Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/230

184 When we looked round the quadrangle, I saw a picturesque and curious scene. The whole population of several villages were gathered together in the open air, their mules picketed outside; each family provided with its own cooking apparatus. They were all dressed in the picturesque costume which is still to be met with in those islands of the Archipelago where the tasteless printed calicoes of Manchester have not yet superseded the native products of the spinning-wheel and the loom.

The Rhodian peasants, both male and female, wear snow-white dresses spun and woven by their own hands, from flax grown on their own soil. Nothing can be more beautiful than the effect of this white drapery in the strong sunlight, set off by the contrast of tawny weatherbeaten limbs and faces.

I was so struck with the costume of the women that I did nothing but fix my eyes upon them; whereat my friend, the Russian Vice-Consul, growing alarmed, told me to reserve my observations till they began to dance, when I might look on without being remarked, as he was afraid that the men might not understand the motive of my scrutiny. I was rather amused at this caution, for so far as personal beauty was concerned, I never beheld women less attractive. As soon as they saw me take out my note-book to describe the scene, they gathered round me, like minnows round a crumb of bread, and on every side I heard the cries of ,—"What is he writing?" When I