Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/432

 850 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. i been profound "peace and absolute security in these inhospitable tracts. Before this time, these and all other Bedouins were much dreaded marauders. They made inroads from time to time into the cultivated territories, and the merchants and pilgrims, as late even as the time of Burckhardt's visit, never ventured to cross the wilderness except when armed and banded together in large caravans. All this has now been so much changed for the better that articles even lost on the road may now be recovered by giving due notice to the Ababdeh sheikhs. " * In the Libyan desert west of the Nile delta, the dominating tribe is that of the Aulad-Ali. The Ilawarahs of Upper Egypt, who furnish to the Egyptian army nearly all its irregular cavalry, are of Tuareg (Berber) origin. According to the census of 1882, the number of all the nomad and serai-nomad Bedouins, hitherto estimated at f rom70,000 to 100,000 at the utmost, was found to be about 246,000, with a considerable preponderance of the male sex. The men were said to outnimaber the women by 11 per cent., a proportion nowhere else presented by any country where regular returns have been made, except in certain districts of the Japanese Archi- pelago.f But it may be presumed that in several instances inaccurate statements were made by the Arabs to the Government officials. The Turks, although the official masters of the country since its conquest by Sultan Selim in 1517, are still looked upon as strangers. They have always held aloof from the mass of the people either in their military or bureaucratic capacity. They are far from numerous, numbering according to the various estimates from about 12,000 to 20,000. But the statement currently made that the offspring of these strangers are condemned by the climate to a premature end appears to be groimdless. No doubt infantile mortality is excessive in families imperfectly acclimatised; but the issue of mixed marriages almost invariably follows the nationality of the mothers. It becomes Egyptian in the physical type as well as in speech, and the name of the foreigner merges in the local element. Accurate statistics have shown that the former Mameluks had very small families. But that all the Mameluks, whether Georgians, Circassians, or Albanians, did not become extinct is evident from the case of Mohammed Ali, the very man who pitilessly massacred these mercenaries. Although himself an Albanian from a Macedonian island he left a numerous progeny, founding in his own family the dynasty which is still supposed to rule in Egypt. The Levantines, Europeans, and Nubians. Even the Levantines, that is to say, the Syrian, Greek, Italian, or Spanish Christians long settled in the country, have certainly established themselves for several generations on the banks of the Nile, as have also their rivals in trade, the Yahud, or Jews. Although for many centuries marrying only within their own circles, they have in no respect lost their vital energies. The Europeans also settled • Klunziffor, " Upper Egypt," p. 2o6. t Proportion of the sexis amongst the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt in 1882 : men, 3,216,247; women, 3,262,869.