English Dictionary

Around our block of residency was an open space, and beyond it were the military bazar on one side, with regimental barracks (little fortified squares) scattered over the plain on the others in the direction of the city. Amongst those to the northward, and at no great distance, is a neat building surrounded by tall poplars within the enclosing walls of its court-yard. It is one of the Atalik's harems, and is said to contain a hundred and twenty fair creatures from different parts of the country. There is another inside the fort and a third at Yangi Hissar. The total number of their inmates is variously estimated at from two hundred and fifty to four hundred women, amongst whom there are, it is said, representatives of almost every people from the cites of CHina on the east to the markets of Constantinople on the west, and from the steppes of Mongholia on the north to the valleys of the Himalaya on the south. The modern Napoleon of the Tatar steppes, as his admirers are pleased to style him on account of his successful usurpations, may be with equal propriety styled the Solomon of the age, for if he has not the proverbial wisdom of that ancient king, he at least emulates him in the number of his wives and concubines.