43 6 GAZELLE EYES. 



treeless and shadowless wilderness the gazelle is among the 

 antelope tribe, as the Arab horse is, the high bred and 

 superlative beauty of the race. The skin is sleek as satin, of 

 a colour difficult to describe, varying between the lightest 

 mauve and yellowish brown, the belly is snow white and the 

 eye is perfection, full, large, soft, and jet black."* 



To have an eye like the gazelle (Arabice Ain- 

 El-Ghazal) is an expression, as we know, constantly 

 made use of to denote the highest type of female 

 beauty; and this rather long, almond shaped, dark 

 eye, has been laid claim to as a speciality be- 

 longing to the beauties of the East. The splendour 

 of the dark eyes of one of these nymphs have been 

 thus dramatically described, in a legend, related by an 

 Arab story-teller, " She had eyes large and soft as 

 the gazelle. There were none that could compare 

 unto them ; and they were dark as the night that is 

 without moon and without stars. And though she 

 depart and is removed afar from me, still her abode 

 will be in my heart, and in the recesses of my bosom : 

 and as for her presence, it is as the sun shining high 

 in a cloudless sky." f 



There can be little doubt that allusion is here 

 made to the lustrous beauty of the eye of the " Gazella 

 Dorcas, " a small antelope which is common throughout 

 the deserts of Arabia and Northern Africa ; where it is 

 sometimes seen in large herds. The word u Dorcas " 

 itself is identical with the Greek " Sopxas, " which we 

 are told on the authority of Calmet, a learned French 



* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, 

 1867, pp. 47 8. 



f- Part of an Arab tale. 



