In the houses of the wealthy, the vocal and instrumental performers were usually (as is the case in many houses in the present age) domestic female slaves, well instructed in their art by hired male or female professors. In the work before us, these slaves are commonly described as standing or sitting unveiled in the presence of male guests; but, from several descriptions of musical entertainments that I have met with in Arabic works, it appears that, according to the more approved custom in respectable society, they were concealed on such occasions behind a curtain, which generally closed the front of an elevated recess. In all the houses of wealthy Arabs that I have entered, one or each of the larger saloons has an elevated closet, the front of which is closed by a screen of wooden lattice-work, to serve as an orchestra for the domestic or hired female singers and instrumental performers. Of the hired performers, any further mention is not here required; but of the slaves and free ladies who supplied their place, a few words must be added, as very necessary to illustrate the preceding and many other tales in this work. To a person acquainted with modern Arabian manners, it must appear inconsistent with truth to describe such females as exposing their faces before strange men, unless he can discover in sober histories some evidence of their having been less strict in this respect than the generality of Arab females at the present period. I find, however, a remarkable proof that such was the case in the latter part of the ninth century of the Flight, and the beginning of the tenth: that is, about the end of the fifteenth century of our era. The famous historian Es-Suyooṭee, who flourished at this period, in his preface to a curious work on wedlock, written to correct the corrupt manners of his age, says,--"Seeing that the women of this time deck themselves with the attire of prostitutes, and walk in the sooḳs (or market-streets), like female warriours against the religion, and uncover their faces and hands before men, to incline [men's] hearts to them by evil suggestions, and play at feasts with young men, thereby meriting the anger of the Compassionate [i.e. God], and go forth to the public baths and assemblies, with various kinds of ornaments and perfumes, and with conceited gait; for the which they shall be congregated in Hell-fire, for opposing the good, and on account of this their affected gait, while to their husbands they are disobedient, behaving to them in the reverse manner, excepting when they fear to abridge their liberty of going abroad by such conduct; for they are like swine and apes in their interior nature, though like daughters of Adam in their exterior appearance; especially the women of this age; not advising their husbands in matters of religion, but the latter erring in permitting them to go out to every assembly; sisters of devils and demons, &c. &c.... I have undertaken the composition of this volume."[253] A more