Mahmas

[tr ed p 292], pastel, Kennington

'Mahmas' typeset trc, handwritten note of name and position sideways, top right hand side. Main colours: brown tones in face and hands, reds, yellow, black and white in clothes, background dark grey.

p 468 [tr ed p 486] - '. . . Mahmas, a tight-lipped youth with pointed chin and pointed forehead, whose beady eyes dropped at the inner corners with an indescribable air of impatience. He was not properly of my guard, but a camel-driver; for his capacity fell far below his sense of it, and a constantly-hurt pride made him sudden and fatal in companionship. If worsted in argument, or laughed at, he would lean forward with his always handy little dagger and rip up his friend.'

[Graves records (1) that Kennington himself only narrowly avoided becoming yet another victim of Mahmas's dagger as he worked on his portrait.]

1	Lawrence and the Arabs, Robert Graves, Cape, 1927, p 308

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