians stayed. Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, invades Egypt A.D. 268. 270. Aurelian. Zenobia becomes Queen of Egypt for a short time, but is dethroned A.D. 273. 276. Probus. 284. Diocletian. “Pompey's Pillar” erected A.D. 302, persecution of Christians A.D. 304. The Copts date the era of the Martyrs from the day of Diocletian's accession to the throne (August 29). 324. Constantine the Great, the Christian Emperor, in whose reign, A.D. 325, the Council of Nicaea was held. At this council it was decided that Christ and His Father were of one and the same nature, as taught by Athanasius; and the doctrine of Arius,* that Christ and God were only similar in nature, was decreed heretical.

* “He was a most expert logician, but perverted his talents to evil purposes, and had the audacity to preach what no one before him had ever suggested, namely, that the Son of God was made out of that which had no prior existence; that there was a period of time in which He existed not; that, as possessing free will, He was capable of virtue, or of vice; and that He was created and made.” — Sozomen, Eccles. Hist., Bk. I., ch. 15. For the statement of the views of Arius by his opponent Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, see his letter addressed to the Catholic Church generally, in Socrates, Eccles. Hist., Bk. I., chap. vi.

337. Constantius. George of Cappadocia, an Arian, is made Bishop of Alexandria. 361. Julian, the Apostate. 379. Theodosius I., the Great, proclaims Christianity the religion of his empire. The Arians and followers of the ancient Egyptian religion were persecuted.

THE BYZANTINES.

395. Arcadius, Emperor of the East. The Anthropomorphites, † who affirmed that God was of human form, destroyed the greater number of their opponents.

† The leader of this persecution was Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, who, before he discovered that the majority of the Egyptian monks were Anthropomorphites, was himself opposed to this body.

 408. Theodosius II. In his reign the doctrines of Nestorius were condemned by Cyril of Alexandria. Nestorius, because of the two natures of Christ, inferred also two persons, a human and a divine. “In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been taught (A.D. 429-431) to abhor the confusion of the two natures, and nicely to discriminate the humanity of his master Christ from the Divinity of the Lord Jesus. The Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ, but his ears were offended with the rash

and recent title of mother of God, which had been insensibly adopted since the origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of Constantinople, a friend of the patriarch,* and afterwards the patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or the abuse, of a word unknown to the apostles, unauthorized by the church, and which could only tend to alarm the timorous, to mislead the simple, to amuse the profane, and to justify, by a seeming resemblance, the old genealogy of Olympus. In his calmer moments Nestorius confessed, that it might be tolerated or excused by the union of the two natures, and the communication of their idioms (i.e., a transfer of properties of each nature to the other—of infinity to man, passibility to God, etc.): but he was exasperated, by contradiction, to disclaim the worship of a newborn, an infant Deity, to draw his inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships of life, and to describe the manhood of Christ, as the robe, the instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead.”—Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 47.

* Anastasius of Antioch, who said, “Let no one call Mary Theotokos; for Mary was but a woman; and it is impossible that God should be born of a woman.”—Socrates, Eccles. Hist., Bk. VII., chap. xxxii.

 450. Marcianus. The Monophysite doctrine of Eutyches was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451. Eutyches, from the one person of Christ, inferred also one nature, viz., the Divine—the human having been absorbed into it. Silko invaded Egypt with his Nubian followers. 474. Zeno. He issued the Henoticon, an edict which, while affirming the Incarnation, made no attempt to decide the difficult question whether Christ possessed a single or a double nature.

A.D. 491. Anastasius. 527. Justinian. The Monophysites separated from the Melkites, or “Royalists,” and chose their own patriarch; they were afterwards called Copts,
.*

* The name given to the native Christians of Egypt by the Arabs, from

for Αιγυπτιος.

610. Heraclius. The Persians under Chosroes held Egypt for ten years; they were expelled by Heraclius A.D. 629.

MUHMMADANS.

640. ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aṣi conquers Egypt. ‘Amr began his expedition against Egypt with about 4,000 men, but the Khalîfa Omar sent him reinforcements, and by the time the famous general arrived at ‘Arîsh his army numbered 16,000 men. Having vanquished the garrison at Pelusium, he marched along the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and passed by way of Bubastis to Heliopolis. A truce of four days was obtained for George, the Maịawịas, the governor of Upper Egypt , by the Coptic Patriarch Benjamin, and it seems that the Egyptian official, who was a Jacobite Copt, and a hater of the ruling class in Egypt, greatly aided the Arab general. The Arabs moved on towards Memphis, and soon after, under Zubêr, ‘Amr's colleague, made a general assault upon the fortress of Babylon, scaled the walls, and so became masters of the capital of Upper Egypt. George, the Maịawịas, arranged the details of the capitulation, and a capitation tax of two dînârs for every male adult, besides other payments. ‘Amr then marched on Alexandria, and as the Greeks took to their

ships and fled, George, the Maịawịas, who had gone to Alexandria after the fall of Babylon, offered to capitulate on the same terms as he had made for that city. ‘Amr returned to Memphis, and made the head-quarters of the army at Fosṭâṭ, near which the modern town of Cairo has grown up. ‘Amr refused to possess himself of any land, and he was not even given a site whereon to build a house. One of his most useful works was to reopen the old canal which ran from Belbês through the Wâdî Ṭûmîlât to the Bitter Lakes, and thence to the Red Sea; by this means it was possible to convey corn which had been loaded into ships at Memphis from that city into Yenbô, the port of Medîna in Arabia, without transhipment. This canal was in use for about eighty years, when it became silted up. After the second siege of Alexandria (A.D. 646) the Arabs made Fosṭaṭ the capital of Egypt. A.D. 644. ‘Othmân. 750. Merwân II., the last of the ‘Omayyade dynasty, was put to death in Egypt. 750-870. The ‘Abbasides rule over Egypt. 786. Harûn ar-Rashîd. 813. Mâmûn visited Egypt, and opened the Great Pyramid. 870. Aḥmad ibn-Ṭulûn governs Egypt. 884. Khamârûyeh enlarges Fosṭât. 969-1171. The Fâṭimites govern Egypt, with Maṣr el-Ḳâhira* (Cairo) as their residence.

*

975. Al-‘Azîz, son of Mu‘izz, great grandson of ‘Obêdallâh. 996. Ḥâkim, son of ‘Azîz, founder of the Druses. This remarkable prince wished to be considered God incarnate.

A.D. 1020. Ẓâhir, son of Ḥâkim. 1036. Abu Tamîm el-Mustanṣir. 1094. Musta‘li, son of el-Mustanṣir, captured Jerusalem (A.D. 1096), but was defeated by the Crusaders under Godfrey de Bouillon. 1160. ‘Aḍîd Ledînallâh, the last of the Fâṭimites. 1171. Ṣalâḥeddîn (Saladin) defeated the Crusaders at Ḥittîn, and recaptured Jerusalem. 1193. Melik al-‘Adîl. 1218. Melik al-Kâmil, the builder of Manṣûrah. 1240. Melik aṣ-Ṣâleḥ, the usurper, captured Jerusalem, Damascus, and Ascalon. Louis IX. of France, attacked and captured Damietta, but was made prisoner at Manṣûrah, with all his army. 1250-1380. The Baḥrite Mamelukes. 1260. Bêbars. 1277. Ḳalâûn. 1291. Al-Ashraf Khalîl captured Acre. 1346. Ḥasan. 1382-1517. Burgite or Circassian Mamelukes. 1382. Barịûị. 1422. Bursbey. 1468. Ḳâit Bey. 1501. Al-Ghûri. 1517. Ṭûmân Bey is deposed by Selim I. of Constantinople, and Egypt becomes a Turkish Pashalik. Soon after his conquest of Egypt, Selim divided the country into twenty-four provinces, over each of which he appointed a local governor; these governors were placed in subjection to a Pâsha, who, with the help of a council of seven Turkish officials, ruled the country. One of the twenty-four governors was elected to the important office of “Shêkh al-balad,” or governor of the metropolis, a post which was greatly coveted by his colleagues when they saw what frequent opportunities were enjoyed by him of “squeezing” the natives, and of making himself a rich man. This system worked well for a time, but as the power of Turkey declined, so the power of her nominees the Pâshas of Egypt declined, and at length the twenty-four local governors became the actual rulers of Egypt, for the revenues of the country were in their hands, and they paid the Turkish Pâsha his salary.

1771. ‘Ali Bey, a slave, obtains great power in Egypt. He was accused of entering into a conspiracy against the Sulṭân at Constantinople, and a messenger was sent to Egypt to bring back ‘Ali Bey's head. ‘Ali caught and slew the messenger, and having called his colleagues together, drove out the Pâsha and 1772. declared Egypt independent. He was poisoned by Muḥammad abu-Dhabad, a man on whom he had showered favours. 1773. Ismâ‘îl, Ibrâhîm, and Murâd strive for the mastery over Egypt. When Murâd became ruler, a Turkish army invaded Egypt and seized Cairo, and attempted 1790. to follow the rebel (Murâd) into Upper Egypt 1798. Napoleon Bonaparte lands near Alexandria with an army of 36,000 men (July 1); storming of Alexandria (July 5); Murâd meets the French in battle at Embâbeh, opposite Cairo, with 60,000 men, but is beaten, and about 15,000 of his men are killed. This fight is commonly called the Battle of the Pyramids. A few days later Nelson destroyed the French fleet in Abuịîr Bay. 1799. Destruction of the Turkish army by the French at Abuịîr. 1800. Sir Sydney Smith signs a treaty at Al-‘Arîsh granting General Kléber's army permission to leave Egypt (February 24), but as he had to admit later that he had exceeded his powers, and that the British Government demanded the surrender of the whole French army as prisoners of war, Gen. Kléber attacked the Turks at the village of Maṭarîyeh and is said to have routed 70,000 men, an army six times as large as his own. A few months later Kléber was assassinated, and General Menou became commander-in-chief of the French army in Egypt.

A.D. 1801. Sir Ralph Abercromby lands at Abuịîr Bay with 17,000 men (March 8); battle of Alexandria and defeat of the French (March 21); the French capitulate at Cairo (June 27); the French capitulate at Alexandria (August 30); evacuation of Egypt by the French (September). 1803. England restores Egypt to the Turks. As soon as the English left Egypt, severe conflicts took place between two Turkish parties in the country, the Albanians and the Ghuzz; to the former belonged Muḥammad ‘Ali. 1805. Muḥammad Ali is elected Pâsha of Egypt by the people. His election was afterwards confirmed by the Porte. He was born at Cavalla, a small town on the sea-coast of Albania, in 1769, and he served in the Turkish army at an early age. He was sent with a body of troops to fight against the French, and enjoyed at that time the rank of major (bimbashi); he married the daughter of the governor of his native town, and by her had three sons, Ibrâhîm, Ṭusûn, and Ismâ‘îl. 1807. General Fraser arrives at Alexandria with 5,000 British troops (March 17), but being unsuccessful in his mission, he evacuated Alexandria on September 14.

1811. Assassination of the Mamelukes by Muḥammad ‘Ali. These unfortunate men were invited by Muḥammad Ali to attend the investiture of his son Ṭusûn with a garment of state at the Citadel on March 1. When they arrived they were graciously received and led into the Citadel, but as soon as they were inside the gates were closed and Muḥammad ‘Ali's soldiers opened fire upon them; about 470 of the Beys and their followers were murdered, and of all who entered only one is said to have escaped. 1820. Expedition to the Sûdân led by Ismâ‘îl, who was burned to death by an Arab shêkh called Nimr (1822). 1821. Muḥammad ‘Ali sends about 8,000 troops to assist the Turks against the Greeks. In 1824 a false Mahdi appeared near Thebes, with about 25,000 followers, but nearly all of them were massacred by the Government troops. 1831. Invasion of Syria by Ibrâhîm, son of Muḥammad ‘Ali. Acre was invested on November 29, but was not captured until May 27, 1832. Ibrâhîm was victorious at Emesa on July 8, he defeated Rashîd Pâsha, and destroyed the Turkish fleet so completely that Constantinople was in imminent danger of capture. In 1833 the whole of Syria was ceded to Muḥammad ‘Ali, and the rule of his son Ibrâhîm was firm but just. In 1839 war again broke out between the Turks and Egyptians, and two years later Syria was given back to the former. In 1847 Muhammad ‘Ali visited Constantinople, and soon after his reasoning powers became impaired. 1848. 1949. Ibrâhîm is appointed to rule Egypt on account of his father's failing health. He died after the reign of a few months, but Muḥammad did not die until August 3, 1849. Muḥammad ‘Ali was 1849.an able ruler, and one who had the interest of his country at heart. He created an army and a navy, and established equitable laws for collecting the revenues; he founded colleges of various kinds, and also the famous Bûlâk printing press. There is no doubt that but for the obstacles placed in his way by the British Government, and its interference, he would have freed Egypt entirely from Turkish misrule. His health and spirits were broken by England when she reduced his army to 18,000 men and forbade him to employ his fleet, which rotted away as it lay inactive at Alexandria.

A.D. 1849. ‘Abbâs Pâsha, the son of Ṭusûn, the son of Muḥammad ‘Ali, succeeds Ibrâhîm. He was an incapable ruler, and is said to have been strangled at Benha in July, 1854. 1854. Sa‘îd Pâsha, the fourth son of Muḥammad ‘Ali, becomes ruler of Egypt. Though not a strong ruler, he was a just man, and he will be chiefly remembered for having abolished a number of cruel monopolies. In many particulars he sought to carry out his father's plans, and first and foremost among these must be mentioned the building of railways in the Delta, and the enlarging of the canals with the view of improving irrigation and of facilitating communication. He it was who supported the project of making the Suez Canal, and he gave M. de Lesseps the concession for it. He founded the Bûlâị Museum, and encouraged excavations on the sites of the ancient cities of Egypt. 1863.187518781879 Ismâ‘îl, son of Ibrâhîm Pâsha, and grandson of Muḥammad ‘Ali, becomes the ruler of Egypt; he was born in 1830, and by a decree of the Sulṭân,

1878 1879 dated May 14, 1867, was made “Kheîve” * of Egypt. In the early years of the rule of this remarkable man everything seemed to go well, and the material welfare of the country of Egypt appeared to be secured. Apparently Ismâ'îl was straining every nerve to rule his country according to Western ideas of justice and progress. Railways were built, schools were opened, trade of every kind was fostered, and agriculture, upon which the prosperity of Egypt depends, was encouraged to a remarkable degree. The making of the Suez Canal, which was begun in 1859, was carried on with great zeal under his auspices (as well as the Fresh Water Canal, which was begun in 1858 and finished in 1863), and the work was successfully accomplished in 1869. But the various enterprises in which he embarked cost large sums of money, and towards the end of 1875 his liabilities amounted to £77,667,569 sterling. The salaries of the officials were in arrear, and the Treasury bills were shunned by all. In this year he sold 176,602 Suez Canal shares to the British Government for £3,976,582 sterling; these shares are now worth over 25 millions sterling. In 1878 M. Waddington, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, urged Lord Derbyu to co-operate with France in an attempt to put the finances of Egypt on a sounder base, and a Commission of Inquiry was instituted by the Decree of March 30, under the presidency of Mr. Rivers Wilson. In April Ismâ'îl was obliged to find the sum of £1,200,000 to pay the May coupon of the Unified Debt, and

1878 1879 it is said that he did so by the familiar process of “squeezing” the native. The labours of the Commission proved that “the land tenures were so arranged that the wealthier proprietors evaded a great portion of the land tax, and the system of forced labour was applied in a way which was ruinous to the country.” (Royle, Egyptian Campaigns, p. 6.) Ismâ'îl had built himself palaces everywhere, and he and his family had become possessed of one-fifth of the best of the land of Egypt. The taxes were collected with great cruelty and injury to the native, and peculation and bribery were rampant everywhere. In August of this year a Cabinet was formed with Nubar Pâsha at the head, with Rivers Wilson as Minister of Finance, and M. de Blignières as Minister of Public Works. At this time Ismâ'îl announced that he was, in future, determined to rule the country through a Council of Ministers. It must be remembered that the debt of Egypt at this time was about £90,000,000. On February 18th, 1879, Nubar Pâsha and his Cabinet were, owing to the machinations of Ismâ'îl, mobbed by about 2,500 officers and men at the Ministry of Finance, but at the critical moment Ismâ'îl himself appeared, and the uproar ceased. At the same time, however, he told the European Consuls-General that unless more power were given to him he would not be answerable for what might happen. Soon after this he issued a Decree to raise the number of men in the army to 60,000, and in April he reduced the interest on the Debt. When Nubar Pâsha resigned his office, Ismâ'îl appointed his own son Tawfîk as Prime Minister, but soon after this he dismissed the whole Cabinet and appointed

1879 a set of native Ministers with Sherîf Pâsha as Prime Minister. As the result of this truly Oriental proceeding England and France, after much hesitation, demanded the deposition of Ismâ'îl from the Sultân. About this time Ismâ'îl sent large bribes to the Sultân, but these availed him nothing, and on June 25th Mr. Lascelles, the British Consul-General, and M. Tricon, the French Consul-General, together with Sherîf Pâsha, waited upon Ismâ'îl to inform him that he must at once abdicate in obedience to the orders of his sovereign master, the Sultân, which had been received from Constantinople. Ismâ'îl of course refused to do this, but about 10.30 a.m. a telegram addressed to Ismâ'îl Pâsha, late Khedive of Egypt, was received at the Abdîn Palace, and it was taken to him by Sherîf Pâsha, who called upon his master to resign in favour of Tawfîk Pâsha. Almost at the same hour Tawfîk received at the Isma'îlîyyeh Palace a telegram addressed to Muhammad Tawfîk, Khedive of Egypt, and when he went to the Abdîn Palace with Sherîf Pâsha, who had come from there to tell him about the telegram to Ismâ'îl, he found his father ready to salute and to wish him better fortune than he himself had enjoyed. On Monday, the 30th of June, Ismâ'îl left Egypt in the Khedivial yacht for Smyrna, taking with him a large sum of money and about 300 women; in 1887 he settled in Constantinople, where he died in 1895. Under Tawfîk's rule the Control was restored, and on September 4 Rîaz Pâsha became Prime Minister.

*The Arabic form of the title is

Khudêwîy.

A.D. 1880. Commission of Liquidation appointed, and a number of reforms, including a reduction of the taxes, are made.

A.D. 1881. A rebellion headed by Ahmad Arabi or “Arabi Pâsha” and others breaks out. Arabi was born in the year 1840 in Lower Egypt , and was the son of a peasant farmer. He offended Ismâ'îl, and was accused of malpractices and misappropriation of army stores, but this the despot forgave him, and promoted him to the rank of colonel, and gave him a royal slave to wife. Arabi was the leader of a secret society, the aim of which was to free Egypt from foreign interference and control, and to increase the army, and make Tawfîk appoint an Egyptian to the office of Minister of War in the place of Osman Rifki. These facts coming to the notice of the authorities, Arabi and two of his colleagues were ordered to be arrested, and when this had been done, and they had been taken to the barracks in Cairo for examination, the soldiers who were in their companies rushed into the rooms and rescued them. The rebel officers and men next went to the palace where Tawfîk was, and compelled him to grant their requests, and to do away with the cause of their dissatisfaction. 1881. On February 2 of this year Tawfîk was called upon to form a new Cabinet, and Arabi became Minister of War, and Mahmûd Sami was appointed President of the Council; Arabi was created a Pâsha by the Sultân and his power became paramount. In May a serious dispute arose between Arabi and his colleagues and the Khedive; and on the 19th and 20th three British and three French vessels arrived at Alexandria. On May 25th the Consuls-General of England and France demanded the resignation of Mahmûd Sami's Cabinet, and the retirement of Arabi from the

  country. These demands were conceded on the following day, but shortly after Tawfîị reinstated Arabi, with the view of maintaining order and the tranquillity of the country. “On June 3 three more British and three more French warships arrived at Alexandria. On June 11 a serious riot broke out at Alexandria; and the British Consul was stoned and nearly beaten to death, and Mr. Ribton, a missionary, and a British naval officer and two seamen were actually killed.” The massacre had been threatened by Maḥmûd Sami, and the riot was pre-arranged, and the native police and soldiery were parties to the murders of the Europeans which took place on that day; Mr. Royle (Egyptian Campaigns, p. 54) estimates the number of Europeans killed at 150. On June 25 the Sulṭân decorated Arabi with the Grand Order of the Medjidieh! On July 11 at 7 a.m. the bombardment of Alexandria was begun by H.M.S. “Alexandra” firing a shell into the newly made fortifications of the city, and the other British ships, “Inflexible,” “Superb,” “Sultan,” “Téméraire,” “Invincible,” “Monarch,” and “Penelope,” soon after opened fire. After the bombardment was over the city was plundered and set on fire by the natives, and an idea of the damage done may be gained from the fact that the Commission of Indemnities awarded the claimants the sum of £4.341,011 sterling (Royle, op. cit., p. 102). On July 14th British seamen were landed to protect the city, and on the 15th many forts were occupied by them. Early in August Arabi was removed from his post, and he at once began to prepare to resist the English soldiers who were known to be on their way to

Egypt; on August 15 Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in Egypt; on the 18th the British fleet arrived at Port Ṣa‘îd; on the 20th the British seized the Suez Canal, and the British Government was declared by M. de Lesseps to have paid to him £100,000 for loss of business! (Royle, op. cit., p. 152). On September 13 Sir Garnet Wolseley was victorious at Tell el-Kebîr, at a cost of about 460 British officers and men; the Egyptians lost about 2,000, and several hundreds were wounded. On the 15th Cairo was occupied by the British, and the 10,000 Egyptian soldiers there submitted without fighting. On December 26th Arabi left Egypt for exile in Ceylon. 1883. A rebellion led by the Mahdi breaks out in the Sûdân. The Mahdi was one Muḥammad Aḥmad, a carpenter, who was born between 1840 and 1850; his native village was situated near the Island of Argo, in the province of Donịola, and though poor, his parents declared that they belonged to the Ashraf, or “nobility,” and claimed to be descendants of Muḥammad the Prophet. His father was a religious teacher, and had taught him to read and write. He studied at Berber under Muḥammad al-Khên, and later at Kharṭûm under the famous Shêkh Muḥammad Sherîf, and when he became a man he led a life of great asceticism on the Island of Abba in the White Nile. His piety and learning secured for him a great reputation in the Sûdân, and the greater number of the inhabitants sided with him in a serious quarrel which he had with Muḥammad Sherîf. He wandered about preaching against the Christians, and he declared that the decay in the Muḥammadan religion was due to the contact of Arabs

A.D. 1883 with Christians, that true faith was dead, and that he was deputed by God to restore it. He then attached a number of important people to himself, and having retired to Abba Island, he declared himself to be the “Mahdi,” or the being whose advent had been foretold by Muḥammadan writers, who would restore the religion of the Arabs to its former purity. In July, 1881, Rauf Pâsha, the Governor-General of the Sûdân, sent for him to come to Kharṭûm, but the Mahdi refused, and six weeks later he and his followers defeated the Government troops which had been sent to bring him, and slew half of them. In December he defeated Rashîd Bey, the Governor of Fashôda, and slew nearly all the 400 soldiers which he had with him at Geddîn. In April, 1882, Giegler Pâsha, the temporary Governor-General, next attacked the Mahdi, and under his able generalship considerable loss was inflicted on the rebels; but on June 7 the Mahdi and his Dervishes massacred the combined forces of ‘Abd-Allah and Yussuf Pâsha, and in September he besieged El-Obêd, which capitulated on January 17, 1883. In the same month Colonel W. Hicks, a retired Indian officer, was appointed head of the Army in the Sûdân, and on February 7 he left Cairo for Kharṭûm viâ Berber, which he reached on March 1; in April he set out against the Dervishes, and on the last day of the month he defeated about 4,000 of them and killed about 500. On September 9 he set out with reinforcements for Duêm, intending to recapture El-Obêd, but early in November the Mahdi attacked his force of about 10,000 men with some thousands of soldiers from the old Egyptian Army, near Lake Rahad, it is said, and

A.D. 1884 the gallant Englishman and his officers and men, who were suffering greatly from want of water, having been led into an ambush, were cut to pieces. Thus the Mahdi became master of the Sûdân. A.D. 1884 In February Baker Pâsha set out with about 3,800 men to relieve Sinkat, but his motley troops were defeated at Tokar, and about 2,400 of them slain, and thousands of rifles and much ammunition fell into the hands of the Dervishes. In January of this year Charles George Gordon (born January 28, 1833, murdered at Kharṭûm on the night of January 26, 1885) was sent to Kharṭûm to arrange for the evacuation of the Sûdân; he left Cairo on January 26 and arrived there on February 18. On February 28, General Graham defeated the Dervishes at El-teb, and nearly 1,000 of them were slain. On March 13 he defeated Osman Diịna's * army at Tamaai and killed about 2,500 of his men; Osman's camp was burnt, and several hundred thousand of the cartridges which had been taken from Baker Pâsha were destroyed. On the 27th, Tamanib was occupied by Graham and then burnt. About the middle of April the Mahdi began to besiege Gordon in Kharṭûm, and preparations for a relief expedition were begun in England in May; this expedition was placed (August 26) under Sir Garnet Wolseley, who decided to attempt to reach Kharṭûm by ascending the Nile. This route made it necessary to travel 1,700 miles against the stream, and six cataracts, and other natural barriers, made the progress extremely slow; General Sir F. Stephenson, the highest authority on the subject,

A.D. 1884 1885 advised the route viâ Sawwaịîn (Suâkin) and Berber, and by it troops could have entered Kharṭûm some months before Gordon was murdered. On the other hand it has been urged that, as the town of Berber surrendered on May 26, the main reason for an advance along the Suâkin-Berber road was taken away (Sudan Campaign, Pt. I, p. 25). The expedition consisted of 7,000 men, and all of them had reached Wâdî Ḥalfa by the end of November. On December 2, the troops at Donịola set out for Korti, which was reached by Sir Herbert Stewart on the 13th of the same month. Here it was decided to send a part of the force to Kharṭûm across the desert, viâ Matemmah, and a part by way of the river. On December 30, Sir Herbert Stewart set out with about 1,100 officers and men, and on January 2 he seized the Gakdul Wells, 95 miles from Korti; after one day he returned with the greater part of his force to Korti (January 5) to fetch further supplies, having left 400 men at Gakdul to build forts and to guard the wells. On the 8th, he again set out for Gakdul, and on the 16th he reached a spot about four miles from the wells of Abu Klea,* and 23 miles from Matemmah; next day the famous battle of Abu Klea was fought, and 1,500 British soldiers defeated 11,000 Dervishes. The Dervishes succeeded in breaking the British square, but every one of them who got in was killed, and 1,100 of their dead were counted near it; their number of wounded was admitted by them to have been very large. On the 18th General

A.D. 1885 Stewart moved on towards Matemmah and, after a march which lasted all day and all night, again fought the Dervishes on the 19th, and killed or wounded 800; in this fight, however, he received the wound of which he died. On the 20th Abu Kru, or Gubat, was occupied by the British: on the 21st Sir Charles Wilson attempted to take Matemmah, but the force at his command was insufficient for the purpose. On the 22nd the British soldiers began to build two forts at Abu Kru; on the 23rd Sir C. Wilson began to make the steamers ready to go to Kharṭûm; and on the 24th he set out with two steamers and twenty men. Four days later he came to Tuti Island and found that Kharṭûm was in the hands of the Mahdi, whereupon he ordered his vessels to turn and run down the river with all speed; when they were out of the reach of the enemy's fire, Sir C. Wilson stopped them and sent out messengers to learn what had happened, and it was found that Kharṭûm had fallen on the night of the 26th, and that Gordon had been murdered a little before sunrise on the 27th. His head was cut off and taken to the Mahdi, but his body was left in the garden for a whole day, and thousands of Dervishes came and plunged their spears into it; later the head was thrown into a well. On February 13 the British troops, including those which had marched with General Buller to Gubat, retreated to Abu Klea, and a fortnight later they set out for Korti, which they reached on March 1. The portion of the British troops which attempted to reach Khartûm by river left Korti on December 28, 1884, and reached Berti on February 1, 1885, and on the 9th was fought the battle of

Kirbekan, in which General Earle was shot dead On the 17th the house, palm trees, and water-wheels of Sulêmân Wad Gamr, who murdered Colonel Stewart, were destroyed, and on the 24th, orders having been received to withdraw, the river column made ready to return to Korti, which was reached on the 8th of March. When it was seen that Lord Wolseley's expedition had failed to bring Gordon from Kharṭûm, it was decided by the British Government to break the power of Osman Diịna, and with this object in view the Suâkin Expedition was planned. On February 17, 1885, the British Government made a contract with Messrs. Lucas and Aird to construct a railway of 4 feet 8½ inches gauge from Suâkin to Berber. On the 20th General Graham was placed in command of the Suâkin Field Force, which consisted of about 10,500 officers and men. On March 20 General Graham fought an action at Hashin, and two days later a fierce fight took place at Tofrik, between Suâkin and Tamaai. General McNeill was attacked by about 3,000 Dervishes, of whom 1,000 were killed, but the British loss was, relatively, considerable. In May the British Government recalled Graham's expedition, and abandoned the making of the railway to Berber, and thus Osman Diịna was again able to boast that he had driven the English out of the country (Royle, Sudan Campaigns, p. 436). On June 22, the death of the Mahdi occurred; he was succeeded by ‘Abd-Allah, better known as the “Khalîfa.” In July the last of the British troops of Lord Wolseley's expedition left Donịola; by the end of September nearly the whole country as far north as Wâdi Ḥalfa was in the hands of the Mahdi, and

A.D. 1885 it was seen that, unless checked, the Dervishes would invade Egypt. General Sir F. Stephenson and General Sir Francis Grenfell attacked them at Kosheh and Ginnis on December 30, and about A.D. 1,000 of the Mahdi's troops were killed and wounded.

* More correctly Abu Tliḥ

, i.e., a place abounding in acacia trees.

* i.e., “Osman of the beard”; he is the son of a Turkish merchant and slave dealer who settled in the Eastern Sûdân early in the XIXth century.

 A.D. 1886. Towards the close of this year Osman Dikịna with-drew from Suâkin to Omdurmân, partly because the Arabs about Suâkin had defeated his troops and occupied Tamaai, and partly because he hoped for much benefit from the Mahdi's attack on Egypt. 1887. In June, Osman Diịna returned to Suâkin with about 2,000 Baggara Dervishes, but failed to move the people of the country; in the following month he returned to Omdurmân, but hearing that the Egyptian garrison at Suâkin had been reduced, he returned with 5,000 men and determined to capture the city. 1888. On January 17, Colonel (now Lord) Kitchener, at the head of some friendly Arabs, attacked and captured the Dervish camp, but eventually the Dervishes re-formed and turned the Egyptian victory into a defeat. On December 20, General Grenfell, with reinforcements, attacked Osman Diịna's troops and killed and wounded 500 of them. 1889. In April Wad en-Negûmi had advanced as far north as Hafîr with about 5,000 men, and another 1,000 were at Sarras, only about 33 miles south of Wâdi Ḥalfa. On July 1, Colonel Wodehouse, with about 2,000 Egyptian soldiers, defeated the Dervishes, under Wad en-Negûmi, at Argîn, near Wâdi Ḥalfa, killing 900 and taking 500 prisoners. On the 5th, General Grenfell left Cairo for the south with reinforcements, and made arrangements to meet the attack of Wad en-Negûmi, who, undaunted by his defeat at Argîn, was marching north; and on August 1 this redoubtable warrior collected his force of 3,300 men and 4,000 followers on the hills to the south of Tushki, or Toski. On the 3rd General Grenfell disposed his British and Egyptian troops in such a way as to check the advance of Wad en-Negûmi, who, however, only wished to get away and not to fight. He was at length forced to fight, and he fought bravely, but General Grenfell's tactics were so thoroughly well planned and carried out, that the Dervish force was completely routed and destroyed. About 1,200 were killed and 4,000 were taken prisoners, and the Egyptian loss only amounted to 25 killed and 140 wounded. The effect on the country was marvellous, for, as Mr. Royle says (op. cit., p. 485), “the victory of Toski marked the turning point in the invasion, and was a shock to the cause of Mahdism which it took years to recover.” The Dervish reinforcements beat a hasty retreat, and the Mahdi suspended all further operations for the invasion of Egypt.

A.D. 1890. Osman Diịna continued to make raids upon Suâkin from Tokar. 1891. In January Colonel (now Sir C.) Holled-Smith set out to attack Osman Diịna, and on February 19 he routed the enemy at Tokar, killing 700 men. 1892-1895. Osman Diịna continued to harass the Arabs round Suâkin, and made raids wherever he thought he had any chance of success. On January 7, 1892, the Khedive, Tawfîk Pâsha, died after a short illness at Ḥelwân, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Abbâs II. Hilmy; the Imperial Firman from the Porte confirming his succession cost about £6,154, and was read on April 14. 1896. In the early part of this year Osman Diịna's forces were attacked and defeated with great loss by

A.D. Colonel Lloyd, Major Sydney, and Captain Fenwick. On February 29 the Italians were defeated with severe loss at Adowa, and the Italian garrison at Kassala was in imminent danger from the Dervishes. With a view of assisting Italy by making it necessary for the Dervishes to turn their attention elsewhere, the British Government determined to advance to Akasheh and Donịola. In the hands of General Kitchener, who had succeeded General Grenfell as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army in April, 1892, the conduct of the new Sûdân Expedition was placed. On March 21 he left Cairo for the south, and the first serious skirmish between the Dervishes and Egyptians took place on May 1. Early in June the Sirdar divided his forces, and one column marched upon Ferket by way of the river, and another across the desert. On June 7 the two columns joined hands, and a fierce fight ensued. The Sirdar's arrangements were so skilfully made and carried out, that the Dervishes were utterly routed; they lost about 1,000 killed and wounded, and 500 were made prisoners. Among the killed were about forty of their chief men. The Egyptian loss was 100 killed and wounded. On September 19 the Sirdar occupied Hafîr after a fight, and four days later the Egyptian troops entered Donịola; Debbeh, Korti, and Marawî were next occupied, and the country as far as the foot of the Fourth Cataract was once more in the hands of the Egyptians. A.D. 1897. Early in this year the decision to make the Wâdi Ḥalfa and Abu-Ḥamed Railway was arrived at, for the Sirdar regarded it as absolutely necessary; by this route nearly 350 miles of difficult river transport would be avoided. When the railway had advanced considerably more than half way to Abu Ḥamed, General Hunter marched from Marawî to Abu Ḥamed and defeated the Dervishes, who held it in force, and occupied it on August 7. Of the Dervish garrison of 1,500 men, about 1,300 were killed and wounded. Soon afterwards the Dervishes evacuated Berber, which was entered by General Hunter on September 13. On October 31 the railway reached Abu-Hamed.

A.D. 1898. On April 8th, Good Friday, the Sirdar utterly defeated the great Dervish force under Maḥmûd at the Battle of the Atbara; the Dervish loss was about 3,000 killed, and 2,000 were taken prisoners, while the Sirdar's loss was under 600 killed and wounded. The forces engaged on each side were about 14,000. On September 2nd the capture of Omdurmân and the defeat of the Khalîfa ‘Abdu-Allahi were accomplished by the Sirdar. The Khalîfa's forces numbered at least 50,000, and those of the Sirdar about 22,000. The Dervish loss was at least 11,000 killed and 16,000 wounded, and over 4,000 were made prisoners; the Sirdar's loss was rather more than 400 killed and wounded. The Khalîfa escaped and fled south, having first taken care to bury his treasure; the body of the Mahdi was removed from its tomb, and burnt, and the ashes were thrown into the Nile; the head is said to be buried at Wâdi Ḥalfa. The tomb was destroyed because, if left untouched, it would always have formed a centre for religious fanaticism and sedition. On Sunday, September 4, the Sirdar held a memorial service for General Gordon at Kharṭûm, when the British and Egyptian flags were hoisted. On the 19th the Sirdar hoisted the Egyptian flag at Fashôda, which

had been occupied by Major Marchand, the head of a French expedition, who sought to claim as a right a position on the Nile on behalf of France. A.D. 1899. * In January General Kitchener set out to catch the Khalîfa, who had fled towards Kordofân, but his expedition failed for want of water. In November it was said that the Khalîfa was at Gebel Geddîr, which lay to the north-west of Fashôda, on the west bank of the Nile, and about 160 miles from the river. The Sirdar pursued with a large force, but the Khalîfa fled towards Khartûm. On November 22 Colonel (now Sir) F. R. Wingate (now Sirdar of the Egyptian army) pursued him to Abba Island on the Nile, and learning that he was encamped at Umm Dabrikât, attacked him on the 24th. After a fierce but short fight in the early morning, Colonel Wingate defeated the Khalîfa, killing over 1,000 of his men, and taking prisoners 3,000. The Khalîfa met his fate like a man, and seeing that all was lost, seated himself upon a sheepskin with his chief Emîrs, and with them fell riddled with bullets. The Egyptian loss was 15 killed and wounded. The death of the Khalîfa was the death-blow to Mahdism.

* On March 4 of this year, Mr. John M. Cook, the late head of the firm of Thomas Cook and Son, died at Walton-on-Thames. The services which he rendered to the Egyptian Government were very considerable. In the Gordon Relief Expedition his firm transported from Asyût to Wâdî Ḥalfa, a distance of about 550 miles, Lord Wolseley's entire force, which consisted of 11,000 British and 7,000 Egyptian troops, 800 whalers, and 130,000 tons of stores and war materials. In 1885, 1886, and 1896 his firm again rendered invaluable services to the Government, and one is tempted to regret, with Mr. Royle (The Egyptian Campaigns, p. 554), that, in view of the melancholy failure of the Gordon Relief Expedition, his contract did not include the rescue of Gordon and the Sûdân garrisons. He transported the wounded to Cairo by water after the battle of Tell el-Kebîr, and when the British Army in Egypt was decimated with enteric fever, conveyed the convalescents by special steamers up the Nile, and made no charge in either case except the actual cost of running the steamers. He was greatly beloved by the natives, and the Luxor Hospital, which he founded, is one of the many evidences of the interest which he took in their welfare. Thousands of natives were employed in his service, and it would be difficult to estimate the benefits which accrued indirectly to hundreds of families in all parts of the country through his energy and foresight.

A.D. 1900. In January Osman Diịna was in hiding near Tokar, and Muḥammad ‘Ali, the loyal Gamilab Shêkh, found that he had entered his country. Major Burges and Aḥmad Bey, left Suâkin on January 8 and 10 respectively, and a few days later they arrived at the Warriba range, which about 90 miles to the south-west of Suâkin; and there Osman was seen apparently waiting to partake of a meal from a recently killed sheep. At the sight of his pursuers he fled up a hill, but was soon caught, and was despatched from Suâkin in the S.S. “Behera,” and arrived at Suez on January 25, en route for Rosetta, where he now lies in prison. On September 25 Slatin Pâsha was appointed British Inspector of the Sûdân. On November 2 Major Hobbs opened a branch of the Bank of Egypt at Kharṭûm. 1902. On February 4 Kaimakam Matthews reported that the Ṣudd would be cleared from Baḥral-Jabal by about March 1.

Dates assigned to the Egyptian Dynasties by Egyptologists.

Dynasty. Champollion-Figeac. Lepsius (in 1858). Brugsch (in 1877). Mariette. I. B.C. 5,867 3,892 4,400 5,004 II. 5,615 3,639 4,133 4,751 III. 5,318 3,338 3,966 4,449 IV. 5,121 3,124 3,733 4,235 V. 4,673 2,840 3,566 3,951 VI. 4,425 2,744 3,300 3,703 VII. 4,222 2,592 3,100 3,500 VIII. 4,147 2,522 — 3,500 IX. 4,047 2,674 — 3,358 X. 3,947 2,565 — 3,249 XI. 3,762 2,423 — 3,064 XII. 3,703 2,380 2,466 2,851 XIII. 3,417 2,136 2,235 — XIV. 3,004 2,167 — 2,398 XV. 2,520 2,101 — 2,214 XVI. 2,270 1,842 — — XVII. 2,082 1,684 — — XVIII. 1,822 1,591 1,700 1,703 XIX. 1,473 1,443 1,400 1,462 XX. 1,279 1,269 1,200 1,288 XXI. 1,101 1,091 1,100 1,110 XXII. 971 961 966 980 XXIII. 851 787 766 810 XXIV. 762 729 733 721 XXV. 718 716 700 715 XXVI. 674 685 666 665 XXVII. 524 525 527 527 XXVIII. 404 525 — 406 XXIX. 398 399 399 399 XXX. 377 378 378 378 XXXI. 339 340 340 340

PROGRESS IN EGYPT UNDER BRITISH RULE.

The progress made in Egypt since the country passed under the rule of the British is astonishing, even to those who knew its wonderfully recuperative powers. Its material prosperity is so great and advances with such rapid strides that it is difficult to understand its miserable and bankrupt condition at the time of Arabi Pâsha's rebellion. A journey through the country reveals the fact that for one beast seen in the fields at that time, ten may now be counted, for the peasant farmer need not now fear the sudden descent of arbitrary tax-gatherers who would carry off the occupants of his fields and byres. In the towns and villages the houses are better built and kept in better repair, for their owners need not fear that the laying on of a coat of paint or whitewash will be taken as evidence that they possess superfluous cash, and so bring down upon themselves a visit from the local revenue officer and increased taxation. The water supply is regulated with justice, and the peasant obtains his due as surely and as regularly as the Pâsha, and it is now impossible for any large landowner to irrigate his garden at the expense of the parched plots of his poor neighbours. One of the greatest boons which Britain has conferred upon the Egyptian is the abolition of the Corvée. The work to be done by the corvée was of two kinds, viz., (1) to make and upkeep earthworks, i.e., to cut and clean canals, etc., (2) to protect the river banks during the inundation. The liability of the Egyptian male to be called upon to do work of the former class was abolished in 1889, and although it costs Egypt £420,000 per annum to do without forced labour, it is admitted on all hands that the expenditure is justified. Under the old system the most shameful abuses crept in, and hundreds of the official

classes had their houses built, canals cut and cleaned, and estates watered entirely by the corvée. The iniquity of the system was that it pressed hardest upon the poorest classes. Mr. Willcocks, of the Egyptian Irrigation Department, first showed that by adopting improved methods the necessity for much of the labour was done away with, and its abolition is one of Viscount Cromer's most brilliant achievements. It must not be forgotten that men have to be called out each year to protect the river banks in time of flood, and that all the inhabitants may be called out in any sudden emergency, the following figures give the numbers for the last few years of those called out:—

1891 44,962 1892 84,391 1893 32,752 1894 49,448 1895 36,982 1896 25,794 1897 11,069 1898 10,079 1899 7,893 1900 14,180 1900 8,763*

* Parliamentary Papers, Egypt No. 1, 1900, p. 19; Egypt No. 1, 1902, p 24.

The official returns show the increase in the revenue during the last ten years:—

£E 1890 10,237,000 1891 10,539,000 1892 10,297,000 1893 10,242,000 1894 10,161,000 1895 10,431,000 1896 10,694,000 1897 11,093,000 1898 11,132,000 1899 11,200,000 1900 11,663,000 1901 12,160,000

This has been the case notwithstanding that a considerable diminution in taxation has been effected; the taxation per head of the population was in 1881 £1 2s. 2d., and that of the debt £14 8s. 9d.; in 1897 the corresponding figures were 17s. 9d. and £10 0s. 2d. (Mr. Dawkins, in Milner, England in Egypt, p. 384). Between 1890 and 1901 taxes to the extent of £E1,408,000 per annum have been remitted. The following, taken from the Parliamentary Papers (1896, No. 1, p. 3, etc.), will show the amounts of surplus and deficit between 1883 and 1901—

Surplus. Deficit. £E. £E. 1883 — 920,000 1884 — 460,000 1885 — 697,000 1886 — 684,000 1887 111,000 — 1888 — 1,000 1889 160,000 — 1890 591,000 — 1891 951,000 — 1892 769,000 — 1893 720,000 — 1894 785,000 — 1895 1,088,000 — 1896 690,000 — 1897 630,000 — 1898 1,376,000 — 1899 1,848,000 — 1900 559,000 — 1901 764,000 —

The financial situation on December 30, 1901, may be thus summarised:—

The National Debt £E.103,710,000, but £E.7,273,000 of this sum was held by the Commissioners of the Public Debt. There is no floating debt. The General Reserve Fund amounted to £E.3,795,000; the Special Reserve Fund to £E.1,287,000; and the accumulated Conversion Economies amounted to £E.4,485,000. The Economies Fund “is invested in Egyptian bonds, and Egypt is therefore becoming pro tanto the holder of her own debt. But to buy up your debts at a premium of 8 per cent., instead of paying them off at par, a premium continually forced up by further obligatory purchases on your own part, is extravagant finance. It is an extravagance forced on Egypt by international conventions, for which, in the present case, the word ‘France' might be used”

(Dawkins, op. cit., p. 302). The sum of £E.2,500,000 which was spent on the Sûdân Expedition in 1896-98 may be regarded as a good investment, for as assets Egypt has 760 miles of railway, with an adequate number of engines, rolling-stock, etc.; 2,000 miles of telegraph line, six new gun-boats, barges, etc., and the whole Sûdân (Kitchener's speech in London, Nov. 4, 1898). Railways in 1899 brought in £E.1,222,000. The cost of the repairs to the Embâbeh Bridge has been very large. The bridge was built by a French firm for £E.80,000, but £E.43,000(!) more has had to be spent upon it before it was safe for traffic. Telegraphs brought in £E.64,000; salt , under the new regulations, brought in £E.223,000; customs £E.2,563,193, being £145,218 in excess of the revenue in 1900. The revenue from this last source has, therefore, increased greatly for the amount collected in 1889 only amounted to £E.1,027,000. The value of the Imports in 1901 was £E.15,245,000, which is £E.1,133,000 more than the figure for 1900; and the value of the Exports was £E.15,730,000, a decrease of £E.1,036,000 over 1900. The Post Office yields a net revenue to the Government of £E.28,000. The total number of persons confined in prisons in 1901 was 9,357; 11 cases of prosecution for slave dealing were carried on in 1900; 23,447 cases were treated in the Government hospitals; 357,000 successful vaccinations were made in 1900; 80,011 legal cases were brought before Native Tribunals; the system of Village Justice evolved by Lord Cromer and his legal advisers has proved to be a great success; the powers of the Mixed Tribunals have been modified, and considerable alterations have been made in the application of Muḥammadan Law. In Education great strides have been made. In 1887 only 1,919 pupils were under the direct management of the Department of Public Instruction; in 1898 the number had grown to 19,684, and in 1899 to
23,390. The school fees in 1887 were £E.9,000, and in 1899 £E.36,000. It is a remarkable fact that the percentage of Muḥ.ammadan pupils in schools and colleges under the Department is less than the percentage of the Muḥammadans in the total population, while the percentage of Coptic pupils in the same schools is almost treble the percentage of Copts throughout Egypt. Thus Muḥammadans form 93 per cent. of the total population, and the number of their children in the schools forms 78 per cent. of the pupils; the Copts form 6 per cent. of the total population, but the number of their children in the schools forms 17 per cent. of the pupils. At the beginning of the British occupation of Egypt the principal European language taught in the Government schools was French; English was either altogether neglected or was very badly taught. The schools of the American Missionaries were the only places where English was taught, and the splendid services rendered by these institutions in this respect must not be forgotten. Until the last few years nearly every railway, postal, or telegraph official in Egypt who possessed any competent knowledge of the English language owed his instruction to the American missionaries. The following figures illustrate the growth of the study of English in Government schools:—

English. French. 1889 1,063 2,994 1890 1,747 3,199 1891 2,032 2,852 1892 2,237 2,864 1893 2,434 2,585 1894 2,669 3,748 1895 2,665 3,417 1896 2,800 3,363 1897 3,058 3,150 1898 3,859 1,881 1899 4,401 1,210

Thus in 1899 about 78 per cent. of the pupils were studying English and 22 per cent. French; in 1889 the

figures were 26 per cent. and 74 per cent. respectively. In 1884 about 360,000 tons of coal were imported at Alexandria, and 726,000 at Port Ṣa'îd; in 1901 these numbers had risen to 867,150 and 228,865 tons respectively. In January, 1882, “Egyptian Unifieds” were quoted at 61⅛, and in January, 1901, at 106½. Worthy of mention too is the success of the societies which have been established in Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Ṣa'îd for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In Cairo 1,178 animals were treated in the infirmary in 1900, in Alexandria 2,384, and in Port Sa‘îd 159; it is good to learn that Lord Cromer thinks the action of these societies is causing a steady improvement in the condition of the animals employed in the towns where the societies exist. The productive and recuperative powers of Egypt have been proverbial from time out of mind, but the most sanguine reformer of Egypt in 1883 could never have expected that the last year of the century would have witnessed such a state of prosperity in the country as now exists. This is due entirely to the fidelity with which the civil and military officials have performed their duties, and to the carrying out of the consistent and wise policy which was inaugurated by Viscount Cromer, whose strong hand has ceaselessly guided and supported every work which tended to the welfare and prosperity of Egypt.

Ceiling ornament at Philae.

THE COUNTRY OF EGYPT.

Geology.—In ancient days Egypt proper terminated at Aswân (Syene), but now the term Egypt includes that portion of the Nile valley which lies between the Mediterranean and Wâdî Ḥalfa, i.e., between 22° and 31° 30′ N. latitude. According to Major H. G. Lyons,*

* I quote from his description of the geology of Egypt written for Major Willcocks, C.M.G., and printed in Egyptian Irrigation, 2nd edition, London, 1899.

Director-General of Surveys of Egypt, the country consists chiefly of a series of sedimentary deposits of Cretaceous and Tertiary ages, which have been laid down upon the uneven and eroded surface of a great mass of crystalline rocks, which come to the surface on the edge of the eastern desert and also cover large areas of it. The direction of the Nile Valley is generally north and south, and is due to the great earth movements which took place in Miocene times; indeed, the Nile Valley itself has been determined by a line of fracture which is traceable from the sea nearly to the First Cataract. Into this valley in late Miocene or early Pliocene times the sea penetrated at least as far as Esneh, and laid down thick deposits of sand and gravel on the floor of the valley and up to the foot of the cliffs bounding it, while the tributary streams, fed by a rainfall much heavier than that of to-day, brought down masses of detritus from the limestone plateaux and piled them up along the margins of the valley. A subsequent rise of the area converted this “fiord” into a river valley, and the deposition of the Nile mud and the formation of cultivable land began. The crystalline rocks occur at Aswân, Kalâbsheh, Wâdî Ḥalfa, and other points further south, forming cataracts and gorges. East and north-east of Ḳeneh
their base is a gneiss, overlaid by mica, talc, and chlorite schists, and above these is a thick volcanic series, into which intrudes a gray hornblendic granite, and also a later red granite. The best known of these is the red hornblendic granite of Aswân, which was largely used by the Egyptians for temples, statues, etc., and also the fine porphyry, much used by the Roman emperors. The tops of such rocks rise to the surface of the ground at Aswân, Kalâbsheh, and Wâdî Ḥalfa. In Nubia nearly the whole of the eroded surface of the crystalline rocks has been overlaid by a yellowish sandstone, which at its base usually becomes a quartz conglomerate. Above these lies a large series of green and gray clays with thick band of soft white limestone. Next comes an immense thickness of soft white limestone, which forms the cliffs of the Nile Valley from Luxor to Cairo, and furnishes almost the whole of the building stone in Egypt. These strata have been greatly affected by the great earth movements of the Miocene period, which resulted in the formation of the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez , Gulf of Aqaba, the Jordan Valley, and the Nile Valley, and the salts of the Wâdî Naṭrûn are due to the shore lagunes when they existed there. As a result of this, thick deposits of sand and gravel were laid down, which to-day underlie the later Nile mud deposits and which furnish a good water supply. After this, climatic conditions analogous to those of to-day seem to have soon set in, and river deposits of dark sandy mud were laid down, which were at levels considerably above the deposits of to-day. Nile mud with shells similar to those now existing occurs in Nubia at 30 metres, and in Egypt at lesser heights, above the present Nile flood level. To-day the Nile is depositing in its bed at the rate of about 0.12 metre per century. At Benha, Maḥallat Rûḥ (in the Tanṭa district), and Ḳalyûb (all in the Delta), the thickness of the layer of Nile mud is 17, 18, and 12'5 metres respectively; while at Zaịâziị, Beni Suwêf,
and Suhâg (all in the Nile Valley), it is 33.11 and 17 metres respectively. Between the First and Second Cataracts the proportion of sandstone to granite is about 9 to 1, and good granite is only met with at Kalâbsheh, where the pass is about 168 yards wide, and the depth of water at low Nile about 111 feet. No fossils whatever are found in the Nubian sandstone. From Abû Simbel northwards the valley is bounded on the left by the high limestone plateau called by the Arabs Sinn al-Kiddâb, which, at this point, is more than 50 miles distant from the river, and it gradually approaches the stream until at Aswân it is only 25 miles distant, and at Gebelên it marches with the river. There is a similar plateau between Gebelên and Esneh. At the First Cataract there is an extensive outcrop of granite and quartz diorite. Between Aswân and a little south of Esneh the river flows between sandstone hills, except at the plains of Kom Ombos and Edfu; these plains were originally ancient deltas of rivers coming down from the high ranges which skirt the Red Sea. In the Kom Ombos plain the Nile deposit is about 80 feet above the maximum flood level of to-day. At Ra‘âmah, about 38 miles north of Aswân, limestone is met with, and immediately north of it is the sandstone of Silsileh. The channel at Silsileh does not represent the original bed of the Nile, for it is only a branch of it; the true channel, which was nearly a mile wide and 50 feet deep, lies on the right of the hill in which the quarries are, and is now buried under mud and silt. There was never a cataract at Silsileh. At Luxor the Nile again enters low denuded plains, and a part of the plateau of the Sinn al-Kiddâb lies on its left; the plateau again appears at Ḳeneh, and from this place to Cairo the river flows between limestone hills. At Ḳeneh the lower Londinian formation dips below the level of the Nile deposit, and the upper Londinian formation monopolises the whole section of the limestone as far as a point midway
between Asyûṭ and Minyeh; here the lower Parisian strata appear on the tops of the plateaux, and the upper Londinian strata finally disappear a little to the north of Minyeh. The lower Parisian formation is now generally met with as far as Cairo.

The Ancient Egyptians called Egypt

Baq or
Baqet;
Ta-merạ; and
Qemt. Baq seems to refer to Egypt as the olive-producing country, and Ta-merạ as the land of the inundation; the name by which it is most commonly called in the inscriptions is Qem, i.e., “Black,” from the darkness of its soil. It was also called the “land of the sycamore,” and the “land of the eye of Horus” (i.e., the Sun). It was divided by the Egyptians into two parts: I. Upper Egypt
Ta-res or
Ta-qemā, “the southern land”; and II. Lower Egypt
, Ta-meḥ, “the northern land.” The kings of Egypt styled themselves suten net (or bạt), “king of the North and South,” and neb taui, “lord of two earths.”*

* As ruler of the two countries, each king wore the crown

, which was made up of
, the teśer, or red crown, representing the northern part of Egypt, and
, the ḥet', or white crown, representing the southern part of Egypt.

The country was divided into nomes, the number of which is variously given; the list given by some of the classical authorities contains thirty-six, but judging by the monuments the number was nearer forty. The nome (ḥesp) was divided into four parts; 1, the capital town (nut); 2, the cultivated land; 3, the marshes, which could only at times be used for purposes of cultivation; and 4, the canals, which had to be kept clear and provided with sluices, etc., for irrigation purposes. During the rule of the Greeks Egypt was divided into three parts: Upper, Central, and
Lower Egypt; Central Egypt consisted of seven nomes, and was called Heptanomis.

List Of Nomes Of Egypt—Upper Egypt . Nome. Capital. Divinity. 1. Ta-Kens. Ābu (Elephantine), in later times Nubt (Ombos). Khnemu. 2. Tes-Ḥeru. Ṭeb (Apollinopolis magna, Arab. Uṭfu or Edfû). Ḥeru - Beḥu tet. 3. Ten. Nekheb (Eileithyia), in later times Sene (Latopolis), Esneh. Nekheb. 4. Uast. Uast (Thebes), in later times Hermonthis. Ạmen-Rā. 5. Ḥerui. Kebti (Coptos). Ạmsu. 6. Āa-ti. Taenterer (Denderah). Hathor (Ḥet Ḥert). 7. Sekhem. Ḥa (Diospolis parva). Hathor. 8. Ạbṭ. Ạbṭu (Abydos), in earlier times Teni (This). Anḥur. 9. Ạmsu. Ạpu (Panopolis). Ạmsu. 10. Uat'et. Ṭebu (Aphroditopolis). Hathor. 11. Set. Shasḥetep (Hypsele). Khnemu. 12. Ṭuf. Nen-ent-bak (Antaeopolis). Horus. 13. Atefkhent. Saiut (Lycopolis, Arab Sîûṭ). Ạp-uat. 14. Atef-peḥ. Kesi (Cusae). Hathor. 15. Un. Khemennu (Hermopolis). Thoth. 16. Meḥ-maḥet. Ḥebennu (Hipponon). Horus. 17. ……… Kasa (Cynonpolis). Anubis. 18. Sapet. Ḥa-suten (Alabastronpolis). Anubis. 19. Uab. Pa-mat'et (Oxyrhynchos). Set. 20. Am-khent. Khenensu (Heracleopolis magna). Ḥeru-shefi.

Nome. Capital. Divinity. 21. Am-peḥ. Se-men Ḥeru. Khnemu. 22. Maten. Ṭep-āḥet (Aphroditopolis). Hathor.

Lower Egypt . 1. Aneb-ḥet'. Men-nefer (Memphis). Ptaḥ. 2. Aā. Sekhem (Letopolis). Ḥeru-ur, 3. Ạment. Nenten-Ḥapi (Apis). Ḥathor-nub 4. Sepi-res. T'eka (Canopus). Ạmen-Rā. 5. Sepi-emḥet. Sa (Sais). Neit. 6. Kaset Khesun (Xoïs). Ạmen-Rā. 7. … Ạment. Sent-Nefer (Metelis). Ḥu. 8. … Ạbṭet. T'ukot (Sethroë). Atmu. 9. At'i. Per-Ausār (Busiris). Osiris. 10. Kakem. Ḥataḥerāb (Athribis). Ḥeru-khenti khati. 11. Kaḥebes. Kaḥebes (Kabasos). Isis. 12. Kat'eb. T'eb-neter (Sebennythos). Anḥur 13. Ḥakaṭ. Ạnnu (Heliopolis). Rā. 14. Khent-ābeṭ. T'an (Tanis). Horus. 15. Teḥuti. Pa-Teḥuti (Hermopolis). Thoth. 16. Khar. Pabaneb-ṭeṭ (Mendes). Ba-neb-ṭeṭ 17. Sam-beḥutet. Pa-khen-en-Ạmen (Diospolis). Ạmen-Rā. 18. Amchent. Pa-Bast (Bubastis). Bast. 19. Am-peḥ. Pa-Uat' (Buto). Uat'. 20. Sept. Kesem (Phakussa). Sept.

Lower Egypt is divided into six provinces:—

1. Baḥêrah, with seven districts; capital, Damanhûr Population (including the Oasis of Sîwa, 7,200), 631,225. 2. Ḳalyubîyah, with three districts; capital, Benha. Population, 371,465. 3. Sharịîyah, with six districts; capital, Zaịâziị, Population, 749, 130.

4. Dakhalîyah, with six districts; capital, Mansûrah. Population, 736,708. 5. Menûfîyah, with five districts; capital, Menûf. Population, 864,206. 6. Gharbîyah, with eleven districts; capital, Tanta. Population, 1,297,656.

Upper Egypt is divided into seven districts:—

1. Gîzeh, with four districts; capital, Gîzeh. Population, 401,634. 2. Beni-Suwêf, with three districts; capital, Beni-Suêf. Population, 314,454 3. Minyeh, with eight districts; capital, Minyeh. Population (including the Oasis of Bahrîyah (6,082), and the Oasis of Farâfra (542)), 548,632. 4. Asyût, with nine districts; capital, Asyût. Population (including the Oasis of Dâkhlah (17,090), and the Oasis of Khargah (7,220)), 782,720. 5. Girgeh, with five districts; capital, Sûhag. Population, 668,011. 6. Keneh, with seven districts: capital, Keneh. Population, 711,457. 7. Fayyûm, with three districts; capital, Wasta. Population, 371,006.

Large towns like Alexandria, Port Sa‘îd, Suez, Cairo, Damietta, and El‘arîsh are governed by native rulers.

In ancient days the population of Egypt proper is said to have been from seven and a half to nine millions; at the present time (1900) it is probably well over ten millions. The population of the provinces south of Egypt, which originally belonged to her, has never been accurately ascertained. The country on each side of the Bahr el-Abyad is very thickly peopled; it is generally thought that the population of this and the other provinces which belonged to Egypt in the time of Ismâ‘îl amounts to about ten millions.

THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.

The Egyptians, whom the sculptures and monuments made known to us as being among the most ancient inhabitants of the country, belong, according to some, to the Caucasian race, and according to others, to the Libyan. The original home of the invaders was, probably, Asia, and they made their way across Mesopotamia and Arabia, and across the Isthmus of Suez into Egypt. It has been suggested that they sailed across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea, on the western shore of which they landed; that they came viâ Arabia is more probable. It is, however, very doubtful if a people, who lived in the middle of a huge land like central Asia, would have enough experience to make and handle ships sufficiently large to cross such seas. No period can be fixed for the arrival of the new-comers from the East into Egypt; we are, however, justified in assuming that it took place long before B.C. 5000.

When the people from the East had made their way into Egypt, they found there aboriginal races, one with a dark, and one with a fair skin. The Egyptians generally called their land

Qemt, i.e., “black”; and if the dark, rich colour of the cultivated land of Egypt be considered, the appropriateness of the term is evident. The hieroglyphic which is read Qem, is the skin of a crocodile, and we know from Horapollo (ed. Cory, p. 87), that this sign was used to express anything of a dark colour.*

* “To denote darkness, they represent the TAIL OF A CROCODILE, for by no other means does the crocodile inflict death and destruction on any animal which it may have caught than by first striking it with its tail, and rendering it incapable of motion.”

 The name “Ham” is given to Egypt by the
Bible; this word may be compared with the Coptic
or
. The children of Ham are said to be Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. The second of these, Misraim, is the name given to Egypt by the Hebrews. The dual form of the word, which means “the double Misor,” probably has reference to the “two lands” (in Egypt.
, over which the Egyptian kings, in their inscriptions, proclaimed their rule. The descendants of Cush are represented on the monuments by the inhabitants of Nubia and the negro tribes which live to the south of that country. In the earliest times the descendants of Cush appear to have had the same religion as the Egyptians. The Put of the Bible is thought by some to be represented by the land of Punt, or spice-land, of the monuments. The people of Punt appear to have dwelt on both sides of the Red Sea to the south of Egypt and on the Somâli coast, and as far back as B.C. 2500 a large trade was carried on between them and the Egyptians; it is thought that the Egyptians regarded them as kinsmen. The aboriginal inhabitants of Phaenicia were probably the kinsfolk of the descendants of Misraim, called by the Bible Canaanites. Diodorus and some other classical authorities tell us that Egypt was colonized from Ethiopia; for this view, however, there is no support. The civilization, religion, art of building, etc., of the Ethiopians are all of Egyptian origin, and in this, as in so many other points relating to the history of Egypt, the Greeks were either misinformed, or they misunderstood what they were told.

An examination of the painted representations of the Egyptians by native artists shows us that the pure Egyptian was of slender make, with broad shoulders, long hands and feet, and sinewy legs and arms. His forehead was high, his chin square, his eyes large, his cheeks full, his mouth wide, his lips full, and his nose short and rounded. His jaws protruded slightly, and his hair was smooth and fine. The evidence

of the pictures on the tombs is supported and confirmed by the skulls and bones of mummies which anthropologists have examined and measured during the last few years; hence all attempts to prove that the Egyptian is of negro origin are overthrown at the outset by facts which cannot be controverted. In cases where the Egyptians intermarried with people of Semitic origin, we find aquiline noses.*

* A very good example of this is seen in the black granite head of the statue of Osorkon II., presented to the British Museum (No. 1063) by the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund. The lower part of the nose is broken away, but enough of the upper part remains to show what was its original angle. It was confidently asserted that this head belonged to a statue of one of the so-called Hyksos kings, but the assertion was not supported by any trustworthy evidence. The face and features are those of a man whose ancestors were Semites and Egyptians, and men with similar countenances are to be seen in the desert to the south-east of Palestine to this day. A clinching proof that the statue is not that of a Hyksos king was brought forward by Prof. Lanzone of Turin, who, in 1890, had in his possession a small statue of Osorkon II., having precisely the same face and features. The XXIInd dynasty, to which this king belonged, were Semites, as their names show, and they were always regarded by the Egyptians as foreigners, and

, the determinative of a man from a foreign country, was placed after each of their names.

One of the most remarkable things connected with the Egyptians of to-day is the fact that a very large number of them have reproduced, without the slightest alteration, many of the personal features of their ancestors who lived seven thousand years ago. The traveller is often accompanied on a visit to a tomb of the Ancient Empire by a modern Egyptian who, in his attitudes, form, and face, is a veritable reproduction of the hereditary nobleman who built the tomb which he is examining. It may be that no invading race has ever found itself physically able to reproduce persistently its own characteristics for any important length of time, or it may be that the absorption of such races by intermarriage with the natives, together with the influence
of the climate, has made such characteristics disappear; the fact, however, remains, that the physical type of the Egyptian fellâḥ is exactly what it was in the earliest dynasties. The invasions of the Babylonians, Hyksos, Ethiopians (including negro races), Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks, have had no permanent effect either on their physical or mental characteristics. The Egyptian has seen the civilizations of all these nations rise up, progress, flourish, decay, and pass away; he has been influenced from time to time by their religious views and learning; he has been the servant of each of them in turn, and has paid tribute to them all; he has, nevertheless, survived all of them save one. It will, of course, be understood that the inhabitants of the towns form a class quite distinct from the Egyptians of the country; the townsfolk represent a mixture of many nationalities, and their character and features change according to the exigencies of the time and circumstances in which they live and the influence of the ruling power.

In recent years, thanks chiefly to the excavations and labours of M. J. de Morgan,*

* M. Amélineau has described the excavations which he made at 'Amrah and other places in his Les Nouvelles Fouilles d'Abydos , Angers, 1896, and in subsequent publications.

formerly Director of the Gîzeh Museum, very considerable light has been thrown upon the autochthones of Egypt, and the results of his work may be here briefly summarised. At the end of 1894 M. de Morgan made excavations at Al-'Amrah, a place which is situated a few miles to the south of Abydos, where he found a number of what are now rightly called pre-dynastic tombs. The tombs were in the form of oval pits from three to five feet deep, and in these bodies had been laid on their left side with their legs doubled up in such wise that the knees were almost on a level with the chin. The head was bent forwards slightly, and the forearms
were laid in such a position that the hands, one resting upon the other, might be in front of the face. Round the body were a number of large and small vases filled with burnt bones, etc., and quite close to it were red and black vases, stone pots, figures of fish in schist, worked or unworked flints, alabaster objects like mace-heads, shell bracelets, etc. In tombs of this class, objects in bronze were rarely found, a fact which proves that the metal was not common when the tombs were made. Most of the tombs are, according to M. de Morgan, the sepulchres of neolithic man in Egypt, but some of them seem to belong to the transition period between the stone and the bronze age. The bodies found in the tombs seem to have been treated with salt and some preparation of bitumen, and if this be so they are probably the oldest mummified remains known.

During the winter of 1894-5, Prof. Petrie carried on excavations along the edge of the desert between Ballas and Naịâda, about 30 miles north of Thebes. He stated that, in the course of his work, he found a maṣṭaba pyramid, similar to that of Ṣaịịâra, and a number of tombs of the IVth, Vth, and VIth dynasties; the pyramid, and all the tombs save one, had been plundered in ancient days. He believed his main discovery to be that of “a fresh and hitherto unsuspected race, who had nothing of the Egyptian civilization.” The early announcements of his discovery stated that they were cannibals. According to Prof. Petrie, they lived after the rule of the IVth dynasty, and before that of the XIIth. “This new race must therefore be the people who overthrew the first great civilization of Egypt at the fall of the VIth dynasty, and who were in turn overthrown by the rise of the XIth dynasty at Thebes. As the Xth dynasty in Middle Egypt was contemporary with the greater part of the XIth dynasty, this limits the new race to the age of the VIIth to the IXth dynasty (about 3000 B.C.), who ruled only in Middle Egypt, and of

whom no trace has been yet found, except a few small objects and a tomb at Siut. The extent to which Egypt was subdued by these people is indicated by their remains being found between Gebelen and Abydos, over rather more than a hundred miles of the Nile valley……The invaders completely expelled the Egyptians.” Their graves were square pits, measuring usually 6x4x5 feet. “The body was invariably laid in a contracted position, with the head to the south, face west, and on the left side… A regular ceremonial system is observable …… From the uniformity of the details it is clear that a system of belief was in full force.”*

* Quoted from Petrie, Catalogue of a Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, London, 1895.

In March, 1897, M. de Morgan decided to excavate the pre-dynastic cemeteries of Upper Egypt , and began to work at Naịâdah near the site of Prof. Petrie's labours two years before; two cemeteries were chosen for examination, the one, to the south, belonging to the indigenous peoples of Egypt, and the other, to the north, containing burials of ancient Egyptians. After a short time he discovered to the north of the northern necropolis, the remains of a monument, built of unbaked bricks, which had been destroyed by fire. From the fact that all the jars and objects which had been placed in the building were broken, it was clear that he had come upon a tomb belonging to an extremely ancient period; in the tombs of the neolithic period the vessels, etc., are found whole. The building contained 21 chambers, and was undoubtedly a royal tomb, judging from the abundance of the offerings which had been placed in them; it was rectangular in shape, and measured 54 metres by 27 metres, and its main sides were oriented at an angle of 15° E. of the magnetic north. Close by this tomb was another, which had been wrecked and spoiled in modern times.

Among the objects found in the chambers of the larger monument were fragments of vases and vessels made of various kinds of hard stone, alabaster, etc., flint knives, ivory vases and plaques, terra-cotta vases and vessels, etc., many of which were inscribed. The large mud sealings of the wine jars bore impressions of inscribed seals, and these proved beyond a doubt that the building wherein they were found was a royal one. An examination of the tombs of less importance close by led to conclusions of a far-reaching and important character. M. de Morgan was accompanied in his work by the eminent German Egyptologist, Prof. A. Wiedemann, and by M. Jéquier, and he thus had the benefit of trained, expert opinion on philological problems, which his own profession of mathematician and civil engineer had left him no time to study exhaustively. Briefly, the conclusions arrived at after an examination of a large number of tombs of the same class as those excavated by Prof. Petrie were as follows:-(1) The people to whom the tombs belong occupied not a small portion of, but the whole valley of the Nile. (2) Their manners, customs, industries, and abilities were different from those of the Egyptians, and physically the two peoples had nothing in common. (3) The people called the “new race” by Prof. Petrie were the inhabitants of Egypt long before those whom we call Egyptians; and it was from them that the Egyptians of dynastic times learned many of their industries, etc.; in other words, the Egyptians borrowed a great deal from these their predecessors in the valley of the Nile. “La new race de M. Flinders Petrie devient done une vêritable old race, celle des aborigènes, que les Égyptiens pharaoniques rencontrèrent quand ils envahirent l'Egypte”;*

* De Morgan, Recherches sur les Origines de l'Egypte , Paris, 1897.

 in fact, the “new race” were of the highest antiquity in Egypt, which they had occupied
some thousands of years before the time of Menes. The graves excavated by M. de Morgan show that the dead were buried in three ways, i.e., with the bones separated one from another, or with the complete skeleton bent up in a position similar to that of a child before birth, or with the whole body buried and then burnt in the tomb. Each method is different from that employed by the Egyptians, among whom every effort was made to bury the dead in as perfect a form as possible, for they believed that the continuance of the future life of the dead depended upon it. In the religious texts of the Egyptians there are frequent allusions to the customs of dismemberment, and decapitation, and burning of the dead, which prove, if proof be needed, that such things were customary long before their time, and that the Egyptians on their arrival in Egypt adopted gradually certain of the funeral customs and beliefs of the autochthones, but considerably modified others.

It has not yet been definitely decided to what race the people who were buried in such graves were related, but there are many grounds for thinking that they were either members of a tribe of the Taḥennu, or Thaḥennu, who are often mentioned in the texts of historical kings, or were akin to them. Pictures of them show that they were people with light skins, blue eyes, and fair hair, and although in historic times the tribes certainly lived to the north-west of Lower Egypt, we know that in the VIth dynasty they possessed settlements as far to the south as Nubia. The name commonly given to the Taḥennu is “Libyans,” and the known facts point to the conclusion that some tribe, or group of tribes, of the Libyans formed the autochthones of Egypt. The Libyans seem to have been conquered by a race that invaded and reduced Egypt to slavery, and when the foreign kings began to reign over Egypt the conquered people formed the inferior portion of the population. It is still a subject open to

debate where the invaders came from; some think they were of Asiatic origin and entered Egypt by way of the Isthmus of Suez ; others think that they came from the south, that is to say, from Ethiopia (compare Ezekiel xxix. 14, where the home of the Egyptians is said to be Pathros, i.e., the Egyptian Pa-ta-reset
); and others believe they made their way up or across the Red Sea to Ḳuṣêr (
), a port for the ships coming from Yaman, and across the Eastern Desert to Coptos on the Nile. But by which road they entered Egypt is, relatively, of little importance; that they came primarily from the East is beyond dispute. All the known evidence contradicts the theory that Arabia was the home of the invaders of Egypt, and although there are many striking resemblances between the art of the statues and other objects which have been excavated at Tell Lo and other ancient sites in Southern Babylonia in recent years, and pre-dynastic and early dynastic objects found by Messrs. de Morgan, Amélineau, and Petrie at Abydos and Naịâdah, they do not in the writer's opinion prove conclusively that the invaders of Egypt and the Babylonians were of the same race. The culture and civilization of the Babylonians between B.C. 6000 and B.C. 2300 were derived from their Sumerian conquerors, whose method of writing, and much of their learning and literature the Babylonians adopted, modified, and then assimilated. There is no evidence to show that the invaders of Egypt were kinsfolk of the Babylonians, but there are very strong probabilities that the civilizations of both peoples sprang from a common stock; what that stock was, or where the race lived, or when its cognate peoples took possession of Southern Babylonia and of Egypt, no one can at present say with certainty.

THE NILE.

The source of the Nile was discovered by Captains Grant and Speke and Sir Samuel Baker, who made out that its parents are the Albert Nyanza and Victoria Nyanza;*

* Nyanza means “Lake.”

into the latter the Tangourie River, which rises a few degrees to the south of the Equator, empties itself. Lake Victoria is situated on the Equator in the region of perpetual rains, and it is also fed by springs and tributaries like the Tangourie River. Strictly speaking, the Nile is formed by the junction, at 15° 34′ N. lat., and 30° 30′ 58” E. long., of two great tributaries called respectively the Baḥr al-Azraị, i.e., the “lurid” or Blue Nile, and the Baḥr al-Abyaḍ, i.e., the “clear,” or White Nile. From Lake Victoria to Kharṭûm the distance by river is about 2,185 miles; from Kharṭûm to Aswân is 1,130 miles; and from Aswân to the sea about 750 miles more, so that if we include the length of any of the larger tributaries of Lake Victoria in the length of the Nile, we may say that this wonderful river is about 4,100 miles long. The White Nile
is so called because of the fine, whitish clay which colours its waters. It is broader and deeper than the eastern arm, and it brings down a much larger volume of water; the ancients appear to have regarded it as the true Nile. There can, however, be no doubt that either the Blue Nile or the Atbara is the true Nile, for during their rapid courses from the Abyssinian mountains they carry down with them all the rich mud which, during the lapse of ages, has been spread over the land on each side of its course, and which has formed the land of Egypt. In truth, Egypt is the gift of the Blue Nile and the Atbara. Lake Victoria lies about 3,675 feet above the sea, and is 1,625 feet higher than Lake Albert, and when the river leaves the lake it is about 1,300 feet wide*

* I am indebted for a number of the facts here given to Mr. Willcocks exhaustive work, “Egyptian Irrigation,” London, 1899, p. 27 ff.

; at the Ripon Falls it drops about 13 feet. Between the Victoria and Albert Lakes, a distance of 300 miles, the White Nile, known here as the “Somerset,” passes through a number of swamps, and then flows into the N.E. corner of Lake Albert; from Lake Albert it flows in a broad, deep, and almost level stream for a distance of 125 miles to the Fola Falls, a little to the north of Duffilé, at which point the river is nearly 300 feet wide, and becomes almost a torrent. Flowing on to Lado, about 125 miles from Duffịlé, the river becomes only 6½ feet deep in the winter at low water, and 15 feet in flood. From Lado to Bôhr, a distance of about 75 miles, the river has a rapid fall and keeps to one channel, but from Bôhr, to the mouth of the Gazelle River (a distance of about 235 miles), the stream passes through many channels. Here are the large masses of living vegetation which are commonly called “Sudd,” and which form almost insuperable barriers to navigation. The Gazelle River flows into the Nile on its west, and 60 miles further north the Sobat (or Sawbat)
River flows into it from the east or right bank. From the latter river to Kharṭûm, a distance of about 560 miles, the White Nile flows slowly in a stream about 6½ feet deep, and considerably more than a mile wide. At Kharṭûm, where the Blue Nile from Abyssinia joins the White Nile, the river is about 1,270 feet above sea-level. The Blue Nile, which is about 840 miles long, is almost clear in summer, but from June to October its water is of a reddish-brown colour, and is highly charged with alluvium. The greenish colour which is sometimes observed in the Nile far to the north is due to the decaying vegetation which is brought down by the White Nile. About 56 miles below Kharṭûm is the Sixth Cataract, and 145 miles lower down the river Atbara flows into the Nile on the east or right bank. The Atbara rises in the Abyssinian mountains, and its waters bring down with them a large quantity of volcanic dust, which is an excellent fertilizing element; after the Atbara the Nile on its journey north receives no other tributary. About 32 miles below the Atbara is the Fifth Cataract, which is over 100 miles in length; between the southern and the northern end the Nile drops about 205 feet. About 60 miles lower down begins the Fourth Cataract, which is 66 miles long; between the southern and the northern end the Nile drops 160 feet. About 195 miles lower down begins the Third Cataract, which is 45 miles long; between the southern and the northern end the river drops 36 feet. The Second Cataract begins about 70 miles lower down; it is 125 miles long, and between its two ends the river drops about 213 feet. At Semneh, which is rather more than 35 miles south of Wâdî Ḥalfa, are the rocks where the late Dr. Lepsius discovered the gauges which were cut by order of the kings of the XIIth dynasty, about B.C. 2300, and these show that the Nile flood recorded there was 26 feet higher than any flood of to-day. The eminent irrigation authority,
Mr. Willcocks, thinks that the Nile could very easily be barred by a dam at Semneh, and it is possible that
Sketch showing the height of the Nile above mean sea-level at different points of its course.
Ạmen-em-ḥāt III. tried to build one there in the hope of forming a reservoir. The distance between the Second and First Cataract is about 210 miles, and the stream is usually about 1,630 feet wide. The First Cataract is about three miles long, and between Philae at the southern end, and Aswân at the northern end the river drops over 16 feet. From Aswân to the Barrage, a little to the north of Cairo, the length of the river is about 600 miles, and its mean width is 3,000 feet.

The ancient Egyptians kept careful record of the height of the Nile in flood, and numbers of ancient Nilometers have been found, e.g., at Philae, Elephantine, Edfu, Esneh, Karnak, etc., from the readings of which it is possible to determine the rate of the rise of the bed of the Nile. According to a calculation quoted by Mr. Willcocks, between A.D. 200 and A.D. 1800 the banks and bed of the Nile have

risen 2.11 metres, or 0.132 metre per 100 years. When the famous Nilometer at Rôḍa (see page 280) was constructed, a reading of 16 cubits meant the lowest level at which flood irrigation could be ensured everywhere. The level of to-day is 20½ cubits on the Nilometer, and the difference between them is 1.22 metre; according to these data the rise is 12 centimetres per 100 years (Willcocks, op. cit., p. 32). A little to the north of Cairo the Nile splits up into the Rosetta and Damietta branches, each of which is about 140 miles long; the mean width of the former branch is 1,630 feet, and that of the latter, 870 feet. In ancient days the Nile emptied its waters into the sea by seven mouths, viz., the Pelusiac, Tanitic, Mendesian, Phatnitic, Sebennytic, Bolbitic, and the Canopic. In flood time the waters of the Nile take 50 days to flow from Lake Victoria to the sea, and at low water 90 days:—From Lake Victoria to Lake Albert 8 days, Lake Albert to Lado 5 days, Lado to Kharṭûm 20 days, Kharṭûm to Aswân 10 days, Aswân to Cairo 5 days, Cairo to the sea 2 days; at low water the times are 8, 5, 36, 26, 12 and 3 days respectively.

The width of the Nile valley varies from 4 to 10 miles in Nubia, and from 15 to 30 in Egypt. The width of the strip of cultivated land on each bank in Nubia is sometimes only a few feet, and even in Egypt proper, when taken together, it is never more than 8 or 9 miles. The Delta is, in its widest part, about 90 miles across from east to west, and the distance of the apex from the sea is also 90 miles. The Nile drains an area of 3,110,000 square kilometres. The inundation is caused by the rains which fall in the country round about Lake Victoria and in the Abyssinian mountains; in the former the rainy season lasts from February to November, with one maximum in April and another in October, and in the latter there are light rains in January and February, and heavy rains from the middle of April to September, with a maximum in

August. In April the heavy rains near Lado force down the green water of the swamps, and about April 15 the Nile has begun to rise at this place; this rise is felt at Kharṭûm about May 20, and at Aswân about June 10, and the green water announcing this rise is seen at Cairo about June 20. About June 5 the Blue Nile begins to rise quickly, and it reaches its ordinary maximum by August 25; its red, muddy water reaches Aswân about July 15, and Cairo 10 days later. When once the red water has appeared the rise of the Nile is rapid, for the Atbara is in flood shortly after the Blue Nile; the Atbara flood begins early in July and is at its highest about August 20. The Nile continues to rise until the middle of September, when it remains stationary for a period of about three weeks, sometimes a little less. In October it rises again, and attains its highest level. From this period it begins to subside, and, though it rises yet once more, and reaches occasionally its former highest point, it sinks steadily until the month of June, when it is again at its lowest level. Thus it is clear that the Sobat, Blue Nile, and Atbara rivers supply the waters of the inundation, and that the White Nile supplies Egypt for the rest of the year. The ordinary maximum discharge of the Nile at Aswân is 10,000 cubic metres per second, and the ordinary minimum discharge 410 cubic metres per second; the ordinary maximum discharge at Cairo is 7,600 cubic metres per second, and the ordinary minimum discharge 380 cubic metres per second.

The irrigation of Egypt is gauged by the height of the river at Aswân. When the maximum rise of the river is only 21 feet there will be famine in parts of Upper Egypt ; when the rise is between 21 and 23 feet much of the land of Upper Egypt will be imperfectly watered; when the rise is between 23 feet 6 inches and 25 feet certain lands will only be watered with difficulty; when the rise is between 25 feet and 26 feet 6 inches the whole country can be

watered; when the rise is between 26 feet 6 inches and 28 feet the country will be flooded; and any rise beyond the last figure will spell misery and the ruin of many. The slope of water surface of the Nile is in summer 1/13000, and in flood 1/12200; the cubic contents of the trough of the Nile between Aswân and Cairo are 7,000,000,000 cubic metres; direct irrigation between these places takes 50 cubic metres; per second, evaporation 130, and absorption 400, The amount of water discharged by the Nile into the sea is 65,000,000,000 cubic metres per annum, and in an average year the amount of solid matter carried by the Nile to the sea is 36,600,000 tons.

The dykes, or embankments, which kept the waters of the Nile in check, and regulated their distribution over the lands, were in Pharaonic days maintained in a state of efficiency by public funds, and, in the time of the Romans, any person found destroying a dyke was either condemned to hard labour in the public works or mines, or to be branded and sent to one of the Oases. If we accept the statements of Strabo, we may believe that the ancient system of irrigation was so perfect that the varying height of the inundation caused but little inconvenience to the inhabitants of Egypt, as far as the results of agricultural labours were concerned, though an unusually high Nile would of course wash away whole villages and drown much cattle. If the statements made by ancient writers be compared with facts ascertained in modern times, it will be seen that the actual height of the inundation is the same now as it always was, and that it maintains the same proportion to the land it irrigates. From what has been said above it will be evident that the Nile is the chief physical characteristic of Egypt, and as such it has excited the surprise, wonder, admiration, and reverence of countless generations of men. Without it Egypt would have been a desert, and uninhabitable to any but nomad tribes; it has always formed the water supply of the whole country, and

the existence of men and animals has depended entirely upon the existence of the river in all ages. The Nile was the highway of Egypt, and to it the Egyptians owed their wealth and prosperity, and their importance as owners of a great corn producing country among the peoples of the ancient world. In the earliest times the rulers of Egypt gave their deepest attention to the irrigation of the country, and no efforts were spared to obtain the best agricultural results by means of canals and embankments. It seems that each village or city or district was responsible for the maintenance of its river banks in good order, but details as to the way in which the work was carried out are wanting. Under despotic rulers the banks must always have been maintained by forced labour, and the cutting and cleaning of the canals and reservoirs was, of course, carried out by the same means. As long as everyone was made to take a share in such labour the hardship was not great, for all were interested in the irrigation of the country, but it will be readily seen that under a despotic government or a corrupt administration certain individuals would be exempted from the performance of such labour at the expense of the other members of the community. Also, forced labour gangs would, by bribing the officials, be made to do work which ought to be done at the expense of private individuals, and members of such gangs who had no friends or influence among the official classes would be kept at forced labour practically the whole year round. Whatever may have happened in early times, this was certainly the case in Egypt until the British began to gain power, and all the work done in connexion with the cleaning of canals, and the protecting of the banks during the inundation, and the strengthening of the dykes, was done by forced labour or corvée. Sa‘îd Pâsha used the corvêe in making the Suez Canal, and Ismâ‘îl Pâsha boldly used it in digging a canal in Upper Egypt, the chief object
of which was to water his own private estates. The high officials exempted their own tenants and co-religionists from the corvée, and made the wretched fellaḥîn do the work for them. The corvée had to work for nine months of the year, and they had to provide spades, and baskets, and food; their place of abode was changed almost daily, and they had to sleep on the ground. During the inundation they had to live on the river bank, and to provide the materials for the protection of the bank on each side of the Nile. Every male between 15 and 50 years of age was liable to serve in the corvée, and each quarter of the male population was expected to serve for 45 days during the summer. In 1881 nearly one-half of the men who were liable had succeeded in freeing themselves from their duty. In a decree dated January 25, 1881 (see the text in Willcocks, op. cit., p. 402), the terms on which certain privileged classes could redeem their tenants from the corvée are set forth, but as no penalties were laid down for those who neither sent men nor paid the redemption tax, every man of any position freed himself from the liability, and the whole of the forced labour fell on the poorer classes. In 1885 Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) approved of an advance of £30,000, with the view of trying to substitute hand labour by contract for the corvée, and the experiment was a success. A year later, a quarter of a million was granted towards the relief of the corvée, and for the first time in Egyptian history, the State paid towards the up-keep of the canals and river banks of the country. The total relief of the earthwork maintenance corvée costs the State £420,000 a year. In December, 1889, the corvée was abolished as far as the clearance of canals and repairs of banks was concerned, and the Public Works Department undertook to do all the repairs; but the corvée for the protection of the Nile banks during the inundation could not be abolished, and a certain number of men have to be
called out each year. In 1899 the Nile was abnormally low, and it in many respects resembled that of 1888; in 1899, however, only 10,079 were called out per 100 days (which is the lowest number on record), while in 1888 the number was 58,788 men per 100 days (Cromer, Report, Egypt No. 1 (1900), p. 19). The abolition of the earthworks corvée is due entirely to the exertions of Viscount Cromer and the officials of the Irrigation Department, who have toiled unceasingly for years to remove an infamous burden from the shoulders of the men who were the least able to bear it.

Sir Samuel Baker (Albert Nyanza, vol. ii. p. 331) and many other travellers have described the masses of vegetation, both living and dead, which in parts of the White Nile, e.g., Baḥr el-Ghazal, completely obstruct the fairway of the river. These masses, or blocks of sudd *

* Arab.

sadd, or
sudd; plural
.

as they are called, are often of very considerable length, and where they exist the river becomes practically a mere swamp. Sir Samuel describes one which was three-quarters of a mile wide; it was perfectly firm, and was already overgrown with high reeds and grass. The graves of the people who had died of the plague were actually upon it. When the Nile stream approached this vegetable dam it plunged beneath it by a subterranean channel with a rush like a cataract. From time to time these dams are added to by small islands of vegetation, which drift down upon them, and trees and dead crocodiles, and hippopotami, help to make the mass more dense. Sudd is met with between Shambe (lat. 7° 5′ 53″ north) and the Sobat River (lat. 9° 22′ 8″ north), or a distance of 250 miles, and on the White Nile between Lake No and the Sobat River. See “Report on the Soudan,” by Sir W. Garstin, K.C.M.G., London, 1899. With the view of opening the White Nile to navigation, the Egyptian Government, in 1899, voted the
sum of £E.10,000 for cutting the sudd between Lake No and Shambe, and a party of 700 men, 4 officers, with 4 steamers, left Omdurmân in December, 1899, to carry out the work. The blocks of sudd were nine in number. The grass and dry vegetation upon them were set fire to, and when they were burnt, the blocks were cut gradually into sections, each of which had to be towed away by a steamer, by means of a steel hawser. The sudd cutting party was under the command of Major Peake, who, according to a telegram of May 17th, from Cairo, stated that the White Nile was then clear as far as Bedden, and that Sir W. Garstin's orders had been effectively carried out. When the sudd was removed, a vast amount of stagnant water was set free, and as a result the fish died in large numbers in the lower reaches of the river.

The Barrage or Barrages. from time immemorial the Nile has been allowed to water the land of Egypt according to its own will and pleasure, and there are no records to show that any ruler of Egypt seriously undertook to regulate the supply of water to the cultivable lands by means of dams or reservoirs. The river has been allowed to waste itself for thousands of years, and it was not until the present century that any attempt was made to keep the Nile and its branches within bounds. It is recorded by Clot Bey (Willcocks, op. cit., p. 257; R. H. Brown, History of the Barrage , p. I; Milner, England in Egypt, p. 239) that Napoleon I. saw the necessity of some means of regulating the supply of water to the Rosetta and Damietta branches of the Nile, with the view of letting the whole of it flow first down one branch and then down the other, thus doubling the effect of the inundation in flood. In 1833 Muḥammad ‘Ali blocked the head of the Rosetta branch with a stone dam, which made the Nile stream flow into the Damietta branch, wherefrom all the large canals in the Delta drew their supply. Linant Pâsha, seeing the serious

effect which would be produced upon Alexandria and the Eastern Delta if this action were continued, remonstrated with his master, and proposed as an alternative the construction of a Barrage across the head of each branch, about six miles below the bifurcation of the river. This proposal was approved by Muḥammad ‘Ali, and when informed by Linant Pâsha of the amount of stone, etc., which would be required, promptly ordered it to be taken from the Pyramids, and only relinquished this plan when it was proved to him that stone could be got at a cheaper rate from the quarries at Cairo. The work was begun in 1833, and was continued until 1835, but towards the end of this year it was carried on with less vigour, and soon after it was entirely stopped. For seven years the old system of clearing out the canals by the corvée was revived, and nothing more was done. In 1842 Mougel, a French engineer, proposed a system of Barrages, to which was united a series of fortifications which were to be built at the bifurcation of the river, and the idea pleased Muḥammad ‘Ali, who ordered the work to be undertaken at once. The Damietta Barrage was begun in 1843, and the Rosetta Barrage in 1847. The work was hurried on so fast that it was badly done, and the disrepute into which Mougel's magnificent scheme fell in later years was due to his master's impatience and interference with his plans. In 1853, the new Viceroy, ‘Abbâs Pâsha, dismissed Mougel, being dissatisfied with the rate of progress made, and Mazhar Bey was ordered to finish the Barrages on Mougel's plans. Commissions sat on the matter, and although the defects of the work already done were well known, no attempt was made to remedy them, and the Barrages were finished in 1861. They had cost £1,800,000, exclusive of the corvée, and the fortifications, etc., cost £2,000,000 more. These works form the famous “Barrage,” which lies about fourteen miles to the north of Cairo; the Rosetta
Barrage has 61 arches and two locks, and is about 1,512 feet long; the Damietta Barrage has 61 arches (originally 71) and two locks, and is about 1,730 feet long. In 1863 the gates of the Rosetta Barrage were closed, so that more water might be turned into the Damietta branch, and cracks promptly appeared in the structure. In 1867 ten openings or arches of the Rosetta Barrage separated themselves from the rest of the work, and moved out of their places. In 1876, Mr. (late Sir) John Fowler reported on the Barrage, and he proved that the floor and foundations were cracked, that the latter were too shallow, and that £1,200,000 would have to be spent to make the work fit for any useful purpose; General Rundall, R.E., also reported on the Barrage, and estimated that it could be made serviceable for £500,000, and described how the repairs were to be carried out*

* Major H. Brown (op. cit., p. 94) says “the manner of restoring the Barrage as recommended by General Rundall is very nearly that which was actually adopted, and further, the cost of the restoration was correctly estimated.”

. Finally, in 1883, Rousseau Pâsha, Director General of Public Works, declared that the Barrage could only be used as a distributor of the river discharge between the two branches, and that to make it fit for this purpose it would be necessary to spend about £400,000 upon it. With the failure of the Barrage to do its work, the supply of water in the canals naturally failed, and the Egyptian Government had to pay a Company £26,000 per annum to pump water into one canal only; and when Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff, in 1883, came to Egypt, ministers were solemnly thinking of adopting a scheme for pumping water into all the canals in the Delta. The engines were to cost £E.700,000, and the annual cost was to be about £250,000; and “the Egyptian Government was actually on the verge of trying to lift the whole river” (Milner, op. cit., p. 242),
The English ministers set aside this scheme at once, and directed Mr. Willcocks to test the capacity of the Barrage and its power to hold up water. These instructions were carried out, and it was found that parts of the structure had not been finished, and that the Damietta section had never been provided with gates. At the cost of about £26,000 he effected such important repairs, that he was able to hold up water to the depth of nearly four feet more than had ever been possible before, and the cotton crop in 1884 amounted to 3,630,000 ịanṭars (I ịanṭar = 101¼ lbs.), as against that of 1879, at that time the highest known, which amounted to 3,186,600 ịanṭars. The work was a great triumph, and Mr. Willcocks continued his experiments in 1885 with even greater success. It now became possible to consider the systematic repair of the Barrage, and the complete restoration of this fine work was begun in 1886, and finished at a cost of about £472,000 in 1891 at which time it was able to hold up a head of about 13 feet of water. Thus Mougel's Barrage was made a success, and it would be difficult to describe the greatness of the benefit which the English officials conferred upon Egypt by making it perform the work intended. Now during the years while the Barrage was an object of ridicule, the position of Mougel Bey went from bad to worse, and at length he became extremely poor and forgotten; the Egyptian Government had visited upon him the sins of Muḥammad ‘Ali, who had made the Barrage a failure by his haste and impatience, and had left him unprovided for, and the French Government had done nothing for him. At the moment when Sir Colin Moncrieff was planning the restoration of the Barrage, the poor old man, broken down by grief and semi-starvation, was brought to his notice, and he left no stone unturned until the Egyptian Government bestowed an adequate pension upon him, and lifted him out of the reach of want.

But although the Barrage is now doing splendid work,

it does not even now store all the water which is required for the cotton and other crops in the summer throughout Egypt, not to mention the water which is necessary for new plantations. This fact has been borne in mind for many years past, and Sir William Garstin and Mr. Willcocks have been giving their most earnest attention to the finding of some means whereby the lands which are at present waste may be brought under cultivation. Speaking broadly, the cultivated land in Egypt is now producing nearly all it is capable of, and as the revenue of the country depends upon agricultural prosperity, little more revenue is to be expected until more land is brought under irrigation. As Sir Alfred Milner says, “In Egypt prosperity and water go hand in hand.” After much thought the English engineers of the Irrigation Department decided that the only way to provide more water, and so increase the revenue, was to build a huge reservoir, preferably at Aswân. Statistics prepared by Mr. Willcocks (op. cit., p. 428), show that about one-third of the land in Egypt is undeveloped, that nearly the whole of this undeveloped land lies in the perennially irrigated tracts, and that the summer supply of water is not sufficient for perennial irrigation. There are about 2,000,000 acres of waste land in Egypt, and to redeem these and water all the cultivable land, 6,000,000,000 cubic metres of water will be required. The proposal to build the Aswân Reservoir was opposed violently by archaeologists, because, according to the original plans, the beautiful temple at Philae would have been submerged annually and finally destroyed by the water. Instead of holding up the water at a level of 114 metres above mean sea level, Sir W. Garstin reduced the level to 106 metres, which satisfied most people; but Mr. Willcocks thinks (p. 437) that “this action of the archaeologists has hurt the reservoir and will not in the end save the temple.” After some difficulties as to ways and means, Messrs. Aird and Co. signed a contract
with the Egyptian Government, undertaking to build the Aswân Dam and supplementary works for the sum of £2,000,000; the works are to be completed in 1903, Messrs. Aird will receive no payment until that date, when the debt is to be paid off in 30 half-yearly annuities of £78,613. The canals and drains, which form an important part of the scheme, are to be made within the five years in which Messrs. Aird are building the dam, and will cost about £2,000,000 sterling more. When the works are completed, it is calculated that the revenues of the country will be increased by about £2,750,000, and while they are in progress Egypt pays nothing.

The Aswân Dam stands in the First Cataract, a few miles south of Aswân. It is designed to hold up water to a level of 106 metres above mean sea level, or rather more than 20 metres above the low-water level of the Nile at site. Its total length will be 2,156 yards, with a width at crest of 26.4 feet. The width of the base at the deepest portion will be 82.5 feet, and the height of the work at the deepest spot will be 92.4 feet. The dam will be pierced by 180 openings, or under-sluices, of which 140 are 23.1 feet by 6.6 feet, and 40 are 18.2 feet by 66 feet, provided with gates. Three locks will be built, and a navigation channel made on the west of the river. The Asyûṭ Dam will be what is called an open Barrage, and will consist of in 111 bays or openings, each 16.5 feet wide, and each bay will be provided with regulating gates. The total length of the work will be 903 yards, and a lock 53 feet wide will be built on the west bank, large enough to pass the largest tourist boat plying on the river. Both works were begun by Messrs. Aird in 1898.

The ancient Egyptians called the Nile Ḥāp, or Ḥāpi

, and the Arabs call it “Baḥr,” which is a term applied to any large mass of natural water, whether
sea, lake, or river. As the Egyptians divided their country into north and south, even so they conceived the existence of two Niles, which they called “Ḥāp reset”
, the “South Nile,” and “Ḥāp meḥet”
, the “North Nile.” Both Niles were represented by men bearing upon their heads the plant which was characteristic of the region through which that Nile flowed; thus
, the papyrus plant, represented the country of the south where the papyrus grew, and
, the lotus plant, typified the country of the north, i.e., the Delta, where the lotus grew. The god of one Nile was coloured red and the god of the other a greenish-blue; it has been thought that these colours have reference to the colour of the waters of the Nile after and before the inundation. The ancient Egyptians seem to have
The Source of the Nile at Philae. (From Rosellini.)
had no knowledge of the source of the Nile, and in late times it was thought that the river sprang out of the
ground between two mountains which lay between the Island of Elephantine and Philae. Herodotus tells us that these mountains were called ΚρŵØι and ΜŵØι, in which some have sought to identify the Egyptian words Qer-Ḥāpi
, and Mu-Ḥāpi
.

In the temple at Philae is a very interesting relief in which

The Nile god pouring water over the soul of Osiris. (From Rosellini.)
an attempt is made to depict the source of the Nile of the South. Here we see a huge mass of rocks piled one upon the other, and standing on the top of them are a vulture and a hawk; beneath the mass of rocks is a serpent, within the coil of which kneels the Nile god of the South with a cluster of papyrus plants upon his head. In his hand he holds two vases, out of which he is pouring water. The reverence paid to the Nile was very great from the earliest period, for the Egyptians recognized that their health, happiness, and wealth depended upon its waters. The god of the Nile was addressed as the “Father of the gods,” and we are told in a hymn that if he were to fail, “the
gods would fall down headlong, and men would perish”; his majesty was considered to be so great that it is said of him, “he cannot be sculptured in stone; he is not to be seen in the statues on which are set the crowns of the South and of the North; neither service nor oblations can be offered unto him in person; and he cannot be brought forth from his secret habitations; the place where he dwelleth is unknown; he is not to be found in the shrines whereon are inscriptions; no habitation is large enough to hold him; and he cannot be imagined by thee in thy heart.” This extract is sufficient to show that the Egyptians ascribed to the god of the Nile many of the attributes of God.

Among the festivals of the ancient Egyptians that which was celebrated in honour of the Nile was of prime importance. It was believed that unless the prescribed ceremonies were performed at the right season, in the proper manner, by a duly qualified person or persons, the Nile would refuse to rise and water their lands. The festival was celebrated by all classes with the greatest honour and magnificence when the river began to rise at the summer solstice, and the rejoicings were proportionate to the height of the rise. Statues of the Nile-god were carried about through the towns and villages, so that all men might honour him and pray to him. The ancient Egyptian festival finds its equivalent among the Muhammadans in that which is celebrated by them on the 11th day of the Coptic month Paoni, i.e., June 17, and is called Lêtet al-Nuịṭa, or the “Night of the Drop,” because it is believed that a miraculous drop then falls into the Nile and causes its rise. The astrologers and soothsayers pretend to be able to state the exact moment when the drop is to fall. Many of the Egyptians spend this night in the open air, usually on the banks of the Nile, and Mr. Lane says (Modern Egyptians, vol. II., p. 224) that the women observe a curious custom. After sunset

they place as many lumps of dough on the terrace as there are persons in the house, and each person puts his or her mark upon one of them; on the following morning each looks at the lump of dough upon which he set his mark the evening before, and if any lump be found to be cracked, it is held to be a sign that the life of the person whom it represents will soon come to an end. About a fortnight later, criers begin to go about in the streets and proclaim the height of the daily rise of the river, each being usually accompanied by a boy; they are listened to with respect, but no one believes the statements they make about the height of the rise. The criers converse with the boys that are with them, and invoke blessings upon the houses of the people before which they stand, the object being, of course, that alms may be given to them. A little before the middle of August, the criers, accompanied by little boys carrying coloured flags, announce the “Completion of the Nile,” i.e., that the water reaches to the mark of the 16th cubit on the Nilometer. According to an old law the land tax cannot be exacted until the Nile rises to this height, and it is said that in old days the Government officials used to deceive the people regularly as to the height of the Nile, and demanded the tax when it was not due. The day after this announcement is made, the Cutting of the Dam at Fum al-Khalîg, in Cairo, takes place. This dam is made yearly near the mouth of the Khalîg Canal, and the top of it rises to the height of about 22 or 23 feet above the level of the Nile at its lowest; a short distance in front of the dam is heaped up a conical mound of earth called the arûa or “bride,” in allusion to the young virgin who, in ancient days, was cast into the river as a sacrifice, in order to obtain a plentiful inundation. This mound is always washed away before the dam is cut. At sunrise, on the day following the “completion” of the Nile, the thickness of the dam is thinned by workmen, and at length a boat is rowed
against it, and breaking the dam passes through with the current. The ceremony attracts large crowds, and is usually accompanied by singing, dancing and fireworks.

Between Wâdi Halfa and Cairo there are, on the right bank of the Nile, 312 towns and villages, and the cultivated land amounts to 381,000 feddâns*

* The faddân or feddân, Arab.

is the amount of land which a pair of oxen can plough in a day. The feddân contains 4,200 square metres, or about 5,082 square yards, and = rather less than one fortieth part of an acre.

; between the same limits, on the left bank, are 1,058 towns and villages with 1,638,000 feddâns of cultivated land. The province of the Fayyûm contains 85 towns and villages, with 328,000 feddâns of cultivated land; the whole Delta contains 847 towns and villages, with 1,430,000 feddâns; east of the Delta are 1,017 towns and villages, with 1,271,000 feddâns; west of the Delta are 367 towns and villages, with 601,000 feddâns; the Isthmus of Suez contains 6 towns and villages, with 1,000 feddâns. Egypt contains an amount of land suitable for cultivation which is equal to about 8,000,000 feddâns, or 33,607 square kilomètres, or 12,976 square miles. The cultivated area of Egypt is about 5,650,000 feddâns, or 23,735 square kilomètres, the proportion for Lower and Upper Egypt being 3,303,000 feddâns, with a population of 5,675,109 inhabitants, and 2,347,000 feddâns, with a population of 4,058,296 inhabitants. That is to say, for every 127 inhabitants there are 100 feddâns of cultivated land. According to Mr. Willcocks (Egyptian Irrigation, p. 17) the summer crops for the whole of Egypt cover 2,046,500 acres, and yield £15,177,500; the flood crops cover 1,510,000 acres, and yield £6,870,000; and the winter crops cover 4,260,000 acres, and yield £17,013,000; the whole area of 5,750,000 acres has a gross yield of £39,060,500, or £7 per acre.

THE OASES.

In connection with the Nile may be fittingly mentioned the Oases, for it is probable that, in addition to the springs which are found in these natural depressions in the desert, a quantity of water finds its way to them by underground channels from the Nile. The Egyptian for an oasis was

ut, or perhaps uḥet; from this was derived the Coptic
, and the Arabic
(plur.
). In Ptolemaïc times seven oases were enumerated,*

* The texts are given by Dümichen in Die Oasen der Libyschen Wüste; Strassburg, 1877.

 and their hieroglyphic names are as follows:—

1. KENEMET
, or
Ut-res “Oasis of the South.” 2. TCHESTCHESET
3. TA-ẠḤET
4. UT-MEḤT
“Oasis of the North.” 5. SEKHET-ẠMIT
6. UT
7. SEKHET-ḤEMAM

1. The Oasis of Kenemet is called to-day Al-Khârgeh, and lies almost due west of the town of Esneh, at a distance of about four days' journey; it is best known by the name of the “Great Oasis.” Population in 1897, 7,200. The name “Oasis of the South” was given to it to distinguish it from the “Oasis of the North.” The ancient name of the chief town was Hebt,

, and the principal object of interest in the
Oasis is the ruined ancient Egyptian temple, wherein the god Ạmen-Rā was worshipped. The temple was founded by Darius I. Hystaspes (B.C. 521-486), and finished by Darius II. Nothus (B.C. 425-405), and restored by Nectanebus I. (B.C. 378-360), the first king of the XXXth dynasty. The scenes on the walls represent these kings making offerings and adoring a number of the great gods and goddesses of Egypt, e.g., Ạmen-Rā, mut, Temu, Uatchit, Menthu, Rā Harmachis, Khensu, Khnemu, Isis, Osiris, Anḥur-Shu, Nephthys, etc. Among the inscriptions worthy of special interest are the famous Hymn to the Sun-god which was inscribed on the walls of a small chamber in the temple, and a text written in the so-called enigmatical writing. It is interesting to note too the rare prenomen
Settu-Rā, which is here applied to one of the Darius kings (Brugsch, Reise, pl. VIII.). In other parts of the Oasis are a number of ruins of Roman and Christian buildings, and, as political offenders were banished there by the various rulers of Egypt, and Christians fled there for refuge, this is not to be wondered at; the ruins of a Roman fort suggest that the Oasis was used for garrison purposes at one period.

2. The Oasis of Tchestcheset is called to-day Dâkhel, and lies to the west of Al-Khârgeh, at a distance of about four days' journey; it is best known by the name of Oasis Minor. Population in 1897, 17,090. The chief town of this Oasis was called

Ạuset Ạāḥet, “the seat of the Moongod,” and the principal object of worship was the god ẠmenRā,
“Ạmen-Rā, lord of the country of the Moon.” The ruins prove that the temple was founded and restored by Titus and other Roman Emperors.

3. The Oasis of Farâfra lies to the north-west of the Great Oasis, and there seems to be little doubt that it

represents the Ta-āḥet of the Egyptian texts; it lies about half-way between the Oasis of Baḥriyeh and Dâkhel, Population, 1897, 542. The god worshipped there was called
Ạmsu-Ạmen.

4. The Oasis of Baḥrîyeh lies to the north-east of the Oases of Farâfra and Dâkhel, at a distance of about four days' journey from the Fayyûm. The ruins there belong chiefly to the Roman period. The Arabic name “Northern Oasis” seems to be a translation of its old Egyptian name, “Oasis of the North.” Population in 1897, 6,082.

5. The Oasis of Sîwa, better known by the name of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, is the most northerly of all the Oases, and lies west of Cairo at a distance of about sixteen days' journey. Population in 1897, 5,200. The god worshipped there was Ạmen-Rā. The name given to it by the Egyptians, Sekhet-Ạmit, means the “field of the palm trees,” and the many thousands of loads of dates which are exported annually justify the selection of this name. In very early times a temple dedicated to the god Ammon or Ạmen stood here, and the reputation of its priests was so wide-spread that it tempted Alexander the Great to visit it in order that he might consult the famous oracle. Christianity is said to have been preached in this oasis by one of the Apostles.

6. The Oasis. This oasis has not been identified, but it lay most probably at no great distance from the Oasis of Sîwa, and it may have formed part of the Sekhet-Ạmit. Dümichen suggests (op. cit., p. 33) that it may be the Oasis of Araj, which is a journey of two days from Siwa.

7. Sekhet-ḥemam, or the “Salt-field,” is no doubt to be identified with the Wâdî Naṭrûn or Natron Valley.

The determinative of the word for oasis in Egyptian (

) indicates that the inhabitants of the oases were not Egyptians, but it is quite certain that as early as the time of Thothmes III. the inhabitants paid tribute to the kings of Egypt. Rameses the Great kept a number of troops
stationed in the largest of the oases, and it is probably from the officers and soldiers who went there from Egypt, that the inhabitants learned to know and worship Egyptian gods. Between the oases and Egypt there must have been a very considerable trade, for the wine of Kenem, and the dates of Sekhet-Ạmit, and the salt of Sekhet-ḥemam, were famous throughout the Nile Valley of Egypt.

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BUILDINGS, SCULPTURE, PAINTING, ETC.

The oldest buildings in Egypt are Tombs, and whether large or small they reflect in every age the religious ideas of those who built them. The excavations made in recent years show that the Egyptian tomb in the first instance was an oval hollow, either dug in the sand, or roughly cut in the limestone, and when the body had been laid therein, it was covered over with sand. It was, however, soon found that the wild animals scratched away the sand, and dragged out the bodies and devoured them; to prevent this the friends of the dead laid slabs of stone loosely over the hollow in the ground. As time went on these slabs of stone were better fitted and plaster was used to keep them together, and finally the sides and bottom of the grave were lined with mud bricks or stone slabs. Thus the stone (or brick) lined grave is the oldest building in Egypt, and the Egyptians made it as a result of their belief in the resurrection of the body. But even at this early period there must have been numbers of the dead who were laid to their rest in the sand. After a further lapse of time and as a result of the development of religious ideas, men began to raise stone structures over the graves, whereon they might lay their offerings to the dead, and hold some kind of intercourse with them. What the earliest structures were like we do not know, but in the earlier part of the historic period the kings, and nobles, and high officials, were buried in chambers cut in the solid rock several yards below the surface of the ground, and rectangular chambers made of stones were built over them. The tops of such structures were perfectly flat, and the sides sloped outwards very slightly; a building of this kind is commonly called Maṣtăba, because it resembles a bench. They did not

resemble portions of pyramids, but, as Mariette said, a maṣṭăba somewhat resembles a section cut horizontally out of an obelisk, supposing the obelisk to have a rectangular base. The walls are of varying thickness, and few are built in exactly the same way; it is a common characteristic of them all that the cores are made of very poor materials. It is hard to understand why the builders, who gave so much time and attention and labour to such buildings, did not go a step further and build their walls solidly throughout.
Door from a maṣṭăba tomb at Memphis. (After Prisse d' Avennes.)
Maṣṭăba tombs were oriented towards the north. They vary in length and breadth, but all consist of a hall for prayer and sacrifice, of a shaft or pit leading to the chamber where the mummy lies, and of the mummy chamber. The entrance to the maṣṭăba is through an opening on the eastern side, and this opening is often quite plain. Above the opening is a lintel, a portion of which is rounded, and here is found the name of the deceased; occasionally the opening is sunk in the wall to a considerable depth, and a kind of small portico, with square pillars, appears in front. The interior of the maṣtăba may be divided into chambers, the number of these varying according to the size of the monument and the fancy of the builder; usually, however, a maṣṭăba contains only one. On the ground inside a stele, or tombstone, which always faces the east, is found; at its foot stands an altar or table intended for offerings, and near it is a chamber in which a statue of the deceased was placed. The pit leading to the mummy chamber was square or
rectangular, and, when the dead body had been laid away in its coffin or sarcophagus, was filled up once and for all. The maṣṭăbas were built in rows and stood close together, having narrow passages between them.

Contemporary with the maṣṭăbas are the tombs which

Royal pyramid with rows of maṣṭăba tombs behind it.
were built in the form of pyramids, but which preserved all the main features of the maṣṭăba as far as religious ideas were concerned. For various reasons it was found impossible to build a hall inside a great pyramid sufficiently large to accommodate all those who would bring offerings and pray for the deceased buried below; therefore a hall was built outside in the form of a chapel. Instead of descending perpendicularly, the shaft which led to the mummy chamber beneath the pyramid is sometimes diagonal, in which case heavy sarcophagi were more easily lowered down it. It is probable that step-pyramids, which are after all only modifications
The Great Pyramid, showing passages and mummy chambers.
of maṣṭăbas, are older than the true pyramid, and it is also probable that they fell into disuse because they could be more easily wrecked. Well built stone pyramids with the steps
filled up by stones that fitted closely have proved to be almost indestructible, especially if built on a grand scale. Examples of the step-pyramid are found at Ṣaḳḳâra and Mêdûm, in Egypt, and at Gebel Barkal, Nûri, and to the east of the
The Step Pyramid at Ṣaḳḳâra. (From a photograph by A. Beato of Luxor.)
site of the ancient city of Meroë, where Candace ruled; the so-called Blunted Pyramid at Dahshûr is the unique example of a most unusual type of pyramid, for about half
The Blunted Pyramid at Dahshûr.
way up the side of each face the inclination changes, and while the lower portion of the face forms an angle of 54° 11′ with the horizon, the angle which the upper portion makes with the horizon is only 42° 59′. The pyramids of the Sûdân form a class by themselves. The outsides are built of well cut stones, carefully laid in their places, but the
insides are filled with masons' rubbish and sand. In the upper part of the east face is an opening, and the door faces the east nearly. Each has a chapel, or hall for offerings, in front of it. The stone pyramid was, in the Early Empire, usually the tomb of a king or royal personage, but in later times both kings and priestly or military officials, while adopting the form, built their tombs of brick; this class formed the next development in the architecture of the tomb, and is characteristic of the XIIth and following dynasties. The pyramidal tombs of this period are usually from fifteen to twenty feet high, and the bricks are made of unbaked mud; when they stood anywhere on ground
Pyramid and chapel at Gebel Barkal. (After Prisse d' Avennes.)
which was tolerably level they were surrounded by a wall. On one side of the pyramid is a sepulchral stele or a small rectangular building which served the purpose of the chapel to a large pyramid, for here the funeral ceremonies were performed, and offerings made, and prayers said on behalf of the dead. The oldest examples of this class of tomb are at Abydos; they date from the VIth to the XIIth dynasty. The next step in the development of the tomb was the building it in the mountains on one side or the other of the Nile, where the hall, shaft, and mummy chamber, were hewn out of the living rock. A small portico is often formed by means of two or more square or rectangular pillars cut out of the rock, also an entablature which consists of an architrave and a kind of cornice. When space permitted a portion of the hill or mountain immediately in front of the tomb was levelled, and served to accommodate the visitors who went to the tomb. Passing between the pillars we enter the rock-hewn chamber, usually with square
pillars, where, in a niche, was a statue of the deceased; as the double (ka) was supposed to dwell in the statue of a man, this arrangement was excellent for enabling the deceased to see the offerings that were made in his chapel, and for hearing the prayers said. This niche is the equivalent of the serdâb in the maṣṭăba tomb. In a corner of the hall or chapel, or, if there be more than one hall, in the hall most remote, is the entrance to the square pit which leads to the mummy chamber. The best examples of tombs of this period are at Beni-Ḥasan and Aswân, and at each place there are many really fine tombs. At Aswân is a very interesting flight of steps, up which coffins and sarcophagi were dragged from the level of the river into the tombs, and it is probable that a similar arrangement was provided wherever rock-hewn tombs were made in the side of a steep, high hill. The rock-hewn tomb was very popular in Egypt among high military and priestly officials, and this is hardly to be wondered at, for a body carefully buried therein would be extremely difficult to find when once the opening of the tomb had been blocked up. Coming to the period of the XVIIIth and four following dynasties, we find that it became the fashion among kings and royal personages to have magnificent tombs with long corridors and numerous chambers hewn out of the solid rock; and as the kings of this period reigned at Thebes, the Theban mountains were literally turned into a cemetery. In various parts of the rocky ground on the western bank the priests and high officials caused magnificent tombs to be hewn, and, although the fundamental ideas which guided the builders of the pyramid and maṣṭăba tombs were still all-powerful, the shape, the disposition of the chambers, the ornamentation, and texts inscribed upon the walls show that many new religious ideas had sprung into being in the mind of the Egyptian. The tombs of the kings at Thebes are the best
examples of the royal tombs of the period, and in them all we have the equivalents of the hall, the stele, the serdâb, the statue, the shaft or pit, and the mummy-chamber; there is, however, one great difference. In the Theban mountains it was found to be impossible to build chapels of a size proportionate to the tombs hewn within them, therefore the kings decided to have their funeral chapels built on the level ground near the river, where they were easy of access, and where there was abundant room for crowds of people to make their offerings to their kings, and to pray for them. In them also the religious were free to worship the gods they loved, as well as perform commemoration services, and in this way temples like the Ramesseum acquired a double character. As every man seems to have had his tomb prepared according to his own plans, it follows as a matter of course that in details hardly any two tombs are alike; nevertheless the central ideas of providing for the hiding of the body and for the supply of suitable offerings at regular intervals for the ka of the deceased were never lost sight of. The tombs constructed under the rule of the priests of Amen are inferior to those made in the time of the great Theban kings. In the XXVIth dynasty an attempt was made to revive the funeral ceremonies of the Early Empire, and, in consequence, a number of modifications were made in the internal arrangement of the subterranean rooms, etc.; but very soon the old ideas reasserted themselves, and the Egyptians who could afford to hew sepulchres out of the rocks adopted the class of tomb in general use at the time.

It has been said above that the oldest buildings in Egypt are tombs, and although the necessary evidence, in the shape of ruins, which would prove the great antiquity of the use of temples in Egypt, is not forthcoming, we are fully justified in assuming that, after

tombs, the building of temples for the safe-keeping of the statues of the gods, and for their worship, would form the next subject of earnest consideration in the minds of the people of that country. In fact, as soon as the Egyptian arrived at any comparatively advanced stage of civilization, he would set to work to build “a house of God”
, or temple, suitable to the rank and position of this god in the land. That the pre-dynastic and early dynastic Egyptians believed in numbers of gods goes without saying; unfortunately, however, their houses, or temples, were built of such fragile materials that even the sites of them are unknown. It has been thought that the earliest temples of the Egyptians were built of wood, that bricks formed the next material employed, and that stone was employed last of all. The earliest stone temples were probably contemporary with the earliest of the maṣṭâba tombs, but what such temples were like we shall never know, for they were at a very remote period restored, or enlarged, or reconstructed out of existence. One thing about them, however, is certain: the sites of the principal temples have remained unchanged. The sanctuaries of Heliopolis, Memphis, Abydos, Thebes, and other cities were the abodes of gods probably ten thousand years ago. The names and characteristics of the gods worshipped in them have changed, no doubt, and dozens of buildings have, successively, been erected upon them, but the sites must always have enjoyed a solid reputation for holiness, even though the histories or legends which gave them their reputations have been forgotten. The earliest known temple in Egypt is the granite and limestone Temple of the Sphinx , which was discovered by Mariette in 1853, and which lies about 130 feet to the south-east of the right foot of the Sphinx at Gîzeh. The following plan (after Perrot and Chipiez) will illustrate its arrangement:—The room or
hall (A), with six square granite pillars, measures about 32 feet by 23 feet, and the pillars are about 16 feet 6 inches high, and 4 feet square. The room or hall (B), which
The Temple of the Sphinx.
opens out of this, runs from east to west, and measures about 56 feet by 30 feet; the granite pillars here are ten in number. To the east of the smaller hall is a corridor (c), having a room at each end, and near the opening into it is a well, wherein a number of statues of king Chephren were found by Mariette. In the room (D), which is entered from the small hall, mummies were probably kept, and when we bear in mind the well, or pit, in the hall (c), it seems not unlikely that this massive little temple was originally nothing more than a royal funeral chapel. The pillars are without any ornament or decoration, and the walls have neither bas-reliefs nor paintings on them; the outsides of the walls are, however, ornamented with vertical and horizontal channels only, and resemble the outside of a sarcophagus of the early maṣṭăba period. Strictly speaking, the idea of the temple, such as we see at Karnak and elsewhere, was not imagined in the Early Empire, and the Temple of the Sphinx is the most complete example known of those that were built between B.C. 4500 and B.C. 2500. Of the temples which were built in Egypt between B.C. 2500 and B.C. 1700, we have very few remains, but it is certain that the great kings of the XIIth dynasty restored the temples which had been erected
on historic sites by their predecessors, and it is probable that they built new ones. There are many reasons for believing that the temples of the XIIth dynasty were large, beautiful, and richly decorated, among the chief of these being the fact that beautifully painted rock-hewn tombs were executed at this period. Now the public temples, especially if they had been originally funeral chapels, must have been as grand and beautiful as the chapels of private individuals. We know, too, that the XIIth dynasty temples must have been of very considerable size, otherwise the huge granite obelisks which were set up before them would have looked absurdly out of proportion, and the pylons would have dwarfed the rest of the buildings on the site. Belonging to this period, and worthy of special note, are the ruins of the little temple which the Ạmen-em-ḥāt and Usertsen kings built at Karnak in honour of the god Ạmen; this temple formed the nucleus of all the buildings which the succeeding kings of Egypt vied with each other in raising upon that site. From about B.C. 1700 to B.C. 1400, a favourite form of temple was a rectangular building with a colonnade running round all four sides; a parapet, which rested upon the severely plain square pillars that supported the roof, was one of its prominent features. The temple was entered through a door at the east end, which was usually approached by steps. At the top of the steps on each side was a pillar with a decorated capital, and between these pillars the two leaves of a door were hung; immediately opposite to them was the door of the temple building leading to the shrine, and it also was provided with swinging leaves that were probably plated with smu metal or copper. The shrine was, of course, at the other end of the building. At a later time, when all the chief characteristics of such a temple were changed, the interior was divided into three parts, a portico, a pronaos, and a shrine. Under the kings of the XIXth dynasty the temple buildings consisted of:—(1) Pylons; (2)
an open courtyard; (3) a hypostyle hall; and (4) a shrine, which could be completely cut off from the rest of the temple, and a number of chambers intended to hold statues or emblems of the gods. The first pylon was approached by a broad path, or dromos, on each side of which were arranged, at regular intervals, stone figures of ram-headed or human-headed sphinxes, mounted on pedestals, and having their heads turned towards the axis of the path. The length of the path varies, but the longest known is that which leads from Luxor to Karnak, and which is more than a mile and a quarter long. It is probable that the sphinxes were intended either to contain or to represent guardian spirits. The temple buildings were enclosed within a wall of unbaked mud bricks, but the avenue of sphinxes was outside this wall. The pylon consists of a large rectangular doorway and two high massive towers, built with sides which slope towards a common centre, and it forms, probably, one of the most prominent characteristics of the Egyptian temple buildings. On festal occasions the towers were ornamented by a number of painted poles, from which flew coloured streamers or flags. At each side of the doorway of the pylon stood a colossal figure of the king in granite, limestone, or sandstone, and a granite obelisk, mounted on a pedestal of suitable dimensions, and colossal statues were sometimes also placed in front of the towers of the pylon. The open court was furnished with a colonnade on three sides, and it is probable that those who sold objects used by the worshippers had their stalls situated in it; both this court and the hypostyle hall beyond it, which was entered through the doorway of another pylon, were thronged on festal occasions, and in one or both the animals intended for slaughter were offered up. All that part of the temple which lay beyond the hypostyle hall was probably reserved for the use of the priests and the performance of the sacred ceremonies in connection with the worship of the god. In the most holy part of the shrine,
and jealously guarded, was the statue, or boat, or emblem of the god, which was only looked upon by the high priest, or by some extremely privileged visitor, about once a year. It was kept inside a sacred ark or tabernacle, made of precious wood or metal, elaborately painted and gilded and worked, and was provided with doors and bolts. In the ground outside the temple-walls, but within the surrounding mud-brick wall, lay the sacred lake or lakes, wherein the devout bathed, and in the waters of which the processions of the sacred boats took place. Speaking generally, the above is a brief description of the principal characteristics of Egyptian temples, and it applies to those that were built or restored between B.C. 1370 and B.C. 200. About the latter date many of the small temples built by the Ptolemies are only modified copies of the small temples of the latter part of the XVIIIth dynasty. An examination of a number of temples will show the visitor to Egypt that in comparatively minor matters each temple possesses characteristics which are peculiar to itself. Thus in the temple at Luxor the open court and the rest of the temple are connected by means of a long, narrow courtyard, which is wanting in many temples; and at Abydos, because there was no room to build all the various parts of the temple in a straight line as usual, the portion which contains the sanctuary has been built to the side of one end of it. Before passing on to other matters, mention must be made of temples which were hewn out of the rock, and of this class, which is a very small one, those of Bêt el-Wali and Abu Simbel in Nubia are the finest specimens. The other temples in Nubia, and those in the Eastern Sûdân, form a class by themselves, and although of those the sites are of a venerable antiquity, the greater number of the buildings belong to the Ptolemaïc period. At Gebel Barkal, parts of the largest temple there are probably as old as the XVIIIth dynasty, and the general teaching of Egyptian history would lead us not to expect to
find any ruins older than the time of Amenophis I. In outlying districts the Egyptian temple served both as a place of worship and a place of refuge, and in many respects the building became half temple, half fortress.

The ornamentation of tombs and temples varied at different periods. The earliest tombs are almost bare in

Scene from the Wall of a Tomb. Deceased fowling.
every part, and contain nothing but a few brief inscriptions. Later the inscriptions were multiplied, and human and animal figures, either cut in low relief or painted in tempera, began to fill the walls and to cover the sides of the rectangular pillars which supported the roof.
Portion of a Ceiling Ornament.
Still later, every available space in the tomb was filled with scenes most elaborately drawn and painted in vivid colours, and the ceilings were ornamented with geometrical patterns and designs, edged with floral and other borders. As time went on it seemed to be the aim of the funeral artist to make
the walls of the tomb to reproduce scenes of all the principal events which had occurred in the life of the deceased, and to describe his wealth and power. But under the rule of the Theban kings of the XVIIIth dynasty, it became the fashion with many to make such painted scenes and the accompanying descriptive texts subordinate to religious inscriptions, and many tombs are almost entirely covered with extracts from the Book of the Dead, or from works of a similar character, and with scenes illustrative of them. The earliest temples were, probably, without ornamentation of any kind, but when it became the fashion to decorate the tombs with bas-reliefs, or painted scenes, the walls and pillars of the temples were treated in the same manner. In the XVIIIth and following dynasties the outsides of the walls of temples were covered with inscriptions and scenes which recorded the victories of the king or kings who built them, and the insides were decorated with figures of the gods and of the king performing religious ceremonies; later, both the insides and outsides of the walls were devoted to representations of colossal figures of the king slaughtering rebels in masses, and to religious scenes.

The Palace and the House. The palace of an Egyptian king was enclosed within a wall like a temple, and was often built of stone; unfortunately, however, the ruins of the royal residences known to us, with but one or two exceptions, do not permit the laying down of any general rule about their construction. It is probable that kings often lived in buildings attached to the temples, and in this case the style of the palace would resemble that of the temple. The entrance into the outside grounds was made through a pylon, and the building which formed the palace consisted of large numbers of rooms, lighted by means of grating-work windows, grouped round open courts, which were separated from each other by pylons. Some rooms were set apart for state receptions and ceremonies, others

for the sleeping apartments of the male members of the household, and others for the royal ladies. The servants, and others who were not in close attendance on the family, lived and slept outside the palace proper, but within the grounds, in small chambers built against the surrounding wall. In some part of the grounds spice, incense, and fruit trees grew, and one or two ponds, or small lakes, with reedy margins, afforded excellent cover for water fowl. The private house was a rectangular building of two storeys with a flat roof, the whole being made of unbaked mud bricks, with the exception of the lintels of the doors. A man of means enclosed his house and a piece of ground within a wall, and then he had space enough to build a portico, or colonnade, before his house, where he could find shelter from the sun, and lay out a courtyard. A portion of the enclosed space was laid out as gardens or planted with trees, a lake or fountain of water was made near the house, and the servants or slaves, and others, lived in small buildings, or booths, not very far from the house. In fact, the house and garden of a Theban gentleman or high official must have resembled closely the house and courtyard, and garden, with its fountain of running water and scented trees, of a Muhammadan gentleman of Damascus, or Cairo, or any other flourishing city in the beginning of the Middle Ages. The courtyard was then, as now, probably tiled, and the outside walls of the house painted in one or two bright colours; the internal decorations of the walls and ceilings consisted of some intricate geometrical design, elaborately painted in several bright colours. The Egyptian house must always have been a comparatively simple building, for its owner really only needed shelter from the cold by night, and a shady place wherein to sit or sleep in the afternoons. The peasant farmer's house was a small, strong building, with a courtyard large enough to hold his cattle and granaries wherein to stock his grain. His living
and sleeping rooms were usually low and small, but, judging by the models of houses which are to be seen in our museums, he often sat on the roof in a sort of small summerhouse, where he could catch the breeze; the roof was approached by means of a flight of steps. The cooking for his house was done in the courtyard by his wives and female slaves.

Among miscellaneous Egyptian buildings must be mentioned the fortified or fenced cities, which were very numerous, and were surrounded by thick walls and guarded by gates; in fact, any place where many men of means had assembled and accumulated wealth had to be fortified in order that their possessions might be defended against the attacks of marauding tribes. The fortresses at Semneh, in Nubia, and El-kab, in Upper Egypt, are excellent examples of such buildings, and the ruins of them prove that the Egyptians were skilful military architects, and that they not only knew how to choose a site for a fort, but how to erect on it a strong building. In places where they had the choice of more than one site they invariably selected the best, and they seem instinctively to have availed themselves of every advantage which the natural position of that site gave them. The space here available will not permit of any attempt being made to describe methods of construction and cognate matters, but attention must be called to the fact that the Egyptian architects did not pay sufficient attention either to the making of foundations, or to the roofing of their temples. The expert researches made by Mr. Somers Clarke at El-kab, Karnak, Dêr el-baḥarî, and other sites, have revealed some very curious facts about the scantiness and insecurity of the foundations of columns, etc., and the wonder is that the temples have stood so long in the condition in which we now find them. The whole civilized world laments the falling of eleven pillars at Karnak in

1899, but an examination of the foundations shows that in the first place they were too small, and in the second that the materials of which they were made had been thrown into them in a reckless fashion. The question that now arises is, “Are the foundations of all the columns of Egyptian temples as badly made?” and none but an expert can answer it satisfactorily. It is clear that we owe the preservation of most of the temples to the heaps of rubbish which had covered them up, and it is equally clear that no one should be allowed to remove such heaps from precious ruins except under the advice of some competent architect or engineer. The field of Egyptology is so large in these days, that the archæologist cannot expect to become a skilled engineer, still less ought he to take upon himself the risk of destroying the ruins of buildings which form part of the scientific heritage not of the Egyptians only, but of the present and future civilized nations of the world.

The Pillar *

* For fuller information on these subjects the reader is referred to Perrot and Chipiez, L'Égypte, p. 346, ff., and for examples to Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de l'Art, to which excellent work I am indebted for the illustrations here given.

and the Column,*

* For fuller information on these subjects the reader is referred to Perrot and Chipiez, L'Égypte, p. 346, ff., and for examples to Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de l'Art, to which excellent work I am indebted for the illustrations here given.

 after the walls, are perhaps the most prominent features of the Egyptian building. The oldest pillars were square, and generally monolithic, and the sides were either parallel or slightly sloping upwards; frequently they had neither base nor capital. In the Early Empire they were not decorated in any way, but in the Middle Empire the sides were ornamented with scenes and inscriptions, or with bas-reliefs, or with figures of gods in very high relief, and the capitals with Hathor heads and sistra. The “Osirian Pillar,” i.e., a pillar with an upright colossal figure of Osiris in high relief on one side of it, is seen to advantage both in the second court in the temple of Medînet Habu, and in the rock-hewn temple at Abu Simbel; in the Sûdân the god chosen to decorate
rectangular pillars was Bes, as may be seen from the ruins of the temples at Gebel Barkal and Ben-Nâga. A variety of the rectangular pillar is the pillar stele, of which examples
Pillar stelae inscribed with the names of Thothmes III., XVIIIth dynasty.
are to be found at Karnak, but it seems never to have been used as an actual support. Out of the rectangular pillar a new variety was made by cutting off the four angles; thus the pillar had eight sides instead of four; when it was desired to make the appearance of the new variety of pillar lighter still, the eight angles were cut off, and the pillar now had sixteen sides. Examples of both kinds of pillar will be found in the same tomb at Beni Hasan. To these new forms, which are called polygonal, polyhedral or prismatic, bases and capitals were added, and thus they came to be compared with certain Greek pillars and so called Proto-Doric. Another interesting variety of the rectangular pillar is found at Beni Hasan, and is called cruciform. The column has many
varieties, but all have the same characteristics; it has a base, and a capital, which is surmounted by a rectangular slab of stone, whereon the framework of the
Entrance to the tomb of Khnemu-ḥetep II. at Beni Ḥasan, with Proto-Doric pillars. (From a photograph by A. Beato of Luxor.)
roof rests. The capitals are of several kinds. The bud capital, the cup capital, the palm capital. A curious variety of the cup capital occurs at Karnak, where in a part of the building of Thothmes III. the capitals are in the form of inverted cups. In the time of the Ptolemies the architect or master-mason made many variations in the details of the capitals, and frequently with very pleasing results; the authorities, however, do not seem to be agreed as to the canon of proportion employed.

It is at present impossible to gauge by years the antiquity of the period when the Egyptians began to be skilled in the art of sculpture and the making of bas-reliefs, but it is

certain that in pre-dynastic times they possessed marvellous skill in working the hardest kinds of stone, and in the early dynasties they were masters in the art of painting statues to resemble their living originals. In estimating the character
Pillar with figures of Amenophis III. and the goddess Hathor.
Column with lotus capital.
of Egyptian sculpture, it must be remembered that many statues and bas-reliefs were executed almost mechanically, and probably at a fixed rate, to satisfy conventional requirements; in such work the best skill is not to be looked for. Speaking generally, the sculptor's art seemed to culminate between the middle of the IVth and the end of the Vth dynasty. At this period statues and bas-reliefs, and the hieroglyphics of inscriptions, both raised and incuse, possessed a fidelity to life, an attention to detail, and a
Palm-leaf capital.
Hathor-headed capital.
spirit of repose and dignity which are lacking in the work of later periods. The Egyptians themselves thought this, for in the XXVIth dynasty, when the Saïte kings attempted to revive the dying arts of sculpture and painting, they took the works of the great artists of
Ornate capital (Philae).
the IVth and Vth dynasties as their models. The men who made them were no mere hirelings, and their work shows that they tried to represent men and things as they saw them; the unbiassed will probably admit that they succeeded admirably in doing this. In the Gîzeh Museum are fine series of examples of statues, etc., of this period, which testify to the great skill of the Egyptian artists, both as sculptors and
painters. It seems that the earliest statues were made of
Canon of proportion.
wood, like the earliest temples and other buildings, and as rare specimens of artistic work in wood the reader should note the panels from the tomb of Ḥesi at Ṣaḳḳâra, which were made about B.C. 3,600; these panels are now in the Gîzeh Museum, and they are undoubtedly the finest known examples of that particular class of work. It is, as a rule, to the private tombs that we must look for the best examples of artistic
Sarcophagus of King Ai, XVIIIth dynasty.
work of all kinds, for the individual was more free to follow his own dictates in the selection of both subject and artist than the royal personage, who was practically obliged to employ court draughtsmen, court artists, and court sculptors.
In bas-reliefs and painted scenes, much of the artistic effect is lost because perspective was either not understood, or was little practised, and as a result where rows of men, and groups of animals or objects, etc., have to be depicted, they are represented in such a way that they seem to be standing one above the other or upon the other. The artist's skill in drawing which is exhibited by the paintings in all periods is marvellous, but the greatest skill is certainly displayed in the fishing and hunting scenes, and in those which are commonly found in tombs. Even in these, however, the artist often breaks away from his fetters of conventionality, and depicts some ludicrous or amusing incident quite out of keeping with the general character of the subject. The sense of fun which the Egyptian possessed in all periods of his history must have found an outlet in many comic sketches on papyri, but unfortunately besides the so-called satirical papyri very few examples of such have come down to us; touches of realism which western artists would not have included in their compositions occur every here and there, but these are due rather to an attempt to be true to nature than to depraved ideas.

The Lion and the Unicorn playing draughts. From a “Satirical” papyrus in the British Museum.

EGYPTIAN WRITING.

The system of writing employed by the earliest inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile known to us was entirely pictorial, and had much in common with the pictorial writing of the Chinese and the ancient people who migrated into Babylonia from the East. There appears to be no inscription in which pictorial characters are used entirely, for the earliest inscriptions now known to us contain alphabetic characters. Inscriptions upon statues, coffins, tombs, temples, etc., in which figures or representations of objects are employed, are usually termed ‘Hieroglyphic’ (from the Greek ἱερογλυφικός); for writing on papyri a cursive form of hieroglyphic called ‘Hieratic’ (from the Greek ἱερατικός) was employed by the priests, who, at times, also used hieroglyphic; a third kind of writing, consisting of purely conventional modifications of hieratic characters, which preserve little of the original form, was employed for social and business purposes; it is called demotic (from the Greek δημοτικός). The following will show the different forms of the characters in the three styles of writing—

I. Hieratic.

II. Hieroglyphic Transcript Of No. I.

III. Demotic.

IV. Hieroglyphic Transcript Of No. III.

No. I is copied from the Prisse*

* This papyrus is the oldest in the world, and was written about B.C. 2500; it was presented to the Bibliothèque Nationale by Prisse, who acquired it at Thebes.

papyrus (Maxims of Ptaḥ-ḥetep, p. V. l, 1), and is transcribed and translated as follows:— ạb temu ạn se१a - nef sef … the heart fails, not remembers he yesterday. qes men-f en āuu bu nefer १eper em- The body suffers it in [its] entirety, happiness becomes bu [bạn] wretchedness.†

† Ptaḥ-ḥetep is lamenting the troubles of old age, and the complete passage runs: “The understanding perisheth, an old man remembers not yesterday. The body becometh altogether pain; happiness turneth into wretchedness; and taste vanisheth away.”

No. III. is copied from the demotic version inscribed on the stele of Canopus (see p. 19), and No. IV. is the corresponding passage in the hieroglyphic version of the

Decree. The transliteration of the Demotic, according to Hess (Roman von Stne Ha-m-us, p. 80), is:—p-ḥon nuter …… ua n-n-uêb' ent sâtp er-p-ma uêb er-ube p-gi-n-er mnḫ n-n-nuter', “a prophet, or one of the priests who are selected for the sanctuary to perform the dressing of the gods.” The transliteration of the hieroglyphic text is: ḥen neter erpu uā ạm॒ ạbu setep er āb-ur ạu smā er māret neteru em sati-sen.

The earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions are the names of the kings of the first dynasty which have been found at Naḳâda and Abydos. The oldest hieratic inscription is that contained in the famous Prisse papyrus which records the advice of Ptaḥ-ḥetep to his son. It dates from the XIth or XIIth dynasty. The demotic writing appears to have come into use about B.C. 900. Hieroglyphics were used until the third century after Christ, and hieratic and demotic for at least a century later. The inscriptions on the Rosetta and Canopus stelae are written in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek characters. The Egyptians inscribed, wrote, or painted inscriptions upon almost every kind of substance, but the material most used by them for their histories, and religious and other works was papyrus. Sections from the stem of the papyrus plant were carefully cut, and the layers were taken off, pressed flat, and several of them gummed one over the other transversely; thus almost any length of papyrus for writing upon could be made. The longest known is the great Harris papyrus, No. 1; it measures 135 feet by 17 inches. The scribe wrote upon the papyrus with reeds, and the inks were principally made of vegetable colours. Black and red are the commonest colours used, but some papyri are painted with as many as eleven or thirteen. The scribe's palette was a rectangular piece of wood varying from six to thirteen inches long by two, or two and a half, inches wide. In the middle was a hollow for holding the reeds, and at one end

were the circular or oval cavities in which the colours were placed.

At the beginning of the Greek rule over Egypt, the knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language began to decline, and the language of Greece began to modify and eventually to supersede that of Egypt. When we consider that Ptolemy I., Soter, succeeded in attracting to Alexandria a large number of the greatest Greek scholars of the day, such as Euclid the mathematician, Stilpo of Megara, Theodorus of Cyrene and Diodorus Cronus the philosophers, Zenodotus the grammarian, Philetas the poet from Cos, and many others, this is not to be wondered at. The founding of the great Alexandrian Library and Museum, and the endowment of these institutions for the support of a number of the most eminent Greek philosophers and scholars, was an act of far-sighted policy on the part of Ptolemy I., whose aim was to make the learning and language of the Greeks to become dominant in Egypt. Little by little the principal posts in the Government were monopolised by the Greeks, and little by little the Egyptians became servants and slaves to their intellectually superior masters. In respect to their language, “the Egyptians were not prohibited from making use, so far as it seemed requisite according to ritual or otherwise appropriate, of the native language and of its time-hallowed written signs; in this old home, moreover, of the use of writing in ordinary inter-course the native language, alone familiar to the great public, and the usual writing must necessarily have been allowed not merely in the case of private contracts, but even as regards tax-receipts and similar documents. But this was a concession, and the ruling Hellenism strove to enlarge its domain.” Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire, Vol. II., p. 243. It is true that Ptolemy II., Philadelphus, employed the famous Manetho (i.e.,

, Mer-en-Teḥuti, ‘beloved of Thoth’) to draw up a history of Egypt, and an account
of the ancient Egyptian religion from the papyri and other native records; but it is also true that during the reigns of these two Ptolemies the Egyptians were firmly kept in obscurity, and that the ancient priest-college of Heliopolis was suppressed. A century or two after the Christian era, Greek had obtained such a hold upon the inhabitants of Egypt that the Egyptian Christians, the followers and disciples of St. Mark, were obliged to use the Greek alphabet to write down the Egyptian, that is to say, Coptic translation of the books of the Old and New Testaments. The letters
were added from the demotic forms of hieratic characters to represent sounds which were unknown in the Greek language. During the Greek rule over Egypt many of the hieroglyphic characters had new phonetic values given to them; by this time the knowledge of hieroglyphic writing had practically died out.

The history of the decipherment of hieroglyphics is of great interest, but no thorough account of it can be given here; only the most important facts connected with it can be mentioned. During the XVIth-XVIIIth centuries many attempts were made by scholars to interpret the hieroglyphic inscriptions then known to the world, but they resulted in nothing useful. The fact is that they did not understand the nature of the problem to be solved, and they failed to perceive the use of the same hieroglyphic character as a phonetic or determinative in the same inscription. In 1799, a French officer discovered at Bolbitane or Rosetta a basalt slab inscribed in the hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek characters; it was shortly after captured by the English army, and taken to London, where it was carefully examined by Dr. Thomas Young.*

* Thomas Young was born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, on the 13th of June, 1773; both his parents were Quakers. At the age of fourteen he is said to have been versed in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, Persian and Arabic. He took his degree of M.D. in July, 1796, in 1802 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, and in 1810 he was elected physician to St. George's Hospital. He was not, however, a popular physician. He died on the 10th of May, 1829.

The Society of Antiquaries published a fac-simile of the inscription, which was distributed among scholars, and Silvestre de Sacy and Akerblad made some useful discoveries about certain parts of the demotic version of the inscription. Dr. Young was enabled, ten years after, to make translations of the three inscriptions, and the results of his studies were published in 1821. In 1822 M. Champollion*

* Jean Francois Champollion le Jeune was born at Figeac, department du Lot, in 1796. He was educated at Grenoble, and afterwards at Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of Coptic. In the year 1824 he was ordered by Charles X. to visit all the important collections of Egyptian antiquities in Europe. On his return he was appointed Director of the Louvre. In 1828 he was sent on a scientific mission to Egypt, and was afterwards made professor of Egyptian antiquities at the Collège de France. He died in 1831.

 (Le Jeune) published a translation of the same inscriptions, and was enabled to make out something like an alphabet. There appears to be no doubt that he was greatly helped by the publications and labours of Young, who had succeeded in grouping certain words in demotic, and in assigning accurate values to some of the hieroglyphic characters used in writing the names of the Greek rulers of Egypt. Young made many mistakes, but some of his work was of value, Champollion, to whom the credit of definitely settling the phonetic values of several signs really belongs, had been carefully grounded in the Coptic language, and was therefore enabled with little difficulty to recognize the hieroglyphic forms of the words which were familiar to him in Coptic; Young had no such advantage. Champollion's system was subjected to many attacks, but little by little it gained ground, and the labours of other scholars have
proved that he was right. The other early workers in the field of hieroglyphics were Dr. Samuel Birch in England; Dr. Lepsius in Germany, and MM. Rosellini and Salvolini in Italy. The study of hieroglyphics has become comparatively general, and each year sees books of texts published, learned papers on Egyptian grammar written, and translations made into the various European languages.

In hieroglyphic inscriptions the signs are used in two ways: I, IDEOGRAPHIC, II, PHONETIC. In the ideographic system a word is expressed by a picture or ideograph thus:

mu, ‘water’; in the phonetic system the same word is written
m + u, no regard being paid to the fact that
represents an owl and
a rope, for their sounds only are needed. Similarly
emsuḥ is a ‘crocodile’ in the ideographic system, but phonetically it is written
m + s + u + ḥ. The ideographic system is probably older than the phonetic.

PHONETIC signs are: I, ALPHABETIC, as

m,
s,
u; or II, SYLLABIC, as
mer,
१eper,
ḥetep. The sign
१eper can be written 1,
; 2,
; 3,
; 4,
; the sign
nefer can be written 1,
; 2,
; 3,
; 4,
; 5,
. The scribes took pains to represent the exact value of these syllabic signs in order that no mistake might be made.

The IDEOGRAPHIC signs are also used as determinatives, and are placed after words written phonetically to determine their meaning. For example, nem means ‘to sleep’ ‘to walk,’ ‘to go back,’ ‘to become infirm’ ‘tongue,’

and ‘again’; without a determinative the meaning of this word in a sentence would be easily mistaken. DETERMINATIVES are of two kinds: I, ideographic, and II, generic. Thus after
mạu, ‘cat,’ a cat,
, was written; this is an ideographic determinative. After
ḳerḥ, ‘darkness,’ the night sky with a star in it,
, was written; this is a generic determinative. A word has frequently more than one determinative; for example, in the word
bāḥ, ‘to overflow,’
is a determinative of the sound bāḥ;
is a determinative of water,
of a lake or collection of water, and
of ground. The list of hieroglyphic signs with their phonetic values given on pp. 133-138 will be of use in reading kings' names, etc.; for convenience, however, the hieroglyphic alphabet is added here. The system of transliteration of Egyptian characters used in this book is that most generally adopted.

a

ȧ

ā

i

u

b

p

f

m

n

r or l

h

ḥ

X (kh)

s

sh

k

q

ḳ

t

ṭ

0 (th)

ť (like ch in child)

The number of hieroglyphic characters is about two thousand.

NUMBERS.

uā one

sen, two

khemet, three

fṭu, four

ṭua, five

sȧs, six

sekhef, seven

khemennu, eight

paut or psṭ, nine

met, ten

ťaut, twenty

māb, thirty

śaā, a hundred

kha, a thousand

ťebā, ten thousand

ḥefnu, a hundred thousand

ḥeḥ, a million

The forms of the numbers 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 are not known exactly.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions are usually to be read in the opposite direction to which the characters face; there is however no hard and fast rule in this matter. On the papyri they are read in various directions, and there are instances in which the ancient copyist mistook the end of a

chapter for its beginning, and copied the whole of it in the reverse order. Some inscriptions are to be read in perpendicular lines.

The following transliterated and translated extract from the first page of the “Tale of the Two Brothers” will explain the foregoing statements.

1.

There were once on a time brothers two [the children]
of one mother and of one father;
Anubis was the name of the elder, was Bata
the name of the younger. Now as regards
Anpu, he possessed a house [and] had a wife,

2.

[and] was his brother younger [living] with him
after the manner of a servant, for it was he
who made the clothes, it was he who followed
after his [Anpu's] cattle in the fields,

3.

he it was who did the ploughing,
he it was who laboured, he it was who
performed the duties all which were [connected] with
the fields; and behold was the young man

4.

a farmer excellent, not existed the like of him
in the land the whole of it … Now thus it was during
days many upon those [days] that
was his brother younger following after his
cattle according to his wont of
every day, and he returned to
his house every evening, and
he was laden with vegetables of all kinds
of the fields.

A List Of Some Of The Principal Hieroglyphic Signs And Their Phonetic Values. Men and Women.

ȧn
āx
ȧm
śeps
ḥa
qa
ȧr
ȧmen
ur
qeṭ
sa
āb
ser
seḥer
fa
xer
ȧΘi
tut
ḥeḥ
ḥenen
ȧau
ȧ
ḥeḥ
maāt
beq

Limbs, &C., Of Men.

ṭep,t'at'a
ḥu
xu
sem
ḥrȧ, ḥer
sep
t'eser
seśem
ȧnem
ka
xen
ȧn
ut'a
xen
t
śen
tȧa
ȧn, ȧt
t'ebā
tet or ΘeΘ
ȧn
ā
ka, met baḥ
reṭ
ȧri
mā
sem
b
ȧr, sa
next
i
āā, āu
r or l
ṭā
seb

Animals.

l, r
āb
nefer
ȧb
neb
sāb
ka
ba
ser
set
āu
mȧu

Limbs, &C., Of Animals.

peḥ
śef
xent, fenṭ
āb
ḥā
us
setem
xepes
at
bȧ
ȧp
peḥ
śes
xen
ȧau
nem oruḥem

Birds.

Ḥeru, bak
ur
m
u
ba
ba
neḥ
pa
xu
mut
qem
ten
āq
sa
ti
rex
t'a
śerȧ
mer
a
senṭ

Parts Of Birds.

meḥ
maāt, śu
sa

Fish.

ȧn
xa
betu

Reptiles.

sebek
t'
f
ḥfen
āf, net, xebsexet, bȧt
xeper
serq
qem

Trees And Plants.

ȧm
net'em
su
i
xet
uat'
resu
mes
ḥen
xa
qemā
ḥet'
un
meḥ
renp
sen
uaḥ
ḥa
śa
ḥen
sek
nexeb
sexet
ȧs
bener
enen
ȧ
t'er

Celestial Objects.

pet,ḥer
rā
xā
seb, ṭua
Θeḥen
xu
ȧāḥ

Objects Of Earth.

ta
ṭu
set, semt
ȧner

Water.

mu
n
ś
mer
āb

Building.

nu
seḥ
ā
ṭeṭ
per
ḥeb
s
ȧs, or ȧst
ḥet
ȧneb
ȧn

Arms, Etc.

neter
ma
s
net'
ṭesṭem
meḥ
ām, t'ā,qem
āb orḥem
sem
śeṭ
set'eb
menx
nemmat
xu
xen
xa
seq
ṭem
ut
sa
ṭep
ḥeq
meṭ
sma
āa
āu
Θ
setp
uā
uas
t'a
ut'ā
peṭ
sexem
men
Θ
śemer
xerp
Θes, res
mer
āḥa
ȧmen
āb, qes,ḳen
qeṭ
āb
seḥ

Musical Instruments.

nefer
sexem
maāt
ḥes
men
sa

Crowns.

ḥet'
meḥ
sexet
net, bȧt
śu
atf

Cords.

qes, śes
ut,ḥeseb
nes
ṭeb
śen
u
āṭ
nub
reṭ
set
Θes
xaker
śen
ua
net
śen
ḥ
setchautsexet
sa
sāḥ
menx
mer
āper
ānx

Mathematical Figures.

x
ḥu
h
ḥer
sep
sepṭ
mer
t'eṭ
paut
ṭā
rer
qen,t'at'a
t
p
ṭeben
ȧmsu
xemt
ḥāp
ren
ȧp
q
uu, ur, śes
tenȧ,pex

Vases, Etc.

nu
qebḥ
ta
xer
xnem
ḥen
ta
k
ȧb
mȧ
ḥetep
neb
ḥes
āu, āb
ȧa
ḥeb
xent
ba
ḳ
nā, ān

Ships, Etc.

xent
ḥem
seśep
ȧmax
ȧm
nef
āu
ȧm
uā,beḥā
āḥā
ḥer,māten
xesef
xer,ḥep
xent
tem
sext