342 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. 



make them be regarded as Mussulman converts. Formerly the men were dis- 

 tinguished by the colour of their turban, the women by that of their veil, from the 

 Mohammedan f ellahîn ; and even then the Copts would often affect the white turban 

 and general costume of their neighbours, in order to command greater personal 

 consideration. 



At present there are one hundred and twenty Coptic churches in the various 

 provinces.; but in many districts where the Copts are no longer found, the ruins of 

 religious edifices attest the survival of Christianity down to comparatively recent 

 times. The Christian communities are now once more normally increasing by the 

 natural excess of births over deaths ; for the Copts, who usually marry later than the 

 other Egyptians, pay more regard to the family ties, and bestow greater care on 

 their children. 



But if the religion of Mohammed has failed to triumph over that of the cross, 

 the language of the Arab Mussulmans now everywhere prevails in Egypt, The 

 old Coptic tongue, which has afforded the key to the interpretation of the hierogly- 

 phics, thus restoring the speech of the Pharaohs, from which it differs little, is no 

 longer anywhere current. Most of the Copts learn the ancient language only for 

 the purpose of reciting the prayers of a liturgy the sense of which they do not 

 always understand. Some of their religious books are even now written in Arabic. 

 The Coptic writing system is merely a modified form of the Grreek alphabet, to 

 which have been added a few letters borrowed from the cursive or demotic forms of 

 the national hieroglyphic writing. The oldest document in the Coptic language 

 dates from the middle of the third century of the vulgar era ; in the tenth century 

 it was still currently spoken by all Egyptians except their rulers. But since the 

 seventeenth century Arabic has become the general language throughout Egypt, 

 although a great number of old Egyptian terms still survive in the local dialects. 

 Ancient rites, undoubtedly long anterior to the introduction of the foreign religions, 

 have also been maintained among the Copts. Thus their tombs are still built in the 

 form of houses, and each family continues to assemble once a year in the mausoleum 

 for a funeral banquet. One of the names frequently given at baptism is Menas, which 

 recalls that of Mena or Menés, true or pretended founder of the first Egyptian 

 dynasty. 



Those of the Copts who have received some education usually display a remark- 

 able talent for keeping accounts and managing money matters. They are the 

 worthy descendants of those ancient Retu whose day-books, and ledgers, and 

 treatises on arithmetic, with sums in fractions, rules of partnership in business, 

 equations of the first degree, have recently been brought to light.* Under the 

 government of the Mameluks the administration of the finances was entirel}^ in the 

 hands of the Copts, who by means of a specially devised system of book-keeping had 

 rendered the public accounts so incomprehensible to all others, that they had 

 secured an absolute monopoly of this department. But the introduction of European 

 financial methods, and especially the continually increasing immigration of the 

 Syrian Catholics, no less skilful intriguers and even more instructed, with a wider 

 * The "Rhiad Papyruo" iu ths British Museum. 



