JELLEBBA.

UNDER the hyke, some wear a closebodied frock or tunic, (a jellebba they call it,) with or without sleeves, which differs little from the Roman tunica or habit, in which the constellation of Bootes is usually painted.-Ibid. p. 408.

GIRDLES.

THE girdles, which have been occasionally mentioned before, are usually of worsted, very artfully woven into a variety of figures; such as the rich girdles of the virtuous virgins may be supposed to have been, Prov. xxxi. 24. They are made to fold several times about the body; one end of which being doubled back serves them for a purse. -Ibid. p. 409.

SARMAH.

THEY all affect to have their hair, the instrument of their pride, (Isa. xxii. 12,) hang down to the ground; which, after they have collected into one lock, they bind and plait it with ribbons; a piece of finery disapproved of by the Apostle, 1 Peter, iii. 3. Where nature has been less liberal in this ornament, there the defect is supplied by art, and foreign hair is procured to be interwoven with the natural. After the hair is thus plaited, they proceed to dress their heads by tying above the lock I have described a triangular piece of linen, adorned with various figures in needlework: this, among persons of a better fashion, is covered with a sarmah, as they call it, which is made in the same triangular shape, of thin, flexible plates of gold or silver, artfully cut through, and engraven in imitation of lace, and might therefore answer to the moon-like ornament mentioned above. A handkerchief of crape, or

gauze, or silk, or painted linen, bound close over the sarmah and falling afterwards upon the favourite lock of hair, completes the head-dress of the Moorish ladies.-Ibid. p. 412.

AL KA-HOL.

BUT none of these ladies think themselves completely dressed, till they have tinged their eyelids with al ka-hol, (the powder of lead ore,) and this is performed by first dipping into this powder a small bodkin, of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterward through the eyelids, over the ball of the eye. Ibid. p. 412.

TAJEN.

AMONG the Bedoweens and Kabyles as soon as the dough is kneaded it is made into thin cakes, either to be baked immediately upon the coals, or else in a tajen (a shallow

earthen vessel). Such were the unleavened cakes which we so often read of in scripture; such likewise were the cakes that Sarah made quickly upon the hearth. Gen. xviii. 6. -Ibid. p. 415.

DEAD SEA.

THE Dead Sea below, upon our left, appeared so near to us, that we thought we could have rode thither in a very short space of time. Still nearer stood a mountain upon its western shore, resembling in its form the cone of Vesuvius, and having also a crater upon its top, which was plainly discernible. The distance, however, is much greater than it appears to be; the magnitude of the objects beheld in this fine prospect causing them to appear less remote than they really are. The atmosphere was remarkably clear and serene; but we saw none of those clouds of smoke which by some writers are said to exhale from the surface of Lake Asphaltites, nor from any neighbouring mountain. Every

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thing about it was in the highest degree grand and awful. Its desolate, although majestic features, are well suited to the tales related concerning it by the inhabitants of the country, who all speak of it with terror, seeming to shrink from the narrative of its deceitful allurements and deadly influence: "Beautiful fruit," say they "grows upon its shores, which is no sooner touched than it becomes dust and bitter ashes." In addition to its physical horrors, the region around is said to be more perilous, owing to the ferocious tribes wandering upon the shores of the lake, than any other part of the Holy Land. A A passion for the marvellous has thus affixed, for ages, false characteristics to the sublimest associations of natural scenery in the whole world; for, although it be now known that the waters of this lake, instead of proving destructive of animal life, swarm with myriads of fishes; that, instead of falling victims to its exhalations, certain birds make it their peculiar resort; that shells abound on its shores; that the pretended fruit, containing ashes, is as natural and as