I have frequently seen desert places so infested
with ticks, that the ground was perfectly alive with them, and it
would have been impossible to have rested on the earth; in such
spots, the passage in Exodus has frequently occurred to me as
bearing reference to these vermin, which are the greatest enemies
to man and beast. It is well known that, from the size of a grain
of sand in their natural state, they will distend to the size of
a hazel-nut after having preyed for some days upon the blood of
an animal. The Arabs are invariably infested with lice, not only
in their hair, but upon their bodies and clothes; even the small
charms or spells worn upon the arm in neatly-sewn leathern
packets are full of these vermin. Such spells are generally
verses copied from the Koran by the Faky, or priest, who receives
some small gratuity in exchange; the men wear several of such
talismans upon the arm above the elbow, but the women wear a
large bunch of charms, as a sort of chatelaine, suspended beneath
their clothes round the waist. Although the tope or robe, loosely
but gracefully arranged around the body, appears to be the whole
of the costume, the women wear beneath this garment a thin blue
cotton cloth tightly bound round the loins, which descends to a
little above the knee; beneath this, next to the skin, is the
last garment, the rahat--the latter is the only clothing of young
girls, and may be either perfectly simple or adorned with beads
and cowrie shells according to the fancy of the wearer; it is
perfectly effective as a dress, and admirably adapted to the
climate.
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