Some Of Them Become Tolerable Arithmeticians, Though
Very Inferior To The Coptic Christians; They Have Good And Simple
Treatises On Algebra, And Still Display Some Of Their Ancestors'
Facility In The Acquisition Of Geometry.
The 'Ilm al-Mikat, or
"Calendar-calculating," was at one time publicly taught in the Azhar;
the printing-press
Has doomed that study to death.
The natural sciences find but scant favour on the banks of the Nile.
Astronomy is still astrology, geography a heap of names, and natural
history a mass of fables. Alchemy, geomancy, and summoning of fiends,
are pet pursuits; but the former has so bad a name, that even amongst
friends it is always alluded to as 'Ilm al-Kaf,-the "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.
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