GARDENS OF THE SERAGLIO.

GARDENS OF THE SERAGLIO.
CONSTANTINOPLE.

An error has long and universally prevailed in western Europe, as to the degree of liberty which Turkish ladies enjoy, and their supposed subjection to their husbands has excited the pity of Christian wives; but, if freedom alone constitute happiness, then are not only the wives and the odaliques, but the female slaves in Turkey, the happiest of the human race. They visit and are visited without exciting jealousy, or being subjected to resentment; the most gorgeous apartments, the most beautiful pleasure grounds of every palace, are devoted solely to their use; and the gardens of the seraglio at Constantinople, with their orange groves, rose beds, geraniums, and marble fountains, afford an admirable illustration of some scene of enchantment in an Arabian tale.

CONSTANTINOPLE and the BOSPHORUS.

THE MEDITERRANEAN
AND TURKISH EMPIRE

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

1 The towns are designated in the following hexameter:
“Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ.”

2 Cette porte dont l’empire Ottomane a pris nom.—Tourn.

3 Some say it was to Magnesia on the Meander.

4 Magnesia ad Sipylum, a qua magnes lapis, ferum attractens, nomen sortitus est.

5 The names were as follow: Proté, because it is the first met in sailing from, Constantinople−Chalki, from its copper mines−Prinkipo, the residence of a princess−Antigone, so called by Demetrius Polyorcetes in memory of his father Antigonus−Oxy, from its sharp precipices−Platy from its flatness−Pitya, from its pines, &c.

6 The gum-resin, yielded by these plants, is sometimes collected by combing the beards of the goals, which browse among them, when they return home at night; and sometimes a leather thong is drawn across them, and that which adheres scraped off. The boots of those who walk through the shrubs are often incrusted with this gum.

7 Jerem. vii. 7.

8 Psalm civ. 17.

9 There is another bridge of considerable extent called Buyuk Tchekmadgé, thrown across an arm of the sea some miles from the capital.

10 Rev. iii. 15.

11 Ep. to Colos. iv. 16.

GENERAL INDEX.

The NUMERAL letters indicate the volume; the FIGURES the page.