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Literature is at so low an ebb here, that there is no one known collection of good books or manuscripts in the whole city, nor any individual Moollah distinguished above his contemporaries by his proficiency in the learning of his country. I had hoped to procure at Bagdad a copy of the "Thousand and One Nights," particularly as this capital of the Abassides had been so much the scene of its story, and the Tomb of Zobeida was still popularly known, and pointed out by its inhabitants. But I learnt, with regret, that not a perfect copy of this work was thought to exist throughout all Bagdad, as inquiries had been frequently made after one without success, though sufficiently large sums had been offered for the work to tempt its being brought out from any private collection, if it had existed in any such.

In this, as in all other respects as an Oriental city, Bagdad is infinitely inferior to Cairo, and the interior of its streets and bazars presents nothing like the faithful pictures which are constantly met with in Egypt, to remind the traveller of the scenes and manners described in the Arabian Tales. From this circumstance, added to the detection of many phrases in the language of the "Thousand and One Nights," which are purely Egyptian, the best judges on this subject are of opinion that the work was originally composed, and first brought into circulation at Cairo, though its deserved popularity soon extended its fame over all the eastern world.

The police of Bagdad is extremely defective. That quarrels should arise, and disputes be terminated in blood, among the Arabs who occupy the skirts of the city within the walls, and this without any cognizance of such affairs by the government, was not so surprising, as that murders should take place at the very gates of the palace, and of the great mosque, without the criminals being so much as even sought after to be brought to justice. From the period of Mr. Rich's return from Europe to Bagdad, which was hardly six months, no less than twelve murders had been committed within the city, one of which was close to the Pasha's residence, and another in the very porch of the mosque of Abd-ul-Khadder. The latest instance of these atrocities was only a few days before my departure; and though committed in the public streets, and before the face of a hundred witnesses at mid

day, no one thought either of punishing the murderer on the spot, or apprehending him for the common safety. "It is an affair of blood," said they, "which the relatives of the dead may revenge, and which the Pasha may investigate, but it is no business for us to meddle with."

Robberies, too, had been of late committed with impunity, in various parts of the town. They were generally effected during the night, by private gangs, who escaped without detection. But in one instance a combination of a more extensive nature than usual was discovered to exist, for the carrying these daring outrages into execution; and one of the leading merchants of the city was found to be concerned in the encouragement of its depredations, by purchasing their acknowledged plunder. This man, however, stood too high, by his wealth only, to be called to account; and the rest, though mostly known, were, by his influence alone, suffered to escape. The Pasha, it was said, had formed the determination of going about the city at night in disguise; but by some this was thought to be a mere report, given out to alarm the offenders; while others laughed at such a weak alternative, intended to be substituted for what alone could quell the evil, an active and vigorous police.

The women of Bagdad invariably wear the checquered blue covering, used by the lower orders of females in Egypt; nor among those of the highest rank here are ever seen the black and pink silk scarfs of Cairo, or the white muslin envelopes of Smyrna and Damascus. This, added to the stiff black horse hair veil which covers the face, gives an air of great gloom and poverty to the females occasionally seen in the streets. When at home, however, their dress is as gay in colours, and as costly in materials, as in any of the great towns of Turkey; and their style of living, and the performance of their relative duties in their families, are precisely

the same.

As the view from our lofty terrace at an early hour in the morning laid open at least eight or ten bed-rooms in different quarters around us, where all the families slept in the open air, domestic scenes were exposed to view, without our being once perceived, or even suspected to be witnesses of them. Among the more wealthy, the husband slept on a raised bedstead, with a mattress and cushions of silk, covered by a thick

stuffed quilt of cotton, the bed being without curtains or mosquito net. The wife slept on a similar bed, but always on the grouud, that is, without a bedstead, and at a respectful distance from her husband; while the children, sometimes to the number of three or four, occupied only one mattress, and the slaves or servants each a separate mat on the earth, but all lying down and rising up within sight of each other. Every one rose at an early hour, so that no one continued in bed after the sun was up; and each, on rising, folded up his own bed, his coverlid and pillows, to be taken into the house below, excepting only the children, for whom this office was performed by the slave or the mother.

None of all these persons were as much undressed as Europeans generally are when in bed. The men retained their shirt, drawers, and often their caftan, a kind of inner cloak. The children and servants lay down with nearly the same quantity of clothes as they had worn in the day; and the mothers and their grown daughters wore the full silken trowsers of the Turks, with an open gown; and, if rich, their turbans: or if poor, an ample red chemise and a simpler covering for the head. In most of the instances which we saw, the wives assisted, with all due respect and humility, to dress and undiess their husbands, and to perform all the duties of valets.

After dressing, the husband generally performed his devotions, while the slave was preparing a pipe and coffee; and, on his seating himself on his carpet, when this was done, his wife served him with her own hands, retiring at a proper distance to wait for the cup, and always standing before him, sometimes, indeed, with the hands crossed, in an attitude of great humility, and even kissing his hand on receiving the cup from it, as is done by the lowest attendant of the household.

While the husband lounged on his cushions, or sat on his carpet, in an attitude of ease and indolence, to enjoy his morning pipe, the women of the family generally pray. In the greater number of instances, they did so separately, and exactly after the manner of the men; but on one or two occasions, the mistress and some other females, perhaps a sister or a relative, prayed together, following each other's motions side by side, as is done when a party of men are

headed in their devotions by an Imuam. None of the females, whether wife, servant, or slave, omitted this morning duty; but among the children under twelve or fourteen years of age, I did not observe any instance of their joining in it.

Notwithstanding the apparent seclusions in which women live here, as they do indeed throughout all the Turkish empire, there are, perhaps, as many accessible dwellings as in any of the large towns under the same dominion. They are, however, much less apparent here than at Cairo, though they are all under such concealment from public notice, as not to offend the scrupulous, or present allurements to the inexperienced by their external marks. It is said, that women of the highest condition sometimes grant assignations at these houses; and this, indeed, cannot be denied, that the facility of clandestine meetings is much greater in Turkish cities, between people of the country, than in any metropolis of Europe. The disguise of a Turkish or Arab female, in her walking dress, is so complete, that her husband himself could not recognise her beneath it; and these places of appointment are so little known but to those who visit them, and so unmarked by any distinction between them and others, that they might be entered or quitted by any person at any hour of the day, without exciting the slightest suspicion of the passers-by.

Among the women to be occasionally seen in Bagdad, the Georgians and Circassians are decidedly the handsomest by nature, and the least disfigured by art. The high-born natives of the place are of less beautiful forms and features, and of less fresh and clear complexions; while the middling and inferior orders, having brown skins, and nothing agreeable in their countenances, except a dark and expressive eye, are sometimes so barbarously tattoed as to have the most forbidding appearance. With all ranks and classes, the hair is stained a red colour by henna, and the palms of the hands are so deeply dyed with it, as to resemble the hands of a sailor when covered with tar.

Those only who, by blood, or habits of long intercourse, are allied to the Arab race, use the blue stains so common among the Bedouins of the Desert. The passion for this method of adorning the body is carried, in some instances, as far as it could have been, among the ancient Britons; for,

besides the staining of the lips with that deadly hue, anklets are marked around the legs, with lines extending upwards from the ankle, at equal distances, to the calf of the legs; a wreath of blue flowers is made to encircle each breast, with a chain of the same pattern hanging perpendicularly between them; and, among some of the most determined belles, a zone or girdle, of the same singular composition, is made to encircle the smallest part of the waist, imprinted on the skin in such a manner as to be for ever after indelible. There are artists in Bagdad, whose profession it is to decorate the forms of ladies with the newest patterns of wreaths, zones, and girdles, for the bosom or the waist and as this operation must occupy a considerable time, and many sittings," as an English portrait-painter would express it, they must possess abundant opportunities of studying, in perfection, the beauties of the female form, in a manner not less satisfactory, perhaps, than that which is pursued in the Royal Academies of Sculpture and Painting in Europe.

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A TALE OF BANKRUPTCY.

I doubt if the costly machinery of civilized life is subject to a more dreadful derangement than a bankruptcy. Had Rousseau ever witnessed one, especially in the higher circles of commerce, he might have turned it into a most elegant argument in proof of the blessedness of a savage state. It is impossible, indeed, to calculate the amount of mental suffering produced in a commercial country like this (and when more than at the present moment?), by these reverses of fortune. To imagine the fair hopes of families and individuals thus in an instant blighted; and the accumulated wealth of a life-time, with that, perhaps, of parents and ancestors, scattered by one of these overwhelming storms,-what can be more afflicting?

It is common to be niggards of our sympathy to such cases of disaster, from an idea that so many of them are produced by imprudence and presumption. But there a large proportion with respect to which this is not true, as I have known many instances, and my faiend Rwas one. He had inherited a fortune which might almost have been called splen

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