SOCIAL STATE OP THE ARABS. 357 



workmanship in gold and silver, but are often with- 

 out any ornament except two balls or tufts of black 

 ostrich-feathers placed near the top. In striking 

 they balance it for some time over their head, and 

 thrust forwards, or backwards if hard pressed by an 

 enemy. Should a horseman be without a lance, he 

 arms himself with a club or mace, which is made 

 either wholly of iron or with a wooden handle. 

 The foot-soldiers sometimes carry a small round 

 target, made of the wild-ox hide, and covered with 

 iron bars. Some wear iron caps and coats -of-mail, 

 which either cover the whole body to the knees 

 like a long gown, or reach only to the waist. 



The hardy and athletic frame of the Bedouins is 

 to be ascribed in part to their abstemious habits. 

 They are models of sobriety, and never indulge in 

 luxuries except on some festive occasion or on the 

 arrival of a stranger. Their usual articles of food 

 are rice, pulse, dates, milk, butter, and flour. The 

 common people eat bread made of dhourra, which is 

 coarse and insipid. When they have no gridiron 

 they roll the dough into balls and cook it among 

 embers. They generally eat their bread while hot 

 and only half baked. Though not strangers to the 

 invention of mills, they grind their flour with the 

 hand, or merely bruise the grain between two stones. 

 The daily and universal dish of the Aenezes is the 

 ayesh, which is flour and sour camels' milk made into 

 a paste and boiled. The bourgoul is wheat boiled with 

 some leaven and then dried in the sun ; and in this 

 state it is preserved for the whole year. Bread is 

 used at breakfast, which they bake in round cakes 

 either upon gridirons or on heated stones, over which 

 the dough is spread and immediately covered with 

 glowing ashes ; sometimes the fire is put into glazed 



