72 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
fometimes thick, by no means generally fo ; and on the whole, 
a ftrong refemblance may be traced between the form of vifage 
in the modern Copts, and that prefented in the antient mum- 
mies, paintings, and ftatues. 
Their complexion, like that of the Arabs, is of a dufky 
brown ; it is reprefented of the fame colour in the paintings 
which I have feen in the tombs of Thebes. 
The Coptic language may be confidered as extindl. Nu- 
merous and minute refearches have enabled me to afcertain this 
fadt. In Upper Egypt, however, they unknowingly retain 
fome Coptic words, fuch as Boyun'i^ the name of a month. 
Neverthelefs, in the Coptic monafteries, the prayers are read 
in Arabic, and the epiftle and gofpel in Coptic j but the prieft 
is a mere parrot, repeating a dead letter. Coptic manufcripts 
are found in fome of the convents, and leave to copy them 
might be obtained from the Patriarch. 
Their creed is the Monothelite, or Eutychian herefy. The 
folely divine nature of Chrift, the proceffion of the Holy Ghoft 
from the Father alone. The Copts embrace tranfubftantiation ; in 
which, and other points, the Catholics of Kahira think they 
approach their faith nearer than the Greeks. Yet the Copis 
have adopted from the Mohammedans the cuftom of frequent 
proftrations during divine fervice, and of public individual 
prayer ; of ablution after the conjugal rites, &c. 
The 
