Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1870-02-23
A ROYAL ItAkEM.
Visit eff the Princess Of Wales TO the
Harem of the Vtcercy of Egypt.

Harem of the Vtceroy of Egypt. !
In her journal of the recent tour of the
Prince and Princess of Wales in the East,
the Hon. Mrs. Grey gives an entertaining
| account of d visit to the harem of the Vice
roy of Egypt. Mrs. Grey says: . s..
We drove first through garden, which,
later IN the year, must be beautiful, and
were received at the door of the palace by
Ia gTdnde princesse, the second and third
wife of the Viceroy (the first and fourth
were not welD, his eldest son and two cid
est daughters. La grdnde princeSse took
the Princess by the hand, while one of the
wives handed me, another Mrs. Stanton,
and one of the daughters Miss Maclean,
and thus we went in procession to an i'm
mense drawing room, the whole way there
/ being lined with slaves. We only passed
through this room, however. and went
straight to the dining room after having a
cherry given to usto eat handed to us on
most beautiful gold tray, with gOblets
and plates of gold and precious stones A
slave then offered each of US silver basin
| TO wash our hands IN before we sat down to
| dinner. fs.r .
| We were each given sort of tortoise
shell spoon, with large coral branch as q
handle, but neither knife nor fork, and
| then, at sign from the old Princess, we
| all dipped our spoons into the tureen to-
| gether Next came an enormous bit, of
mutton, of which we had to tear off bits
with our fingers and put them straight in
| to our mouths. About twenty dishes fol-
| lowed in rapid succession, alternately
savory and sweet A large sort of omelet
sausages full of garlic, a sweet dish of
yermicelli and sugar, fried fish, a sweet
dish made of rose water and tapOca or
| o,1n, oatf Iinnid Irassoi ont ~
with almonds and served in Basin, dish
of hashed meat with onions, a kind of
mince of sage, rice, and raw onions, all
rolled in a cabbage leaf, followed each
other III succession. Then pastry, and
then some other curious dishes. Sweet
meats, currant jelly, and thick sour cream
were served between-that is, one was al
lowed to dip ones spoon in the dishes of
these things which remained on the table
! The last dish of all was a tureen of boiled
| rice, in which we all dipped our spoons al
ternately with dish of sweetmeat. A
small basin of compete of cherries was
| then put before everybody, and we had
/ done dinner according to Egyptian habits.
/ L must confess that I never in my life was
more disguised, or felt more inclined to be
sick, than [ did during this meal. I had
had nothing but a cup of coffee in the
morning, and the taste of these extraordi-
nary dishes, as we'll as the sight of all the
fingers dipped into the dishes of thick sour
| cream, or dish of preserves, and the next
/ moment tearing off a bit of meat or saus-
age from the same piece OF which I felt
myself in duty bound to eat, was really too
nasty. No wine or water was served dur
ling dinner; SO, when the qrande princesse
Offer d me some liquid stuff, in a kind of
tortoise she'll cup. seized hold of it with
great delight, IN hope OF something to wash
down the things l had been swallowing bon
gre nal gre, and took a large spoonful of it,
thinking it was water and syrup, when, to
my horror, it proved to be some sort Of
sour stuff,-vinegar, with an addition of
herbs and cucumbers, and 7 could not
help making an awful face, to the great
amusement of the whole party
We now got up from the floor and slave
then put me into, or rather handed me to.
an arm chair, and brought me a silver ba-
sin, very deep, and with small dish ia the
middle full of holes. We were given a bit
of soap, and while rubbing our fingers with
the soap the slave poured water the whole
time over our hands, and this ran through
at once into the dish. We then got very
smart towel, with a border richly embroid-
cred in gold, to dry our fingers with.
| Then we went again in procession to the
| large drawing room or hall we had before
passed through, and here we all sat down
on large divap. Music was then heard,
and in marched about twenty musicians in
uniform, like military band wearing
i1ousers and frock coats, with gold but
tons, etc., quite European, the musicians
being all girls thus dressed out The mu-
sic was not famous flutes couple of cor
nets, violin and gnitar-still they play
|
not very pleasing to the ear. About four
i teen girls now car28 in dancing, some
dressed in yellow satin embroidered with
silver, and others in black satin embroi
dered with gold They all wore bodies of
silver gauze, with belt or gold band, very
| loose, and large clasp or star of diamonds
fand precious stones hanging down in front.
| The dance was more curious than pretty,
| though some movements were graceful
enough. Others, on the contrary, were
simply frightful For instance, they had a
way of moving and shaking their heels,
and other parts of their bodies, all sepa-
rately, as if no one part belonged to the
other parts, which was quite monstrous.
! These poor girls danced III this manner for
nearly two hours, and when we expressed
/ pity for them we were answered, "Oh, they
are never tired. They can dance like this
for five hours at a time" They looked,
however, much exhausted and one seemed
very nearly tainting - -..... =.
| While this dancing was going on coffee
was served several times. A slave brought
in tray covered with black velvet cloth,
about yard and half wide, all embroid-
cred with pearl and enormous uncut emer-
aids, and in the middle one enormous dia-
mond star quite five inches wide. The
cover was lifted off and under it were
small cups, which were filled with coffee
and handed round one by one by slave,
another slave following and offering one of
! their long Turkish pipes, set with dia-
Tmonds or cigarette with the most beau
| titul holder, all one mass of precious
stones, the mou b piece itself being one
| large ruby or emerald. The cups, too,
We're mass of diamonds.
We found the old Princess, who had not
| accompanied US up stairs, waiting for us
below. We there sat down in the same
way as we had done before, and music and
dancing again began, only new set of
slaves had taken the place of the former
ones. did not see a single really pretty
| face, and hardly even good-looking one
/ smong them. However, they told rs that
| there are couple of pretty ones, but for
SOME reason or other they were not al
lowed to show to-day. Altogether,
| there are about five hundred slaves in
| this harem, and about twenty of them were
always standing at a short distance
| from our chairs wherever we. went. They
We're dressed in the most ridiculous and
! tasteless manner, in the European fashion,
! but no two alike. One had bright yellow
/ dress with green velvet jacket; another
green velvet skirt with red or blue Jacket:
and so on. Some had hldeOus round hats,
with bright flowers and feathers; some had
beads in their hair. In short, they were