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Updated: May 5, 2025
Because the leaders of the numerous bands of wild horses that roamed over the country about Granite Mountain were always ambitious to gain recruits for their harems from their civilized neighbors, the freedom of the ranch horses was limited by the fences of a four-thousand-acre pasture.
"You must remember that, though the charming wife of their favorite will be warmly received by all his friends of his own sex, there are thousands of idle women in the harems of the Persian nobles, who will endeavor, by every artifice and intrigue in their power, to injure the newly-risen star; and whose greatest joy it will be to ruin such an inexperienced child and make her unhappy."
Come with me to the hall. You shall select the handsomest dress, regardless of the cost." He led him to the hall in which he kept the magnificent goods from which the ladies in the harems of the Turks of rank were accustomed to select their festal dresses, and spread the beautiful goods out before Mohammed. The boy's eyes sparkled with pleasure as he beheld this costly array.
When Turkish rule became oppressive, when too many Christian girls were stolen and vanished for ever into harems, the comitaj appeared, farms were raided, minute but fierce battles were fought; but in spite of this continual supervision, occasional and mysterious murders were needed to keep down the excesses of the Turk.
"Oh, I don't want death!" laughed the other, with a low, indifferent laughter, that had in it a singular tone of sadness all the while. "I am of our friends the Spahis' opinion that life is very pleasant with a handsome, well-chosen harem, and a good horse to one's saddle. Unhappily harems are too expensive for Roumis!
Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with what a short time before had been their own property a mournful cortège of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the harems of the Bashas.
They are, in fact, the slaves of their caprice, often ill-treated by them, and sometimes even put to death. The Calmucks are considered as remarkably lenient in their conduct to the women: but fathers dispose of their daughters without their consent, and even antecedently to their birth. Their chiefs and princes have, besides, large harems or seraglios where domestic rivalship imbitters existence.
None gave him, however, more than a passing look. Nubian slaves were no uncommon sight in the town, and in wealthy Moorish families were commonly employed in places of trust, and especially as attendants in the harems. The ladies were now as closely veiled as the Moorish women, it being only in the house that they followed the Berber customs.
Any smaller groups they might happen to meet were swept along with them. Now and then they encountered the harems of the greatest dignitaries, such as pashas and beglerbegs. It was all one, the august and exalted ladies had also to follow in the suite of the wife of Halil Patrona, the most powerful man in the realm, whose wife was the gentlest lady under Heaven.
When I had thus located and coupled up the chiefs of the French Secret Service with the situation in Constantinople, I began quietly to cultivate the acquaintance of the average Turkish officer. I had to learn the tendency of their thoughts. I met officers and merchants, administrators and students. From them all I learned that they were sick of the intrigues and wire-pulling of the harems.
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