The
child's dress was ill suited to his age. He wore on his head a tight cap
of Manchester cotton, but it overhung the upper part of his face, and
together with its ends, which flapped over each cheek, hid nearly the
whole of his countenance from view; his tobe and trousers were made
exactly in the same fashion as those of a man, and two large belts of blue
cotton, which crossed each other, confined the tobe to his body. The
little legs of the child were swallowed up in clumsy yellow boots, big
enough for his father; and though he was rather pretty, his whimsical
dress gave him altogether so odd an appearance, that he might have been
taken for anything but what he really was. A few of the women on the
ground by the side of the king wore large white dresses, which covered
their persons like a winding-sheet. Young virgins, according to custom,
appeared in a state of nudity; many of them had wild flowers stuck behind
their ears, and strings of beads, &c., round their loins; but want of
clothing did not seem to damp their pleasure in the entertainment, for
they appeared to enter into it with as much zest as any of their
companions. Of the different coloured tobes worn by the men, none looked
so well as those of a deep crimson colour on some of the horsemen; but the
clean white tobes of the Mohammedan priests, of whom not less than a
hundred were present on the occasion, were extremely neat and becoming.
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