CHARACTERS. 
“amusement, are all their employ- 
‘ment. 
' Independence renders them 
shaughty and insolent; and their 
ddle, unsettled way of life, with the 
poverty which naturally attends if, 
probably inspire that spirit of theft 
and robbery by which they are so 
much distinguished. I have already 
had occasion to mention some in- 
stances of their propensity to infest 
the country, and insult passengers. 
Mr. Forskal and I had a new proof 
of it in an excursion which we 
made to the Pyramids. Setting out 
from Geesh, we met two Bedouins 
on horseback, whom we hired to 
guide and escort us. Just as we 
reached the foot of the Pyramids, 
we observed an Arab riding up to 
us at full gallop. He was a young 
Schiech, and behaved at first to us 
with great civility; but he soon 
changed his tone, threatened us 
with his Jance, and ordered us to 
give him money before we quit- 
ted the spot. Upon Mr. Forskal’s 
refusing to comply with so insolent 
a demand, the Schiech seized 
his turban, and held his pistol to 
my breast, when [ offered to de- 
fend my friend. The two Bedou- 
ins, our guides, made no attempt to 
interpose, either out of respect to 
the Schiech, or from natural per- 
fidy. We were at last obliged to 
gratify the robber. We returned 
another time better attended ; but 
this did not hinder the Arabs from 
gathering about us, and_ stealing 
whatever they could iay their hands 
on unobserved. r 
The Arabic language has, from 
the circumstances here enumerated, 
become the language of Egypt; but, 
in the mouths of the Egyptians and 
) vagabond Bedouins, it dis- 
ys little of its genuine purity. 
ir. Forskal made a Jong list of 
373 
words used at Cairo, which differed 
entirely from the words expres- 
sive of the same ideas in the dialect 
of Yemen:—the last, being the 
dialect of a province shut up-in a 
manner fron) strangers, and there- 
fore not liable to be debased by an 
infusion of foreign idioms, is to be 
regarded as the test of the other di- 
alects. That of Egypt is contami- 
nated with forms of expression from 
all the diversity of languages which 
the vicissitudes of its fortune and the 
diversity of its inhabitants have 
occasionally introduced into that 
country. 
Account of an ancient and extinct 
religious Sect in Spain, called 
Mozarabs. 
From Robinson's Ecclesiastical 
Researches. 
T may not be amiss in this place, 
just to glance at the class of men 
in Spain, who were called Mozarabs. 
When the Moors conquered Spain, 
many, as Lobserved before, fled to 
the mountains ; but Oppas, bishop 
of the Catholic church at Seville, 
and brother or son of King Witiza, 
made terms with the conquerors, 
and continued in bis station. He 
was suspected of having invited the 
Moors into Spain. His family and 
himself had more liberal sentiments 
than the monkish clergy, and they 
had abrogated penal laws against the 
Jews, and had encouraged them to 
settle in Spain. Oppas went into 
the mountains after bis fugitive bre- 
thren, and endeavoured to convince 
them of the folly of resisting the 
Moors, and of the prudence of 
settling quietly under their govern- 
ment. He had no success with 
them: but greater numbers of 
Catholics, influenced either by his 
Aas reasons, 
