Portage Sentinel

A Mahometan Wedding

One day we were informed that a Moorish wedding was to take place. Not even the bridegroom had yet seen his bride, though she was represented as one of the loveliest creatures of creation, and only sixteen years of age. In the evening a fantastic procession passed our door preceded by the firing of guns, and the unrestrained merriment of human voices. At length, came the bridegroom, like a triumphant victor escorting the unseen conquest to his own home, where arrangements were being made for the marriage ceremony to be performed. He was clad from head to foot in snowy apparel, and mounted on a milk white steed. His appearance was extremely commanding and majestic, while the enthusiasm of youth and the vigor of manhood were clearly expressed in his full and darkly glancing eyes. After him followed his concourse of his rejoicing friends, in the midst of whom was a mule, led by two Moors having on his back, an ornamented cage or box, scarcely more than four feet square, within which and secure from public scrutiny, was the hallowed person of the bride. The procession passed by and the beautiful Moorish girl was soon resigned to the protecting arms of her husband, though only to share perhaps, with several others the inevitable sovereignty of his heart. A monopoly of affections is seldom to be met with in the land of the Moor. Variety and change seem indispensably necessary to keep the sacred spark of love alive.—Eastern Travels.