teeth, as usual among Orientals, are white, even, short and
broad—indications of strength. Some tribes trim their mustaches according
to the “Sunnat”; the Shafe’i often shave them, and many allow them to hang
Persian-like over the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled
tufts upon the chin; where whisker should be, the place is either bare
or is thinly covered with straggling pile.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz are short men, about the height of the Indians
near Bombay, but weighing on an average a stone more. As usual in this
stage of society, stature varies little; you rarely see a giant, and
scarcely ever a dwarf. Deformity is checked by the Spartan restraint
upon population, and no weakly infant can live through a Badawi life.
The figure, though spare, is square and well knit; fulness of limb
seldom appears but about spring, when milk abounds: I have seen two or
three muscular figures, but never a fat man. The neck is sinewy, the
chest broad, the flank thin, and the stomach in-drawn; the legs, though
fleshless, are well made, especially when the knee and ankle are not
bowed by too early riding. The shins do not bend cucumber-like to the
front as in the African race.[FN#11] The arms are thin, with muscles
like whipcords, and the hands and feet are, in point of size and
delicacy, a link between Europe and India. As in the Celt, the Arab
thumb is remarkably long, extending almost to the first joint of the
index,[FN#12] which, with its easy rotation, makes it a perfect
prehensile instrument: the palm also is fleshless, small-boned, and
[p.84] elastic. With his small active figure, it is not strange that
the wildest Badawi gait should be pleasing; he neither unfits himself
for walking, nor distorts his ankles by turning out his toes according
to the farcical rule of fashion, and his shoulders are not dressed like
a drill-sergeant’s, to throw all the weight of the body upon the heels.
Yet there is no slouch in his walk; it is light and springy, and errs