As in Marocco so the Vice prevails throughout the old regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli and all the cities of the South Mediterranean seaboard, whilst it is unknown to the Nubians, the Berbers and the wilder tribes dwelling inland.  Proceeding Eastward we reach Egypt, that classical region of all abominations which, marvellous to relate, flourished in closest contact with men leading the purest of lives, models of moderation and morality, of religion and virtue.  Amongst the ancient Copts Le Vice was part and portion of the Ritual and was represented by two male partridges alternately copulating (Interp. in Priapi Carm. xvii).  The evil would have gained strength by the invasion of Cambyses (B.C. 524), whose armies, after the victory over Psammenitus. settled in the Nile-Valley and held it, despite sundry revolts, for some hundred and ninety years.  During these six generations the Iranians left their mark upon Lower Egypt and especially, as the late Rogers Bey proved, upon the Fayyum, the most ancient Delta of the Nile.[FN#386] Nor would the evil be diminished by the Hellenes who, under Alexander the Great, “liberator and saviour of Egypt” (B.C. 332), extinguished the native dynasties:  the love of the Macedonian for Bagoas the Eunuch being a matter of history.  From that time and under the rule of the Ptolemies the morality gradually decayed; the Canopic orgies extended into private life and the debauchery of the men was equalled only by the depravity of the women.  Neither Christianity nor Al-Islam could effect a change for the better; and social morality seems to have been at its worst during the past century when Sonnini travelled (A.D. 1717).  The French officer, who is thoroughly trustworthy, draws the darkest picture of the widely spread criminality, especially of the bestiality and the sodomy (chaps. xv.), which formed the “delight of the Egyptians.”  During the Napoleonic conquest Jaubert in his letter to General Bruix (p.  I9) says, “Les Arabes et les Mamelouks ont traite quelques-uns de nos prisonniers comme Socrate traitait, dit-on, Alcibiade.  Il fallait perir ou y passer.”  Old Anglo-Egyptians still chuckle over the tale of Sa’id Pasha and M. de Ruyssenaer, the high-dried and highly respectable Consul-General for the Netherlands, who was solemnly advised to make the experiment, active and passive, before offering his opinion upon the subject.  In the present age extensive intercourse with Europeans has produced not a reformation but a certain reticence amongst the upper classes:  they are as vicious as ever, but they do not care for displaying their vices to the eyes of mocking strangers.

Syria and Palestine, another ancient focus of abominations, borrowed from Egypt and exaggerated the worship of androgynic and hermaphroditic deities.  Plutarch (De Iside) notes that the old Nilotes held the moon to be of “male-female sex,” the men sacrificing to Luna and the women to Lunus.[FN#387] Isis also was a hermaphrodite, the idea being that Aether or Air (the lower heavens) was the menstruum of generative nature; and Damascius explained the tenet by the all-fruitful and prolific powers of the atmosphere.  Hence the fragment attributed to Orpheus, the song of Jupiter (Air):—­