III.
I must confess that we have preserved little of the architectural simplicity in the inscriptions upon tombs. It is just to say that they are of a poor style, laden with lengthy common epitaphs, emphatic declamations, and warm protestations, contradicted by the neglected and solitary aspect of those almost forgotten places. I make an exception of the sepulchres of children. If you find in a cemetery a grave which is preserved with love, invested with crowns, and dressed with fresh flowers, you can recognize the place of a child. In all countries of the world, a delicate worship is devoted to the mortal remains of innocence. The Indian graves have become celebrated, since Chateaubriand described them so charmingly. Now that Christianity has been established in those parts of the globe, mothers no longer suspend the cradles of their sons upon branches of trees, but their funerals have retained much of the simple grace of the time of Chactas.
A missionary has written: "I had to attend the burial of a little child five or six months old. They brought it to the church, laying it upon a mat, with garlands of flowers for a winding-sheet. We should have thought that it was sleeping sweetly, and notwithstanding its color, I admired its angelic beauty. After the prayers, which the church addresses to the good God, they dropped it gently into the grave, as if it had been its cradle, without covering even the face. Flowers were given in the place of earth, to throw upon the body. All the assistants did likewise, and some commenced to weep. It was sad to see the earth close over this little body so sweetly adorned, and cover that young face which appeared to smile upon us. It was to become food for worms; but the beautiful soul was already in heaven with the angels. I then united with the heavenly spirits to sing praises to God at the happiness of his little creature. I hope that this child will not forget the young missionary who celebrated its deliverance from this world of misery." [Footnote 94]
[Footnote 94: Vie de M. l'Abbé Chopart, p. 188.]
This scene recalls to me a similar one which I witnessed in the village of Beauvoisis. I met in the street the funeral procession of a little girl who was being carried to the cemetery. In advance of the coffin, a child of ten years, concealed under a floating drapery, was carrying a basket of white flowers. Thus she walked, gathering and smiling, happy with her part, until their arrival at the sepulchre; then throwing her basket into the grave, she disappeared among the trees, delighted at having prepared this flowery bed for her playmate, who was to sleep there the long night of death.
Menander said in a celebrated verse, "He whom the gods love dies young." And Sophocles said before him, "It is good not to be born; but if once born, the second degree of happiness is to die young." The ancients considered it fortune to be delivered from mortal misery. What would they have said if those who left them had appeared upon the bosom of God in a beatitude and glory without end? _Bene in pace!_
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Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople. [Footnote 95]
[Footnote 95: _Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople_. By Emeline Lott. 4th edition. 12mo, pp. 312. Richard Bentley. New Burlington Street, London. 1867.]
This volume has run through several editions in England within the last three years. It is destined from its popularity to run through as many more; but as yet, it has found no publisher on this side of the Atlantic, although its merits are well-established in British literature. Observing a new edition announced by Bentley, it reminds us that the neat, unpretending little work has not received any recognition from our republic, nor has any attention been called to it. In truth, the American public, deeply interested in travellers and travelling in the east, or in whatever comes from the press illustrating scriptural scenes and events, have strangely overlooked this production, which furnishes a better insight into oriental domestic life than any account published for many years.
Egypt is now what it was in the days of the crucifixion and of Julius Caesar; it is unchanged, it is unchangeable, in its social structure, as the pyramids in their architecture, or the sands of the desert in their external aspect. To understand the condition of the people now, is to understand their condition when the Israelites under the direction of Moses went out from among them. To enter the family circle in the valley of the Nile for the purpose of learning their present mode of life, is at once an introduction to all their progenitors who ever dwelt in the same region in the reign of the ancient Pharaohs. In order to see what a Roman city was in the first century, it is requisite to put aside the ashes from a submerged Pompeii, or to remove the superincumbent earth from a buried Herculaneum. But in Egypt, to comprehend what was the moral, social, intellectual, religious appearance of the country when Cleopatra sailed upon the river, all that need be done is to push aside the mat which serves for a door to the first mud hovel met with, or pass within the first portal where heavy hinges grate upon the ear an uncordial reception.
The same Egypt can be seen which Alexander of Macedon, Sesostris, and the shepherd-kings beheld. Egyptian institutions were never buried; or, if buried, their sepulchre is above ground. A living death is visible on all sides; it is a palsy that struck the land long before the dawn of history, and may remain as it now is, when the history of the present century has passed into oblivion. Although the Egyptian mind and morals will not die in their body, still no motion is in its limbs, no quickening vitality in its joints, no trembling in its nerves; the blood is stagnant; a black pool as destitute of national animation as the waters of the Dead Sea. Progress is a term never heard of near the habitation of the Sphinx; and the period of ruins has gone by. Everything seems running rapidly to demolition; but nothing is demolished; decay has in that mysterious soil a perennial existence, a species of recuperation, that renews itself like the integuments of neighboring snakes, lizards, and toads, which bury themselves in the same rich slime.
{408}
A book, therefore, on modern harem life in Egypt, is in one sense a hand-book for historians in their explorations after the vanities and household troubles of good King Solomon, when his domestic peace and quiet, his comfort and felicity, were invaded by many more spinsters than the Levitical law allowed to any one wise man. This dame Emeline is the very woman to aid them in their archaeological researches. Her volume furnishes important hints and information; and if on the title-page nine centuries before the Christian era were substituted for the date of publication, instead of nineteen centuries after it, the change would be so unimportant in a chronological point of view, that no annalist would be aware of the anachronism. It would look like a second edition of Herodotus, revised and improved, for the benefit of the ladies, and far surpassing in truth the first impression of that ancient Halicarnassian, full of his old gallinaceous and bovine stories.
Mrs. Lott, an English school-teacher, was engaged in London to proceed to Egypt in 1862-3, to take charge of the education of his highness the Grand Pasha Ibraim, five or six years old, the son of Ismail Pasha, the viceroy, and the grandson of the renowned and illustrious Ibraim. The lady in due time arrived at the port of Alexandria, consigned to the delicate consideration and tender mercies of the viceroy's agent, like any other bale of valuable and perishable drygoods. Her first glimpse of the land in the culinary and creature-comfortable line of development was not favorable. She next proceeded to the city of Cairo by rail, and was invited to the house of the vice-regal commercial partner, a German in lineage and language, but with principles and refinement somewhat neglected from want of proper planting and propagation in his youthful European culture. At the residence of this gentleman she was perpetually served with the same dishes at breakfast, noon, and dinner--boiled and roast mutton, stringy and dry, vermicelli soup, tomatoes stuffed with rice, chicory, spinach, and "the whole of the dishes were swimming in fat;" oranges and coffee followed after. Considering that the thermometer was raging above 100°, Fahrenheit, this oriental feed was rather oleaginous, and the lady longed for the wings of a dove to devour her provender elsewhere. So far she had learned one important lesson, and thus paints it. She says:
"I can endorse the veracity of the statement made by a contributor to _Once a Week_, who most naively and truthfully asserts that 'the land of Egypt is ruled over by twenty princes: one of whom is the viceroy, eighteen of the others are known as consuls-general of European nations; but the twentieth is the most powerful of all, and his name is Baksheesh, (gift, present, bribery.')"
To the high and mighty Prince Baksheesh, in duty bound we render all due homage; we bow our lowest salaam, and are pleased to make his acquaintance. He is not wholly unknown to fame in this hemisphere; for a popular superstition prevails in the rural districts that his majesty has many loyal subjects and followers in our own dearly beloved and dearly governed model republic. Prince Baksheesh is a power in our institutions, and a party to much of our legislation. The misfortune of the unprotected female was, that she did not propitiate the potentate; the superabundant fat would have been speedily withdrawn from the bill of fare.
{409}
At last the day arrived for her to remove to the harem of the viceroy on the other side of the river; and she was destined to leave the hands of the agent in the same sort of consignment in which she had come into them, that is, amid bales, barrels, and boxes of merchandise. The dame, therefore, had no opportunity to take a look into the royal market-basket, to ascertain how Ismail Pasha provided for his little private family of three hundred females of different colors, ages, sizes,--and sexes of the feminine and neuter gender. Although the English governess has an eye for the ornamental and beautiful, it is nevertheless only one eye; the other throws its dark splendor upon the useful and substantial. Sometimes she endeavored to close both against sights which were neither the one nor the other. The truth of history, however, compels her to supply her readers with specimens of all these. She observes:
"The vice-regal standard, the everlasting crescent, floated at the stem and stern. On they rowed most vigorously, and in less than ten minutes I was landed at the stairs of the harem. The building is a very plain structure, the interior of which is painted like the trunks of the trees of the Dutch model village of Broeck. In appearance it resembles the letter E, and is a large pile, composed of five blocks of buildings. Proceeding to the one which faced the Nile, I entered the _harem_, ('sacred,') passed through a small door--the grating sound of whose huge hinges still seems to creak in my ears like the grinding of the barrel-organ of an itinerant Italian or Savoyard--which led into a court-yard, at that time lined, not with a corps of the Egyptian infantry, with their shrill brass bands playing opera airs, but with a group of hard-working Fellahs and Arabs, toiling away like laborers in the London docks, and rolling into the immense space hundreds of bales of soft Geneva velvets, the costliest Lyons silks, rich French satins, most elegant designed muslins, fast gaudy-colored Manchester prints, stout Irish poplins, the finest Irish linens, Brussels, Mechlin, Valenciennes, Honiton, and imitation laces, Nottingham hose, French silk stockings, French and Coventry ribbons, cases of the purest Schiedam, pipes of spirits of wine, huge cases of fashionable Parisian boots, shoes, and slippers, immense chests of _bon bons_ in magnificent fancy-worked cases, boxes and baskets, bales of _tombeki_, and the bright, golden-leaved tobacco of Istambol, (Constantinople;) Cashmere, Indian, French, and Paisley shawls of the most exquisite designs; baskets of pipe-bowls, cases of amber mouth-pieces, cigarette papers, and a whole host of miscellaneous packages too various to enumerate, of other commodities destined for the use of the inmates of that vast conservatory of beauty, all supplied by his highness's partners. For, be it known to you, gentle reader, that the Viceroy of Egypt may most appropriately be styled _par excellence_ the Sinbad of the age, the merchant-prince of the terrestrial globe.
"Here I was received by two eunuchs, one of whom was attired in a light drab uniform. ... I was then ushered through another door, the portals of which were guarded by a group of eunuchs, similarly attired, but whose uniforms were most costly embroidered. Their features were hideous and ferocious, their figures corpulent, and carriage haughty,
"They also salaamed me in the most oriental style. Thence, passing along a marble passage, I entered a large stone hall, which was supported by huge granite pillars which led me to the grand staircase, where I was received by the chief eunuch, who is called _kislar agaci_, 'the captain of the girls.'
"This giant spectre of a man ... advanced toward me, made his salaam, and ushered me, the _hated_, despised Giaour, into the noble marble hall of the harem, which was then for the first time polluted by the footsteps of the unbeliever. The scene around me was so singular and strange that I paused to contemplate it. The hall was of vast dimensions, supported by beautiful porphyry pillars, and the marble floor was covered with fine matting. I was now handed over to the lady superintendent of the slaves, a very wealthy woman, about twenty-four years of age, with fine dark-blue eyes, aquiline nose, large mouth, and of middle stature.
"She was attired in a colored muslin dress and trousers, over which she wore a quilted lavender-colored satin paletot. Her head was covered with a small blue gauze handkerchief tied round it, and in the centre of the forehead, tucked up under it, a lovely natural dark-red rose. She wore a beautiful large spray of diamonds arranged in the form of the flower 'forget-me-not,' which hung down like three tendrils below her ear on the left side. Large diamond drops were suspended from her ears, and her fingers were covered with numerous rings, the most brilliant of which were a large rose-pink diamond and a beautiful sapphire. {410} Her feet were encased in white cotton stockings, and patent-leather Parisian shoes. Her name was Anina: she had been formerly an Ikbal 'favorite.' ... The lady superintendent now took me by the hand, led me up two flights of stairs covered with thick, rich Brussels carpet of a most costly description, and as soft and brilliant in colors as the dewy moss of Virginia Water. The walls were plain. Then we passed through a suite of several rooms, elegantly carpeted, in all of which stood long divans; some of which were covered, with white, and others with yellow and crimson satin. Over the doorways hung white satin damask curtains, looped up with silk cords and tassels to correspond, with richly gilded cornices over each. ... Against the walls were fixed numerous silver chandeliers, each containing six wax candles, with frosted colored glass shades made in the form of tulips over them. On each side of the room large mirrors were fixed in the wall, each of which rested on a marble-topped console table supported by gilded legs. The only other articles of furniture that were scattered about the apartments were a dozen common English cane-bottom _Kursi_-chairs."
She is next conducted further on to some dormitories, where bedsteads are wanting, being an article of furniture unused by the Gypsies. Against the walls were piled up beds in heaps, covered over with a red silk coverlet. On the divan was placed a silver tray--both toilet-tables and wash-hand-stands being unheard-of comforts--containing the princesses' toilet requisites. In her general inspection the governess is led to the apartments of the Princess Epouse, the mother of the little boy for whom Mrs. Lott is engaged. This princess is dressed--but let dame Emeline describe the scene, as only a lady can do it:
"The Princess Epouse, attired in a dirty, crumpled, light-colored muslin dress and trousers, sat _à la Turque_, doubled up like a clasp-knife, without shoes or stockings, smoking a cigarette. ... Her feet were encased in _babouches_, 'slippers without heels.' ... In front of the divan, behind and on each side of me, stood a bevy of the ladies of the harem, assuredly not the types of Tom Moore's 'Peris of the East,' as described in such glowing colors in his far-famed _Lalla Rookh_, for I failed to discover the slightest trace of loveliness in any of them. On the contrary, most of their countenances were pale as ashes, exceedingly disagreeable, flat and globular in figure; in short, so rotund, that they gave me the idea of large full moons; nearly all were _passé_. Their photographs were as hideous and hag-like as the witches in the opening scene in Macbeth, which is not to be wondered at, as some of them had been the favorites of Ibrahim Pasha. ... Some wore white linen dresses and trousers. Their hair and finger-nails were dyed with _henna_. ... They had handsome gold watches ... suspended from their necks by thick, massive gold chains. Their fingers were covered with a profusion of diamond, emerald, and ruby rings; in their ears were ear-rings of various precious stones, all set in the old antique style of silver. ... Behind stood half-a-dozen of white slaves, chiefly Circassians."
The mother leaves a favorable impression on the mind of the governess, who, being finally dismissed from the interview, pursues her explorations and makes a great discovery neither complimentary to the princess nor cleanly, where water is abundant, but where ablutions seem to be abnormal; for it is written in her journal that
"Thence we passed along a stone passage which leads to her highness's bath-room. ... The marble bath is both long and wide, with taps for hot and cold water. The water actually boils into which their highnesses enter. This only occurs when they have visited the viceroy, and not daily, or even at any other time. The bath of the poets is a myth."
The governess at last reaches her own chamber, where she is destined to sleep and seclude herself in her leisure hours. The prospect at first is not inviting, nor does a second view afford more encouragement; an evident sense of disappointment, if not of dismay, is experienced; and thus she pours forth her vexation:
{411}
"On the right-hand side of the first room was the small bed-room which was assigned to me as my apartment. It was carpeted, having a divan covered with green and red striped worsted damask, which stood underneath the window, which commanded a fine _coup-d'ceil_ of the gardens attached to the palace of the viceroy's pavilion. The hangings of the double doors and windows were of the same material. The furniture consisted of a plain green painted iron bedstead, the bars of which had never been fastened, and pieces of wood, like the handles of brooms, and an iron bar, were placed across to support the two thin cotton mattresses laid upon it. There were neither pillows, bolsters, nor bed linen, but as substitutes were placed three thin flat cushions; not a blanket, but two old worn-out wadded coverlets lay upon the bed. Not the sign of a dressing-table or a chair of any description, and a total absence of all the appendages necessary for a lady's bed-room; not even--"
Well, well, Mrs. Lott, the "not even" was, in your civilized opinion, certainly very odd to be sure. But don't mind trifles; let it be forgotten; let us ramble elsewhere. You were saying just now something about four broad steps; go on; that's right.
"Four broad steps led down into the garden, close to a plain white marble-columned gate, on the top of which stood out in bold relief the statues of two huge life-sized lions. ... Here and there were scattered rose-trees, the brilliancy of whose variegated colors and the perfumes of their flowers were delightfully refreshing; geraniums of almost every hue; jessamines, whose large white and yellow blossoms were thrice the size of those of England, and a variety of indigenous and eastern plants, shrubs, and flowers, which were so thickly studded about that they rendered the view extremely picturesque, and perfumed the air, grateful to the senses. Verbena trees, as large as ordinary fruit-trees; other plants bearing large yellow flowers, as big as tea-cups, with most curious leaves; cactuses, and a complete galaxy of botanical curiosities, whose names the genius of a Paxton would be perhaps puzzled to disclose, ornamented those Elysian grounds."
This is only one sketch of only one spot in the many gorgeous and luxurious localities. Space forbids copying more; but the book states:
"Leaving these neglected scenes of amusement, we proceed along a path to the right, through a superb marble-paved hall, the ceiling of which is in fresco and gold. It is supported by twenty-eight plain pink-colored marble columns, surmounted by richly-gilded Indian wheat, the leaves of which hang down most gracefully, on each side of which, and also above ... are some very handsome lofty rooms, the ceilings of which are also in fresco, with superb gilded panels. ...
"The grounds of Frogmore, the Crystal Palace, St. Cloud, Versailles, the Duke of Devonshire's far-famed Chatsworth, and our national pride, Kensington Gardens and Windsor Home Park, exquisite, beautiful, and rural as they are ... all lack the brilliant display of exotics which thrive here in such luxuriance. The groves of orange-trees, the myrtle hedges, the beautiful sheets of water, the spotless marble kiosks, the artistic statuary, are all so masterly blended together with such exquisite taste, that these gardens ... completely outvie them."
The princesses were sometimes as highly adorned as the halls of marbles and frescoes, and as ornamental as the gardens of blooming exotics. On the festival of the Great Bairam, or on state occasions, when lady visitors made formal calls to compare complexions and cashmeres, their highnesses are spoken of with the highest delight:
"They wore the most costly silks, richest satins, and softest velvets; adorned themselves with the treasures of their jewel caskets, so that their persons were one blaze of precious stones. That crescent of females (for they always ranged themselves in the form of the Turkish symbol) was then a parterre of diamonds, amethysts, topazes, turquoises, chrysoberyls, sapphires, jaspers, opals, agates, emeralds, corals, rich carbuncles, and rubies. In short, the profusion of diamonds with which the latter adorned their persons from day to day became so sickening to me that my eyes were weary at the sight of those magnificent baubles, to which all women are so passionately attached."
{412}
But weary as were her British eyes, still she gazed in rapture when the darling gems were on exhibition; moreover, in the journal the impressions were faithfully recorded. On another occasion, when some princesses were coming,
"The Princess Epouse, the mother of my prince, was attired in a rich, blue-figured silk robe, trimmed with white lace and silver thread, with a long train; full trousers of the same material, high-heeled embroidered satin shoes to match the dress. On her head she had a small white crape handkerchief, elegantly embroidered with blue silk and silver, and round it placed a tiara of May blossoms in diamonds. She wore a necklace to correspond, having large sapphire drops hanging down the neck. Her arms were ornamented with three bracelets, composed of diamonds and sapphires, and an amulet entirely of sapphires of almost priceless value. ... At times my eyes, when looking at the Peris arrayed in all their gems, have become as dim as if I had been fixing them on the noonday sun."
What young lady of an enterprising turn of mind would not be willing, after reading these glowing descriptions, to pack up her Saratoga trunks, to engage the Adams Express Company, and to charter the Cunard line of steamers, to aid her on to a glorious future near the base of the pyramids? Certainly not one of the ambitious and strong-minded. But they need not ask the English governess to go with them. She has been there; she will respectfully decline going again--not she, as Shakespeare's other old lady in Henry the VIII. exclaims, "not for all the mud in Egypt." For another part of the story remains to be told; another side of the picture to be presented; and dame Emeline tells it truthfully, she paints it lifelike; the rose is beautiful, but beware the serpent under it.
Mrs. Lott is apparently a gentlewoman, refined, accomplished, intellectual, with an appreciation of the difference between civilized society and barbarism. But in the vice-regal harem, education was not to be found; ignorance was universal, superstition reigned supreme. None could read, or write, or sketch, or converse on a rational subject. No one could sing or perform on a musical instrument; none cared for to-morrow or for a hereafter. Their daily routine had all the monotony of the desert with its burning sands, destitute of variety in incident or shade of change; it was equally unproductive and utterly worthless. They had nothing to expect with pleasing anticipation; they had nothing to remember with delight. Physically, morally, mentally they were unclean and debased. Their passions, when aroused, were ungovernable; their greatest joy was revenge upon a rival; and their revenge was deadly, by suffocation or submersion, poison or the bow-string. Their amusements were all sensual; their weary hours of listless idleness were passed in indulgence of some enervating vice alike deleterious to health, comfort, and color.
The servants were steeped in only a lower depth of dirt and depravity. The princesses had the power of life and death over them, and it was a power often exercised; they would put them to the torture for a trivial fault, the breaking of a plate or the falling of a cup; and cheeks and arms seamed with parallel rows of the red-hot iron, attested how often and how unmercifully cruel had been their punishment. The food of the menials was not prepared for them, nor given to them; but they purloined by stealth from the dishes on their way to the princesses' apartments; and after their repast was ended, the refuse of chicken and pigeon bones, of mutton, of soup, of rice, of vegetables, and the rinds of fruit were tossed into a basket in one loathing mess, mixed up, around which the servants flocked like carrion birds, and, squatting on the floor, inserted ravenously their reeking hands to pick out disgusting morsels with their dripping, unwashed fingers.
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The laundry did not require much water; for the volume informs us,
"Those who performed the duties of washerwomen were occupied daily in their avocation, except on the Sabbath, (Fridays.) But that was not very laborious work, since neither bed, table, nor chamber linen are used. Thus they were engaged until twelve, when their highnesses partook of their breakfast separately. It was served up on a large green-lackered tray, _minus_ table-cloth, knives and forks, but with a large ivory tablespoon, having a handsome coral handle, the evident emblem of their rank as princesses. It was placed upon the _soofra_, a low kind of stool, covered with a handsome silk cloth. The repast occupied about twenty minutes. Then pipes, in which are placed small pills of opium, or more often cigarettes and coffee, were handed to them, and each princess retired to her own apartment. Thus they became confirmed opium-smokers, which produced a kind of intoxication." ...
Their common indulgence in opium, with a profuse supply of European wines and Schiedam gin, produced its natural results, and is thus depicted:
"Oftentimes after the princesses had been indulging too freely in that habit to which they had became slaves, their countenances would assume most hideous aspects; their eyes glared, their eyebrows were knit closely together; no one dared to approach them. In fact, they had all the appearance of mad creatures, while at other times they were gay and cheerful.
"They only combed their hair (which was full of vermin) once a week, on Thursdays, the eve of their Sabbath, (Friday, _Djouma_;) when it was well combed with a large small-tooth comb; and pardon me, but 'murder will out,' the members of the vermin family which were removed from it were legion. It was afterward well brushed with a hard hair-brush, well damped with strong perfumed water. Their highnesses never wore stockings in the morning, nor did they change any of their attire till afternoon."
When the summer heats set in, the harem was transferred to the coast at Alexandria, to inhale the fresh breezes from the sea. The preparation for flight was attended with some rich scenes and ludicrous exhibitions. But their transit on the railroad, boxed up like pigs or poultry on a cattle-train, is indescribable in a decent print. The prelude to the trip will bear repeating; it is an amusing contrast with the festal robes on the day of the Great Bairam; the cutaneous sensation it excites is the penalty to pay for the knowledge imparted; the company is right regal.
"As soon as orders had been given to the grand eunuch to hasten the departure of the vice-regal family to Alexandria, ... there was bustle all day long. One morning when I returned from the gardens, ... I entered the grand pasha's reception-room; ... there were their highnesses, the princesses, squatted on the carpet amidst a whole pile of trunks. They were all attired in filthy, dirty, crumpled muslins, shoeless and stockingless; their trousers were tucked up above their knees, the sleeves of their paletots pinned up above their elbows, their hair hanging loose above their shoulders, as rough as a badger's back, totally uncombed, without nets or handkerchiefs, but, pardon me, literally swarming with vermin! No Russian peasants could possibly have been more infested with live animals. In short, their _tout ensemble_ was even more untidy than that of washerwomen at their tubs; nay, almost akin to Billingsgate fisherwomen _at home_; for their conversation in their own vernacular was equally as low. They all swore in Arabic at the slaves most lustily, banged them about right and left with any missile, whether light or heavy, which came within their reach."
At last the governess lost her health. The food was too unsuitable for a Christian woman, and the atmosphere, redolent of the overpowering rich perfumes of the gardens mingled with sickening, stupefying opium smell and smoke, along with other odors, almost intolerable. After visiting Constantinople with the harem, she threw up her engagement and returned to England.
This abasement of woman is not to be wondered at; for wherever the Christian idea of marriage is lost or subverted, woman becomes the mere object of passion, and degradation is sure to follow.
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Translated From Etudes Religieuses, Etc., Par Des Peres De La Compagnie De Jesus.
The Flight Of Spiders.
A Paper Read Before The French Academy Of Science, March, 1867.
About fifteen years ago, I was sitting in an arbor of my garden, reading, when a little spider fell on my book, whence I could not tell, and commenced to run over the very line I was reading. I blew hard to chase him away, but he would not go. He lifted himself strangely up, and I cannot explain how, but he lodged on a sprig of verdure just above my head. "Well," said I, "for a little animal like that, this is a wonderful feat! How has he accomplished it?" To satisfy myself, I took him up again, balanced him on my book, and, after assuring myself that he had no invisible thread to aid him, I blew again, and again the little fellow did the very same thing. With redoubled curiosity, I tried him once more, and, to see better, I sat down in the bright sunlight. Again I balanced him on the book, looked at him as closely as possible, and, when I felt assured no precaution could have escaped me, I blew once more. ... Resuming the same inclined position, the spider as quick as lightning darted the finest possible thread out of him, raised himself in the air, and disappeared.
I confess I was stupefied. Never had I imagined these little animals could fly without wings; so I consulted several works on zoology, but I was astonished to find there was no mention made of the flight of spiders, nor of the ejaculatory movement of which I had witnessed so curious an example. [Footnote 96]
[Footnote 96: In M. Eugène Simon's _Natural History of Spiders_, the most recent work of the kind, he says, speaking of the manner in which _l'épéire diadème_ constructs its web: "Several authors suppose that the spider darts its thread like an arrow, others imagine it throws it upward in the air while flying as a fly would; but neither of these explanations rests on observation, and they are, after all, simple hypotheses." Then, describing his own observation as to how a spider acts to make fast its great threads, he says, "It seems to take a horizontal position, and moves contrary to the wind." M. Simon's work gives us nothing else to lead us to suppose he has observed the wonders spoken of.--Tr.]
So there was a new question presented to me, and my vocation to study the habits of these little animals--which hitherto had given me no concern--decided for me. I immediately lost all repugnance, all distaste, and threw away all the unjust precautions of which the spider is too often the object, and of which I was as culpable as any one else. And from that time I welcomed its appearance; was most happy to meet with it, looked for it, indeed, and studied its habits almost with _furor_. And I can say that, thanks to this hearty preoccupation, which never left me, I found every opportunity to follow my inclination, and knew where to find spiders in all sorts of unheard-of places.
Such are the singular effects of curiosity once excited, and still another proof that, in order to study nature well, we need only a mysterious glimpse of the unknown to redouble all our energies to explain it thoroughly.
And as in this study, trifling as it may appear, I seem to have met with facts not known hitherto, but which deserve to be understood, I here resume the principal ones: those that treat of the flying of spiders; of the habitation of some species in the air; and of the gossamer or air threads--a singular phenomenon, for a long time discussed in vain, but which I believe I have definitively solved. {415} I only ask the naturalists to judge one fairly, not by theory, but by facts. And I am persuaded, if they will take the pains to verify what I advance, they will find me exact; and, if they begin doubtingly, I hope, after they have read my observations, they will conclude as others to whom I have communicated them. Mocking and incredulous at first, they have ended by believing their own eyes, and testifying to the evidence presented to them. May my labor prove useful, and, above all, contribute to the glory of the great God, whose just title is, _Magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis_.