His Imperial Highness was immediately obliged to
give a formal assent before his court.
She then visited the Harem, and felt herself quite at home. All the
ladies, wives or concubines of the Emperor, waited upon her; and served
her with tea and bread, and butter.
The presentation of bread and butter and cups of tea, is said to be the
highest honour conferred on visitors, but why or wherefore I have not
heard.
Madame Bousac gave us some account of the Morocco harem, which we may
suppose is like that of Fez and Miknas. The number of these ladies was
some two hundred. They are all attired alike, except the four wives, who
dress a little more in the style of Sultanas. I am sorry to be obliged
to disabuse the reader of the romance and oriental colouring attached to
our ideas of the harem, by giving Madame Bousac's simile of those
angelic houries. This lady said, "they are like a string of
charity-school girls going to church on a Sunday morning."
Their penurious lord keeps down their pin-money to the lowest point, and
is not more liberal to his ladies than to his other subjects. Former
sultans were accustomed to allow their ladies half a dollar a day, but
these have but twopence, or at least fourpence.
