LOG: Topkapi
CHASING SUNSETS: p233, “…in the cold and the rain that dogged us all day, we toured the Harem in the Topkapi Palace. Contrary to your (and our) immediate Pavlovian reaction concerning orgies and debauchery, the Harem was simply the private living quarters of the Sultan, his four wives, hundred or so concubines, children, eunuchs (black and white, the black fixed early and coming voluntarily, the white through capture and subsequent part removals) and servants, some 400 to 500 people in total. Apart from the Sultan’s quarters and those of his mother and his heir, the place was something like a plush rabbit warren. Hollywood’s Sheiks would never have found the swooning maidens, and if they did, would have been lost getting back to the horse.”
Chasing Sunsets 