THE ARAB GIRL IN PARIS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2990, 14 September 1878, Page 4

THE ARAB GIRL IN PARIS.

At the Paris Exposition you may drink your coffee to an accompaniment of genuine oriental music. The musicians are four in number —a comic,negro, who rolls .his head and eyes about in an alarming manner while he plays, and three Arabs. Near them sat a lovely Arab maid, who seemed to be the chief's daughter". She is not more than ten, and already she is a woman. Her eyes are singularly sweet, and her figure no. doubt would seem charming to a Turk, though to us who like not a too houri-like development, it might appear no worse if it were thinner. While I sat sipping my coffee two Frankish journalists entered,'* bearing in their hands.some oriental sweetmeats they had bought in the bazaar below. As soon as they set eyes upon them our friends of the sunny smile made them understand by signs that the young lady would not have any objection to a taste,* and, like true Franks, they instantly sent the sweets across to her. She accepted the gift- with a. gracious glance of approbation worth twenty times the six sous expended on the sticky confectionery. A woman in one sense, to be sure, but.child enough still in another. Poor thing ! If. all we read of Arab life is true, this visit of hers to Europe is likely to be one of the few happy incidents she will know before she comes, when old and ugly (women are both at twenty or twenty-five on the desert),-to be ranked by some turbaned infidel as something a little higher than his dog, and a great deal lower than his horse. v •