DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11638#0229
AND LOWER EGVPT. 20?
The women of Thebais, who have embraced the
Catholic religion, are again distinguished from the
Mahometans by the disuse of an article of dress
•rencrallv worn in these districts. It is an orna-
O J
ment of luxury and coquetry, which the monks
have also obliged them to lay aside, for which they
arc not greatly to be found fault with, as it is by
no means becoming, at least as far as I can judge
of it, from seeing female dancers and courtezans,
who walk about without veils, disfigured by rings
of metal suspended from the nose. This fashion
consists in wearing one or more hoops of gold or
silver, passed through thenostrils,which arc pierced
for the purpose: some of these hoops are very large,
and the richer people add to them small jewels of
gold, which fail not to load the wing of the nose,
and produce a very disagreeable effect. But I have
never heard that it was a piece of gallantry in
Egypt to kiss the women through these hoops, as
Button has given out, on the authority of a tra-
veller *. It is displaying much ignorance of the
genius of the Egyptians and of the Arabians, even
to suppose them desirous of these amorous kisses.
These people are any thing but gallant, and the
delicious preliminaries of pleasure are quite un-
known to them. Besides, it is difficult to kiss a
woman through a ring, which piercing one of the
sides of the nose, hangs of necessity over the mouth.
* Natural History of Man.
Vansleb,
The women of Thebais, who have embraced the
Catholic religion, are again distinguished from the
Mahometans by the disuse of an article of dress
•rencrallv worn in these districts. It is an orna-
O J
ment of luxury and coquetry, which the monks
have also obliged them to lay aside, for which they
arc not greatly to be found fault with, as it is by
no means becoming, at least as far as I can judge
of it, from seeing female dancers and courtezans,
who walk about without veils, disfigured by rings
of metal suspended from the nose. This fashion
consists in wearing one or more hoops of gold or
silver, passed through thenostrils,which arc pierced
for the purpose: some of these hoops are very large,
and the richer people add to them small jewels of
gold, which fail not to load the wing of the nose,
and produce a very disagreeable effect. But I have
never heard that it was a piece of gallantry in
Egypt to kiss the women through these hoops, as
Button has given out, on the authority of a tra-
veller *. It is displaying much ignorance of the
genius of the Egyptians and of the Arabians, even
to suppose them desirous of these amorous kisses.
These people are any thing but gallant, and the
delicious preliminaries of pleasure are quite un-
known to them. Besides, it is difficult to kiss a
woman through a ring, which piercing one of the
sides of the nose, hangs of necessity over the mouth.
* Natural History of Man.
Vansleb,