The Helebis, leading a vagabond, wandering life, usually pitch tents or portable huts on the outskirts of towns and large villages. The former resemble in all points those of the pauper Bedawin, and contained little beyond wretched horse and ass furniture, mats, cooking-pots, and similar necessaries. Everything denotes externally the most squalid poverty, except only the enormous mass of fowl, mutton, and savoury vegetables seething in the large caldron suspended from the familiar crossed sticks over the embers of a large fire, thus proving to more senses than one that the care of the flesh-pots of ancient Egypt has not devolved upon a race insensible to their charms. All deny the common charge of eating dogs, cats, and other meat held impure by Muslims. The male Helebis are ostensibly dealers in horses and asses, camels and black cattle. They pretend to great skill in the veterinary art; but their character for honesty does not stand high with those who know them best. Without known religion, priests, or houses of prayer, this tribe, like the Ghagar and all others, conform to El Islam, or to the predominant religion whenever policy or convenience demands. They bury their dead, but have no fixed places of interment. The men will marry Ghagar damsels, but will not give their daughters to Ghagar. The zone of chastity is even made, they say, of plaited things like that of the Nubian, and is cut off on the wedding night. The women, though chaste themselves, will act as Mercuries to the Gentile male and female; and they have been charged with sundry indecencies for money. The Muslims and Copts declare that they kidnap children, and they of course swear they do not. The women never intermarry with strangers, and in this respect they are as rigid as the Hindus. They are not remarkable for cleanliness either of person or apparel. In this respect, and in their passion for trinkets of brass, silver, and ivory, they remind one of certain native women of India. Their special privilege is the practice of palmistry and divination. The Fehemi takes the inquirer’s right hand by the finger tips, and bends them gently backward so as to render the lines more visible. She mutters a spell while with all gravity she reads the book of destiny, and then reads the result; of course her hand must be crossed with silver. Palmistry, I must add, is one of the many superstitions to which India gave birth, and all the world over the lines and mounts and spaces and other distributions of the hands are the same.