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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
              VOL. XXXVII.      October, 1850.      NO. 4.


                           Table of Contents

                    Fiction, Literature and Articles

          The Slave of the Pacha
          Music
          Pedro de Padilh
          Edda Murray
          Thomas Johnson
          Early English Poets—George Herbert
          Teal and Teal Shooting
          The Fine Arts
          Review of New Books

                       Poetry, Music and Fashion

          A Night at The Black Sign
          Sonnets: Suggested by Passages in the Life of
            Christopher Columbus
          To a Friend—with a Bunch of Roses
          Spring Lilies
          The Earth
          Alone—Alone!
          The Name of Wife
          Sonnet.—The Olive.
          Sin No More
          Wordsworth
          Inspiration. To Shirley.
          Sonnets, On Pictures in the Huntington Gallery
          Thinking of Minna
          The Maiden’s Lament for Her Shipwrecked Lover
          The Years of Love
          Ah, Do Not Speak So Coldly
          Le Follet

       Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: THE SLAVE OF THE PACHA.

Painted by W. Brown and Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine by J.
  Brown]

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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

        VOL. XXXVII.     PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1850.     NO. 4.

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                        THE SLAVE OF THE PACHA.


                         A TALE OF ASIA MINOR.


                      FROM THE FRENCH OF SAINTINE.


I was botanizing lately in the woods of Luciennes, with one of my
friends, a distinguished Orientalist and renowned botanist, who had, a
few years since, traveled six thousand miles, and risked his life twenty
times, in order to obtain a handful of plants from the <DW72>s of the
Taurus or the plains of Asia Minor. After we had wandered for some time
through the woods, gathering here and there some dry grass and orchis,
merely to renew an acquaintance with them, we lounged toward the
handsome village of Gressets and the delightful valley of Beauregard,
directing our steps toward a breakfast, which we hoped to find a little
further on, when, beneath an alley of lofty poplars, on the left of the
meadows of the Butard, we saw two persons, a man and a woman, both
young, approaching us.

My companion made a gesture of surprise at the sight of them.

“Do you know those persons?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Of what class, genus and species are they?” I used the words merely in
their botanical sense.

“Analyze, observe and divine,” replied my illustrious traveler.

I determined then on applying to my individuals, not the system of
Linnæus, but that of Jussien, that of affinities and analogies. The
latter appeared to me to be more suitable and easier than the former.
The young man was dressed in a very simple and even negligent style,
wearing those high heeled shoes, three-quarter boots, which have
succeeded the half boots, (boots, since the introduction of comfort
among us, having steadily lessened,) and had not even straps to his
pantaloons. A pearl  sack,  shirt, and traveling cap with
a large visor, completed his costume.

Near him walked a young woman, of the middle height and finely formed,
but with such an air of indolence in her movements, flexibility of the
body, and jogging of the haunches, as proclaimed a southern origin or a
want of distinction. They advanced with their heads down, speaking
without looking up, and walking side by side without taking arms, but
from time to time one leant on the shoulder of the other, with a
movement full of affection.

It was not until we crossed them that I could see their figures; until
then I had been able to study only their costume and general outline.

The young man blushed on recognizing my companion, and saluted him with
a very humble air; I had scarcely time, however, to catch a single
pathognomic line of his face. The female was very handsome; the elegance
of her neck, the regularity of her features, gave her a certain air of
distinction, contradicted, however, by something provoking in her
appearance.

When they had passed on some distance, my friend said to me:

“Well, what judgment do you pass on our two persons?”

“Well,” replied I, positively, “the young man is your confectioner, who
is about to marry his head shop-girl;” but reading a sign of negation on
the countenance of my interrogator—“or a successful merchant’s clerk,
with a countess without prejudices.”

“You are wrong.”

I asked for a moment’s reflection, and, to render my work of observation
perfect, I looked after them.

They had reached, near the place where we were, the side of a spring,
called, in the country, the “Priest’s Fountain.” The young female had
already seated herself upon the grass, and drawing forth a napkin spread
it near her, whilst the young man drew a paté and some other provisions
carefully from his basket.

“Certainly,” I said to myself, “there are, evidently, in the face of
this beautiful person, traits both of the great lady and the grisette;
but, on thinking of her rolling fashion of walking, and especially
judging of her by the appearance of her companion, then stooping to
uncork a bottle, and whose unstrapped pantaloons, riding half way up his
leg, revealed his quarter boots, the grisette type prevailed in my
opinion.”

“The lady,” I replied, but with less assurance than at first, “is a
figurante at one of our theatres, or a female equestrian at the Olympic
circus.”

“There is some truth in what you say.”

“He is a lemonade seller.” I judged so from the practiced facility with
which he appeared to open the bottle.

“You are farther from the mark than ever,” said my companion.

“Well, then, let us talk about something else.”

Once at the Butard we thought no more of our two Parisian cockneys.
Whilst they were preparing our breakfast, and even whilst we were
breakfasting, my friend naturally recommenced speaking of his travels in
the Taurus and Anti-Taurus, in the Balkan, the Caucasus, on the banks of
the Euphrates, and then, to give me a respite from all his botanical and
geological descriptions, he related to me, piece by piece, without
appearing to attach the least importance to them, a story, which
interested me very much. He had collected the details of it (the scene
of which was laid not far from the shores of the Black Sea, between
Erzerum and Constantinople) from the lips of one of the principal actors
in it.

I endeavored to reduce it to writing when with him, not in the same
order, or disorder, as to events, but at least so far as regards their
exactness, and availing myself of the knowledge of persons and places
acquired by my traveler.


                               CHAPTER I.

Toward the middle of the month of July, in the year 1841, in the
pachalick of Shivas, in the vast gardens situated near the Red River, a
young girl, dressed in the Turkish costume, was walking slowly, with her
head bent down, followed by an old negress. At times she turned her head
rapidly, and when her eyes, through the massive maples and sycamores,
rested on the angle of a large building, with gilded lattices and
balconies of finely carved cedar, her complexion, usually pale, became
suddenly suffused, her small foot contracted against the ground, her
breast heaved, and she restrained with difficulty the sigh that
endeavored to escape.

Silent and pre-occupied she stopped, and with her finger designated a
plantain tree to the negress. The latter immediately entered an elegant
kiosk, a few paces distant, and returned, bearing the skin of a tiger,
which she placed at the foot of the tree. After the old negress had
passed and repassed several times from the skin to the kiosk, and from
the kiosk to the skin, the young girl seated herself, cross-legged, on
the latter, leaning against the plantain tree, on a cushion of black
velvet, holding carelessly in her left hand an ornamented pipe, with a
tube of Persian cherry, and in her right, in a small stand of filagreed
gold, shaped like an egg-cup, a slight porcelain cup, which the old
slave replenished from time to time with the fragrant Mocha.

Baïla was seventeen years old; her black and lustrous hair, parted over
her temples, resembled the raven’s wing; her eye-brows thin, and forming
a perfect arch, though of the same color as her hair, were, as well as
her long eye-lashes and the edge of the lids, covered with a preparation
of antimony, called _sourmah_. Still other colors had been employed to
heighten the lustre of her beauty; the carnation of her lips had
disappeared beneath a light touch of indigo; and, by way of contrary
effect, beneath her eyes, where the fine net work of her veins naturally
produced a light blue tint, the purple of the henna shone out. The
henna, a kind of vegetable carmine, much used in the east, also blushed
upon the nails of her hands and feet, and even upon her heels, which
peeped out, naked, from her small, beautiful sandals, embroidered with
gold and pearls.

Though thus tattooed, in the Asiatic fashion, Baïla was none the less
beautiful. Her costume consisted simply of a velvet caftan, muslin
pantaloons, embroidered with silver, and a cashmere girdle; but all the
knicknackeries of Oriental luxuriousness were displayed in her toilet.
The double row of sequins which swung on her head, the large golden
bracelets which covered her arms and gr