The Goat (unable to contain itself): M-a-a-a-a-a!
The Camels and Giraffes: M-o-o-o-o-o!
The Elephant—But no, we cannot describe the cry of the elephant.
A Muezzin (appearing on his minaret): La Allah il Allah (a bell tolls. The faithful prostrate themselves towards the East).
Second Scene.
—Bagdad. The harem of Oskarashi ben Daoud, etc. We deduce either that alms-seeking in the East is a highly lucrative profession, or else that the “much booty,” referred to in the first scene, proved even more abundant than was expected. The harem is an enormous apartment, about the size of the Albert Hall, with a swimming pool fed by a golden fountain in the centre, and rows of marble colonnades receding in all directions into an apparently illimitable distance. A vast concourse of beautiful and, despite their biscuit-coloured complexions, unmistakably European young women, languish on cushions of every variety of texture and colouring.
A pair of acrobats, a jazz band of strange instruments, and some kind of Oriental glee party are giving a simultaneous performance. Some withered crones with birches are chastising certain recalcitrant wives in a corner. Our friends the camels, giraffes and elephants have been replaced by a party of leopards, duck-billed platypuses, anthropoid apes, okapis and tapirs. Oskarashi himself, comatose after an enormous Eastern supper, is keeping awake with difficulty, propped up against a mound of cushions piled on a huge divan. Entwined around him, serpent-wise, is Zobeide el Okra, the Bulbul of the harem.
The Glee Party (bursting into the well-known Eastern ditty):
We sit and gobble with chopsticks and spoon
From the midnight hour to the stroke of noon,