DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0333
AND LOWER EGYPT. 303
smartly enough to work a cure, bad he lived to
see his work *.
When a man has fallen into repeated mistakes,
it excites a suspicion that he is frequently wrong.
Buffon would not rely on the authority of Hassel-
quitz, when he says, that the Arabic name of the
mangonste, in Egypt, is nems, and has given the
preference to Dr. Shaw's testimony, who assures us
that, in Barbary, nems is the appellation given to the
weasel, and tezer-dea to the mangouste -f. Never-
theless, it is indubitably certain, that the Egyptians
of to-day, who, to mention it by the way, have no
more consideration for the mangouste than we
have for pole-cats, call it nems, and the weasel they
denominate herse. I have even had opportunity to
ascertain that the two live animals which M. de
Vergennes, ambassador of France at the Ottoman
Porte, had given orders to have sent to him from
Alexandria to Constantinople, to be forwarded to
Buffon, and which actually reached him, were
?icms, the mangouste of Egypt. But this difference
of names, in different countries, has nothing extra-
ordinary in it. Though the Arabic language be
equally diffused over Egypt and Barbary, the dia-
lects have so little resemblance, that the Barba-
resque and the Egyptian find it extremely difficult
to understand each other.
* Natural History of the Mangouste, in a note,
f Shaw's Travels, the place already quoted.
smartly enough to work a cure, bad he lived to
see his work *.
When a man has fallen into repeated mistakes,
it excites a suspicion that he is frequently wrong.
Buffon would not rely on the authority of Hassel-
quitz, when he says, that the Arabic name of the
mangonste, in Egypt, is nems, and has given the
preference to Dr. Shaw's testimony, who assures us
that, in Barbary, nems is the appellation given to the
weasel, and tezer-dea to the mangouste -f. Never-
theless, it is indubitably certain, that the Egyptians
of to-day, who, to mention it by the way, have no
more consideration for the mangouste than we
have for pole-cats, call it nems, and the weasel they
denominate herse. I have even had opportunity to
ascertain that the two live animals which M. de
Vergennes, ambassador of France at the Ottoman
Porte, had given orders to have sent to him from
Alexandria to Constantinople, to be forwarded to
Buffon, and which actually reached him, were
?icms, the mangouste of Egypt. But this difference
of names, in different countries, has nothing extra-
ordinary in it. Though the Arabic language be
equally diffused over Egypt and Barbary, the dia-
lects have so little resemblance, that the Barba-
resque and the Egyptian find it extremely difficult
to understand each other.
* Natural History of the Mangouste, in a note,
f Shaw's Travels, the place already quoted.