He said, “how dare you venture here; do you not know my express commands?”
The terrified girl fell at his majesty’s feet, and craved pardon.
She was so bewitching in this posture, that the sultan not only pardoned her, but invited her to meet him every day in the same place, till at last, he ordered that the apartments should be appropriated to her, and she became the Fifth Kadun, and the mother of the present sultan!
It is the idea of aspiring to such honors and stations, near even royalty itself, which induces the Circassian parents so readily to sell their daughters to Mussulmans, when nothing could induce them to barter their offspring to Christians.
No wonder that each simple peasant of the Caucasus fancies slavery in the metropolis, to be a translation from poverty to an earthly elysium, when tales, and true tales too, not the enchantments of Aladdin’s wonderful lamp, are so common in Oriental life!
Therefore, even if the traffic is formally prohibited, the Circassian parents will force their offspring into the market, not only to ameliorate their condition, but to secure favorable alliances for themselves; so that if the legal sum be not hereafter realized as purchase money, their children will still be apprenticed in some way or other.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WATERING PLACES.
There is a prevalent impression that the Turkish ladies are always imprisoned at home; but nothing is more erroneous. For, since the destruction of the janissaries, who molested every one in public, they are to be seen everywhere, and on all occasions.