When tired of exercise we proceed round the walls to the Ashurbara or
Southern Gate. Here boys play at "hockey" with sticks and stones
energetically as in England: they are fine manly specimens of the race,
but noisy and impudent, like all young savages. At two years of age they
hold out the right hand for sweetmeats, and if refused become insolent.
The citizens amuse themselves with the ball [17], at which they play
roughly as Scotch linkers: they are divided into two parties, bachelors
and married men; accidents often occur, and no player wears any but the
scantiest clothing, otherwise he would retire from the conflict in rags.
The victors sing and dance about the town for hours, brandishing their
spears, shouting their slogans, boasting of ideal victories,--the
Abyssinian Donfatu, or war-vaunt,--and advancing in death-triumph with
frantic gestures: a battle won would be celebrated with less circumstance
in Europe. This is the effect of no occupation--the _primum mobile_ of the
Indian prince's kite-flying and all the puerilities of the pompous East.

We usually find an encampment of Bedouins outside the gate. Their tents
are worse than any gipsy's, low, smoky, and of the rudest construction.
These people are a spectacle of savageness. Their huge heads of shock
hair, dyed red and dripping with butter, are garnished with a Firin, or
long three-pronged comb, a stick, which acts as scratcher when the owner
does not wish to grease his fingers, and sometimes with the ominous
ostrich feather, showing that the wearer has "killed his man:" a soiled
and ragged cotton cloth covers their shoulders, and a similar article is
wrapped round their loins.[18] All wear coarse sandals, and appear in the
bravery of targe, spear, and dagger. Some of the women would be pretty did
they not resemble the men in their scowling, Satanic expression of
countenance: they are decidedly _en deshabille,_ but a black skin always
appears a garb. The cantonment is surrounded by asses, camels, and a troop
of naked Flibertigibbets, who dance and jump in astonishment whenever they