houses of Constantinople
(if they ever existed--at least as we understand luxury and
magnificence) which first brought the beverage world-wide fame; such
_caffinets_ as the one pictured by Thomas Allom and described by the
Rev. Robert Walsh, in _Constantinople, Illustrated_:

The caffinet, or coffee-house, is something more splendid, and the
Turk expends all his notions of finery and elegance on this, his
favorite place of indulgence. The edifice is generally decorated in
a very gorgeous manner, supported on pillars, and open in front. It
is surrounded on the inside by a raised platform, covered with mats
or cushions, on which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are
musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines,
accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and
the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the
stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side
are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found
here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence
of coffee and tobacco. The coffee is served in very small cups, not
larger than egg-cups, grounds and all, without cream or sugar, and
so black, thick, and bitter that it has been aptly compared to
"stewed soot". Besides the ordinary chibouk for tobacco, there is
another implement, called narghillai, used for smoking in a
caffinet, of a more elaborate construction. It consists of a glass
vase, filled with water, and often scented with distilled rose or
other flowers. This is surmounted with a silver or brazen head,
from which issues a long flexible tube; a pipe-bowl is placed on
the top, and so constructed that the smoke is drawn, and comes
bubbling up through the water, cool and fragrant to the mouth. A
peculiar kind of tobacco, grown at Shiraz in Persia, and resembling
small pieces of cut leather, is used with this instrument.

[Illustration: IN A TURKISH COFFEE HOUSE]

Certainly there never was any such thing as a coffee-house architecture.
It may be that up to the time of Abdul Hamid, when money was more
plentiful than it has been for the past fifty years, there were coffee
houses more comfortably appointed than now exist.

The coffee house in a modernized form is, however, quite as numerous in
Turkey as in the days of Amurath III and the