Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/70

 5O A If Laylah^^wa Laylah. round her, while she wound hers aoout my neck and hugged me to her with all her might, till, before I knew what I did, my pizzle split up her trousers and entered her slit and did away her maiden- head. When I saw this, I ran off and took refuge with one of my comrades. Presently her mother came in to her ; and, seeing her in this case, fainted clean away. However she managed the matter advisedly and hid it from the girl's father out of good will to me ; nor did they cease to call to me and coax me, till they took me from where I was. After two months had passed by, her mother married her to a young man, a barber who used to shave her papa, and portioned and fitted her out of her own monies ; whilst the father knew nothing of what had passed. On the night of con- summation they cut the throat of a pigeon-poult and sprinkled the blood on her shift. 1 After a while they seized me unawares and gelded me ; and, when they brought her to her bridegroom, they made me her Agha, 2 ^ her eunuch, to walk before her wheresoever she went, whether to the bath or to her father's house. I abode with her a long time enjoying her beauty and loveliness by way of kissing and clipping and coupling with her, 3 till she died, and her husband and mother and father died also; when they seized me for the Royal Treasury as being the property of an intestate, and I found my way hither, where I became your comrade. This, then, O my brethren, is the cause of my cullions being cut off; and peace be with you ! He ceased and his fellow began in these words the This ancient and venerable practice of inspecting the marriage-sheet is still religiously preserved in most parts of the East ; and in old-fashioned Moslem families it is publicly exposed in the Harem to prove that the "domestic calamity" (the daughter) went to her husband a clean maid. Also the general idea is that no blood will impose upon the experts, or jury of matrons, except that of a pigeon-poult which exactly resembles hymeneal blood when not subjected to the microscope. This belief is universal in Southern Europe and I have heard of it in England. Further details will be given in Night ccxi. "Agha" Turk. = sir, gentleman, is, I have said, politely addressed to a eunuch. As Bukhayt tells us he lost only his testes, consequently his ereclio et distensio ptnis was as that of a boy before puberty and it would last as long as his heart and circulation kept sound. Hence the eunuch who preserves his penis is much prized in the Zenanah where some women prefer him to the entire man, on account of his long performance of the deed of kind. Of this more in a future page.