128 
spoke to me oh this point so often, that 1 was at last 
obliged to give way, and as they knew that I was re- 
solved not to marry till I had returned from my intend- 
ed pilgrimage to Mecca, they presented me with a young 
negress, who was a slave. I admitted her into my house 
without looking at her* The women of Hadj Kdris, 
considering her as my concubine, had her bathed, clean- 
sed, and perfumed for some days following; they then 
fitted her out with bride clothes, and led her to my house. 
Notwithstanding her fine dress, perfumes, and prepara- 
tions, I let her remain in the room of her retreat, where 
she was well attended and treated, but I was unable to 
overcome my repugnance for a negress with thick lips 
and a flat nose. 
Having promised Mulei Abdsulem a calendar for the 
last four months which finish the Arabian year, I gave 
it to him, showing him the corresponding dates of the 
solar year, the days of the week, of the month, and of 
the moon, as also the longitude and declination at Fez 
of the sun at noon, the hour of his rising and setting, 
the hour of the moon's passage through the meridian, 
the difference of the mean time and the real one, the 
phases and other lunary points, and the most remarkable 
phenomena of the other planets. 
As the two eclipses of the sun and moon were to hap- 
pen at this period, my almanac became the more inte- 
resting from the prognostications of the phenomena 
which I had described; I added to it the figures of the ob- 
jects which were to be seen. At the end of it I put two 
other drawings, of which one represented the propor- 
tionate size of the planets, in comparison with the sun, 
and the other the solar system, with all its new discov- 
eries. 
When I presented this almanac, Muley Abdsulem 
