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Were it not for these groups of Copts, dressed in their Sunday garb, who make their way like us through the ruins to the Easter mass, we should think that we had lost our way. And how pretty they look, these women draped like phantoms in their black silks. Their long veils do not completely hide them, as do those of the Moslems.
There were dragomans, most of them Greeks or Copts, wearing the fez and a short, braided jacket and full trousers; cavasses richly costumed in oriental fashion, scimetar on the hip, kandjar in the belt, and silver-topped cane in the hand; native servants in white drawers and blue or pink gowns; little negroes, bare-armed and bare-legged, dressed in short tunics striped with brilliant colours; dealers selling kuffîyehs, gandouras, and oriental stuffs manufactured in Lyons, photographic views of Egypt and of Cairo, or pictures of national types, to say nothing of the travellers themselves, who, having come from all parts of the world, certainly deserved to be looked at.
Since a cat can jump across them without the least inconvenience, it is hardly necessary to state that such streets are too narrow for carriages. These vehicles cannot navigate the Holy City. The population of Jerusalem is composed of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants.
Over it hang some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept always burning, and the place is otherwise scandalized by trumpery, gewgaws, and tawdry ornamentation. It has been proven conclusively that they can not worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace. The chapel of the Syrians is not handsome; that of the Copts is the humblest of them all.
What came before? What was the Fourth Sub-race? Well: I imagine we may have the relic, the sishta or seed of it, in the Hamitic peoples and languages: the Libyans, Numidians, Egyptians, Iberians, and Pelasgians of old; the Somalis, Gallas, Copts, Berbers, and Abyssinians of today. It seems to me then that we can almost get a glimpse of the sub-race preceding our own.
Egyptian Bey, Ashantee, Algerine, Copts woman, Mameluke, native of Morocco, Tibboo woman, Egyptian woman, Fellah, Bedouin Arab, Turkish foot soldier, Maltese, Rosettan, native of Cairo, Turkish gentleman, Bosjesman, native of Coronna, native of Namacqua, Caffree, native of Tamaha, native of Ebo.
The population is a great mixture of French, Greeks, English, Austrians, Germans, Egyptians, Arabians, Copts, Berbers, Turks, Jews, Negroes, Syrians, Persians, and others.
Just as it has concentrated its principal energies on the Copts in Egypt, so it may with advantage devote itself to the education and "uplift" of the Armenians, and if its activities are as successful as with the Copts, even the Armenians cannot but approve, for the more enlightened individuals of that harassed and harassing little nation admit that the Armenian character could be considerably improved, and that, though their hideous persecution is indefensibly damnable, their covetous instincts and parasitic activities are an incentive to maltreatment.
We may read, in the gravest authors, that Egypt was crowded with twenty thousand cities or villages: that, exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found, on the assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, or twenty millions of either sex, and of every age: that three hundred millions of gold or silver were annually paid to the treasury of the caliphs.
I use the term "gladiators" advisedly, for their most trenchant work is done on their own side they concentrate their chief efforts on the Copts, and make a fairly good bag of proselytes from them, apart from the great number to whom they teach sound ideals of duty as well as English and the three "R's."
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