n the morning following, Carlton and Mrs. Downs and her niece, with
all the tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by
their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see
the Sultan's treasures. Those of them who had waited two weeks for
this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the
eleventh hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these
latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort. The
ministers of the different legations--as is the harmless custom of such
gentlemen--had impressed every one for whom they had obtained
permission to see the treasures with the great importance of the
service rendered, and had succeeded in making every one feel either
especially honored or especially uncomfortable at having given them so
much trouble. This sense of obligation, and the fact that the
dragomans had assured the tourists that they were for the time being
the guests of the Sultan, awed and depressed most of the visitors to
such an extent that their manner in the long procession of carriages
suggested a funeral cortege, with the Hohenwalds in front, escorted by
Beys and Pashas, as chief mourners. The procession halted at the
palace, and the guests of the Sultan were received by numerous effendis
in single-button frock-coats and freshly ironed fezzes, who served them
with glasses of water, and a huge bowl of some sweet stuff, of which
every one was supposed to take a spoonful. There was at first a
general fear among the Cook's tourists that there would not be enough
of this to go round, which was succeeded by a greater anxiety lest they
should be served twice. Some of the tourists put the sweet stuff in
their mouths direct and licked the spoon, and others dropped it off the
spoon into the glass of water, and stirred it about and sipped at it,
and no one knew who had done the right thing, not even those who
happened to have done it. Carlton and Miss Morris went out on to the
terrace while this ceremony was going forward, and looked out over the
great panorama of waters, with the Sea of Marmora on one side, the
Golden Horn on the other, and the Bosporus at their feet. The sun was
shining mildly, and the waters were stirred by great and little
vessels; before them on the opposite bank rose the dark green cypresses
which marked the grim cemetery of England's dead, and behind them were
the great turtle-backed mosques and pencil-like minaret