and with shy graces and indescribable charms, each bowed and
saluted me with her hand to her forehead, then took my hand and kissed
it.

I must admit that I completely lost my head. I don't know what I
stammered out. I believe I assured them that they and their father would
find me, in the absence of my uncle, their respectful and devoted
friend; but, as they did not understand a word of French, my speech was
lost upon them. However that may have been, after a minute or so they
were sitting with their legs crossed on the divan, and all I was anxious
about was to prolong my visit as much as possible. Mohammed told me
their charming names. These were, Kondje-Gul, Hadidje, Nazli, and
Zouhra. He, like a proud father, was not backward in praising their
beauty, and I joined in chorus with him, and certainly succeeded in
flattering him by my enthusiasm regarding them.

Indeed, all four of them were of such striking beauty, and yet so
different in type, that you might have thought them grouped together in
order to form the most ravishing picture, their large dark eyes, sweet,
timid, and languishing like the gazelle's, with that Oriental expression
which we do not meet with in these climes; lips which disclosed pearly
teeth as they smiled; and complexions which have been preserved by the
veil from the sun's rays, and which--according to the ancient
simile--appeared really to be made up of lilies and roses. In those rich
costumes of silk or of Broussan gauze, with their harmonious colours,
revealing the forms of their hips and of their bosoms, they exhibited
attitudes and movements of feline lissomness and exotic grace, the
voluptuous languor of which can only be realised by those who have seen
it in Mussulman women. I imagined myself the hero of an Arabian story,
and mad fancies entered my brain.

While I was endeavouring, for appearance's sake, to talk with their
father as well as I could, they, growing tamer by degrees, began to
whisper together--now and then came a little burst of laughter, in which
I seemed to detect some mischief. I playfully responded by holding up my
finger to let them know I guessed their thoughts, and again they burst
out laughing like sly children--this going on until, after half an hour
or so, quite a nice feeling of familiarity was established between us;
we talked by signs, and our eyes enabled us almost to dispense with the
laborious intervention of Mohammed's interpretations. Moreover, he
seem