Furniture. 169
who was a great campaigner, carried parquets of wooden mosaic for his floors! The articles that make the most show for their weight, are handsome rugs, and skins, and pillows ; canteens of dinner and coffee services; and candles, with screens of glass, or other arrangements to prevent them from flickering. The art of luxurious tenting is better understood in Persia than in any other country, even than in India.
Bedsteads.-A portable bedstead, with mosquito-curtains, is a very great luxury, raising the sleeper above the damp soil, and the attacks of most creatures that creep on it ; in
tours where a few luxuries can be carried, it is a very proper article of baggage. It is essential where white ants are numerous. A very luxurious bed is made on the principle of a tennis-player's raquet; being a framework of wood, with strips of raw hide lashed across it from side to side, and from end to end. It is the " angareb " of Upper Egypt.
Hammocks and Cots.-I stated in previous editions of this book, that hammocks and cots had few advocates, owing to the difficulty of suspending them; but Captain M'Gwire's recent ingenious invention quite alters the case. His method will be easily understood by the annexed sketch. The appa
ratus is adapted for use on the wooden floors of houses or ships, by the employment of eyelet-bolts or screw rings instead of pegs, and by putting wooden shoes below the staves
