s, perhaps, induced to penetrate by the example of Mrs Dawson
Damer, was the _maristan_, or madhouse, perhaps the oldest public
establishment of the kind in the world, as it was attached by the Baharite
Sultan Kalaoon to the mosque which he founded in 1284. "Our ears were
assailed by the most discordant yells as soon as we entered the passage
leading to the cells," where the lunatics were chained like wild beasts,
the men in one court and the women in another. Each was confined in a
separate cell with a small grated window, and with nothing but the bare
floor to rest upon--while many, especially of the women, had not an
article of clothing--yet they appeared to be sufficiently supplied with
food, and mildly treated by their guardians; "and I think this gentleness
of manner in the keepers was not assumed for the time, for the lunatics
did not appear to fear them."--"I was ill prepared for the sight of such
misery, and was leaving the court, when I heard a voice exclaiming in a
melancholy tone of supplication, 'Stay, O my mistress; give me five paras
for tobacco before you go.' I turned, and the entreaty was repeated by a
very nice-looking old woman, who was very grateful when I assured her that
she should have what she required; and the woman who was the
superintendent gave her the trifle for me." This establishment was then,
however, on the point of being broken up, as the patients were to be
removed to another hospital, where they would be placed under the care of
the pasha's French surgeon-general, Clot Bey.

"The Turkish is the only European language," says Mr Urquhart in his
eloquent but fanciful work, the _Spirit of the East_, "which possesses, in
the word _harem_, a synonyme for home, but it implies a great deal
more.... To picture a Turkish woman, I would beg the reader, if possible,
to fancy to himself a women without vanity or affectation, perfectly
simple and natural, and preserving the manners and the type of her
childhood in the full blossom and fructification of her passions and her
charms." This is indeed the language of an enthusiast, in whose eyes all
is light which comes from the East; but the winning grace and gentle
courtesy of the Turco-Egyptian ladies of rank, as portrayed in Mrs Poole's
interesting sketches of the domestic life of the hareems which she
visited, go far to justify the character given of them by their eulogist.
For her introduction to these, the _exclusive_ circles of Cairo, as well
as