A DINNER IN A HAREM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 253, 13 February 1877, Page 2

A DINNER IN A HAREM.

The great of the earth visit this capital to explore its monuments and milliners' warerooms. They come in quest of French frivolities, and bend the knee to French fashions. The Grand Duke Constantine of Russia has just been here. One cannot say whether his Imperial Highness was sounding M"'Malion and Decazes or not, but it is certain that the Grand Duchess Trent to the very depths of Worth. That imperial lady who is daughter of Duke Joseph of Saxe Altenbourg, is still a handsome woman—and yet she was seven-and-forty last birthday. She is mother of six children, the second eldest of whom hastened to this capital to see her on her birth anniversary. That lady signs herself in Paris Ducliess of Misstra, and her long-necked lord calls himself Duke of that ilk. We know them better here, and in Athens and Copenhagen, as the King and Queen of Hellenes. It is the first visit the young Queen has made to the French capital, and she likes it so well that she has let her husband continue to trip to England en garcon, and remained behind with her parents. Her father is the Russian Prince who most hates perfide Albion. It will even annoy him to see the letters rudely stamped with the London postmark. The Grand Duchess Constantine is one of the few great foreign ladies wlio have ever dined in the harem of Constantinople. A lady of lier suite has souvenirs of that event of uncommon gusto. It was in 1859, and the Grand Duchess's eldest son, Nicholas Constantino vich, then but nine or ten years old, and undreaming of his future Transatlantic seductress, the terrible Fanny Lear, accompanied- by his mother on the occasion. Dinner for the Grand Ducliess was served at the Beschiktarch Place, and Abdul Medjid, who then reigned, did all in his power to make the harem agreeable to the lady of his recent enemy. The hour of the repast was eight o'clock. It was laid in a small cosy room, next an immense saloon in which fifty musicians form el a not inharmonious orchestra. The Grand Duchess sat on the right of the Sultan's sister. At that lady's left was seated one of Abdul's wives, a Circassian of marvellous beauty. The little Prince Nicholas was placed next the mother of the present Sultan Murad. She probably little dreamed then in her wildest visions that a revolution would put her boy prematurely on the throne, and a pair of scissors cut the thread of his uncle's life. The Sultanas had been put in training for that dinner. They had lessons in sitting and in use of implements so unknown to their unsophisticated minds as knives and forks ; but some of the pretty creatures were but dull pupils, and the politeness of the Grand Duchess was for a time put to the test as she saw the awkward attempts at dissection and conveyance to the mouth of the morsels. Indeed, often what the fork could not handily be made to contain fell to the ground, while the rosy lips were ready severed to receive it ; and at last, at the urgent request of the Imperial guest, the Sultana's family took to their accustomed fingers, and managed thus to make up for lost time and finish their repast. Nor is the feat as sloppish as may be supposed. Each time a new dish was served they bathed the tapering fingers of their snowy hands in golden rosewater dishes presented to them by kneeling slaves. The hosts spoke no Russian ; the guests no Turkish. Two Armenians were employed to interpret from both languages into French for the Grand Duchess, and into Turkish for the Sultanas. It was thus that compliments were filtrated. The Sultan came in the evening, and paid one compliment to his Imperial guest, which the lazy man had probably been studying half-an-hour. " The Grand Duke Constantine," said he, £f has but one wife.In my country we profit by the sacred law, and I have foxxr wives ; but not one do I possess who equals the beauty of your Imperial Highness." Constantine Nicolajevich would probably have felt no jealousy" had he listened to the compliment. How can a man be jealous of the master of a harem of twelve hundred ?—Paris Correspondent of the Pioneer.