The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1898-08-28
HAREM COSTUMES.
A Writer Tells About the SuItan's
Many Wives.


When / was in Constantinople a few
months ago, I found an odd state of af-
fairs existing in regard TO the dress of
Turkish women. notably in regard to the
covering of their faces. l am referring
now to to Turkish women of the better
class, those who belong TO the more i'm
portant harems, and are able to clOthe
themselves in the richest stuffs. From
time immemorial 1t has been the custom
of the land. than which no law is strong
er, for such women TO appear upon the
streets or in their caiques on the Bos-
phorus. or in the queer bullock wagons
that take them for Friday afternoon pic
hics on the hills of Scutari, wearing the
feradji and the yasmak, the former sort
of cape with sleeves under it, the latter
an arrangement of gauze yelling that COW
ers everything of the face except the
eyes.
Thus clad, the ladies went about freely
in the streets of Stamboul driving sharp
bargains at the bazaars with men OF their
own race or crossing the Galata bridge,
made their way 10 Pera, the European
quarter, and went shopping on the Eu-
,opean plan at the Bon Marche. Some
times they went on foot, sometimes in
carriages, and were nearly always ac-
companied by a discreet female slave, for
already the old days of jealous guardian
ship by ferocious eunuchs with scimitars
were in the past.
1t is TO be presumed that this greater
freedom accorded to Turkish ladies'
came to them as a sweet privilege ana
stirred in their breasts that desire for
admiration which is strong in all daugh-
tors of Eve Now that European inftu-
ences had permitted them to step from
behind the heavy walls and latticed win
dows that used to guard them, why
should they not get that thrill OF pleas
ure which comes from the homage OF
men, even strangers? Why should they
not. those of them who are fair. let the
world see, as they passed by, not only
the dangerous glow of their dark eyes,
but the red of their lips and the smooth
ness of their brows, and their Jerfect
teeth? Plainly there was only the yas-
max with its white folds TO prevent such
a revela ton and this obstacle might be
done away with by making the gauZe
thin enough, so thin TO be- almost
transparent And the new fashion spread
from one harem to another until it came
to pass, few years ago, that the real
beauties of Constantinope We're offering
their faces to the practically unobstruc
ed gaze of whoever cared TO look, the
only women who chung to the thicker
yasmak of old being those who had no
beauty to reveal
And ali went merrily in the Turkish
capital with many smiles through the
iimsy folds and many looks that seemed
to say, TO some dashing Turkish officer
or elegant European: Il am glad you
think me beautiful" but one day the
Sultan, strolling about in his rose gar
den, passed near some Turkish women
who had come to visit the ladies of his
Palace. And one Of the visitors who
was exceedingly fair and knew 1t, in
stead of Withdrawing modestly and cast
ing down her eyes as usage commanded
stood before Abdul Hamid unblushingly
uncovered, or at least yelled with so fine
gauze that it might as well have been
nothing. And the Sultan, ON investigat-
ing the matter and learning how the new
fashion was threatening Turkish notions
of modesty, issued a proclamation that
the ladies of Constantinople, when they
went abroad, should wear the yasmak
no longer, but another garment, called
charchaff, a great shawl enveloping
the body from head to foot with a piece
at the front falling down over the face
like mask.
AS the charchaff is made of satin or
silk. there was no longer any possibility
of the ladies gratifying their vanity; in
deed when you see a Turkish woman
thus attired you see nothing at all, no
more than it a black bag was moving by
with a rather ungraceful swaying or wad-
ding Sometimes the black bag carries
in it's arms baby or parasoi.
On several occasions / amused myself
by swapping pictures of these women
wearing the charchAff. and one Of them
is herewith reproduced; it shows num-
Der of Turkish ladies of the better class
d,sembarking from a Bosphorus ferry
boat: each one looks exactly like the
other, and each one is IA wen disguised
as If she were at a masquerade ball.
And ii was exactly here that the Sultan
overreached himself True, he made the
ladies put away the alluring yamask and
hide their faces, but he could not make
them Indeed, what sovereign couldO
abandon the ways of coquetry. The les
sons from the West had been taken all
too well to heart and the fascination of
conjugating the verb ito flirt'' had be-
come too generally understood. So. with