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Updated: May 28, 2025
"My husband and I," went on the woman, "live yonder at the village of Kurna, which is situated near to the mouth of the valley that is called Biban-el-Meluk, or Gate of the Kings, for there the monarchs of old days, who were the forefathers or rulers of us Copts, lie buried.
Evening meetings were also established, but these were attended almost exclusively by Copts, though occasionally a Moslem would brave the real danger of being present at a Christian service.
At the southern edge of the National Forests in the Southwest dwell the remnants of a race, can be seen the remnants of cities, stand houses near enough the train to be touched by your hand, that run back in unbroken historic continuity to dynasties preceding the Aztecs of Mexico or the Copts of Egypt.
Whatever good is done by the missionaries is done through their schools, to which come many children of the Copts, with perhaps a certain number of Mohammedans desirous of learning English; and the greatest of American missionary successes is doubtless Robert College at Constantinople, which has certainly done a very noble work among the more gifted young men of the Christian populations in the Turkish Empire.
In addition to this upper class, which until the English occupation monopolized all political power, there are large European "colonies" with "extraterritorial" rights, while a further complication is added by the persistence of a considerable native Christian element, the "Copts," who refused to turn Mohammedan at the Arab conquest and who to-day number fully one-tenth of the total population.
This gradual and undesigned Arabising of the country would lead to oppression of the Christians, to the "squeezing" of wealthy natives, and occasionally to the institution of humiliating distinctions of dress and other vexations, and even to the spoiling of Coptic churches. Then sometimes the Copts, as the Egyptian Christians are called, would rebel.
"After our Catholic office was ended" says he, "we prepared to enjoy the sight of the holy fire of the Greeks, Armenians and Copts, whose priests make their people believe, that on holy Saturday fire descends from heaven into the holy Sepulchre, and on that account make each of their pilgrims, who are very numerous, pay some money.
The boys' school, which had begun with a few ragged Moslem children in a room which was little better than a stable, increased rapidly. In 1870 the pupils numbered one hundred and sixty in daily attendance. About half were Moslems, the rest Copts and Syrians, with one or two little negro slaves or bronzed Nubians.
With the Christian element in Egypt, it has been a case of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. If we were to take some Coptic children and Mohammedan children, of the same social grade out here, and had them educated in England as Christians, you would soon see that it is not the Copts who ought to be despised, but their intolerant oppressors and persecutors." Hadassah smiled.
On one of the open spaces between the quarters of this temporary city were numbers of mountebanks of every description; gypsies from the mountains, telling fortunes to the credulous fools who are ever to be found in such assemblies; Zingaris or Tsiganes a name which the Russians give to the gypsies who are the descendants of the ancient Copts singing their wildest melodies and dancing their most original dances; comedians of foreign theaters, acting Shakespeare, adapted to the taste of spectators who crowded to witness them.
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