"The only other passage from the private square was into the zenana, or women’s apartments. This has remained perfectly inviolate under the usual guard of eunuchs, and contains about six hundred women, belonging to the Sultan and his late father. A great part of these are slaves, or attendants on the ladies; but they are kept in equally strict confinement with their mistresses. The ladies of the Sultan are about eighty in number. Many of them are from Hindustan Proper, and many are daughters of Brahmans or Hindu Princes, taken by force from their parents. They have all been shut up in the zenana when they were young; and have been carefully brought up to a zealous belief in the religion of Mahomet. I have sufficient reason to think that none of them are desirous of leaving their confinement; being wholly ignorant of any other manner of living, and having no acquaintance whatever beyond the walls of their prison."