pation is war: I have therefore chofen this obfcure refidence, from which I can iffue unexpected, and to which I can retire unperfued. You may now repose in fecurity: here are few pleafures, but here is no danger." He then led me into the inner apartments, and feating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground. His women, who confidered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity; but being foon informed that I was a great lady detained only for my ranfom, they began to vie with each other in obfequioufnefs and reverence.

Being again comforted with new affurances of fpeedy liberty, I was for fome days diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place. The turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and afforded a view of many windings of the ftream. In the day I wandered from one place to another, as the course of the fun varied the fplendour of the prospect, and faw many things which I had never feen before. The crocodiles and river-horfes are common in this unpeopled region, and I often looked upon them with terrour, though I knew that they could not hurt me. For fome time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the European travellers have ftationed in the Nile, but no fuch beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I enquired after them, laughed at my credulity.

"At night the Arab always attended me to a tower fet apart for celeftial obfervations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names and courses of the ftars. I had no great inclination to this study, but an appearance of attention was neceffary to

please

pleafe my inftructor, who valued himfelf for his skill; and, in a little while, I found fome employment requifite to beguile the tedioufnefs of time, which was to be paffed always amidst the fame objects. I was weary of looking in the morning on things from which I had turned away weary in the evening: I therefore was at laft willing to obferve the ftars rather than do nothing, but could not always compofe my thoughts, and was very often thinking on Nekayah, when others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after the Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure was to talk with my maids about the accident by which we were carried away, and the happiness that we fhould all enjoy at the end of our captivity."

"There were women in your Arab's fortress, said the princess, why did you not make them your companions, enjoy their converfation, and partake their diverfions? In a place where they found bufinefs or amufement, why fhould you alone fit corroded with idle melancholy? or why could not you bear, for a few months, that condition to which they were condemned for life?"

"The diverfions of the women, anfwered Pekuah, were only childish play, by which the mind, accustomed to ftronger operations, could not be kept bufy. I could do all which they delighted in doing by powers merely fenfitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown to Cairo. They ran from room to room as a bird hops from wire to wire in his cage. They danced for the fake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow. One fometimes pretended to be hurt, that the reft might be alarm

ed;

ed; or hid herself, that another might feek her. Part of their time paffed in watching the progress of light bodies that floated on the river, and part in marking the various forms into which clouds broke in the fky.

"Their bufinefs was only needle-work, in which I and my maids fometimes helped them; but you know that the mind will eafily ftraggle from the fingers, nor will you fufpect that captivity and abfence from Nekayah could receive folace from filken flowers.

"Nor was much fatisfaction to be hoped from their converfation: for of what could they be expected to talk? They had feen nothing; for they had lived from early youth in that narrow fpot: of what they had not feen they could have no knowledge, for they could not read. They had no ideas but of the few things that were within their view, and had hardly names for any thing but their clothes and their food. As I bore a fuperiour character, I was often called to terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. If it could have amufed me to hear the complaints of each against the rest, I might have been often detained by long ftories; but the motives of their animofity were fo fmall that I could not liften without intercepting

the tale."

"How, faid Raffelas, can the Arab, whom you represented as a man of more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his feraglio when it is filled only with women like these? Are they exquifitely beautiful?"

"They

"They do not, said Pekuah, want that unaffecting and ignoble beauty which may fubfift without fpriteliness or fublimity, without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like the Arab fuch beauty was only a flower cafually plucked and Whatever pleafures he carelessly thrown away might find among them, they were not those of friendship or fociety. When they were playing about him he looked on them with inattentive fuperiority: when they vied for his regard, he fometimes turned away difgufted. As they had no knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the tedioufnefs of life: as they had no choice, their fondness, or appearance of fondnefs, excited in him neither pride nor gratitude; he was not exalted in his own efteem by the fimiles of a woman who faw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard, of which he could never know the fincerity, and which he might often perceive to be exerted, not fo much to delight him as to pain a rival. That which he gave, and they received, as love, was only a careless diftribution of fuperfluous time, fuch love as man can beftow upon that which he defpifes, fuch as has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor forrow."

"You have reafon, lady, to think yourself happy, faid Imlac, that you have been thus eafily difmiffed. How could a mind, hungry for knowledge, be willing, in an intellectual famine, to lofe fuch a banquet as Pekuah's converfation?"

"I am inclined to believe, answered Pekuah, that he was for fome time in fufpenfe; for, notwith

standing

ftanding his promife, whenever I propofed to difpatch a meffenger to Cairo, he found fome excuse for delay. While I was detained in his houfe he made many incurfions into the neighbouring countries, and, perhaps, he would have refufed to difcharge me, had his plunder been equal to his wishes. He returned always courteous, related his adventures, delighted to hear my obfervations, and endeavoured to advance my acquaintance with the ftars. When I importuned him to fend away my letters, he foothed me with profeffions of honour and fincerity; and, when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in motion, and left me to govern in his abfence. I was much afflicted by this ftudied procraftination, and was fometimes afraid that I fhould be forgotten; that you would leave Cairo, and I muft end my days in an island of the Nile.

"I grew at laft hopelefs and dejected, and cared fo little to entertain him, that he for a while more frequently talked with my maids. That he fhould fall in love with them, or with me, might have been equally fatal, and I was not much pleased with the growing friendship. My anxiety was not long; for, as I recovered fome degree of cheerfulnefs, he returned to me, and I could not forbear to defpife my former uneafinefs.

"He still delayed to fend for my ranfom, and would, perhaps, never have determined, had not your agent found his way to him. The gold, which he would not fetch, he could not reject when it was offered. He haftened to prepare for our journey hither, like a man delivered from the pain of VOL. XI.

I

an