r, making much of her
two eyebrows in one, and giving a general description of her person,
suited to the Ottoman taste, I succeeded in giving a very favorable
opinion to the bridegroom of his intended.

I then proceeded to inform the mollah Nadan of my success, who appeared
to listen with delight to the adventures of this couple, which I related
to him with scrupulous detail. He directed me how to proceed, and
informed me, in order to make the marriage lawful, that a vakeel, or
trustee, must appear on the part of the woman, and another on that of
the man. That the woman's vakeel having beforehand agreed upon the terms
of the marriage, proceeded to ask the following question of the man's
_vakeel_, in the Arabic tongue.

'Have you agreed to give your soul to me upon such and such conditions?'
to which the other answers, 'I have agreed'; and then the parties are
held to be lawfully joined together. Nadan himself proposed to officiate
on the part of the hakim's widow, and I on the part of Osman; and it was
left to my ingenuity to obtain as large a fee as possible for ourselves,
on this happy occasion.

I forthwith communicated the joyful tidings to the khanum, as I still
called her, who did not fail to excite the envy of her other companions,
for she immediately laid her success to her superior beauty, and to that
never-failing object of her care, her two eyebrows in one. She was,
as the reader may be allowed to suppose, in great anxiety at her
appearance; for she dreaded not being corpulent enough for her Turk, and
from what I could judge, rather doubted the brilliancy of her eye, from
the great quantity of black paint which she had daubed on her eyelids.

I left her to return to Osman Aga, who, good man, was also arming
himself for conquest; and he seemed to think that, owing to his long
residence among camels, he might have imbibed so much of their natures
as to have become a fit subject for the perfumes of musk and ambergris.
Accordingly, he went to the bath, his grey beard was dyed a glossy
black; his hands received a golden tinge; and his mustachios were
invited to curl upwards towards the corners of his eyes, instead of
downwards into his mouth, as they usually had done.

He then arrayed himself in his best, and followed me to the house of the
mollah Nadan, where owing to this change in his appearance, he very well
passed off for a man at least ten years younger than he was in reality.

As soon as the parties c