Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 184
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[Page 184]
As your experience expands and you keep on studying you will find this to be the case.
From a paragraph in this mornings paper I cull the following information:
"The arabs established their rule in Egypt A.D. 640. When Amru Ibn el Aass [Amr ibn al-As] took the country from the Copts the population was 35,000 000." Just think of it? There could hardly then, or at any other time, have been a larger cultivable area than at the present moment, 12000 square miles. Each mile now carries close upon 1000 people, besides food has to be produced from it for the flocks & herds. With the 35000000 nearly 3000 men women [and] children, accompanied by their flocks and herds had to produce all that was required for food and raiment. One might reasonably be excused for remarking impossible.
"The reign of the Arab Caliphs and the Mamelouks ended in 1517, when the Turks occupied Cairo under Sultan Selim, and hanged Doman Bey. After this Egypt became a Turkish vilayet [province], and the population diminished so much that when Mohamed Aly came to power there were no more than 2,500,000 inhabitants. When the British occupation came as a consequence of the Arabi revolution the population was about 6.000.000. It is now in the reign of Sultan Hussein" – A really British nominee – "with a population of 12000000. Will the Egyptians multiply in this new era and become as numerous as before the Islamic conquest."
To look upon in the neighbourhood of Cairo, the mud of Egypt is capable of producing food – milk and honey – in abundance. Would its capacity be equal to carrying 30000 [30,000,000?] people with their flocks and herds again? In the times when the fellah (farmer) depended upon the flood for mud and water there were four months in