158 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

peans. In general, those from Habesch, who have before served in other harems, are placed, in particular rooms, or the better places. Their eyes are dark, prominent, and somewhat round ; at times, with stupid expression, but oftener lively and brilliant.

These unfortunates (now and then wrapped in coloured gauze or muslins), follow, with their uneasy eyes, every visitor, and seem beggingly to say— "Oh! if you have a human heart, release me from this condition, where I am examined and handled by every man, as if I were a beast ! " The house of the white slaves is not thus open to all. Franks are only admitted on paying five Spanish dollars, but well known and wealthy Turks are admitted gratis, such being likely to become purchasers. "When we visited one of these places, there were many pretty girls there, but not one splendid beauty ; all were very young, but this is in accordance with the Turkish taste. If anything arrives new and beyond the common, the rich men, and those of high rank, are at once informed of it, they generally purchasing such rarities before others can get a peep at them. On account of the higher price that men are willing to pay for Georgian females, the slave dealers have a way of their own to cheat the buyers, .who would only ask for and purchase women of that province. They purchase newly arrived Circassians, or those who have been sold out of a harem, and place them in another where only Georgian women are. Here they, ere long, pick up the Georgian language, and then the slave merchant takes them as Georgian women to the bazaar, where he soon disposes of them. In Constantinople they dai*e not venture on such tricks, as there the distinctive differences are too well known.

As in our sad loneliness and dull uniform life, "we are glad to find amusement in any diversion, however small, with much satisfaction we got hold of some numbers of the Chai-ivari, the Journal des Debats, and Marseilles Semaphore, the apothecary had by him. They contain, at least, some political news from Europe, though more than a year old ; but in Bellad-Sudan, where one is totally cut off from all European news, this matters little. The Semaphore seems to be the organ of Egypt, and it is ludicrous to see how the merest trifle is pushed forward as an instance of its 80 called advancing civilisation, and with what zeal and