port them against superior numbers. They contested, with desperate bravery, for possession of their native soil, and, when driven from Eig, they took refuge in the adjoining and dependent island. But even here they were not secure from the revengeful enmity of their enemies. The M'Leods prepared to pursue them to their last strong-hold, and the M'Donalds being no longer in a condition to repel so formidable a force as they now brought against them, concealed themselves in the cave situate near the centre of the island. The place was unknown to the M'Leods, and, unable to discover it, they spread their sails, and pretended to quit the island.

The M'Donalds had suffered severely from privation, and when night had fallen they dismissed one of the party to make observations. He had hardly departed when the snow began to fall, and the marks of his footsteps on his return served to direct the enemy, next morning, to the place of retreat; for the departure of the M'Leods was only a feint to throw the M'Donalds off their guard.

When the enemy stood before the entrance to the cave, they gave a loud shout of exultation, and the unfortunate prisoners made a simultaneous rush towards the narrow aperture. The confusion which necessarily followed this movement created much inhuman merriment without, and when they demanded a parley, they were told the surrender of their chief was the only means by which they could hope for mercy. To this demand they gave a prompt and decided negative, and the next moment a volume of dense smoke rushed into the cave. Again the chief was demanded, and again an indignant refusal was given. 'Let my blood,' said the M'Donald, appease their wrath;' but his clan unanimously cried, No, we can die together.'

Again the burning fuel sent its smoke into the cave, and again the M'Donalds attempted to rush out: but the entrance was too small to give egress to more than one, and those who had the temerity to venture were quickly dispatched by the claymores of the gael. At

first they did not experience any bad effect from the smoke, but, as it began to grow more dense, their breathing became somewhat difficult: they eagerly stooped their faces to the cooling earth, and found a momentary relief from this position in consequence of the smoke ascending at first towards the roof. But this respite was short-the diminution of the vital air occasioned an incipient suffocation, to escape from which they rushed into the furthest corner, but the volume of smoke had already filled every aperture. It was then that the confidence of manhood and the control of intellect departed; a desperate madness took possession of them; the distinction of age and sex were forgotten in the general fury, and the wild frenzy of the moment rendered them indifferent to the ties of affection and kindred and clan. The lover thrust his mistress from before him, the son trampled upon his aged father, and even the mother released herself from the burden of her infant: the cry of anguish was dreadful and convulsive, but the M'Leods only laughed at the misery they occasioned; shouted We are revenged!" and heaped additional fuel on the fire. Another volume of smoke served to thicken the vapour in the cave, and again the dreadful cry of expiring hundreds burst fearfully upon the ear. It did not, however, last long; it grew gradually fainter, and soon ceased altogether. Not one of the M'Donalds escaped with life, and the M'Leods had not virtue enough to blush for the dreadful deed. ASKILL.

IMPROMPTU.

ANACREON Sung the praise of wine
In strains ecstatic and divine;
Round tables deck'd with goblets bright
Methinks 'twere easy so to write !
But bards of these degenerate days
To rosy wine ne'er tune their lays :
For the rich grape's exciting glow
They can by hearsay only know.

ORIENTAL SKETCHES.-NO. III.

THE TURKS.

THE modes and customs of Turkey are completely opposite to those of Christendom. Here the head is shaved, the beard unshorn; the men wear petticoats of cloth; the women trowsers of silk or cotton. Instead of a hat a piece of muslin is twisted round the head; instead of a surtout a blanket is thrown across the shoulders; a carpet serves for a bed; a wooden bowl for a service of plate; a pewter tray for a table-cloth; fingers do for forks, and swords for carving-knives. A man salutes without stooping, sits down without a chair, he is silent without reflection, and serious without sagacity. If you inquire after the health of his wife it is at the hazard of your head; if you praise the beauty of his children he suspects you of the evil eye. The name of the prophet is in every man's mouth, and the fear of God in few men's hearts. The women hide their faces, and heed not the exhibition of their bosoms; they glory in the lascivious evolutions of the alme, and blush at the immodesty of an English woman without a veil. One would almost think there was a purposed hostility to all the modes and customs of Christendom; and when the Egyptian bestows his contemptuous regard on our ridiculous attire, for such it is to him, and on our immoral practice of suffering our women to go abroad, he has just the same extraordinary opinion of our dress and manners that we have of his. It is curious enough, that in the very country where women are now the most degraded, they formerly were the most honoured. Diodorus says, that kings were less respected in Egypt than queens; and that the influence of women in general was much more considerable than that of men. was stipulated, he says, in their marriage articles, that their husbands should be subservient to them in every thing; and so, while the men were employed at the loom, or in household duties, the women were abroad, engaged in whatever was important. The contrast between the present and the past is striking.

It

A Turkish lady of fashion is wooed by an invisible lover in the progress of the courtship a hyacinth is occasionally dropt in her path, by an unknown hand, and the female attendant at the bath does the office of a Mercury, and talks of a certain effendi demanding a lady's love, as a nightingale aspiring to the affections of a rose !

A clove, wrapped up in an embroidered handkerchief, is the least token of condescension the nightingale can expect; but a written billet-doux is an implement of love which the gentle rose is unable to manufacture. The father of the lady at length is solicited for her hand, and he orders her to give it, and to love, honour, and obey her husband: in short, they are married by proxy, before the cadi, and the light of her lord's countenance first beams on her in the nuptial chamber. This change in her condition is one which every spinster envies: if she be the only wife she reigns in the harem over a host of slaves; if there be two or three more she shares with them the delights of domestic sway. Every week, at least, she is blessed with a periodical return of her husband's love; he enters the harem at noonday, and, at sunset, after the fatigue of sauntering from one bazaar to another, and from the public divan to the private chambers,-he performs his evening ablutions, one obsequious lady fetches a vial of rosewater to perfume his beard, another bears a looking-glass, with a mother-of-pearl handle, another carries an embroidered napkin; and supper is brought in by a host of slaves and servants; for in most harems the ordinary attendants have access to the women's apartments. The women stand before him while he eats, and, when he finishes, a number of additional dishes are brought in for the ladies, whose breeding consists in eating with the finger and thumb only, and

*Turkish women, however high their rank, can neither read nor write. Dr. Clarke's account of the ladies writing in the imperial seraglio is erroneous. Most probably the papers he found in their apartments were written by the black eunuchs. Reading and writing form no part of the education of a woman of fashion in Turkey.

in not devouring indecorously the sweetmeats, of which they are exceedingly fond.

When supper is removed, and the servants disappear, there are few harems where small bottles of rosoglio are not produced. One of the female slaves generally presents the pipe on one knee; and sometimes one of the wives brings the coffee, and kisses the hand of her lord at the same time; this ceremony every wife goes through in the morning, none daring to sit down in his presence but such as have the honour of being mothers: but, in the evening, there is very little etiquette, and very little truth in the assertion of Pauqueville, that the Turks retire to their harems without relaxing the least particle of their gravity.' The reverse of this statement is near the truth: the orgies of the evening, in most harems, are conducted with all the levity of licentiousness, and the gravity of the Moslems totally disappears; their roars of laughter are to be heard in the adjoining houses; and the gravity of the Turk during the day is only the exhaustion of his spirits from previous excitement.

The women vie with each other in eliciting the smiles of their common lord; one shows the rich silk she has been embroidering for his vest, another plays an instrument resembling a spinet, and another displays her elegant form in the voluptuous mazes of the dance. No handkerchief is thrown, but a smile is sufficient to 'speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul;' and from that moment, to the period when another favourite supplants the former, she is salaamed with additional respect by the slaves, and treated with greater honour by all the harem. When she goes to the bath she is to be distinguished by the importance of her air; the waddling of her gait attests her quality; she disposes her white robe over her fair arms so as to present the largest possible surface en face, and God help the unlucky Christian who crosses her path. The fanaticism of females is in a ratio with their quality, and hence it is from them, chiefly, a Frank passenger has to expect such gentle maledictions as, May the plague fall on