LETTER XXXII.

Constantinople-An Adventure with the Dogs of Stamboul-The Sultan's Kiosk-Tho Bazars-Georgians-Sweetmeats-Hindoostanee Fakeers-Turkish Women and their Eyes-The Jews-A Token of Home-The Drug Bazar-Opium Eaters.

THE invariable "Where am I?" with which a traveller awakes at morning was to me never more agreeably answered. At Constantinople! The early ship-of-war summons to "turn out," was obeyed with alacrity, and with the first boat after breakfast I was set ashore at Tophana, the landing place of the Frank quarter of Stamboul.

A row of low-built cafés, with a latticed enclosure and a plentiful shade of plane-trees on the right; a large square, in the centre of which stood a magnificent Persian fountain, as large as a church, covered with lapis-lazuli and gold, and endless inscriptions in Turkish; a mosque buried in cypresses on the left; a hundred indolent-looking, large-trousered, mustached, and withal very handsome men, and twice the number of snarling, wolfish, and half-starved dogs, are some of the objects which the first glance, as I stepped on shore, left on my memory.

I had heard that the dogs of Constantinople knew and hated a Christian. By the time I had reached the middle of the square, a wretched puppy at my heels had succeeded in announcing the

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presence of a stranger. They were upon me in a moment from every heap of garbage, and every hole and corner. I was beginning to be seriously alarmed, standing perfectly still, with at least a hundred infuriated dogs barking in a circle around me, when an old Turk, selling sherbet under the shelter of the projecting roof of the Persian fountain, came kindly to my relief. A stone or two well aimed, and a peculiar cry, which I have since tried in vain to imitate, dispersed the hungry wretches, and I took a glass of the old man's raisin-water, and pursued my way up the street. The circumstance, however, had discolored my anticipations; nothing looked agreeably to me for an hour after it.

I ascended through narrow and stcep lanes, between rows of small wooden houses, miserably built and painted, to the main street of the quarter of Pera. Here live all Christians and Christian ambassadors, and here I found our secretary of legation, Mr. H., who kindly offered to accompany me to old Stamboul.

We descended to the water-side, and stepping into an egg-shell caique, crossed the Golden Horn, and landed on a pier between the sultan's green kiosk and the seraglio. I was fortunate in a companion who knew the people and spoke the language. The red-trousered and armed kervas, at the door of the kiosk, took his pipe from his mouth, after a bribe and a little persuasion, and motioned to a boy to show us the interior. A circular room, with a throne of solid silver embraced in a double colonnade of marble pillars, and covered with a roof laced with lapis lazuli and gold, formed the place from which Sultan Mahmoud formerly contemplated, on certain days, the busy and beautiful panorama of his matchless bay. The kiosk is on the edge of the water, and the poorest caikjee might row his little bark under its threshold, and

fill his monarch's eye, and look on his monarch's face with the proudest. The green canvass curtains, which envelop the whole building, have, for a long time, been unraised, and Mahmoud is oftener to be seen on horseback, in the dress of a European officer, guarded by troops in European costume and array. The change is said to be dangerously unpopular.

We walked on to the square of Sultana Valide. Its large area was crowded with the buyers and sellers of a travelling faira sort of Jews' market held on different days in different parts of this vast capital. In Turkey every nation is distinguished by its dress, and almost as certainly by its branch of trade. On the right of the gate, under a huge plane-tree, shedding its yellow leaves among the various wares, stood the booths of a group of Georgians, their round and rosy-dark faces (you would know their sisters must be half houris) set off with a tall black cap of curling wool, their small shoulders with a tight jacket studded with silk buttons, and their waists with a voluminous silken sash, whose fringed ends fell over their heels as they sat cross-legged, patiently waiting for custom. Hardware is the staple of their shops, but the cross-pole in front is fantastically hung with silken garters and tasselled cords, and their own Georgian caps, with a gay crown of cashmere, enrich and diversify the shelves. I bought a pair or two of blushing silk garters of a young man, whose eyes and teeth should have been a woman's, and we strolled on to the next booth.

Here was a Turk, with a table covered by a broad brass waiter, on which was displayed a tempting array of mucilage, white and pink, something of the consistency of blanc-mange. A dish of sugar, small gilded saucers, and long-handled, flat, brass spoons, with a vase of rose-water, completed his establishment. The

grave mussulman cut, sugared, and scented the portions for which we asked, without condescending to look at us or open his lips, and, with a glass of mild and pleasant sherbet from his next neighbor, as immovable a Turk as himself, we had lunched, extremely to my taste, for just five cents American currency.

A little farther on I was struck with the appearance of two men, who stood bargaining with a Jew. My friend knew them. immediately as fakeers, or religious devotees from Hindoostan. He addressed them in Arabic, and, during their conversation of ten minutes, I studied them with some curiosity. They were singularly small, without any appearance of dwarfishness, their limbs and persons slight, and very equally and gracefully proportioned. Their features were absolutely regular, and, though small as a child's of ten or twelve years, were perfectly developed. They appeared like men seen through an inverted opera-glass. An exceedingly ashy, olive complexion, hair of a kind of glittering black, quite unlike in texture and color any I have ever before seen; large, brilliant, intense black eyes, and lips (the most peculiar feature of all), of lustreless black,* completed the portraits of two as remarkable-looking men as I have anywhere met. Their costume was humble, but not unpicturesque. A well-worn sash of red silk enveloped the waist in many folds, and sustained trousers tight to the legs, but of the Turkish ampleness over the hips. Their small feet, which seemed dried up to the bone, were bare. A blanket, with a hood marked in a kind of arabesque figure, covered their shoulders, and a high quilted cap, with a rim of curling wool, was pressed down closely over the forehead.

I have since met many of them in the streets of Constantinople, and I find it a distinguishing feature of their race. They look as if their lips were dead-as if the blood had dried beneath the skin.

A crescent-shaped tin vessel, suspended by a leather strap to the waist, and serving the two purposes of a charity box, and a receptacle for bread and vegetables, seemed a kind of badge of their profession. They were lately from Hindoostan, and were begging their way still farther into Europe. They received our proffered alms without any mark of surprise or even pleasure, and laying their hands on their breasts, with countenances perfectly immovable, gave us a Hindoostanee blessing, and resumed their traffic. They see the world, these rovers on foot! And I think, could I see it myself in no other way, I would e'en take sandal and scrip, and traverse it as a dervish or beggar!

The alleys between the booths were crowded with Turkish women, who seemed the chief purchasers. The effect of their enveloped persons, and eyes peering from the muslin folds of the yashmack, is droll to a stranger. It seemed to me like a mas

querade, and the singular sound of female voices, speaking through several thicknesses of a stuff, bound so close on the mouth as to show the shape of the lips exactly, perfected the delusion. It reminded me of the half-smothered tones beneath the masks in carnival-time. A clothes-bag with yellow slippers would have about as much form, and might be walked about with as much grace as a Turkish woman. Their fat hands, the finger-nails dyed with henna, and their unexceptionably magnificent eyes, are all that the stranger is permitted to peruse. It is strange how universal is the beauty of the eastern eye. I have looked in vain hitherto, for a small or an unexpressive one. It is quite startling to meet the gaze of such large liquid orbs, bent upon you from their long silken fringes, with the unwinking steadiness of look common to the females of this country. Wrapped in their veils, they seem unconscious of attracting attention, and turn and look