look out for adultery. Asking the advice of Abou Nouass about it, he told me, `If you marry Fadehat el Djemal you will ruin your health, and God will withdraw his protection from you, and the worst of all will be that she will cuckold you, for she is insatiable with respect to the coitus, and would cover you with shame.' And I answered him, `Such is the nature of women; they are insatiable as far as their vulvas are concerned, and so long as their lust is satisfied they do not care whether it be with a buffoon, a negro, a valet, or even with a man that is despised and reprobated by society.'

On this occasion Abou Nouass depicted the character of women in the following verses:

Women are demons, and were born as such;
No one can trust them, as is known to all;
If they love a man, it is only out of caprice;
And he to whom they are most cruel loves them most;
Beings full of treachery and trickery, I aver
The man that loves you truly is a lost man;
He who believes me not can prove my word
By letting woman's love get hold of him for years!
If in your own generous mood you have given them
Your all and everything for years and years,
They will say afterwards, `I swear by God! my eyes
Have never seen a thing he gave me!'
After you have impoverished yourself for their sake,
Their cry from day to day will be for ever, `Give!
Give, man. Get up and buy and borrow.'
If they cannot profit by you they'll turn against you;
They will tell lies about you and calumniate you.
They do not recoil to use a slave in the master's absence,
If once their passions are aroused, and they play tricks;
Assuredly, if once their vulva is in rut,
They only think of getting in some member in erection.
Preserve us, God! from woman's trickery;
And of old women in particular. So be it.