The Muslin Tunics Which They Wear Are Invariably Black Like The Veils,
Set Off Perhaps With Some Red Embroidery Or Silver Spangles.
They are
unfastened across the chest, and, by a narrow opening which descends
to the girdle, disclose the amber-coloured flesh, the median swell of
bosoms of pale bronze, which, during their ephemeral youth at least,
are of a perfect contour.
The faces, it is true, when they are not
hidden from you by a fold of the veil, are generally disappointing.
The rude labours, the early maternity and lactations, soon age and
wither them. But if by chance you see a young woman she is usually an
apparition of beauty, at once vigorous and slender.
As for the fellah babies, who abound in great numbers and follow, half
naked their mammas or their big sisters, they would for the most part
be adorable little creatures, were it not for the dirtiness which in
this country is a thing almost prescribed by tradition. Round their
eyelids and their moist lips are glued little clusters of Egyptian
flies, which are considered here to be beneficial to the children, and
the latter have no thought of driving them away, so resigned are they
become, by force of heredity, to whatever annoyance they thereby
suffer. Another example indeed of the passivity which their fathers
show when brought face to face with the invading foreigners!
Passivity and meek endurance seem to be the characteristics of this
inoffensive people, so graceful in their rags, so mysterious in their
age-old immobility, and so ready to accept with an equal indifference
whatever yoke may come.
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