ed her
fourteenth or fifteenth year, and is already marriageable,
she is allowed to indulge her penchant at will, which is
forbidden when younger. After this age the diameter of the
cigarette increases year by year; and when a lady has
reached the mature age of twenty-four, no one sees anything
remarkable in her smoking a modest little chibouque as she
sits on the lower divan of the harem. Elderly matrons--and
in Turkey every lady is an elderly matron in her fortieth
year--are passionately devoted to this enjoyment. The
pipe-bowls and stems always remain of the size appropriated
by etiquette to the use of the harem; but the strongest and
most pungent sorts of tobacco are not unseldom smoked, until
the mouth, which, according to the assurance of the poet, in
the bloom of its youth breathed forth ambergiris and musk,
in its fortieth year acquires so strong a smell that the
lady can be scented from a distance.

"Like their lords, the hanyrus of rank have also their
tchbukdes, of course of their own sex, who accompany them
when out walking or on a visit. In this case, however, the
cover in which the pipe-stem is made, not of cloth, but of
silk. The habit of refreshing oneself with a pipe on some
elevated spot which commands a fine view, is common to both
sexes. Men can indulge this taste whenever their fancy may
suggest, but ladies only in retired spots; for, whenever a
Turkish fair one removes the yas mak (veil) from her lips,
as she does to smoke, all around her must be harem (sacred).

"Sometimes an eunuch stands guard at a little distance off,
and if a stranger of the male sex approaches, gives a
signal; the pipe is held aside, while the mouth is kept
covered by the veil, until the unexpected Acteon has passed
by. But where the pipe plays the most important part is in
the bath. It is well known that the Turkish ladies are
accustomed to frequent the hommams assiduously, and to
remain there for hours together. They enter the bath about
eight o'clock in the morning; take their midday meal there,
and return home between three and four in the afternoon.
During these hours of leisure, the most agreeable in a
Mohammedan woman's life, the pipe is their constant
resource. In the middle of the warmest room is a round
terrace-lik