, their money, and each
other--sometimes they included Miss Banks, but never touched an
interesting point.

If a woman unable to read or write only meets women also unable to read
or write, and knows but one man, her husband, who feeds her and values
her much like a tame doe-rabbit, it is unreasonable to expect to find in
her much intelligence and energy. Wives, when asked if they did not wish
to do more, would not like to read or write or work, only laughed
derisively. The idea was absurd: they could not understand any one
wishing to exert herself in a novel and unnecessary way.

On my left, still sat the stoutest woman in the room--the holy
Shar[=i]fa. She lost her snuff-box, and roused herself to hunt all over
her enormous person for it--a work of time; but a friend had borrowed it,
and it was passed back to her. She sat on the divan, cross-legged like
some gigantic idol of ancient Egypt, many yards in circumference at the
base, her fat little hands folded across the embroideries and gold-worked
buttons and worked edges of the many gorgeous waistcoats and kaftans,
which seemed piled one on top of each other on her immense frame. Her
head, the size of two footballs rolled into one, was swathed in violet
and scarlet silk: straight whiskers of hair, dyed jet-black, were combed
a few inches down each cheek, and then cut short. The whole "idol" sat
very still, speaking but rarely, and then in a harsh croak like some
oracular and forbidding bird: "it" had the appearance of being
comfortably gorged.

Meanwhile, Fatima signed or murmured to the slaves, and the sweetmeats
were carried round, and the fragile cups refilled; and there went up a
great aroma of sweet mint tea.

Through the wide doorway the patio and its colonnades of many pillars lay
cool and shaded; cages of singing canary-birds hung from the ceiling; the
fountain rippled in the middle; a tall girl in green and white sauntered
across in her slippered feet, carrying a tray; a gaily dressed slave
passed silently; and the whole thing might have been a dream. . . .

Past the patio lay the courtyard, all one large garden, with tiled walks
and red-gold oranges and heavy foliage set against the blue sky. Broad
date-palms, mimosa, and climbing creepers sometimes shook in a breath of
wind. The clear tanks, full of ever-running water and lined with
maiden-hair fern, moved with gold-fish, which matched the oranges; a pet
monkey played amongst the lemons on a lemon-tree