156 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

speak its language, which they can only keep up by conversation with the many female Circassian slaves in their harems. Achmet Pascha himself was stolen from his native land when only six years old. These tribes either mutually rob one another of children and grown-up girls to sell as slaves, or the parents educate their daughters in all accomplishments, filling their heads with tales of the splendour and magnificence of the harem, and then sell them, often under the impression that by so doing they prepare for them and themselves a better lot. The girls themselves are satisfied ; they dream of the pleasures of being mistress of a harem, and of seeing all their desires satisfied, especially in dress and ornaments.

The Circassian women have high foreheads and delicate noses, often as thin as the back of a knife,—a lovely mouth, and a charming figure ; but their eyes do not possess that fire and soul which is usually ascribed to them.* In Egypt they are to be found in all respectable harems, in which they are almost the only whites. The chief men of the land, themselves Circassians, gladly buy them, and they, therefore, are sent in plenty to Egypt, as in the harems of Constantinople they are not much admired. Men complain of their love of quarrelling and power, and their constant discontent. They live in open warfare with the other female slaves and women, and are, like all oriental women, without love or attachment to their lords. Their love of revenge is great, and more than one example shows that they know the use of poisons. Dress and intrigue are their only delights, and their pride is insufferable. Our friend Soliman Effendi, of Chartum, complained most bittei'ly of his Circassian wife, and styled her, the devil of bis house. However, it is no more than natural that these poor women should feel themselves unhappy in the harem, and give vent in all ways to their bad humour. What pleasures, save the twice-a-day toi-* This I have remarked (when close to them on the long harbour Ijridgc at Constantinople) in the women of the former Sultan lahmoud and other Turks of rank, when these were there taking the air in the oxen-drawn carriages, enjoying the favour, procured them by the Sultan, of looking about them and seeing something of life ; but this species of emancipation does not seem to have borne the best fruit, f(jr I hardly had got to Egypt ere the Sultan issued some pretty severe orders as to these ladies' mode of life.