sin
Peregrine?"

"Oh yes, they are, but they have to be veiled, and so bundled up that
you can not only not tell one woman from another, but they hardly look
like women at all--more like unsteady balloons, or inflated sacks of
different colours. They wear yellow leather boots, and no stockings.
Over the boots they wear large slippers, in which they shuffle along
with a gait very little less awkward than the toddle of a cramp-footed
lady in China. If they are ungraceful on foot, matters are not much
better when they ride. Sitting astride a donkey (for they do not use
side-saddles), a Turkish lady is about as comical an object as you could
wish to behold, though I have no doubt she is quite unconscious of
looking anything but dignified, as she presses on to her shopping in the
Bazaar, screaming to the half-naked Arab donkey-boy to urge on her steed
with his stick. As the great cloak dress, in which women envelop
themselves from head to foot when they go out, is all of one colour,
they have this advantage over Englishwomen out shopping, that they do
not look ugly from being bedizened with ill-assorted hues and frippery
trimmings. In fact a mass of Turkish women, each clothed in one shade of
colour, looks very like a flower-bed--a flower-bed of sole-coloured
tulips without stalks!"

"The Bazaars are bigger than Charity Bazaars, I suppose," said Maggie
thoughtfully; "are they as big as the Baker Street Bazaar?"

"The Bazaar of Stamboul, the Turkish Quarter of Constantinople, is
almost a Quarter by itself. It takes up many, many streets, Maggie. I am
sure I wish with all my heart I could take you children through it. You
would think yourselves in fairy-land, or rather in some of those
underground caves full of dazzling treasures such as Aladdin found
himself in."

"But why, Cousin Peregrine? Do the Turks have very wonderful things in
their shops?"

"I fancy, Maggie, that in no place in the world can one see such a
collection of valuable merchandise gathered from all quarters of the
globe. But it is not only the gold, the jewels, the ivories, the
gorgeous silks and brocades, morocco leathers, and priceless furs, which
make these great Eastern markets unlike ours. The common wares for
everyday use are often of a much more picturesque kind than with us.
There is no great beauty in an English boot-shop, but the shoe-bazaar in
Stamboul is gay with slippers of all colours, embroidered with gold and
silver thread, to say noth