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Updated: May 28, 2025
Still his force would have been insufficient for the capture of the place had he not been aided by the treachery of its governor, Mokawkas. This man, an original Egyptian, or Copt, by birth, and of noble rank, was a profound hypocrite. Like most of the Copts, he was of the Jacobite sect, who denied the double nature of Christ.
Mohammed Farid's fanatical impatience of all opposition led him into tactical blunders like alienating the native Christian Copts, whom Mustapha Kamel had been careful to conciliate. They still have faces and bodies similar to those of demons and monkeys, which is a proof that they hide poisonous spirits within their souls.
But from the interior of Egypt came characters of quite another stamp; not Greeks, nor Grecized Egyptians, but genuine Copts, speaking the Greek language not at all, or with great difficulty; living half or the whole of their lives in the desert; their very names taken from the heathen gods of the times of the ancient Pharaohs.
The Copts are considered fine representatives of the old Egyptians, and they have succeeded in preserving their language and liturgy through twelve centuries of fierce oppression.
This had been his constant practice: he had pitted Italians against Austrians, Copts against Mamelukes, Druses against Turks, Irish against English, South Germans against the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, and for the most part with success. But, except in the case of the Italian people and the South German princes, he rarely, if ever, bestowed boons proportionate to the services rendered.
Of course the blue cotton long shirts of the indigenous Fellahs lent the principal color to the crowd, but this was relieved by the most brilliant-colored clothing among the visitors and traders, including the red fez on most heads, the red and yellow headgear of the Arabs, the black caps of the Copts, and the white uniforms of the viceroy's nizam or regular soldiers.
It is very questionable whether he felt more warmly for Irish nationalists than for Copts and Druses. Except in regard to his Italian kindred, none of the nationalist aspirations that were to mould the history of the century touched a responsive chord in his nature. In this, as in other affairs of state, he held "true policy" to be "nothing else than the calculation of combinations and chances."
The Copts woman should be pointed out to the children, and notice should be taken of the large veil before her face. The Mameluke should be pointed out as belonging to a fierce tribe of soldiers.
The rivalries of the Beys, Murad and Ibrahim, produced a fertile crop of discords in this governing caste, and their feuds exposed the subject races, both Arabs and Copts, to constant forays and exactions. It seemed possible, therefore, to arouse them against the dominant caste, provided that the Mohammedan scruples of the whole population were carefully respected.
In the centre of this space stands the Holy Sepulchre; it is enclosed in an oblong house, rounded at one end with small arcades or chapels for prayer, on the outside of it. These are for the Copts, the Abyssinians, the Syrian Mareonites, and other Christians, who are not, like the Roman Catholics, the Greeks, and Armenians, provided with large chapels in the body of the church.
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