DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0283
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 face. 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 instances ofgood luck
were extremely hazardous, and assignations of this
sort were kept with much anxiety and trepidation.
Dud ng 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
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 face. 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 instances ofgood luck
were extremely hazardous, and assignations of this
sort were kept with much anxiety and trepidation.
Dud ng 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