A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

THE BERBERS. 1G8
interesting to us from the novel scene it exhi-
bited in the mixed population assembled there.
At this point, the physical characteristics of the
people rapidly approach the Negro races, but
there is an intermediate race called the Berbers,
inhabiting Lower Nubia, (among whom
we shall find ourselves as soon as we quit Es-
souan,) whose language and physiognomy are
as distinct from the Arabs as they are from
the Negroes. Many of these Berbers we found
in the bazaar, a fine wild-looking people ; the
men, with very little clothing, all carry a small
dagger, strapped with a red leather bracelet
round their left arm above the elbow, and a
fetiche or talisman enclosed in a little red leather
case suspended to the other. The women unco-
ver their faces and wear nose rings of brass or of
bone, and a quantity of necklaces and bracelets of
coloured beads, brass ear-rings and finger-rings,
and, when they can procure them, small gold
or silver coins hung upon their foreheads. The
married women wear long drawers and a large
blue cotton cloth similar to the garment of the
female Fellahs, which they drape not ungrace-
fully around them. They disfigure themselves
by not only tattooing their chins, but by dyeing
their under lips with some blue drug which
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