WASHING CLOTHES. 133 



spot to rest and recruit the camels, who were nearly 

 worn out by their tiresome journey so far. 



During the day a good deal of washing took 

 place, all the Bedouins and camel-men taking this 

 opportunity of washing their fotahs and body- 

 clothes. For cleansing-troughs they dug small holes 

 in the soil, which they half filled with water, and 

 added thereto straw, or a few handsful of fresh 

 camels' dung, as a substitute for soap. I found 

 Zaido had carefully collected, during the last few 

 days, a mat-bag full of the same kind of com- 

 modity, the produce of my mule, which he had 

 very carefully stowed away for this purpose, as he 

 said it was far superior in its cleansing properties 

 to the camels' dung. A regular washing day now 

 made the whole place alive; every body seemed 

 anxious to be in white apparel, and in succeeding 

 lots, they took possession of the holes. They com- 

 menced by well saturating their clothes in the 

 dirty composition, kneading them with their hands, 

 and when tired of that, stamping them with 

 their feet. The clothes being then taken out, were 

 well rinsed in the neighbouring pond, and being 

 opened out, a critical view was taken of their 

 condition, which, if not satisfactory, a repetition of 

 all these operations followed. After all this, they 

 were dried and bleached in. the sun, and were 

 certainly much improved in appearance by the 

 process of ablution they had undergone. The 

 lively character of the scene altogether had a 



