ever since we found it, to keep the place."

"Very good, Maggie. We were coming up the Sea of Marmora one evening,
and drew near to Constantinople about sunrise. I knew we were near, but
I could not see anything, because a thick white mist hung in front of us
like a veil resting on the sea. We were near the mouth of the Bosphorus
when the sun broke out, the white mist rose slowly, like the curtain of
a theatre, and--more beautiful than any scene that human hands can ever
paint--I saw the Queen of Cities glittering in the sunshine."

"What made it glitter? Are the houses built of shiny stuff?"

"The houses are built of wood, but they are painted in many colours. The
rounded domes of the mosques are white, and the minarets, tall, slender,
and fretted, are white, with golden tops, or white and blue. I can give
you no idea how beautifully the shapes of the mosques and minarets break
the uniformity of the mass of houses, nor how the gay colours, the white
and the gold, shone like gems against a cloudless blue sky when the mist
rose. No princess in an Eastern fairy-tale ever dazzled and delighted
the beholder by lifting her veil and displaying her beauty and her
jewels more than my eyes were charmed when the veil was lifted from
Constantinople, and I saw her lovely and sparkling in the sun."

"Are the streets very beautiful when you get into them?"

"Ah, Fred, I am sorry to say--no. They are very dirty, and very narrow.
But they are picturesque, and made doubly so by the fact that in them
you meet people of all nations, in every kind of dress, gay with all
colours of the rainbow."

"Are there shops in the streets?"

"Most of the shops are all together in certain streets by themselves,
forming what is called a Bazaar. But in the other streets there are a
few, such as sweetmeat shops and coffee shops, where the old Turks go to
drink thick black coffee, and smoke, and hear the news; and (if they
wish it) to be shaved."

"I thought Turks wore long beards?"

"The lower-class Turks, and the country ones, and those who like to
follow the old fashions, wear beards, but they have their heads shaved,
and wear the turban. Most modern Turks, Government officials, and so
forth, shave off their beards and whiskers, and wear short hair and a
moustache, with the fez, or cloth cap. The old-fashioned dress is much
the handsomest, I think, and I am sorry it is dying out."

"The poor women-Turks aren't allowed to go out, are they, Cou