an article for one third of the original price. Time was when the word of a Turk was sacred as a precept of the Koran; now he can no more be relied upon than a Jew or Christian. He has acquired a great facility of lying, cheating, and drinking; and if they continue to improve and adopt European customs, we may soon hear of them stealing and having but one wife.

The bazaars are usually so much crowded with women and dogs that one is compelled to move very slowly, especially as more ceremony is required than amongst the well-dressed crowd that throng Broadway. Really the dogs may be classed amongst the wonders of Constantinople, and are so numerous and noisy as to render them intolerable nuisances with any other people except the Turks. They are not owned by individuals as in other countries, but govern themselves—each having his own particular district, from which he dare not go without being assailed by the police of the invaded territory. Their litters are rarely removed, and they constitute the chief scavengers of the city. They are bountifully fed upon the offal from the butchers' shops, private houses, carcasses of animals, and trunkless bodies which they occasionally find on the shores. Mosques and their inclosures are strictly watched, lest they should be polluted by them, and some consider them susceptible of plague. At night their howlings are perfectly deafening, particularly when a fire breaks out, and their voices are mingled with the passawend crying, Yangen var, (there is fire,) from the top of one of the lofty fire towers. Constantinople is built principally of frame houses, and in the absence of reservoirs, engines, and organized companies, the devouring element frequently overwhelms in common ruin the property of the infidel as well as that of the true believer. If the fire be not quickly subdued, all the ministers of state are required to attend, and if it threaten extensive ravages the Sultan himself appears and gives encouragement to the efforts of the firemen by the power of a golden shower of sequins, which never fails to produce the immediate extinguishment of the desolating flames.

In the absence of fire, and the barking of dogs, Constantinople is the most quiet city at night that I ever visited. By ten o'clock every human voice is hushed; and not a creature is seen in the street, except a few watchmen and an occasional wanderer with his paper lantern. No stranger ever leaves this city without visiting

the Slave Market, because slavery in any form attracts more or less the attention of the inquiring and reflecting mind, and more particularly in Constantinople, where the beauties of Circassia and the regions of the Caucasus are exposed to servitude far more degrading than we witness in other countries. But, horrible as this traffic is, under any circumstances, to my ideas and feelings, it loses in some degree its horrors when confined to the African race. By physical formation and power of endurance, by their mental inferiority, and their natural disposition to be governed, instead of to govern, we are forced to believe that they were intended by a higher power to be hewers of wood and drawers of water until the end of time. But the beautiful Circassian, the lovely Georgian, and the unfortunate daughters of poor down-trodden Greece, were created for higher and nobler purposes. It was with no ordinary degree of emotion that I entered the gateway of this celebrated place, where so many Christian hearts have trembled; and before reaching the hollow square where they were exposed, I brought to memory all

the terrible realities that I could remember connected with its history; the tears of beauty, the pangs of brave men, and so down to the unsentimental exclamation of Johnson to his new friend Don Juan;

"Yon black eunuch seems to eye us;

I wish to God somebody would buy us."

The bazaar forms a hollow square, with small apartments around it, in which the slaves belonging to the different traders are kept. A large portico projects in front, under which, and in front of each chamber, is a low platform, similar to those in New-Orleans, where the merciless slave-dealer sits and dozes over his coffee and pipe. In time of war the markets are filled with captives, but even in this season of universal peace, the Nubians do not constitute the only beings of traffic. The Franks are not permitted at the present day to see the white slaves, except by particular favor; but I have been assured by those living here that the custom is still in vogue, and that the wealthy Turk repairs as of old to the market with his wellfilled purse, and agrees with the commissioner, for a stated sum, to prostitute the daughters of the most illustrious families of Georgia, Circassia, or the provinces.

From the slave market we visited the Palace of the Grand Vizier,

situated near the great Fire Tower of Stamboul. The building is quite extensive, on the European plan, but presents nothing extraordinary either in its external or internal appearance. Near the palace in Adrianople street still stands the celebrated Burnt Column. It is about fifty feet in height, but so much shattered and blackened by the frequent fires in the neighborhood, that it is impossible to make much out of it. Upon close inspection I discovered that it was made of porphyry stones, the jointures hid with copper rings. It is thought that Constantine's statue stood on it. By its inscription, it appears that it was erected by the Emperor Manuel Commenes. Not far from this column are the Cisterns of Constantine, now called Binderick, or the thousand and one columns, and Yerebatan Serai, the subterranean palace, in which a number of halfnaked pallid wretches are employed in twisting silk by the light of torches. Returning to Pera, we stopped to examine the caïques on the Golden Horn. They are the wherries of Constantinople, and the number that ply on the waters is said to be about ninety thousand, and are hired like hackney coaches in other cities. They are formed of thin plank of beechwood, neatly finished and elaborately sculptured. The elegance of their construction, the extreme lightness of the material out of which they are made, and the dexterity of the oarsmen, cause them to skim over the smooth surface of the Horn with great swiftness. They have no seats; the passengers sit on rugs in the bottom, and are required to remain perfectly steady to prevent being turned over. They are always to be found waiting for hire during the day at the points of landing.

While crossing the Horn, I examined the bridges that connect Stamboul with Pera. They are made of boats placed certain distances apart, with locks for vessels to pass through, and are precisely the same in form and structure as those on the Rhine, which I described minutely in a previous letter. Just above the bridges are the ship-yards, and the strength of the Turkish navy, where a number of enormous vessels may be seen waiting for war. They are too large for service, badly equipped, and fit only to be looked at and ridiculed by foreigners. In an action with such powers as France, England, or the United States, the Turkish navy would be as nothing; but to the nations in the region of this city it appears to be something grand, magnificent, and terrible. Some of the Turkish

vessels would reflect credit upon any country, if their people understood how to manage them. These vessels were constructed by American ship-builders, and it is to be regretted that they are so poorly manned. From the Horn we ascended the high hill upon which Pera is situated to the College of the Dancing Dervishes. The room in which they dance is circular, and the floor quite smooth. Before entering, we were required to take off our shoes. The chief man, or priest, was seated in the Turkish fashion, in a place apart from the rest, who were arranged in a circle around the room. The head-dress of the priest was of green, the color of the Prophet, and the dancers wore a tall brown hat, shaped like a cone, and without any brim. Their dress was something like those worn by the ladies in our country, having very full skirts, and made of a dark brown material. The dance is nothing more than a monotonous turning on their heels, with their arms extended, like children playing. They go at it with great earnestness, and continue turning until they fall on the floor perfectly exhausted and drunk.

Leaving the College, we walked through the principal street of Pera (which is entirely European) to the Barracks, near the Sultan's new palace. Here we saw several thousand soldiers reviewed by the principal officer, and I was somewhat surprised to see how well they handled the musket. The Sultan has a great many English and French officers in his service, who teach his soldiers the tactics of modern improvement nearly as well as can be seen among the nations of Europe. One thing you may be sure of, and that is the courage of the Turks. Fear is not in the Koran, and if they do not come out victorious, it must be attributed to some other cause.

The Sultan's new palace is not yet completed. It is constructed of white marble, and promises to be the most magnificent palace of modern construction. It is situated on the European shore of the Bosphorus, and I will describe it to you more minutely in my next letter.

LETTER FIFTY-THREE.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

Grand Muster of all Nations-The Seraglio-Column of Theodosius-The Armory-Mosques of St. Sophia, Achmedje, and Suleimange-The Hippodrome-Tomb of Sultan Mahmoud -The Seven Towers-Cemetery of the Janissaries-Visit to the Sweet Waters—Excursion on the Bosphorus.

No one but a follower of the Prophet is allowed to enter the sacred precincts of a mosque without a firman from the Sultan; and to render the visit less expensive, the Franks usually assemble in large numbers from the various hotels in the city, and proceed under the guidance of a cicerone to examine the consecrated retreats of the Mussulman, which but a few years since would have been attempted only at the peril of a man's life. Agreeably to arrangement, our party met at the Hotel Europe-among whom I observed representatives from all the nations that travel, and a majority from the United States. We crossed the Golden Horn in caïques to Seraglio Point, upon which stands the palace formerly occupied by the Sultans, but now vacant. The inclosures of this far-famed palace occupy the space of the ancient city of Byzantium on the extreme point of the east promontory, which stretches towards the continent of Asia, and forms the entrance to the Bosphorus. The Seraglio (the splendid work of Mohammed II.) is nearly three miles in circuit; it is in a triangular form, of which the longest side faces the city; that on the sea of Marmora the south; and the other, which forms the entrance of the port, the east. The apartments are on the top of the hill, and the gardens and conservatories below, extending to the sea. Although the compass of it is so great, the outside of the palace has nothing curious to boast of; having been built by different sultans, it presents the appearance of a heap of houses clustering together without any manner of order. The rooms are well furnished in the French style, the baths entirely of white marble, and the fountains exceedingly rich. In one room we saw a kind of armory in which are deposited specimens of the weapons formerly in use among the Turks, and of the strange and gorgeous costumes of the various dignitaries and officials of the empire, which are now displaced by the unpicturesque and incommodious imitations of