Every toad carries a diamond in its head, say Hope and the Ideal. But in any known toad was it ever found? retorted the Howadji, cutting adrift his western morals.

6*

XIX.

KUSHUK ARNEM.

THE Howadji entered the bower of the Ghazeeyah. A damsel admitted us at the gate, closely veiled, as if women's faces were to be seen no more forever. Across a clean little court, up stone steps that once were steadier, and we emerged upon a small, inclosed stone terrace, the sky-vaulted antechamber of that bower. Through a little door, that made us stoop to enter, we passed into the peculiar retreat of the Ghazeeyah. It was a small, white, oblong room, with but one window, opposite the door, and that closed. On three sides there were small holes to admit light as in dungeons, but too lofty for the eye to look through, like the oriel windows of sacristies. Under these openings were small glass vases holding oil, on which floated wicks. These were the means of illumination.

A divan of honor filled the end of the room-on the side was another, less honorable, as is usual in all Egyptian houses-on the floor a carpet, partly

covering it. A straw matting extended beyond the carpet toward the door; and between the matting and the door was a bare space of stone floor, whereon to shed the slippers.

Hadji Hamed, the long cook, had been ill; but hearing of music, and dancing, and Ghawazee, he had turned out for the nonce, and accompanied us to the house, not all unmindful, possibly, of the delectations of the Mecca pilgrimage. He stood upon the stone terrace afterward, looking in with huge delight. The solemn, long, tomb-pilgrim ! The merriest lunges of life were not lost upon him, notwithstanding.

The Howadji seated themselves orientally upon the divan of honor. To sit, as Westerns sit, is impossible upon a divan. There is some mysterious necessity for crossing the legs, and this Howadji never sees a tailor now in lands civilized, but the dimness of Eastern rooms and bazaars, the flowingness of robe, and the coiled splendor of the turban, and a world reclining leisurely at ease, rise distinct and dear in his mind, like that Sicilian mirage seen on divine days from Naples, but fleet as fair. To most men, a tailor is the most unsuggestive of mortals. To the remembering Howadji, he sits a poet.

The chibouque, and nargileh, and coffee, belong to the divan, as the parts of harmony to each other

I seized the flowing tube of a brilliant amber-hued nargileh, such as Hafiz might have smoked, and prayed Isis that some stray Persian might chance along to complete our company. The Pacha inhaled, at times, a more sedate nargileh; at times, the chibouque of the Commander, who reclined upon the divan below.

A tall Egyptian female, filially related, I am sure, to a gentle giraffe who had been indiscreet with a hippopotamus, moved heavily about, lighting the lamps, and looking as if her bright eyes were feeding upon the flame, as the giraffes might browse upon lofty autumn leaves. There was something awful in this figure. She was the type of those tall, angular, Chinese-eyed, semi-smiling, wholly-homely, and bewitched beings, who sit in eternal profile in the sculptures of the temples. She was mystic, like the cow-horned Isis. I gradually feared that she had come off the wall of a tomb, probably in Thebes hard by, and that our Ghawazee delights would end in a sudden embalming, and laying away in the bowels of the hills, with a perpetual prospect of her upon the walls.

Avaunt, spectre ! The fay approaches, and Kushuk Arnem entered her bower. A bud no longer, yet a flower not too fully blown. Large, aughing eyes, red, pulpy lips, white teeth, arching

nose, generous-featured, lazy, carelessly self-possessed, she came dancing in, addressing the Howadji in Arabic-words whose honey they would not have distilled through interpretation. Be content with the aroma of sound, if you can not catch the flavor of sense-and flavor can you never have through another mouth. Smiling and pantomime were our talking, and one choice Italian word she knewbuono. Ah! how much was buono that choice evening. Eyes, lips, hair, form, dress, every thing that the strangers had or wore, was endlessly buono. Dancing, singing, smoking, coffee-buono, buono, buonissimo! How much work one word will do!

The Ghazeeyah entered-not mazed in that azure mist of gauze and muslin, wherein Cerito floats fascinating across the scene; nor in the peacock plumage of sprightly Lucille Grahn; nor yet in that June cloudiness of aery apparel which Carlotta affects; nor in that sumptuous Spanishness of dark drapery wherein Fanny is most Fanny.

The glory of a butterfly is the starred brilliance of its wings. There are who declare that dress is divine-who aver that an untoileted woman is not wholly a woman, and that you may as well paint a saint without his halo, as describe a woman without detailing her dress Therefore, while the