Chap.XVII. Grand Seignor' s Seraglio. 85 



CHAP. XVII. 

 Of the Womens Appartment. 



The Principal Heads. 



The impofiibility of haying a full knowledge of the Womens appart- 

 ment, in the Seraglio. The Commerce between the Jewefles and 

 the Sultanefles. The doleful Story of T 'wo Famous Wrefllers. 

 The great Severity of the Sultan-Amm&th. How to distinguijh 

 between lehat is true, and Tfrhat fabulous, in reference to the Sul- 

 tanefles. A fl range Story of an old Woman. Polygamy pre- 

 judicial to the propagation of Children. Tl?e great Secrecy of the 

 Grand Seignor s Amours. 



Make a Chapter by it felf of the Appartment oC the Women, only to entertain rht impgjbili- 

 the Reader, with the impoffibility there is, of having a perfect knowledg of it, ty of having an 

 or. getting any cxadf account, either what the accommodations of it are ■■> or how '**# account 

 thePerfons, who are conhnM therein, behave themfelves. There is -not in all J ^JJl" 

 Chriftendome any Monaftery of Religious Virgins, how regular and auftere fo- 

 ever it may be, the entrance whereof is more ftri&ly forbidden to men, than is that of 

 this Appartment of the Women : iniomuch that my white Eunuch, who has fupply'd 

 me with fo particular a defcription of the inner part of the Seraglio, could give me no 

 certain information of this Quarter of it, where the Women are lodg'd. All I could 

 get out of him, was, That the Qpors of it are kept by Negro-Eunuchs, and that, beiides 

 the Grand Seignor himfelf, and fomuin.es, the Phylician, in cafe of great ncccllity, 

 there never enters any man into it, no nor. Woman, btiides thofe who live in it, and 

 they are never permitted to go out of it, unlets it be-in. order to their confinement in 

 the Old Seraglio. But we mult except, out of that number, the Sultaneffes, and their 

 Maids, or Ladies of Honour, whom the Grand Seignor allows, when he pleaies, to 

 come into the Gardens of the Seraglio, and whom he fometimes takes abroad with 

 him, into the Country ••> yet fo as that they cannot be fecn by any perfon whatfoevcr. 

 Four Negto-Emiufo carry a kind of Pavilion, under which is the Sultanefs, and the 

 Horfe upon which Irie is mounted, all fave only the head of the horfe, which is C^nn 

 on the out-iidc of the Pavilfon, the two fore-pieces of which, taking him abuut the 

 Neck, are clofe faiten'd, above, and below. 



And as to the Phylician, he is never admitted, as I faid, but in cafe of extream ne- 

 ceflity, into the Appartment of the Women, and with fuch precautions, that he can 

 neither fee, the perfon who is indifpos'd, nor be fcen by her, but to feel her Pulfe 

 through a piece of Lawn, all the other Women having retir'd from her Bed-fide, and 

 the Nigro-Eiomcbs having taken their places. Thus you fee what precautions they uie, 

 to deprive the Women, of the Seraglio, of all means of having any accefs to Men,or in- 

 deed fo much as a light of them : And if it happen that (ome Jcwefs has entrance into 

 their Quarter, to Trade with them, and to fell them fome little Rarities, they are 

 ftri&ly fearch'd by the Negro-Eunuchs, left there (fiould happen to thruit in fome Man % 

 difguis'd in Woman's Cloaths, in which cafe immediate death .would enfue. And 

 when the Curiolity of fome Cbrifiian Ladies has inclin'd them to fee the Sultaneffes, 

 they feldome efcap'd without the receiving of fome affront v and I could produce fome 

 examples of it, did I think it convenient. 



(L2) It 



