. Wanderings in Bible lands: notes of travel in Italy, Greece, Asia-Minor, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Cush, and Palestine. size according to the age of thewearer; the largest being about twelve inches in depth andtwenty-five in length. A few are ornamented with beadsand small shells; but these are the exception. The ordi-nary article is cheaply and unpretentiously trimmed withcastor oil; that is to say, the girdle when new is well soakedin the oil, which softens and darkens the leather, besidesadding a perfume dear to native nostrils. For to the Nu-bian, who grows his own plants and bruises his o
. Wanderings in Bible lands: notes of travel in Italy, Greece, Asia-Minor, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Cush, and Palestine. size according to the age of thewearer; the largest being about twelve inches in depth andtwenty-five in length. A few are ornamented with beadsand small shells; but these are the exception. The ordi-nary article is cheaply and unpretentiously trimmed withcastor oil; that is to say, the girdle when new is well soakedin the oil, which softens and darkens the leather, besidesadding a perfume dear to native nostrils. For to the Nu-bian, who grows his own plants and bruises his own berries,this odor is delicious. He reckons castor oil as among hisgreatest luxuries. He eats it as we eat butter. His wivessaturate their plaited locks with it. His little girls perfumetheir fringes with it. His boys anoint their bodies with it. 2Q6 WANDERINGS IN BIBLE LANDS. His home, his breath, his food are redolent of it. It per-vades the very air in which he lives and has his the traveler who, while his lines are cast in Nubia,can train his degenerate nose to delight in the aroma oicastor oil.*. Nubian Mud Huts. In the village, made up of mud huts, we noticed wom-en pounding and rubbing lentils until a dough was formedwhich, when baked and dipped in castor oil, is esteemed agreat luxury. The huts are as entirely devoid of anythingto make them comfortable as it is possible to make them,and yet the people who live in them seem to be happy andcontented. We wonder whether our boasted civilization,with the rum and whisky that follow it, would not makethem, in the end, worse off than they now are. The people at Dekkeh are not given to selling of the girls offer us agates which they have picked upon the desert, but they are shy and if spoken to or ap- * A Thousand Miles up the Nile, page 176. WANDERINGS IN BIBLE LANDS. 297 proached run away. One holds up in her hand a string ofbeads and when she receives a small coin in exchange forit runs away laughing
Size: 1789px × 1396px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidwanderingsin, bookyear1894
