The Ears Are Like Those Of Arab
Horses, Small, Well-Cut, “Castey,” And Elaborate, With Many Elevations And
Depressions.
The nose is pronounced, generally aquiline, but sometimes
straight like those Greek statues which have been treated as prodigious
exaggerations of the facial angle.
For the most part, it is a well-made
feature with delicate nostrils, below which the septum appears: in
anger they swell and open like a blood mare’s. I have, however, seen, in
not a few instances, pert and offensive “pugs.” Deep furrows descend from
the wings of the nose, showing an uncertain temper, now too grave, then
too gay. The mouth is irregular. The lips are either bordes, denoting
rudeness and want of taste, or they form a mere line. In the latter
case there is an appearance of undue development in the upper portion
of the countenance, especially when the jaws are ascetically thin, and
the chin weakly retreats. The latter
[p.83] feature, however, is generally well and strongly made. The
teeth, as usual among Orientals, are white, even, short and
broad—indications of strength. Some tribes trim their mustaches according
to the “Sunnat”; the Shafe’i often shave them, and many allow them to hang
Persian-like over the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled
tufts upon the chin; where whisker should be, the place is either bare
or is thinly covered with straggling pile.
The Badawin of Al-Hijaz are short men, about the height of the Indians
near Bombay, but weighing on an average a stone more. As usual in this
stage of society, stature varies little; you rarely see a giant, and
scarcely ever a dwarf. Deformity is checked by the Spartan restraint
upon population, and no weakly infant can live through a Badawi life.
The figure, though spare, is square and well knit; fulness of limb
seldom appears but about spring, when milk abounds: I have seen two or
three muscular figures, but never a fat man. The neck is sinewy, the
chest broad, the flank thin, and the stomach in-drawn; the legs, though
fleshless, are well made, especially when the knee and ankle are not
bowed by too early riding. The shins do not bend cucumber-like to the
front as in the African race.[FN#11] The arms are thin, with muscles
like whipcords, and the hands and feet are, in point of size and
delicacy, a link between Europe and India. As in the Celt, the Arab
thumb is remarkably long, extending almost to the first joint of the
index,[FN#12] which, with its easy rotation, makes it a perfect
prehensile instrument: the palm also is fleshless, small-boned, and
[p.84] elastic. With his small active figure, it is not strange that
the wildest Badawi gait should be pleasing; he neither unfits himself
for walking, nor distorts his ankles by turning out his toes according
to the farcical rule of fashion, and his shoulders are not dressed like
a drill-sergeant’s, to throw all the weight of the body upon the heels.
Yet there is no slouch in his walk; it is light and springy, and errs
only in one point, sometimes becoming a strut.
Such is the Badawi, and such he has been for ages. The national type
has been preserved by systematic intermarriage. The wild men do not
refuse their daughters to a stranger, but the son-in-law would be
forced to settle among them, and this life, which has its charms for a
while, ends in becoming wearisome. Here no evil results are anticipated
from the union of first cousins, and the experience of ages and of a
mighty nation may be trusted. Every Badawi has a right to marry his
father’s brother’s daughter before she is given to a stranger; hence “cousin”
(Bint Amm) in polite phrase signifies a “wife.[FN#13]” Our
physiologists[FN#14] adduce the Sangre Azul of Spain and the case of
the lower animals to prove that degeneracy inevitably follows
“breeding-in.[FN#15]”
[p.85] Either they have theorised from insufficient facts, or
civilisation and artificial living exercise some peculiar influence, or
Arabia is a solitary exception to a general rule. The fact which I have
mentioned is patent to every Eastern traveller.
After this long description, the reader will perceive with pleasure
that we are approaching an interesting theme, the first question of
mankind to the wanderer—“What are the women like?” Truth compels me to state
that the women of the Hijazi Badawin are by no means comely. Although
the Benu Amur boast of some pretty girls, yet they are far inferior to
the high-bosomed beauties of Nijd. And I warn all men that if they run
to Al-Hijaz in search of the charming face which appears in my
sketch-book as “a Badawi girl,” they will be bitterly disappointed: the
dress was Arab, but it was worn by a fairy of the West. The Hijazi
woman’s eyes are fierce, her features harsh, and her face haggard; like
all people of the South, she soon fades, and in old age her appearance
is truly witch-like. Withered crones abound in the camps, where old men
are seldom seen. The sword and the sun are fatal to
“A green old age, unconscious of decay.”
The manners of the Badawin are free and simple: “vulgarity” and
affectation, awkwardness and embarrassment, are weeds of civilised
growth, unknown to the People of the Desert.[FN#16] Yet their manners
are sometimes dashed with a strange ceremoniousness. When two frends
meet, they either embrace or both extend the right hands, clapping palm
to palm; their foreheads are either pressed together, or their heads
are moved from side to side, whilst for minutes together mutual
inquiries are made and answered. It is a breach of decorum, even when
eating, to turn the back upon a person, and if a Badawi
[p.86] does it, he intends an insult.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 28 of 170
Words from 27758 to 28758
of 175520
