AND LOWER EGYPT. 1$ I 



I shall not undertake to delineate all the other 

 usages which the Egyptians have in common with 

 other Mahometans. These details belong more 

 properly to the history of Turkey, and would 

 carry me too far. I shall satisfy myself with men- 

 tioning such as I have more particularly observed. 



If the inhabitants of Rossetta are less barbarous 

 than those of the other parts of Egypt, they are 

 not for that less ignorant, less superstition-, nor 

 less intolerant. We find among them, though with 

 shades somewhat softened, the same harshness of 

 character, the same implacable aversion to the na- 

 tions of Europe, the same propensity to revenge; 

 in a word, the same perfidy; and they abandon 

 themselves to the same detestable vices. The pas- 

 sion contrary to nature which the Thracian dames 

 avenged by the massacre of Orpheus, who had ren- 

 dered himself odious by gratifying it*, the incon- 

 ceivable appetite which dishonoured the Greeks 

 and Persians of antiquity, constitute the delight, or, 

 to use a juster term, the infamy of the Egyptians. 

 It is not for the women that their amorous ditties 

 are composed : it is not on them that tender ca- 

 resses are lavished ; far different objects inflamo 

 them. Sensual pleasure with them has nothing 

 amiable, and their transports are merely paroxysms 



* lilt tt'tam Thracum populisfuit auctor, amorem 



In ttneroi tramferre mares. Ovid. 



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