EGYPT, in the highway from Europe to the East, is ruled by the Khedive, a hereditary viceroy under the emperor of Turkey. The Egyptian dominions are equal in extent to Russia in Europe ; its population, 5i millions. But Egypt proper, the Balad-ul-Misr (the Misraim of the Bible), though 550 nines in length, is, as distinguished from the surrounding deserts, the narrowest country in the world. The area of its cultivable tract, which has remained unaltered since the remotest antiquity, is about 11,342 square miles, the Delta measuring about 6350 square miles ; and the Egyptian valley of the Nile and the Tagum, 4992 square miles. The Nubian portion of the valley of the Nile, 930 miles in length, does not exceed 1050 square miles of cultivable area. Lower and Upper Egypt are arranged into seven provinces (Mudiriyeh), the Fayum forming a division by itself. The seaports on the Red Sea are under a Governor-General. Khartum and the Soudan have sometimes had one or two separate Governors-General, and Gordon Pasha for a few years ruled in the Soudan. The total amount of land under cultivation, roughly speaking, is 5,000,000 feddans, the feddan being equal to three-quarters of an acre. Of these, 1,000,000, or one-fifth, belong to the Khedive ; one-tenth, or 500,000 feddans, are held by other large landed proprietors; while the rema,ining seven tenths are in the hands of the fellaheen,—these latter being subjected to taxation varying in amount from thirty to seventy shillings per feddan. Egypt has been much resorted to by Asiatics and Europeans from the most ancient times, but it is only since the middle of the 19th century that its more ancient history has been traced. The skulls of the mummies prove that Egypt has been peopled with a variety of tribes ; and physiologists have divided them into three classes,—:first, the Egyptian proper, whose skull is shaped like the heads of the ancient Theban statues and the modern Nubians ; second, a race of men more like the Europeans, and these mum mies become more common as we approach the Delta ; third, is an Arab race, and is like the heads of the labourers in the pictures.
Egyptian chronology now runs back to B.c. 500,1 according to Marlette, and to B.C. 3892 according to Lepsius ; and the earliest monuments whicli belong to the close of the third dynasty are there fore more than 6000 years old by one calculation, and more than 5000 by the other. The ancient
Egyptians excelled in making glass, linen and in dyeing, and they had a knowledge of inet'allurgy. In the 19th century A.D., Count de Lesseps suc cessfully completed a canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
Three times during the 19th century the British have invaded Egypt, but since Cambyses, son of Cyrus, king of the Medes, led his hordes of Persians and Phcenicians against the last of the Pharaohs, and reduced him to the position of a Persian satrap, Egypt has been subject to alien races. The first invasion of which we have exact details, and the most successful with the least materials wa.s that of Ainru, general of the Khalif Omar, 63'9 A.D., which won Egypt from the Greek empire for the Mahomedaus. Amru entered Egypt from Syria, in the month of December with 4000 men. The reduction of Pelusium fortress, close t,o the present Port Said, took him a month. He then marched straight upon 3Iernphis, but was kept for seven months before Babylon, near the modern Cairo, notwithstanding that the nation rose in his favour, detesting its Greek rulers. But when, at length, in August, partly through treachery, Babylon surrendered, the country was practically won. The Greeks, though defeated in a pitched battle after twenty days' fighting, made good their retreat to Alexandria. Alexandria held out for fourteen months, and only in December 641 the garrison finally abandoned Egypt to the Mahomedans. Many efforts for its recovery were made by Christians, the most strenuous and most disastrous being that under Louis ix. in 1250. He arrived at Damietta on 5th June with 700 knights, out of 2000 with whom he had- started from Cyprus, representing probably a force of some 7000 men. The next day he defeated the Saracens, and took possession of the town. Here he wasted his time till the 6th of December, when he advanced to Mansurah, where he stayed two months more. On the 6th of February he attacked the enemy, now strongly reinforced, was hopelessly defeated, and taken prisoner with his whole army, being only ran somed by the surrender of Alexandria, and the total evacuation of Egypt.