Mahafa

"Invalids, and luxurious persons, require more artificial arrangements for travelling on the camel... There is an another much less objectionable form of this apparatus, which is not unfrequently used by ladies of rank or persons in ill health. It was called a mahafa by our dragoman and Arabs, though Lane ignores both the name and the thing, which is remarkable, considering that it is not uncommon in Egypt. The mahafa consists of a pair of boxes, or rather frames, some five feet long, two or more wide, and about two deep, with posts at the outer corners, and a wooden bottom. These frames, like those of the moosultah, are hung across the pack-saddle, and a large and usually showy awning is supported over all by the posts at the corners and another resting on the pack-saddle in the centre, besides which it has side curtains, or when used by Mussulman women, perhaps lattices."