THE ARABS' DRESS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue V, 3 August 1895, Page 148

THE ARABS' DRESS.

No people in the world have changed less during the last fifteen hundred years than the Arabs of the desert. In their method of living, their contempt for people who reside in cities, and their customs and costumes they are the same now as they were centuries ago. Colonel T. A. Dodge, of the United States Army, in an interesting article on * Biden in Tunis * describes the Arab costume. He says :— ~ ‘ They all dress alike—Arabs, Berbers, Moors, and the rest. Item : One “ biled rag”— not the biled rag of the wild and woolly West, but a piece of cotton cloth actually sewed up bag-fashion, with holes cut in it for head and arms, now and then affording the luxury of short sleeves ; and which under no circumstances whatever is ** biled ” until age has withered and custom staled it into actual rags. Item : If well-to-do, a sleeveless buttoned vest. Item: Real “ bags,” to adopt our young hunting swell’s term, for trousers. Sartorially speaking, these are made of cotton, and are literally like a bag, whose depth is equal to a little more than the distance from waist to knee, and whose width equals thrice the distance a man can stretch out his legs. Cut out the two corners of the bottom of the bag, step through the holes, and gather up the mouth round the waist, and there you are. There is thus left pendent between the Arab’s legs a bag big enough to hide himself in. The origin or utility of this leggear it were vain to inquire. Item : One scarf to go a number of times around the waist. Item :If cold, an additional shirtlike garment of woollen goods coming down below the knees. Item : One burnoose of white or in Tunis blue woollen goods, with a very roomy hood, exceeding loose so as to wrap about one and throw over the shoulder. Item : One fez, with some cotton cloth twisted, rope fashion, to wrap round it in the guise of a turban. Item : One {>air of shoes, from woven rushes to Morocco eather. In this dress, or so much of it as he can afford, the native lives day and night, from early manhood to old age. When he dies he is buried in it, or the dress goes to his son and heir.’