The
Arabs, doubtless for some reason of the kind, always draw their
head-kerchiefs, like hoods, far over their brows, and cover up their
mouths, even when the sun and wind are behind them.
Inhabitants of the
Desert are to be recognised by the net-work of wrinkles traced in the
skin round the orbits, the result of half-closing their eyelids; but
this is done to temper the intensity of the light.
[FN#6] Their own pipe-tubes were of coarse wood, in shape somewhat
resembling the German porcelain pipe. The bowl was of soft stone,
apparently steatite, which, when fresh, is easily fashioned with a
knife. In Arabia the Badawin, and even the townspeople, use on journeys
an earthen tube from five to six inches shorter than the English
"clay," thicker in the tube, with a large bowl, and coloured
yellowish-red. It contains a handful of tobacco, and the smoker emits
puffs like a chimney. In some of these articles the bowl forms a
rectangle with the tube; in others, the whole is an unbroken curve,
like the old Turkish Meerschaum.
[FN#7] See Wallin's papers, published in the Journals of the Royal
Geographical Society.
[FN#8] Shurum, (plural of Sharm, a creek), a word prefixed to the
proper names of three small ports in the Sinaitic peninsula.
[FN#9] Tawarah, plural of Turi, an inhabitant of Tur or Sinai.
[FN#10] This feature did not escape the practised eye of Denon.
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