The Colour Of The Mekkawy And Djiddawy Is A Yellowish Sickly Brown, Lighter Or Darker According To The Origin Of The Mother, Who Is Very Often An Abyssinian Slave.

Their features approach much nearer to those of Bedouins than I have observed in any townsmen of the East; this is particularly observable in the Sherifs, who are gifted with very handsome countenances; they have the eye, face, and aquiline nose of the Bedouin, but are more fleshy.

The lower class of Mekkawys are generally stout, with muscular limbs, while the higher orders are distinguishable by their meagre emaciated forms, as are also all those inhabitants who draw their origin from India or Yemen. The Bedouins who surround Mekka, though poor, are much stronger-bodied than the wealthier Bedouins of the interior of the Desert, probably because their habits are less roving, and because they are less exposed to the hardships of long journies. The Mekkawy, it may be generally said, is inferior in strength and size to the Syrian or Egyptian, but far exceeds him in expressive features, and especially in the vivacity and brilliancy of the eye.

[p.183] All the male natives of Mekka and Djidda are tattooed with a particular mark, which is performed by their parents when they are forty days of age. It consists of three long cuts down both cheeks; and two on the right temple, the scars of which, sometimes three or four lines in breadth, remain through life. It is called Meshale. The Bedouins do not follow this practice; but the Mekkawys pride themselves in the distinction, which precludes the other inhabitants of the Hedjaz from claiming, in foreign countries, the honour of being born in the holy cities. This tattooing is sometimes, though very seldom, applied to female children. The people of Bornou, in the interior of Africa, have a similar, though much slighter, mark on both cheeks.

The dress of the higher classes, in winter, is a cloth benish, or upper cloak; and a djubbe, or under cloak, likewise of cloth, and such as is worn in all parts of Turkey. A showy silk gown, tied with a thin cashmere sash, a white muslin turban, and yellow slippers, constitute the rest of the dress. In summer, instead of the cloth benish, they wear one of very slight silk stuff, of Indian manufacture, called Moktar khana.

The highest classes, who affect the Turkish fashion in their dress, wear red Barbary caps under the turban; those of the other classes are of linen richly embroidered with silk, the work of the women of Mekka, and a common present from a woman to her lover: on the top sometimes are embroidered in large characters sentences of the Koran.

The gowns of well-dressed people of the middle class are generally of white India muslin, without any lining; they are called beden, and differ from the common Levantine antery, in being very short, and without sleeves, and in being of course much cooler: over the beden a djubbe of light cloth, or Indian silk stuff, is worn, which, in time of great heat, a man throws over his shoulders; the gown and under-shirt are then his only covering.

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Words from 68951 to 69485 of 182297