turned to account : the general reasoning and estimate of increase
o f people is further strengthened by the special argument of probable
resort, from the barren yet partially inhabited districts!which
encompassed it.
Horneman’s description of the territory of Siwah tallies with,
and confirms, the speculation : he represents the country as consisting
of so many gardens walled or fenced on every side, and cultivated
with so nice attention and labour, and with such care in
irrigation, that the water directed in various cuts and channels from
each spring, was in no casé suffered to. flow beyond the territory,
but was made to lose and expend itself in the cultivated grounds of
the Siwahans : and he describes the people as a swarm, and their
residence as a crowded hive.
Let us now advert to his more particular enumeration of these
Siwahans, and to the practicability of such number (as under any
computation can be supposed labourers in the field) being comper
tent to work the ground of fifty miles in circuit, with the nice agriculture
he describes.
Horneman states 1500 warriors, or men bearing arms, as the data
for estimating the population of the country: he must mean to
say, men capable of bearing arms, or there are no data, and he
means nothing. Calculate a population on the widest latitude from
such data, and apply it to a well-cultivated district of 127,360 square
acres, and there will not be more than one cultivator to at least
5o cultivated acres : for the women, our journalist has otherwise
engaged. They (as he tells us,) are employed in manufacture, and
chiefly in that of wicker-work and baskets, which they work with
great neatness and ingenuity. These statements carry self-eontradiction.
These lands cannot be so extensive, or cannot be so
cultivated.
Thus from Mr. Horneman's own account, we may infer, that
the rich spot of country termed the Oasis of Siwah, must be of much-
less extent indeed, than that which he directly states.
Observing particular expressions in the Journal relative to this
subject, the cause of error may possibly appear. The traveller says,.
“ the territory of Siwah is òf considerable extent ; its principal and
most fertile district is a well watered valley o f about fifty miles im
circuit, hemmed in by steep and barren rocks’’
Now, referring to other descriptions of the fèrtile district or Oasis
of Siwah, it is to be remarked, that such rich and productive spot o f
country is no where described, as immediately bounded and hemmed
in by steep rocks and mountains. Diodorus, lib. xvii. speaking of
the Oasis of Ammon, says, it was surrounded on all sides by barren-
and arid sands : so too, Mr. Brown mentions the fertile soil or
Oasis, of from four miles and an half in breadth, to six in length,,
as bordered and encompassed by “ desert land 0 intimating plain..
In truth, it is such desert border o f plain, which further on is;
bounded by rocky mountains. Mr. Horneman appears to have made
no excursions from the town of Siwah, further than of a mile and
a half to the ruins, and of one mile to the catacombs of El-Mota.
From all these considerations, it may be surmised, that our traveller
looking from Siwah, tor its adjacencies, to thè hills or rocks;
surrounding him at a distance, comprized in his estimate of rich
country, the whole intermediate plain, not having directed due inquiry
or consideration in the ascertaining of, to what extent within;
the area of that plain, the rich and cultivated soil, might, reach ? Or,.