3-011-715 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Miguel el Musrab, Sheikh of the Anazeh Tribe", by Carl Haag, in the Winter Exhibition of the Water-colour Society, 1862. 'He is, like all true Bedouins, a small man...slightly made but erect, very graceful in all his motions, and with a light, easy step. His face is really beautiful...He wore a short black beard and long crisp ringlets under his kefiyeh, which was of the very finest and brightest Damascus silk...His dress was a kumbaz, or long tight gown, of striped and flowered silk, with wide, open sleeves hanging down to the knees; then his sheikh's cloak or pelisse of bright scarlet cloth, bound with black braid, and three bars of broad black braid across the chest...Over all came a mash'lah (a shapeless but very comfortable cloak)...A silk scarf wound many times round the waist, into which a couple of revolvers and a big knife were stuck, and a sword (or cymiter) hung round the neck by a crimson cord, completed his costume. As to his manners, the "best-bred" polished English gentleman is not more polished than he, and the Bedouin chief joins an easy chivalrous grace to his quiet, dignified demeanour which has a double charm'. Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab married Lady Jane Digby, an English aristocrat twenty years his senior. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.