having visited certain families,
certain others would have been deeply mortified had we neglected to call
upon them. Formerly, when a traveller arrived here, he was expected to
call upon the different Consuls, in the order of their established
precedence: the Austrian first, English second, French third, &c. After
this, he was obliged to stay at home several days, to give the Consuls an
opportunity of returning the visits, which they made in the same order.
There was a diplomatic importance about all his movements, and the least
violation of etiquette, through ignorance or neglect, was the town talk
for days.

This peculiarity in society is evidently a relic of the formal times, when
Aleppo was a semi-Venetian city, and the opulent seat of Eastern commerce.
Many of the inhabitants are descended from the traders of those times, and
they all speak the _lingua franca_, or Levantine Italian. The women wear a
costume partly Turkish and partly European, combining the graces of both;
it is, in my eyes, the most beautiful dress in the world. They wear a rich
scarf of some dark color on the head, which, on festive occasions, is
almost concealed by their jewels, and the heavy scarlet pomegranate
blossoms which adorn their dark hair. A Turkish vest and sleeves of
embroidered silk, open in front, and a skirt of white or some light color,
completes the costume. The Jewesses wear in addition a short Turkish
_caftan_, and full trousers gathered at the ankles. At a ball given by Mr.
Very, the English Consul, which we attended, all the Christian beauties of
Aleppo were present. There was a fine display of diamonds, many of the
ladies wearing several thousand dollars' worth on their heads. The
peculiar etiquette of the place was again illustrated on this occasion.
The custom is, that the music must be heard for at least one hour before
the guests come. The hour appointed was eight, but when we went there, at
nine, nobody had arrived. As it was generally supposed that the ball was
given on our account, several of the families had servants in the
neighborhood to watch our arrival; and, accordingly, we had not been there
five minutes before the guests crowded through the door in large numbers.
When the first dance (an Arab dance, performed by two ladies at a time)
was proposed, the wives of the French and Spanish Consuls were first led,
or rather dragged, out. When a lady is asked to dance, she invariably
refuses. She is asked a second and a