damsel appeared, and encircled by the three graces we mounted to the
tall _mirador_ in the central tower from which we were to look down at
the coming ceremony. One by one, our little guides, kicking off their
golden shoes, which a slave laid neatly outside the door, led us on soft
bare feet into the upper chamber of the harem.

It was a large room, enclosed on all sides by a balcony glazed with
panes of brightly-coloured glass. On a gaudy modern Rabat carpet stood
gilt armchairs of florid design and a table bearing a commercial bronze
of the "art goods" variety. Divans with muslin-covered cushions were
ranged against the walls and down an adjoining gallery-like apartment
which was otherwise furnished only with clocks. The passion for clocks
and other mechanical contrivances is common to all unmechanical races,
and every chief's palace in North Africa contains a collection of
time-pieces which might be called striking if so many had not ceased to
go. But those in the Sultan's harem of Rabat are remarkable for the fact
that, while designed on current European models, they are proportioned
in size to the Imperial dignity, so that a Dutch "grandfather" becomes a
wardrobe, and the box-clock of the European mantelpiece a cupboard that
has to be set on the floor. At the end of this avenue of time-pieces a
European double-bed with a bright silk quilt covered with Nottingham
lace stood majestically on a carpeted platform.

But for the enchanting glimpses of sea and plain through the lattices of
the gallery, the apartment of the Sultan's ladies falls far short of
occidental ideas of elegance. But there was hardly time to think of
this, for the door of the _mirador_ was always opening to let in another
fairy-tale figure, till at last we were surrounded by a dozen houris,
laughing, babbling, taking us by the hand, and putting shy questions
while they looked at us with caressing eyes. They were all (our