Not Only Are The Arabs Particular In Their Pomade, But Great Attention
Is Bestowed Upon Perfumery, Especially By The Women.
Various perfumes
are brought from Cairo by the travelling native merchants, among which
those most in demand are oil of roses, oil of sandal-wood, an essence
from the blossom of a species of mimosa, essence of musk, and the oil of
cloves.
The women have a peculiar method of scenting their bodies and
clothes by an operation that is considered to be one of the necessaries
of life, and which is repeated at regular intervals. In the floor of the
tent, or hut, as it may chance to be, a small hole is excavated
sufficiently large to contain a common-sized champagne bottle. A fire of
charcoal, or of simply glowing embers, is made within the hole, into
which the woman about to be scented throws a handful of various drugs.
She then takes off the cloth or tope which forms her dress, and crouches
naked over the fumes, while she arranges her robe to fall as a mantle
from her neck to the ground like a tent. When this arrangement is
concluded she is perfectly happy, as none of the precious fumes can
escape, all being retained beneath the robe, precisely as if she wore a
crinoline with an incense-burner beneath it, which would be a far more
simple way of performing the operation. She now begins to perspire
freely in the hot-air bath, and the pores of the skin being thus opened
and moist, the volatile oil from the smoke of the burning perfumes is
immediately absorbed.
By the time that the fire has expired the scenting process is completed,
and both her person and robe are redolent of incense, with which they
are so thoroughly impregnated that I have frequently smelt a party of
women strongly at full a hundred yards' distance, when the wind has been
blowing from their direction.
The Arab women do not indulge in fashions. Strictly conservative in
their manners and customs, they never imitate, but they simply vie with
each other in the superlativeness of their own style; thus the dressing
of the hair is a most elaborate affair, which occupies a considerable
portion of their time. It is quite impossible for an Arab woman to
arrange her own hair; she therefore employs an assistant, who, if clever
in the art, will generally occupy about three days before the operation
is concluded. First, the hair must be combed with a long skewer-like
pin; then, when well divided, it becomes possible to use an exceedingly
coarse wooden comb. When the hair is reduced to reasonable order by the
latter process, a vigorous hunt takes place, which occupies about an
hour, according to the amount of game preserved. The sport concluded,
the hair is rubbed with a mixture of oil of roses, myrrh, and
sandal-wood dust mixed with a powder of cloves and cassia. When well
greased and rendered somewhat stiff by the solids thus introduced, it is
plaited into at least two hundred fine plaits; each of these plaits is
then smeared with a mixture of sandal-wood dust and either gum water or
paste of dhurra flour. On the last day of the operation, each tiny plait
is carefully opened by the long hairpin or skewer, and the head is
ravissante. Scented and frizzled in this manner with a well-greased tope
or robe, the Arab lady's toilet is complete. Her head is then a little
larger than the largest sized English mop, and her perfume is something
between the aroma of a perfumer's shop and the monkey-house at the
Zoological Gardens. This is considered "very killing," and I have been
quite of that opinion when a crowd of women have visited my wife in our
tent, with the thermometer at 95 degrees C, and have kindly consented to
allow me to remain as one of the party.
It is hardly necessary to add that the operation of hairdressing is not
often performed, but that the effect is permanent for about a week,
during which time the game becomes so excessively lively that the
creatures require stirring up with the long hairpin or skewer whenever
too unruly. This appears to be constantly necessary from the vigorous
employment of the ruling sceptre during conversation. A levee of Arab
women in the tent was therefore a disagreeable invasion, as we dreaded
the fugitives; fortunately, they appeared to cling to the followers of
Mahomet in preference to Christians.
The plague of lice brought upon the Egyptians by Moses has certainly
adhered to the country ever since, if "lice" is the proper translation
of the Hebrew word in the Old Testament. It is my own opinion that the
insects thus inflicted upon the population were not lice, but ticks.
Exod. 8:16: "The dust became lice throughout all Egypt;" again, Exod.
8:17: "Smote dust... it became lice in man and beast." Now the louse
that infests the human body and hair has no connection whatever with
"dust," and if subject to a few hours' exposure to the dry heat of the
burning sand, it would shrivel and die. But the tick is an inhabitant of
the dust, a dry horny insect without any apparent moisture in its
composition; it lives in hot sand and dust, where it cannot possibly
obtain nourishment, until some wretched animal lies down upon the spot,
when it becomes covered with these horrible vermin. I have frequently
seen dry desert places so infested with ticks that the ground was
perfectly alive with them, and it would have been impossible to rest on
the earth.
In such spots, the passage in Exodus has frequently occurred to me as
bearing reference to these vermin, which are the greatest enemies to man
and beast. It is well known that, from the size of a grain of sand in
their natural state, they will distend to the size of a hazelnut after
having preyed for some days upon the blood of an animal.
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