Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/510

Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia).

HAREBELL, or, as the name is often written, Hairbell, known also as the Blue-bell of Scotland, and Witches Thimbles, a well-known perennial wild flower, Campanula rotundifolia, L., a member of the natural order Campanu- lacece. The harebell has a very slender slightly creeping root- stock, and a wiry, erect stem. The radical leaves, to which the specific name refers, have long stalks, and are roundish or cord ate, crenate or serrate; the lower stem leaves are ovate or lanceo late, and the upper ones linear, subsessile, acute and entire, rarely pubescent. The flowers are slightly drooping, arranged in a panicle, or in small speci mens single, having the calyx- tube glabrous, with subulate and erect segments, the corolla campanulate, with slightly re curved segments, and the capsule nodding, and opening by pores at the base of the calyx -tube. There are two varieties : (a) genuina, with slender stem leaves, and (6) montana, in which the lower stem-leaves are elliptical-oblanceolate. The plant is found on heaths and pastures throughout Great Britain and North America, and flowers in late summer and autumn. The harebell has ever been a great favourite with poets, and on account of its delicate blue colour has been con sidered as an emblem of purity.

HAREM, or less frequently Haram, the recognized European title for that portion of a polygamist s house which is devoted to the exclusive occupancy of his wives and their attendants, or, by a simple metonymy, for the female portion of his household. The word harem is Arabic for anything forbidden or not to be touched. It is generally applied in Moslem law to such things as games of chance, draughts, chess, witchcraft, and portrait-taking, which are inconsistent with the religious code, and under the form of haram it is well known even to Europeans as designating the sacred enclosure of the principal mosque at Cairo and at Jerusalem (Haram esch-Scheriy). The word seraglio, which is not unfrequently employed as equivalent to harem, is an Italian modification (usually spelled serraglio from assimilation to serrare, to shut in) of the Persian term serai, which simply means a palace or large building, as in the familiar compound caravanserai. Wherever polygamy is maintained in the midst of a developed social life, the harem appears to be an almost inevitable institution. We consequently find it after a more or less rigid type among the Jews, the Babylonians, the Siamese, the ancient Persians, the Peruvians, &c. But it is among the modern Mahometan peoples that it has attained its most perfect development ; and the harems of the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia may be taken as the most elaborate and best-known specimens of the type.

According to the Koran, the Mussulman is required to satisfy himself with four wives, but the sultan may possess as many as seven. Each of these has her own suite of apartments, her own garden and bath-room, and her own body of servants, male and female. They are not called by their names, but distinguished as Kadin (or Lady) Number One, Kadin Number Two, and so on. The title of sultana is bestowed only on the mother, the sister, or the daughter of a sultan; and consequently it is the kadin who first gives birth to an heir to the empire who alone can have this distinction. She further obtains the title of hasseky or kasseki, but this is lost if the child dies. All the female slaves, or as they are called odalisks (a European corruption of the word odalik, from oda a chamber, and lik belonging to), are at the absolute disposal of the sultan, and if, in spite of the natural endeavours of the kadins to prevent such a contingency, one of them becomes the mother of her lord and master s first-born ; she is advanced to the rank of sultana hasseky. It is contrary to etiquette for the sultan to select his own favourites among the odalisks ; he is expected to accept the choice made for him by his mother, who bears the title of valide", and exercises great influence not only in the affairs of the harem but even in political matters. Every odalisk who has been promoted to the royal couch is henceforth considered sacred from all meaner patronage, and receives apartments and attendants of her own ; but she has no further claim to the sultan s attention, and may have to console a life-long widowhood with the memory of the honour which was once bestowed on her. The ranks of the odalisks are ever and anon recruited by slaves pre sented to the sultan by his female relatives or the state officials. The latter, for example, are accustomed to make acknowledgment of their allegiance in this way every year on the evening before the 15th of Ramazan. An old and devoted favourite of the sultan occupies the post of kehaya chatun, or lady-superintendent of the harem. A large body of eunuchs, both black and white, are employed as guards and gate-keepers. The white eunuchs have charge of the outer gates of the seraglio, but they are not allowed to approach the women s apartments, and obtain no posts of distinction. Their chief, however, the Ttapou ayhassi, or master of the gates, has part control over the ecclesiastical possessions, and even the vizier cannot enter the royal apart ments without his permission. The black eunuchs have the right of entering the gardens and chambers of the harem. Their chief, usually called the kizlaer aghassi, or master of the maidens, though his true title is dams scadet aga, or chief of the abode of felicity, is an official of high import ance. His appointment is for life. If he is deprived of his post he receives his freedom ; and if he resigns of his own accord he is generally sent to Egypt with a pension of 100 francs a day. His secretary keeps count of the reve nues of the mosques built by the sultans. He is usually succeeded by the second eunuch, who bears the title of treasurer or khazuahdar, and has charge of the jewels, etc., of the women. The number of eunuchs is always a large one. The sultana valide and the sultana hasseky have each fifty at their service, and others are assigned to the kadins and the favourite odalisks.

Further details on the Sultan s harem will be found in an anony mous paper in the Revue d Orient (London, 1861), in the elaborate article by Hoffmann in Ersch and Gruber s Encyclopadie, and the Serraglio del gransignore descritto (Venice, 1865) by Ottaviano Bon, Venetian ambassador in 1608. An account of a visit to the harem of the Persian prince Melek Kasim Mirza was given by M. Flandin in the Revue dcs Deux Monde s (1852), and at the time created a great sensation in Persia. Sketches of harem interiors are common in our popular literature from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu s Letters and Lempriere s Tour to Morocco (1793) down to Mrs S. Harvey s Turkish Harems and Circassian Homes (Lond., 1871). The Count de Beauvoir gives a picture of the harems of the sultan of Java and the Siamese mandarins in his Voyage round the World (Lond., 1870). Much interesting information on harem life in general is supplied by Dr Hiintzsche (who as a physician was mehrcm or admis sible to the harem) in Zeitschr if t fur allgemcinc Erdkunde (Berlin, 1864).

HARFLEUR, the Harflew of our older historians, a

maritime town of France in the department of Seine Inferieure and arrondissement of Havre, about 6 miles E. of Havre on the railway between that city and Rouen. It lies in the fertile valley of the Lezarde, at the foot

of wooded hills not far from the northern bank of the