o is
to bide his time and follow the visitor home, should the route lie
through the streets, or despatch a faithful slave-girl or jealous
concubine on a like errand, should the way selected be over
the roof-tops. In the country, under a very different set of
conventionalities, much the same takes place.

In a land where woman holds the degraded position which she does under
Islam, such family circles as the Briton loves can never exist. The
foundation of the home system is love, which seldom links the members
of these families, most seldom of all man and wife. Anything else is
not to be expected when they meet for the first time on their wedding
night. To begin with, no one's pleasure is studied save that of
the despotic master of the house. All the inmates, from the poor
imprisoned wives down to the lively slave-girl who opens the door, all
are there to serve his pleasure, and woe betide those who fail.

The first wife may have a fairly happy time of it for a season, if her
looks are good, and her ways pleasing, but when a second usurps her
place, she is generally cast aside as a useless piece of furniture,
unless set to do servile work. Although four legal wives are allowed
by the Koran, it is only among the rich that so many are found, on
account of the expense of their maintenance in appropriate style. The
facility of divorce renders it much cheaper to change from time to
time, and slaves are more economical. To the number of such women that
a man may keep no limit is set; he may have "as many as his right hand
can possess." Then, too, these do the work of the house, and if
they bear their master no children, they may be sold like any other
chattels.

The consequence of such a system is that she reigns who for the time
stands highest in her lord's favour, so that the strife and jealousies
which disturb the peace of the household are continual. This rivalry
is naturally inherited by the children, who side with their several
mothers, which is especially the case with the boys. Very often the
legal wife has no children, or only daughters, while quite a little
troop of step-children play about her house. In these cases it is
not uncommon for at least the best-looking of these youngsters to be
taught to call her "mother," and their real parent "Dadda M'barkah,"
or whatever her name may be. The offspring of wives and bondwomen
stand on an equal footing before the law, in which Islam is still
ahead of us.

Such is th