COMMUNICATIONS. 
29 
me how I could travel without the language of the people where 
I fliould pafs ? I told him, with vocabularies : — I might as well 
have read to him a page of Newton's Principia. He returned to 
his fables again. Is it not curious, that the Egyptians (for I fpeak 
of the natives of the country as well as of him, when I make the 
obfervation) are ftill fuch dupes to the arts of forcery ? Was it 
the fame people who built the Pyramids ? 
" I can't underftand that the Turks have a better opinion of 
our mental powers than we have of theirs ; but they fay of us, 
that we are " a people who carry our minds on our fingers ends 
meaning, that we put them in exercife conftantly, and render 
them fubfervient to all manner of purpofes, and with celerity, 
difpatch, and eafe, do what we do. 
" I fufpe£l the Copts to have been the origin of the Negro 
race : the nofe and lips correfpond with thofe of the Negro. 
The hair, whenever I can fee it among the people here, (the 
Copts) is curled ; — not clofe like the Negros, but like the Mu- 
lattoes. I obferv^e a greater variety of colour among the hu- 
man fpecies here than in any other country ; and a greater variety 
of feature than in any other country not poffelling a greater de- 
gree of civilization, 
I have 
