DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0266
AXD LOWER EGYPT. 237
food; and the Cophts, who have adopted almost
all the customs of their tyrants, likewise abstain
from it.
It has been affirmed that the cows of Egypt
produce twins at a birth*. This happens some-
times, no doubt; but though less rare perhaps
than in Europe, this degree of fecundity by no
means passes for an ordinary thing. It was natural
that, after having endeavoured to establish the
superiority of the Egyptian bull, Maillet should
talk in the same tone of exaggeration of the cow;
accordingly, he was not satisfied with allowing
her two calves at a birth, and boldly asserts that
cows have been known to produce four at once-|-.
Such hasty observations, which disgrace a narra-
tive of facts, would undoubtedly have had no place
in that of Maillet, if death had allowed him time
to digest, himself, the memoirs which he had
collected, and of which the greatest part belonged
to him only because he had been furnished with
them. I have read a very long one, deposited in
the chancery of France, at Rossetta, composed for
M. Maillet, by a French merchant residing there,
and I have found it again, printed at full length,
in the work of the consul. It is very difficult,
* Cornelius Le Bruyn's Voyage, vol. ii. p. tor, note .
Paul Lucas's Voyage, &c. &c. &c.
\ Description of Egypt, part ii. p. 5.
when
food; and the Cophts, who have adopted almost
all the customs of their tyrants, likewise abstain
from it.
It has been affirmed that the cows of Egypt
produce twins at a birth*. This happens some-
times, no doubt; but though less rare perhaps
than in Europe, this degree of fecundity by no
means passes for an ordinary thing. It was natural
that, after having endeavoured to establish the
superiority of the Egyptian bull, Maillet should
talk in the same tone of exaggeration of the cow;
accordingly, he was not satisfied with allowing
her two calves at a birth, and boldly asserts that
cows have been known to produce four at once-|-.
Such hasty observations, which disgrace a narra-
tive of facts, would undoubtedly have had no place
in that of Maillet, if death had allowed him time
to digest, himself, the memoirs which he had
collected, and of which the greatest part belonged
to him only because he had been furnished with
them. I have read a very long one, deposited in
the chancery of France, at Rossetta, composed for
M. Maillet, by a French merchant residing there,
and I have found it again, printed at full length,
in the work of the consul. It is very difficult,
* Cornelius Le Bruyn's Voyage, vol. ii. p. tor, note .
Paul Lucas's Voyage, &c. &c. &c.
\ Description of Egypt, part ii. p. 5.
when