86 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



customs of this wonderful people, he mentioned that 

 the Egyptian ladies used scent and dye upon their 

 persons, and that at Hartwell there was a small 

 vessel, with some of the very scents and dye still in 

 it, more than 2,000 years old, but I cannot describe it 

 so well as he did. In '^des,' p. 185, he writes 

 as follows : ' The female choristers who attended 

 Pharaoh's daughter, on her espousals with Solomon, 

 and who gave title to the forty-fifth Psalm, are 

 shown on a sepulchral stela of Theban limestone, 

 curiously coloured, as smelling a lotus flower, and 

 that the Egyptian damsels were not unmindful of 

 the pomps and vanities of this world was evinced by 

 their fine linen, necklaces, precious stones, gold 

 chains, armlets, bracelets, anklets or bangles, false 

 jewels, enamels, studs, and earrings, of all of which 

 we have the fullest testimony.' Regarding the rich 

 network of bugles, or beads, which is so frequently 

 found enveloping mummies over their linen clothes, 

 the Admiral told me that there was a relic of the 

 same taste, prevailing at the Court of Yussuf, the 

 late Bashaw at Tripoli. The Bashaw, after an 

 evening with his songstresses and dancers, would 

 honour his guest (the admiral) as he left the castle, 

 by commanding a network of fragrant jasmines to be 

 thrown over his shoulders as a special mark of grace. 

 He says that a very material article of an Egyptian 

 lady's toilet was the scent-bottle, which contained the 

 preparation of antimony, oxide of manganese, or other 

 substances, to blacken the eyebrows and lids, and this 

 blacking still remains in use all over the Levant. 



