as perhaps not deigned
to be present,--and she of course not,--at the arrangement by their
legal representatives, for signing the contract, and fixing the amount
of dowry which she brings, or the sum which he shall give her in case he
at any time shall decree her divorce. This is all that constitutes the
marriage ceremony in Turkey. I once saw the arrival of a Turkish bride
at her bridegroom's house. There was no welcome. She alighted with a
woman friend from the closed carriage. Some one must have waited within
the garden, for the heavy street-gate opened at their approach, received
the women, closed upon them, and the bride was shut into her husband's
house, from all the world. If she displeases him in any way, even if her
cooking does not suit him, a word from her husband suffices to divorce a
wife, according to Moslem law. He may have as many wives as he wishes,
and another is easily found.

Mohammedan husbands are allowed to punish their wives with blows, to
enforce obedience. A whole town pervaded by these Turkish ideas was
filled with amazement at a burly non-Moslem friend of mine, whose wife
had become a Christian. Although jeered at and ridiculed by his
companions as one who could not make his wife obey him, he never lifted
his hand against her, for he loved her too well. He did, however, cause
her great unhappiness for years, until the Spirit of God broke his hard
heart, and made him also a Christian.

No Turk expects a woman to speak to him in a public place, or if she
does he will not raise his eyes from the ground. A friend of mine was in
deepest distress in a lonely place in Turkey, wringing her hands and
crying "Alas! Alas!" as she saw a man approaching her; but Agha Effendim
gave her no heed until she walked straight up to him, so sore was her
need, and told him her trouble. Then his heart was touched, and
Mohammedan Albanian as he was, he rendered her the aid which she asked.

Forty Mohammedan women, living too distant from Mecca to allow a
pilgrimage thither, made the ascent, one summer, of one of the loftiest
mountain peaks in European Turkey. They did this as a religious duty. It
was a feat which required all the vigor and strength of an American
mountain-climber, who ascended the same peak some days later. She could
not abandon the task, however, which they had accomplished, whose feet
knew only the heelless slipper or the wooden clog, when about their
household duties, or stepped noiselessly in t