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A BEDOUIN (BADAWI) OF THE DESERT.

The Aenezes are distinguished at first sight from all the Syrian Bedouins by the long tresses of their hair. They never shave their black hair, but cherish it from infancy, till they can twist it in tresses, that hang over the cheeks down to the breast: these tresses are called keroun. Some few Aenezes wear girdles of leather, others tie a cord or a piece of rag over the shirt. Men and women wear from infancy a leather girdle around the naked waist, it consists of four or five thongs twisted together into a cord as thick as one’s finger. I heard that the women tie their thongs separated from each other, round the waist. Both men and women adorn the girdles with pieces of ribands or amulets. The Aenezes called it hhakou; the Ahl el Shemal call it bereim. In summer the boys, until the age of seven or eight years, go stark naked; but I never saw any young girl in that state, although it was mentioned that in the interior of the desert the girls, at that early age, were not more encumbered by clothing than their little brothers. In winter, the Bedouins wear over the shirt a pelisse, made of several sheep-skins stitched together; many wear these skins even in summer, because experience has taught them that the more warmly a person is clothed, the less he suffers from the sun. The Arabs endure the inclemency of the rainy season in a wonderful manner. While everything around them suffers from the cold, they sleep barefooted in an open tent, where the fire is not kept up beyond midnight. Yet in the middle of summer an Arab sleeps wrapt in his mantle upon the burning sand, and exposed to the rays of an intensely hot sun. The ladies’ dress is a wide cotton gown of a dark colour, blue, brown, or black; on their heads they wear a kerchief called shauber or mekroune, the young females having it of a red colour, the old of black. All the Ranalla ladies wear black silk kerchiefs, two yards square, called shale kās; these are made at Damascus. Silver rings are much worn by the Aeneze ladies, both in the ears and noses; the ear-rings they call terkie (pl. teraky), the small nose-rings shedre, the larger (some of which are three inches and a half in diameter), khezain. All the women puncture their lips and dye them blue; this kind of tattooing they call bertoum, and apply it likewise in spotting their temples and foreheads. The Serhhān women puncture their cheeks, breasts, and arms, and the Ammour women their ankles. Several men also adorn their arms in the same manner. The Bedouin ladies half cover their faces with a dark-coloured veil, called nekye, which is so tied as to conceal the chin and mouth. The Egyptian women’s veil (berkoa) is used by the Kebly Arabs. Round their wrists the Aeneze ladies wear glass bracelets of various colours; the rich also have silver bracelets and some wear silver chains about the neck. Both in summer and winter the men and women go barefooted.