112 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



tions*. Those diseases of inanimate things, which 

 served only to fbrni tlie Jews to habits of cleanli- 

 ness, have disappeared from the East with the 

 dirty people for whom they were devised. 



Men with red hair and beards are as uncommon 

 in the Levant as in Egypt. But this colour is 

 not an indication of leprosy, nor a reason to excite 

 suspicion of it, as some persons have imagined "f-. 

 It is not in the Levant, nor more particularly 

 in Egypt, they observe such precautions ; since, 

 in the last of these countries, the lepers, what- 

 ever may be the nature of their malady, are 

 never sequestrated ; and that in the Levant they 

 never dream of sending them away, and of shut- 

 ting them up in enclosures without the cities, till 

 the moment when the leprosy is acknowledged, 

 and when it is evident to every beholder. On the 

 other hand, some Arabs of Egypt dye their beards 

 of a reddish colour, with the powder o^ henna, and 

 you can very well imagine that, if the idea of the 

 leprosy was inseparable from a beard of a red hue, 

 they would not wish io excite a belief that they 

 were attacked with a malady so repelling. 



They know but little of the Arabs and the Egyp- 

 tians, who imagine, like Michaelis, after the opi- 



* Lev. chap. xiii. v. 4.7, et seq. 



■f- Work already quoted, ques. xxviii. 



nion 



