310 SOCIAL STATE OF THE ARABS. 



stitute for this a long gown of silk or cotton stuff. 

 The mantles worn by the sheiks are interwoven 

 with gold, and may be valued at 10/. sterling. The 

 common abba is without sleeves, resembling a sack, 

 with openings for the head and arms, and requires so 

 little art in the making that blind tailors earn their 

 livelihood by this employment. Public taste, how- 

 ever, is occasionally more capricious, especially as 

 to the headdress, which is often expensive, and in 

 a hot country must be extremely inconvenient. A 

 fashionable Arab will wear fifteen caps one above 

 another, some of which are linen, but the greater 

 part of thick cloth or cotton. That which covers 

 the whole is richly embroidered with gold, and in- 

 wrought with texts or passages from the Koran. 

 Over all there is wrapped a sash or large piece of 

 muslin, with the ends hanging down, and orna- 

 mented with silk or gold fringes. This useless en- 

 cumbrance is considered a mark of respect towards 

 superiors. It is also used, as the beard was for- 

 merly in Europe, to indicate literary merit ; and 

 those who affect to be thought men of learning dis- 

 cover their pretensions by the size of their turbans. 

 No part of oriental costume is so variable as this 

 covering for the head. Niebuhr has given illus- 

 trations of forty-eight different ways of wearing it. 

 The Bedouins use a keffie, or square kerchief of 

 yellow or green cotton, with two corners hanging 

 down on each side to protect them from the sun and 

 wind, or to conceal their features if they wish to be 

 unknown. A few rich sheiks wear shawls striped 

 red and white, of Damascus or Bagdad manufacture. 

 The Aenezes and some other tribes do not use 

 drawers, which they consider as too effeminate for 

 a man ; and they usually walk and ride barefooted, 

 though they have a particular esteem for yellow 

 boots and red shoes. 



In Mecca and other large towns the winter suit of 

 the higher classes is the benish or upper cloak, and 



