er indulgence and
favor.

THE CIRCASSIAN SLAVE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SLAVE MARKET.

Upon one of those hot, sultry summer afternoons that so often
prevail about the banks of the Bosphorus, the sun was fast sinking
towards its western course, and gilding as it went, the golden
crescents of a thousand minarets, now dancing with fairy feet over
the rippling waters of Marmora, now dallying with the spray of the
oarsmen's blades, as they pulled the gilded caique of some rich old
Mussulman up the tide of the Golden Horn. The soft and dainty
scented air came in light zephyrs off the shore of Asia to play upon
the European coast, and altogether it was a dreamy, siesta-like hour
hat reigned in the Turkish capital.

Let the reader come with us at this time into the circular area that
forms the slave market of Constantinople. The bazaar is well filled;
here are Egyptians, Bulgarians, Persians, and even Africans; but we
will pass them by and cross to the main stand, where are exposed for
sale some score of Georgians and Circassians. They are all chosen
for their beauty of person, and present a scene of more than usual
interest, awaiting the fate that the future may send them in a kind
or heartless master; and knowing how much of their future peace
depends upon this chance, they watch each new comer with almost
painful interest as he moves about the area.

A careless crowd thronged the place, lounging about in little knots
here and there, while one lot of slave merchants, with their broad
but graceful turbans, were sitting round a brass vessel of coals,
smoking or making their coffee, and discussing the matters
pertaining to their trade. Some came there solely to smoke their
opium-drugged pipes, and some to purchase, if a good bargain should
offer and a beauty be sold cheap. Here were sprightly Greeks, sage
Jews, and moody Armenians, but all outnumbered by the sedate old
Turks, with beards sweeping their very breasts. It was a motley
crowd that thronged the slave market.

Now and then there burst forth the ringing sound of laughter front
an enclosed division of the place where were confined a whole bevy
of Nubian damsels, flat-nostriled and curly-headed, but as slight
and fine-limbed as blocks of polished ebony. They were lying
negligently about, in postures that would have taken a painter's
eye, but we have naught to do with then at this time.

The females that were now offered for sale were principally of the
f