AND LOWER EGYPT. IO5 



Complexion ; that their exterior alone was in mo- 

 tion ; that, in a word, all this vehemence was only 

 their usual mode of buying and selling. 



This custom of giving to the voice the most 

 powerful inflection of which it is capable, in speak- 

 ing, is common to almost all the eastern nations, 

 the Turks excepted, whose habits and deportment 

 are more grave and composed *. There is no per- 

 son amongst us but who must have remarked that 

 the Jews, that nation which has contrived to pre- 

 serve its own character and usages, in the midst of 

 other nations among whom they have been dis- 

 persed, likewise speak extremely loud, particularly 

 to one another. If you except a few individuals of 

 them, whose constraint, in an affected imitation of 

 our manners, sufficiently evinces that they are not 

 natural to them, you see them likewise, when they 

 march through our streets, with the body stooping 

 forward, and without bending the knee, taking 

 short but brisk and hurried steps, which come 

 nearer to running than the usual process of walk- 

 ing. They arc found again in Egypt, where they 

 live in a state of abjection still greater than else- 



* " The Hindoos speak in a very loud tone of voice, which 

 " appeared to me disagreeable, till habit, which reconciles us to 

 " every thing, rendered it familiar to me." Letter cf a gentle- 

 man who passed several years in the military service of the Eng- 

 lish East India Company at Bombay, inserted into Voyages in 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa, by Mackintosh, vol. i. 



where, 



