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ANTECEDENTS OF DAFAY.

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my house, last week, on a beautiful milk-white Arab. I cannot do better than narrate his history to you. He is called Dafay, is free, and a millionaire; but how he acquired his wealth may appear to you a mystery. I will enlighten you on that point.

"There are exceptions to all rules, so that Dafay never was a woman-hater; on the contrary, like many of his race, he respects, nay, loves them. I know for certain that he has at the present time several female slaves in his service, one of whom ranks as his ikbal ('favourite'), and she is dressed and waited upon like a princess. She is the mistress of the Harem of her fond and jealous husband; the apartments in which are furnished in grand style; nay, quite equal to any of the private apartments of H.H. the Viceroy.

"Well, I now come to his antecedents. He belonged to a very rich Bey (Colonel), who, being partial to him, placed him at the head of his Harem. The Bey had two legitimate wives, who lived together in the most cordial manner, and contributed reciprocally to their master's happiness. Dafay fell violently in love with one

of them, and, what is still more extraordinary, his passion was returned. It was, therefore, very natural that he should show that wife most marked attention, and neglect or tyrannize over the other. It is not necessary that I relate their quarrels and peccadilloes; suffice it to add, that the eunuch and his inamorata laid a snare for the other wife, and then, as an excuse that she had committed adultery with one of the Bey's servants who had left, Dafay stabbed her; but I have heard it stated that he actually allowed his chère amie to have the satisfaction of destroying her rival herself. What the Bey said on his return home, I never could learn. Certain, however, is it that the whole affair was hushed up, and that the eunuch, instead of losing his master's good graces, as might have been expected, rose higher in his favour.

"Not long afterwards the Bey died, having made a will, in which he bequeathed all his property to his faithful Dafay. At the time of his decease, many ugly reports were circulated, although the will was perfectly legal, and the Bey's death very sudden. Many of the gossips of Cairo state, that the eunuch became jealous

DUTIES OF THE GRAND EUNUCH.

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of his master; that he coveted his wife, whom he loved most passionately; and that, as he had already committed one crime for her, he threatened to denounce her, unless she put her husband out of the way. An Asiatic's love stops at nothing, and he spares no cost to attain his ends. The mysterious doings in the Harems are generally enveloped in impenetrable darkness. It is utterly impossible for the Minister of Justice at any time to move in such delicate affairs.

"Shortly afterwards Dafay married the widow, and disbursed the 'talaris' (money) of the deceased with no niggardly hand. It is rumoured that he is fearfully jealous; but not a syllable is ever uttered for or against his wife. They have a numerous family, and that fact speaks volumes with regard to all eunuchs."

I found that the duties of the Viceregal Grand Eunuch were almost legion. Independent of his daily attendance upon their Highnesses, he read prayers to his staff of attendants and the whole corps of eunuchs; the younger of

whom he instructed, not only in their duties, but also in reading and transcribing the Koran. Many a time and oft I have heard him, when passing his apartment, as Dr. Herbelot has so admirably expressed it, " reading the blessed Koran, with the seven different readings, and telling how seven different messengers were sent, at seven different times, to bring seven handfuls of seven different sorts of soil, from seven different stages of the earth; she (the earth) refusing all the seven messengers, for she said, 'I consent not that Allah make so bad a thing as man.'"

I found all these spectres of men most particularly anxious to obtain every information they could as to the manners and customs of us unbelievers; for whom, however, in their hearts they have the most sovereign contempt; and yet from all of them, but especially the Kislar Agaci, I received the most marked attention, courtesy, and respect. Not the slightest approach to any display of familiarity, or any overbearing behaviour, was manifested towards

me.

CHARACTER OF THE EUNUCHS.

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On the contrary, they were ever ready to discharge my commands with alacrity and fidelity. And yet I never propitiated them with backsheesh, though I have seen my Princess put purses of sovereigns in the hands of the Grand Eunuch, as their Highnesses had expressly forbidden me to place any offering on the shrine of that allpotent sovereign ruler of Egypt; so that, instead of finding those phantoms of men the crabbed, disagreeable apparitions I had been led to believe them, I had the pleasure of experiencing from them every politeness and civility.

So far as lie in their power and they could understand me, they supplied all my exigencies, notwithstanding that I was a Hawajee-a daughter of that accursed race, one of the banished Peris from their celestial Paradise, the Prophet's seventh heaven; and yet that erudite German Orientalist, Rückert, tells us that the true Moslem believes that

In the nine heavens are eight paradises;

Where is the ninth one? In the human breast.

Only the blessed dwell in the paradises,

But blessedness dwells in the human breast.

Created creatures are in the paradises,

The uncreated Maker in the breast.

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