[239] Bochart imagines that the Phœnicians had given the name to the island, Gum-ohal, signifying “fossa smegmatis.” It was found in Thessaly, Lycia, Sardis and Umbria. Avicenna calls it Al Siraph, from a town on the Persian gulf. Dioscorides says, gall prepared with nitre and earth of Cineola, is the best detergent. The ancients knew the saponaceous root with which in India shawls and muslins are washed, and which the Persians, Turks, and Arabs, use for the hair, and otherwise where great delicacy is required. It was from a Persian word called _Asleg_, by the Arabs _Condus_, by the Greeks στρούθιον, whence στρουθιζειν. Pliny calls it (Nat. His. l. xix. c. 3), “radiculam et herbam lanariam.” The detersives used by the ancients were various, but were nearly the same as those in present use among the Mahometans. They were called by the general name of _smegmata_. A common detersive was bean meal, which the Romans called _lomentum_, and a paste from lupine flour. Galen (De Aliment. Facul. i.) says, “Cutis sordes fabacea farina manifestè deterget,” (bean flour certainly takes off filth from the skin), on which account procuresses and dainty women anciently made great use of it: they smeared it on the face, and it was said to remove freckles and pimples. Dioscorides goes so far as to assert that it will render cicatrices of a uniform colour with the rest of the skin. It stops the blackness arising from blows. Lomentum will take away wrinkles, if we are to believe Martial (l. iv.) Lumento rugas ventris quod condere tentas. Pliny says (l. xxviii. c. 25), that lupine flour made into a paste with vinegar, will, if smeared on in the bath, remove pimples and itching, and dry up running sores; that a decoction of lupines will cure freckles and brace the skin. [240] Pliny, xxviii. 51. CHAPTER VIII. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOORS. The domestic arrangements differ here from other Mussulman countries. The house is not divided into _Harem_ and _Salambu_. In fact, there is no harem, for there are neither its rights nor privileges: the separation of the women, which in Arabia could not be extended to the habitation, adapted itself to the gynæceum of the houses among the Greeks, and the Zanana of the followers of Zoroaster. In Morocco, there having been no such anterior practice, the injunction has had no effect on those who live under the tent, and has converted the domiciles of the inhabitants of the cities into inhospitable abodes. I went to-day to Mike Brettel’s, on invitation, expressly for the purpose of seeing his house, which is just finished. I can see nothing more remarkable at Fez or Morocco, so I shall endeavour to describe it.