where they have violated the laws in a collected body, and broke open public stores of corn laid up by the government: the magistrates attended, the Janissaries were called, and came running to quell the riot-but, behold they were women who committed it: they knew no way of resisting them, unless by force; and force they could not use: so the ladies were permitted quietly to do their work in defiance of magistrates, law, right, and reason.

Among the variety of errors and moral absurdities falsely ascribed to the Mahomedan religion, the exclusion of women from Paradise holds a very conspicuous place, as a charge equally false and absurd; on the contrary, the women have their fasts, their ablutions, and the other religious rights deemed by Mahomedans necessary to salvation. Notwithstanding, it has been the practice of travellers to have recourse to invention, where the customs of the country precluded positive information; and to give their accounts rather from the suggestions of their own prejudiced imagination, than from any fair inferences or conclusions drawn from the facts that came under their observation.

LETTER XXX.

THE subject I touched upon in my last three

letters, and on which this, and probably some succeeding ones, will turn, is attended with circumstances of great delicacy, and may possibly bear the aspect of at least a dubious import, as touching the great point of religion. I will therefore, before I proceed further, explain to you (lest it should require explanation) the whole scope of my meaning.

My object throughout the whole of what I have said respecting the Turks, is to war with prejudice, not to draw comparisons: to shew that where the Mahomedans are vicious or enslaved, it is not the fault of their religion or their laws to convince you, the Turks are,

not the only people in the world, who under all the external forms of sanctity and religion, are capable of the most detestable crimes, and sometimes, utterly bereft of all pretentions to charity and that, while they have been held up as a perpetual subject of reproach and accusation, they were committing only just the same crimes that conscience might have retorted on their accusers. If allowance can be at all made for historical misrepresentation, we may perhaps be disposed to consider that of the ignorant catholic missionaries of the early ages, as entitled to some excuse, or at least mitigation. The intemperate zeal of those times forbade the full exercise of the rational faculties; but in this age of illumination and liberality, he that falsifies from polemical malice should meet little quarter and less belief. And it must be grievous to all men of virtue and religion to reflect, that churchmen, disciples of the Christian church, which should be the fountain of purity and truth, have been foremost in the list of falsifiers.

The difficulty of obtaining information of any kind in Turkey, is very great; of their religion chiefly, they are extremely tenacious; and as to their women, it is allowed by the best informed men, who have lived there for many years, in departments of life that gave them the best means of obtaining information Europeans can have, that at best, but a very imperfect knowledge can be had of them. Yet travellers who probably never migrated farther than "from the green bed to the brown," have given us diffuse accounts of their religion; and adventurers who never were beyond the purlieus of Drury, have scaled seraglio walls, and carried off the favorites of Sultans.

The truth is, my dear FREDERICK, the Turks, like all other people, have their share of vices, but are by no means countenanced in them by their religion; and from what I have been able to collect, as well from my own inquiries and observations, as from reading the best historians, I am persuaded they have not, in the whole scope of Mahomedanism, one doctrine so subversive of virtue, or so encouraging to the indulgence of vice, as many that are to be found in that curious code, Popery.

The malice of our intemperant zealots against Mahomedanism has been of course extended to its founder with more than common exaggeration and additions. They have represented Mahomet to be a man of mean origin, possessing a mind unenlightened by science or literature, and an understanding and faculties naturally gross. All those suggestions are undoubtedly false; he sprung from the most noble of all the Arabian tribesthe Coraishites: at his time, poverty, so far from being a reproach among them, was a mark of every thing that was great and dignified, if supported with magnanimity and fortitude; and the two first caliphs lived as poor as Mahomet himself, although they had immense revenues, commanded vast armies, and were lords of great provinces. As to his understanding I can only say, that perhaps he was the very last man in the world whose intel. lectual powers should be called in question. His genius was unbounded, his spirit enterprising, his powers of address were unequalled, he was allowed to be the greatest orator of his time; and yet with all these qualifications, his understanding was slighted. It is a logical truth that when people prove too much, they prove nothing at all our Christian zealots in this instance, have overshot the mark, and thereby rendered all their other information at least doubtful. Perhaps the consummation of all policy was Mahomet's pretending to be an idiot, in order to make his great and wonderful effusions appear to be the immediate inspiration of HeavenHe called himself THE IDIOT PROPHET.*

The whole of Mahomedanism may be reduced simply to this one article of faith" There is but one God, and Mahomet is the prophet;" but upon this they have superinduced, from time to time, such a variety of absur dities as would require volumes to describe however, in strict candor let us reflect and ask our own hearts the question, whether sprinkling with holy water, or worshiping a bit of white wafer as GOD, can be exceeded, or are less absurd than the periodical ablutions of the Turks, or their going on a pilgrimage to Mecca?

Mohammed.

With regard to the women, I have said before that the best information we can obtain is very imperfect; all I have been able to collect, you shall have. They are formed in a style of the most exquisite symmetry, particularly about the chest and bosom; they have deli-. cate skins, regular features, black hair and eyes, and are above all other beings, cleanly and neat in their persons, bathing twice a day regularly, besides on other occasions, and not suffering even the smallest hair to remain upon their bodies. They are kept in the most rigorous confinement, and only persons of ill fame paint. Women of character are there chaste-nor is their chastity to be attributed to restraint merely, for, from their infancy they are trained to discretion and self-subjection, and the modesty natural to the sex is cherished from its first dawnings. When they grow up they are not, like our women here, subjected to the contagion of infamous gallantry; neither are the men trained to, nor do they pride themselves, like some among us, on the arts of seduction. In fact, that practice makes no part of the accomplishments of their fine gentlemen; nay, it is held by them to be infamous. There are no such characters to be found in Turkey as your box-lobby loungers-none of your upstart cubs like those who double the best part. of the day through Pall-Mall, St. James's-street, and Bond-street; who, without birth, wealth, education, or parts, fancy themselves fine-fellows, and powder their noses in ladies' head-dresses, whispering them in order to get the reputation of gallantry; who strut like Bantam cocks, and assume a fierce air to conceal their conscious want of spirit; and dressed in a suit of regimentals bought by papa, at mama's request, to exhibit sweet Master Jacky to advantage in the Park-though never to be soiled with gunpowder, or personated with a ball in the nasty field of battle!!!-My dear FREDERICK, I have often told you that you shall make choice of your own profession. If you should choose any of the learned professions, you may fail in it without dishonor; for many of the ablest men have failed before: but, mark me! avoid the military as you would ruin, unless you have the requisites; let not the glitter of a scarlet coat,

er the empty name of a soldier, tempt you to be like one of those miserable animals I have described. There may be characters more wicked-I know none so utterly contemptible.

All extremes are bad; but the exceedings of virtue even where they run into error, are still preferable to vice. However ludicrous it may appear, we cannot absolutely despise or condemn the prudery of the Turkish women, though it runs into such extravagance, that, when feeding their poultry, they keep carefully veiled if their happens to be a cock among them, so fastidiously averse are they to the odious male creature seeing their pretty faces.

When the circumstances under which the Turkish women stand are considered, it must appear amazing, that chastity, from principle, is universal among them, as it is confessed to be: the nature of man urges him to desire, with greatest ardor, that which is most forbidden; and women who are much confined, may well be supposed to have their passions inflamed by the exaggerated workings of the imagination. Infidelity, however, to the marriage-bed, is much less frequent among the men there, than among the women here; and the tide ог fashion, which in this country gives such a rapid and irresistible circulation to vice and adultery, runs there in an opposite direction; and contrary to our customs, no man is so unfashionable in Turkey as he that has interrupted the domestic peace of a family by seduction.

Among the many virtues which may with strict jus. tice be ascribed to the Turks, hospitality holds a conspicuous place. It is not confined to common civility, it extends to personal protection. Many deem it absolutely their duty to risk their lives in defence of their guests; nor will any motive, however cogent, be allowed to justify the violation of it. Nay, to such a system is it carried up, that an engagement with a stranger is accepted as an excuse for not obeying the summons of a great man, when no other apology, not even that of indisposition, would be admitted.

While the Turks abhor and despise all other religions but their own, their government is by no means intole