DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0292
AND LOWER EGYPT. 263
of art to make their eyes appear larger and blacker.
For this purpose, females of every description, Ma-
hometan, Jew, Christian, rich and poor, all tinge
the eyebrows and the eyelashes with black lead*,
known, in the commerce of the Levant, by the
name of alquifoux or arquifoux. They reduce it to
a subtile powder, to which they give consistency
by mixing it with the fuliginous vapour of a lamp.
The more opulent employ the fumes of amber, or
of some other fat and odoriferous substance, and
have the drug always prepared, at hand, in small
phials. With this composition they themselves
paint the eyebrows and eyelids, and with a small
morsel of wood, of reed, or of feather, they like-
wise blacken the lashes with it, by passing it with
a light hand between the two eyelids; an opera-
tion which the Roman ladies practised of old, and
which Juvenal has described with so much exacti-
tude-]-. They besides mark with it the angles of
the eye, which makes the fissure appear greater.
The ebony of those eyes so black contrasts agree-
ably with the dazzling white of the skin of the
beautiful Circassian women, and imparts vivacity
to their complexion : but this opposition of colour
* Mine de plomb tessulaire. Galena tcssulata.
■f Ilia supercilium, modka. fuligint factum
Obliqud producit acu, pingitquc, trententes
Attollcns oculos.
s 4 produces
of art to make their eyes appear larger and blacker.
For this purpose, females of every description, Ma-
hometan, Jew, Christian, rich and poor, all tinge
the eyebrows and the eyelashes with black lead*,
known, in the commerce of the Levant, by the
name of alquifoux or arquifoux. They reduce it to
a subtile powder, to which they give consistency
by mixing it with the fuliginous vapour of a lamp.
The more opulent employ the fumes of amber, or
of some other fat and odoriferous substance, and
have the drug always prepared, at hand, in small
phials. With this composition they themselves
paint the eyebrows and eyelids, and with a small
morsel of wood, of reed, or of feather, they like-
wise blacken the lashes with it, by passing it with
a light hand between the two eyelids; an opera-
tion which the Roman ladies practised of old, and
which Juvenal has described with so much exacti-
tude-]-. They besides mark with it the angles of
the eye, which makes the fissure appear greater.
The ebony of those eyes so black contrasts agree-
ably with the dazzling white of the skin of the
beautiful Circassian women, and imparts vivacity
to their complexion : but this opposition of colour
* Mine de plomb tessulaire. Galena tcssulata.
■f Ilia supercilium, modka. fuligint factum
Obliqud producit acu, pingitquc, trententes
Attollcns oculos.
s 4 produces