254 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



And for whom are so many charms so carefully 

 preserved ? For one single man, for a tyrant who 

 holds them in captivity. An insuperable line of 

 separation is drawn, in those countries, between 

 the two constituent halves of the human species : 

 the one, the graces of which form a contrast so 

 agreeable with the force, and the masculine beau- 

 ties of the other, a prisoner here, becomes the ex- 

 clusive possession of a few individuals. No man 

 can enter the place where the women are, the 

 proprietor himself excepted ; no one must behold 

 their faee. No where is jealousy carried to such a 

 horrid excess; no where is it more ferocious. An 

 inevitable death awaits the stranger who shall have 

 made an attempt to introduce himself into the 

 apartments reserved for the females, or to address 

 a few words to them, on meeting them out of 

 doors. Not that those beautiful captives have no 

 disposition to burst asunder some links of their 

 chain, and certain adventures have come to my 

 knowledge, of which they had been frankly at the 

 whole of the expense. But such instancesofgood luck 

 were extremely hazardous, and assignations of this 

 sort were kept with much anxiety and trepidation. 



During my first residence at Cairo, I one day sur- 

 prised, without intending it, a young Frenchman, 

 who, behind the half-drawn curtains of a lattice in 

 the consul's house, was busily employed in making 



a variety 



