Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 2 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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page 12 of 559 (02%)
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eye small, more round than long,
[p.14] piercing, fiery, deep-set, and brown rather than black. The head is small, the ears well-cut, the face long and oval, though not unfrequently disfigured by what is popularly called the lantern-jaw; the forehead high, bony, broad, and slightly retreating, and the beard and mustachios scanty, consisting of two tufts upon the chin, with, generally speaking, little or no whisker. These are the points of resemblance between the city and the country Arab. The difference is equally remarkable. The temperament of the Madani is not purely nervous, like that of the Badawi, but admits a large admixture of the bilious, and, though rarely, the lymphatic. The cheeks are fuller, the jaws project more than in the pure race, the lips are more fleshy, more sensual and ill-fitting; the features are broader, and the limbs are stouter and more bony. The beard is a little thicker, and the young Arabs of the towns are beginning to imitate the Turks in that abomination to their ancestorsshaving. Personal vanity, always a ruling passion among Orientals, and a hopeless wish to emulate the flowing beards of the Turks and the Persiansperhaps the only nations in the world who ought not to shave the chinhave overruled even the religious objections to such innovation. I was more frequently appealed to at Al-Madinah than anywhere else, for some means of removing the opprobrium Kusah, or scant-bearded man. They blacken the beard with gall-nuts, henna, and other preparations, especially the Egyptian mixture, composed of sulphate of iron one part, ammoniure of iron one part, and gall-nuts two parts, infused in eight parts of distilled water. It is a very bad dye. Much refinement of dress is now found at Al-Madinah,Constantinople, the Paris of the East, supplying it with the newest fashions. Respectable men wear either a Benish or a Jubbah; the latter, as at Meccah, is generally of some light and flashy colour, |
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