about me.

Ah! well, you don't expect me, I suppose, to tell you how this day was
concluded? Affairs of the harem, my dear fellow!--affairs of the harem!

As to my other news, I hardly need tell you that nobody in this
neighbourhood has a suspicion of the secrets of El-Nouzha. In my
external life I conform to all the social requirements of my position. I
visit my uncle's old friends, Feraudet the notary, and the good old
vicar, who calls me the Providence of the place. Once a week I dine with
the doctor, Morand; who has a son, George Morand, an officer in the
Spahis, on leave for the present at Ferouzat; and an orphan niece, a
young lady of nineteen, lively and sympathetic. She is engaged to her
cousin the captain, who is a regular _Africain_, a fire-eater you may
call him, but a good fellow in the full sense of that word--one of those
open natures made for devotion, like a Newfoundland dog, or a poodle. He
is both formidable and patient. Such is my friend! We were playmates as
children, and he would not brook the slightest insult to me in his
presence. He wonders very much at my anchorite's life, and in order to
divert me from it, endeavours to draw me into the hidden current of
rustic gallantries which he indulges in while awaiting the day of Hymen.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III.

In the detailed account which I gave you, my dear Louis, of my
honeymoon, I described pretty nearly the history of every day which has
passed since I last wrote. "Happy nations have no history," said a wise
man; happiness requires no description. First then, you must understand
that I am now writing after recovery from the natural excitement into
which my strange adventures had plunged me. Three months have passed; I
am now enjoying my life like a refined vizir, and no longer like a
simple troubadour of Provence, transported of a sudden into the Caliph's
harem. I have recovered my analytical composure.

As you may well imagine I set to work, after the second day, to learn
Turkish, an easy task after my studies in Sanscrit. Add to this that,
with the aid of love, my houris have learnt French, with all the
marvellous facility and linguistic instinct of the Asiatic races. You
will not be astonished to learn, then, that I can now share with them
all the pleasures of conversation; a happy result which will permit me
henceforth to furnish a more complete description of their different
characters.

Having said this,