OR

No. 104]

FASHION.

A Turkish lady of fashion is wooed by an invisible lover: in the progress of the courtship a hyacinth is occasionally dropt in her path by an unknown hand, and the female attendant at the bath does the office of a mercury, and talks of a certain Effendi demanding a lady's love, as a nightingale aspiring to the affections of a rose !

A clove, wrapped up in an embroidered handkerchief, is the least token of condescension the nightingale can expect; but a written billet doux is an implement of love which the gentle rose is unable to manufacture. The father of the lady at length is solicited for her hand, and he orders her to give it, and to love, honour and obey her husband; in short, they are married by proxy, before the cadi, and the sight of her lord's countenance first beams on her in the nuptial chamber. This change in her condition is one which every spinster envies; if she be the only wife, she reigns in the harem over a host of slaves; if there be two or three more, she shares with them the delights of domestic sway. Every week, at least, she is blest with a periodical return of her husband's love: he enters the harem at noon day, and at sunset, after the fatigue of sauntering from one bazaar to another, and from the public divan to the private chambers-he performs his evening ablutions--one obsequious lady fetches a phial of rose-water to perfume his beard, another bears a looking-glass with a mother-of-pearl handle, another carries an embroidered napkin; and supper is brought in by a host of slaves and servants: for in most harems the ordinary attendants have access to the women's apartments. The women stand before him while he eats, and when he finishes, a number of additional dishes are brought in for the ladies, whose breeding consists in eating with the finger and thumb only, and in not devouring indecorously the sweetmeats, of which they are exceedingly fond.

When supper is removed, and the servants disappear, there are few harems where small bottles of rosoglio are not produced; and of this liqueur I have seen the ladies take so many as three or four little glasses in the course of ten minutes. One of the female slaves generally presents the pipe on one knee; and sometimes one of the wives brings the coffee, and kisses the hand of her lord at the same time; this ceremony every wife goes through in the morning, none daring to sit down in his presence but such as have the honour of being mothers: but, in the evening, there is very little etiquette, and very little truth in the assertion of Pauqueville, that, "the Turks retire to their harems without relaxing the least particle of their gravity." The reverse of this statement is near the truth; the orgies of the evening in most harems, are conducted with all the levity of licentiousness, and the gravity of the Moslems totally disappears. The roars of laughter are to be heard in the adjoining houses; and, in my opinion, the gravity of the Turk during

[VOL. 9.

the day is only the exhaustion of his spirits from previous excitement. I have seen him reclining on the divans, smoking his long chibouque, one of his wives, and generally the favourite, shampooing his feet with her soft fingers, and performing this operation for hours together.

This is accounted one of the greatest luxuries of the harem; and an opium-eater assured me, the most delightful of his reveries was imagining himself shampooed by the dark-eyed houris of Paradise.

The women vie with each other in eliciting the smiles of their common lord; one shows the rich silk she has been embroidering for his vest, another plays an instrument resembling a spinet, and another displays her elegant form in the voluptuous mazes of the dance. No handkerchief is thrown, but a smile is sufficient to "speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul;" and from that moment to the period when another favourite supplants the former, she is salaamed with additional respect by the slaves, and treated with greater honour by all the harem. When she goes to the bath she is to be distinguished by the importance of her air; the waddling of her gait attests her quality; she disposes her white robe over her fair arms so as to present the largest possible surface en face, and God help the unlucky Christian who crosses her path. I have had the honour of being insulted by ladies of rank far more frequently than by any other women. The fanaticism of females is in a ratio with their quality, and hence it is from them, chiefly, a Frank passenger has to expect such gentle maledictions as "May the plague fall on your house!""May the foul birds defile your beardless chin!" "May she who would marry you be childless!"

In fact, education in Turkey has no other object but to foster fanaticism, and to inculcate intolerance. When the lady visits her female friends, notice is previously sent of her intention, that the men may have time to get out of the way; the moment she enters the harem she takes off her veil, receiving a thousand salaams, smokes a pipe or two and is regaled with fruit, sweetmeats, and lump sugar.— The conversation commonly turns on dress; she discusses various topics connected with silks and scandal, narrates how a fair neighbour of hers was suspected of embroidering a silk purse for a stranger, of lifting her veil in the street, and conversing with a man; every gentle listener expresses her horror at such depravity, voids her rheum on the floor when she hears her name, and appears quite delighted when she is told that the husband happily interposed, and consigned the naughty woman to a watery grave. I was once present at such a conversation, and was astonished to hear the women applaud the spirit of the man, instead of compassionating the fate of the unhappy victim of jealousy or justice. Such a fashionable lady as I have been describing has little cause to complain of the seclusion of the haram. She rides in her gilded coach, drawn by a team of oxen.She sails in her gay caïque along the lovely shores of the Bosphorus; slave as she is called to the caprices of a tyrant she reigns in the harem, her empire over the household is unlimited, her influence over her husband is unbounded.

and to her Metastasio might well have said, Siete schiava, ma regnate nella vostra servitu.

TURKISH MEN OF FASHION.

A Constantinople man of quality is a slow-paced biped, of a grave aspect, and a haughty carriage; he assumes an indolent air and shuffling gait, the former is nonchalance, the latter bon ton. He wears his turban over his right eye, sports a nosegay in his bosom, and is generally to be distinguished from the million by the magnitude of his pantaloons. He sits for hours smoking his chibouque, wrapped up in a reverie, the delight of which avowedly consists in the absence of thought. He had been educated in the imperial seraglio, he has risen to honours from the depths of infamy, and, after serving his youth in slavery, he is preferred to some office in the state, or is advanced to the government of some distant province; in middle age he can perhaps read and write, and repeat every favourite chapter of the Koran from beginning to end; but this is all his knowledge, and he turns it to the account of plunder. From sentiment and custom, he hates a Christian, but then the Christian abhors a Jew, the Jew abominates a Greek, the Greek contemns a Copt, the Copt abjures an Armenian, the missionary pities each, and Heaven bears with all! He believes no less firmly than the Christian Rayah in the truth of his creed, and that no other leads to Paradise. His fanaticism is fundamentally the same as the superstition of the Greek, and the bigotry of the Armenian, and is only modified in its external forms by the diversity of religious rites. In his domestic relations he differs little from the Christian; his bosom is agitated by the same passions; his actions are swayed by the same motives, his understanding is warped by the same prejudices, he has the same kindly feelings in his family, he loves his little children with the same affection, regards his wife with no less deference, treats his domestics with at least as much humanity, shows its aged parent the same respect, and follows at their bier with the same bitterness of heart. It is not because his turban differs from a hat, or his caftan from a surtout, that he is either vile or virtuous; it is not because Ramasan is different from Lent, that his manners or his morals are either corrupt or pure. His inherent hostility to Christianity is the first principle of his law; and the perfidy it is supposed to enjoin is the most prominent feature in his character; I say supposed to enjoin, for though the Koran inculcates passim the extermination of Christians in open warfare, it no where approves of the treachery and inhumanity of which the priesthood make a merit. But persecution is one of the amiable weaknesses of all theologians, and it would be a folly to stigmatize the church of Christ with the charge of intolerance, because Calvin, moderate as he was, pursued a theological opponent even unto death. The most striking qualities of the Moslem, are his profound ignorance, his insuperable arrogance, his habitual indolence, and the perfidy which directs his policy in the divan, and regulates his ferocity in the field. The defects in his character are those of the nation: they are the growth of sudden greatness— the intoxication of prosperity enjoyed without reason or restraint. Before conquest and plunder had exalted the nation on the ruin of other realms, the Turk was brave in the field, faithful to his friend, and generous to his foe. It was then unusual to commend the cup of poison with a smile, and to beckon to the murderer with the oath of

friendship on the lips: but treachery is now an accomplishment in Turkey; and I have seen so much of it for some time past, that if my soul were not in some sort attuned to horrors, I should wish myself in Christendom, with no other excitement than the simple murders of a Sunday newspaper.

The grandee, however, relaxes from the fatigues of dignity pretty often; he perambulates with an amber rosary dangling from his wrist; he looks neither to the right nor to the left; the corpse of a Rayah attracts not his attention; the head of a slaughtered Greek he passes by unnoticed; he causes the trembling Jew to retire at his approach; he only shuffles the unwary Frank who goes along, it is too troublesome to kick him: he reaches the coffee-house before noon, an abject Christian salaams him to the earth, spreads the newest mat for the Effendi, presents the richest cup, and cringes by his side to kiss the hem of his garment, or, at least, his hand. The coffee, peradventure, is not good; the Effendi storms-the poor Armenian trembles -he swears by his father's beard he made the very best; in all probability he gets the cup at his head, and a score of maledictions, not on himself, but on his mother. A friend of the Effendi enters, and after ten minutes' repose, they salute, and exchange salaams. A most interesting conversation is carried on by monosyllables at half-hour intervals. The grandee exhibits an English penknife; his friend examines it, back and blade, smokes another pipe, and exclaims,— "God is great.”

Pistols are next produced, their value is an eternal theme, and no other discussion takes place till a grave old priest begins to expatiate on the temper of his sword. A learned Ulema, a theologian and a lawyer (for here chicanery and religion go hand in hand), at length talks of astronomy and politics, how the sun shines in the east and in the west, and every where he shines, how he beams on a land of Mussulmans; how all the Padi shaws of Europe pay tribute to the sultan; and how the giaours of England are greater people than the infidels of France, because they make better pen knives and finer pistols; how the Dey of Algiers made a prisoner of the English admiral in the late engagement, and after destroying his fleet, consented to release him, on condition of paying an annual tribute; and how the Christian ambassadors came like dogs to the footstool of the sultan, to feed on his imperial bounty. After this edifying piece of history, the Effendi takes his leave, with the pious ejaculation of "Marshalla," how wonderful is God; the waiter bows him out, overpowered with gratitude for the third part of an English farthing, and the proud Effendi returns to his harem; he walks with becoming dignity along: perhaps a merry-andrew, playing off his buffooneries, catches his eye -he looks, but his spirit smiles not, neither do his lips, his gravity is invincible, and he waddles onward, like a porpoise cast on shore; it is evident that nature intended him not for a pedestrian animal, and that he looks with contempt on his locomotive organs. This, my lord, though apparently a ridiculous portrait, is not surcharged, and is, indeed, rather a general picture than an individual likeness.

TURKISH DOCTORS AND AMULETS.

I was called to a man who was said to have a fever.When I visited him, I asked what was the matter with him, and where he felt pain, but his friends made the customary reply, "That is what we want to know from you; feel his

pulse and tell us!" I accordingly did so, found it rapid, his breathing laborious, and his skin hot; but not one of the symptoms could I get from the patient or attendants.The Turks have the ridiculous idea that a doctor ought to know every disease by applying the fingers to the wrist. I thought, from what I observed, I was warranted in taking blood in this case. I did so; but no sooner had I bound up the arm, than I was requested, for the first time, to examine the other hand, which I did, and to my utter astonishment, found two of the fingers carried away, the bones protruding; and then only was I informed, that the patient was in the artillery, and had lost his fingers a week before by the explosion of a gun.

I suspected at once the occurrence of a locked jaw; I felt his neck; it was like a bar of iron: the man had been labouring under tetanus for three days, and died the following morning. You may well conceive my indignation at such incredible stupidity as the attendants exhibited here, and my choler at being told the result "had been written in the great book of life," and could not be avoided or deferred. Be that as it may, I certainly would not have bled him, had I any reason to suspect the affection of which he died. You may imagine how difficult it is for a medical man to treat such people; and, consequently, how rarely they are benefitted by him. There are few Mahometans who do not put faith in amulets; I have found them on broken bones, on aching heads, and sometimes over love sick hearts. The latter are worn by young ladies, and consist of a leaf or two of the hyacinthus, which the Turks call mus-charumi; this is sent by the lover, and is intended to suggest the most obvious rhyme, whicb is ydskerumi, and implies the attainment of their soft desires.

Sometimes these amulets are composed of unmeaning words, like the abracadabra of the ancient Greeks for curing fevers, and the abracalans of the Jews for other disorders. At other times they consist simply of a scroll, with the words "Bismillah," "in the name of the most merciful God," with some cabalistical signs of the Turkish astrologer Geffer; but most commonly they contain a verse of the Koran.

I think the most esteemed, in dangerous diseases, are shreds of the clothing of the pilgrim camel which conveys the sultan's annual present to the sacred city; these are often more sought after than the physician, and frequently do more good, because greater faith is put in them.

The most common of all these charms is the amber bead, with a triangular scroll, worn over the forehead, which the Marabouts and the Arab sheiks manufacture, and is proba bly an imitation of the phylacterics which the Jews were commanded "to bind them, for a sign, upon their heads, and to be as frontlets between their eyes." It would be well if no more preposterous and disgusting remedies were employed; but I have taken off from a gun-shot wound a roasted mouse which, I was gravely informed, was intended to extract the ball.

OPIUM EATERS.

The market of Theriaki Tacachissy, near the mosque of Solymania, is the place where the opium-eaters indulge in the use of this "delicious poison." The coffee-houses where the theriakis, or opium-eaters assemble, are situated in a large square; and on a bench outside the door they await the wished-for reveries, which present to their glowing imaginations the forms of the celestial houris, and the enjoyments of their own paradise in all its voluptuousness. I

had heard so many contradictory reports of the sensations produced by this drug, that I resolved to know the truth, and accordingly took my seat in the coffee-house, with half a dozen theriakis. Their gestures were frightful; those who were completely under the influence of the opium talked incoherently; their features were flushed; their eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually produced in two hours, and lasts four or five; the dose varies from three grains to a drachm. I saw one old man take four pills, of six grains each, in the course of two hours; I was told he had been using opium for five-andtwenty years; but this is a very rare example of an opium eater passing thirty years of age if he commence the practice early. The debility, both moral and physical, attendant on its excitement, is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid: several of these I have seen, in this place, at various times, who had wry necks and contracted fingers; but still they cannot abandon the custom : they are miserable till the hour arrives for taking their daily dose; and when its delightful influence begins, they are all fire and animation. Some of them compose excellent verses, and others address the bystanders in the most eloquent discourses, imagining themselves to be emperors, and to have all the harems in the world at their command. I commenced with one grain; in the course of an hour and a half it produced no perceptible effect; the coffee-house keeper was very anxious to give me an additional pill of two grains, but I was contented with half a one, and in another half hour, feeling nothing of the expected reverie, I took half a grain more, making in all, two grains in the course of two hours. After two hours and a half from the first dose, I took two grains more; and shortly after this dose my spirits became sensibly excited; the pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a universal expansion of mind and matter. My faculties appeared enlarged, every thing I looked on seemed increased in volume; I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it appeared to me as if it was only external objects which were acted on by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure: in short, it was "the faint exquisite music of a dream” in a waking moment, I made my way home as fast as possible, dreading at every step that I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground; it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some etherial fluid which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I arose pale and dispirited; my head ached, my body was so debilitated that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all the day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium-eating.

SLAVE-MARKET AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

The poor Greek women were huddled together; I saw seven or eight in one cell stretched on the floor, some dressed in the vestiges of former finery, some half naked; some of them were from Scio, others from Ips-ara; they had nothing in common but despair! All of them looked pale and sickly, and all of them appeared to be pining after K 2

THE HISTORY OF A HAT.

the homes they were never to see again and the friends they were to meet no more! Sickness and sorrow had impaired their looks, but still they were spectres of beauty; and the melancholy stillness of their cells was sadly contrasted with the roars of merriment which proceeded from the dungeons of the negro women. No scene of human wretched

ness can equal this: the girl who might have adorned her native village, whose innocence might have been the solaee of an anxious mother, and whose beauty might have been the theme of many a tongue, was here subjected to the gaze of every licentious soldier who chose to examine her features or her form, on the pretence of being a buyer. I saw one poor girl of about fifteen brought forth to exhibit her gait and figure to an old Turk; he twisted her elbows, he pulled her ankles, he felt her ears, examined her mouth, and then her neck; and all this while the slave merchant was extolling her shape and features, protesting she was only turned of thirteen, that she neither snored nor started in her sleep, and that, in every respect, she was warranted.

I loitered about the bazaar till I saw this bargain brought to a conclusion; the girl was bought for two hundred and eighty dollars, about 55. sterling. The separation of this young creature from her companions in wretchedness was a new scene of distress; she was as pale as death and hardly seemed conscious of her situation, while all the other girls were weeping around her, and taking their last farewell. Her new master laughed at the sad parting, and pushed her before him at the outer gate; but there she stopped for a moment and entreated permission to go back for the remnant of her Greek attire, which, I dare say, she prized more than anything in the world; for probably it was all on earth that remained to her of what she brought from that home which she had left for ever. The old Moslem accompanied her back, and in a few minutes I saw her returning with a little bundle under her arm, trembling from head to foot, and weeping bitterly.—" Madden's Travels.”

THE LOVER'S RETURN.

St. Victor's shrine with gold is crown'd,
Its tapers burning bright;

St. Victor's monks are kneeling round,
And pray for Bertha's knight.
Her bare white feet stand on the stones
Where kings and nobles rot;

Her lips have kiss'd St. Victor's bones;
Yet Bertrand cometh not.

St. Victor's rocks look brown and bare
Amid the burning sky;

And Bertha now is kneeling there
So distant and so high.
No gentle breeze of fountain sweet
Plays round the holy grot.
And bleeding are those tender feet;
Yet Bertrand cometh not.

Through yonder painted lattice beams
A light that may not sleep;
In yonder turret Bertha dreams,
And starts to watch and weep.
A hasty step is hurrying near,
It mounts the winding stair;
And kisses charm the falling tear,

For Bertrand now is there.

Cosa bella mortal passa e non dura.-Petrarch.

I.

It was certainly the prettiest hat in the world,-the most elegant, the most graceful, the most coquetish!-It was a hat of lilac gauze, with trimmings of straw round the brim, and a bunch of wild poppies and corn flowers mingled with bows of ribbon, slightly inclining towards the right, and resting upon the brim !--

And it was, also, the frailest and least profound love possible-a light sentiment of a light woman,-a senti. ment of fantasy, with capricious favours and artificial tendernesses!

Now hear what befell this hat of gauze, and this sentiment of fantasy!

II.

On the 7th of the month of June, 18-, I had dined at the house of Madame de Saint-Clair, who, for three days past had deigned to honor me with her kindness and her tête-à-tête. This revelation is painful to me :--but it was absolutely necessary to the understanding of my story. It will be seen, too, in the end, if there be any foppery in my indiscretions.

Be that as it may, this lady (I am compelled further to explain) occupies the entresol of one of the houses in the Rue Vivienne. In the entresol of the house directly opposite, is the work-room of a marchande de modes. There, in the working hours, are assembled the young ladies round a long table; and there are invented and manufactured-hats. When finished, they are taken down into the warehouse below, which forms a shop, opening to the street. There, they are exposed behind the glass of the show-cases, mounted on long stands of mahogany, which offer, in truth, no bad resemblance, when thus crowned, to certain English ladies who arrive at Paris, from our provinces, towards the month of October.

That evening, I was to go out with Madame de SaintClair. After dinner she retired to her chamber to dress, and left me alone in the saloon.

I am bound to render full and entire justice to Madame de Saint-Clair. Amongst other solid qualities which she possesses, she has especially the eminent merit of being very expeditious at her toilet. However, every toilet takes time; and this, which commenced at seven, could not, in conscience, be expected to conclude before eight. There was, therefore, no resource for me but that of killing as ingeniously as I could, sixty minutes, one after the other. You will find that it was an easy task.

III.

I had established myself in a comfortable fauteuil, near the window of the dining-room, which precisely fronted that of the work-room of the Magasin de Modes. I could there see, with ease, all that passed in that workroom, without being myself seen. I had effected this by drawing slightly aside, at the corner, one of the small muslin curtains of my window,-that of the modistes being wide

open.

The following, then, is the general aspect which the