THE ARAB. 



375 



whilst others, 'falling upon their mothers/ as the 

 native phrase is, have been refused inheritance at 

 Maskat, and have narrowly escaped the slave- 

 market. The grandsons of purest Arabs who 

 have settled in Africa, though there has been no 

 mixture of blood, already show important physi- 

 cal modifications worked by the 6 mixture of air/ 

 as the Portuguese phrase is. The skin is fair, 

 but yellow-tinted by over-development of gall; 

 whilst the nose is high, the lips are loose, 

 everted, or otherwise ill-formed; and the beard, 

 rarely of the amplest, shrinks, under the hot- 

 house air, to four straggling tufts upon the rami 

 of the jaws and the condyles of the chin. Whilst 

 the extremities preserve the fineness of Arab 

 blood, the body is weak and effeminate ; and the 

 degenerate aspect is accompanied by the no less 

 degraded mind, morals, and manners of the coast- 

 people. The nervous or nervoso-bilious tempera- 

 ment of the Sons of the Desert here runs into 

 two extremes : many Arabs are bilious-lymphatic, 

 like Banyans ; a few, lapsing into the extreme of 

 leanness, are fair specimens of the c Living Skele- 

 ton.' This has been remarked even of Omanis 

 born and bred upon the Island. Those who in- 

 cline to the nervous diathesis have weakly droop- 

 ing occiputs and narrow skull-bases, arguing a 



