In the happy days when we were young, no description conveyed to us so complete an idea of mysterious reality as that of an Oriental city.  We knew it was actually there, but had such vague...

 In the happy days when we were young, no description conveyed to us so complete an idea of mysterious reality as that of an Oriental city.  We knew it was actually there, but had such vague notions of its ways and looks!  Let any one remember his early impressions as to Bagdad or Grand Cairo, and then say if this was not so.  It was probably taken from the “Arabian Nights,” and the picture produced was one of strange, fantastic, luxurious houses; of women who were either very young and very beautiful, or else very old and very cunning; but in either state exercising much more influence in life than women in the East do now; of good-natured, capricious, though sometimes tyrannical monarchs; and of life full of quaint mysteries, quite unintelligible in every phasis, and on that account the more picturesque.