She Asked Many Questions; Among Others, How Many Wives
I Had, And Was Astonished To Hear That I Was Contented With One.
This
seemed to amuse her immensely, and she laughed heartily with her
daughter at the idea.
She said that my wife would be much improved if
she would extract her four front teeth from the lower jaw and wear the
red ointment on her hair, according to the fashion of the country; she
also proposed that she should pierce her under lip, and wear the long
pointed polished crystal, about the size of a drawing-pencil, that is
the "thing" in the Latooka country. No woman among the tribe who has any
pretensions to being a "swell" would be without this highly-prized
ornament; and one of my thermometers having come to an end, I broke the
tube into three pieces, and they were considered as presents of the
highest value, to be worn through the perforated under lip. Lest the
piece should slip through the hole in the lip, a kind of rivet is formed
by twine bound round the inner extremity, and this, protruding into the
space left by the extraction of the four front teeth of the lower jaw,
entices the tongue to act upon the extremity, which gives it a wriggling
motion indescribably ludicrous during conversation.
It is difficult to explain real beauty. A defect in one country is a
desideratum in another. Scars upon the face are, in Europe, a blemish;
but here and in the Arab countries no beauty can be perfect until the
cheeks or temples have been gashed.
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