The men in Egypt[1] did neither buy nor sell; the same is the case in Abyssinia at this day. It is infamy for a man to go to market to buy any thing. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash the cloaths belonging to both sexes, and, in this function, the women cannot help him. In Abyssinia the men carried their burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders, and this difference, we are told, obtained in Egypt[2]. It is plain, that this buying, in the public market, by women, must have ended whenever jealousy or sequestration of that sex began; for this reason it ended early in Egypt, but, for the opposite reason, it subsists in Abyssinia to this day.
It was a sort of impiety in Egypt to eat a calf; and the reason was plain, they worshipped the cow. In Abyssinia, to this day, no man eats veal, although every one very willingly eats a cow. The Egyptian[3] reason no longer subsists as in the former case, but the prejudice remains, though they have forgot the reason.
The Abyssinians eat no wild or water-fowl, not even the goose, which was a great delicacy in Egypt. The reason of this is, that, upon their conversion to Judaism, they were forced to relinquish their ancient municipal customs, as far as they were contrary to the Mosaical law; and the animals, in their country, not corresponding in form, kind, nor name, with those mentioned in the Septuagint, or original Hebrew,it
