The reader may perhaps desire a more minute analysis of Arabian beauty. The following is the most complete that I can offer him.--"Four things in a woman should be _black_,--the hair of the head, the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and the dark part of the eyes: four _white_,--the complexion of the skin, the white of the eyes, the teeth, and the legs: four _red_,--the tongue, the lips, the middle of the cheeks, and the gums: four _round_,--the head, the neck, the forearms, and the ankles: four _long_,--the back, the fingers, the arms, and the legs:[241] four _wide_,--the forehead, the eyes, the bosom, and the hips: four _fine_,--the eyebrows, the nose, the lips, and the fingers: four _thick_,--the lower part of the back, the thighs, the calves of the legs, and the knees: four _small_,--the ears, the breasts, the hands, and the feet."[242] Arab ladies are extremely fond of full and long hair; and, however amply endowed with this natural ornament, to add to its effect they have recourse to art. But the Prophet, abhorring all false attractions that might at first deceive a husband and then disappoint him, "cursed the woman who joined her own hair to that of another, or that of another to her own, without her husband's permission: if she do it, therefore, with his permission, it is not prohibited, unless she so make use of human hair; for this is absolutely forbidden."[243] Hence the Arab women prefer strings of silk to add to their hair.[244] Over the forehead, the hair is cut rather short; but two full locks hang down on each side of the face: these are often curled in ringlets, and sometimes plaited. The rest of the hair is arranged in plaits or braids which hang down the back. They are generally from eleven to twenty-five in number, but always of an uneven number: eleven is considered a scanty number, thirteen and fifteen are more common. Three times the number of black silk strings (three to each plait of hair, and each three united at the top), from sixteen to eighteen inches in length, are braided with the hair for about a quarter of their length; or they are attached to a lace or band of black silk which is bound round the head, and in this case hang entirely separate from the plaits of hair. These strings, together with certain ornaments of gold, etc., composed what is termed the ṣafà. Along each string, except from the upper extremity to about a quarter or (at most) a third of its length, are generally attached nine or more little flat ornaments of gold, which are usually all of the same form. The most common form is oblong, round at the lower extremity and pointed at the upper, or the reverse. They are affixed (each by a little ring at its upper extremity) about an inch, or a little more, apart; but those of each string are purposely placed so as not exactly to correspond with those of the others. At the end of each string is a small gold tube, or a small polygonal gold bead, beneath which is most