4j 
SERA 
pable cf separation.—Hartshorn, and d ivers other bodies be¬ 
longing to the animal kingdom, abound with a not uneasily 
sequestrable salt. Boyle. 
To SEQUE'STRAfE, v. n. To sequester; to separate. 
.—In general contagions more perish for want of necessaries 
than by the malignity of the disease, they being seques¬ 
trated from mankind. Arbuthnot. 
SEQUESTRATION, s. [sequestration, Fr.] Separa¬ 
tion; retirement. 
His addiction was to courses vain, 
I never noted him in any study. 
Any retirement, any sequestration 
From open haunts and popularity. Shafcspeare. 
There must be leisure, retirement, solitude, and a seques¬ 
tration of a man’s self from the noise of the world; for truth 
scorns to be seen by eyes much fixt upon inferior objects. 
South. —Disunion; disjunction.—The metals remain un¬ 
severed, the fire only dividing the body into smaller particles, 
hindering rest and continuity, without any sequestration of 
elementary principles. Boyle. —State of being set aside. 
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign, 
Before whose glory I was great in arms. 
This loathsome sequestration have I had. Shakspeare. 
Deprivation of the use and profits of a possession.—If 
there be a single spot in the glebe more barren, the rector or 
vicar may be obliged, by the caprice or pique of the bishop, 
to build upon it, under pain of sequestration. Swift. 
SE'QUESTRATOR, s. One who takes from a man the 
profit of his possessions.—I am fallen into the hands of pub¬ 
licans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me. 
Bp. Taylor. —By their sequestrators, men for the most part 
of insatiable hands and noted disloyalty, those orders were 
commonly disobeyed. Milton. —We have complained of 
armies, committees, sequestrators, triers, and decimators. 
South. 
SEQUESTRO HABF.NDO, a writ judicial for the dis¬ 
charging a sequestration of the profits of a church benefice, 
granted by the bishop at the king’s commandment, in order 
to compel the parson to appear at the suit of another. The 
parson, upon his appearance, may have this writ for (he 
release of the sequestration. 
SEQUIN, Zecain, or Zecchino, a gold coin struck at 
Venice, Genoa, Rome, Milan, Piedmont and Tuscany, 
and in several parts of the grand signior’s states. 
SEQUIN, a village ofCaramania, in Asiatic Turkey ; 105 
miles south of Konieh. 
SERA, a town of the south of India, province of Mysore, 
and capital of a district of the same name. Little rain is 
said to fall in this district, on which account the cultivation 
is inferior to that of other places. This town was taken by 
the Mahometans in 1664, and became afterwards the resi¬ 
dence of a military collector belonging to the Nizam; but it 
frequently changed masters. It was taken by Hyder Aly in 
1761 ; subsequently to that period by the Mahrattas; and 
afterwards in 1773 by Hyder again. By the war of 1799 it 
came into possession of the British, and was made over to 
the rajah of Mysore, as part of his territory. Lat. 13. 37. N. 
long. 76. 55. E. 
SERAB, a village of Aderbijan, in Persia ; 15 miles east 
of Tabreez. 
SERACH, in the Turkish Military Orders, an officer who 
holds the stirrup of the caia of the janizaries in charge, at¬ 
tends him when he goes out on horseback, and serves him 
as a messenger on all occasions. After this office he has the 
title of chons; and after he has passed through this, he has 
the same office under the aga of the janizaries. Pococlcc's 
Egypt. 
SERACORRO, a town of Bambarra, in Central Africa ; 
80 miles west-north-west of Sego. 
SERAES,.or Serkas, a town of Korassan, in Persia; 180 
miles north north-west of Herat. 
SERA'GLIO, s. [Iialian, is derived from the Persian 
serai, a large hall or house: the French serrail, was for- 
Vol. XX11I. No. 1553. 
G L I O. 
merly our word, and not the Italian serraglio. “ I could 
adde much more concerning the enormities of Rome, and 
your serral." Sheldon, Mir. of Antichr. 1616. “In that 
stately serail he discerned a prince.” Situation of Parad, 
1683. Cotgrave renders serrail, “ the palace wherein the 
Great Turke mueth up his concubines.”] A house of 
women kept in the East for debauchery.—There is a great 
deal more solid content to be found in a constant course of 
well living, than in the voluptuousness of a seraglio. 
Norris. 
SERAGLIO, formed of the Turkish word serai, which 
is borrowed from the Persian seraw, signifying a house, 
among the Levantines denotes the palace of a prince or 
lord. 
At Constantinople they say, the seraglio of the ambassador 
of England, of France, &c. 
The seraglio is used, by way of eminence, for the palace 
of the grand seignior at Constantinople, where he keeps his 
court, and where his concubines are lodged, and where the 
youth are trained up for the chief posts of the empire. 
It is a triangle about three Italian miles round, wholly 
within the city, at the end of the promontory Chrysoceras, 
now called the Seraglio Point. The buildings run back to 
the top of the hill, and from thence are gardens that reach 
to the edge of the sea. It is inclosed with a very high and 
strong wall, upon which there are several watch towers: and 
it has many gates, some of which open towards the sea-side, 
and the rest into the city: but the chief gate is one of the 
latter, which is constantly guarded by a company of ca- 
poochees, or porters; and in the night it is well guarded 
towards the sea. 
The outward appearance, du Loir tells us, is not beauti¬ 
ful, in regard the architecture is irregular, being cantoned 
out into separate edifices and apartments, in manner of 
pavilions and domes. 
The old seraglio is the place where the emperor’s old 
mistresses, who have died or who have been deposed, and 
the sultanas that have belonged to the deceased grand 
seigniors, are kept. 
They are here fed and maintained with some luxury, and 
served with much attention, but they can no longer go out 
of this place of retirement. 
The harem is that quarter of the seraglio in which the 
females are kept. This is soon replenished, because traders 
come from all jrarts to offer young slaves, and the pachas 
and great men are eager to present beauties capable of fixing 
the attention of the sovereign ; thus hoping to obtain in¬ 
stantly his good graces, and place about his person the wo- 
men who at some future time may be useful to them. 
It is very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to learn ex¬ 
actly the manner in which the female slaves are treated in 
the harem of the grand seignior: never has the eye of the 
observer penetrated into this abode of hatred, jealousy and 
pride; into this abode where pleasure and love have so seldom 
resided. But, according to the account of the women, 
whose profession calls them thither, the reader may repre¬ 
sent to himself three or four hundred black eunuchs, mali¬ 
cious, peevish, tormented by their impotence, cursing their 
nullity, endeavouring to counteract the female slavesintrusted 
to their charge; then a considerable number of young wo¬ 
men, whose hearts would willingly expand, whose senses 
are moved at the idea of the pleasures which they wish in 
vain to know, jealous of the happiness which they are per¬ 
suaded that their rivals enjoy, cursing the overseers who 
perplex them, solely taken up with their toilet, with their 
dress and with all the nonsense which idleness and ignorance 
can suggest to them; seeking, rather from vanity than from 
love, every means of pleasing a master, too frequently dis¬ 
dainful. We may represent to ourselves, in short, a sultan, 
young or old, mastered by ridiculous prejudices, without 
delicacy, often whimsical or capricious, alone in the midst 
of five or six hundred women, all equally beautiful, in whom 
he gives birth to desires which he is unable to gratify, who 
enjoys with them no pleasures but such as are too easy and 
without prelude, in which the heart has no share, and we 
M shall 
