FEMALE SLAVES— THEIR ESCAPE. 211 long we beheld, behind the large building, two tokuls (plur.

tiikela) erecting under Mohammed Ehle's superintendence ; the cross-formed pointed roofs were brought in by men, placed on buried pales, bound fast on the foi-ks of these, and the interval between- the pales filled up into a wall with durra straw ; so that, in a few hours, these lthiopian huts (of which the Ilallenga erected many in the camp, for twenty or thirty piastres each) were all ready, finished, and standing there, in connexion with the Pasclia's palace. The one tokul was for the girls, the other for his excellency, that he might there retire and rest after the labours of the day. Silken stuff's and coloured muslins were all at hand, to dress out, or rather hang on these girls ; and one would have fancied that these naked innocents would have felt happy in their unwonted splendours ; but it was not so. On the second day, as we sat on our heels with the Pascha, he smiled in his own peculiar way, and then asked my brotlier to give him some love-powders. Joseph would not hear of it ; and the mighty man became angry, and said it was his own look-out whether they injured him or not, as Joseph said they would. Joseph now hit (m a happy tliought, viz. to tell tlie Pascha that wine was specially necessary. On this a wliole basket of wine was sent to our hut, with the remark that we might, with the rest, make any decoctions for ourselves we pleased ; whicli we laughingly ])romised to do, but hastened ofi' to our iiut to see what sort of liquor we had got, and found a most capital French wine. As my brother knew how strong tlie Pasclia's faith was, he merely mixed up two bottles of it with some lemon-peel, and sent them to him.

The following night a regular hurricane, with torrents of rain, came on ; and tliis was used by the hoine-siek girls, left all alone in their dark corn(;r, to call to mind tlie liberty they had been <leprived of, and while the Pascha held a divan in front of their abode, to break through the straw walls of their prison, cast off" and forsake all their fine clothes, and escape out of the camp. The Pascha was furious ; but, in spite of liis rage, he in a very droll way alluded to the girls' escape, lie had, however, during the night sent out scouts in all directions, wlio, to our great grief, brought back to tiie Pascha tlie unfortunate fugitive girls, whom Q 3