a number of representative institutions, including a Legislative Council, a General Assembly, and provincial boards. The Legislative Council is a consultative body, consisting of 30 members, of whom 14 are nominated by the Government. It meets once a month and examines the budget and all proposed administrative laws, but it cannot initiate legislation and the Government is not obliged to act on its advice. Of its members, 15 residing in Cairo receive an allowance of 907. a year for carriage expenses, and 15, being delegates from the provinces and provincial towns, receive 2507. a year for residential expenses in Cairo, besides travelling expenses to and from Cairo once a month. The General Assembly, which consists of the members of the Legislative Council with the addition of the 6 ministers and 46 members popularly elected, has no legislative functions, but no new direct personal or land tax can be imposed without its consent. It has to be summoned at least

once every two years. The members, when convoked, receive an eight days' allowance at 17. a day, with railway expenses. The council of ministers with the Khedive is the ultimate legislative authority. Since 1887 an Ottoman High Commissioner has resided in Cairo.

Egypt Proper is administratively divided into 6 governorships (moafzas) of principal towns, and 14 mudiriehs, or provinces, subdivided into districts or kisms.

The total area of Egypt proper, including the Oases in the Libyan Desert, the region between the Nile and the Red Sea, and El-Arish in Syria, but excluding the Sudan, is about 400,000 square miles ; but the cultivated and settled area, that is, the Nile Valley and Delta, covers only 12,976 square miles. Canals, roads, date plantations, &c., cover 1,900 square miles; 2,850 square miles are comprised in the surface of the Nile, marshes, lakes, and desert. Egypt is divided into two great districts— 'Masr-el-Bahri,' or Lower Egypt, and El-Said,' or Upper Egypt. The following table gives the area of the settled land surface, and the results of the census of June, 1897:

6

Recent arrangements for the administration of the Egyptian Sudan involve modifications in the government of the southern provinces of Upper Egypt.

Of the total population, 4,947,850 were males and 4,786,555 females. Not included in the table are the populations of Siwa (Wahat), consisting of 5,000 sedentary Egyptians; Dongola (Governorat), 53,037 sedentary and 3,389 nomadic; total, 56,426; Souakin, 15,378 sedentary Egyptians and 335 foreigners; total, 15,713.

The foreign population, 112,526 in all, comprised 38,175 Greeks, 24,467 Italians, 19,557 British, 14,155 French, 7,117 Austro-Hungarians, 3,193 Russians, 1,277 Germans, 1,301 Persians, and 3,284 of other nationalities. The growth of the general population of the country is exhibited by the following figures :

1800 (French estimate). 2,460,000 1882 (Census) 1821 (Mehemet Aly). 2,536,400

1846 (Census).

4,476,440

1897 (Census)

6,813,919 9,734,405

The average annual increase from 1846 to 1882 was 1.25 per cent. ; from 1882 to 1897, 2.76 per cent.

The principal towns, with their populations in 1897, are:-Cairo, 570,062 Alexandria, 319,766; Tantah, 57,289; Port Said, 42,095; Assiout, 42,012 Zagazig, 35,715; Mansourah, 34,997; Damietta, 31,288; Fayoum, 31,262,

Religion and Instruction.

In 1897 the population consisted of 8,978,775 Moslems; 730,162 Chris. tians (608,446 Copts, 53,479 Orthodox, 56,343 Roman Catholics, and 11,894 Protestants); 25,200 Jews; and 268 others. Thus Moslems formed 92.23 per cent. of the population; Christians, 7.50 per cent.; Jews, 0.26 per cent.; others, 0.01 per cent. The highest religious and judicial authorities among the Moslems are the Sheikh ul Islam appointed by the Khedive and chosen from among the learned class of Oolemas, and the Grand Cadee nominated by the Sultan, and chosen from amongst the learned Oolemas of Stamboul. The principal seat of Koranic learning is the Mosque and University of El Azhar at Cairo, founded about a thousand years ago, but the sciences taught and the modes of teaching them have not changed since its foundation.

There are in Egypt large numbers of native Christians connected with the various Oriental churches; of these, the largest and most influential are the Copts, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians; their creed is Orthodox (Jacobite), and was adopted in the first century of the Christian era. Its head is the Patriarch of Alexandria as the successor of St. Mark. There are three metropolitans and twelve bishops in Egypt, one metropolitan and two bishops in Abyssinia, and one bishop for Khartoum; there are also arch-priests, priests, deacons, and monks. Priests must be married before ordination, but celibacy is imposed on monks and high dignitaries. In A.D. 328 the Copts christianised Abyssinia, and pushed Christianity almost to the Equator. The Abyssinian Church is ruled by a metropolitan and bishops chosen from amongst the Egyptian Coptic ecclesiastics, nor can the coronation of the King of Abyssinia take place until he has been anointed by the metropolitan, and this only after authorisation by the Patriarch of Alexandria. The Copts use the Diocletian (or Martyrs') calendar, which differs by 284 years from the Gregorian calendar.

In 1897, of the entire population 467,886, or 4.8 per cent., could read and write, while 9,266,519, or 95.2 per cent., were illiterate.

In 1898 there were in all about 10,000 schools with 17,000 teachers and 228,000 pupils. Seven-eighths of these schools are elementary, the education being confined to reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. The Government has, under its immediate direction, 55 primary schools of the lowest grade (‘kuttabs'), and 36 of the higher grade, 3 secondary, 2 girls' schools, and 10 schools for higher or professional education-the School of Law, School of Medicine (including the Pharmaceutical School and the training school for nurses and midwives, Polytechnic (Civil Engineering) School, 3 training colleges for schoolmasters, School of Agriculture, 2 technical schools, and the military school. In addition to the schools belonging to the Ministry of Public Instruction there are, under the inspection of that Department (1898), 11 primary schools of the higher grade, with an attendance of 1,492, and 301 primary schools of the lowest grade ('kuttabs'), with 499 teachers and an attendance of 5,734 pupils. There are 108 schools attached to various Protestant and Catholic missions, and 43 European private schools. The Mosque of El Azhar has 198 teachers and 7,676 students.

The Coptic community support 1,000 schools for elementary education, 22 primary-boys and girls, and one college. The teaching of the Coptic language in the schools is now compulsory; the subjects taught, and the methods of teaching them, are the same as those in vogue in other countries; 50 per cent. of the Coptic male community can read and write.

The following statistics of schools in Egypt have been mainly compiled from returns corrected, so far as practicable, up to December 31, 1898:

heads.

Justice and Crime.

In Egypt there are 4 judicial systems: that of the Mekhemehs or courts of the religious law, concerned mainly with questions of personal status of Mohammedans; the mixed courts, instituted in 1875, dealing with civil actions between persons of different nationalities, and to some extent with criminal offences of foreigners; the consular courts where foreigners accused of crime are tried; the native courts for civil actions between natives, or crimes by natives. The native courts, instituted 1884-89, with both foreign and native judges, now consist of 6 courts of first instance, an appeal court at Cairo, and 42 summary courts for cases of moderate importance. With special reference to these tribunals a British judicial adviser was appointed in 1891. A committee of judicial surveillance watches the working of the courts of first instance and the summary courts, and endeavours, by letters and discussion, to maintain purity and sound law.

There is an Egyptian Procureur Général, who, with other duties, is entrusted with criminal prosecutions. The police service which has been subject to frequent modification was, in 1895, put under the orders of the Ministry of the Interior to which an English adviser and English inspectors are attached. The provincial police is under the direction of the local authorities the mudirs or governors of provinces, and the omdehs or village head-men. To the latter, who are responsible for the good order of the villages, a limited criminal jurisdiction has been entrusted,

Finance.

On April 5, 1880, the Khedive issued a decree appointing an international commission of liquidation to examine the financial situation of Egypt, and to draft a law regulating the relations between Egypt and her creditors, and also between the Daira Sanieh and the Daira Khassa and their creditors. That commission, in concert with the Egyptian Government, estimated the annual income of the country as follows:

:

The commissioners assigned (1) to the service of the Privileged Debt the railway and telegraph income and the port dues of Alexandria; and (2) to the service of the Unified Stock the customs revenue and the taxes of four provinces. The charge for the Privileged Debt was a fixed annuity, providing interest at 5 per cent., and sinking fund calculated to extinguish the debt by 1941. Should the revenues assigned to the Privileged Debt prove insufficient to meet the annuity, the deficit was to become a first charge on the revenues assigned to the Unified Debt. The interest of the latter debt was fixed at 4 per cent., guaranteed by the Government in case the assigned revenues were insufficient. The surplus of the revenues assigned to the debt was to go to the redemption of the Unified by purchase of stock in the market. In September 1884 a portion of this surplus was appropriated by the Government. Their estimate of the liabilities of Egypt was :

Government :-Tribute, 681,4867.; Moukabalah annuity, 150,0007.; Interest to England on Suez Canal shares, 193,8587.; Daira Khassa, 34,000Z.; Administrative expenses, 3,641,5447.; Unforeseen expenditure, 197,0007.; total, 4,897,8887.