It is not, I repeat, by the members of a government, driven to unworthy acts on the one hand, and deceived by smiling sophistries on the other, that the people of Turkey should be estimated; and it is comparatively unfortunate for them as a nation, that it is precisely upon these persons that the attention is first fixed. The natural consequence ensues, that, where Europeans, rather glancing at the country than seeing it, possess neither time, opportunity, nor it may be even inclination, to look deeper; they carry away with them an erroneous impression of the mass, as unjust as it is unfortunate; an impression which they propagate at home, and in which they become strengthened by the very repetition of their own assertions; nor is it difficult to account in this way for the very erroneous, contradictory, and absurd notions, entertained in Europe on the subject of the Turks. Individuals have been cited as examples of a body, with which they probably possessed not one common feature, save that of country; and the vices that were seared into the spirit of one degenerate Osmanli have, by the heedless chroniclers who may have suffered from his delinquencies, been branded on the brow of a whole nation; as though the stream which had polluted itself for an instant by its passage over some impure substance, had power to taint the source from whence it flowed. CHAPTER XV. Death in a Princely Harem—The Fair Georgian—Distinction of Circassian and Georgian Beauty—The Saloon—Sentiment of the Harem—Courteous Reception—Domestic Economy of the Establishment—The Young Circassian—Emin Bey—Singular Custom of the Turks—The Buyuk Hanoum—The Female Dwarf—_Naïveté_ of the Turkish Ladies—The Forbidden Door—The Sultan’s Chamber—The Female Renegade—Penalty of Apostacy—Musical Ceremony—Frank Ladies and True Believers—A Turkish Luncheon—Devlehäi Hanoum—Old Wives _versus_ Young Ones—The Parting Gift—The Araba—The Public Walk—Fondness of the Orientals for Fine Scenery—The Oak Wood. The illness and subsequent death of the Buyuk Hanoum had long delayed the visit which I had been requested to make to the harem of the Reiss Effendi, or Minister for Foreign Affairs; and it may be remembered that this was the lady to whom I alluded in a former portion of my work, as having failed to find favour in the eyes of the Sultan on the occasion of the Princess Salihè’s marriage; and whom he had been graciously pleased to excuse from all further attendance at court, in favour of a fair Georgian, whom he had himself provided as her successor. The aged Minister had received with all proper gratitude the gift of his Imperial master; and had not failed to make the lovely slave his wife with all possible speed. And the anticipation of seeing this far-famed beauty added no little to the desire which I felt to avail myself of the very kind and flattering invitation of the family.