Not only are the Arabs particular in their pomade, but great attention
is bestowed upon perfumery, especially by the women. Various perfumes
are brought from Cairo by the travelling native merchants, among which
those most in demand are oil of roses, oil of sandal-wood, an essence
from the blossom of a species of mimosa, essence of musk, and the oil of
cloves. The women have a peculiar method of scenting their bodies and
clothes by an operation that is considered to be one of the necessaries
of life, and which is repeated at regular intervals. In the floor of the
tent, or hut, as it may chance to be, a small hole is excavated
sufficiently large to contain a common-sized champagne bottle. A fire of
charcoal, or of simply glowing embers, is made within the hole, into
which the woman about to be scented throws a handful of various drugs.
She then takes off the cloth or tope which forms her dress, and crouches
naked over the fumes, while she arranges her robe to fall as a mantle
from her neck to the ground like a tent. When this arrangement is
concluded she is perfectly happy, as none of the precious fumes can
escape, all being retained beneath the robe, precisely as if she wore a
crinoline with an incense-burner beneath it, which would be a far more
simple way of performing the operation. She now begins to perspire
freely in the hot-air bath, and the pores of the skin being thus opened
and moist, the volatile oil from the smoke of the burning perfumes is
immediately absorbed.

By the time that the fire has expired the scenting process is completed,
and both her person and robe are redolent of incense, with which they
are so thoroughly impregnated that I have frequently smelt a party of
women strongly at full a hundred yards' distance, when the wind has been
blowing from their direction.