han to their fancy as poets.

* * * * *

_Note on the Harem, or Harum._--It is curious to compare with the
princess's disillusionizing account of a harem, such a poetical and
romantic description as the following, in which it becomes a bower of
beauty, tenanted by an Oriental Venus:--

* * * * *

"The lady of the harum--couched gracefully on a rich Persian carpet
strewn with soft billowy cushions--is as rich a picture as admiration
ever gazed on. Her eyes, if not as dangerous to the heart as those of
our country, where the sunshine of intellect gleams through a heaven of
blue, are, nevertheless, perfect in their kind, and at least as
dangerous to the senses. Languid, yet full, brimful of life; dark, yet
very lustrous; liquid, yet clear as stars; they are compared by their
poets to the shape of the almond and the bright timidness of the
gazelle. The face is delicately oval, and its shape is set off by the
gold-fringed turban, the most becoming head-dress in the world; the
long, black, silken tresses are braided from the forehead, and hang
wavily on each side of the face, falling behind in a glossy cataract,
that sparkles with such golden drops as might have glittered upon
Danae, after the Olympian shower. A light tunic of pink or pale blue
crape is covered with a long silk robe, open at the bosom, and buttoned
thence downward to the delicately slippered little feet, that peep
daintily from beneath the full silken trousers. Round the loins, rather
than the waist, a cashmere shawl is loosely wrapt as a girdle, and an
embroidered jacket, or a large silk robe with loose open sleeves,
completes the costume. Nor is the fragrant water-pipe, with its long
variegated serpent, and its jewelled mouth-piece, any detraction from
the portrait.

"Picture to yourself one of Eve's brightest daughters, in Eve's own
loving land. The woman-dealer has found among the mountains that
perfection in a living form which Praxiteles scarcely realized, when
inspired fancy wrought out its ideal in marble. Silken scarfs, as richly
coloured and as airy as the rainbow, wreathe her round, from the snowy
breast to the finely rounded limbs half buried in billowy cushions; the
attitude is the very poetry of repose, languid it may be, but glowing
life thrills beneath that flower-soft exterior, from the varying cheek
and flashing eye, to the henna-dyed taper fingers, that capriciously
play wi