FEMALE ORNAMENTS. 49 



people seven cubits long — that is, seven times 

 the length of the hand and arm from the elbow. 

 Among the Bedouins — the people inhabiting the 

 country — it is but three and a-half, or about the 

 same size as a Scotch plaid, which I noticed one 

 day, as I saw the two distinct and yet similar 

 formed garments drying together upon the ground 

 after a shower of rain. 



The ladies wear a Ions* blue chemise with short 

 sleeves, and a very heavy necklace, made of beads, 

 shells, or of large carved pieces of mother of pearl, 

 reposes upon their delicate bosoms. Ear-rings are 

 a very extraordinary vanity amongst them. They 

 consist of large loops of twisted brass wire, five or 

 six in number, placed each through it& own per- 

 foration in the outer lobe of the ear; whilst depend- 

 ing from each of these is one, sometimes two oblong 

 plates of tin, or pewter, at least an inch broad, and 

 one and a-half inch in length. Bracelets and 

 anklets of brass and pewter, large and heavy, were 

 very common among them ; and as they chanted 

 their monotonous songs of prayer or grief, they 

 clattered them against each other as a kind of ac- 

 companiment to their voices. They dressed their 

 hair in a number of small plaits, which were con- 

 nected round the back of the head by parallel bands 

 of red or white cotton, interwoven with and cross- 

 ing the hair transversely, and in this manner form- 

 ing a kind of tippet upon the neck and shoulders. 

 I was once a witness to the difficulty of unravel- 



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