TO HIS HIGHNESS THE KHEDIVE ISMAIL.

SIR,

Fully acquainted with the cordial protection and support Your Highness has always extended to Science, Literature, and Art, as well as to all else that tends to material and intellectual advancement, and being familiar with the fact that it was you, Sir, who gave the first impulse of Liberalism and Nationalism to my beloved country, I do myself the honour of dedicating to you this my earliest effort in the direction of a complete record of the literature of Egypt and of the Soudan.

From my childhood Your Highness has spared no pains to secure for me the solid and varied education afforded in the highest families of Eastern and Western countries. In the first place, you thoughtfully entrusted me to the care of preceptors, professors, and other distinguished men who almost all belonged to that noble and generous nation which has proved itself to be the True Forerunner of Civilisation and Liberty—a step which I have ever appreciated, and especially whilst pursuing my studies at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and afterwards during my long stay in England and association with the diverse phases of her everyday life.

The object I have in view in the production of this Bibliography is to facilitate the acquisition of a knowledge of the enormous mass of learning which has been exercised on the Monumental Lore, the Ancient Writing and Literature, and the Medieval and Modern History of that simple but mysterious country whose great antiquity, no less than the problem of its future well-being, is to all nations an ever-present wonderment and speculation - country, Sir, whose government was constituted on a solid basis by the undaunted courage and leading ability of your grandfather, and of my august ancestor, the immortal MEHEMET ALI. And it was by treading in his footsteps that you brought it to such a high degree of progress and civilisation: and this your bitterest enemies cannot deny.

I

very humbly hope that Your Highness will deign to accept the Dedication to you of this crude attempt to bring together records of what has been written concerning our Home and the Land of our People.

May the Almighty preserve the precious days for the good of the Country and of the various Members of the illustrious Family to which I am proud to belong.

Your Highness' most humble and devoted Son and Servant,

LA FAVORITE, RESINA, NAPLES,

7th January, 1886.

74932

IBRAHIM-HILMY.

PREFACE.

"THE tongue and the hand of the Apprentice shake in the presence of his master:" thus runs one of our best known Turkish proverbs; and I fail to find another expression better calculated to express the diffidence (or perhaps even the trepidation) with which I present these volumes to the criticism of the public.

Its compilation has been one of my chief consolations during five weary years of enforced exile,* passed chiefly on the hospitable shores of England, and tempered by the kindness of English friends. The privilege of serving my country during the hour of her dire distress, in accordance with the timehonoured traditions of my profession, was denied me;† but I declined to look on altogether with folded arms, or to pass my time in the apathy of idleness. In producing this Bibliography of the Literature of Egypt and the Soudan, and in the studies which were essential to my self-imposed task, I have sought to do such a service to my country as would be beyond the reach of political censure.

These considerations are the raison d'être of the present work, which,

* See article in The Fortnightly Review, December 1883.

† See correspondence in The Times of August 26, 1882.

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destined at first as an aid to my own studies, is now printed at the request of my friends.

The task has been no easy one, and I still hope to remedy at no distant date any shortcomings which may be brought to my notice. The vastness and the fascination of the subject must serve me as an excuse, and I trust that those who consult these pages will not hesitate to give me the benefit of their corrections or suggestions. For the moment-arraigned at the impartial bar of public opinion—I shall content myself with a plea of good intentions.

In one respect I am certainly fortunate, and that is in the manner in which the great subject I have endeavoured to treat has been worked at by the writers of all time. Egyptian lore in all its branches has always proved to be a magic attraction to the most celebrated authors of every age; and whether there be occasion to consult some occult treatise on the hieroglyphic teachings of THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, or a modern statement of a contemporary question of social economy, some fruitful fount of knowledge is sure to be at hand if the seeker only know where to find it. To such inquirers as these I humbly offer myself as a guide-sadly lacking perfection and skill, it is true, but the only one up to the present time who has been willing to undertake the task in the extended form presented in these pages.

In passing in review successive periods of the history of Egypt, my heart has been oftentimes wrung by the sad contrast which its present misfortunes offer to its past prosperity. When I think of the days of my own infancy, and of the times of my great ancestor Mehemet Ali, I should give way to something akin to despair if I did not remember his remarkable