My mother was a Circassian by birth, who in early youth had been torn away from her home.  Her father had been a farmer, and she had always lived peacefully with her parents and her little brother and sister.  War broke out suddenly, and the country was overrun by marauding bands.  On their approach, the family fled into an underground place, as my mother called it—­she probably meant a cellar, which is not known in Zanzibar.  Their place of refuge was, however, invaded by a merciless horde, the parents were slain, and the children carried off by three mounted Arnauts.

She came into my father’s possession when quite a child, probably at the tender age of seven or eight years, as she cast her first tooth in our house.  She was at once adopted as playmate by two of my sisters, her own age, with whom she was educated and brought up.  Together with them she learnt to read, which raised her a good deal above her equals, who, as a rule, became members of our family at the age of sixteen or eighteen years, or older still, when they had outgrown whatever taste they might once have had for schooling.  She could scarcely be called pretty; but she was tall and shapely, had black eyes, and hair down to her knees.  Of a very gentle disposition, her greatest pleasure consisted in assisting other people, in looking after and nursing any sick person in the house; and I well remember her going about with her books from one patient to another, reading prayers to them.

She was in great favour with my father, who never refused her anything, though she interceded mostly for others; and when she came to see him, he always rose to meet her half-way—­a distinction he conferred but very rarely.  She was as kind and pious as she was modest, and in all her dealings frank and open.  She had another daughter besides myself, who had died quite young.  Her mental powers were not great, but she was very clever at needlework.  She had always been a tender and loving mother to me, but this did not hinder her from punishing me severely when she deemed it necessary.

She had many friends at Bet-il-Mtoni, which is rarely to be met with in an Arab harem.  She had the most unshaken and firmest trust in God.  When I was about five years old, I remember a fire breaking out in the stables close by, one night while my father was at his city residence.  A false alarm spread over the house that we, too, were in imminent danger; upon which the good woman hastened to take me on her arm, and her big kuran (we pronounce the word thus) on the other, and hurried into the open air.  On the rest of her possessions she set no value in this hour of danger.

Here is a description of Schesade, the Sultan’s second legitimate wife: