Succefs to the people who have driven Mourad from Cairo.

Success to the people who have brought us into the villages. Succefs to the people who have fed us with fouthyer t.

"Since, however, we have repreff ed their incurfions by vigorous measures, they have ceafed to celebrate our arrival. The fame diftrust onght to be entertained of thefe Arabs as of robbers and affaffins; they are but little formidable as a military force, except where they experience no oppofition; and the expeditions of the French in purfuit of them, penetrating into the centre of their arid fands and their deferts, which were efteemed inacceffible, will, no doubt, be attended with the happieft effects.

"The principal weapon of the Arabs is a pike, which they wield and throw with great dexterity. They manage their horfes with equal skill, and pay the greateft attention to them; nevertheless, one of their practices appears to an European, at leaft, very injudicious; it is that of checking the horse on full speed, and making him rear on his hind legs. The Arabs never attack in line, but always like foragers, uttering at the fame time loud cries and invectives; their ftyle of fighting being merely that of light troops.

"The horses of the Arabs are very swift, and they pufh them to their full speed; at the fame time, and without letting go the reins, which they hold in their left hand, they charge an enemy in front. If fuccessful they ftrip him, and fometimes cut off his head, which they bear in triumph at the end of their pike. When they mifs their blow they return to the charge by a half wheel to right or left, or endeavour to gain the 'vantage ground.

"The Arabs are in general but ill equipped. Their fire-arms and powder are very bad; their balls are not well caft; the powder is granulated in an inartificial manner, and is for the most part charcoal; they carry it in a wooden flask, and the balls feparately in a leathern bag, feldom charging their pieces with cartouches.

+

"The

The Arabs bordering on Egypt were in the habit of fending fpies to Boulak, difguifed as hufbandmen, in order to learn the kind and number of the troops about to march against them from Cairo. As foon as their fpies returned, the tribe broke up camp, and fent far into the Defert their wives and children, and all their valuables. The men themfelves made a few days march to fatigue their enemies, and in the mean time, being joined by the confederate tribes, they either commenced hoftilities or received the attack.

"Every camp has advanced guards on the neighbouring heights, who carry their turbans on the point of their lances. If the camp is to advance, the vedettes march on the fame fide as the enemy, or the prey which they propofe to carry off; if the contrary, the vedettes return towards the camp.

"As foon as the Arabs are apprehenfive of an attack, they feparate into feveral fmall camps at a great distance from each other, and tie their camels to the tents fo as to be able to move off at a moment's notice.

"When one tribe is engaged with another, the women come within fight of the combatants, playing on the tambourine, and finging ftrains powerful to excite their courage the wounded are taken care of by their wives or miftreffes. The women hold valour

in great eftimation, and a chief covered with fcars is the boaft of the whole tribe; thus the fupport of empires is the band of union among thefe miferable hordes of robbers.

"A combat in which twenty or twenty-five men are killed, is reckoned a bloody battle, the date of which forms an important era.

"It is neceffary when marching during night in the Defert, againít the Arabs, to be aware of a circumftance, which would otherwise often give a needlefs alarm of the prefence of the enemy; this is the light of the horizontal stars, which here, as well as at fea, are very apt to be mistaken for fires.

"The natural increase of mankind imposes on them the neceffity of feeking for fubfiftence; hence the forty thousand Arabs that border upon Egypt, finding no refource in their arid sands, confider this country as their own domain, and under this pretext are perpetually making predatory incurfions. The government has often ineffectually, and never with more than partial fuccefs, endeavoured to reprefs this mifchief: in the mean time the unhappy cultivator was expofed to the vexatious oppreffion of the agents of government, and the devaftation and cruelty of the Arabs. Such was the condition of the inhabitants of Egypt; it is greatly to be wished that it may be henceforth ameliorated."

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"Although I am certainly not hoftile to the new order of things, as far as I understand it, I was rather relieved when the whole bufinefs was fettled; for nothing but difquifitions on the Conftitution were buzzed in my ear; and though fome wifhed for a change in one article, and fome were defirous of making a little addition in another, the general and almost unanimous impulfe was to accept and fign with all poffible alacrity. It is the first time I have ever witnessed fo univerfal an affent among Frenchmen on any important fubject.

"A Parifian wag, who I prefume was no great revolutionist, has characterifed the acceptance of this Conftitution by two verfes from the Henriade, where the head of admiral Coligni is prefented to Mary de Medicis, who is faid to have received it

Sans craint, fans plaifir, maitreffe de fes fens,

Et comme accoltanée à de pareils pré

'fens'

"But you tell me that you are chiefly anxious to know what the ladies of Paris think of this new organization. If I could guess what fentiment had guided your pen in making the inquiry, I should know better how to reply; but as that appears to me equivocal, I fhall from mere good nature anfwer you as Sterne fays a Frenchman always does a doubtful compliment, and fuppofe that your inquiry is dictated by a fpirit of courtesy, rather than of malice.

"In a calculation, made by one of the first of our political polemics, of the numbers who compofe the people of England, at least that part of the community who are endued with the faculty of thinking or reasoning on public tranfactions, the women come in for their share to the enormous amount of twenty thoufand. You will be more furprifed at the magnitude of this number, when you learn that the reafoners of the other fex, according to the fame calculator's opinion, are eftimated at no more than nineteen times that amount. But as in the whole quantity a fifth part are stated to be pure jacobins, utterly incapable of amendment, it may be prefumed that, in this eighty thoufand, a proportionate number of females were included in the clafs of incurables.

"I know not on what data this compte rendu of political opinion is formed; but, as the writer is no mean authority in political enume

truth in the application.

the hoftile numbers, we may conclude

clude that he is not far wrong in his arithmetic. Had this great man had an opportunity of examining the state of French politics in France, he would, I am fure, have found caufe to take a large portion of French ladies into more tender affection than thofe of his own country.

"The title of homme d'état, or fatefman, was, during the time of terror, as great a reproach in France as that of statefwoman in England, which was fo pleafantly ridiculed by Mr. Addifon. Statefmen have of late regained their title and their confequence; but the name of the femmes d'état, or ftatefwomen, has been hitherto unknown. Had Addison lived in our times, and in the French republic, he might have found female follies enough to employ his pen; but that paffion which he calls party-rage, and against which he inveighs with fo much eloquence, would have formed no fubject of his animadverfion. Nothing can be more calm and complacent than French ladies in general, when the topic of political events or opinions ftrays into converfation. The noife of difputants may invade their ear; but the jargon is to them perfectly unintelligible; for no definitions can be underftood, where the terms are not comprehended. Here no patches diftinguish a whig lady from a tory lady; no Camilla who values herfelf more on being the virago of one party, than the toast of both, encounters the fierce and beautiful Penthefilea across a tea-table; and, fhaking with anger in the earnest nefs of difpute, fcalds her fingers, and fpills a difh of tea on her pet.

ticoat.

"Amidst the war of domeftic factions which have difturbed the internal repofe of the republic, the

ladies have hitherto, whatever may have been their fecret withes, like the wifer part of the Northern Powers, preferved a strict neutrality.

"And let no furly republican fuppofe that this indifference proceeds from infenfibility. The females of France have feelings for national glory, like the females of other countries. As the ladies of England have decorated themselves with Duncan plaids, and Orange ftreamers, in honour of valorous chiefs, fo heretofore the French ladies, adorned in caps à la belle poule, à la Grenade, à la d'Eftaing, à la Fayette, and even au compte rendu of Mr. Necker, offered their homage to the heroes and statesmen of their country. Since the revolution, indeed, ornaments of national allufion have been little in fafhion. The revolution has been a thing in the eyes of women, of doubtful, and fometimes of portentous afpect. The republic has often worn a stern and menacing countenance. Its forms have been terrify. ing, or repuifive; it has affrighted even men; no wonder that women have fhrunk from the fraternal embrace. Women, who are in general more accurate calculators of good and evil from fentiment, than reafoners from abstract principle to remote confequences, have kept aloof from the conteft, and, to use a military phrase, stood on their arms. A few only, of more ardent or enlightened minds, I fpeak not of the mob, either high or low, who follow mechanically the impulfe given them, have ranged themselves in the refpective ranks.

"That the almoft univerfality of Frenchmen fhould have readily embraced, and, notwithstanding all its phafes of ominous afpect, fhould have adhered to the revolution, is not furprifing; the vast majority

have been great and fubftantial gain ers. The women, indeed, participate in fome of thofe advantages at fecond-hand; but they may be allowed to entertain doubts, whether the pofitive benefits they enjoy from the change, form a fufficient fubfidy to tempt them to depart from their neutrality.

"The prefent equal divifion of hereditary property is certainly a great and fubftantial benefit conferred on the women; and as wealth, in all countries, is power, their real influence is confiderably augmented. That cruel tyranny of paternal authority can alfo no longer be exercifed, which fo often doomed the younger branches of noble families to wither in the gloom of convents, or with fern defpotifin difpofed of the perfons of females, without their choice or confent. Thefe advantages may have been deemed fufficient to have obtained for the revolution fomewhat more of females' fmiles. But the women may reply, that the question is not, whether they have gained by the revoJution, but whether they have gained as much as they ought. They do not mean to infinuate that they fhould form a fenate apart, as under the reign of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus, where all matters refpecting women, fuch as drefs, precedency, and affairs of equal importance, were decided by themfelves. They do not afpire to the rank of leaders of armies, or rulers of ftates, or with to exercife the functions of minifters or directors; though fuch has often been the administration in the republic, that the nation, while it was making experiments, would probably have acted not unwifely, had it made the trial. They alfo obferve, en paffant, that the rod of empire has often been held, and notinglorioufly, by

women; and fuggeft, that had the women of France been its legiflators, it may be doubted whether, notwithstanding their natural love of domination, they would have compofed more than the forty thoufand laws, fome of which have till lately fo much diftreffed the republic.

"Of the injuftice which has been done, or rather of the juftice which has been withheld from the female part of the ftate, complaints have been made by fome of the moft celebrated advocates of the revolution. Condorcet and Syeyes have entered protests in their favour; and a late writer, Mr. Theremin, has difcuffed more largely the question, in a treatife on the condition of women in republics. This champion of the ladies condemns, with the fervour of an eloquent pen, that want of national liberality which, while the law opens numerous establiments for the children of the one fex, has provided no means of fupport or inftruction to those of the other. I know not what ideas men in general may entertain on this fubject; but I am fure every woman muft feel the juftice of the obfervation.

"What claim has the republic to the attachment of that part of the human race from whom it withholds the firft privilege of our nature, the firft gift of Heaven-inftruction and knowledge? How fhould the heart of woman glow with the love of liberty, or her understanding affent to the force of truth?-She receives no lefion in the fchools of wifdom or philofophy-fhe is confidered as a being unworthy to participate in the higher acquifitions of the mind, and unfitted for thofe intellectual attainments which ennoble our nature.—While infcriptions on every por

tal