AND LOWER EGYPT. 263 



o( art to make their eyes appear larger and blacker. 

 For this purpose, females of every description, Ma- 

 hometan, Jew, Christian, rich and poor, all tinge 

 the eyebrows and the eyelashes with black lead*, 

 known, in the commerce of the Levant, by the 

 name of alquifoux or arquifoux. They reduce it to 

 a subtile powder, to which they give consistency 

 by mixing it with the fuliginous vapour of a lamp. 

 The more opulent employ the fumes of amber, or 

 of some other fat and odoriferous substance, and 

 have the drug always prepared, at hand, in small 

 phials. With this composition they themselves 

 paint the eyebrows and eyelids, and with a small 

 morsel of wood, of reed, or of feather, they like- 

 wise blacken the lashes with it, by passing it with 

 a light hand between the two eyelids; an opera- 

 tion which the Roman ladies practised of old, and 

 which Juvenal has described with so much exacti- 

 tude-)*. They besides mark with it the angles of 

 the eye, which makes the fissure appear greater. 



The ebony of those eyes so black contrasts agree- 

 ably with the dazzling white of the skin of the 

 beautiful Circassian women, and imparts vivacity 

 to their complexion : but this opposition of colour 



* Minede plomb tessulaire. Galena tcssulata. 

 -{• Ilia supacilium, modicdfuligine factum 

 Obliquci producit acu, pingitque, tiemi;:tes 

 Attollem oculos. 



s 4 produces 



