A very
irresistible little piece of orientality she must indeed have been,
perchance the reader will conclude. And yet, if the reader is a man
and a brother--that is to say, a brother white man--I answer him he is
altogether in too great a hurry. He has forgotten her color; and color
is a matter which we narrow--minded dwellers in the North find it
impossible to be liberal about. Not by five-and-twenty shades, at the
least, did the trim creature resemble any lily of the valley but a
very dark one; and of the rose she was totally unsuggestive. If I had
been so cosmopolitan as to make love to her, she could not have
called up a blush to save her pretty little soul and body. She might
have turned green or yellow, for aught I know, but by no possibility
could she have done what she ought to have done.
At Fyzabad there is but little to see, and that little is rather
uninteresting. What impressed me there, more than anything else, was a
particular private dwelling, and especially a certain room in it. The
edifice to which I refer belonged to an opulent Mohammedan, and had
been erected by an English architect. Being constructed pretty closely
on the model of a mansion in Belgravia, it was wholly unsuited in a
hot climate to any purpose except that of torture. In all probability,
its constructor, as he roasted over his work, omitted of set intention
to fit it up with fireplaces.
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