250 BIRD-HUNTING 



thoroughly in keeping with the mysterious figures 

 muffled in ungainly camel-hair cloaks and huge 

 pointed hoods which issue from them in flapping 

 heel-less slippers and white-stockinged feet. 



Whether these bundles are beautiful as houris or 

 hideous as the witch of Endor, it is impossible even 

 to guess. You can see nothing, not even the eyes, 

 the whole face being covered inside the cavernous 

 hood with a coarsely-painted canvas screen. 



Even this protection against being seen by an 

 unbeliever does not appear to satisfy their modesty, 

 religious scruples, or whatever it is that influences 

 them ; for they turn their backs on him in the street 

 and show the greatest reluctance even to pass him. 



To see one of these Mohammedan women travel- 

 ling, especially on board a steamer, is an incongruous 

 sight. One may be seen sometimes as a deck- 

 passenger on the Adriatic steamers, where she 

 looks wofully out of place, and still more so on 

 the gangway embarking on or disembarking from a 

 boat. She is terribly afraid of being seen, and 

 equally afraid of falling overboard. Her baggy, 

 shapeless clothing and ridiculous little heel-less 

 slippers handicap her dreadfully, and her own folk 

 take no notice of her, and never condescend to 

 assist her in any way. If you forget her prejudices, 

 and extend a helping hand, as I did once or twice 

 without thinking, she won't see it, or you. As far 



