This letter was designed to be read by one of Lady Mary's personal friends. It is the stories of her time in Turkey, which at the time was called the Ottoman Empire.
She writes back home to a friend in Britain. In vivacious, academically aware prose, she writes about the world of the Ottomans. As the wife of a dignitary, she sees many sides of the Ottoman Empire. We learn that the letters are sent with Reverend Benjamin Sowden who travels back and forth. Her husband is Edward Wortley Montagu. In her day, she learns about Eastern cuisine, and she writes of the goods from that region. She is especially fond of the coffee and the silk.
She writes about the Small Pox in Turkey, and she tells of engrafting, an early inoculation practice which she describes. This is the practice she describes—they lay small pox into an incision along a vein which they cut with a blade. Then, the doctor sutures the wound. She describes a Greek variation on this practice where they incise themselves on their foreheads or in the points of the sign of the cross across their torso—head, chest, and either shoulder.
After some description of Ottoman life, style and the aesthetics of Turkey, she describes a practice that seems unusual to her. She describes the lovely baths of the Turkish women, whom she describes as being very friendly and graceful, and she was astonished by the beauty of the scene. To end this letter, she tells a humorous tale about how the women urged her to join them in their baths. Ultimately, she joins briefly and then departs to visit a local cathedral.
