several steep and narrow streets, perfectly impassable for carriages, entered the spacious court of the house at which we were expected, and ascended a wide flight of stairs leading to the harem, or women’s apartments. The stairs terminated in a large landing-place, of about thirty feet square, into which several rooms opened on each side, screened with curtains of dark cloth embroidered with coloured worsted. An immense mirror filled up a space between two of the doors, and a long passage led from this point to the principal apartment of the harem, to which we were conducted by a black slave.
When I say “we,” I of course allude to Mrs. ---- and myself, as no men, save those of the family and the physician, are ever admitted within the walls of a Turkish harem.
The apartment into which we were ushered was large and warm, richly carpeted, and surrounded on three sides by a sofa, raised about a foot from the ground, and covered with crimson shag; while the cushions, that rested against the wall or were scattered at intervals along the couch, were gaily embroidered with gold thread and coloured silks. In one angle of the sofa stood the tandour: a piece of furniture so unlike any thing in Europe, that I cannot forbear giving a description of it.
The tandour is a wooden frame, covered with a couple of wadded coverlets, for such they literally are, that are in their turn overlaid by a third and considerably smaller one of rich silk: within the frame, which is of the height and dimensions of a moderately sized breakfast table, stands a copper vessel, filled with the embers of charcoal; and, on the two sides that do not touch against the sofa, piles of cushions are heaped upon the floor to nearly the same height, for the convenience of those whose rank in the family does not authorize them to take places on the couch.
The double windows, which were all at the upper end of the apartment, were closely latticed; and, at the lower extremity of the room, in an arched recess, stood a classically-shaped clay jar full of water, and a covered goblet in a glass saucer. Along a silken cord, on either side of this niche, were hung a number of napkins, richly worked and fringed with gold; and a large copy of the Koran was deposited beneath a handkerchief of gold gauze, on a carved rosewood bracket.
In the middle of the floor was placed the mangal, a large copper vessel of about a foot in height, resting upon a stand of the same material raised on castors, and filled, like that within the tandour, with charcoal.
The family consisted of the father and mother, the son and the son’s wife, the daughter and her husband, and a younger and adopted son. The ladies were lying upon cushions, buried up to their necks under the coverings of the tandour; and, as they flung them off to receive us, I was struck with the beauty of the daughter, whose deep blue eyes, and hair of a golden brown, were totally different from what I had expected to find in a Turkish harem. Two glances sufficed to satisfy me that the mother was a shrew, and I had no reason subsequently to revoke my judgment. The son’s wife had fine, large, brilliant, black eyes, but her other features were by no means pleasing, although she possessed, in common with all her countrywomen, that soft, white, velvety skin, for which they are indebted to the constant use of the bath. To this luxury, in which many of them daily indulge, must be, however, attributed the fact that their hair, in becoming bright and glossy, loses its strength, and compels them to the adoption of artificial tresses; and these they wear in profusion, wound amid the folds of the embroidered handkerchiefs that they twine about their heads in a most unbecoming manner, and secure by bodkins of diamonds or emeralds, of which ornaments they are inordinately fond.
They all wore chemisettes or under garments of silk gauze, trimmed with fringes of narrow ribbon, and wide trowsers of printed cotton falling to the ancle: their feet were bare, save that occasionally they thrust them into little yellow slippers, that scarcely covered their toes, and in which they moved over the floor with the greatest ease, dragging after them their anterys, or sweeping robes; but more frequently they dispensed with even these, and walked barefoot about the harem. Their upper dresses were of printed cotton of the brightest colours—that of the daughter had a blue ground, with a yellow pattern, and was trimmed with a fringe of pink and green. These robes, which are made in one piece, are divided at the hip on either side to their extreme length, and are girt about the waist with a cachemire shawl. The costume is completed in winter by a tight vest lined with fur, which is generally of light green or pink.
Their habits are, generally speaking, most luxurious and indolent, if I except their custom of early rising, which, did they occupy themselves in any useful manner, would be undoubtedly very commendable; but, as they only add, by these means, two or three hours of ennui to each day, I am at a loss how to classify it. Their time is spent in dressing themselves, and varying the position of their ornaments—in the bath—and in sleep, which they appear to have as entirely at their back as a draught of water; in winter, they have but to nestle under the coverings of the tandour, or in summer to bury themselves among their cushions, and in five minutes they are in the land of dreams. Indeed, so extraordinarily are they gifted in this respect, that they not unfrequently engage their guests to take a nap, with the same sang-froid with which a European lady would invite her friends to take a walk. Habits of industry have, however, made their way, in many instances, even into the harem; the changes without have influenced the pursuits and feelings of the women; and utter idleness has already ceased to be a necessary attribute to the high-bred Turkish female.
As it was the time of the Ramazan, neither coffee nor sweetmeats were handed to us, though the offer of refreshments was made, which we, however, declined, being resolved to keep Lent with them according to their own fashion. We fasted, therefore, until about half past six o’clock, when the cry of the muezzin from the minarets proclaimed that one of the outwatchers, of whom many are employed for the purpose, had caught a glimpse of the moon. Instantly all were in motion; their preliminary arrangements had been so zealously and carefully made that not another second was lost; and, as a slave announced dinner, we all followed her to a smaller apartment, where the table, if such I may call it, was already laid.
The room was a perfect square, totally unfurnished, save that in the centre of the floor was spread a carpet, on which stood a wooden frame, about two feet in height, supporting an immense round plated tray, with the edge slightly raised. In the centre of the tray was placed a capacious white basin, filled with a kind of cold bread soup; and around it were ranged a circle of small porcelain saucers, filled with sliced cheese, anchovies, caviare, and sweetmeats of every description: among these were scattered spoons of box-wood, and goblets of pink and white sherbet, whose rose-scented contents perfumed the apartment. The outer range of the tray was covered with fragments of unleavened bread, torn asunder; and portions of the Ramazan cake, a dry, close, sickly kind of paste, glazed with the whites of eggs, and strewed over with aniseeds.
Our party was a numerous one—the aged nurse, who had reared the children of the family—the orphan boy of a dead son, who, with his wife, had perished by plague during the previous twelve months—several neighbours who had chosen the hour of dinner to make their visits—a very pretty friend from Scutari—and a very plain acquaintance from the house of death—the widow of a day—whose husband had expired the previous morning, been buried the same evening, and, as it appeared, forgotten on the morrow; for the “disconsolate widow” had come forth in a pink vest, and sky blue trowsers, with rings on her fingers, and jewels in her turban, to seek the advice and assistance of the master of the house, in securing some valuable shawls, and sundry diamonds and baubles which she had possessed before her marriage, from the grasp of the deceased’s relatives.
As soon as the serious business of the repast really commenced, that is, when we had each possessed ourselves of a cushion, and squatted down with our feet under us round the dinner tray, having on our laps linen napkins of about two yards in length richly fringed; the room was literally filled with slaves, “black, white, and gray,” from nine years old to fifty.
Fish, embedded in rice, followed the side or rather circle saucers that I have already described; and of most of which I sparingly partook, as the only answer that I was capable of giving to the unceasing “Eat, eat, you are welcome,” of the
