The language of the nation itself bears testimony against 

 them ; as there is no nobility among the Turks, all who 

 rise to eminence are distinguished by epithets derived from 

 some personal qualification, and these are almost always 

 of a ferocious character. The mother calls her son my 

 lion and my tiger; the Sultan is called the Manslayer and 

 the Master of Blood ; the Pasha of Acre rejoiced in the 

 title of The Butcher ; Abdil Pasha, an Aga of the Janizaries, 

 renowned during the late Russian wars for the number of 

 his executions, was styled the Gravedigger ; and another 

 officer, whose duty it was to decapitate the pashas, earned 

 the sounding- name of the Aga of the Dark Doings. 



The Turks, nevertheless, have been extolled for their 

 charity, and especially for their kindness towards the brute 

 creation. Their forbearance towards the lower animals 

 seems to be the effect of superstition, or perhaps a mode 

 of compounding for their harshness towards the human 

 species. In reality, despotism always chooses its associates 

 among the weak, and ignorance can only converse with 

 brutes. The Turk, besides, has no enjoyment but in his 

 reveries, and there is something unreal and fantastic in 

 the companionship of dumb creatures. Birds are the 

 amusement of hypochondriacs and of opium-eaters. Magni, 

 an acute observer, notes this circumstance, " Mblti fra 

 essi, come serii e malinconici, s'affezionano a certe sodis- 

 fazioni che bene spesso passano all' eccesso, e ne ho osser- 

 vato ne' giorni addietro varii che vivono curiosi e dilettanti 

 di uccelli." When De Tott waited on Ismael Bey to 

 concert with him the fortifications of the Bosphorus, he 

 found that minister intent on procuring two canary-birds 

 which sang the same song ; and Ismael Bey, according to 

 Peyssonel, was an inveterate opium-eater. 



Of the inmates of the harem we know but little from 

 observation. The debasing tendency of polygamy no 

 one can deny ; nor is it much redeemed because the Turks, 

 as their apologists will tell us, rarely avail themselves of 

 the permission to marry four wives. The obligations of 

 matrimony are incommodious to the Turk, and a harem 

 filled with slaves is more congenial to his feelings; but 

 society in the meantime is in a savage state so far as moral 



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