CAPITAL OF THE CRIMEA. 
183 
women, bears, as it is well known, the name of p - 
Charem'. One feels a natural inclination to see ' — v — — 1 
the inside of places secluded from observation 
by the Moslems with such rigid caution. There 
is nothing, however, to gratify the curiosity 
which is excited by so much mystery. The 
Charem of the Khan has been preserved in its 
original state, without the slightest alteration. 
Potemkin passed his nights there, during the 
visit of the Empress, and was much amused with 
the idea of sleeping in a Charem. It consists P cscri > 
of a set of very indifferent apartments, of a square charem. 
form, opening one into another, having neither 
magnificence nor convenience. These apart- 
ments are detached from the palace, and they 
are surrounded by a garden with high walls. 
Owing to the lattices which cover the windows, 
and to the trees planted before them, the 
wretched prisoners once doomed to reside 
within them could hardly have obtained a view 
even of the sky, the only object granted to their 
contemplation. Destitute of literary resource, 
the women there immured passed their time, as 
ladies informed me who were in the habit of 
visiting them, in embroidery, and in drinking 
very bad coffee, sometimes with sorbet, and a 
poor sort of lemonade. In the Turkish charems 
(0 Pronounced Harem, with a guttural aspirate, as in the Greek X. 
