“You desire me to buy you a Greek slave, who is to be mistress of a thousand good qualities.  The Greeks are subjects, and not slaves.  Those who are to be bought in that manner, are either such as are taken in war, or stolen by the 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 sure he never heard of any such miracle here.