Veiled Women by Marmaduke Pickthall — Read

During the heat of summer, part of the harem, consisting of the ladies Barakah and Fitnah, with their children and attendants, stayed at a farm belonging to the Pasha, on the banks of the Nile, near Benha. The journey thither was performed on donkeys in a long procession with a eunuch at its head and tail, a eunuch boy leading the donkey of each lady, that she might have freedom to hold up her sunshade and munch nuts and sweetstuff. The slave-girls, some of them, rode two together; they waxed hilarious, exchanging jests with all who passed them on the dyke. Their going raised a goodly cloud of dust. The house to which they went was large and formal, none too clean, though very sparsely furnished. Behind it was a filthy yard hemmed in by hovels, where dwelt the fellahin who worked the farm. Before it was a garden of fruit trees, and beyond that a plantation of young date-palms. There was also a big tree beside a waterwheel, where the ladies took their pleasure in the shade. The land was absolutely flat in all directions, but diversified in hue by divers crops, broken here and there by clumps of trees and squat mud villages.

Here manners were relaxed; for all the peasant women went unveiled, and their example made the slaves less strict than in the city. The lady Fitnah, being of the country, took delight in talking with the villagers, both men and women, and thus, though most correct in her apparel, set the fashion of unbending. Yûsuf, who had now a Government appointment, and the Pasha came to see them when they had the leisure; and Ghandûr also travelled down to see his wife.