EASTERN BEAUTIES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 91, 27 September 1873, Page 3

EASTERN BEAUTIES.

The travelling contributor of the iMeL bourne Age thus explodes the Byronic idea of the beauty and grace of the Eastern ladies :—lt was destined that I should not leave Egypt without getting an insight into the very peculiar character of Arab civilisation, and learning how thin is the veneer by which it is divided from Oriental barbarism. One of my fellow-passengers was anxious to make the best of her way to Constantinople, and with that object endeavored to get a passage on board a vessel which was the same morning to leave Alexandria for the Golden Horn. The officials, W'ho were all Egyptian naval officers, were very emphatic in their statements that there was no room. No matter how much compression the poor lady was willing to undergo, and to all her piteous endeavors to be allowed to stow herself somewhere, were it even on the floor of the cabin, they returned a most decided refusal. At last the truth gradually oozed out. The ship, which was the private property of the Khedive, had to take the whole of his harem to the Bosphorus, and no infidel eyes could, as a matter of course, be indulged with a sight of the drapery which encircled the bodies of those peerless beauties. As to their faces and figures, they were concealed beyond all possibility of identification. Before leaving, I had an opportunity of seeing a number of the damsels in question waddle from the close carriage which brought them from the palace to the steamer’s tender, which was to take them on board, and can only say that if Dudu, Zuleika, Gulnare, Loeila, and the other ladies about whom Byron used to rave, walked half as ungracefully as the Georgians and Circassians in whom the Khedive delights, I am very much astonished at any Greek pirate, Spanish adventurer, or Turkish young man about town, incurring any risk for the pleasure of their society.

A farmer of my acquaintance, writes the correspondent of an American agricultural journal, took pains to have his cows come in in the Fall and Winter, for the reason that he could get a better price for the butter then than in the Summer, and that during the hottest season of Summer, when harvest work was urgent, and butter making, at the best, unsatisfactory, and the cows rendered fretful and feverish by flies and heat, then was the time to have them dry. This may be all true, but can you, asked I, make as much butter in Winter or as good as in Summer ? He replied — I can not only make as much but better butter in Winter ; and this is how I do it: —My hay is cut at the first blossoming and cured in the cock. My meadows are then top dressed with manure, and by September the second crop is ready to pasture off with the cows, and give them a heavy feed. My fodder corn is cut early and cured carefully, and is nearly as green as when cut. In fact, all my feed is cut early, and I have plenty of it and of great variety. I have oats and peas, cut green, and carrots and potatoes. My stables are roomy, warm, clean and sweet, and well lighted, There is pure water always before the cows. They are well fed and comfortable, and milk more than they would have done in Summer. I feed them with bran, cornmeal, and oilmeal, and the milk is rich. My dairy has double windows to keep out the cold, and is warmed with a stove and kept at a regular temperature. I have more and better butter than I could get through the hot weather, with less labor, and I get better price than in Summer. If there is any good reason why I should change my plan I don’t see it. It took some years to discover it, but I believe, on the whole, 1 shall stick to it. — While this man, by excellent management, made a good thing of his dairy, and others who will take the trouble, could do the same, nevertheless it would not do for all to undertake it; but if they should, there would be so many failures, from want of tact, that the profit to those who succeed is amply secured.