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.
The women of Egypt deem it more incumbent upon them to cover the upper and back part of the head than the face, and more requisite to conceal the face than most other parts of the person. I have often seen women but half covered with miserable rags, and several times females in the prime of womanhood, and others in more advanced age, with nothing on the body but a narrow strip of rag bound round the hips.
Mr. Burckhardt, in his Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (p. 47), thus describes the dress of the Badawīs of the desert:—
In summer the men wear a coarse cotton shirt, over which the wealthy put a kombar, or “long gown,” as it is worn in Turkish towns, of silk or cotton stuff. Most of them, however, do not wear the kombar, but simply wear over their shirt a woollen mantle. There are different sorts of mantles, one very thin, light, and white woollen, manufactured at Bag͟hdād, and called mesoumy. A coarser and heavier kind, striped white and brown (worn over the mesoumy), is called abba. The Bag͟hdād abbas are most esteemed, those made at Hamah, with short wide sleeves, are called boush. (In the northern parts of Syria, every kind of woollen mantle, whether white, black, or striped white and brown, or white and blue, are called meshlakh.) I have not seen any black abbas among the Aenezes, but frequently among the sheikhs of Ahl el Shemal, sometimes interwoven with gold, and worth as much as ten pounds sterling. The Aenezes do not wear drawers; they walk and ride usually barefooted, even the richest of them, although they generally esteem yellow boots and red shoes. All the Bedouins wear on the head, instead of the red Turkish cap, a turban or square kerchief, of cotton or cotton and silk mixed; the turban is called keffie; this they fold about the head so that one corner falls backward, and two other corners hang over the fore part of the shoulders; with these two corners they cover their faces to protect them from the sun’s rays, or hot wind, or rain, or to conceal their features if they wish to be unknown. The keffie is yellow or yellow mixed with green. Over the keffie the Aenezes tie, instead of a turban, a cord round the head; this cord is of camel’s hair, and called akal. Some tie a handkerchief about the head, and it is then called shutfe. A few rich sheikhs wear shawls on their heads of Damascus or Bag͟hdād manufacture, striped red and white; they sometimes also use red caps or takie (called in Syria tarboush), and under those they wear a smaller cap of camel’s hair, called maaraka (in Syria arkye, where it is generally made of fine cotton stuff).
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.
Captain Burton, in his account of Zanzibar, (vol. i. p. 382), says:—
The Arab’s head-dress is a kummeh or kofiyyāh (red fez), a Surat calotte (afiyyah), or a white skull-cap, worn under a turban (kilemba) of Oman silk and cotton religiously mixed. Usually it is of fine blue and white cotton check, embroidered and fringed with a broad red border, with the ends hanging in unequal lengths over one shoulder. The coiffure is highly picturesque. The ruling family and grandees, however, have modified its vulgar folds, wearing it peaked in front, and somewhat resembling a tiara. The essential body-clothing, and the succedaneum for trousers is an izor (nguo yaku Chini), or loin-cloth, tucked in at the waist, six to seven feet long by two to three broad. The colours are brickdust and white, or blue and white, with a silk border striped red, black, and yellow. The very poor wear a dirty bit of cotton girdled by a hakab or kundāvi, a rope of plaited thongs; the rich prefer a fine embroidered stuff from Oman, supported at the waist by a silver chain. None but the western Arabs admit the innovation of drawers (sūrūwali). The jama or upper garment is a collarless coat, of the best broad-cloth, leek-green or some tender colour being preferred. It is secured over the left breast by a silken loop, and the straight wide sleeves are gaily lined. The kizbāo is a kind of waistcoat, covering only the bust; some wear it with sleeves, others without. The dishdashes (in Kisawahili Khanzu), a narrow-sleeved shirt buttoned at the throat, and extending to midshin, is made of calico (baftah), American drill and other stuffs called doriyāh, tarabuzun, and jamdani. Sailors are known by khuzerangi, a coarse cotton, stained dingy red-yellow, with henna or pomegranate rind, and rank with wars (bastard saffron) and shark’s oil.