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AN INDIAN ZANANA LADY. (A.F. Hole.)

The best kind of shoes worn by the females of the lower orders are of red morocco, turned up, but generally round, at the toes. The burkaʾ and shoes are most common in Cairo, and are also worn by many of the women throughout lower Egypt; but in Upper Egypt, the burkaʾ is very seldom seen, and shoes are scarcely less uncommon. To supply the place of the former, when necessary, a portion of the tarhah is drawn before the face, so as to conceal nearly all the countenance except one eye.

Many of the women of the lower orders, even in the metropolis, never conceal their faces.

Throughout the greater part of Egypt, the most common dress of the women, merely consists of the blue shirt or tob and tarhah. In the southern parts of Upper Egypt chiefly above Akhmeem, most of the women envelop themselves in a large piece of dark-brown woollen stuff (called a hulāleeyeh), wrapping it round the body and attaching the upper parts together over each shoulder, and a piece of the same they use as a tarhah. This dull dress, though picturesque, is almost as disguising as the blue tinge which women in these parts of Egypt impart to their lips. Most of the women of the lower orders wear a variety of trumpery ornaments, such as ear-rings, necklaces, bracelets, &c., and sometimes a nose-ring.