The population of Cairo has increased to this amount, from about 200,000, within the last three or four years. Since the computation here stated was made, the plague of this year [1835] has destroyed not fewer than one-third of its inhabitants, as before mentioned; but this deficiency will be rapidly supplied from the villages. Footnote 35: About one-third of the population of the metropolis consists of adult males. Of this number (or 80,000) about 30,000 are merchants, petty shopkeepers, and artisans; 20,000, domestic servants; 15,000, common labourers, porters, etc.: the remainder chiefly consists of military and civil servants of the government. Footnote 36: I place but little reliance on the accounts of ancient authors on this subject. Footnote 37: It has been suggested to me that, if corn was exported, something of equal value was imported; and that the exportation of corn, or anything else, would give a stimulus to industry and to population: but I do not know what could be imported that would fill up the measure of the food necessary to sustain a population much greater than that which would consume the corn retained. Footnote 38: During the present year [1835] more than 100,000 bales of cotton (each bale weighing a hundred-weight and three-quarters) have been shipped at Alexandria. The price paid for this quantity by the merchants exceeded £700,000. The quantity exported last year was 34,000 bales, which is considerably less than usual.—The policy above recommended is strongly advocated by Ibráheem Básha. CHAPTER I. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND DRESS OF THE MUSLIM EGYPTIANS. Muslims of Arabian origin have for many centuries mainly composed the population of Egypt: they have changed its language, laws, and general manners; and its metropolis they have made the principal seat of Arabian learning and arts. To the description of this people, and especially of the middle and higher classes in the Egyptian capital, will be devoted the chief portion of the present work. In every point of view, Masr (or Cairo) must be regarded as the first Arab city of our age; and the manners and customs of its inhabitants are particularly interesting, as they are a combination of those which prevail most generally in the towns of Arabia, Syria, and the whole of Northern Africa, and in a great degree in Turkey. There is no other place in which we can obtain so complete a knowledge of the most civilized classes of the Arabs. From statements made in the introduction to this work, it appears that Muslim Egyptians (or Arab-Egyptians) compose nearly four-fifths of the population of the metropolis (which is computed to amount to about 240,000), and just seven-eighths of that of all Egypt.