Cairo to Assuân, where Egypt ends and Nubia begins. None of the towns of Upper Egypt approach the proportions of Cairo or of Alexandria; nevertheless there are considerable centres at Assiût, which has a population of 42,076, and lies just half-way between Cairo and Assuân; at Minyeh, a centre of the sugar industry, at Keneh, the centre of the manufacture of the porous water-bottles, called kulal, without mentioning Luxor and Assuân, the two towns long familiar to tourists by reason of the temple ruins found in their immediate neighbourhoods. The most thickly populated district after the Delta is the Fayûm, which lies some fifty miles to the north of Cairo, westward of the Nile valley, from which it is separated by a stretch of desert. The fertility of this area, which has been reclaimed gradually from the waters of the lake known to the ancients as Lake Moris, exceeds that of the Delta, and the population is proportionately large. Medînet, the chief town of the Fayûm, has a population of some 30,000 inhabitants, while that of the entire district is not less than 370,000. The Copts are mainly to be found, as we should naturally expect, in parts of Upper Egypt remote from the great centres of Mohammedan influence in the North. At Assiût there is a considerable Coptic element, and from here southwards in the towns of Taḥța, Girgeh, Esneh, and at Luxor, the chief centre for the tourists who annually visit the vast ruins which bear witness to the greatness of ancient Egypt, they abound, although they are scarcely distinguishable in manners or dress from their Mohammedan neighbours. Beside the settled Arab population-the fellâhîn of the country districts, and the craftsmen, traders, and servants of the towns-there is a migratory population of Bedouin and other desert tribes which, making their home in the spacious wastes that stretch east and west of the Nile valley, visit the towns at intervals, and mingle for longer or shorter periods with their more settled but less independent kinsmen. It is interesting to note that this Bedouin population has largely increased during the years of the British occupation, and that a greater proportion tend to become" settled" each year.

The settled Bedouin inhabitants now number more than 500,000. The total population of Upper Egypt is 4,058,296.

To-day from Assuân, where the Nile waters break over the shallows and rocks of the first cataract, to Alexandria and Port Saïd, the iron road has been laid, and the tireless locomotive bears its freight of men and materials. Neither the heat of the sun overhead nor the dust of the desert delays its course; nor does it pay any regard to the wonderment of the naked children of nature whose privacy it thus invades. And up and down the iron road white men have gone, taking with them their corrugated iron, their machinery, and their tinned meats, and all the other weapons with which the battle of civilization is fought. And so the traveller who visits Egypt for the first time, traversing its length from the golden shores of the Mediterranean to the borders of Nubia, is surprised to-day to find tall chimneys breaking the level of the landscape wherever he goes. In town and country alike the west jostles the east. In the midst of streets filled with a mêlée of camels, donkeys, and loosely-clad Arabs, he is startled by a section of police, marching in single file, with their sergeant at their head. The faces of these uniformed figures are dark, but their bearing unmistakably recalls the model of London. So, too, in the country, the landscape is Oriental, but the tall whitebrick shafts which rise above the line of palm-trees are unmistakably western. The countenance of the desert is scored by the parallel lines of the iron way, and Father Nile, the parent of Egypt, wears western trappings in the iron bridges, with their rigorous lines, which span his waters. Here are the outward and visible signs of that fifteen years of progress achieved in the land of the immovable pyramid, which constitutes, as it has been truthfully called, a record of development unexampled in the history of civilization. To realize this progress it is not enough. to see Egypt as it is now, we must know something of what Egypt has been in the past, and something of the character of the race which inhabit it. It is from the accidental words of persons long resident in the country that we gain the clearest idea of the

greatness of the change which the English occupation has brought. "Before the English came," said one of this class, not an Englishman, to the writer, "the pashas and the rich men paid no taxes, or very little; the poor men paid taxes on everything. Every woman in Egypt has a bit of gold, often her sole wealth. I have seen poor women made to give up their bits of gold-made by blows of the kûrbash. The English have changed all that." The English occupation, by extending the protection of the law to the peasant, has already made such gross manifestations of injustice impossible; but many years must pass before even the powerful ministers of civilization which England has introduced can create the spirit of justice in the people themselves. The great reservoir at Shellâl, with its ancillary canals, will speedily give Egypt water"; but the Egyptians must give themselves "justice."

CHAPTER II

ALEXANDRIA

First sight of Egypt-The mosquito-Literary ideas and realities-No true conception of Egypt obtained through books-First impressions disappointing -Modern aspect of the town-Ptolemaic Alexandria- Plutarch's story of its foundation-Strabo's account-Its quarters, buildings, and characteristics— Causes of its prosperity-Scenes from the life of this Alexandria-CæsarAntony and Cleopatra-Berenice-Theocritus' picture of a day in Alexandria -Dr. Botti's account of the Serapeum-The Theodosian column, miscalled "Pompey's Pillar"-Roman Alexandria-The power of the PatriarchsAthanasius-Theodosius and the origin of the Coptic Church-The Byzantine period-Cyril-Hypatia-Capture of Alexandria by the Saracens-Fate of the Library-Decay of the town.

ALEXANDRIA gives no sign to the approaching traveller. On this low coast the narrow pillar of the lighthouse-a poor substitute for the colossal Pharos-is the first object to meet the eye of the forward watch upon the steamer's bow. And then the breakwaters, docks, and houses of the town itself rise from the sea. The Alexander of the Ptolemies, the sovereign city that ruled the world, first with undisputed authority, afterwards as the rival of Imperial Rome, is dead and buried. The Alexandria of the Middle Age, that took the spices and gold of the East with one hand and passed them on to the West with the other, is also dead, but its bones have not yet been decently covered. Modern Alexandria is the creation of Mohammed Ali, whose parentage the city acknowledges by the equestrian statue in its central square. Thanks to the rioters whom Arabi's rebellion let loose, the streets and houses of this Alexandria are more regular and convenient than the date of its original foundation-some seventy or eighty years ago would warrant. Around the European town the native quarters stretch like an untidy fringe; and here, where

the Alexandria of the Middle Age survives, there is not indeed an Arab town, but a town where Arabs live. There are 270,000 of them, but they are packed away so closely in their rookeries, or lie so close to the soil in their huts, that they make far less show than the 50,000 Europeans, who spread themselves and their property ostentatiously in streets and squares, warehouses, docks, and railway stations.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of December 4, 1898, when I first saw the white line of buildings dividing the sea from the sky, which is all that tells the modern traveller that he is approaching Alexandria. At this time my knowledge of Egypt was contained in four words-Pyramids, Nile, Cairo, and Khartûm; but before this day ended I had to add a fifth-mosquito. The Thames, in which we had left Venice on the preceding Tuesday, had been delayed by head winds; and when we took on board our pilot, there was only just so much of daylight left as would serve to let him take us over the harbour bar in safety before night fell. As the custom-house officials signified their intention of only passing hand luggage after dark, we and all of our fellow-travellers, who were not compelled by urgent business to land that night, postponed our disembarkation until the morning. That was the opportunity of the Alexandrian gnat. He had the good taste-perhaps he lacked the energy-not to disturb the vision of the star-lit canopy, which overhung the dark shadows and twinkling lights of the shipping around us, and the distant gleam refracted from breakwater, wharfs, and houses that marked the circle of the harbour. But when I had retired to my cabin, he came with an abundant company through the open port, and all night long he cheered me with his music and his kisses. And so I added a fifth word to my Egyptian vocabulary.

When I say that my knowledge of Egypt was contained in these four words, and that before I had set foot on the Egyptian shore, I had to add another term of a quite different order, I fear that my remarks may be misunderstood, unless I add a word of explanation. Let me say at once, then, that I had read my guide