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with the thick-headed old Armenian who owned them, and whom, fortunately, they found much in want of cash, and, therefore, the more pliant.

This morning I found two packets on my table. On opening one I found the most beautiful blue shawl I had ever beheld, with my name marked on it in a disguised hand; the other packet opened, out fell a magnificent black one.

There is an old saying that "misfortunes never come single;" in the present instance, my bonnes fortunes turned up doublets.

A mutual surprise was succeeded by explanations, when I learned that the gentlemen had succeeded in obtaining these two beautiful specimens of Oriental art for half their value, one for sixteen, and the other for twenty thousand piasters (eight hundred, and one thousand dollars). We afterward learned that the fellow of one of these two shawls had been sent to Moscow, where it was sold to the person who had originally ordered it, for forty-four thousand piasters. I think I will manage to bring about another visit to old Stamboul before I return home, if I can be assured of a few more such presents.

I have learned here that Cachmere shawls are invariably made in pairs to match. Scarcely one of the many thousands exposed here for sale is new; they have all been more or less worn, and the majority nearly worn out. My presents are perfectly new, and will require two years' wear before they become as pliable as we are accustomed to see shawls at home. In the bazars there are establishments for repairing shawls; they import the plain cloth in the piece, to insert new middles when required; and remodel old shawls to any size or shape that may be desired.

I set out by describing to you the khans, and I find that I have been led away into a long digression about shawls; I will therefore leave the khans to take care of themselves, and, after noticing to you only one more article, entirely pe

culiar to this place, I will pass to some subject more interesting.

The article I allude to is a singular kind of embroidery on thin muslin for dresses, scarfs, and kerchiefs. The embroidery is so made as to present the same finished appearance on each side. Fine gold thread and fancy-coloured silks are the materials used to produce the elaborate figures. I have made a small acquisition in this line, which one day may show you.

I

This day I made my last visit to Stamboul; I have therefore bidden adieu to its bazars and khans, and will no more trouble you with the name of either; yet, to a person of much leisure, and who can manage the Turkish language, these places offer a vast field for the study of human nature; for here every man is a trader, from the beggar to the great sultan himself. The former lays out his five piasters for a pipe or jacket, which he auctions off at a profit to pay for his dinner, while the latter sends for sale the handiwork of his fair Circassians, pastiles, pomades, and sweetmeats.

Leaving you to dream of pearls and shawls, embroideries and slippers, I will now retire to rest, and salute you again to-morrow evening.

One morning this week horses were brought to the door, and we started on an excursion to the forest of Belgrade, which lies about eight or ten miles from Pera, towards the northwest. It is a splendid forest of ancient trees, entirely free from underbrush, and extends from the shores of the Black Sea many miles inland. The first object that attracted my attention was the house in which the Lady Wortley Montague, of epistolary celebrity, formerly resided. The mansion is a rural cottage in the Turkish style, situated in a fine opening in the forest, far away from the din, confusion, and malaria of the capital.

But that to which the greatest interest attaches in this

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forest is the very celebrated artificial reservoirs, or bents, as they are styled; these, in fact, are nothing more or less than ponds formed in natural basins, at one end of which are dams that retain the water from numerous springs, besides that which falls from the clouds, on a large surface of country: the melting of the snows contributes also to fill them. It is only the dams, however, which are the object of attraction to the traveller; these are constructed of vast blocks of white marble, secured by iron bolts, and highly or. namented. They appear to be about three hundred feet long, twenty-five to thirty feet thick, and ten feet high above the foundations, which are considerably elevated. There are several of these dams, only two of which we had time to visit. On one there is a marble throne, which is said to be for the use of the sultan when he visits these fountains of health.

The water collected in several of these reservoirs is all directed to one point, when it is made to cross a long and deep valley, over one of the most splendid aqueducts of ancient times, sixty feet in height, with several tiers of arches. This magnificent work dates as far back as the time of Justinian.

In another place we saw another aqueduct, not so high as the former, but stretching far away over the plain, and composed of innumerable arches. This is the work of the Turks.

On our way to the city we saw a vast number of singular hydraulic constructions, the principle or the necessity of which we could not exactly understand; nor do I believe the Turkish engineers themselves can give any satisfactory elucidation of the scientific enigma, which has caused so much speculation with the curious.

From the aqueduct I suppose the water is conveyed to the city through a series of leaden pipes; for I saw such conductors frequently rising out of the ground at certain

distances. Every few hundred yards along the whole line is a column, up one side of which the pipe is carried, and discharges the water into a small reservoir at the top; thence it descends through another pipe on the opposite side into the ground, and flows to the next column, performing the same leap-frog operation over that, and so on through the whole series of columns.

The Turks say that by this means they are enabled to carry the water over elevations higher than the source, and that, by the momentum acquired in its descent down one pipe, the water is forced to a height superior to that of the last starting-point; but this is a position too paradoxical to be sustained upon any known principle of hydrostatics. If these summersets which the water is made so frequently to take in its long course were not intended by the sapient inventor for the purpose either of ventilating the conductors, or of purifying the water by repeated exposures to the atmo. sphere, then I am at a loss to conjecture for what wise end so much labour and materials were thrown away.

The same thing exists in the city, where the colossal arches of the ancient aqueduct stride across a ravine; and the pipes run up one side and down the other of each pier. Cui bono?

The other day we had a delightful excursion up the Bosphorus to Buyucdere, the summer residence of nearly all the foreign diplomatic corps and the dragomanerie of Pera. It is a beautiful village, situated on the shore of a fine bay on the European side. There is but one row of houses, with

a fine quai in front. This situation is chosen for the salu. brity of its air, and its proximity to the pleasant rides up the valley leading to Belgrade.

We rowed to the head of the bay, and landed where this valley commences with a fine plain, and, under the shade of a group of noble forest trees, we partook of a luxurious

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picnic, provided at the instance of one of our very hospitable friends in Pera. We were no less surprised than delighted at this unexpected display of the choicest productions of the East and the West, in which the fruits of one clime vied with those of another, and the ruby stream of the Gallic grape sparkled beside the golden fountains from the vineclad hills of Cyprus. Were I called upon to say whether the Cyprian or the Hungarian vine furnished the crown of Brisæus, or whether the nectar with which young Hebe filled the cantharus was the celestial Comanderia or the imperial Tokay, I should be at a loss to decide; either would have been deemed a godlike beverage at the court of the Thunderer. But, leaving grapes and figs, nectar and wine, hie with me again to Stamboul.

After our "Keff" in the valley of Buyucdere, we found that our kind Amphitryon had ordered horses on to meet us, and they were now champing the bit and pawing the ground, impatient to return. We mounted, and were soon coursing over the hills which frown above the Bosphorus on the European side. Ever and anon such a glorious and sublime prospect opened before us as no pencil could paint or pen describe. From the summit of some high hill we frequently caught a view of the strait many hundred feet below us, lined on either side with its picturesque villages, and its surface teeming with life. Again we would plunge into the desert, and again find ourselves on another promontory, commanding, if possible, a more noble prospect.

We dismounted at a delightful villa belonging to our host, where we were served with refreshments by the ladies of the family; and finally, after another hour's ride over a high barren plain, the most magnificent view perhaps on earth burst suddenly upon our sight. Constantinople and all her dependancies, with the Golden Horn (Cornucopia), the interminable cypress groves, the shores of Asia Minor, and high Olympus in the distance, all contributed to a grand panVOL. II.-Z