felt or straw, but is just a folded handkerchief of a large size and
bright colour with a piece of cord to hold it wound round his head--a sort
of a hat in two pieces. The girls go without shoes but carefully cover
their pretty (or ugly) faces with a black veil.

At home you eat with a spoon or use a knife and fork. Here the Arabs eat
with their fingers; nor do they use any plates or butter dishes, but a
large piece of flat bread serves as a plate until it is all eaten. So you
see in Arabia the children not only eat their rice and meat but their
plates also. You read a book from left to right but in Arabia everybody
begins at the right-hand cover and reads backward. Even the lines read
backward and in Arabic writing there are no commas or capitals and the
vowels are written not next to the consonants but stuck up above them.
_Potato_ in Arabic would be written with English letters this way:

O A O
T T P

Can you read it?

In your country a carpenter stands at his bench to work, but here they sit
on the ground. With you he uses a vise to hold the board or stick he is
planing; here he uses his bare toes. With you he _pushes_ the saw or,
especially, the plane away from him to cut or to smooth a piece of wood,
but in Topsy-turvy Land he _pulls_ his tools towards him. Buttons are on
the button-hole side and the holes are where you put the buttons. Door
keys and door hinges are made of wood, not of iron as in the Occident. The
women wear toe-rings and nose-rings as well as earrings and bracelets.
Everything seems different from what it is in a Christian country.