Dark Eyes

“There is something comfortable about all this to a man who has lived in fast America, and who has always had a lazy inclination to leave matters to take care of themselves. Sometimes we rode hour after hour around the streets of Cairo, looking at old lattices, quaintly and elaborately carved, catching once in a while the vision of a beautiful face through some small opening, and carrying away with us the blessings of smiles fiom dark eyes. Ah me, how many smiles I have had from unknown beauties that I shall never see again; and yet, if one meets a fair woman in the street, or on the steamer, or even but sees her on the other side of a Cairene lattice, and exchanges a smile with her, it is a thing of beauty to be remembered forever; for who knows that we shall not meet again somewhere. I wonder if I shall ever meet again that blackeyed girl that looked at me in the street just inside the Bab el Nasr. She was riding on a high-saddled donkey, between two slaves, following three other women, who looked all alike, and all like her. For a woman of Cairo, who belongs to a wealthy hareem, is, when abroad, but a huge bundle of black silk, with a thick white vail, through which two eyes flash like stars.

I was last of our party – she last of hers – and, as she went by me, suddenly her white hand threw back the vail, and all the lustre of her magnificent countenance shone on me. It was like those visions that we have in dreams that remain forever impressed on the memory. I can never forget that face – nor would I, if I could. She was not so exquisitely beautiful as the Greek girl I afterward saw in a hareem in Syria, of whom I shall have somewhat to say there, but her calm white face, her regular features moulded in the most perfect manner, her red lips ripe, full, and overflowing with fun, and, above all, her eyes of deep, splendid beauty were enough to remember for a day or a lifetime.”

From Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia
by William C. Prime, 1857