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Then, by way of subscription, he wrote, "From the distracted and despairing man * whom love and longing trepan * from the lover under passion's ban * the prisoner of transport and distraction * from this Kamar al-Zaman * son of Shahriman * to the peerless one * of the fair Houris the pearl-union * to the Lady Budur * daughter of King Al Ghayur * Know thou that by night I am sleepless * and by day in distress * consumed with increasing wasting and pain * and longing and love unfain * abounding in sighs * with tear flooded eyes * by passion captive ta'en * of Desire the slain * with heart seared by the parting of us twain * the debtor of longing bane, of sickness cup-companion * I am the sleepless one, who never closeth eye * the slave of love, whose tears run never dry * for the fire of my heart is still burning * and never hidden is the flame of my yearning."
The Valkyries, with their shirts of swan-plumage, who hovered over Scandinavian battle-fields to receive the souls of falling heroes, were identical with the Hindu Apsaras; and the Houris of the Mussulman belong to the same family. Even for the angels, women with large wings, who are seen in popular pictures bearing mortals on high towards heaven, we can hardly claim a different kinship.
Perhaps heaven holds different explanations, graduated to rising intellects, from parsons upwards. Moses Lump will be satisfied with a gold chair, and the cherubim singing, 'holy! holy! holy! in Hebrew, and ask no further questions. Abdullah Ben Osman's mouth will be closed by the kisses of houris.
In my next letter I will tell you all the news relating to El-Nouzha from the time when I last interrupted this interesting part of my narrative. My houris are making progress, and their education is improving. We are going on swimmingly. The Turks are calumniated, my friend, there's no doubt about it.
Now is the time to show the courage of men, and by one glorious victory retrieve all that we have lost. Happy he who falls fighting in the cause of the Prophet! he will at once be transported to the paradise of the faithful and surrounded by immortal houris.
His name is Omer-Rashid-Effendi, a name under which he has already passed here twice. My houris are astonished with all they see, and their pleasure is indescribable. Of course my first care was to Europeanise their toilettes. What a business it was!
What strange visions of outlandish things does the very name spirit up! Lovely houris—cannibal banquets—groves of cocoa-nuts—coral reefs—tattooed chiefs—and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit trees—carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters—savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols—heathenish rites and human sacrifices.
Replace the fair ladies and the startling "blazers" with veiled houris and their lords clad in all colours of the rainbow; for one immortal "Squash" put hundreds of "squashes," all playing upon weird instruments, or singing in "a singular minor key"; let the smell of outlandish cookery be wafted to you from the "family" boats and from the bivouacs on the shore; let a constant uproar fall upon your ears as when the Hall defeats Third Trinity by half a length; and, finally, for the flat banks of Father Thames and the trim lawns of Phyllis Court, you must substitute the Nasim Bagh crowned with its huge chenars, and Mahadco looking down upon you from his thirteen thousand feet of precipice and snow.
"The Frank declareth that her eyes were bright as those of the gazelle, that her eyebrows were as one, her waist as that of the cypress, her face as the full moon, and that she was fat as the houris that await the true believers." "Mashallah! all for a piastre. Ask him, Mustapha, if there are more wives to be sold in that country?"
Lord George was infinitely petted by the three Houris around him, and Lizzie called him a Corsair to his face. "And you are the Medora," said Mrs. Carbuncle. "Oh no. That is your place, certainly," said Lizzie. "What a pity Sir Griffin isn't here," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "that we might call him the Giaour." Lucinda shuddered, without any attempt at concealing her shudder.
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