DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0290
and lower egypt.
chap. xvr.
Wives of the commofialty—Black of the eyes—*Al-
quifoux—Red of the hands and of the feet—Henna
—Depilatories—Plumpness of the women, their
cleanliness, their cosmetics.
Wherever an excessive luxury is concentrated
in a privileged class in the cities, indigence, and
all the horrors which follow in its train, are the
heritage of the most numerous class, and the de-
solation of the plains. It would betray great ig-
norance of the state of women in Egypt, to
imagine that they are all endowed with the sam«
charms, that they enjoy the same delicate accom-
modations of life, as the beautiful foreign dames
of whom I have been just speaking, and who, si-
milar to exotic flowers, whose lustre is to be pre-
served only by attention and management, live
solely in the employment of prolonging the dura-
tion of the gifts derived from nature, and of adorn-
ing them by the richness of art. The women of
the lower order, instead of that whiteness, of that
delicate colouring with which the complexion of
the first is animated, have, like the men of the
same country, a tawny skin, and as the males of
the same order, they wear the impress and the
tatters of frightful poverty. Almost all of them,
s 3 especially
chap. xvr.
Wives of the commofialty—Black of the eyes—*Al-
quifoux—Red of the hands and of the feet—Henna
—Depilatories—Plumpness of the women, their
cleanliness, their cosmetics.
Wherever an excessive luxury is concentrated
in a privileged class in the cities, indigence, and
all the horrors which follow in its train, are the
heritage of the most numerous class, and the de-
solation of the plains. It would betray great ig-
norance of the state of women in Egypt, to
imagine that they are all endowed with the sam«
charms, that they enjoy the same delicate accom-
modations of life, as the beautiful foreign dames
of whom I have been just speaking, and who, si-
milar to exotic flowers, whose lustre is to be pre-
served only by attention and management, live
solely in the employment of prolonging the dura-
tion of the gifts derived from nature, and of adorn-
ing them by the richness of art. The women of
the lower order, instead of that whiteness, of that
delicate colouring with which the complexion of
the first is animated, have, like the men of the
same country, a tawny skin, and as the males of
the same order, they wear the impress and the
tatters of frightful poverty. Almost all of them,
s 3 especially