Abba

The abba of the coenobion went to him and told him about the brother who had slipped up.

The rich turbans and flowing robes of the respectable merchants are finely contrasted with the rude sheepskin covering of the mountaineer, and the dark abba of the wandering Arab.

Around their waist, instead of a shawl, they wear a girdle fastened with monstrous silver clasps which may be ornamented, according to the owner's taste, with jewels and in which they stick not only their Koordish dagger, but a pair of great brass or silver-knobbed pistols; from this, too, hang sundry powder-horns and shot-cases, cartridge-boxes, &c. ; and over all they cast a sort of cloak, or abba, of camel's hair, white or black, or striped white brown and black, clasped on the breast, and floating picturesquely behind.

Conceiving that he had some solid reason for his refusal, which he could not with propriety disclose in presence of Omar Effendi, I did not urge him to accompany me; but laying aside my white burnous, which I had hitherto worn after the fashion of Cairo, put on a black abba of the Capo Verde which was brought me by as black a Hercules, of whom the interpreter remarked that there was only one person in Jerusalem, and that too a fellow-servant, who was piu diavolo che lui, more devil than he.