l6o TRAVELS IN UPPER 



the well-merited recompense of their own con- 

 temptuous behaviour, of their rigour, and of their 

 criminal and disgusting caprices ! Let them open, 

 if they can, their heart to a delicate love, their soul 

 to the sanctity of friendship, to the confidence 

 which it commands, to the kind attentions which 

 it keeps alive, and they will see whether that sex, 

 which they calumniate, because they know it only 

 by the horrible and ponderous chains of iron with 

 which they load it, knows how to correspond to 

 sentiments of honour, and whether it is not itself 

 the precious sanctuary of afFections the most ten- 

 der, and of the constancy which perpetuates them t 

 in that sacred abode *. 



* It will be asked, perhaps, how it was possible for me to 

 procure information of what passes in the interior of Harems y 

 seeing access to them is so severely guarded : the means which 

 I employed are simple ; but I must be permitted to refrain from 

 disclosing them : it is sufficient to be assured of the truth and 

 exactness of the details ; and on this the reader may fully de- 

 pend. 



