land, one robber preying upon another, till the lethargy of turkish
despotism overspread the whole.
I t is worthy of remark, that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt,
by whom such works were performed, and from whom Greece
received instruction, bore the same, crisped and curled hair, which
now distinguishes the negro, whom they likewise resembled in
feature and complexion. These were the men, whose learning,
laws, and government, had so much to excite our admiration, before
any records that have reached us existed, or at least any intelligible
to us; for their writings have long ago perished, their
hieroglyphics we do not understand, and the oldest historians of
Greece were then unborn. How is it then, that the present race
of negroes) dwelling on the same continent, are deemed by too
many europeans as little superiour to the brutes, when we have
such proofs of the ability and cultivation of their elder brethren?
Unfortunately the present inhabitants, a mixed breed descended
from the various ravagers of the country,. in whom little or none
of the original blood remains, have been vulgarly considered as
the legitimate descendants of the egyptians of old; and thus, from
a want of proper discrimination, the negro has been robbed of the
fame so justly his due.
I t is to moral causes, no doubt, we are to ascribe the difference
perceived in the state both of the inhabitants and of the country.
There is no adequate reason to presume a physical defect of capacity
even in the present mixed people of Egypt, and the natural
circumstances of the country itself have undergone no alteration,
that can tend to diminish it’s ancient advantages. The soil, annually
renovated by the same Nile, has evidently lost nothing of
i ts former richness; as the crops it now produces with little care
sufficiently prove; and the same means of fertility remain in full
vigour, for enterprising Genius to employ, whenever it may be
roused to exertion.
The climate, too, is still the same, is still as favourable to man,
as when the land swarmed with inhabitants. During the greater
part of the year it is extremely hot, for thè soil, heated by a fervid
sun, is not refreshed by the alternation of grateful showers, and
cooling dews: though after the rains in Ethiopia have begun to
swell the Nile, more aqueous vapour arises from it during the day,
than the air can hold in solution during the- absence of the sun,
and this falls in dew by night. As natural causes act with more
uniformity here, than in our variable climates, the first appearance
of this dew is commonly observed on the night of the festival of
St. Michael, which in the Coptic calendar is the 17th of june, and
at the same period the plague ceases to extend it’s ravages; so that
these two circumstances have been associated together in the minds
of the people, and ascribed to the miraculous interposition of the
archangel.
I t was formerly imagined, that the terrible scourge of the
east, to which so many fall annually a sacrifice, arose spontaneously
in Egypt: but many modern writers are of opinion, that this
is by no means the case; and Sonnini asserts, that the country had
been completely free from the plague for twelve years, when he
was there, though a free communication had been kept up with
other places where it prevailed. This circumstance, indeed, may
C