Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798

Impatience, activity, and sanguine hope, are habits of an European. By education his imagination is exalted and his ideas are multiplied. By reading, and frequent intercourse with foreigners, he is enabled to present to himself the state of distant times and remote nations. Their knowlege, their arts, their pleasures become familiar to him; and, from a fixed principle of the human mind, the lively idea of all these advantages generates the hope of appropriating them. His first attempt is haply crowned with success, and he is thus stimulated to farther effort: but as the bounds fixed to his attainments are removed the farther he advances, and improvement is infinite, his ultimate disappointment is inevitable, and it is felt with a poignancy proportioned to the confidence of his first hopes.

The habits of the Oriental, on the contrary, are indolence, gravity, patience. His ideas are few in number; and his sentiments in course equally rare. They are, however, generally correct, springing from the objects around him, and for the most part limited to those objects.

A chief cause of this contrast, must be the mode of education in each community. Education should be the art of forming man on the principles of nature; by due attention to her unerring progress, no advantage of life can remain unimproved, and no duty can be misunderstood. But in no nation with whose history we are acquainted, has such a system been established. Almost every one forms its disciples on the narrow views of that community, and nature is distorted and paralised by authority.

The leading fault of education in the various parts of the Turkish empire, originates in the prevailing superstition. Wherever this does not operate, the practice is sufficiently rational.

The children of the Arabs early attain the character of manhood. A grave demeanour, fortitude in suffering, respect for age, filial affection, contempt for frivolous amusements, frugality, temperance, hospitality, are taught in the easiest and most effectual manner—by example; and where there is least probability of counter-instruction—in the house of the father.

They are early taken out of the hands of women, and sent to study the Korân; an employment which indeed has only the negative advantage of saving a portion of their time from positive idleness. As they advance towards maturity, little coercion is employed, but no incitement is administered to error. The father gradually accustoms himself to treat his son on the footing of an equal; who, on the other hand, seldom forgets the respect which is not imperiously exacted.

The dress of children is free from ligatures, their diet simple, and they are accustomed to variations of season, and enured to fatigue. These are a part of the advantages of Oriental education. Among its more serious inconveniences may be enumerated, an excessive credulity, the offspring of profound ignorance, and a keenness bordering on dishonesty and falshood. It is not easy to gain knowlege which is not sought. The boy respects his father, and the summit of his ambition is to imitate his sire. The parent is guided chiefly by the reflection, how far he may extend his pursuit of gain with impunity; of course a very refined morality is not to be expected from the son. Happiness once confined to the small circle of a family, little anxiety remains for the world at large. Hence the faintness of the conception of a community, and the duties arising from it.

In Europe, education is the art of moulding the soul to the times; and the preceptor is commonly successful in conveying the instruction, of which experience has taught him the advantage, and which he is no stranger to the mode of applying. Advancement is the object; and to obtain it activity is required. This end is gained; but in the art of directing the powers of his mind to the attainment of his own happiness, or to the public utility, or of preserving his body sane and vigorous, the man remains still a child; and thus the true object of education is frustrated. We have on this head then, it would seem, no great reason to boast our superiority.

The distinctive character of a nation is not to be sought in great cities. The manners of these reciprocally approximate. In that part of Egypt where the character of women is unsophisticated by mixture, however strong their passions, they are not unchaste. This perhaps proceeds more from the influence of public opinion, than the sanctions of municipal law.

Among the people, as they are to take part in domestic duties, their education is bounded by the useful. Among the opulent it extends to the ornamental, and many females in Kahira are taught to read and write. Instead of complaining of their seclusion as an injury, they may sometimes be observed tenacious of it as a mark of respect. That seclusion, though originating in the real or supposed licentiousness of the sex, is, at this time, far from being the effect of individual jealousy, but by long adoption, become a part of bien-séance. “I consented to become your wife,” said a woman to her husband, in my hearing, “that I might be veiled or private, masturê, and remain tranquil in my family; not to be sent to the market, to meet the eyes of chalk-illah, all the world.”

This seclusion of women has an important effect in society; and the Orientals are accordingly, as has often been remarked, in a great degree strangers to the passion of love. It is thought indecent in company to speak much of women, and no man would venture to declare, that he had a preference for a particular woman, or intended to marry her.

Social intercourse is thus rendered less vivacious and amusing, but numberless inquietudes are avoided. They who affirm, however, that nothing is sought from women, among the people of the East, but sensual gratification, seem to err. Why should a man, by having several women, necessarily become insensible to what is amiable or estimable in any individual among them? Or is individual character rendered absolutely indistinct by their being associated together?

They are equally in error who assert, that women in the East are slaves. Perhaps it might correctly be said that they are treated as children; but, supposing this to be true, do not tenderness and affection operate towards children?

They hold not the same rank as in Europe; and if they did, the intrigues carried on in the harem, would render their husbands and themselves miserable. In their present state, accidents of this kind are not without ill effects, but, in general, serve rather to minister a cause of diversion, than to produce any very serious evil. Of course they give much less disturbance than in Europe.

The spirit of Chivalry, fostered by the Crusades, changed, in the heated imagination of the youthful hero, the lovely object of his desires, into a deity that was to be adored. The visible nature of the divinity fanned the flame of devotion. Whether the fair benignly smiled, or scornfully averted her countenance from the humble votary, her perfections were equally the subject of his eulogies, and her will of his propitiation. But all his services were sublimely disinterested, and were to remain without hope of remuneration, till giants should be immolated to her perfections, and widows and orphans chaunt forth in her presence the praises of their generous deliverer.

These chaste amours, in which all was elevated, and all exquisitely unnatural, according to modern ideas, were yet the foundation of the rank women hold in modern Europe. This system, forced and contrary to nature, could not long have place, and perhaps the sex itself grew satiated with the frigid adulation of distant votaries, however flattering to its vanity. A more licentious gallantry then took place, and the charm was quickly dissolved. The intercourse between the sexes being at length reduced to the simple gratification of the sensual desire, society was almost in the same state in the West, as in the East, at the period when the seclusion of females first took place.

But the Europeans adopted a different plan. They either despised the security of bolts and bars as ineffectual, or too much of their former respect yet remained to allow the attempt. The sex at length wearied, but not satiated with simple sensuality, was governed in the choice of its indulgences by caprice; and the men were studiously employed to attract the æillades of their mistresses, and to chain this fickle sentiment, by varied foppery and grimace. Hence the romantic tales of our novels, hence the inconsequential conduct of their heroes, and hence the agitations of our societies, at which the Orientals would smile.

It is not said, that the miseries and violent dissensions which exist in families, result from the rank females hold in European society. Eternal litigations, and all the confusion of severe laws and loose morals are not attributed to that cause. It is only hinted that these evils are coëtaneous with that state of society, and that the pure institution of matrimony may be enforced by the commanding voice of religion, and sanctioned by municipal law, yet those evils may remain without a remedy.

The young of each sex are, in Europe, brought together, and taught to attach themselves to each other: but interdicted from uniting, unless equal in rank, fortune, &c. Passion however is strongest at an early age, when the reason which should guide it is weakest. But the public institutions eternize the punishment of a momentary folly. Parental authority, at other times, interferes, and pretending only solicitude for the child’s happiness, renders both the parent and the offspring miserable.

The husband is vain of exhibiting in public his admired bride. From familiarities with a variety of men which, by being public, are authorized, she is induced to try them in private. The man becomes unhappy and ridiculous, the wife disgraced, and the lover impoverished. Little or nothing of this is known in the East.

Another striking dissimilitude between the Europeans and Orientals is observable in the number and quality of their respective laws, and the administration of public justice. Though a multitude of commentaries has been written on the simple maxims contained in the Korân, applying them to the particular cases which occur in society, the whole falls far short, in point of extent, of the most simple systems of jurisprudence with which we are acquainted. The single circumstance of each man being advocate in his own cause, contracts all judicial proceedings to a small compass, and, whether justly or unjustly, all legal disputes are speedily terminated. So that no man can bequeath to his family the inheritance of judicial ruin.

It will no doubt be thought, that the corrupt character of judges, and the sale of their decrees, are evils for which no advantages can compensate; and here, at least, it may be urged, that in Europe the administration of justice is more equal, and the right is not generally to be shaken by a bribe.

On the other hand, whatever may be the integrity of the judges in their decisions, the length and delay of the proceedings is sufficient to re-produce all the evils which are thought to be obviated by the absence of judicial corruption. If one of the parties be poor and the other rich, the latter commonly has the option of ruining the former by throwing impediments in the way of a decision; and it is of little importance to a man to know that he is ultimately victorious, when his property is already consumed, ere the cause draw near its termination.

But independently of the immense expense of a process in most countries of Europe, the anxiety and suspense while it is depending, tend to lessen the happiness of society, and are, by their frequency, serious evils.

Domestic manners furnish a more minute, but not unimportant contrast. In receiving strangers at his house and when they leave it, the Oriental testifies no great emotion. The visitor is welcomed rather by actions than words. An Arab or Turk having once accorded protection, which he does with a kind of distance and hauteur, never afterwards withdraws it, and his word may be relied on. In visiting, as is well known, the common but absurd practice, which obtains among ourselves, of urging those to stay longer, of whose company one is already tired, is obviated by the simple use of a little scented wood in a censer.

In their communications every thing tends rather to tranquillize the mind, than to excite the passions. The quarrels of the mere mob, indeed, evaporate in idle vociferation; but among persons of any breeding, the voice is scarcely ever raised above its ordinary tone.

The greatest number of menials in a family (and in the East they are very numerous) occasions no confusion. All is conducted in silence and order. All such directions as are in the common routine of affairs, are given by signs, and are instantly understood; not from pride, or as implying the vast distance between master and servant, but principally to avoid all equivoque, when persons of various descriptions are present, and, by making secresy a uniform habit, to avoid all suspicion from the adoption of mystery in giving orders before company, when any thing is to be said which it is not intended that company should hear.

The ingenuity of man in contriving his own unhappiness, is in no part of the world more conspicuous than in Europe. Our mutual intercourse is so beset with forms, that it becomes doubtful whether it be a good or an evil; and the individual, not unfrequently, leaves a company dissatisfied that he ever entered into it. Hence a continued desire of changing place and forming new acquaintance.

Whenever a number of persons meet together, eating and drinking seem to be a necessary bond of union; and they often do not separate without that kind of festivity which impairs the health of each, and creates dissensions, as it were, by its mechanical operation. The sole benefit which results from the social meals of the Arabs, is to us entirely unknown.—No man thinks himself incapacitated from injuring his neighbour, in consequence of having divided with him a loaf of bread, and a little salt, at the convivial board.

In the East social intercourse is less artificial, and less hampered with rules. It is maintained with more complacency, and relinquished, not without hope of renewal. We too have now indeed abandoned a part of its more inconvenient formalities; but some of its oppressive and despotic laws continue unaltered. The exterior may be changed; but the substance is identical.

In the East, they who are guilty of excess in drinking bury their inebriation in the gloom of their closet. By this, present disturbance, and future ill example are equally obviated, whatever may be the ill consequence to the wretched victim of intemperance. Of excess in eating there are few examples; for their longest meals, even when a series of dishes is presented, as at the tables of a Pasha or a Bey, are terminated in a few minutes. The moderation and temperance of diet indeed throughout the East are matters of high praise; and, whether virtues of climate, habit, or reflection, merit imitation among ourselves. The reward is present, uninterrupted health and tranquillity of mind.

If the multitude of wants constitute human inquietude, it must be remembered how much of what to us is indispensable is, to them, as if it had never been.

With them society is rendered tranquil and easy by mutual forbearance; with us it is vexed with the necessity of mutual adulation.—In the one region each man sets a fashion to himself, in the other all the constituent parts are wearied with serving an idol that the collective body alone has set up. Each stands bareheaded from respect to the other, when both might remain covered without inconvenience to either.

Politeness is, with the one, an easy compliance, with which all are satisfied; with the other, it is a difficult effort, from the practice and the experience of which the parties mutually retire discontented.

The fashions to which we are slaves, are indeed many of them so little founded in reason, that one is sometimes disposed to consider them as imagined by the indolent and restless, to occupy the thoughts and time of those who have no better employment; or invented, like certain dogmas, to shew the merit of implicit credence. A certain dress is to be worn, a certain establishment kept up, under pain of indelible ignominy; and the man whose circumstances disable him from complying with this terrific mandate, with timid irresolution hides his head.

See the European in conversation, even among his equals, he is not so solicitous to express such thoughts as rise in his mind, as to find some employment for his tongue. It is not to give utterance to what naturally occurs, but that conversation may be kept up, that all are anxious. Garrulities, and misconceptions are civilly uttered for arguments; and the abortions of fancy and caprice, hold the place of the sane offspring of judgment and reflection. Yet we laugh at them for using short and few phrases, (phrases courtes et rares, as Volney describes them,) when they have nothing to say!

It is with them however neither ridiculous nor irksome to be silent. They go into company to be diverted, not to labour, and they esteem effort in conversation a vain toil. The raillery and repartee of the Occidentals is, among them, supplied (it must be allowed very inadequately) by the Meddahs, story-tellers, and professed jokers.

Human life in the East is exposed to a variety of casualties. Pestilence, famine, tyranny, all conspire to diminish its security. It is natural to set a smaller value on any advantage, in proportion to the facility of privation. Hence the Orientals are not much disturbed at the thoughts of death, but resign life without a sigh. The mind is tortured when the blossoms of hope are suddenly torn from it; but their gradual decay is not incompatible with a kind of tranquillity.

The European, more dissatisfied with the present, and only supported by the hope of what is to come, attached beyond measure to the advantages which his anxieties have been prolonged to acquire, has already, even at an early age, fixed to himself a period, short of which he thinks it hard and unjust to be deprived of life.

Concerning past events the fatalist is consoled by reflecting, that nothing he could have done would have altered the immutable order of things, and that his efforts before would have been as vain as his regret now is. This idea, indeed, is perhaps not destitute of ill effects, but it surely produces some good. If, by persuading them that the evils which they suffer are unavoidable, it prevent them from endeavouring to avoid them, it also prevents their repining at what must at all events be endured as the immutable law of the universe.

The European attributing more power to volition, ascribes to his own want of judgment or energy the result of whatever terminates unfavourably. Thus a part of his life is occupied by self-accusation, which, however, ensures no amelioration for the future.

In the East, if age be respected, it is respected, in part at least, from the decorous behaviour of the aged. In Europe, if it be rendered ridiculous, it is so too often, by a vain effort to perpetuate the character and manners of youth.

The commanding influence of a system so flattering to the pride of its professors, and operating so powerfully on their hopes and fears as Mohammedism, aided by the dread of present suffering, has so far counteracted the strong impulse of avarice, that gaming is in a great degree banished from society in the East. All the evils and inconveniences therefore of that practice, so severely felt throughout Europe, are almost unknown in the Turkish empire.

If activity and a careful provision for the future, and that each should contribute his efforts to the good of the whole, be necessary to constitute the happiness of a people, how happens it that the Orientals, among whom these requisites are wanting, should yet be happy?

The system of morals contained in the writings of the Orientals, is at once sublime without being impracticable, and levelled to the use of mankind, without being loose or low. Yet it is usual with us to talk of their brutal stupidity! But this system is not practised among them—and is the Christian system of morals practised among Christian nations?

The Arabian and Persian histories and romances abound with traits of magnanimity, of generosity, justice, and courage, no way inferior to, but in some instances exceeding those of other nations. The Greeks and ourselves have indeed stigmatised them with the name of barbarians; but impartial inquiry proves that they are susceptible of all that is admired in a polished people; that crimes are treated among them as among other nations, and that though their passions may be expressed in a different way, they have always the same source and the same object.

No man who reflects on his past enjoyments and sufferings can doubt but that the latter, by their intenseness, duration, and frequency, have been decidedly predominant.

To render them more equal, that is, to be less miserable, or to make life tolerable, either the number of pleasures must be augmented, according to the system of the Epicureans, or that of pains must be diminished, according to that of the Stoics. The Orientals strive to attain the one object like ourselves, by sensuality; and here it is not to be conceived that they are happier than we are; but the other they gain in a much more complete degree than ourselves, and are much more exercised in the stoical system, which seems the most effectual to the purpose.

The passions, indeed, it is said, are to the mind what motion is to the body; and the absence of either causes and marks, in each respectively, symptoms that may be termed morbid.

A perfect absence of passion is certainly preternatural, if it may not be called impossible; but as our passions are more likely to be called into action by painful than by pleasurable sensations, it seems little doubtful, that the mind, on which they operate most feebly, will remain in the most tranquil state. This tranquillity, this absence of pain, (for joy, however poignant, is but a transient gleam, a coruscation, which passing, renders the obscurity which succeeds it more sensible,) is the single species of happiness of which mankind is allowed to partake.

A man of great sensibility has his feelings hourly wounded by minute accidents, at which one of less lively sensations would smile.

Such a one is transported with love, and, if that love be successful, his gratification is exquisite. He is suddenly moved by compassion,—how refined his feeling in offering relief to distress! He ardently desires fame,—how is he elated with the slightest praises! But how often is his warm affection requited with neglect, or its gratification found impossible? How often will his compassion be excited, without the means of affording relief? And how much more is mankind disposed to obloquy than to eulogy?

But this is not all; the same mind which is strongly acted on by these passions will also have its peace disturbed by pride, ambition, anger, jealousy, and resentment. The subjects of all these tormenting emotions crowd on it too closely to allow its complacency to be permanent. The sunshine of the morning will inevitably, ere night, be succeeded by a tempest.

Some slight omission of ceremonial will offend its pride, some sordid repulse will check its ambition; it will flame with anger at the breaking of a jar, or pine with jealousy at the like frailty in a mistress.

Something of the same kind has place with regard to taste. A man of delicate taste feels refined enjoyment from the contemplation of a beautiful landscape or a fine picture, or the perusal of an elegant poem; and is equally disgusted at the sight of any thing deformed, disproportioned, or unnatural in either. But, it may be said, he has the option of contemplating a disagreeable object, but not of feeling an unpleasing sensation. And is it indeed so easy, in being perpetually conversant among mankind, to avoid observing their works? or does not the man who reads unavoidably fall on absurdities which disgust him? Social man has been too long employed in counteracting nature, not to have moulded all to his dwarfish intellect; and the abortive efforts of imagination are numberless both in the arts and in letters.

Then it will be said, human happiness is reduced to apathy; and the lively taste and ardent passions, which have established the superiority of Europeans, only serve to diminish their sum of felicity! This would be pushing the argument too far; but each will draw his own conclusions.

The chief points of contrast between the Europeans and Orientals being thus marked, it will be seen how far it may be doubted on which side lies the greater degree of happiness.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

No. II.