We were next introduced to Peroussè Hanoum, the private secretary of the Princess, who had been a favourite Odalique of Sultan Selim; a woman remarkable for her talents both natural and acquired; and a celebrated poet. She was seated upon her sofa, surrounded by papers; lying confusedly in heaps, or tied up in squares of clear muslin; and engaged in writing on the lid of a chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She was still handsome, with delicate features, and fine eyes, but disfigured by the dye with which she had made her eyebrows meet across her nose. Had I been able to converse with her, without the interposition of a third person, I am sure that I should have been delighted, for she was all energy and enthusiasm. Her room was crowded with Turkish and Greek women, squatted on cushions all over the floor; and close beside her, with her pale cheek resting upon her knees, sat one of the ladies of the Imperial Seraglio, who having suffered severely from a protracted indisposition, had asked and obtained permission to spend a few weeks in the harem of the Princess, by whom she had been brought up. She was a lovely girl of eighteen or nineteen, very richly dressed, but evidently broken-hearted. Whenever she was addressed, the tears rushed into her large dark eyes, and every reply appeared to be an effort. The gilded Palace of her Imperial Master had evidently been a mere prison to her; and you read a tale of blighted hope and spirit-sickness upon every line of her pallid face. While we were in the apartment of the secretary, Nazip Hanoum, at the request of the fair and faded visitor, sent a slave for her zebec, and played and sang with considerable sweetness and execution: after which the gifted Peroussè Hanoum read one of her poems, which elicited such rapturous applause, that I asked and obtained a transcript of it, and having caused it to be translated into French by one of the Professors of the Military College, I have since rendered it into English verse for the gratification of my readers.