DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0280
AND LOWER EGYPT. 25 I
I shall not undertake to delineate all the other
usages which the Egyptians have in common with
other Mahometans. These details belong more
properly to the history of Turkey, and would
carry me too far. I shall satisfy myself with men-
tioning such as I have more particularly observed.
If the inhabitants of Rossetta are less barbarous
than those of the other paits of Egypt, they are
not for that less ignorant, less superstitious, nor
less intolerant. We find among them, though with
shades somewhat softened, the same harshness of
character, the same implacable aversion to the na-
tions of Europe, the same propensity to re%7enge;
in a word, the same perfidy; and they abandon
themselves to the same detestable vices. The pas-
sion contrary7 to nature which theThracian dames
avenged by the massacre of Orpheus, who had ren-
dered himself odious by gratifying it*, the incon-
ceivable appetite which dishonoured the Greeks
and Persians of antiquity, constitute the delight, or,
to use a juster term, the infamy of the Egyptians.
It is not for the women that their amorous ditties
are composed: it is not on them that tender ca-
resses are lavished; far different objects inflame
them. Sensual pleasure with them has nothing
amiable, and their transports are merely paroxysms
* Ilk etiam Thracum papulis fuit auctory amor em
In tcneros transferre mares. Ovid.
Of
I shall not undertake to delineate all the other
usages which the Egyptians have in common with
other Mahometans. These details belong more
properly to the history of Turkey, and would
carry me too far. I shall satisfy myself with men-
tioning such as I have more particularly observed.
If the inhabitants of Rossetta are less barbarous
than those of the other paits of Egypt, they are
not for that less ignorant, less superstitious, nor
less intolerant. We find among them, though with
shades somewhat softened, the same harshness of
character, the same implacable aversion to the na-
tions of Europe, the same propensity to re%7enge;
in a word, the same perfidy; and they abandon
themselves to the same detestable vices. The pas-
sion contrary7 to nature which theThracian dames
avenged by the massacre of Orpheus, who had ren-
dered himself odious by gratifying it*, the incon-
ceivable appetite which dishonoured the Greeks
and Persians of antiquity, constitute the delight, or,
to use a juster term, the infamy of the Egyptians.
It is not for the women that their amorous ditties
are composed: it is not on them that tender ca-
resses are lavished; far different objects inflame
them. Sensual pleasure with them has nothing
amiable, and their transports are merely paroxysms
* Ilk etiam Thracum papulis fuit auctory amor em
In tcneros transferre mares. Ovid.
Of