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APOSTROPHE TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

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CHAPTER XII.

Apostrophe to Constantinople-Proposal of the Slave Dealer-No Room at Misseri's Hotel Hôtel de Pera-Valuable Hint to Travellers respecting Servants-Dinners at Misseri's Hotel-Various GuestsWalks about the City-Make an Acquaintance-Origin of Constantinople-What Gibbon says of that City-Sight-seeing - How managed-Mosque of St. Sophia-Its Magnificence-What it may one day become - Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent-Visit the Seraglio-Tomb of Barbarossa-Dancing Dervishes-Howling Dervishes, and other Sects-Accidental blowing up of a Turkish Line of Battle Ship-Visit to the Emir Beshir-My ReceptionLong Conversation with that Personage.

ALL hail! City of the seven names, seven hills, seven towers; taken from the Seventh Palæologe by the seventh Sultan of the Ottoman line. All hail! Byzantium, Antonina, Roma Nova, Constantinople, Jarruk (in Arabic, "Earth Divider"), Istamboul (the Fulness of Faith), Ammeddunige (the Mother of the World).

Crushed furiously by the crowd, I got at last down the gangway, and stepping actively over caïques, floundered into one of those outside. Before I had recovered my balance, a push in the

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PROPOSAL OF THE SLAVE-DEALER.

back showed me I had a companion, and seating myself, I found the Circassian slave-dealer by my side. "Hosh gelding," he exclaimed, and we commenced a conversation in Turkish and Circassianfrom him mixed Turkish, and Arabic from me.

He said: "Sahib, why do you not buy one of these girls?" "I am not permitted." "Bosh, you struck the Turk among Turks when you were alone; what do you care for law? Come, now, I like you for that; you shall have the Gul for two thousand piastres. She plays, sings, talks, and would make a fine slave for your lordship. I love her myself; her eyes are almonds; I give her to you, and you will love her, do not fear; she would make a cow love her in a month." I, however, resisted his offers, and when we landed she of the almond eyes was still unsold.

I had weary work of it, for all the morning was consumed in walking from hotel to hotel. Misseri was full. "Make me up a place." "Alas,

Sir! for four others I have done so, till there is no place left." So at last, I was fain to put up at, and worse to put up with, the Hôtel de Pera. The

A HINT TO TRAVELLERS.

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room was the only tolerable part of it, and commanded a gay prospect of a side of a house built to join on to the side of another house yet unbuilt. My servants, as native servants do, both by custom and choice, slept about the landing outside the door, and fed themselves from the bazaar.

This is a good hint to travellers at the hotels in the Levant, they charge from five to seven shillings a day for a servant. I never bargain with mine, as the moment I suspect his honesty, he is discharged: but after they have two or three days' experience in a place, ask them what they require as board wages. The answer averages from 1d. to 4d. a day, according as the place is cheap or dear, and they sleep at one's door or anywhere.

My housefellows consisted of German bagmen, so my meals were eaten at Misseri's excellent table. Oh, what a matchless feast it was, after the table of the road! It seemed impossible that such luxury could be real and last. His company was better; a soi-disant philosopher, who had been two years writing a book, whose system he

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ADVENTURES IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

was only just beginning to discover; collegians, on their first flight, wary for fear of being taken incautious not to show the green; the goose (wuzz) on his travels delivering his opinions of Turkey, Turks, and Stamboul, collected in two days' experience through a dragoman; the ex-merchant still anxious; the old, emancipated, wondering, credulous, but shocked, new beholders quite out of their element.

It was a great pleasure to retire from this bad European Pera; cross the bridge, or enter a caïque, and roam over the streets of Constantinople, or Stamboul proper, the Turkish quarter; to plunge into its streets, and wander about perfectly ignorant of the way. Many were the curious adventures I met with, that served more to improve my Turkish than to give me a high idea of the morality of these veiled ones.

One day I had lost my way, and wandered so far as to become fatigued: I sat down in a café, having first roamed over the ancient quaint remains of the Palace of Belisarius. A Turk saluting me, asked, "Why I picked out an old ruin

AN INTELLIGENT TURK.

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to look at, when so many perfect were around?" I said, "For the recollection and for curiosity." Another now joined in, and said, "Do you not know that was the palace of the blind general of the Sultan of Rouma-Justinian ?" The remark struck me as curious, because we believe that his eyes being put out, and he being reduced to beg his bread, with a "give a penny to the blind general, Belisarius," was a modern fiction-a romance to throw more poetry into the story. I asked my informant, therefore, if he knew the name of the man, which he immediately told me, adding, in answer to my assertion that it was a Frank tale; "on the contrary: living near, he had it from his father." He asked me to his house, an invitation I gladly accepted, and we appointed a day and place of meeting.

I found him kind and amusing, and what pleased me more, well versed in traditional lore. We were one day discussing the history of the original foundation of the city, and I drew forth my Gibbon, a huge thick volume which never left me when I went sight-seeing, and must have given

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