We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: _that_, exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, or twenty millions of either sex, and of every age: _that_ three hundred millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of the caliphs.

Our reason must be startled by these extravagant assertions; and they will become more palpable, if we assume the compass and measure the extent of habitable ground: a valley from the tropic to Memphis seldom broader than twelve miles, and the triangle of the Delta, a flat surface of two thousand one hundred square leagues, compose a twelfth part of the magnitude of France.

A more accurate research will justify a more reasonable estimate.

The three hundred millions, created by the error of a scribe, are reduced to the decent revenue of four millions three hundred thousand pieces of gold, of which nine hundred thousand were consumed by the pay of the soldiers.

Two authentic lists, of the present and of the twelfth century, are circumscribed within the respectable number of two thousand seven hundred villages and towns.