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"'Ye are welcome, because ye love the Prince, My Son. Wash, and then eat. "They bathe to the sound of beautiful music, and, all the time they are eating, they see almehs dancing, and they listen to tales that never end.
I have seen the Almehs in Cairo, but I have never seen real poetry of motion mind more completely expressed by matter than that woman's body translating the anguish she endured; languor turning to deep weariness, weariness to agony, agony to despair. There was not a note in the gamut of mental suffering that she left unstruck that savage, whom one would not guess possessed a mind.
Near the horse-fair we became aware of music of a peculiar kind, with a good deal of tambourine in it, proceeding from a closed tent; and upon its becoming known that our party was present, out streamed from the door a group of musicians and almehs, or dancing-women; the latter in rather light attire, but covered, as to their heads, bosoms, arms and ankles, with strings of jingling coins some with toe-rings, and all with the eyes heavily lined out with kohl and fingers stained with henna.
He has never, like others, reclined on soft cushions gazing at the dancing of the voluptuous almehs has loved naught but his sword and ataghan; but his heart is now inclined in love and humility toward you, the only woman it owns as its mistress; and I now entreat you, O Sitta Nefysseh, queen of my heart, become also queen of my house and harem."
A tremendous crowd at once collected on the prospect of a dance at the expense of the strangers, and, gaping over each other's shoulders, divided their stares between our party and the almehs. The sun, all this time, was beating down upon the scene with power sufficient, one would have thought, to bake the unprotected brains of most of the company.
And the king knows that Ebed-Tob has taken my city from my hand." The writer adds that "now Labai has taken Ebed-Tob and they have taken our cities." In his subsequent despatches to the home government Su-yardata complains that he is "alone," and asks that troops should be sent to him, saying that he is forwarding some almehs or maidens as a present along with his "dragoman."
Blessed are they who weep, for I will dry their tears with veils finer than those of the almehs! "That is why the poor loved Him, and believed in Him. But the rich hated Him; fearing that He should raise the poor above them. At that time, Cleopatra and Caesar were powerful on the earth. They both hated Jesus, and they ordered the judges and priests to put Him to death.
Day and night the slaves exhausted themselves in the attempt to amuse her: the trained and educated Circassian girl translated the newspapers to her, or read aloud whole chapters of Victor Hugo's Misérables, one of the few foreign novels which have been translated into Turkish; the almehs danced and sang to their small lutes; the black slaves succeeded each other in bringing every kind of refreshment which the ingenuity of the Dalmatian cook could devise; the whole establishment was in perpetual motion, and had rarely in the last few days snatched a few minutes of uneasy rest when the Khanum slept her short and broken sleep.
Lella Alonda, who was old, and accustomed only to the dancing of the Almehs, which she thought shameful, was scandalized at the thought that the young girl would willingly dance before men. She was dumb, not knowing what answer to give, that need not offend a guest, but which might save the Roumia from indiscretion. The Agha, however, was enchanted.
The Mamelukes took these propositions into favorable consideration; they were weary of bloodshed and longed for the peaceful desert plains and for the sunny tents, where they could rest from their long struggles in quiet comfort, listen to the songs of the female slaves, and gaze at the voluptuous dances of the almehs.
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