Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/628 page 37
    vince of Babr el-Abyad, where in the case of the Shilluk tribe, numbering about one million souls, the proportion of inhabitants to the square mile is the same as in Egypt proper. The total po- pulation of the empire, including Dar-Eur and Harar, is now esti- mated at between 16 and 17 millions. Origin and Descent of the Egyptians. For thousands of years the banks of the Nile have been occupied by the Egyptians, the oldest nation known to history, and still exhibiting many of their ancient personal characteristics unaltered. Notwithstanding the in- terminable series of immigrations and other changes affecting the character of the inhabitants, the Egyptian type has always predom- inated with marvellous uniformity. As Egypt is said to be the ‘gift of the Nile’, so has the character of its inhabitants been ap- parently moulded by the influences of that river. No country in the world is so dependent on a river which traverses it as Egypt, and no river presents physical characteristics so exceptional as the Nile; so, too, there exists no race of people which possesses so marked and unchanging an individuality as the Egyptians. It is therefore most probable that this unvarying type is the product of the soil itself, and that the character of the peoples who settled at different periods on the bank of the Nile, whatever it may origin- ally have been, has in due course of time been moulded to the same constant form by the mysterious influences of the river. In all countries, indeed, national characteristics are justly regarded as the natural outcome of soil and climate, and of this connection no country affords so strong an illustration as Egypt, with its sharply defined boundaries of sea and desert, and in its complete isolation from the rest of the world. These considerations tend to throw serious doubts on all the current theories as to the origin of the Egyptians. According to the Bible, Mizraim (MisraimJ was the son of Ham and brother of Canaan and the Ethiopian Cush ; and, as his name was applied by the Hebrews to Egypt, it is probable that he migrated with his sons from Asia to the banks of the Nile. The name, moreover, of Ludim, his eldest son, corresponds to the word Rotu, or Lotu, the hieroglyphic name for the Egyptians. Philologists, who have discovered points of resemblance in the roots and inflec- tions of the ancient Egyptian and the Semitic languages, likewise come to the conclusion that the Egyptians originally came from Asia, either by way of Suez, or across the Red Sea from Arabia. The ethnographer +, on the other hand, who observes that many of the t No inference can legitimately be drawn from the fact that the skulls of the ancient and modern Egyptians, which are very similar in form, have no affinity with those which are usually described as of the negro type, as our craniological collections are very incomplete, and our knowledge of the negro races imperfect. The fact is, that several negro races, such as the Nubians and the Shilluk, might be named, whose characteristics undoubtedly belong to the negro type, while their skulls are just as little prognathous as those of the Egyptians.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image