Tοιῇδ᾽ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν·
Aἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν. [TN]
When, to cut the matter short, he tells us at once that she resembled the immortal goddesses in beauty; and our traveller, with equal felicity, observes, that they were as finely proportioned as any goddess, and that most of their skins were “shiningly white, only adorned with their beautiful hair divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or riband, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces.” She was here thoroughly convinced, she observes, of the correctness of an old theory of hers, “that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed”—for, continues she, “I perceived that the ladies of the most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions.” The whole scene was highly picturesque. Some of the ladies were engaged in conversation, some were working, some drinking coffee or sherbet, and others, more languid and indolent, were reclining negligently on their cushions, “while their slaves, generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen, were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies.”
This spectacle our traveller quitted for the purpose of examining the ruins of Justinian’s church; but after the bath these appeared so remarkably insipid, that, pronouncing them to be a heap of stones, which may be predicated of most ruins, she returned to her apartments, and prepared with regret to accompany her husband over the Balkan into Roumelia. The road throughout a great proportion of this route lay through woods so completely infested by banditti, that no persons but such as could command the attendance of a numerous escort dared venture themselves among them; and, in fact, the janizaries who accompanied ambassadors and all public functionaries exercised towards the peasantry a degree of oppression so intolerable, that, had the whole population resorted to the profession of robbery for a livelihood, it would have by no means been a matter of wonder. On the ambassador’s arrival at a village, his attendant janizaries seized upon all the sheep and poultry within their reach—“lambs just fallen, and geese and turkeys big with egg”—and massacred them all without distinction, while the wretched owners stood aloof, not daring to complain for fear of being beaten. When the pashas travelled through those districts where perhaps the meat and poultry were lean and tough, as in all probability the peasantry treated them, as often as possible, to the grandsires of their flocks and barn doors, the great men, in addition to the provision they devoured, exacted what was expressly denominated “teeth-money,” as a small compensation for their having worn out their teeth in the service of the public. But though Mr. Wortley and Lady Mary seem to have been ambitious of imitating these three-tailed personages in many respects, they would appear throughout their journey to have eaten the poor people’s fowls and mutton gratis.
On arriving at Adrianople, where the sultan was at that time residing with his court, Lady Mary suddenly found herself in a new world, but extremely suited to her taste. Her principal companion was the French ambassadress, an agreeable woman, but extravagantly fond of parade, with whom she went about seeing such sights as the place afforded, which, every object in the city, except her husband, being new, were sufficiently numerous. The sultan, whom she saw for the first time going in solemn procession to the mosque, was a fine, handsome man of about forty, with full black eyes, and an expression of severity in his countenance. This prince, Achmet III., has been said, upon I know not what authority, to have afterward become enamoured of our fair traveller. The report, in all probability, was unfounded; but the reasons which have induced a contemporary biographer[[3]] to come to this conclusion are particularly various: independently of Turkish prejudices, which, according to his notion of things, would prevent an emperor from conceiving any such idea, it was not at all probable, he imagines, that a person possessing a Fatima with such “celestial charms” (as Lady Mary describes), and so many other angelic creatures, should have thought for a moment of an “English lady.” What prejudices the sagacious author alludes to, it is difficult to discover; it would not be those of religion, as the imperial harem, it is well known, is constantly replenished with Circassians and Georgians, Christians and Mohammedans, indiscriminately. This point, therefore, must remain doubtful. With respect to Fatima, whatever may have been her charms, she could have been no bar to the sultan’s admiration of Lady Mary, being the wife, not of the sultan, but of the kihaya. The other “angelical creatures” whose influence he rates so highly may very possibly have restrained the affections of their master from wandering beyond the walls of the seraglio; nevertheless, stranger things have happened than that a prince in the flower of his age, neglecting the legitimate objects of his attachment, should allow a greater scope to his desires than either religion or the common rules of decorum would warrant. The best reason for rejecting this piece of scandal is, not that Lady Mary was an “English woman,” and therefore, as M. Duparc would insinuate, too ugly to rival the slaves of the sultan, but that there is no good authority for admitting it.
[3]. M. Duparc, in the “Biographie Universelle.”
Leaving this point undetermined, however, for want of evidence, let us proceed to the costume of the “angelical creatures” of whom we have been speaking. But Lady Montague must here take the pen into her own hand; for, in describing the mysteries of the toilet, she possesses a felicitous, luxuriant eloquence, which it would be vain in any thing out of petticoats to endeavour to rival. “The first part of my dress (she had adopted the Turkish habit) is a pair of drawers, very full, that reach to my shoes, and conceal the legs more modestly than your petticoats. They are of a thin rose-coloured damask, brocaded with silver flowers. My shoes are of white kid leather, embroidered with gold. Over this hangs my smock, of a fine white silk gauze, edged with embroidery. This smock has wide sleeves, hanging half-way down the arm, and is closed at the neck with a diamond button; but the shape and colour of the bosom are very well to be distinguished through it. The antery is a waistcoat, made close to the shape, of white and gold damask, with very long sleeves falling back, and fringed with deep gold fringe, and should have diamond or pearl buttons. My caftan, of the same stuff with my drawers, is a robe exactly fitted to my shape, and reaching to my feet, with very long, straight falling sleeves. Over this is my girdle, of about four fingers broad, which all that can afford it have entirely of diamonds or other precious stones; those who will not be at that expense have it of exquisite embroidery or satin; but it must be fastened before with a clasp of diamonds. The curdee is a loose robe they throw off or put on according to the weather, being of a rich brocade (mine is green and gold), either lined with ermine or sables; the sleeves reach very little below the shoulders. The headdress is composed of a cap, called talpack, which is in winter of fine velvet, embroidered with pearl or diamonds, and in summer of a light shining silver stuff. This is fixed on one side of the head, hanging a little way down, with a gold tassel, and bound on, either with a circle of diamonds (as I have seen several), or a rich embroidered handkerchief. On the other side of the head the hair is laid flat; and here the ladies are at liberty to show their fancies, some putting flowers, others a plume of herons’ feathers, and, in short, what they please; but the most general fashion is a large bouquet of jewels, made like natural flowers; that is, the buds of pearl, the roses of different-coloured rubies, the jessamines of diamonds, the jonquils of topazes, &c., so well set and enamelled, ’tis hard to imagine any thing of that kind so beautiful. The hair hangs at its full length behind, divided into tresses braided with pearl or riband, which is always in great quantity. I never saw in my life so many fine heads of hair. In one lady’s I have counted a hundred and ten of the tresses, all natural.”
Our traveller, whose faith in the virtue of her sex was exceedingly slender, informs us, however, that these beautiful creatures were vehemently addicted to intrigue, which they were enabled to carry on much more securely than our Christian ladies, from their fashion of perpetually going abroad in masquerade, that is, thickly veiled, so that no man could know his own wife in the street. This, with the Jews’ shops, which were so many places of rendezvous, enabled the fair sinners almost invariably to avoid detection; and when discovered, a sack and a horse-pond, when the Bosphorus was not within a convenient distance, terminated the affair in a few minutes. Still the risk was comparatively small, and “you may easily imagine,” says Lady Mary—who seems to have thought that women are never virtuous except when kept within the pale of duty by the fear of imminent danger—“you may easily imagine the number of faithful wives very small in a country where they have nothing to fear from a lover’s indiscretion!” Had we met with so profligate an article of faith in the creed of a male traveller, we should have inferred that he had spent the greater part of his life in gambling-houses and their appendages; but since it is a lady—an ambassadress—an illustrious scion of a noble stock, who thus libels the posterity of Eve, we place our finger upon our lips, and keep our inferences to ourselves.
Pope, in a letter to her at Adrianople, accompanying the third volume of his translation of the Iliad, pretends, as a graceful piece of flattery, to imagine that because she had resided some few weeks on the banks of the Hebrus among Asiatic barbarians, and barbarized descendants of the Greeks, she could doubtless throw peculiar light upon various passages of Homer; and the lady, interpreting the joke seriously, replies, that there was not one instrument of music among the Greek or Roman statues which was not to be found in the hands of the Roumeliotes; that young shepherd lads still diverted themselves with making garlands for their favourite lambs; and that, in reality, she found “several little passages” in Homer explained, which she “did not before entirely comprehend the beauty of.”
During her stay at Adrianople she discovered something better, however, than Turkish illustrations of Homer, for it was here that she first observed the practice of inoculation for the small-pox, which she had the hardihood to try upon her own children, and was the first to introduce it into England. Among the Turks, who, in all probability, were not its inventors, it was termed ingrafting, and the whole economy of the thing, according to the invariable policy of barbarians, was intrusted to the management of old women. Upon the return of the embassy to England, a Mr. Maitland, the ambassador’s physician, endeavoured, under the patronage of Lady Montague, who ardently desired its extension, to introduce the practice in London; and in 1721, the public attention having been strongly directed to the subject, and the curiosity of professional men awakened, an experiment, sanctioned by the College of Physicians, and authorized by government, was made upon five condemned criminals. With four of these the trial perfectly succeeded, and the fifth, a woman, upon whom no effect was produced, afterward confessed that she had had the small-pox while an infant. The merit of this action of Lady Montague can scarcely be overrated, as, by exciting curiosity and inquiry, it seems unquestionably to have led the way to the discovery of vaccination, that great preservative of life and beauty, and produced at the time immense positive good.[[4]]