The number of towns and villages reported to have stood on this tract, and in the upper parts of the valley of the Nile, appears almost incredible; and Herodotus affirms that 20,000 populous cities existed in Egypt during the reign of Amasis. * Diodorus, with more caution and judgment, calculates 18,000 large villages and towns; and states that, under Ptolemy Lagus, they amounted to upwards of 30,000, a number which remained even at the period when he wrote, or about forty-four years before our era. But the population was already greatly reduced, and of the seven millions who once inhabited Egypt, about three † only remained in the time of the historian.

Josephus, in the reign of Vespasian §, still reckons seven millions and a half in the valley of the Nile, besides the population of Alexandria, which amounted to more than 300,000 souls; and, according to Theocritus il, the number of towns at an earlier period was 33,339: we may here however include some of the neighbouring provinces belonging to Egypt, as he comprehends Ethiopia, Libya, Syria, Arabia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Caria,

* Herodot. ii. 177.

+ Diod. i. 31. There are two readings of this passage: according to the other, Diodorus reckons 7,000,000, and in his own time a no less number.

cr

Josephus makes Agrippa say, Αιγύπτου .... ητις εκτεινόμενη μέχρις Αίθιοπων και της ευδαίμονος Αραβίας, ομορος τε ουσα της Ινδικής, πεντεκοντα προς ταις επτακοσίαις εχουσα μυριάδας ανθρώπων.” Alexandria, he adds, is thirty stadia in length, and ten in breadth. De Bello Jud. ii. 16. 4.

§ Or he may allude to the period when Egypt was conquered by the Romans.

Theocr. Id. xvii. 82.

and Lycia within the dominions of Ptolemy Philadelphus: and other authors may occasionally have extended the name of Egypt to its possessions in Libya, Ethiopia, and Syria; since, making every allowance for the flourishing condition of this highly fertile country, the number of towns they mention is too disproportionate for the sole valley of Egypt lying between the cataracts and the sea.

The produce of the land was doubtless much greater in the earlier periods of its history than at the present day, owing as well to the superior industry of the people as to a better system of government, and sufficed for the support of a very dense population; yet Egypt, if well cultivated, could now maintain many more inhabitants than at any former period, owing to the increased extent of the irrigated land: and if the ancient Egyptians enclosed those portions of the uninundated edge of the desert which were capable of cultivation, the same expedient might still be resorted to; and a larger proportion of soil now overflowed by the rising Nile offers additional advantages. That the irrigated part of the valley was much less extensive than at present, at least wherever the plain stretches to any distance E. and W., or to the right and left of the river, is evident from the fact of the alluvial deposit constantly encroaching in a horizontal direction upon the gradual slope of the desert; and, as a very perceptible elevation of the river's bed, as well as of the land of Egypt, has always been going on, it requires no argument to prove that a perpendicular rise of the water must

cause it to flow to a considerable distance over an open space to the E. and W.

Thus the plain of Thebes, in the time of Amunoph III., or about 1480 before our era, was not more than two thirds of its present breadth; and the statues of that monarch, around which the alluvial mud has accumulated to the height of nearly seven feet, are based on the sand that once extended some distance before them.* How erroneous, then, is it to suppose the drifting sands of the encroaching desert threaten the welfare of this country, or have in any way tended to its downfall; and how much more reasonable is it to ascribe the degraded condition, to which Egypt is reduced, to causes of a far more baneful nature, foreign despotism, the insecurity of property, and the effects of that old age which it is the fate of every country, as well as every individual, to undergo.

Besides the numerous towns and villages in the plain, many were prudently placed by the ancient Egyptians on the slope of the desert, at a short distance from the irrigated land, in order not to occupy more than was necessary of soil so valuable

*The ancient Egyptians were constantly obliged to raise mounds round the old towns to prevent their being overwhelmed by the inundation of the Nile, from the increased height of its rise after the lapse of a certain number of years. Herodot. ii. 137. Vide suprà, p. 9.

+ It is true that the sand has accumulated about Bahnasa, and the edge of the irrigated land in its vicinity, as well as about Kerdasseh and a few other places, owing to the form of the valleys which open on those spots from the Libyan desert, but it is not general throughout the valley of the Nile, even on this side of the river; and the progress of the sand can never be very great in any part of Egypt, however it may extend itself in Nubia over the exposed and narrow strip of land, which the west bank presents above the cataracts of E'Sooan.

for its productions; and frequently with a view of encouraging some degree of cultivation in the desert plain, which, though above the reach of the inundation, might be irrigated by artificial ducts, or by water raised from inland wells. Mounds and ruined walls still mark the sites of these villages in different parts of Egypt; and in a few instances the remains of magnificent temples, or the authority of ancient authors, attest the existence of large cities in similar situations. Thus Abydus, Athribis, Tentyris, parts of Memphis* and Oxyrinchus, stood on the edge of the desert; and the town that once occupied the vicinity of Qasr Kharóon, at the western extremity of the Fyoom, was far removed from the fertilising influence of the inundation.

When towns or villages were surrounded with sand, the constant attention of the inhabitants prevented their being encumbered by it ; but, so soon as they were deserted, it began to accumulate around them, and we sometimes find their monuments half buried in large drifts collected by the wind. As population and industry decreased, the once cultivated spots of land on the desert plain were gradually abandoned, and the vestiges of canals or artificial water-courses, the indication of fields once portioned into squares, or the roots of fruit trees, only now serve to attest the unremitting exertions of a civilised people. It is not, however, to

* Strabo says the Serapeum was "in a very sandy spot.”

As at Abydus; but considering the length of time this city has been deserted, and its position, the state of the ruins there is not surprising.

be inferred that the irresistible encroachments of moving downs have curtailed the limits, or threatened the existence, of this fertile country; and the fearful picture drawn by M. De Luc* must rather be looked upon as a composition than a study from nature. "The sands of Egypt," he observes, "were formerly remote from that country: and the Oases, or habitable spots, still appearing in the midst of them, are the remains of soil which formerly extended the whole way to the Nile; the sand, transported thither by the western winds, having overwhelmed and buried this extensive tract, and doomed to sterility a land once remarkable for its fruitfulness." This singular statement is partly founded on the report of Denon, who, in his visit to Bahnasat (Oxyrinchus), observed some buildings near the town so much encumbered with sand that their summits were scarcely visible above it, and who consequently concluded the Libyan desert had made proportionate encroachments along the whole of the western side of the valley. The opening here formed by the accidental position of the hills and neighbouring ravines, and the quantity of drifted sand in the interior of the desert to the westward, have been the cause of its accumulation, and of the partial formation of downs in

* In the Mercure de France, September, 1809, on the Moving Sands of Africa.

The proper orthography of this name is Bahnasa, Behnasa, or Behneseh, and is said to have been given it from one of its queens (or the wife of the governor of the place), signifying Bahanissa, “the beauty of woman," or the most beautiful of women. Such is the account given in an Arabic MS. history of that city, written by Aboo Abdillah, Mohammed, Ebn Mohammed el Mukkari.