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Both at Warka and in the Khorsabad harem, these vertical ribs are accompanied by another ornament which may, perhaps, have been in even more frequent use. We mean those long perpendicular grooves, rectangular in section, with which Assyrian and Chaldæan walls were seamed.
Two of these eunuchs now come to the shore, and, in threatening tones, order the men to leave the beach at once, and to go up to Cavalla to announce there that no one shall allow himself to be seen in the streets. The men hurriedly ascend the pathway to the city, without even venturing to look back at the pacha's harem. Mohammed Ali alone is nowhere to be seen.
The latter, lying back luxuriously in a deck-chair, proceeded to wave and beckon an enthusiastic greeting as soon as he caught sight of Sara, and rather reluctantly she responded to his signals and made her way towards the two men. "I feel like a bloated sultan summoning one of the ladies of the harem to his presence," confessed Miles apologetically when he had shaken hands.
With the passions of the harem they were perfectly familiar, and the dreadful pangs of jealousy never have been painted with more consummate ability, or more thorough knowledge of human nature. Euripides, in particular, has delineated the terrible effects of that passion with a master's hand; witness the raving of Medea at the desertion of Jason; the fury of Hermione at the captive Andromache.
Alongside of this was the harem, and in the neighbouring mosque was quartered his garrison, consisting of fifty men, all ready to bury themselves under the ruins of this fortification, the only spot remaining to him of all Greece, which had formerly bent beneath his authority. After this exhibition, Ali presented one of his most devoted followers to the envoys.
"This morning," said the negro, "whilst they tore the flesh of one of his black slaves with whips, a withered old merchant of Batavia left his country-house to come to the town. Lolling in his palanquin, he received, with languid indolence, the sad caresses of two of those girls, whom he had bought, to people his harem, from parents too poor to give them food.
"Thirty-five," said a wizened little man with a hectic cough, who looked fitter for a burial than a bridal. "Forty!" cried another, a pure-bred Arab of stately appearance and saturnine expression, who wished to add to his harem. "Forty-five," answered the wizened man. Then the Arab bid fifty, and for a while it seemed that these two alone were competitors.
Others, who could not squeeze through at all, were made over to the soldiers to be reduced to the necessary size, the whole thing accompanied by a chorus of shouts and objurgations of every kind. But to pass from the harem to graver subjects. On October 18th, I was present at the military funeral of the Comte Damremont. It was a moving sight.
"Go, go back to the camp," he said to the old woman. "No harm shall befall Rachel." Raising her, he put her behind him, and advanced toward the courier. "Hast thou words with me?" he said coolly. "What wilt thou?" "The girl. Give her up!" "Nay, but thou art peremptory. What wilt thou with her?" "For the harem of the Pharaoh's chief adviser," the man retorted.
The place where the heads of pashas who had fallen into disfavour were exhibited is in the third yard. Heaven be praised, no severed heads are now seen stuck on the palings. I was not fortunate enough to be admitted into the imperial harem; I did not possess sufficient interest to obtain a view of it. At a later period of my journey, however, I succeeded in viewing several harems.
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