Mind and education, the
zests of life, were wanting. The native girls are taught nothing;
their education is completed when they are able to read in their
mother tongue (Armenian or Arabian), and then, with the exception of
some religious books, they have no other reading.
It was more lively at a visit which I made, some days later, to the
harem of the pasha; there was then so much chatting, laughing, and
joking, that it was almost too much for me. My visit had been
expected, and the women, fifteen in number, were sumptuously dressed
in the same way that I have already described; with the single
exception, that the upper garment (kaftan) was shorter, and made of
a more transparent material, and the turbans ornamented with ostrich
feathers.
I did not see any very handsome women here; they had only good eyes,
but neither noble nor expressive features.
The summer harem, in which I was received, was a pretty building, in
the most modern style of European architecture, with lofty, regular
windows. It stood in the middle of a small flower-garden, which was
surrounded by a large fruit-garden.
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