d Paul. "I know him very well. The gazelle is
of Jewish extraction, and sells shawls. He is a liar."

"Hair, Effendim--sir," cried Abraham, who knew a little English. "Him
Israeleet--hones' Jew--Abraham's name, Effendim."

"I know it is," said Paul. "Git!"--an expression which is good
Californian, and equally good Turkish.

They threaded the narrow vaulted passages, which were cool in the warm
spring afternoon, taking the direction of the Jews' quarter, but pausing
from time to time to survey the thousand articles, of every description,
exposed for sale by the squatting shopkeepers. Cutter looked at the
weapons especially, and remarked that they were not so good as those
which used to be found ten years earlier. Everything, indeed, seemed to
have changed since that time, and for the worse. There is less wealth in
the bazaar, and yet the desire to purchase has increased tenfold, so
that a bit of Rhodes tapestry, which at that earlier time would not have
fetched forty piastres, is now sold for a pound Turkish, and is hard to
get at that. It may be supposed that the Jews have made large fortunes
in the interval, but the fact is not apparent in any way; the
uncertainty of property in Turkey forcing them to conceal their riches,
if they have any. Their shops are very fairly clean, but otherwise they
are humble, and the best and most valuable objects are generally packed
carefully away in dark corners, and are produced only when asked for.
You see nothing but a small divan, a table, a matted floor, and shelves
reaching to the ceiling, piled with packages wrapped in shabby gray
linen. It is chiefly in the Mohammedan and Greek "tscharshis" of the
bazaar that jewelry, weapons, and pipes are openly exhibited, and laid
out upon benches for the selection of the buyer. But the Jews have
almost a monopoly of everything which comes under the head of
antiquities, and it is with them that foreigners generally deal. They
are as intelligent as elsewhere, and perhaps more so, for the traveler
of to-day is a great cheapener of valuables. Moreover, the Stamboul Jews
are most of them linguists. They speak a bastard Spanish among
themselves; they are obliged to know Turkish, Greek, and a little
Armenian, and many of them speak French and Italian intelligibly.

Chrysophrasia delighted in the bazaar. The flavor of antiquity which
hangs about it, and makes it the only thoroughly Oriental place in
Constantinople, ascended gratefully to the old