e
first families in Morocco, the head of which is now dead. B---- was
probably the most wealthy and enlightened Moor in the city: he was once
employed by Government, and he made his little pile; but he had never
married--or, rather, his only marriage had ended in a speedy divorce; and
most of his life he had been able to afford to keep a galaxy of slaves,
whom he had freed in time, and whose offspring represent the family
to-day.

The name of the chief of his slaves, and the mistress of the dead man's
house at the present moment, is Fatima. Fatima has a history. B----
possessed twenty white slaves: they were chiefly stolen from villages in
the south, and they passed into his hands; but his treasures were two
beautiful Circassian women from Turkey, one of whom he sent to the late
Sultan (who is the mother of the present Sultan), the other he kept for
himself--Fatima. Fatima early showed a disposition far from humble, and
B---- spoilt her. At last he made her head of his house and all his
slaves. One day she caused two of these women to be beaten in such a
manner that one of them died. The other vowed revenge; went to B----, and
told him that she had seen Fatima looking through a window at a man in
the garden below. Considering that a woman of superior class must not
look out of her window, though the prospect be an arid yard, the
statement was calculated to rouse B----. Brought up on such proverbs as
"When the bee hums and the buttermilk ferments, place, O brother, a
halter on thy little daughter," and to consider women "the nearest roads
to hell," B----took prompt and drastic measures. He chained Fatima up to
a pillar for three months, and fed her on bread and water. Her eldest
daughter was to be married. Fatima was released and told she might attend
the wedding, but only as the equal of the lowest slave, and dressed as
such. She said that she had been accustomed to mixing with the first-born
of Tetuan as an equal, and she would go among them as nothing else. To
break Fatima's pride, B---- married a wife; but the wiles of his old
favourite were too strong for him, and he gave her presents, including a
gold bracelet. The indignant wife, furious at her husband's attentions to
a mere slave, got a divorce and left B----; whereupon he fell into the
arms of Fatima, and she graciously consented to become once more head of
his house. She is now the proudest woman in Tetuan, inclined to look upon
the missionaries and European wo