328 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
Europe, are almoft unknown; and much of the diet of the 
people confifts of vegetables. All thefe circumftances have their 
influence, but none of them perhaps fo much as the Nile-water, 
which is a perfect folvent ; and by the change of its component 
parts during the increafe, has a particular tendency to throw off 
impurities from the blood. 
Syphilis, 
The difeafe which attacks the principle of generation, and 
deftroys, in its fource, one among the few folaces with which 
human life is fparingly diverfified, which the heroifm and the 
philanthropy, or the ambition and the avarice, of Europeans 
have propagated wherever the malign defliny of other nations 
has ordained that their dominion fhould be eftablifhed, does not 
appear in Egypt with all the terrors that mark its courfe in 
other countries. 
The temperature, the air, the mode of living, perhaps 
fimply the firfl:, which maintains continued tranfpiration, ren- 
der it much milder in its effeds than with us, or even in the 
iflands of the Archipelago. 
The inftitutes of the Prophet, indeed, have tended to dimi- 
nifti promifcuous concubinage, yet there is no fuch deficiency 
as to impede the propagation of the difeafe, if it were as viru- 
lent a« in other places. 
Ulcers 
