THE ARAB. 



379 



floating capital, a ship or two, and from 1000 to 

 2000 slaves. 



The results of wealth and general aisance 

 have been luxury and unbridled licentiousness. 

 As usual in damp-hot climates, for instance, Sind, 

 Egypt, the lowlands of Syria, Mazenderan, Mala- 

 bar, and California, the sexual requirements of the 

 passive exceed those of the active sex ; and the 

 usual result is a dissolute social state, contrasting 

 with mountain countries, dry-cold or damp-cold, 

 where the conditions are either equally balanced 

 or are reversed. Arab women have been de- 

 scribed as respectable in the Island, because, 

 fearing scandal and its consequences, they deny 

 themselves to Europeans. Yet many of them 

 prefer Banyans to those of the True Eaith, whilst 

 the warmest passions abandon themselves to 

 African slaves : 1 these dark men are such pearls 

 in beauteous ladies' eyes, and their fascinations at 

 Zanzibar are so great, that a respectable Hindostani 

 Moslem will not trust his daughter to live there, 

 even in her husband's house. A corresponding 

 perversion and brutality of taste make the men 

 neglect their wives for negresses ; the same has 



1 It is easy to explain the preference of Arab women for 

 slaves, and the predilection of the husbands for negro women : 

 the subject, however, is somewhat too physiological for the 

 general reader. 



