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It seemed to him that he could not get any wetter; but there is no end to the amount of moisture clothes can absorb, a bournous especially, and soon the rain was pouring down Owen's neck; but he would not be better off if he ordered the caravan to stop and his servants to pitch his tent under a sand-dune.
In cold weather he puts on a bournous or capote, with a hood such as the Greek fishermen and sailors wear. A labouring man does not wear a shirt, and his drawers come only as far as his knee, leaving the rest of his leg exposed. The women's clothes are cut something like those of the men.
We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in the midst of this encroaching and unwelcome company, and then Dan and Jack and I started away for a walk. A howling swarm of beggars followed us surrounded us almost headed us off. A sheik, in flowing white bournous and gaudy head-gear, was with them. He wanted more bucksheesh.
The Algerine men wore long white gowns fastened at the waist with a girdle; white cloaks, called bournous, around their shoulders; and white turbans of many folds on their heads.
The doctor, while his servant was saddling his horse, flung his bournous over himself, and, grasping his pistols and gun, mounted and started off towards the west, ordering Mahomet to cling fast to his horse's tail. Not a moment was to be lost, as the enemy had begun to attack the east side of the camp.
That and a little Arabic, a few mouthfuls, and no Mahdi would dare to enslave him.... But if he were only sure that none would! Outside horses were stamping, his escort, seven Arab horses with seven Arabs from the desert, or thereabout, in high-pummelled saddles, wearing white bournous, their brown, lean hands grasping long-barrelled guns with small carven stocks.
But though one can go on thinking year after year about a bournous, one cannot talk for more than two or three hours about one; and though I looked forward to spending at least a fortnight with my friends, and making excursions in the desert, finding summer, as Fromentin says, chez lui, I was glad to say good-bye to my friends at Marseilles.
They were here joined by a man of influence named Mahomet Boro, an elderly, respectable-looking personage, wearing a green bournous over white under-clothes. He was to act as mediator between them and the inhabitants of the countries they were to visit. He was now on his homeward journey from a pilgrimage to Mecca. On the 13th of June they left Mourzouk by the eastern gate.
Immediately a Khouan showed himself at the window; he leaped into the apartment, followed by three others of his fanatical and pitiless tribe. The new-comers instantly knelt at Maldar's feet and kissed the hem of his bournous. "Son of the Prophet," said one of them, "we are here to do your bidding!"
"Would you like to see my bournous?" he said, and opening his valise he showed me a splendid one which filled me with admiration, and only shame forbade me to ask him to allow me to try it on. Ideas haunt one. When I was a little child I insisted on wearing a turban and going out for a ride on the pony, flourishing a Damascus blade which my father had brought home from the East.
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