The house itself was approached by a court-yard, and round it was a corridor on to which rooms opened, as at Pompeii.  In the middle of the court there was a bath and a fountain.  Having passed the court we came to the main body of the house, which was two stories in height.  The rooms were large and lofty; perhaps at first they looked rather bare of furniture, but in hot climates people generally keep their rooms more bare than they do in colder ones.  I missed also the sight of a grand piano or some similar instrument, there being no means of producing music in any of the rooms save the larger drawing-room, where there were half a dozen large bronze gongs, which the ladies used occasionally to beat about at random.  It was not pleasant to hear them, but I have heard quite as unpleasant music both before and since.

Mr. Nosnibor took me through several spacious rooms till we reached a boudoir where were his wife and daughters, of whom I had heard from the interpreter.  Mrs. Nosnibor was about forty years old, and still handsome, but she had grown very stout:  her daughters were in the prime of youth and exquisitely beautiful.  I gave the preference almost at once to the younger, whose name was Arowhena; for the elder sister was haughty, while the younger had a very winning manner.  Mrs. Nosnibor received me with the perfection of courtesy, so that I must have indeed been shy and nervous if I had not at once felt welcome.  Scarcely was the ceremony of my introduction well completed before a servant announced that dinner was ready in the next room.  I was exceedingly hungry, and the dinner was beyond all praise.  Can the reader wonder that I began to consider myself in excellent quarters?  “That man embezzle money?” thought I to myself; “impossible.”

But I noticed that my host was uneasy during the whole meal, and that he ate nothing but a little bread and milk; towards the end of dinner there came a tall lean man with a black beard, to whom Mr. Nosnibor and the whole family paid great attention:  he was the family straightener.  With this gentleman Mr. Nosnibor retired into another room, from which there presently proceeded a sound of weeping and wailing.  I could hardly believe my ears, but in a few minutes I got to know for a certainty that they came from Mr. Nosnibor himself.

“Poor papa,” said Arowhena, as she helped herself composedly to the salt, “how terribly he has suffered.”

“Yes,” answered her mother; “but I think he is quite out of danger now.”

Then they went on to explain to me the circumstances of the case, and the treatment which the straightener had prescribed, and how successful he had been—­all which I will reserve for another chapter, and put rather in the form of a general summary of the opinions current upon these subjects than in the exact words in which the facts were delivered to me; the reader, however, is earnestly requested to believe that both in this next chapter and in those that follow it I have endeavoured to adhere most conscientiously to the strictest accuracy, and that I have never willingly misrepresented, though I may have sometimes failed to understand all the bearings of an opinion or custom.