took Sally sightseeing all day while I was away, into several
mosques; in one he begged her to wait a minute while he said a prayer.
They compare notes about their respective countries and are great
friends; but he is put out at my not having provided her with a husband
long ago, as is one's duty towards a 'female servant,' which almost
always here means a slave.

Of all the falsehoods I have heard about the East, that about women being
old hags at thirty is the biggest. Among the poor fellah women it may be
true enough, but not nearly as much as in Germany; and I have now seen a
considerable number of Levantine ladies looking very handsome, or at
least comely, till fifty. Sakna, the Arab Grisi, is fifty-five--an ugly
face, I am told (she was veiled and one only saw the eyes and glimpses of
her mouth when she drank water), but the figure of a leopard, all grace
and beauty, and a splendid voice of its kind, harsh but thrilling like
Malibran's. I guessed her about thirty, or perhaps thirty-five. When
she improvised, the finesse and grace of her whole _Wesen_ were
ravishing. I was on the point of shouting out 'Wallah!' as heartily as
the natives. The eight younger Halmeh (_i.e._, learned women, which the
English call Almeh and think is an improper word) were ugly and
screeched. Sakna was treated with great consideration and quite as a
friend by the Armenian ladies with whom she talked between her songs.
She is a Muslimeh and very rich and charitable; she gets 50 pounds for a
night's singing at least.

It would be very easy to learn colloquial Arabic, as they all speak with
such perfect distinctness that one can follow the sentences and catch the
words one knows as they are repeated. I think I know forty or fifty
words already, besides my 'salaam aleikum' and 'backsheesh.'

The reverse of the brilliant side of the medal is sad enough: deserted
palaces, and crowded hovels scarce good enough for pigstyes. 'One day
man see his dinner, and one other day none at all,' as Omar observes; and
the children are shocking from bad food, dirt and overwork, but the
little pot-bellied, blear-eyed wretches grow up into noble young men and
women under all their difficulties. The faces are all sad and rather
what the Scotch call 'dour,' not _mechant_ at all, but harsh, like their
voices. All the melody is in walk and gesture; they are as graceful as
cats, and the women have exactly the 'breasts like pomegranates' of their
poetr