Thornton and Volney

Observe, they were in the eighth century of their political existence, when Thornton and Volney lived among them, and these authors then report of them as follows: Their religion forbids them every sort of painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts cannot exist among them. “ Their buildings”, says Thornton, “ are heavy in their proportions, bad in detail, both in taste and execution, fantastic in decoration, and destitute of genius. Their cities are not decorated with public monuments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish”. They have no music but vocal; and

know of no accompaniment except a bass of one note like that of the bagpipe. Their singing is in a great measure recitative, with little variation of note. They have scarcely any notion of medicine or surgery; and they do not allow of anatomy. As to science, the telescope, the microscrope, the electric battery, are unknown, except as play things. The compass is not universally employed in their navy, nor are its common purposes thoroughly understood. Navigation, astronomy, geography, chemistry, are either not known, or practised only on antiquated and exploded principles. As to their civil and criminal codes of law, these are unalterably fixed in the Koran.

Their habits require very little furniture ; “ the whole inventory of a wealthy family”, says Volney, “ consists in a carpet, mats, cushions, mattresses, some small cotton clothes, copper and wooden platters for the table, a mortar, a portable mill, a little porcelain, and some plates of copper tinned. All our apparatus of tapestry, wooden bead- steads, chairs, stools, glasses, desks, bureaus, closets, buffets with their plate and table services, all our cabinet and upholstery work are unknown”.

Powers of Christendom

They have no clocks, though they have watches. In short, they are hardly more than dismounted Tartars still; and, if pressed by the powers of Christendom, would be able, at very short warning, to pack up and turn their faces northward to their paternal deserts. You find in their cities barbers and mercers; saddlers and gunsmiths; bakers and confectioners; sometimes butchers ; whitesmiths and ironmongers; these are pretty nearly all their trades. Their inheritance is their all; their own acquisition is nought. Their stuffs are from the classical Greeks; their dyes are the old Tyrian; their cement is of the age of the Romans; and their locks may be traced back to Solomon. They do not commonly engage in agriculture or in commerce; of the cultivators of the soil I have said quite enough in a foregoing Lecture, and their commerce seems to be generally in the hands of Franks, Greeks, or Armenians, as formerly in the hands of the Jews.