n the cheeks,
nose, forehead and chin, white anywhere to fill up, blue round the eyes
and under the nose. But strangest of all is the manner in which they
tint the eyebrows. They have undoubtedly been told that, to be
beautiful, the eyebrow should form a well-defined arch, and hence they
have concluded that the greater the arch the greater will be the beauty,
without asking if the place of that arch were not irrevocably fixed by
nature. Such being the case, they give up to their eyebrows the whole
space between the temples, and paint the forehead with two wide arches,
which, starting from the origin of the nose, extend, one on each side,
as far as the temple. Some eccentric beauties prefer the straight line
to the curve, and describe a great streak of black all across the
forehead; but they are few in number.

"Most deplorable is the influence of this painting when combined with
the sloth and uncleanness natural to the women of the East. Each
feminine countenance is a work of high art that cannot be reconstructed
every morning. It is the same with the hands and feet, which, variegated
with orange, fear the action of water as injurious to their beauty. The
multitude of children and servants, especially of negresses, who people
the harems, and the footing of equality on which mistresses and
attendants live, are also aggravating causes of the general
uncleanliness. I shall not speak of the children--everybody knows their
manners and customs--but consider for a moment what would become of our
pretty European furniture if our cooks and maids-of-all-work rested from
their labours on our settees and fauteuils, with their feet on our
carpets, and their back against our hangings. Remember, too, that glass
windows in Asia are still but curiosities; that most of the windows are
filled up with oiled paper, and that where corn-paper is scarce the
windows are blocked up, and light enters only by the chimney--light more
than sufficient for the inmates to drink and smoke by and to apply the
whip to refractory children--the only occupations during the day of the
mortal houris of faithful Mussulmans. Let not the reader suppose,
however, that an Egyptian darkness prevails in these windowless
apartments. The houses being all of one story, the chimneys being very
wide and not rising above the level of the roof, it often happens that
by stooping a little in front of the chimney-place you see the sky
through the opening. What these apartments