DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0131
AND tOWER EGYPT. 105
complexion ; that (heir exterior alone was in mo-
tion ; that, in a word, all this vehemence was only
their usual mode of buying and selling.
This custom of giving to the voice the most
powerful inflection of which it is capable, in speak-
ing, is common to almost all the eastern nations,
the Turks excepted, whose habits and deportment
are more grave and composed *. There is no per-
son amongst us but who must have remarked that
the Jews, that nation which has contrived to pre-
serve its own character and usages, in the midst of
other nations among whom they have been dis-
persed, likewise speak extremely loud, particularly
to one another. If you except a few individuals of
them, whose constraint, in an affected imitation of
our manners, sufficiently evinces that they are not
natural to them, you see them likewise, when they
march through our streets, with the body stooping
forward, and without bending the knee, taking
short but brisk and hurried steps, which come
nearer to running than the usual process of walk-
ing. They are found again in Egypt, where they
live in a state of abjection still greater than else-
* " The Hindoos speak in a very loud tone of voice, which
" appeared to me disagreeable, till habit, which reconciles us to
" every thing, rendered it familiar to me." Letter cf a gentle-
man who passed several years in the military service of the Eng-
lish East India Company at Bombay, inserted into Voyages in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, by Mackintosh, vol. i.
where,
complexion ; that (heir exterior alone was in mo-
tion ; that, in a word, all this vehemence was only
their usual mode of buying and selling.
This custom of giving to the voice the most
powerful inflection of which it is capable, in speak-
ing, is common to almost all the eastern nations,
the Turks excepted, whose habits and deportment
are more grave and composed *. There is no per-
son amongst us but who must have remarked that
the Jews, that nation which has contrived to pre-
serve its own character and usages, in the midst of
other nations among whom they have been dis-
persed, likewise speak extremely loud, particularly
to one another. If you except a few individuals of
them, whose constraint, in an affected imitation of
our manners, sufficiently evinces that they are not
natural to them, you see them likewise, when they
march through our streets, with the body stooping
forward, and without bending the knee, taking
short but brisk and hurried steps, which come
nearer to running than the usual process of walk-
ing. They are found again in Egypt, where they
live in a state of abjection still greater than else-
* " The Hindoos speak in a very loud tone of voice, which
" appeared to me disagreeable, till habit, which reconciles us to
" every thing, rendered it familiar to me." Letter cf a gentle-
man who passed several years in the military service of the Eng-
lish East India Company at Bombay, inserted into Voyages in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, by Mackintosh, vol. i.
where,