THE ROOM. 



87 



Arabs here, as elsewhere, prefer long narrow 

 rooms (-10 feet x 15 to 20), generally much 

 higher than their breadth, open to the sea- 

 breeze, which is the health-giver ; and they close 

 the eastern side-walls against the ' fever- wind/ 

 the cool, danip, spicy land-draught. The Sala 

 or reception -hall is mostly on the ground- 

 floor. It contrasts strongly with our English 

 apartments, where the comfortless profusion and 

 confusion of furniture, and where the undue 

 crowding of ornamental ornaments, spoil the 

 proportions and 6 put out' the eye. The pro- 

 tracted lines of walls and rows of arched and 

 shallow niches, which take the place of tables 

 and consoles, are unbroken save by a few 

 weapons. Pictures and engravings are almost 

 unknown ; chandeliers and mirrors are confined 

 to the wealthy; and the result, which in Eng- 

 land would be bald and barn-like, here sug- 

 gests the coolness and pleasing simplicity of an 

 Italian villa — in Italy. A bright-tinted carpet, 

 a gorgeous but tasteful Persian rug for the dais, 

 matting on the lower floor, which is of the usual 

 chunam; a divan in old-fashioned houses; and, in 

 the best of the modern style, half a dozen stiff 

 chairs of East Indian blackwood or China-work, 

 compose the upholstery of an Arab 'palazzo.' 



