he visited
Stockholm, Helsingfors, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Constantinople to examine their Oriental collections. He has
written histories of the "Moors in Spain," "Turkey," "The
Barbary Corsairs," and "Mediaeval India," which have run to
many editions; and biographies of Saladin, Babar, Aurangzib;
of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and Sir Harry Parkes. He has
also published a miniature Koran in the "Golden Treasury"
series, and written "Studies in a Mosque," besides editing
three volumes of Lane's "Arabic Lexicon." For five years he
held the post of Professor of Arabic at Trinity College,
Dublin, of which he is Litt.D. Mohammedan Egypt, his special
subject, he has treated in several books on Cairo, the latest
being "The Story of Cairo." But his most complete work on this
subject is "The History of Egypt in the Middle Ages," here
epitomised by the author.

_I.--A Province of the Caliphate_

Ever since the Arab conquest in 641 Egypt has been ruled by Mohammedans,
and for more than half the time by men of Turkish race. Though now and
again a strong man has gathered all the reins of control into his own
hands and been for a time a personal monarch, as a rule the government
has been, till recent years, a military bureaucracy.

The people, of course, had no voice in the government. The Egyptians
have never been a self-governing race, and such a dream as
constitutional democracy was never heard of until a few years ago. By
the Arab conquest in the seventh century the people merely changed
masters. They were probably not indisposed to welcome the Moslems as
their deliverers from the tyranny of the Orthodox Church of the East
Roman or Byzantine Empire, invincibly intolerant of the native
monophysite heresy; and when the conquest was complete they found
themselves, on the whole, better off than before. They paid their taxes
to officials with Arabic instead of Greek titles, but the taxes were
lighter and the amount was strictly laid down by law.

The land-tax of about a pound per acre was not excessive on so fertile a
soil, and the poll-tax on nonconformity, of the same amount, was a
moderate price to pay for entire liberty of conscience and freedom in
public worship guaranteed by solemn treaty. The other taxes were
comparatively insignificant, and the total revenue in the eighth century
was about L7,000,000. The surplus went to the caliph, the h