"The king in Bijapur has 1,400 women in his seraglio. This must not astonish you, because as in Europe the magnificence of our Christian princes is shown by a splendid stable of the finest horses from all over the world, so these Eastern princes show their power and grandeur by their seraglios, where they have women brought from every foreign kingdom... I say, then, that these women, shut up in the seraglio, can be justly called the king’s flock, for the king alone can enter into this human fold. There are a quantity of eunuchs, who serve as sheep-dogs, as they prevent human wolves from coming near this delicate and precious treasure, which serves only for the king’s use and pleasure. It is the first heritage that a new king finds in the royal palace when he takes over possession, as no one, whatever his position, is allowed to enter into this fold, nor to take away a single one of the sheep, on the death of a king. It frequently happens, however, that when a king wishes to gratify a favourite or some person of quality, he gives him one of these human sheep as a present, just as we see in Europe that a prince or nobleman will sometimes reward a friend, or one of his gentlemen, with a present of a fine horse from his stable. The woman on whom the lot falls is delighted at the change of owner. They prefer to browse in new fields, more pleasant than the king’s pastures, which often do not produce enough to feed his flock; it is so numerous that most of them have a meagre fare and suffer from hunger and a continual fast. And on carefully considering their lot, I cannot find any more grievous than theirs, which is a slavery of the most cruel kind one can imagine for a woman… …They have no grilles, nor parlours, nor confidants to bring them news and letters, nor relations and friends to visit them. If a new one comes into this flock, she is so abashed that she cannot give any news of her country, relations, or circumstances to the others, nor even say what sort of animal a man is. No! no!! do not be astonished at what I tell you; they are not merely things I have heard, but what I have seen myself. They occur in every oriental country, where kings and nobles have brokers who are sent to Georgia (the home of the most beautiful women in Asia), Persia, Basra, the Red Sea, Arabia, and other eastern places. There they buy girls who, being destined for sale, have seen hardly anything of the outside world so that, when these dealers in human flesh deliver them to their masters, they are amazed and bewildered at being placed among so many women, who gently tame them, dress them in sumptuous clothes, and teach them what they have to do. The eunuchs, when shown to them at first, terrify these girls, who take them for monsters, and they are not far from wrong, as they have nothing manlike about them and have a frightful appearance, which can inspire only horror. I have noticed a strange thing about these monstrosities. The more hideous they are, the more they are sought after by these people, the reason being that they offer no temptation to the women whom they guard. They are mostly big scoundrels, whose very glance is capable of terrifying the bravest. Their colour is dreadful, and their faces ape-like, with thick lips. It is not, therefore, surprising that these monsters – I can call them nothing else – are respected and feared by the people of the country…"