8 
THE SAIED. 
the East, after men fell from the order of nature and of God into 
the vice of polygamy. Wherever this monopoly of many women 
to the passions of one man exists, there we find the softer sex, 
(originally formed to be his solace and his “ better part,”) 
regarded with a contempt which gives the loveliest bride, or the 
most respectable mother of his children, hardly a higher rank in 
his esteem than the best mare in his stud, or the dog that is his 
favourite to-day and totally neglected to-morrow. In proof of 
this Mahomedan disparagement of women in a general point 
of view, it would be deemed the height of impropriety, while 
addressing a person of noble quality here, to hint at the female 
part of his family ; and were even the most beloved wife of his 
bosom at the extremity of some dangerous illness, did a male 
friend make the slightest enquiry after her health, it would be 
received as the grossest insult. There are private exceptions to 
these opinions and feelings with regard to wives ; but then the 
more tender and respectful sentiment is confined to the par¬ 
ticular women who awakened it, and not extended in the 
smallest degree to the sex in general. Hence the husband’s 
outward conduct must remain the same, and the name of the 
most revered wife continue as much a blank in the community 
at large, as that of the lowest female slave in her establishment. 
But my honest Saied had less of his country’s prejudices on this 
matter, and therefore even volunteered his information. These 
occult subjects,with the more privileged ones of the chase ; and 
long stories of the hordes which at times hovered in clouds on the 
summit of the hills, or stole down their fissured sides, like creep¬ 
ing and malignant mists, to their acts of mischief below; be¬ 
guiled the heavy hours, which the sad confinement of my friend 
cast on our host and his society* 
