Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 3) (London, 1807)

SeM Travels in* upper

Vansleb, whom Buffbn continues to quote, saySj
that the women of the villages and of the populace
of the cities of Egypt have sparkling eyes, a stature
below mediocrity, a mode of dressing by no means
agreeable, and that their conversation is very irk-
some *. That the good father should find himself
wearied in the company of Egyptian females, which
his profession as a missionary no doubt procured
him, is not at all astonishing, when it is known
how far removed these women are from our means
of knowledge and from every species of education ;
that he was not satisfied with their dress, although
light, cool, and comfortable, I only say, let every
one judge for himself; but the reverend father has
fallen into a mistake when he says that they are of
short stature, for, in fact, the Egyptian women are,
generally speaking, as tall as the French. It is
true that Vansleb was a German, and that the wo-
men in that part of Europe are for the most part
tall and slender. The Egyptian females arc neither
so tall nor so well made.

It is not usual to find jealousy without love.
The women of Upper Egypt, however, who neither
love nor are beloved, are sometimes seized with a
jealous madness, when they discover that their hus-
bands have any partiality for other women, a par-

* Buffon, Natural History of Man; and Vansleb, New Ac-
count of Egypt.

tiality