“Did he indeed demand your daughter for his wife?” asked the Seraskier, as he removed the chibouk from his lips, and glanced towards the Priest. He was answered doggedly in the affirmative. “Take heed, then, Emir”—pursued the Pasha, “This looks like disaffection to his Highness: (May his end be glorious!) See that the girl become the wife of this young man ere many days roll over your head, or the holy turban that you wear shall not protect you. What? is it for you, and such as you, to sow divisions among the subjects of the most gracious Sultan? Look to this ere it be too late.” And as the baffled Emir turned away, the Seraskier bade one of his officers take steps to secure to the victorious suitor the rank of Captain; and to pay to him five thousand piastres from his (the Pasha’s) own purse, as a marriage present. The step was a bold one, for it was the first instance in which an Emir’s daughter had ever been permitted to become the wife of a soldier. A thousand long-existing prejudices had hitherto rendered such an alliance impossible; and it was a great stroke of policy to break down the strong barrier of habit and fanaticism, and to create a bond of union between two jarring and jealous portions of the population. CHAPTER XX. Turkish Madhouses—Surveillance of Sultan Mahmoud—Self-Elected Saints—Lunatic Establishment of Solimaniè—The Mad Father—The Apostate—The Sultan’s Juggler—The Slave Market—Charshee. No traveller who can string his nerves to the trial; or rather who will not suffer himself to be scared by the idea of a Turkish madhouse, should fail while at Constantinople, to visit the Timerhazè, or Lunatic Establishment, dependent on the mosque of Solimaniè. He will encounter nothing to disgust, and comparatively little to distress him; for all is cleanly, quiet, and almost cheerful. For myself, morbidly sensitive on such occasions, I shrank from the task which I was nevertheless resolved to achieve, until the eleventh hour; and my only feeling when I looked around me “Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, Nor words a language, nor even men mankind,” in the Madhouse of Solimaniè, was one of intense relief, on finding that my own diseased fancy had so far outrun the reality.