Home › Curiosities Respecting Temples, Etc › Church of Notre Dame at Paris

Church of Notre Dame at Paris

SERAGLIO which are inclosed with lattices and linen curtains and when they go by land they are put into close chariots, and signals are made at certain distances, to give notice that none approach the roads through which they march. The boats of the Harem, which carry the grand seignior's wives, are manned with twenty -four rowers, and have white covered tilts, shut alternately by Venetian blinds. Among the emperor's attendants are a number of mutes, who act and converse by signs with great quickness, and some dwarfs, who are exhibited for the sultan's amusement When he permits the women to walk in the gardens of the seraglio, all people are ordered to retire, and on every side is a guard of black eunuchs, with sabres in their hands, while others go their rounds to hinder any person from seeing them. If any one is found in the garden, even through ignorance or inadvertence, he is instantly killed, and his head brought to the feet of the grand seignior, who rewards the guard for their vigilance.

Sometimes the grand seignior passes into the gardens to amuse himself when the women are there, and it is then they make use of all their utmost efforts, by dancing, singing, segestures, and amorous blandishments, to attract his affections. It is not permitted that the monarch should take a virgin to his bed, except during the solemn festivals, and on occasion of some extraordinary rejoicings, or the arrival of some good news. Upon such occasions, if the sultan chooses a new companion to his bed, he enters into the apartment of the women, who are ranged in files by the governesses, to whom he speaks, and intimates the person he likes best. As soon as the grand seignior has chosen the girl destined to be the partner of his bed, all the others follow her to the bath, washing and perfuming her, and dressing her superbly, and thus conduct her, with singing, dancing, and rejoicing, to the bedchamber of the grand seignior; and if by a certain time she becomes pregnant, and is delivered of a boy, she is called asakisultaness, that is to say, sultaness-mother. For the first son she has the honour to be crowned, and she has the liberty of forming her court: eunuchs are also assigned for her guard, and for her particular service. No other ladies, though delivered of boys, are either crowned or maintained with such costly distinction at the first; but they have their service apart, and handsome appointments. At the death of the sultan, the mothers of the male children are shut up in the old seraglio, whence they can never come out any more, unless any of their sons ascend the throne.

Baron de Tott informs us, that the female slave who becomes the mother of the sultan, and lives long enough to see her son mount the throne, is the only woman who at that period acquires the distinction of sultana-mother; she is till then in the interior of her prison with her son. The title bachl-kadun. or principal woman, is the first dignity of the grand seignior's Harem; and she has a larger allowance than those who have the title of second, third, and fourth woman, which are the four free women the Koran allows.

It must strike every reader, that the present happy condition of females in Christian countries is directly attributable to Christianity; and this stamps an inestimable value on the gospel. Females should consider it as the charter of their privileges. The Christian religion has, by its letter or spirit, exploded customs and practices which were the immediate causes of female degradation and wretchedness. It has made marriage pure and honourable, by prohibiting polygamy, and restricting within very narrow limits the dangerous liberty of divorce; two customs which violate the plain order and design of Providence in creation, which degrade woman to insignificance and slavery, and which brought on that dissoluteness and corruption of manners in most ancient and some modern nations.

MUSEUM, is a collection of rare and interesting objects, selected from the whole circle of natural history and the arts, and deposited in apartments or buildings, either by the commendable generosity of rich individuals, general governments, or monarchs, for the inspection of the learned, and the great mass of the public.

The term, which means literally a study, or place of retirement, is said to have been given originally to that part of the royal palace at Alexandria, appropriated for the use of learned men, and the reception of the literary works then extant. According to ancient writers, they were formed into classes or colleges, each of which had a competent sum assigned for their support; and we are further informed, that the establishment was founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who added a most extensive library.