DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5295#0127
96 TRAVELS IN EGYPT, NUBIA,
Once, upon my endeavouring to make some of them com-
prehend the benefit of obedience to the rules of justice for
punishing offences, instead of pursuing the offender to death
as they practised, they quoted the Koran, to justify their re-
quiring blood for blood.
Their dress, for the men, is a linen smock, commonly
brown, with red or dark coloured scull cap. A few wear
turbans and slippers. The women have a brown robe thrown
gracefully over their head and body, discovering the right
arm and breast, and part of one thigh and leg. They are of
good size and shape, but very ugly in the face. Their necks,
arms, and ankles, are ornamented with beads or bone rings,
and one nostril with a ring of bone or metal*. Their hair is
anointed with oil of cassia, of which every village has a
small plantation. It is matted or plaited, as now seen in
the heads of sphinxes and female figures of their ancient
statues. I found one at Elephantina, which might have
been supposed their model. Their little children are naked.
Girls wear round the waist an apron of strings of raw hide,
and boys a girdle of linen.
Their arms are knives or daggers, fastened to the back of
* This kind of ornament has been always adopted by the women of the East.
Isaiah, iii. 21. speaks of the "nose jewels," and Ezek. xvi. 12. See Lowth in
locum. Walpole's note, p. 422.
Once, upon my endeavouring to make some of them com-
prehend the benefit of obedience to the rules of justice for
punishing offences, instead of pursuing the offender to death
as they practised, they quoted the Koran, to justify their re-
quiring blood for blood.
Their dress, for the men, is a linen smock, commonly
brown, with red or dark coloured scull cap. A few wear
turbans and slippers. The women have a brown robe thrown
gracefully over their head and body, discovering the right
arm and breast, and part of one thigh and leg. They are of
good size and shape, but very ugly in the face. Their necks,
arms, and ankles, are ornamented with beads or bone rings,
and one nostril with a ring of bone or metal*. Their hair is
anointed with oil of cassia, of which every village has a
small plantation. It is matted or plaited, as now seen in
the heads of sphinxes and female figures of their ancient
statues. I found one at Elephantina, which might have
been supposed their model. Their little children are naked.
Girls wear round the waist an apron of strings of raw hide,
and boys a girdle of linen.
Their arms are knives or daggers, fastened to the back of
* This kind of ornament has been always adopted by the women of the East.
Isaiah, iii. 21. speaks of the "nose jewels," and Ezek. xvi. 12. See Lowth in
locum. Walpole's note, p. 422.