"They only combed their hair (which was full of vermin) once a week, on Thursdays, the eve of their Sabbath, (Friday, Djouma;) when it was well combed with a large small-tooth comb; and pardon me, but 'murder will out,' the members of the vermin family which were removed from it were legion. It was afterward well brushed with a hard hair-brush, well damped with strong perfumed water. Their highnesses never wore stockings in the morning, nor did they change any of their attire till afternoon."
When the summer heats set in, the harem was transferred to the coast at Alexandria, to inhale the fresh breezes from the sea. The preparation for flight was attended with some rich scenes and ludicrous exhibitions. But their transit on the railroad, boxed up like pigs or poultry on a cattle-train, is indescribable in a decent print. The prelude to the trip will bear repeating; it is an amusing contrast with the festal robes on the day of the Great Bairam; the cutaneous sensation it excites is the penalty to pay for the knowledge imparted; the company is right regal.
"As soon as orders had been given to the grand eunuch to hasten the departure of the vice-regal family to Alexandria, ... there was bustle all day long. One morning when I returned from the gardens, ... I entered the grand pasha's reception-room; ... there were their highnesses, the princesses, squatted on the carpet amidst a whole pile of trunks. They were all attired in filthy, dirty, crumpled muslins, shoeless and stockingless; their trousers were tucked up above their knees, the sleeves of their paletots pinned up above their elbows, their hair hanging loose above their shoulders, as rough as a badger's back, totally uncombed, without nets or handkerchiefs, but, pardon me, literally swarming with vermin! No Russian peasants could possibly have been more infested with live animals. In short, their tout ensemble was even more untidy than that of washerwomen at their tubs; nay, almost akin to Billingsgate fisherwomen at home; for their conversation in their own vernacular was equally as low. They all swore in Arabic at the slaves most lustily, banged them about right and left with any missile, whether light or heavy, which came within their reach."
At last the governess lost her health. The food was too unsuitable for a Christian woman, and the atmosphere, redolent of the overpowering rich perfumes of the gardens mingled with sickening, stupefying opium smell and smoke, along with other odors, almost intolerable. After visiting Constantinople with the harem, she threw up her engagement and returned to England.
This abasement of woman is not to be wondered at; for wherever the Christian idea of marriage is lost or subverted, woman becomes the mere object of passion, and degradation is sure to follow.
Translated From Etudes Religieuses, Etc.,
Par Des Peres De La Compagnie De Jesus.
The Flight Of Spiders.
A Paper Read Before The French Academy Of Science, March, 1867.
About fifteen years ago, I was sitting in an arbor of my garden, reading, when a little spider fell on my book, whence I could not tell, and commenced to run over the very line I was reading. I blew hard to chase him away, but he would not go. He lifted himself strangely up, and I cannot explain how, but he lodged on a sprig of verdure just above my head. "Well," said I, "for a little animal like that, this is a wonderful feat! How has he accomplished it?" To satisfy myself, I took him up again, balanced him on my book, and, after assuring myself that he had no invisible thread to aid him, I blew again, and again the little fellow did the very same thing. With redoubled curiosity, I tried him once more, and, to see better, I sat down in the bright sunlight. Again I balanced him on the book, looked at him as closely as possible, and, when I felt assured no precaution could have escaped me, I blew once more. ... Resuming the same inclined position, the spider as quick as lightning darted the finest possible thread out of him, raised himself in the air, and disappeared.
I confess I was stupefied. Never had I imagined these little animals could fly without wings; so I consulted several works on zoology, but I was astonished to find there was no mention made of the flight of spiders, nor of the ejaculatory movement of which I had witnessed so curious an example. [Footnote 96]