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pale, foft, and ductile. A few mandarines, and many women of rank, wear bracelets of this metal round the wrift, not more for ornament, than from a notion that they preferve the wearer from a variety of difeafes. The Chinese artifts beat it into leaf, for gumming it upon paper to burn in their tripods, and for gilding the ftatues of their deities. The filk and velvet weavers use it in their tiffues and embroideries. Trinkets are alfo made of it at Canton, which the Chinese do not wear; but which are fold in Europe as Eaftern or naments. Befide the ufe of filver as a medium of payment for other goods, when it pafles according to its weight, it is likewife drawn into threads like gold, to be used in the filk and cotton manufactures. For bell-metal, they ufe, with copper, a greater proportion of tin than is ufually done elsewhere, by which means their bells are more fonorous, but more brittle, than those of Europe. Their white copper, called in Chinese pe-tung, has a beautiful filver-like appearance, and a very clofe grain. It takes a fine polifh; and many articles of neat workmanship, in imitation of filver, are made from it. An accurate analys has determined it to confift of copper, zinc; a little filver, and, in fome fpecimens, a few particles of iron and of nickel have been found. Tu te-nag is, properly speaking, zinc, extracted from a rich ore, or calamine. The ore is powdered and mixed with charcoal duft, and placed in earthen jars over a flow fire, by means of which the metal rifes in the form of vapour, in a common diftilling apparatus, and afterwards is condenfed in water. The calamine from whence this zinc is thus extracted, contains very little iron,

and no lead or arfenic, fo common in the calamine of Europe; and which extraneous fubftances contribute to tarnish the compofitions made of it, and prevent them from taking fo fine a polith as the petung of the Chinese. Doctor Gil lan was alfo informed at Canton, that the artists, in making their pe-tung, reduce the copper into as thin fheets or lamina as poflible, which they make red hot, and increafe the fire to fuch a pitch, as to foften, in fome degree, the la mine, and to render them ready almost to flow. In this ftate they are fufpended over the vapour of their pureft tu-te-nag, or zinc, placed in a fubliming veffel over a brifk fire. The vapour thus penetrates the heated lamina of the copper, fo as to remain fixed with it, and not to be eafily diffipared or calcined by the fucceeding fufion it has to undergo. The whole is fuffered to cool gradually, and is then found to be of a brighter colour, and of a closer grain, than when prepared in the European way. The iron ore of the Chinese is not well managed in their feding furnaces; and the metal is not fo foft, malleable, or ductile, as British iron. Their fmiths' work is exceedingly brittle, as well as clumfy, and not polifhed. They excel, indeed, in the art of cafting iron, and form plates of it much thinner than is generally known to be done in Europe. Much of the tin imported by the Chinese, is formed into as thin a foil as poffi ble, in order to gum it afterwards upon fquare pieces of paper, which are burnt before the images of their idols. The amalgama of tin and quickfilver is applied, by the artifts in Canton, in making mall mirrors, with glafs blown upou the fpot from broken pieces of that material

material imported whole from Eu rope. The glafs beads and buttons of various fhapes and colours, worn by perfous of rank, are chiefly made at Venice; and this is among the remnants of the great and almoft exclufive trade which the Venetians formerly carried on with the Eaft. The Chinese make great ufe of fpectacles, which they tie round the head. They are formed of cryftal, which the Canton artifts cut into laminæ, with a kind of steel faw, formed by twisting two or more fine iron wires toge ther, and tying them like a bow ftring to the extremities of a small flexible bamboo. They undo one end of this ftring in order to pafs the wire round the cryftal, where it is meant to be divided, and which as then placed between two pivots. It is thus fawed, in the manner which European watch-makers ufe in dividing finall pieces of metal. Below the cryftal is a little trough of water, into which the filiceous

powder of the cryftal falls as it is cut by the revolution of the wire. With this mixture, the wire and the groove it forms in the cryftal, are often moiftened. The powder of the cryftal, like that of the diamond, helps to cut and polifh itself.

The workmen did not feem to understand any principle of optics, fo as to form the eye-giaffes of fuch convexities or concavities, as to fupply the various defects of vifion; but left their customers to choofe what was found to fuit them beft. The few lapidaries who cut diamonds at Canton, ufed for that purpofe adamantine fpar, which bring mixed in small proportions with grey granite, the mafs was imagined to contain nothing elfe, and excited a doubt, whether it could be real diamond, which pure granite could affect. The Canton artifts are uncommonly expert in imitating European works."

SKETCH of the FEMALE ECONOMY of the SERAGLIO, and of the real CONDITION of the FEMALE SEX at CONSTANTINOPLE.

[From DALLAWAY'S CONSTANTINOPLE, ANCIENT and MODERN.]

"THE

HE inhabitants of the fera glio exceed fix thoufand, of which about five hundred are women. Many who are employed there during the day, have their houfes and families in the city.

"When the fultan comes to the throne the grandces prefent him with virgin flaves, who, they hope, may become their patronc fles.-From thefe principally, fix are then chofen, who are styled Kadinns, but the late fultan Abdul-hamid added a

feventh. The first of them who gives an heir to the empire becomes the favourite, and has the title of Haffeky-Sultan. There are many others in the harem, but they seldom are fuffered to infringe the exclufive privilege of producing heirs to the empire, which the kadinns claim; for with the others the moft infamous means of prevention are forcibly adopted. If the child of the firft baffeky-fultàn fhould die, her precedence is loft.

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The old ftory of the ladies ftanding in a row, and the fultan's throwing his handkerchief to his choice, is not true. His preference is always officially communicated by the kif. làr-agha.

"So dependent is opinion upon education and the early habits of life, that the state of female fociety in the feraglio, is to themselves that of the most perfect happiness. It was ordained by Mahommed that women thould not be treated as intellectual beings, left they should afpire to equality with men. This fyftem he found already prevalent in the Eaft, and received by his converts, and therefore cannot be charged with having curtailed their liberty and focial intercourse.Throughout Turkey, in every rank of life, the women are literally children of larger growth, as trifling in their amufements as unbounded in their defires, and as abfolutely at the difpofal of others, being confidered by the men merely as created for the purposes of nature, or fexual luxury. None of our mistakes concerning the opinions of the Turks, is more unjust than that which respects the notion attributed to them, that women have no fouls; on the other hand, they are promifed in the Koran to be restored with all the charms of eternal youth and

unblemished virginity, and what, in many inftances, may heighten the idea of perfect paradife to themfelves, not again to be united with their former earthly husbands, but to be allotted to other true mufulmans by the benevolence of the prophet.

"The females of the feraglio are chiefly Georgian and Circafian flaves, felected from all that are ei ther privately bought, or expofed to fale in the Avret bazar *, and, for many reafons, are admitted at an early age. We may readily conclude that an affemblage of native beauty fo exquifite, does not exist in any other place.

"The education of these girls is very fcrupulously attended to; they are taught to dance with more lux. uriance than grace, to fing and to play on the tambourin, a fpecies of guitar; and fome of them excel in embroidery. This arrangement is conducted folely by the elder women, though from the taste for Eu ropean fashions, which fultan Selim openly avows, fome Greek women have been lately introduced to teach them the harp and piano-forte, which they had learned for that purpose. Amongst the five hun dred already mentioned the kislaragha precifely fettles all precedence. Some are difqualified by age from

"The Avrèt Bazar (woman market) confifts of an inclofed court, with a cloifter and small apartments furrounding it. It is fupplied by female flaves brought from Ægypt, Abyflinia, Georgia, and Circaffia, who are expofed to public fale every Friday morning. Those from the fift mentioned countries are generally purchased for domeftic fervices, which, in a menial capacity, no Turkish woman will condescend to perform; their perfons or countenances are rarely beautiful, and their price feldom exceeds forty pounds English. The exquifite beauty of the others is enhanced by every art of drefs and oriental accomplishments, and they are ufually fold for feveral thoutand piaftres. Many are referved for the feraglio, where though they are considered as mo fortunate, they are most frequently facrificed. Intrigues are concealed by the application of poifonous drugs which often occafion death, and upon detection of pregnancy they are inftantly drowned. Ore fhudders to relate how many of thefe victims are taken out into the fea at the dead of the night, and committed to the deep. Formerly, the Avret Bazar was open to Franks, who were fuppofed to purchase flaves in order to redeem them, but they are now excluded, by order of the prefent fultan's father.”

the notice of the fultan, and of those who are confidered as wives there are four; he is reftricted to feven, but as to concubines there is no legal limitation, and their number depends on the inclination of their fublime mafter. The fuperiors fpend their time in a feries of fedentary amufements. Dreis, the most fumptuous that can be imagined, changed frequently in the course of the day, the most magnificent apartments and furniture, vifits of ceremony with each other, and the inceffant homage of their fubordinate companions, fill their minds with a fort of fupine happiness, which indeed is all that moft Turkish women afpire to, or are qualified to experience.

"Sometimes, as au indulgence, they are permitted to go to the kiofques near the fea, of which circumftance the officers of police are i formed, that no veffel fhould approach too near the feraglio point. Every fummer the fultan vifits his palaces in rotation for a fhort time with his harèm, when every pafs and avenue, within three or five miles diftance, is guarded by fierce boftandjis, left the approach of any male being should contaminate

them.

"They depend entirely upon their female flaves for amufements which have any thing like gaiety for their object, and recline on their fofas for hours, whilft dancing, comedy, and buffoonery, as indelicate as our vulgar puppet fhow, are exhibited before them. Greek and Frank ladies occafionally vifit them, whose husbands are connected with the Porte as merchants or interpreters, under pretence of fhewing them curiofities from Europe.From fuch opportunities all the ac

curate information concerning the interior palace must be collected, and to fuch I am, at prefent, indebted.

"The articles of female habili ment are infinite, both as to colt and number; but change of fashion is adopted only for the head attire, which happens with fcarcely lefs frequency than in the courts of Europe. They are imitated by the Greek ladies, whofe dress differs little from theirs; but the original Greek drefs, rather than of the Turkish harèm, is that defcribed by lady M. Wortley Montague. Both the ftyle of beauty and the idea of improv. ing its effect by ornament amongst the Ottoman women, have much fingularity. Of the few I have feen with an open veil, or without one, the faces were remarkable for their fymmetry and brilliant complexion, with the nofe ftraight and fmall, the eyes vivacious, either black or dark blue, having the eyebrows partly from nature, and as much from art, very full and joining over the nofe. They have a cuftom too of drawing a black line with a mixture of powder of antimony and oil, called Surmèh, above and under the eye-lathes in order to give, the eye more fire. Of the shape and air little can be faid from our idea of loveliness. All the Levantine women, from their mode of fitting on their fofa, stoop extremely, and walk very awkwardly. Warm baths ufed without moderation, and unrelieved idlenefs, fpoil in most inftances, by a complete relaxation of the folids, forms that nature intended should rival the elegance of their countenances. The nails both of the fingers and feet are always ftained of a rofe colour. Such is the tafte of Afiatics. The difcri

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minative trait of beauty between the Circaffian and Greek women, is the more majestic air and ftature of the former, while the latter excel upon a fmaller fcale, no lefs in brilliancy of complexion, that in fymmetry and delicacy of form. The ftatues of Juno, Minerva, or the Amazons, are contrafted by that of the Medicean Venus. Both very generally answer to Homer's defcription of the full-eyed,' and the deep-bofomed.'

"In the streets of Conftantinople no female appears without her feradjè and mahramah; the former resembles a loose riding coat with a large fquare cape, covered with quilted fiik, and hanging down low behind, made univerfally amongst the Turks of green cloth, and a mongst the Greeks and Armenians of brown, or fome grave colour. The mahramah is formed by two pieces of mutlin, one of which is tied under the chin, enveloping the head, and the other across the mouth and half the nofe, admitting fpace enough for fight. Yellow boots are drawn over the feet; and thus equipped a woman may meet the public eye without fcandal. This dress is of very ancient invention, calculated for concealment of the perfon, nor can there be a more complete difguife.

"In every civilized country the middle ranks in fociety enjoy the trueft comfort. Whift the ladies of the hatems of great or opulent Turks, are confoling themfelves with faftidious indulgence, in luxury unknown to the vulgar, the wives and concubines of fober citizens are allowed almost a free intercourse with each other. The men, mer Chants or mechanics, are engaged in their various occupations, leav ing the whole day at the difpofal of the women, who walk the streets

and bazars in groupes of muffled figures, or go to the cemeteries, where, upon itated days, under pretence of faying prayers at the graves of deceased friends, they enjoy the fhade of cypreffes, whilft loitering away many hours; and fhew unreftrained happiness, by the most vehement loquacity. Several times a year they are drawn in arabàhs, or painted waggons with a covering of red cloth, by buffaloes gaudily harneffed, to fome favourite retreat in the country, but never attended by the men of their family.

"That love of fplendid dress which diftinguishes the nations of the Eaft, pervades every rank of females. Thofe connected with the meanest labourer occafionally wear brocade, rich furs and embroidery of gold or filver, which are willingly fupplied by his daily toil. In large harems the number of chil dren is proportionably finall, where few women produce more than three. Much has been faid concerning the infidelity of the Turkith women belonging to harèms of quality; whoever has paffed a few years in this country, must know that any fcheme of gallantry would be utterly impracticable, however they may have been prompted, by perfonal vanity, to impofe a falfe opinion on the world. In complete establishments they are guarded by thofe unfortunate men

Who youth ne'er loved, and beauty ne'er enjoyed;"

and in thofe of lefs expence, by old women, whose ceaseless vigilance is equally fecure.

"If fuch things ever happen, it may be fuppofed of those who are permitted to gad abroad: but this privilege is conditional, and never without a certain number of rela、、 tives or neighbours.

"During

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