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

164 MIXED POPULATION.
produces a doubly disagreeable effect, that of
ghastliness, and of swelling the lip even beyond
the thick proportions which nature has be-
stowed upon it. The young girls wear nothing
except a girdle of fringes composed of thin
leather thongs, ornamented at the top with
cowrie -shells, which is fastened round their
loins, and so ingeniously is this description of
Eve's apron contrived, that no immodest ex-
posure ever takes place. They are all exceed-
ingly well limbed,—indeed so are all the Fellahs
—and it is a remarkable fact that since I have
been in Egypt I have never seen a deformed
person among its natives. Here too we saw
the two Abyssinian races, the black and the
copper-coloured specimens; and the fierce Be-
douin Arab with his head uncovered and exhi-
biting a shock of black hair standing on end,
with a skewer stuck through it, and thick
enough to protect his skull from the ardent rays
of the sun.
Passing by a door at which several w^omen
were standing, my guide requested me to dis-
mount and visit his family. I went in and found
his two wives, seven children, sister, mother, and
mother-in-law amicably assembled in the same
habitation, and was hospitably regaled by them