The Coptic language may be considered as extinct. Numerous and minute researches have enabled me to ascertain this fact. In Upper Egypt, however, they unknowingly retain some Coptic words, such as _Boyúni_, the name of a month. Nevertheless, in the Coptic monasteries, the prayers are read in Arabic, and the epistle and gospel in Coptic; but the priest is a mere parrot, repeating a dead letter. Coptic manuscripts are found in some of the convents, and leave to copy them might be obtained from the Patriarch. Their creed is the Monothelite, or Eutychian heresy. The solely divine nature of Christ, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone. The Copts embrace transubstantiation; in which, and other points, the Catholics of Kahira think they approach their faith nearer than the Greeks. Yet the Copts have adopted from the Mohammedans the custom of frequent prostrations during divine service, and of public individual prayer; of ablution after the conjugal rites, &c. The Copts are an acute and ingenious people. They are generally writers and accomptants. In business they accumulate money steadily, without shew; long experience having taught them, what the other Christians have yet to learn, that, under an arbitrary government, obscurity is safety. Melancholic in their temperament, but when called into action, industrious and laborious. Otherwise, fond of their distilled liquor, and rather licentious in their amours. The Copts are zealous in their faith, and their ecclesiastics are numerous. It is remarkable, that in Egypt the children of Europeans seldom survive their second or third year. This proceeds, it is likely, from the improper warmth of place and clothing, in which they are kept by the injudicious fondness of their parents, while the children of the natives run about almost naked, and enjoy a constitution firm and vigorous. CHAP. VI. KAHIRA. _Commerce — Manufactures — Mint — Castle and well — Misr attiké — Antient mosque — Antient Babylon — Fostat — Bulak — Jizé — Tomb of Shafei — Pleasure-boats — Charmers of Serpents — Magic — Dancing girls — Coffee-houses — Price of provisions — Recent history of Egypt — Account of the present Beys._ Before the revolution in commerce, occasioned by the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, that of Kahira was very extensive. It has since gradually declined, and is now restricted to the following articles. From Yemen are imported coffee, odours, gems, and several useful drugs. From Surat, and other neighbouring parts of India, muslins and various articles of cotton manufacture, a portion of the spices of Ceylon; shawls from Cashmîr.