The Lady's Monthly Museum (Volume 26) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1827. Excerpt: ... THE LADIES' MOftttiLY MfrSEtilrf. m PRIZE ESSAY. "VIEW OF THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY; MORAL, POLITICAL, AND CTVli, STATE OP ANCIENT AND Mobern AFRICA." (Continued from page 90S.) Sioot, the capital of the lower Thebaid, contains about 15,000 soul, or, according to Dr. Richardson, 20,000; of Whom. 1000 ai Christians. It stands at the foot of tbe Lybian chain, three quarters of a league from the Nile. It is the see of a Coptic bishop; and tradition assigns it as the spot whither the Virgin Mother, and the infant Saviour of mankind, once fled for shelter from the oppressor.--Many, believing this tale, come here to die. All the litfle villages of this government are overloaded with garrisons of Dalmatian or Metonali soldiers. Nothing seems to have been instituted here, nothing alluding-to any benevolent object. Their hearts are hard, and charity is Cold. Part of the ease, the independence, the opulence to whicb the Pasha is advanced, arises from the labour wrung out of the hard hands of these poor peasants. All around, the whole system of society seems to be convulsed, fallen; the moral sense sickens, nature seems to languish, and every where to inform us how humiliating the state of the. people is. For the Pasha alone are the lands cultivated; the merchants, thoughtless of affluence, under impressions of terror, trade Only for him: he has the monopoly of provisions, of slaves; and even seizes on the burnt filix or fern of the fields. On one side is tbe Nile, -rolling along with impetuous rapidity. To the right lay the Lybic desert, delineating a landscape on the plain, whose fresh and varied colours, here and there, exhibits an extensive and. accurate contrast to the dull and repulsive whiteness inherent in an incongruous mass of sand. Children in a state of nudi...