“science of K,” so called from the initial
letter of the word “Kimiya.” Of the
state of therapeutics I have already treated at length.
Aided by the finest of ears, and flexible organs of
articulation, the Egyptian appears to possess many
of the elements of a good linguist. The stranger
wonders to hear a Cairene donkey-boy shouting sentences
in three or four European dialects, with a pronunciation
as pure as his own. How far this people succeed
in higher branches of language, my scanty experience
does not enable me to determine. But even for
students of Arabic, nothing can be more imperfect than
those useful implements, Vocabularies and Dictionaries.
The Cairenes have, it is true, the Kamus of Fayruzabadi,
but it has never been printed in Egypt; it is therefore
rare, and when found, lost pages and clerical errors
combined with the intrinsic difficulty of the style,
exemplify the saying of Golius, that the most learned
Orientalist must act the part of a diviner, before
he can perform that of interpreter. They have
another Lexicon, the Sihah, and an abbreviation of
the same, the Sihah al-Saghir (or the lesser), both
of them liable to the same objections as the Kamus.
For the benefit of the numerous students of Turkish
and Persian, short grammars and vocabularies have
been printed at a cheap price, but the former are
upon the model of Arabic, a language essentially different
in formation, and the latter are mere strings of words.
As a specimen of the state of periodical literature,
I may quote the history of the “Bulak Independent,”
as Europeans facetiously call it. When Mohammed
Ali, determining to have an “organ,” directed
an officer to be editor of a weekly paper, the officer
replied, that no one would read it, and consequently
that no one would pay for it. The Pasha remedied
this by an order that a subscription should be struck
off from the pay of all employes, European and Egyptian,
whose salary amounted to a certain sum. Upon
which the editor accepted the task, but being paid
before his work was published, he of course never supplied
his subscribers with their copies. [FN#33] Would
not a superficial, hasty, and somewhat prejudiced
Egyptian or Persian say exactly the same thing about
the systems of Christ Church and Trinity College?
[FN#34] And when the man of the world, as sometimes
happens, professes to see no difference in the forms
of faith, or whispers that his residence in Europe
has made him friendly to the Christian religion, you
will be justified in concluding his opinions to be
latitudinarian. [FN#35] I know only one class in Egypt
favourable to the English,-the donkey boys,-and they
found our claim to the possession of the country upon
a base scarcely admissible by those skilled in casuistry,
namely, that we hire more asses than any other nation.
[FN#36] The story is, that Mohammed Ali used to offer
his flocks of foreigners their choice of two professions,-"destruction,”
that is to say, physic, or “instruction.”
[FN#37] Of this instances abound. Lately an order