THE LADIES OF THE HAREM. 529 



a tinge too much of the masculine. While talking with this chief lady of 

 the harem, a second entered and performed the ceremony of breaking bread 

 too. She was quite as gaily dressed, about eighteen years of age, of perfect 

 form, and taller than the chief lady. Her short hair was oiled and smoothed 

 down, and a little curl cultivated in front of each. This was pleasantly 

 feminine. She spoke little, but her really resplendent eyes did all save talk. 

 They were of a brownish shade, and lustrous, like the ' een o' Jeanie Deans 

 filled wi' tears; they glanced like lamour beads' — 'lamour,' Scottice for 

 amber. The lectures of Mr. Hancock at Charing Cross Hospital, London, 

 long ago, have made me look critically on eyes ever since. A third lady 

 entered, and broke bread also. She was plain as compared with her sister 

 houris, but the child of the chief man of those parts. Their complexion was 

 fair brunette. The prince remarked that he had only three wives, though 

 his rank entitled him to twelve. 



"A dark slave-woman, dressed like, but less gaudily than her superior, 

 now entered with a tray and tumblers of sweet sherbet. Having drunk 

 thereof, flowers were presented, and then betel-nut for chewing. The head 

 lady wrapped up enough for a quid in a leaf, and handed it to each of us, 

 and to please her we chewed a little. It is slightly bitter and astringent, 

 and like a kola-nut of West Africa, and was probably introduced as a tonic 

 and preventative of fever. The lady superior mixed lime with her own and 

 sister's — good large quids. This made the saliva flow freely, and it being of 

 a brick red colour, stained their pretty teeth and lips, and by no means im- 

 proved their looks. It was the fashion, and to them nothing uncomely, when 

 they squirted the red saliva qu ite artistically all over the floor. On asking 

 the reason why the mother took no lime in her quid, and kept her teeth quite 

 clean, she replied that the reason was, she had been on a pilgrimage to Mecca 

 and was a Hajee. The whole scene of the visit was like a gorgeous picture. 

 The ladies had tried to please us, and were thoroughly successful. We were 

 delighted with a sight of the life in a harem; but whether from want of wit, 

 wisdom, or something else, I should still vote for the one- wife system, having 

 tried it for some eighteen years. I would not exchange a monogamic harem, 

 with some merry, laughing, noisy children, for any polygamous gathering 

 in Africa or the world. It scarcely belongs to the picture, which I have 

 attempted to draw as favourably as possible, in order to show the supreme 

 good for the sake of the possible attainment of which the half-caste Arabs per- 

 petrate all the atrocities of the slave-trade; but a short time after this visit, 

 the prince fled on board our steamer for protection from creditors. He was 

 misled by one calling himself Colonel Aboo, who went about the world saying 

 he was a persecuted Christian. He had no more Christianity in him than a 

 door nail. At a spot some eighty miles south-west of the south end of Tan- 

 ganyika, stands the stockaded village of the chief Chitimbwa. A war had 

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