AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 251 



slaves look forward with pleasure to being pur- 

 chased ; in the hands of a good master they 

 are happy, and I really believe as thoroughly 

 so as, in their exclusively animal condition, it 

 is possible for them to be. Slavery has for 

 them no material horrors, because the Turks 

 are proverbially kind, considerate, and humane 

 to their slaves ; and, however I may find fault 

 with the ferocity and innate cruelty and bru- 

 tality of the Turkish character generally, I 

 must do the Moslems the justice to allow, 

 that they treat their slaves as if they were of 

 their own family. 



Neither are the slaves themselves conscious of 

 any feeling of humiliation at the state of debase- 

 ment and degradation in which slavery places 

 them. I saw in those exposed for sale no languid 

 eye, no countenance of misery, no indication of 

 any approach to mental suffering. They seemed 

 all very merry, and grinned like so many mon- 

 keys, favouring myself and my companion, as we 

 passed, with some observations evidently not very 

 compHmentary to us. I think when I walked 

 round the bazaar, there must have been about 

 three hundred slaves for sale, of all ages and sexes. 



