DEGRADED STATE OF ARMENIAN MOTHERS. 425 
vices of drunkenness and gluttony ; even their women partak¬ 
ing these habits to the most disgusting excess. But a worse 
trait is yet to be mentioned. In place of the delicate sense of 
female purity, which made the chaste matrons of Julpha expire 
on the bosoms of their virgin daughters, before they could see 
them borne to the arms of expecting princes, their Afghan 
conquerors ; the sordid mothers, whom we now meet in the 
Armenian suburbs of the cities in Persia, nourish their female 
children to violation ; and sell them, at the tender ages of twelve 
or thirteen, to the embraces of any man who will pay the price. 
With this view, they watch the arrival of every European ; and 
having made the necessary enquiries respecting the length of his 
purse, and probable sojourn in the country, few days elapse 
before his private ear is sought by successions of mothers, so¬ 
liciting his approbation of one of their daughters. Should he be 
inclined to comply with the too common fashion in the East, 
and select a girl, the bargain is made by her parents. They 
first demand the price of her pretended services to them ; then 
settle what her protector is to allow her for clothing, &c. while 
she lives with him ; and what sum he is to leave with her, when 
he quits the country, to purchase her a respectable husband 
amongst her own people, should she be inclined to take one. 
The children which spring from these temporary unions, are 
numerous throughout the country, and in a lamentable state. 
The father seldom has it in his power to transplant more than one 
or two of them to Europe; where, if denied the advantages of le¬ 
gitimacy, they would be brought up to virtue and respectability 
at least. But, too frequently, the men who give them being, have 
neither the means, nor the inclination, to remove the fruit of a 
connection, they regard as an affair of mere passant le terns , 
3 1 
VOL. I. 
