Yet there is no denying that it adds charm to the landscape; it is highly
decorative; its colour and shape and peculiar texture are as pleasing to
the beholder as must have been the toga of the old Romans (which, by the
way, was a purely ceremonial covering, to be doffed during work: so
Cincinnatus, when the senators found him at the plough, went in to dress
in his toga ere receiving them).
Stalking along on their thin bare shanks, their glittering eyes and hooked
noses shaded within its hood, many adult Arabs assume a strangely
bird-like appearance; while the smooth-faced youths, peering from under
its coquettish folds, remind one of third-rate actresses out for a spree.
In motion, when some half-naked boy sits merrily upon a galloping
stallion, his bare limbs and flying burnous take on the passionate grace
of a panathenaic frieze; it befits equally well the repose of old age,
crouching at some street-corner in hieratic immobility.
Yes, there is no denying that it looks artistic; the burnous is
picturesque, like many antediluvian things. And of course, where nothing
better can be procured, it will protect you from the cold and the stinging
rays of the sun.
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