ctices are of more ancient origin
than that of painting the face, dyeing the hair, and blackening the
eyebrows and eyelashes.

It is a practice universal among the women of the higher and middle
classes in Egypt, and very common among those of the lower orders, to
blacken the edge of the eyelids, both above and below the eye, with a
black powder, which they term _kohhl_. The kohhl is applied with a small
probe of wood, ivory, or silver, tapering towards the end, but blunt.
This is moistened sometimes with rose-water, then dipped in the powder,
and drawn along the edges of the eyelids. It is thought to give a very
soft expression to the eye, the size of which, in appearance, it
enlarges; to which circumstances probably Jeremiah refers when he
writes, "Though thou rentest thy face (or thine eyes) with painting, in
vain shalt thou make thyself fair."--_Jer._ 4:30. See also
LANE'S _Modern Egyptians_, vol. i, p. 41, et seq.

A singular custom is observable both among Moorish and Arab
females--that of ornamenting the face between the eyes with clusters of
bluish spots or other small devices, and which, being stained, become
permanent. The chin is also spotted in a similar manner, and a narrow
blue line extends from the point of it, and is continued down the
throat. The eyelashes, eyebrows, and also the tips and extremities of
the eyelids, are colored black. The soles, and sometimes other parts of
the feet, as high as the ankles, the palms of the hands, and the nails,
are dyed with a yellowish-red, with the leaves of a plant called Henna
(_Lawsonia inermis_), the leaf of which somewhat resembles the myrtle,
and is dried for the purposes above mentioned. The back of the hand is
also often colored and ornamented in this way with different devices. On
holidays they paint their cheeks of a red brick color, a narrow red line
being also drawn down the temples.

In Greece, "for coloring the lashes and sockets of the eye they throw
incense or gum labdanum on some coals of fire, intercept the smoke which
ascends with a plate, and collect the soot. This I saw applied. A girl,
sitting cross-legged as usual on a sofa, and closing one of her eyes,
took the two lashes between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand,
pulled them forward, and then, thrusting in at the external corner a
sort of bodkin or probe which had been immersed in the soot, and
withdrawing it, the particles previously adhering to the probe remained
within the eyelas