susceptible of many turns and shades in translation. However, the rendering is word for word and literal throughout, so far as the Chinese language admits of it. E. H. PARKER. From Longman's Magazine. LETTERS ON TURKEY. IV. HASAN AND HUSAIN. There are certain things which seem even more incredible after one has seen them than before. That religious fanaticism may become a kind of raving madness, we know not only from mythology but from history also; and there are trustworthy accounts from eye-witnesses who describe the horrible tortures and mutilations which people will inflict on themselves, and the cruelties which they will perpetrate on others, while in a state of religious frenzy. We accept these accounts without always fully realizing them. We make allowance for innate sav. agery, or, among more civilized races, for the influence of intoxicating liquor. But no one would call the present inhabitants of Constantinople savages, and the use of intoxicating liquor is less frequent there than among ourselves. And yet what we saw there on the feast of Hasan and Husain, and what may be seen there every year during the first ten days of the Moharran, seems so difficult to believe that one is almost afraid to describe it. The Turks themselves, it must be said to their honor, have little to do with these exhibitions. They disapprove of them, but the sultan, it is said, is unwilling to stop them for fear of being considered intolerant. The performance is chiefly Persian. The Persians resident in Constantinople form a kind of regnum in regno, and insist on their privilege of witnessing these religious atrocities every year. We were invited by the Persian ambassador to witness this performance, and found way our towards the evening to a large square, a khân, surrounded by houses and shops, planted with trees, and crowded with people. When it grew dark the houses were illuminated, and large bonfires were lighted, mostly with petroleum. The mixture of smells, petroleum, escaped gas, sewers, and humanity, was terrible, even in the open air. After waiting for some time, music could be heard, and the people made room for a large procession that marched in, consisting of more than a thousand men and boys, and preceded by children dressed in white, some riding on horseback with grown-up men at their sides, gesticulating, reciting, and crying. Then followed three companies, all in white shirts, some carrying swords, others heavy iron chains, and all shouting rhythmically, "Vah Hasan! Vah Husain!" The first set struck their bare chests first with their right hand, then with the left. The next company passed by swinging their chains from side to side with a graceful dancing motion. The third and last lot passed along sideways in two long lines facing each other, each man holding his neighbor's girdle with the left hand, whilst they swung their swords in unison with the right. Between these rows marched men reciting the story of Hasan and Husain. The whole procession passed on thus slowly round the khân, and left by the gate at which they entered. We wondered why we had been told that only people of strong nerves should attend this celebration. Whilst the procession was visiting another khân we were refreshed with the most delicious tea. After a time we again heard the strains of music, this time louder and wilder, and the people all round us began to show signs of great and increasing excitement and agitation as the procession, lighted by the lurid glare of the petroleum bonfires, re-entered the khân. The children passed by as before, followed by a white horse, on which sat two white doves, emblematic of the souls of Hasan and Husain. The cries of "Vah! vah! Hasan! Husain!" grew louder and louder, many of the spectators joining policemen in London could have cleared a passage so quickly as our aide-decamp and a few kavasses. When I expressed my admiration of this orderly crowd to a Turkish friend, he smiled and said, “Ah, we have no women in our crowds." The presence of women accounts evidently to an Eastern mind for most of our troubles in the West, and they express their conviction that we shall never get on unless we shut them up again. in, whilst the first company passed | made room for us. No number of beating their bare breasts with such violence and regularity that it sounded like sledge hammers coming down on blocks of granite. The second company passed swinging their chains over their heads, and bringing them down on their now bare backs till the flesh was lacerated and streaming with blood. Then, last and worst of all, came the men with the swords, cutting themselves, particularly their heads, in good earnest, so that one had to stand back to avoid the blood which spurted forth in all directions. Soon their white shirts were crimson with blood, their heads looked as if covered with a red fez, and the pavement was running with blood; and yet these people marched on as if on parade. Very few indeed fell out. One man fell down dead before our eyes; and at last a kind of police came forward, holding their sticks over the people so as to prevent their hacking themselves to death in their frenzy. There was little violence, and there was no trace of drunkenness. The people, though densely crowded, were perfectly orderly, and one saw old rough men crying and shedding bitter tears, and with many sobs uttering the names Hasan and Husain. They were all men of the lower and lowest classes as far as one could judge from their outward appearance, and if you had asked one of them why they cried so bitterly, they would probably have had nothing to answer but "Oh, Hasan and Husain!" It is true there were men who recited the history of Hasan and Husain, but no one seemed to listen to them; nay, their voices were completely drowned by the regular shouts of "Hasan and Husain!" Now if we ask why these hundreds and thousands of men were shedding tears and crying "Hasan and Husain!" history tells us little more than that Hasan, the fifth khalif, the son of Fatimah and of Ali, the fourth khalif, reigned only half a year and was probably poisoned by his wife, while Husain was slain in the battle of Kerbelah, 680 A.D., fighting against the Syrian army of Obaidallah. Many princes have fallen under similar circumstances, but their very names are now forgotten, and no one sheds a tear about them. The real reason of these tears for Hasan and Husain lies much deeper. It is first of all religious. Mohammed, in spite of all his remonstrances and his protestations that he was a man, and a man only, was soon represented as having been created by Allah in the beginning of all things, and before there was as yet either heaven or earth, darkness, light, sun, moon, paradise, or hell. The only surviving child of Mohammed was Fatimah, the wife of Ali, and the mother of Hasan and Husain. These four were soon made to share in the same miraculous birthright as the Prophet, and opposition to them or the killing of any of them was therefore looked upon as a kind of sacrilege. They were of the blood of Mohammed, and the shedding of that sacred blood was the highest crime that could be committed. Hence the religious feeling for Hasan and Husain, both murdered, though they were in a very special sense of the blood of Mohammed, if not the direct descendants of Allah. There is besides a purely sentimental feeling for Hasan and Husain, because they were murdered young, and be- | to drink, and there was struck by an cause national poetry has endowed them with many virtues. In Persia there are real miracle-plays (some of them translated by the late Sir Lewis Pelly), very different from the wild shoutings of the crowds at Constantinople, and in them Hasan, and particularly Husain, are represented as heroes and martyrs, and endowed with every virtue under the sun. The very day before the final battle in which he fell Husain was asked to surrender, but he declined. His sister came to him in the night, crying, "Alas for the desolation of my family! My mother Fatimah is dead, and my father Ali and my brother Hasan. Alas for the destruction that is past! and alas for the destruction that is to come!" Then Husain replied, "Sister, put your trust in God, and know that man is born to die and that the heavens shall not remain; everything shall pass away but the presence of God, who created all things by his power, and shall make them by his power to pass away, and they shall return to him alone. My father was better than I, my mother was better than I, and my brother was better than I, and they and we and all Muslims have an example in the Apostle of God." Then he told his soldiers to march away and leave him alone because he alone was wanted; but they all refused, and determined to fight. Then Husain mounted his horse and set the Korán before him, crying, "O God, Thou art my confidence in any trouble and my hope in every calamity." His sister and daughter began to weep, but Husain remained firm. At that very moment some of the enemy's cavalry went over to him. But the enemy was too strong for Husain's army. Husain himself was struck on the head. and had to retire to his tent, streaming with blood. He sat down and took his little son on his lap, who was immediately killed by an arrow. The father placed the little corpse on the ground and cried, "We come from God and we return to him. O God, give me strength to bear misfortunes." He then ran these toward the Euphrates to get some water arrow in his mouth. While he stood and prayed, his little nephew ran up to kiss him, and had his hand cut off with a sword. Husain wept, and said, "Thy reward, dear child, is with thy forefathers in the realms of bliss." Though wounded and faint, Husain charged the enemy bravely and was soon killed, his corpse being trampled into the ground by the enemy's horsemen. But Whether all this be historically true or not, when presented on a stage we can quite imagine that it might draw tears from the spectators' eyes. that, without any appeal to the eyes, hundreds of rough, nay ruffianly-looking men, should gash and lacerate themselves almost unto death, while others stand about shedding bitter tears, is more difficult to explain. Still so it was, and there were the members of most of the foreign embassies and legations present to witness it, few without having their going home dresses spattered with blood. There is, however, besides the religious and sentimental, another source, if not of the tears, at least of the excitement, and that source is political, if not ethnological. It is political in so far that of the two great divisions of the Mohammedans, the Shiites and Sunnites, the former never recognized any true khalifs except the direct descendants of Mohammed, namely, Ali, the husband of Fatimah, and their sons. Hasan and Husain. Abubekr, Omar, and Osman were in their eyes usurpers. Still more SO were the Omayades, the successors of Mu'awiyah, who in 661 A.D. took the khalifate from Hasan. This feeling of hostility between the Shiites and Sunnites continues to the present day, and may still become not only the excuse for street rows, but the cause of serious political troubles. There may even be an ethnological element at the bottom of this political division, for the Shiites are mostly Persian, that is, Aryan; the Sunnites are Arab, that is. Semitic. The Arab character is stiff, formal, and legal; the Persian character is free, poetical, and philosophical. The Persians, though | young girls now in Turkey are all being conquered by the Arabs, were for a long time intellectually the masters and teachers of their conquerors. At Constantinople they live side by side apparently in peace, but the Persians must not be offended, and to deprive them of their national festival would be an offence in their eyes, though in the eyes of the world it would be a wholesome removal of an offensive anachronism. When one sees the state of frenzy into which thousands of people can work themselves up by merely shouting for hours "Hasan aud Husain!" one understands the danger that might arise if ever more articulate utterance should be given to their shouts. One clever leader might carry away these people to a general massacre, and they would probably be as ready to die as they are to lie bleeding in the street, shouting "Hasan and Husain!" to the very end, and looking forward with delight to the black-eyed girls, and to Hasan and Husain, waiting for them in Paradise. V. TURKISH LADIES. No one who visits Turkey can know anything of the real life of the people unless he has seen some of the harems, for it is a mistake to imagine that because they are invisible to the outer world the Turkish women have no influence. On the contrary, unable to spend their time in going about and in visiting or receiving general visitors, they have all the more leisure for intrigue and scheming, and it must be remembered that all marriages are arranged exclusively by the female relations on both sides. Though the present sultan's own wives and slaves are said to be mere frivolous dolls, spending their energies on dress and eating sweetmeats, many of the pashas' wives are women of keen intelligence, able to manage their husbands' properties, and it is well known that the valideh sultans, or mothers of the sultans, have often exercised immense influence in State affairs. The educated, the sultan having established excellent schools, where the girls go till the age of twelve or so, when they "put on the yashmak" and disappear. Up to that age they may be seen sitting with their fathers in the public gardens of an afternoon, and going to and from school of a morning, attended, if of the higher classes, by the usual hideous black attendant. I was not invited to the royal harem, but I had the opportunity of seeing several Turkish homes during our stay at Constantinople. My first visit was to the wife of one of the great ministers. The wife of one of the foreign pashas in the Turkish service arranged the visit, and kindly accompanied me. We drove to a part of Pera beyond the Grande Rue, and almost opposite the palace of Yildiz, though separated from it by a deep valley. I had often observed when driving the high, white walls in this locality, but had never realized that they concealed the harems of many of the ministers and highest nobility. We passed the minister's own house, his selamlk, and across the road stopped at a high gate in the high wall, where we prepared to leave the carriage; but the gates were opened for us, and we were desired to drive in, as the gardeners were still at work, so that the ladies could not be in the garden. We drew up at the door of a square, white house, the entrance up high steps. All round us rose the harem walls, not covered with creepers as at Yildiz, but bare and white, and so high that even from the top windows of the house nothing could be seen. In spite of the beautiful turf and brilliant flower-beds and shrubs, it looked and felt like a prison. The door was opened by a slave, and we found ourselves in a long and very narrow passage, which led into a large and lofty central hall full of palms, with a fountain playing in the middle, and all round stood the slaves-the women, black and white, in brightcolored cotton dresses and white turbans, and black eunuchs in frock coat and fez. We were shown into a large, hand talking of the mosques and buildings, of the sarcophagi in the museum, and the treasures of the Seraglio, which she had never seen, and never could see, so our conversation must have been unintelligible to her. I came away with a feeling of the deepest pity for these two women, who seemed to me restless and unsatisfied, indulged as they evidently were by their husbands and surrounded by all that wealth could give them. somely furnished room, with a splendid | talk with the minister, I failed utterly; yellow carpet, but without a book, or but, as I reflected afterwards, we were work, or any sign of life and occupation. | The little wife soon appeared, dressed in European dress; in fact, it is only in the royal harem that the native costume is kept up. She was accompanied by her sister-in-law, the wife of the minister's brother. The latter spoke Turkish only, so my friend devoted herself to her, whilst I had a lively talk in French with the minister's wife. She was small and nice-looking, with brilliant eyes. She told me that she drove out once, at the utmost twice a year, in a shut carriage, the only time she passed outside those terrible walls. She was fond of her garden and her pets, cats and birds, but she had no children, and, I was told, lived in constant dread that her husband would, in consequence, divorce her, for very few Turks now have two wives. Her idea of European life was founded on French novels, which she read incessantly, and she said to me: "Well, we are happier than you, for our husbands may fancy one of our slaves whom we know, but your husbands go about with French actresses whom you don't know!" Sweetmeats were brought in by the slaves, and then cigarettes, but I had to confess my ignorance of smoking, and, lastly, the delicious Turkish coffee in golden cup stands. The minister's wife is a good musician, and her sister-in-law draws and paints, taught by the minister, who is quite a good artist; but in spite of music and painting, and French novels, and lovely garden, I had a sad feeling that she was like a bird beating her wings against her gilded cage. She had read too much to be content. All the time of our visit the doors stood open, and the slaves passed and repassed, as if keeping up a constant espionage. We were just going into the garden, a slave reporting the departure of the gardeners, when the minister and his brother came in, having hurried back from the palace to see us. From the moment of their arrival the two little wives were absolutely silent, and though I tried to include his wife in my interesting | amethysts round her neck; her hair was During our stay at Therapia the Austrian ambassadress took me to call on the wife of Munir Pasha, grand master of ceremonies. Their house at Yeni Keui is on the Bosphorus (the walls washed by the water), and I had already visited Munir Pasha in his selamlik, separated from the harem by a beautiful garden, full of hundreds of roses of different sorts. Here, as there was no harem wall, the windows were all carefully latticed, but the inmates can see out through the lattice, though no one can see them. We were in one of the Austrian caïques, and were received on landing by two or three blackies, one of whom, a singularly tall figure, I had noticed more than once on the steamer in attendance on the young daughter on her way to and from school. We found our hostess in a large room on the ground floor, and as she only spoke Turkish, her nephew, a palace aide-de-camp, was there to interpret. Munir Pasha's wife is a very capable, clever woman, probably not what we should call highly educated, but able to conduct all her husband's affairs and manage his estate, as nearly his whole time must be spent at the palace. Though everything had to be said through the nephew, we speaking French, the conversation never flagged for a moment. This was the only harem I visited where no refreshments were offered us. Our hostess, who was a woman of between forty and fifty, and, like most Turkish ladies, decidedly stout, was dressed in mauve-colored muslin, with a chain of very large |