ACRE. 87 
CHAP. 
V. 
his mysterious palace, inhabited by his women, ju 
or, to use the Oriental mode of expression, 
the Charem of his seraglio, is accessible only 
to himself. Early in every evening he regularly 
retired to this place, through three massive 
doors, every one of which he closed and 
barred with his own hands. To have knocked 
at the outer door after he had retired, or 
even to enter the seraglio, was an offence 
that would have been punished with death. 
No person in Acre knew the number of his 
women, but from the circumstance of a 
certain number of covers being daily placed 
in a kind of wheel or turning cylinder, so 
contrived as to convey dishes to the interior, 
without any possibility of observing the 
person who received them^ He had from 
time to time received presents of female 
slaves ; these bad been sent into his charem, 
but afterwards, whether they were alive or 
dead, no one knew except himself. They 
entered never to go out again ; and, thus 
immured, were cut off from all knowledo-e of 
(2) He possessed eighteen white women in 1784; and the luxury 
allowed them, according to Volney, was most enormous. Ihid. p. 269. 
This maybe doubted; extravagance of any kind, except in cruelty, 
being inconsistent with Djezzar's character. 
VOL. IV. G 
