One or two looked sad and lonely enough, until their gloomy countenances were lit up with hope—the hope of being bought! Their faces for the most part were woefully blank, and many wore an awfully animal expression. Yet there were several figures of exquisite symmetry among them, which, had they been indeed the bronze statues they resembled, would have attracted the admiration of thousands, and would have been valued at twenty times the price that was set on these immortal beings. Their proprietor showed them off as a horse-dealer does his cattle, examining their teeth, removing their body-clothes, and exhibiting their paces.
It is like the change from night to morning, to pass from these dingy crowds to the white slaves from Georgia and Circassia. The commodities of this department of the human bazaars are only purchased by wealthy and powerful Moslems; and, when purchased, are destined to form part of the female aristocracy of Cairo. These fetch from one, two, three, or even five hundred pounds, and being so much more valuable than the Africans, are much more carefully tended. Some were smoking; some chatting merrily together; some sitting in dreamy languor. All their attitudes were very graceful.
They were for the most part exquisitely fair; but I was disappointed in their beauty. The sunny hair and heaven-blue eyes, that in England produce such an angel-like and intellectual effect, seemed to me here mere flax and beads; and I left them to the "turbaned Turk" without a sigh.
V.—The Harem
Difficult a study as woman presents in all countries, that difficulty deepens almost into impossibility in a land where even to look upon her is a matter of danger or of death. The seclusion of the hareem is preserved in the very streets by means of an impenetrable veil; the well-bred Egyptian averts his eyes as she passes by; she is ever to remain an object of mystery; and the most intimate acquaintance never inquires after the wife of his friend, or affects to know of her existence.
An English lady, visiting an Odalisque, inquired what pleasure her profusion of rich ornaments could afford, as no person except her husband was ever to behold them. "And for whom do you adorn yourself? Is it for other men?" replied the fair barbarian.
I have conversed with several European ladies who had visited hareems, and they have all confessed their inability to convince the Eastern wives of the unhappiness or hardship of their state. It is true that the inmate of the hareem knows nothing of the wild liberty (as it seems to her) that the European woman enjoys. She has never witnessed the domestic happiness that crowns a fashionable life, or the peace of mind and purity of heart that reward the labours of a London season. And what can she know of the disinterested affection and changeless constancy of ball-room belles, in the land where woman is all free?
Let them laugh on in their happy ignorance of a better lot, while round them is gathered all that their lord can command of luxury and pleasantness. His wealth is hoarded for them alone; he permits himself no ostentation, except the respectable one of arms and horses; and the time is weary that he passes apart from his home and hareem. The sternest tyrants are gentle there; Mehemet Ali never refused a woman's prayer; and even Ali Pasha was partly humanized by his love for Emineh. In the time of the Mamelukes, criminals were always led to execution blindfolded, as, if they had met a woman and could touch her garment, they were saved, whatever was their crime.
Thus idolized, watched, and guarded, the Egyptian woman's life is, nevertheless, entirely in the power of her lord, and her death is the inevitable penalty of his dishonour. Poor Fatima! shrined as she was in the palace of a tyrant, the fame of her beauty stole abroad through Cairo. She was one among a hundred in the hareem of Abbas Pasha, a man stained with every foul and loathsome vice; and who can wonder, though many may condemn, if she listened to a daring young Albanian, who risked his life to obtain but a sight of her. Whether she did listen or not, none can ever know, but the eunuchs saw the glitter of the Arnaut's arms, as he leaped from her terrace into the Nile and vanished into the darkness.
The following night a merry English party dined together on board Lord E——'s boat, as it lay moored off the Isle of Rhoda; conversation had sunk into silence as the calm night came on; a faint breeze floated perfumes from the gardens over the star-lit Nile; a dreamy languor seemed to pervade all nature, and even the city lay hushed in deep repose, when suddenly a boat, crowded with dark figures, among which arms gleamed, shot out from one of the arches of the palace.