These Messengers Usually
Bring With Them Four Or Five Hundred Young Women, More Or Less As They See
Cause.
Examiners are appointed to take a view of all their beauties, who
fix values upon them in proportion to their various merits, at sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, or more carats; and only those are
brought to court whose values reach to a certain appointed rate.
On their
arrival at Cambalu, other examiners again view them, and choose out twenty
or thirty of the handsomest for the chambers of the khan. Those who are
thus selected, are placed for some time under the care of some of the wives
of the great barons about the court, who are directed to report whether
they do not snore in their sleep, and if they are not offensive in smell or
behaviour. Such as are finally approved, are divided into parties of five;
and one such party attends in the chamber of the khan for three days and
nights in their turn, while another party waits in an adjoining chamber to
prepare whatever the others may command them. Those who are less prized in
the course of these rigid examinations of their qualities, are employed in
cookery or other offices about the palace, or are bestowed by the khan on
his favoured officers, with large portions. The men of the country from
whence these young women are brought, deem it a great honour when their
daughters are found worthy of the khans regard, and esteem themselves
unfortunate when they are rejected at court.
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