In The North, As Might Be Expected, The Camels Are Hairy; Whereas, In Al-Hijaz And In The Low Parts Of Al-Yaman, A Whole Animal Does Not Give A Handful Fit For Weaving.

The Arabs attribute this, as we should, to heat, which causes the longer hairs to drop off. [FN#11] “Magnum inter Arabes et Africanos discrimen efficit [Greek]. Arabum parvula membra sicut nobilis aequi.

Africanum tamen flaccum, crassum longumque: ita quiescens, erectum tamen parum distenditur. Argumentum validissimum est ad indagandam Egyptorum originem: Nilotica enim gens membrum habet Africanum.” [FN#12] Whereas the Saxon thumb is thick, flat, and short, extending scarcely half way to the middle joint of the index. [FN#13] A similar unwillingness to name the wife may be found in some parts of southern Europe, where probably jealousy or possibly Asiatic custom has given rise to it. Among the Maltese it appears in a truly ridiculous way, e.g., “dice la mia moglie, con rispetto parlando, &c.,” says the husband, adding to the word spouse a “saving your presence,” as if he were speaking of something offensive. [FN#14] Dr. Howe (Report on Idiotcy in Massachusetts, 1848,) asserts that “the law against the marriage of relations is made out as clearly as though it were written on tables of stone.” He proceeds to show that in seventeen households where the parents were connected by blood, of ninety-five children one was a dwarf, one deaf, twelve scrofulous, and forty-four idiots—total fifty-eight diseased! [FN#15] Yet the celebrated “Flying Childers” and all his race were remarkably bred in.

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