If, as we are all prone to believe, freedom be happiness, then are the Turkish women the happiest, for they are certainly the freest individuals in the Empire. It is the fashion in Europe to pity the women of the East; but it is ignorance of their real position alone which can engender so misplaced an exhibition of sentiment. I have already stated that they are permitted to expostulate, to urge, even to insist on any point wherein they may feel an interest; nor does an Osmanli husband ever resent the expressions of his wife; it is, on the contrary, part and parcel of his philosophy to bear the storm of words unmoved; and the most emphatic and passionate oration of the inmates of his harem seldom produces more than the trite “_Bakalum_—we shall see.” It is also a fact that though a Turk has an undoubted right to enter the apartments of his wives at all hours, it is a privilege of which he very rarely, I may almost say, never avails himself. One room in the harem is appropriated to the master of the house, and therein he awaits the appearance of the individual with whom he wishes to converse, and who is summoned to his presence by a slave. Should he, on passing to his apartment, see slippers at the foot of the stairs, he cannot, under any pretence, intrude himself in the harem: it is a liberty that every woman in the Empire would resent. When guests are on a visit of some days, he sends a slave forward to announce his approach, and thus gives them time and opportunity to withdraw. A Turkish woman consults no pleasure save her own when she wishes to walk or drive, or even to pass a short time with a friend: she adjusts her _yashmac_ and _feridjhe_, summons her slave, who prepares her _boksha_, or bundle, neatly arranged in a muslin handkerchief; and, on the entrance of the husband, his inquiries are answered by the intelligence that the Hanoum[2] Effendi is gone to spend a week at the harem of so and so. Should he be suspicious of the fact, he takes steps to ascertain that she is really there; but the idea of controlling her in the fancy, or of making it subject of reproach on her return, is perfectly out of the question.