wine in the country to be cast into the river. And the fair fountains that flowed sweet wine of exquisite exhilaration before the mosques, and upon the public place, were seized and utterly dried up. But the loathsome, stagnant tanks, and ditches of beastly drunkenness that festered concealed behind white walls, were untouched, and flowed poison. And the Pacha heard what had been done, and said, it was well. And far lands heard of the same thing, and said, "Lo! a great prince, who removes sores from his inheritance, and casts out vice from his dominions." There are English poets who celebrate the pleasant position of the Eastern woman, and it is rather the Western fashion of the moment to fancy them not so very miserably situated. But the idea of woman disappears entirely from your mind in the East except as an exquisite and fascinating toy. The women suggest houris, perhaps, but never angels. Devils, possibly, but never friends. And now, Pacha, as we stroll slowly by starlight under the palms, by the mud cabins round which the Fellaheèn, or peasants, sit, and their fierce dogs bark, and see the twin tombs of the shekhs gleaming white through the twilight, while we ramble toward the bower of Kushuk Arnem and the still-eyed Xenobi, tell me truly by the sworded Orion above us, if you cherish large faith in the virtue of men, who, of a voluptuous climate, born and nursed, shut up dozens of the most enticing women in the strict and sacred seclusion of the hareem, and keep them there without knowledge, without ambition-petted girls with the proud passions of Southern women, seeing him only of men, jeal ous of each other, jealous of themselves, the slaves of his whims, tender or terrible, looking to him for their sole excitement, and that solely sensual-rarely tasting the bliss of becoming a mother, and taught to stimulate in indescribable ways the palling and flagging passions of their keeper. Individually, I lay no great stress on the objections of such gentry to the unvailed dancing of beautiful women, or to their pleasurable pursuit of pleasure; nor do I find much morality in it. I am glad to grant the Oriental great virtue; and do not wish to whine at his social and national differences from the West. At Alexandria, let the West fade from your horizon, and you will sail fascinated forever. This Howadji holds that the Ghawazee are the true philosophers and moralists of the East, and that the hareem and polygamy in general, are without defense, viewed morally. Viewed picturesquely under palms, with delicious eyes melting at lattices, they are highly to be favored and encouraged by all poets and disciples of Epi curus. Which, as you know as well as I, we will not here discuss. But, as I am out of breath, toiling up that steep sentence of the hareem, while we more leisurely climb the last dust heap toward that bower, the sole white wall of the village (how Satan loves these dear deceits, as excellent Dr. Bunyan Cheever would phrase it) soothe me soothly with those limpid lines of Mr. Milnes, who holds strongly to the high human and refining influence of the hareem. Does Young England wish to engraft polygamy among the other patriarchal benefits upon stout old Eng land? "Thus in the ever-closed hareem, As in the open Western home, Thus trace we still her mission sure, To lighten life, to sweeten death; And all for others to endure.". Every toad carries a diamond in its head, says Hope and the Ideal. But in any known toad was it ever found? retorted the Howadji, outting adrift his Western morals. XIX. Kashuk Arne m. THE Howadji entered the bower of the Ghazeeyah. A damsel admitted us at the gate, closely vailed, as if women's faces were to be seen no more forever. Across a clean little court, up stone steps that once were steadier, and we emerged upon a small inclosed stone terrace, the sky-vaulted anti-chamber of that bower. Through a little door that made us stoop to enter, we passed into the peculiar retreat of the Ghazeeyah. It was a small, white, oblong room, with but one window, opposite the door, and that closed. On three sides there were small holes to admit light as in dungeons, but too lofty for the eye to look through, like the oriel windows of Sacristies. Under these openings were small glass vases holding oil, on which floated wicks. These were the means of illumination. A divan of honor filled the end of the room-on the side was another, less honorable, as is usual in all Egyptian houses on the floor a carpet, partly covering it. A straw matting extended beyond the carpet toward the door, and between the matting and the door was a bare space of stone floor, whereon to shed the slippers. Hadji Hamed, the long cook, had been ill, but hearing of music and dancing and Ghawazee, he had turned out for the nonce, and accompanied us to the house, not all unmindful possibly of the delectations of the Mecca pilgrimage. He stood upon the stone terrace afterward, looking in with huge delight. The solemn, long tomb-pilgrim! The merriest lunges of life were not lost upon him, notwithstanding. The Howadji seated themselves orientally upon the divan of honor. To sit as Westerns sit, is impossible upon a divan. There is some mysterious necessity for crossing the legs, and this Howadji never sees a tailor now in lands civilized, but the dimness of Eastern rooms and bazaars, the flowingness of robe, and the coiled splendor of the turban, and a world reclining leisurely at ease, rise distinct and dear in his mind-like that Sicilian mirage seen on divine days from Naples but fleet as fair. To most men a tailor is the most unsuggestive of mortals. To the remembering Howadji he sits a poet. The chibouque and nargileh and coffee belong to the divan, as the parts of harmony to each other. I seized the flowing tube of a brilliant amber-hued nargileh, such as Hafiz might have smoked, and prayed Isis that some stray Persian might chance along to complete our company. The Pacha inhaled at times a more sedate nargileh, at times the chibouque of the Commander, who reclined upon the divan below. A tall Egyptian female, filially related I am sure to a gentle giraffe who had been indiscreet with a hippopotamus, |