Although the slave trade has been nominally abolished in Turkey, and the public mart formally closed to this traffic, yet the practice of buying and selling has not been, nor will it ever be altogether abandoned, because the slave constitutes an essential element in the composition of their domestic institutions.

There are two kinds of servitude in every house; one, the ordinary labor of domestic service; the other that of personal attendance; neither of which the free Mussulman women are willing to perform, because they will thereby be more or less brought in contact with men, which is proscribed by the Koran. The slave service, therefore, becomes necessarily indispensable with the Mussulmans, whose houses have hitherto been supplied with Circassian and Nubian slaves, the former being a species of ladies in waiting, and the latter performing the menial services of the household.

The average price of the slaves is, according to the tariff of the Custom-house, $500 for the white, and $100 for the black. They bring these prices when they arrive fresh from their native lands. Those of the Circassian, who are, however, brought into the country in childhood, and carefully educated and trained in accomplishments, attain so rare a style of beauty and delicacy of appearance that they are frequently sold for $6,000 or $8,000.

Though the restrictions upon the trade have forced Turkish families to employ Greek and Armenian women in their houses, yet there is always a demand for slaves.

The Armenians having the same institution as the Mussulmans, viz., the harem, their maidens are prevented from entering any family as servants; it is only the old women, whose charms have all faded and gone, who are willing to expose themselves in this way. The Greeks, though not so scrupulous, are generally ignorant of the Turkish language, and altogether uncongenial in their habits and ideas, so that they are unpopular.

Slaves are still more indispensable in the palace, for the Mussulman prejudice is opposed to the introduction of any of the subjects who would thus come in contact with royalty. Besides, is his majesty to form an alliance with his subjects?

The Circassian parents so long accustomed to the benefits derived by the advancement of their daughters to positions of comparative ease, will always be ready and anxious to supply the metropolis; and the traffic, notwithstanding the formal prohibition, is still continued at private houses in Top-hanÉ.

Circassian slavery in Turkey, is not a condition of servitude. All the children who are born from odaluks are free, and they also render their mothers free; an odaluk may be sold alone, but never after she has become a mother.

Besides the maids of honor or ladies in waiting, at the palace, are often bestowed in marriage upon pashas and other dignitaries, who thus consider themselves in some sense allied to royalty. One of their number was a slave to ValidÉ Sultan. She was married to Mehmed Bey, the brother of the sultan’s brother-in-law, with the idea of ameliorating her condition; but being very ill-treated by her husband, she had a petition written and presented it to her royal patroness, whereupon the validÉ summoned the husband, and reprimanded him in such a manner that he became exasperated, and having intoxicated himself with racky, or Turkish brandy, rushed into the harem, and plunged his dagger into the breast of the unfortunate wife.

Sultan Mahmoud lost his favorite wife, and was so much grieved by her death, that he ordered her apartments to be locked up, and that no one should enter them; he only, spent some time there every day in solitary meditation upon his lost favorite.

There was a slave girl fourteen or fifteen years old, whose duty was to clean the bath belonging to these apartments. She was so curious to know why these rooms were always locked up, that she one day found herself on an exploring expedition by means of the private staircase. Finding the door open, she ventured to enter the apartment, when, lo! and behold! there was the awful Mahmoud himself.

He said, “how dare you venture here; do you not know my express commands?”

The terrified girl fell at his majesty’s feet, and craved pardon.

She was so bewitching in this posture, that the sultan not only pardoned her, but invited her to meet him every day in the same place, till at last, he ordered that the apartments should be appropriated to her, and she became the Fifth Kadun, and the mother of the present sultan!

It is the idea of aspiring to such honors and stations, near even royalty itself, which induces the Circassian parents so readily to sell their daughters to Mussulmans, when nothing could induce them to barter their offspring to Christians.

No wonder that each simple peasant of the Caucasus fancies slavery in the metropolis, to be a translation from poverty to an earthly elysium, when tales, and true tales too, not the enchantments of Aladdin’s wonderful lamp, are so common in Oriental life!

Therefore, even if the traffic is formally prohibited, the Circassian parents will force their offspring into the market, not only to ameliorate their condition, but to secure favorable alliances for themselves; so that if the legal sum be not hereafter realized as purchase money, their children will still be apprenticed in some way or other.