290 
THE AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 
rived August the 19th, he visited the slave-mar- 
kets, and conversed with the travelling merchants 
of the caravans. These sources of information, 
generally neglected by travellers, enabled him to 
obtain, at very small expence, a better idea of the 
African nations, and of their trade, of the position 
of places, of the nature of the country, the manner 
of travelling, &c. than would have been possible 
by any other method. When he had announced 
to the Association that his next dispatch would be 
dated from Sennaar, in consequence of repeated 
vexation from the caravan delaying its departure, 
he was seized with a bilious complaint, which, be- 
ing incautiously treated at first, frustrated the skill 
of the best physicians of Cairo, and the attention of 
M. Rosetti, the Venetian consul. 
Though the Lower Egypt, having been often ex- 
plored, presented no new field of observation, yet 
many of Ledyard's remarks cannot fail to impress 
us strongly with the original power of his genius. 
Of these remarks the most original and striking are 
subjoined. 
Of the Egyptians. — The villages are wretched 
assemblages of mud huts huddled together, full of 
dust, lice, fleas, bed-bugs, flies, and all the curses 
of Moses. The Copts seem the original negro- 
stock, corresponding to that race in the nose and 
lip ; their hair is curled, not close, like the negroes, 
but like the mulattos. In Egypt, the colour and 
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