London. No body keeps their house a
month for lying in; and I am not so fond of any of our customs, as to
retain them when they are not necessary. I returned my visits at
three weeks end; and, about four days ago, crossed the sea, which
divides this place from Constantinople, to make a new one, where I
had the good fortune to pick up many curiosities. I went to see the
sultana: Hafiten, favourite of the late emperor Mustapha, who, you
know, (or perhaps you don't know) was deposed by his brother, the
reigning sultan, and died a few weeks after, being poisoned, as it
was generally believed. This lady was, immediately after his death,
saluted with an absolute order to leave the seraglio, and chuse
herself a husband among the great men at the Porte. I suppose
you may imagine her overjoyed at this proposal.--Quite the
contrary.--These women, who are called, and esteem themselves queens,
look upon this liberty as the greatest disgrace and affront that can
happen to them. She threw herself at the sultan's feet, and begged
him to poniard (sic) her, rather than use his brother's widow with
that contempt. She represented to him, in agonies of sorrow, that
she was privileged from this misfortune, by having brought five
princes into the Ottoman family; but all the boys being dead, and
only one girl surviving, this excuse was not received, and she was
compelled to make her choice. She chose Bekir Effendi, then
secretary of state, and above four score years old, to convince the
world, that she firmly intended to keep the vow she had made, of
never suffering a second husband to approach her bed; and since she
must honour some subject so far, as to be called his wife, she would
chuse him as a mark of her gratitude, since it was he that had
presented her, at the age of ten years, to, her last lord. But she
never permitted him to pay her one visit; though it is now fifteen
years she has been in his house, where she passes her time in
uninterrupted mourning, with a constancy very little known in
Christendom, especially in a widow of one and twenty, for she is now
but thirty-six. She has no black eunuchs for her guard, her husband
being obliged to respect her as a queen, and not to inquire at all
into what is done in her apartment.

I WAS led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it,
adorned with white marble pillars like a _ruelle_, covered with pale
blue figured velvet, on a silver ground, with cushions of the sa