the other a murderer, who after being sent to school became a lawyer and a doctor; it might have been invented in Paris or even London. So, again, with the story of the unhappy husband whose ghost came to complain to his sons when they buried his wife in the same tomb as himself. It is not the kind of story we should expect to find in an orthodox Mohammedan country; still less is it genuinely Egyptian in character.
On the other hand, many of the beliefs and superstitions and popular customs or practices which I have recorded must be regarded as of purely Egyptian origin; indeed, this can be proved in certain cases, as, for example, that of the ’arûsa or "bride," the sheaf of corn which embodies the spirit of the harvest. The Arab settlers in Egypt were nomadic; it was not until after they had mixed with the native agricultural population that they themselves became agriculturists, and when they did so they naturally adopted the customs and superstitions of the fellaḥîn. Wherever a custom or belief is attached to the country instead of the city we may consider it to be native Egyptian.
It took many years, in fact, for the Arab intruders to fuse with the native population, and to this day the fusion even in country districts is far from complete. Thus in Helwân the population is still Beduin in type, and it is not long since it was considered a disgrace for a native of the village to marry a "fellaḥ" rather than another villager. It was some centuries before the fellaḥin in the neighbourhood of Cairo ceased to be Christian; indeed the "Coptic" population of Old Cairo is still considerable; it was several centuries more before the Coptic language became extinct. Dr. Lansing, the American missionary, who came to Cairo from Damascus about 1850, once told me that shortly after his arrival he paid a visit to the ruins of Memphis and at Bedreshên heard some peasants who were working in the fields sing a song the words of which were not Arabic. Unfortunately he did not write
