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204 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



Excepting foreign or wealthy females, who haVfe 

 lived at Cairo, and who retain the dress of the city, 

 all the rest have no other clothing than that full 

 and long shift, or jacket, of blue cloth, with sleeves 

 of an extraordinary size, and large openings at the 

 sides, of which I have already made mention. This 

 manner of dressing themselves by halves, so that 

 the air may circulate over the body itself, and re- 

 fresh every part of it, is very comfortable in a coun- 

 try where close or thick habits would make the 

 heat intolerable. But the European monks have 

 discovered indecency in a habit where no one else 

 •would have suspected it. They have spoken of 

 indiscreet looks of which no one entertains a doubt, 

 and have obliged the Catholic women to lay aside 

 their wide and easy robe, to shut up the body in a 

 warm and conlined vesture, as if such a prohibition 

 had not been a more real indiscretion in a country 

 where the name of Christian merely is a crime, and 

 where every distinction which could recall it be- 

 came a motive to persecution. But it is not asto- 

 nishing to see such inconsistencies proceed froro the 

 narrow and bigotted brain of friars, and especially 

 of Italian Franciscans. Those of iV/^wrt(^f' however, 

 less scrupulous or less powerful, were the only 

 monks who had left things as they found them, 

 and who had permitted every one to dress accord- 

 ing to their fancy. 



But 



