Year: 1876

hears, Indeed, that even the inmates ot

 the royal harem find means of clandes-

 tine Intercourse with the foreigners of

 PeraI The history of the Northern and

 Western occupation of the East has been,

 for fifteen centuries. only repetition of

 yielding to the seductive influences of

 luxurious climate and to soft and pleasing

 invitation

 But. heighten as we may the true and

 immoral picture of social life in Constan-

 tinople, donbt if it is so loose and unre-

 strained as it was for centuries under the

 Greek emperors;I doubt if the imbecility.

 the luxurious effeminacy of the Turks, has

 sunk to the level of the Byzantion empire;

 and when we are asked to expect in the

 decay of to-day a speedy dissolution. we

 remember that for period of over Q

 thousand years, from the partition of the

 Roman Empire between the two sons of

 Theodosius to the capture of Constantl-

 nople by Mohammed H., the empire sub-

 sisted in state of premature and per-

 petual decay. These Oriental dynasties

 are a long time in dying, and we cannot

 measure their decrepitude by the stand

 ards of Occidental morality.

 The trade and the commerce of the ci-

 ty are largely in the hands of foreigners:-

 but it has nearly always been SO, since the

 days of the merchants and manufacturers

 of Pisa, Genoa and Venice. We might

 draw an inference of Turkish insecurity

 from the implacable hatred of the so-call-

 Greek subjects, if the latter were not in

 the discord of thousand years of anaT- chy and servitude. The history of the is-

 lands of the Eastern Mediterranean has

 been a succession of Turkish avarice and rapacity, horrible Greek revenge and Tur- kish wholesale devastation and massacre,

 repeated over and over again; but there

 appears as yet no power able either to ex-

 pei the Turks or unite the Greeks. That

 the leaven of change is working in the Levant is evident to the most superficial

 observation, and one sees everywhere the

 introduction of Western civilization, of

 business habits, and, above all, of schools. However indifferent the Osmanlis are to education, they are not insensible to Eu- ropean opinion; and in reckoning up their

 bad qualities, we ought not to forget that they have set some portions of Chrsten- dom a lesson of religious tOleration,- both in Constantinople and Jerusalen the Christians were allowed a freedom of wor- shipin their own churches which was not permitted to Protestants within the sa. cred walls of Pontifcal Rome.

 One who would paint the manners or the morals of Constantinople might adorn his theme with many anecdotes, charac- teristic of condition of soclety which is foreign to our experience. l select one which has the merit of being literally true. You who believe that modern TO- nance exists only in tales of fiction, listen to the story of beauty of Constantino- pie, the vicissitudes of whose life equal in variety, if not in importance, those of Tn eodora and Athenais. For obvious reasons, shall mention no names.

 There lives now on the banks of the Bosphorus an Englih physician, who, at the entreaty of Lord Byron, went to Greece in 1924 as volunteer surgeon in the war of independence; He arrived only in time to see the poet expile ut Missolon- ghi. In the course of the war, he was ta- ken prisoner by the Egyptian troops. who in their great need of surgeons kept him employed in his profession. He did not regain his freedom until after the war, and then only on condition that he should reside in Constantinople, as one of the physicians of the Sultan, MOham- med 1T.

 We may suppose that the Oriental lIfewas not unpleasant, nor the position irksome to him, for he soon so far yeilded to the of the capital as to fall in love with very pretty face which he saw daily in bay-window of the street he traversed on the way to the Seraglio. whi oh 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 affianced was a desperate Airt, and yielding to the entreaties of his friends, broke of the engagement and left her free m her eyrie to continue her observations upon mankind. This, however, did not suit the plans of the lovely and fckle girl. One morning, shortly after, he was to see two Tui kish ladies who awaited him in his office; when he appear ed, the Greek girl. (for it was she) and her mother threw their disguise, and declared that they would not leave the house until the doctor married tie daugh- ter, for the rupture of the engagement had rendered it impossible to procure any other husband. Whether her own beau ty or the terrible aspect of the mother pre- vailed, I do not know, but the English chaplain was sent for: he refused to per form the ceremony, and Greek priest vas found who married them

 This marriage, which took the appear lnce of duress, might have been happy f the compelling party to it had left her ondness of adventure and variety at the wedding threshold; but her constancy vas only assumed, like the Turkish veil, 'or the occasion; lovers were not wanting. md after the birth of three children, two sons and daughter, she deserted her husband and went to live with n young Turk who has since held high office in he government of the Sultan.-It was in Ter character of Madam Mehemet Pasha hat she wrote(or one of her sons wrote Or her) a book we'll known in the West entitled ''Thirty Years ill Q Harem." But her intriguing spirit was not extinct even in Turkish harem; she attempted 0 palm off upon the Pasha, as her own, I.child that she had bought; her device vas detected by one of the palace and at the same time her amour with Greek of the city came to light. The eunuch incurred her displeasure for is officiousness, and she had him strang- ed and thrown into the Bosphorous. Some say that the resolute woman even ssisted with her own hands. For these. breaches of decorum, however, she paid lear; the Pasha banished her to Kutayah, with orders to the guard who attended Ter, to poison her on the way: but she Q won upon the affection of the officer hat he let her at Brousa. There her beauty ifHnot her piety, recommended her o an lman of one of the mosques, aud he married him, and seems for atime to lave led quiet life; at any rate, nOth- ng further was heard of her until just be- ore the famous cholera season, when ews came of the death of her husband, he Moslem priest, and that she was living n extreme poverty, all her beauty gone orever and consequently her ability to procure another husband. The Pasha. Mehemet, lived in beauti- ul palace on the eastern shore of the Bos- horus, near Kaunili. During the great holera epidemic of 1865, the Pasha was aken ill. One day there appeared at the ate an unknown woman, who sald that he had come to cure the Pasha; no one new her, but she spoke with authority,

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