The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1876-12-01
A TURKISII ROMANCE.

nople might adorn ms theme WIN
many anecdotes characteristic OF
condition Of society which is
foreign TO your experience. l Sc
lect one which has the merit OF
being literally true. You who
believe that modern romance ex-
lists only in tales of fiction, listen
to a story of beauty Of Con-
stantinople, the vicissitudes OF
whose life in variety, if not in inn
portance, those of Theodoria and
Athenals. For obvious reasons /
shall mention no names.
There lives now on the banks OF
the Bosphorus an English physi-
clan, who, at the entreaty of Lord
Byron, went to Greece in 1924 as
a volunteer surgeon in the war of
independence; he arrived only in
time TO see the poet expire at
Missolonghi. In the course of
war he was taken prisoner by the
Egyptian troops, who in their
great need Ct surgeon kept him
actively employed in his profes
sion. He did not reign his free
dom until after the war, and then
only on condition that he should
reside in Constantinople as one
of the physicians Of the Moham-
med ii.
We may suppose that the Ori-
entail life was not unpleasant, nor
the position irksome to HIM, for
he soon so far yielded to the
temptations of the capital as to
fall in love with a very pretty face
which he saw daily in a bay-win-
dow on the street he traversed on
the way to the seraglio. Acquain-
tance, which sometimes precedes
love, in this case followed it; the
doctor declared his passion and
was accepted by the willing maid.
But an Oriental bay-windOw is
the opportunity of the world, and
the doctor, becoming convinced
that his afianced was a desperate
flirt, and yielding to the entrea-
ties of his friends, broke off the
engagement and left her free, in
her eyrie, to continue her obser-
vations upon mankind. This,
however, did not suit the plans Of
the lovely and tickle girl. One
morning, shortly after, he was
summoned to see two Turkish la
dies who awaited him in his office;
when he appeared, the Greek
girl (for it was she) and her mo-
ther threw aside their disguise,
and declared that they would not
leave the house until the doctor
married the daughter, for the rup-
ture of the engagement had rem
dered it impossible to procure
any other husband. Whether her
own beauty or the terrible aspect
of the mother prevailed, do not
know, but the English chaplain
was sent for; he refused to per
form the ceremony, and a Greek
priest was found who married
them.
This marriage, which took the
appearance Of duress, might have
been happy if the compelling
party to it had left her fondness
of adventure and variety at the
wedding hreshold; but her con
stancy was only assumed, like the
Turkish veil, for an occasion; low
ers were not wanting, and after
birth Of three children, two sons
and daughter, she deserted her
husband and went to live with a
young Turk, who has since held
high office in the government Of
the Sultan. 1t was in her charac-
ter of Nine. Mehemet Pasha that
she wrote Tor one of her sons
wrote for herr a book well known
in the West, entitled, Thirty
Years in Harem." But her in
triguing spirit was not extinct
even in a Turkish harem; she at
tempted to palm off upon the Pa
sha, as her own, a child that she
had bought; her device was detec-
ted by one of the palace eunichs,
and at the time her armour with
a Greek of the city came to light.
The eunich incurred her displeas-
ure for his ofticiousness, and she
had him strangled and thrown in
to the Bosphorus. Some say that
the resolute woman even assisted
with her own hands. For these
breaches of decorum, however,
she paid dear. The Pasha Danish
ed her to Kutayah, with orders to
the guard who attended her to
prison on the way, but she so won
upon the affection of the officer
that he let her escape at Broussa.
There her beauty, if not her pie
ty recommended her to one Of the
Imam of the mosques, and she
married him, and seems for time
to have led a quiet Life; at any
rate, nothing further was heard
of her until just before the ia
nous cholera season, when news
came Of the death other husband,
the Moslem priest, and that she
was living in extreme poverty, all
her beauty gone forever, and
consequently her ability to pro
cure another husband.
The Pasha, Mehemet lived in a
beautiful palace on the eastern
shore of the Bosphorus, near Kan
dill. During the great cholera