As the Buyuk Hanoum had been particular in her injunctions that every attention should be paid to me; all the musical clocks and watches throughout the Palace (and they were not few,) were put into requisition, and the orchestra, completed by a very harsh barrel-organ, awoke into discord by the fair hands of Devlehäi Hanoum. This confusion of sweet sounds is one of the highest courtesies which can be exhibited in the Harem: and it was quite laughable to stroll through the long galleries, and to escape from the Sultan’s March on the left hand, to find yourself in the midst of the Barcarole in Massaniello on the right; and, leaving both behind you, to catch a fine cadence of _Di Piacer_, as you were beginning to imagine that all was over. Having at length reached a spacious saloon, whose cool-looking white sofas occupied recesses in each of which a window afforded the hope of a little air, I not only threw up the sash but the jalousies also, to the great terror of a couple of slaves who were looking on. Seeing their alarm, I explained to them that they were not compelled to approach the forbidden opening, but they still continued in such a state of anxiety that I begged them to explain what troubled them: whereupon the elder of the two, a plain, clumsy-looking woman of five or six and thirty, and as unattractive a person as can well be imagined, told me that, as the Buyuk Hanoum loved me so much, she could not bear to see me commit so heinous a sin. I requested to know in what my transgression consisted, when she exclaimed with great energy:—“Suppose a Turk passing under the window should look up, and love you, would you become a Musselmaun, and marry him?” “Certainly not.” “Imagine then the sin for which you will be accountable, if you continue seated in front of that open casement. Some unhappy True Believer will look upon you—he will desire to have you for his wife—and when you continue deaf to his passion, he will grow sick, keep his bed, and probably die; and how will you be able to appear in Paradise with such a sin upon your soul?” I have related this little anecdote, because it proves two distinct facts; first, that the Turkish women thoroughly believe that a happy immortality awaits them, if they do not forfeit it by their own misdeeds; and that they are moreover tolerant enough to consider it sure that even the Giaours, who have no share in the mysteries of Mahomet, have nevertheless the same hope.