The Baltajis, on such occasions, walked by the side of the carriages of the imperial ladies and guarded their camp at night. Ordinarily, the sultan's harem was under the care of the black eunuchs, or about two hundred Africans, who were specially entrusted with the imperial ladies. Their chief was known as the Kislar Aghasi, or "master of the girls," and was regarded as one of the chief men of the empire. The trade in captive boys and girls stolen from Europe, Asia, and Africa was once very large; the pick of them being brought by purchase into the sultan's palace, for one purpose or another. It was thought that his imperial majesty's life was safer in the hands of foreigners brought up almost from infancy in the palace, and knowing no other allegiance than that to the will of the sultan. Times have changed, however, and it is not possible for the ruler of the Turks to regard the best of the children of white and black parentage as born to replenish his harem. Much of the old time mediæval splendor has been swept away, not only through the reforms of Sultan Mahmud II., but by modern conditions which make the old seraglio an impossibility. In the olden days the young princes were closely confined in a part of the seraglio known as the Chimshirlick, or "boxwood shrubbery." It contained twelve pavilions each surrounded by high walls which enclosed a little garden. These were the residences of the sons of the sultan. Each young prince was kept guarded in his pavilion enclosure, from which he dared not emerge without his royal father's special permission. Thus a prince's minority was spent in the _kafe_, or "cage." Each youth had as attendants ten or twelve fair girls, besides a number of pages. These and black eunuchs, who were his teachers, were his sole companions. As a rule, the tongues of male attendants and of women unable to bear children were slit. At the tenth year a young prince leaves his mother and the harem for the guardianship of a _lalo_, or "male attendant," who is his companion day and night; next a _mullah_, or "priest," takes the youth in hand and gives him his schooling, which consists chiefly in instruction in the teachings of the Koran. [Illustration 5: _THE MUTES After the painting by P. L. Bouchard The women's quarters are situated in the innermost portion of the seraglio. Here are from three to twelve hundred women; at times there are even more. These women are all foreigners. Indeed, all the guards and attendants of the palace are of foreign blood..... The women's departments are carefully guarded. Women who bear no children and the subaltern eunuchs have their tongues slit. Whan an order of death is issued, these mutes, with the fatal cords, enter and noiselessly fulfil their commands._]