Recently the piano has also become very fashionable among them, and it is to be heard incessantly jingling in all the harems. The sultan being himself an amateur, frequently plays on that instrument, and has also an Italian Opera attached to his palace for the entertainment of his ladies, where many of the female slaves are trained to sing and act à la Italienne, in the costumes of both sexes.
The ladies of the palace are also amused with other exhibitions, which they witness through latticed partitions.
From the preceding sketch, it will be readily understood, that all the ladies in the royal palace, are in reality slaves from the regions of Circassia, but they are always well treated, and even addressed by the title of Hanums, or ladies; and we may say their greatest hardship is being lightly clothed all seasons of the year; their feet without stockings, and their dresses made of the lightest fabrics, from which fact many of them fall easy victims to consumption.
These ladies are not allowed to go abroad as freely as Turkish hanums in general, on account of the restrictions of court etiquette; this confinement is also very injurious to their health, and their ennui is often insupportable. Sometimes, after a due warning to all the gardeners and other gentlemen to quit the premises, they are allowed to stroll in the palace gardens, and occasionally the Validé Sultan takes pity on some of them, and permits them to enjoy a promenade in her own train, when the exuberance of their spirits often tempts them to the most childish acts of coquetry. Indeed, so great is their longing to encounter the lords of creation, that a feigned sickness affords an occasion of seeing a doctor, and their favorite remedy for all ailments is bleeding, or the bleeder!
These beautiful girls having no other ambition than to be as fascinating as possible, and such aspirations sometimes seem to be felt in more enlightened bosoms, they do not like to waste their sweetness on the desert air; as they are consequently a little mischievous, the practice of locking up each one in her own apartments has been deemed advisable. When the muezzin proclaims the hour of evening prayer, the disconsolate ladies are severally consigned to a state of security by the sable turnkeys of the palace.
This is not, however, so dismal a fate, when we remember that a short time ago, all the inhabitants of Stamboul were obliged to be within their own domiciles, about two hours after sunset; and awhile since, there was the curfew bell even in good old England.
CHAPTER XXX.
CIRCASSIAN SLAVES.
Although the slave trade has been nominally abolished in Turkey, and the public mart formally closed to this traffic, yet the practice of buying and selling has not been, nor will it ever be altogether abandoned, because the slave constitutes an essential element in the composition of their domestic institutions.