coils of green gas-pipe on their heads, like our student-lamps,
marched by with a gait like a battalion of horses with the
string-halt, and we shrieked with laughter. Our friend said they
called that the German step. Germany would declare war with Turkey if
she ever heard that.

By this time we were so tired and hungry and disgusted that we were
about to go home and give up the Sultan when we saw no fewer than
fifty men come toiling up the hill with carpet-bags, as if they had
brought their clothes, and intended to see the Sultan if it took a
week. I do not know who or what they were, and I do not want to know.
They served their purpose with us in that they put us into
instantaneous good humor, and just then there was a commotion, and
everybody straightened up and craned their necks; and then, preceded
by his body-guard, the Sultan drove slowly down, looked directly up at
our window (and we groaned), and then turned in at the gate. Opposite
to him sat Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevna. The ladies of the harem
were driven into the court-yard surrounded by eunuchs, the horses were
taken from their carriages, and there the ladies sat, guarded like
prisoners, until the Sultan came out again. He then mounted into a
superb gold chariot drawn by two beautiful white horses, and he
himself drove out. Everybody salaamed, and he raised his hand in
return as if it was all the greatest possible bore.

While he was driving into the court-yard the priest came out on the
minaret and called men to prayer, and an English girl who sat at the
next window informed her mother that he was announcing the names of
the important persons in the procession! Her mother trained her
glasses on him--a mere speck against the sky--and said, "Fancy!"

The Sultan is not a beauty. If he were in America his sign would be
that of the three golden balls.

We went to see the mosques, and the officials and priests and boatmen
were so cross and surly on account of the fast of Ramazan that they
would not let us take photographs without a fight. During Ramazan they
neither eat nor drink between sunrise and sunset.

On the fifteenth day of Ramazan the Sultan goes to the mosque of Eyoob
to buckle on the sword of Mohammed in order to remind himself that the
power of that sword has descended to himself. He does not announce his
route, therefore the whole city is in a commotion, and they spread
miles of streets with sand for fear he might take it into his head to