Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/426

 846 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. and as hospitable as his misery will permit him. Even if he has recourse to fraud or falsehood, the usual weapons of the weak against their oppressors, he seldom succeeds. His little tricks and subterfuges are easily seen through, and frequently serve only to redouble the brutal treatment of his masters. The Copt is as a rulo more adroit in this respect than the Mussulman fellahin ; for he has not only hud to endure all kinds of hardships, like his Mohammedan neighbours, but has had over and above to cringe and play the hypocrite in order to escape from religious persecution. To avoid wholesale plunder he has had to conceal the few effects laboriously scraped together, carefully economising the fruits of a life condemned to ceaseless toil, stratagem, and beggary. The Arabs of Egypt. The Semitic element has been largely represented amongst the Egyptian popu- lations, even from times long anterior to the Arab conquest. Thus, according to ^lariette, the indigenous communities settled on the southern shore of Lake Meuzaleh are possibly the direct descendants, with but little intermixture, of the Ilyksos, those " people of low race," who overran Egypt over forty centuries ago. Their type is said exactly to resemble that of the royal statues and sphinxes* heads discovered at San, the ancient Tanis, amid the alluvia of the lake. These supposed Asiatics inhabit the townships of Menzaleh, Matarieh, Salkieh, and the neighbour- ing villages. They are described as of tall stature and strong muscular development, with very broad features in comparison with the round cranium, large nose, prominent cheek-bones, very open facial angle, high forehead, intelligent glance and smile. According to Bayard Taylor, the descendants of the Hyksos would appear to be also very numerous in the Fayum depression. But to the Arab and Syrian Mussulmans who arrived under the leadership of Amru, the population of Egypt is indebted for the largest proportion of its Semitic blood. Doubtless these Arabs have nowhere preserved themselves in a perfectly pure state amid the Egyptian communities ; but they and their successors were numerous enough profoundly to modify the aboriginal element, especially in the towns, where all the Muslims who are neither Turks nor Circassians are uniformly spoken of under tlie general appellation of Arabs. On the Red Sea coast the Abs, the Awasim, the Irenat, and other more recent immigrant tribes from Arabia, live on fishing and the coasting trade. In the rural districts on the verge of the desert, many Bedouin tribes collectively known as Ahl- el-Wabar, or " People of the Tents," have proudly preserved their lineage intact, tracing their genealogies back to the early conquerors. The Arab will no doubt at times take a wife from the family of a fellah, but will never condescend to give him a daughter in return. Leading a half-nomad life between the reclaimed lands and the wilderness, he despises the wretched peasant condemned to ceaseless labour in the furrow. Should Ne himself abandon his wandering habits, he would be at once looked upon by the nomad Bedouins as a mere fellah, like all the rest. But he usually dwells in the settl^ village communities only during a portion of the