Will the natives ever realize that the
abolition of this sleeveless and buttonless anachronism is one of the
conditions of their betterment? Have _they_ made the burnous, or
vice-versa? No matter. They came together somehow, and suited one another.
The burnous is the epitome of Arab inefficiency.
They call it simple, but like other things that go by that name, it
defeats it own objects of facilitating the common operations of life. It
is amusing to watch them at their laundry-work. Unless a man stand still
and upright, the end of this garment is continually slipping down from his
shoulders; one of the washerman's hands, therefore, is employed in holding
it in its place; the other grasps a stick upon which he leans while
stamping a war-dance with his feet upon the linen. This is only half the
performance, for a friend, holding up _his_ cloak with one hand, must bend
over and ladle the necessary water upon the linen with the other. Thus two
men are requisitioned to wash a shirt--a hand of one, two feet of the
other. No wonder they do not wash them often; the undertaking, thanks to
the burnous, is too complicated.
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