liph Omar had an imperfect knowledge from
the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested that his
lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of Pharaoh and the
Amalekites; and the answer of Amrou exhibits a lively and not unfaithful
picture of that singular country. [128] "O commander of the faithful,
Egypt is a compound of black earth and green plants, between a
pulverized mountain and a red sand. The distance from Syene to the sea
is a month's journey for a horseman. Along the valley descends a river,
on which the blessing of the Most High reposes both in the evening and
morning, and which rises and falls with the revolutions of the sun and
moon. When the annual dispensation of Providence unlocks the springs
and fountains that nourish the earth, the Nile rolls his swelling and
sounding waters through the realm of Egypt: the fields are overspread
by the salutary flood; and the villages communicate with each other
in their painted barks. The retreat of the inundation deposits a
fertilizing mud for the reception of the various seeds: the crowds
of husbandmen who blacken the land may be compared to a swarm of
industrious ants; and their native indolence is quickened by the lash
of the task-master, and the promise of the flowers and fruits of a
plentiful increase. Their hope is seldom deceived; but the riches which
they extract from the wheat, the barley, and the rice, the legumes,
the fruit-trees, and the cattle, are unequally shared between those
who labor and those who possess. According to the vicissitudes of
the seasons, the face of the country is adorned with a silver wave, a
verdant emerald, and the deep yellow of a golden harvest." [129] Yet
this beneficial order is sometimes interrupted; and the long delay and
sudden swell of the river in the first year of the conquest might afford
some color to an edifying fable. It is said, that the annual sacrifice
of a virgin [130] had been interdicted by the piety of Omar; and that
the Nile lay sullen and inactive in his shallow bed, till the mandate
of the caliph was cast into the obedient stream, which rose in a single
night to the height of sixteen cubits. The admiration of the Arabs for
their new conquest encouraged the license of their romantic spirit. We
may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt was crowded with twenty
thousand cities or villages: [131] that, exclusive of the Greeks and
Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on the assessment, six milli