How comparative is happiness! I never lay my head upon my pillow, but I am grateful to Providence that I was not born in Turkey; while the fair Osmanlis in their turn pity the Frank women with a depth of sentiment almost ludicrous. They can imagine no slavery comparable with our’s—we take so much trouble to attain such slight ends—we run about from country to country, to see sights which we must regret when we leave them—we are so blent with all the anxieties and cares of our male relations—we expose ourselves to danger, and brave difficulties suited only to men—we have to contend with such trials and temptations, from our constant contact with the opposite sex—in short, they regard us as slaves, buying our comparative liberty at a price so mighty, that they are unable to estimate its extent—and then, the hardship of wearing our faces uncovered, and exposing them to the sun and wind, when we might veil them comfortably with a _yashmac_! Not a day passes in which they have commerce with a Frank, but they return thanks to Allah that they are not European women! A modern French traveller, whose amusing work has, in one moderate volume, contrived to treat of about a dozen countries and localities; and to detail, respecting each, such a mass of fallacies as assuredly were never before collected together: informs his readers that the jealousies of the harem are carried to such a pitch as to entail poison, or, at the least, humiliating and severe labour on the victim of the disappointed rival! This assertion, like many others in which he has indulged, would be comic were it not wicked—for the very arrangements of the harem render it impossible: each lady has her private apartment, which, should she desire to remain secluded, no one has the privilege to invade; and, from the moment that she becomes a member of the family, her life, should she so will it, is one of the most monotonous idleness. The very slaves, as I believe I have elsewhere remarked, are so numerous in every handsome establishment, that three-fourths of their time is unemployed; and as, in the less distinguished ranks, no Turk indulges in the expensive luxury of a second wife, there is little opportunity afforded for female tyranny.