“Not far from this is another semicircular space surrounded by a high wall … and here stands the city of the Nang Harm, or Veiled Women. In this city live none but women and children. Here the houses of the royal princesses, the wives, concubines, and relatives of the king … Into this inmost city no man is permitted to enter, except only the king….”

—The Romance of the Harem, by Mrs. Anna H. Leonowens, 1873

“I am conscious that my narrative savours of incredibility: the fault is in the subject, not in the narrator.”

—The City of the Saints, by Richard F. Burton, 1861