Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/137

 prison, and secure the damsel herself with a good guard in her own house. He then invited his friends, and prepared a marriage-feast, and sent a number of Turkish women to her at her home with splendid clothes and female ornaments, who laid so many good reasons before her that they at last persuaded her to consent to be his. Her father and mother were then released from prison.

There is this custom among the Turkish women. When any young man wishes to marry, he must marry rather through the information of his female friends than through the observation of his own eyes; for they tell him where a lovely, handsome, and wealthy virgin is to be found, and he may not see her, or even go to the house of her father and converse with her openly; in fact, if he looks in her face before she is his, the Turks used to consider it a sin of the first magnitude. But this is already obsolete with them; for our janissaries told us that no Turkish maiden puts up with the rule that she is not to show herself to her lover, or speak with him, and if she cannot do it openly, she, at any rate, does it secretly. They have, usually, gardens beside their houses, and in them elevated galleries, on which the women dry their clothes and veils; and if a maiden has not such a convenience at home, she goes to the house of a female friend, and having an understanding with her lover, or with his female friends, makes known when and where he is to be in attendance. She goes to one of these galleries, dressed like a goddess, and assiduously dries some clothes, sings with a loud voice, and acts as though she knew nothing about him. If, however, she ascertains that she has proved attractive to the young