name Eghna.

If the woman, as in all Mussulman society, plays an inferior rôle--inferior
to that allowed to her in our modern civilizations--she is not less the
object of songs which celebrate the power given her by beauty:

"O bird with azure plumes,
Go, be my messenger--
I ask thee that thy flight be swift;
Take from me now thy recompense.
Rise with the dawn--ah, very soon--
For me neglect a hundred plans;
Direct thy flight toward the fount,
To Tanina and Cherifa.

"Speak to the eyelash-darkened maid,
To the beautiful one of the pure, white throat;
With teeth like milky pearls.
Red as vermillion are her cheeks;
Her graceful charms have stol'n my reason;
Ceaselessly I see her in my dreams."[8]

"A woman with a pretty nose
Is worth a house of solid stone;
I'd give for her a hundred reaux,[9]
E'en if she quitted me as soon.

"Arching eyebrows on a maid,
With love the genii would entice,
I'd buy her for a thousand reaux,