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Disorder reigned supreme, in all the desert freedom; horses and mules, goats and camels, tethered, strayed among the conical houses of hair, browsing off the littered straw or the tossed-down hay; and caldrons seethed and hissed over wood fires, whose lurid light was flung on the eagle features and the white haiks of the wanderers who watched the boiling of their mess, or fed the embers with dry sticks.
These presently reappeared on the roofs of the principal thoroughfare, where groups of women, closely covered in their haiks, had already begun to congregate with their dark attendants. Next, a body of the townsmen who possessed firearms mounted guard on the walls to protect the town from the lawlessness of the big army that was coming.
'I have an idea that I could write books, said I; 'but, as to keeping them and here again I shook my head. The Armenian was silent some time; all at once, glancing at one of the wire cases, with which, as I have already said, the walls of the room were hung, he asked me if I was well acquainted with the learning of the Haiks.
"And these are all nobles of Araby?" said Richard, looking around on wild forms with their persons covered with haiks, their countenance swart with the sunbeams, their teeth as white as ivory, their black eyes glancing with fierce and preternatural lustre from under the shade of their turbans, and their dress being in general simple even to meanness.
Hanoteau, p. 350-357 Reais Hanoteau, pp. 302, 303 The same sentiment inspires the Touareg songs, among which tribe women enjoy much greater liberty and possess a knowledge of letters greater than that of the men, and know more of that which we should call literature, if that word were not too ambitious: "For God's sake leave those hearts in peace, 'Tis Tosdenni torments them so; She is more graceful than a troop Of antelopes separated from gazelles; More beautiful than snowy flocks, Which move toward the tents, And with the evening shades appear To share the nightly gathering; More beautiful than the striped silks Enwrapped so closely under the haiks, More beautiful than the glossy ebon veil, Enveloped in its paper white, With which the young man decks himself, And which sets off his dusky cheek."
"I have an idea that I could write books," said I; "but, as to keeping them " and here again I shook my head. The Armenian was silent some time; all at once, glancing at one of the wire cases, with which, as I have already said, the walls of the room were hung, he asked me if I was well acquainted with the learning of the Haiks.
Across the top of two poles about five feet high, before and behind, a ridge-piece is placed, and over this is stretched to the ground on either side a long piece of palmetto or goat-hair cloth, or perhaps one of the long woollen blankets worn by men and women alike, called haïks, which will again be used for its original purpose on board the vessel.
We believe . . . ’ and then the Armenian told me of several things which the Haiks believed or disbelieved. ‘But what we find most hard of all to believe,’ said he, ‘is that the man of the mole-hills is entitled to our allegiance, he not being a Haik, or understanding the Haik language.’
More women, veiled to the eyes, passed us, in delightful shoes milk-coloured leather, embroidered with green: an African woman, black as a boot, with thick negro lips and yellow metal bracelets on her charcoal-sticks of arms. More donkeys passed us, carrying vegetables to market, driven by countrywomen in yellowish-white haiks, vast straw hats, and the inevitable veil.
Though the wayfarers, plodding through the dusty hoof-marks, were desultory, it was quiet for few hours even at night, and under our windows we waked to an eternal shuffling in the soft sand, the champing of bits, and guttural Arabic tones. R. and I leaned over the balcony. Women passed us wrapped in voluminous whity-yellow garments haiks black eyes and red slippers alone showing.
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