Tartars from Russia, Circassia, or Georgia, and
are such miserable, awkward, poor wretches, you would not think any of
them worthy to be your housemaids. 'Tis true that many thousands were
taken in the Morea; but they have been, most of them, redeemed by the
charitable contributions of the Christians, or ransomed by their own
relations at Venice. The fine slaves that wait upon the great ladies, or
serve the pleasures of the great men, are all bought at the age of eight
or nine years old, and educated with great care, to accomplish them in
singing, dancing, embroidery, &c. They are commonly Circassians, and
their patron never sells them, except it is as a punishment for some
very great fault. If ever they grow weary of them, they either present
them to a friend, or give them their freedom. Those that are exposed to
sale at the markets are always either guilty of some crime, or so
entirely worthless that they are of no use at all. I am afraid you will
doubt the truth of this account, which I own is very different from our
common notions in England; but it is no less truth for all that.

"Your whole letter is full of mistakes from one end to the other. I see
you have taken your ideas of Turkey from that worthy author Dumont, who
has written with equal ignorance and confidence. 'Tis a particular
pleasure to me here, to read the voyages to the Levant, which are
generally so far removed from the truth, and so full of absurdities, I
am very well diverted with them. They never fail giving you an account
of the women, whom 'tis certain they never saw, and talking very wisely
of the genius of the men, into whose company they are never admitted;
and very often describe mosques, which they dare not peep into. The
Turks are very proud, and will not converse with a stranger they are not
assured is considerable in his own country. I speak of the men of
distinction; for, as to the ordinary fellows, you may imagine what ideas
their conversation can give of the general genius of the people.

"I am more inclined, out of a true female spirit of contradiction, to
tell you the falsehood of a great part of what you find in authors; as,
for example, in the admirable Mr. Hill, who so gravely asserts, that he
saw in Sancta Sophia a sweating pillar, very balsamic for disordered
heads. There is not the least tradition of any such matter; and I
suppose it was revealed to him in a vision during his wonderful stay in
the Egyptian catacombs; for I am