EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 163 
ftatues at Thebes, the features are too much damaged to be 
adduced in proof. 
The two harpers, and feveral other human figures in the ca- 
verns of Thebes, called B'lban-el-moluk^ (tombs of the kings,) 
and in which the colours are perfedlly well preferved, have the 
features and complexion cxadly refembling the Egyptians of 
the prefent day. 
The apparent teftimony of Herodotus, the earlieft hiftorian 
whofe works have reached our days, is not fo ftrong as might 
at firft appear. The terms iizXa.yx'^°^<i ovXoTpix,^? are merely 
relative, and apply to the greater or lefs degree of blacknefs and 
crifpature of the Egyptians, as compared with the Greeks, to 
whom the writer was addreffing hirafelf ; and certainly cannot 
be confined to pofitive blacknefs or woolly hair. To corrobo- 
rate this interpretation of the paflage from Herodotus, may be 
adduced a fimilar one from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxii. 
That author fays, that the Egyptians are Atrad^ a term of 
equally ftrong import with the fjisXclyx^oig of Herodotus, but, 
like it, evidently applied in a comparative fenfe ; for, in the 
very next fentence, he fays, eruhefcmit^ they blufh, or grow red. 
It is true, indeed, negroes fuffer a certain change of countenance 
when affeded with the fentiment of fhame, but it would be 
rather a bold alTertion that the word erubefcere can ever be ap- 
plied to charaderife the efFedl of that feeling on a negro. Even 
in the vernacular idioms of modern Europe, by the term a black 
many is daily defignated one of vifibly a darker complexion than 
Y 2 ourfelves. 
