You will ask then, are the Turks such Pythagoreans that every animal is considered sacred among them, and that they eat no flesh? Far from it; on the contrary they usually abstain from nothing that may be set before them, whether boiled or roast. Indeed they say that sheep were born for slaughter, but they think it atrocious that people should seek to find pleasure in their agonies and torments. As for the smaller birds, who make the country places and fields resound with their song, some of the Turks cannot be induced to kill them, or even to keep them shut up in cages, thinking it a shame to rob them of their liberty. There are different opinions, however, among them on this subject. Some at any rate keep in their houses nightingales, that sing very sweetly, and make a profit by hiring them out in the spring-time. I have seen people carrying about goldfinches so well trained, that, when a coin was shown them from a window above, they would fly to almost any distance to get it; and, if the holder did not let it be pulled away, they would perch on his hand and go with him from room to room, trying all the time to wrest the coin out of his hand; the moment they got it, they would fly back by the way they had come to their master, who was standing in the street and calling them back by ringing a bell, and would give him the coin, receiving some hemp-seed as a reward. But I must stop, or you will think that I wish to imitate Pliny or Ælian, and compose a history of animals. Passing on to other topics, I will tell you about Turkish women and the manner in which they are guarded. The Turks are the most careful people in the world of the modesty of their wives, and therefore keep them shut up at home and hide them away, so that they scarce see the light of day.[179] But if they have to go into the streets, they are sent out so covered and wrapt up in veils that they seem to those who meet them mere gliding ghosts. They have the means of seeing men through their linen or silken veils, while no part of their own body is exposed to men’s view. For it is a received opinion among them, that no woman who is distinguished in the very smallest degree by her figure or youth, can be seen by a man without his desiring her, and therefore without her receiving some contamination; and so it is the universal practice to confine the women to the harem. Their brothers are allowed to see them, but not their brothers-in-law. Men of the richer classes, or of higher rank, make it a condition when they marry, that their wives shall never set foot outside the threshold, and that no man or woman shall be admitted to see them for any reason whatever, not even their nearest relations, except their fathers and mothers, who are allowed to pay a visit to their daughters at the Turkish Easter.[180]