"Egyptians have a habit of sleeping with their mouths open. Under an arch by the Beit-el-Kadi at Cairo, I came upon a seller of magenta-coloured celluloid bracelets sleeping, with her head thrown back over the stone designed to prevent carriages from going too near the wall. Her mouth was like a black tunnel—you could not see a particle of red on tongue or palate, gums or linings—they were so thickly coated with crawling flies. It was large enough to take in a short snake like Cleopatra's asp, quite comfortably."
Sixty-five intimate pictures of country life in Upper Egypt by Douglas Sladen (1911). Link… [link updated 8 July 2008]
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