pashas, as we were travellers; and saw him well. His ap very pearance is prepossessing. He has an unshorn face, rather pale, with mild, dark, and very small eyes. A sort of indolent dreaminess played about his lips and in his eye, indicating his character, which is that of a mild, kind-hearted prince, careless of politics and given up to pleasure. He devotes only some three hours a day to the affairs of his empire, and the rest of his time to his religious devotions, to the supervision of his palaces, which in modern European style are rising on the banks of the Bosphorus, to the society of his brother, mother and son, and no doubt a considerable time to the gallantries and attentions incumbent upon him as the head of a harem of four hundred ladies, into which no male is ever allowed to intrude, except the eunuchs, who number about seventy. The Sultan is well beloved by the people, whose interests his government has favored. His manners are said to be unassuming and plain, and his disposition frank and amiable. He is not too good natured, however, to discriminate, for he always selects men of skill and science for the rewards and honors of the kingdom. His age is twenty-nine. A long life of usefulness may yet be his. His health was formerly precarious; and even now he appears effeminate and weak. He reminded me of the portraits I saw of Charles the Second of England. The distinguished part which Turkey has taken lately in the politics of Europe, has been owing to the ability and foresight of Reschid Pasha, the Prime Minister. An Englishman remarked at our table, that "he always took off his hat to crowned heads, and that he must do it when the Sultan appeared." Oh! Spooneydom and Flunkeydom!—as Carlyle would say-are ye not dead yet? wooden heads! when England turned off to spout to the winds their divino jure? bodiment to-day doff his beaver to the "crowned head;" and poor dunderbrain! he thought it was right loyal and good of him. I took off my poor straw hat, too; but it was on compul Did ye not die, poor her vagabond Stuarts No. I saw your em sion. Like Pickwick at the training, I was between two files of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and received admonition which I heeded, until I happened to think it was the 4th of July! and then I covered my republican pate, instanter. It was quite antique and interesting to see the Sultan's train, led by a eunuch, whose lips would weigh less than ten pounds, (including teeth) and jetty dark, with a splendid robe and golden sword. Bringing up the rear came the petitioners, with their petitions in hand, following the Sultan to the palace, there to deliver them. It reminded me of what I had read of Orientalism, in its regal phases. It was one of those ancient customs, which the progressive spirit of the time has not eradicated. The changes which have been wrought in the Ottoman Empire and in the East generally, since Napoleon directed the genius of his Power hitherward, have been momentous. His enterprise was of little practical utility at the time; but it opened the richest portions of the earth to the eyes of the French, Russian, and English; and by their respective cupidity the Turkish power has been rendered less liable to aggression from either, and more formidable to all. Beside, steam has carried commerce to its primeval marts where Tyre and Sidon once flourished, and over these sacred spots where rove the Arab hordes. The reactionary influence of the west of Europe upon the East, rendered imperative by the possessions of England in India, of Russia in Circassia, and France in northern Africa, and by which the Oriental nations will be constantly aroused to improvement, is already evident in the augmentation of trade at Alexandria, Smyrna, in the Bosphorus, and in the Red Sea, and in the constant communication of travellers with the inhabitants of these most interesting countries. May we not hope that the new elements of our age, entering into the social organizations of the East, shall give again to this land that conspicuous greatness which God allotted to it when our world was young! XVII. A Lady's Verdict upon the Orient. PAINTERS "Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam, Keats. have been known to confess that in copying one of Rembrandt's portraits, whose peculiarity is the darkness of the face silvered over with delicate lights, hundreds of the most exquisite lineaments were taken off, and still the likeness was not caught. The microscope was applied; and lo! another and yet another "gloomy light much like a shade" appeared, which being transferred to the copy, the expression came at once. So I think it is, in men's observation upon manners and things in travelling. We cannot reproduce the original as it gleams upon the eye. Hundreds of minute features may be transcribed, but the original still lies in its chiara obscura like a Rembrandt, until you apply a woman's microscopic eye to the object, when the lineaments come forth, and the expression is happily transferred. Men lack that circumstantialness which women possess, and by which the latter picture with fidelity, if they do not color as highly. In our visit to the East, I have relied upon a ladycompanion to apply the microscope, while my pen has been engaged in roving around from hill to hill and from sea to sea, from isle to isle and from shore to shore. The particularity of the description of the Seraglio, as well as of the visit to the Sweet Waters, will form a complement to my poor chapter, and complete its unity. Need I apologize for departing from the ordinary routine of book-making, by inserting the impressions of another? Will not the ladies at least give their sex a hearing? It is rare that a Buckeye daughter rambles amidst the camel-crowded streets of the mosque-adorned cities of the East; and her pencillings in familiar style ;-well-well, they must speak for themselves, which they do, as follows: Could I convey to the reader on paper a conversation which occurred this morning, it might somewhat account for this venturous chapter. I may, at least, confess thus much, that it is somewhat "on compulsion, Hal." My pages may, or may not, contain that which is novel; if not, they at least will be a novelty, journeying so far to greet you. Can it be possible that such a distance lies between us and our homes? We have seen so much, and yet have hastened hither with such incredible speed, that Time and Space have alike been annihilated. The reader has, I think, been advised of our wanderings, so long as we were within the precincts of the European world. Shall it be my pleasure, now, to chat awhile of the Orient? We found the first touches of Orientalism in Greece-but it did not strike us so peculiarly as it has since, in cities farther east. Greece we visited for its ruins, and were amply repaid in the view from the Acropolis alone, with its surrounding Forum and Mars Hill, the temples and battle-scenes, and the whole spirit of the scenery which beams with delicacy, refinement and taste. I cannot leave Greece, however, without remembering the parting meal which we took with our kind friend Mr. Buel, the Baptist Missionary. After the fatigues of the day at Athens, we returned to his house at the Pireus, which, as well as the repast, impressed us so kindly and peculiarly, that I would fain remember them both in expression and thought; both were so Grecian, and yet so home-like. The house is a fine two-story one, with an entrance into a vestibule-a stairway on either side, leading to a common landing, half way up, which ends in a stairway turning to the centre of the room above. Folding doors open into a room large and airy, with walls and ceiling fitted up after the manner of those at Pompeii. A double window opens out upon a balcony; from which we viewed a charming sunset, all golden and radiant in beauty over the bay of Salamis, as well as the form of a lion couchant, cut out of the mountain against the distant sky. A bedroom opened on one side and a studio on the other; both having doors to the stairway. The three rooms consequently possessed a front view of one of the finest water scenes we have seen, always excepting Naples;-and that scene rendered doubly and thrillingly attractive, as the place where Themistocles triumphed and Greece was saved. Mr. Buel had been distributing the ten commandments during a festival of the Greek church, and was thus the innocent cause of a mob at Corfu; and though he was under the protection of the authorities, yet the influence of the priests was so great that he was obliged to leave the island at short notice for Malta; from thence he came to Smyrna, and then to the Pireus; where he has been for the last six years subjected to much annoyance and vexation in various lawsuits connected with his mode of teaching and proclaiming Christianity in Greece. He is now firmly and successfully established in his post. At dark, the servant called us to tea, where I had the honor of presiding, as Mrs. B. had been for some time, and was still absent in America, upon a visit. It was a charming, neat little table, and I shall remember it particularly, being desirous of emulating its simple elegance when we shall go to housekeeping. It pleased another. Tea, toast, bread and butter; a white acidified cream-dish, flavored and slightly resembling our Dutch cheese; the expressed quintessence of the heart of roses (a kind of eastern sweets,) and delicious sponge-cake ;-What could have been more daintily delectable? Keats, in his " Eve of St. Agnes," hints at a similar regalia of viands. We enjoyed it finely as I fully demonstrated by my long delay thereat. But tea is past, and we retire to the drawing-room, where in pleasant converse we hold the approaching night hours as in a spell, until it is time to be aboard. Mr. Buel escorted us thither. It was a pleasant sea-row; for the lightning's vivid flash lighted up sky and water with a strange glow; and the circling |