The favorite flower is that of the shrub called _Al henna._ It is the plant from which is obtained a dye much used by Oriental ladies upon their skin and nails as a cosmetic. The manner of preparation is thus described: "The young leaves of the shrub are boiled in water, then dried in the sun, and reduced to a powder which is of a dark orange color. After this has been mixed with warm water, it is applied to the skin." The use of henna is very old; and when the woman has finished the work of art--she herself being the subject--she looks, as one has said, like a vampire stained with the blood of its victim. The flower of _Alhenna_, however, is beautiful and strongly fragrant--reminding one in appearance of clusters of many-colored grapes. These blossoms are used as ornaments for the hair and as decorations for the houses, the fragrance often conquering the malodorous atmosphere of many ill-kept, uncleanly homes. As is the custom with Oriental ladies generally, the women in riding place themselves astride the beast, like a man, and seldom present a graceful appearance to a Western eye. Loftus has thus described an Arab lady as she sits astride the patient mule: "Enveloped in the ample folds of a blue cotton cloak, her face (as required by the strict injunctions of the Koran) concealed under a black or white mask, her feet encased in wide yellow boots, and these in turn thrust into slippers of the same color, her knees nearly on the level with her chin, and her hands holding on to the scanty mane of the mule--an Eastern lady is the most uncouth and inelegant form imaginable." Mohammedans are never seen walking with their wives in the street, and are seldom seen in company with them or any other woman in any public place. Should a man and his wife have occasion to go to any place at the same time, he goes in advance and she follows on behind him. Jessup, in _The Women of the Arabs_, gives the following explanation advanced by a Syrian of the aversion which the men feel with reference to walking in public with women: "You Franks can walk with your wives in public, because their faces are unveiled, and it is known that they are your wives, but our women are so closely veiled that if I should walk with my wife in the street, no one would know whether I was walking with my own wife or another man's. You cannot expect a respectable man to put himself in such an embarrassing position."