They adhere to their national
dress and manners, forming a small colony, and rarely intermarry or mix
with the other inhabitants.
The individuals of different nations settled here have in their second
and third generations all become Arabs as to features and character; but
are, nevertheless, distinguishable from the Mekkans; they are not nearly
so brown as the latter, thus forming an intermediate link between the
Hedjaz people and the northern Syrians. Their features are somewhat
broader, their beards thicker, and their body stouter, than those of the
Mekkans; but the Arab face, the expression, and cast of features are in
both places the same.
The Medinans in their dress resemble more the Turkish than their
southern neighbours: very few of them wear the beden, or the national
Arab cloak without sleeves; but even the poorer people dress in long
gowns, with a cloth djobbe, or upper cloak, or, instead of it, an abba,
of the same brown and white stripe as is common in Syria and all over
the Desert. Red Tunis bonnets and Turkish shoes are
[p.373] more used here than at Mekka, where the lower classes wear white
bonnets, and sandals. People in easy circumstances dress well, wearing
good cloth cloaks, fine gowns, and, in winter, good pelisses, brought
from Constantinople by way of Cairo; which I found a very common article
of dress in January and February, a season when it is much colder here
than Europeans would expect it to be in Arabian deserts.
