the child with kisses: he called him whole
vocabularies of endearing names; when all
at once he heard a peal of laughter that
sounded like the mirth of ten thousand djinns,
afrits, and ghoules; and looking up, he saw
Fathma, his wife, dancing about the courtyard
in her baggy trowsers, and shaking the
strings of sequins in her hair. From her had
emanated the djinn-like laughter, and she
was crying, "Yadacé! Karamani-oglou!
Yadacé! O my lord! Yadacé! O my caliph!
Yadacé, O my effendi! Yadacé! yadacé!
yadace! Thou saidst not, ' Fi bali! ' when
thou tookest the child from my arms.
Yadacé!"

"Go to Eblis!" roared the enraged
Karamani-oglou, letting the little boy fall flop upon
the pavement of the court, where he lay
howling, with nobody to pick him up.

From the foregoing, and especially from
the following anecdote, it would appear that
it is in the highest degree dangerous to play
at yadacé with your wife.

Hassan-el-Djeninah was, thirty years since,
vizier and chief favourite to the Pasha
of the Oudjak of Constantine. He was the
fattest man in the pachalic, and, more than
that, was reckoned to be the most jealous
husband in the whole of Barbary. It is
something to be the most jealous in a land where
all husbands are jealous. Gay young Mussulman
sparks trembled as they saw Hassan-el-
Djeninah waddle across the great square of
Constantine, or issue from the barber's, or
enter the coffee-house. He walked slowly,
and with his legs very wide apart. His
breath was short, but his yataghan was long,
and he could use it. Once, and once only, he
had detected a young Beyjzade, Ibrahim-el-
Majki, sacrilegiously attempting to accost his
wife as she came from the bath, and having
even the hardihood to lift a corner of her
veil. "Allah Akbar! God is great!" Hassan
the vizier was wont to say, pulling from a
small green silk purse in his girdle a silver
skewer, upon which appeared to be three
dried-up shrivelled oysters. "This is the
nose, and these are the ears of Ibrahim-el-
Majki." Whereupon the beholders would
shudder, and Hassan-el-Djeninah would
replace his trophies in his girdle and waddle
away.

Hassan had four wives,—Zouluki Khanoum,
Suleima Khanoum, Gaza Khanoum, and Leila
Khanoum. Khanoum, be it understood, means
Lady, Madame, Donna, Signora. Now, if
Hassan-el-Djeninah was jealous of his wives,
they, you may be sure, were jealous of each
other,—save poor little Leila, the youngest
wife (the poor child was only sixteen years
old), who was not of a jealous disposition at
all; but who, between the envy of her sister-
wives, who hated her, and the unceasing
watchfulness of her husband, who loved her
with inconvenient fondness, led a terrible life
of it. Leila Khanoum was Hassan's favourite
wife. He would suffer her, but no one else,
to fill his pipe, to adjust the jewelled mouthpiece
to his lips, and to tickle the soles of his
august feet when he wished to be lulled to
sleep. He would loll for hours upon the
cushions of his divan, listening while she
sang monotonous love-songs, rocking herself
to and fro the while, and accompanying
herself upon the little guitar called a qouithrah,
as it is the manner of Moorish ladies to do.
He gave her rich suits of brocade and cloth
of gold; he gave her a white donkey from
Spain to ride on when she went to the bath;
he gave her jewels and Spanish doubloons to
twine in her tresses; scented tobacco to
smoke, and hennah for her eyelids and fingernails;
finally, he condescended to play with
her for a princely stake—nothing less than
the repudiation of the other three wives, and
the settlement of all his treasures upon her
first-born—at yadacé.

At the same time, as I have observed, he
was terribly jealous of her, and watched her,
night and day, with the patience of a beaver,
the perspicuity of a lynx, the cunning of a
fox, and the ferocity of a wolf. He kept
spies about her. He bribed the tradesmen
with whom she dealt, and the attendants at
the baths she frequented. He caused the
menfonce, or little round aperture in the wall
of the queublou, or alcove of her apartment
(which menfonce looked into the street) to be
bricked up. He studied the language of
flowers (which in the east is rather more
nervous and forcible a tongue than with us)
in order that he might be able to examine
Leila's bouquets, and discover whether any
floral billet-doux had been sent her from
outside. To complete his system of espionnage,
he cultivated a warm and intimate friendship
with Ali ben Assa, the opium merchant,
whose house directly faced his own, in order
that he might have the pleasure of sitting
secretly at the window thereof, at periods
when he was supposed to be miles away, and
watching who entered or left the mansion
opposite.

One day, as he was occupied in this manner,
he saw his wife's female negro slave emerge
from his house, look round cautiously, as if to
ascertain if she were observed, and beckon
with her hand. Then, from a dark passage,
he saw issue a young man habited as a Frank.
The accursed giaour looked round cautiously,
as the negro had done, crossed the road,
whispered to her, slipped some money into
her hand; and then the treacherous and
guilty pair entered the mansion together.

Hassan-el-Djeninah broke out in a cold
perspiration. Then he began to burn like
live coals. Then he foamed at the mouth.
Then he got his moustachios between his
teeth, and gnawed them. Then he tore his
beard. Then he dug his nails into the palms
of his hands. Then he clapped his hand upon
the hilt of the scimetar, and said—

"As to the black slave, child of Jehanum
and Ahriman as she is, she shall walk on the