Volume 2

296 Life of Jesus Christ
cakes, and on top of the whole arrangement water could
be boiled in shallow vessels. This they drew off for
bathing, washing, and cooking. They could also broil and
roast on these stoves. They were thin and light, could be
carried on journeys, and easily moved from place to
place. It was over such stoves that the metal letters were
heated before being burnt into the tablets of bark.
The people of Canaan had black hair and were darker
than Abraham and his countrymen, who were of a ruddy,
olive complexion. The costume of the Canaanite women
was different from that of the daughters of Israel. They
wore a wide tunic of yellow wool down to the knee. It
consisted of four pieces which could be drawn together
by a running string below the knee, thus forming a kind
of wide pantalet. It was not bound around the upper part
of the limbs like that of the Jewish women, but its wide
folds fell front and back from the waist to the knee. The
upper part of the body was covered with a similarly
doubled lappet that fell over the breast and back. The
pieces were bound together on the shoulders, forming a
sort of wide scapular, likewise open on both sides and
fastened around the waist with a belt, above which it
hung loose like a sack. The whole costume from shoulder
to knee looked like a wide sack bound at the waist and
ending abruptly below the latter. The feet were sandaled
and the lower limbs wound crosswise with straps, through
the openings of which the skin could be seen. The arms
were covered with pieces of fine, transparent stuff which,
by several shining metal rings, were formed into a sleeve.
They wore on the head a pointed cap of little feathers,
from the top of which hung something like the crest of a
helmet ending in a large tuft. These people were
beautiful and well-made, but much more ignorant than
the Children of Israel. Some of them had long mantles
also, narrow above and wide below. The women of Israel
wore over a kind of bandage wrapped around the body a