like the
reflection of stars in a well; I have recognized, in the At-Meidan, the
famous beauty of that poor Greek woman killed by a cannon ball at the
base of the serpentine column; I have been face to face, in the Fanar,
with Kara-Abderrahman, the handsome young Turk of the time of Orkhan; I
have seen Coswa, the she-camel of the Prophet; I have encountered
Kara-bulut, Selim's black steed; I have met the poor poet Fignahi,
condemned to go about Stamboul tied to an ass for having pierced with an
insolent distich the Grand Vizier of Ibrahim; I have been in the same
cafe with Soliman the Big, the monstrous admiral, whom four robust
slaves hardly succeeded in lifting from the divan; Ali, the Grand
Vizier, who could not find in all Arabia a horse that could carry him;
Mahmoud Pasha, the ferocious Hercules that strangled the son of Soliman;
and the stupid Ahmed Second, who continually repeated "Koso! Koso!"
(Very well, very well) crouching before the door of the copyists'
bazaar, in the square of Bajazet. All the personages of the 'Thousand
and One Nights,' the Aladdins, the Zobeides, the Sindbads, the Gulnares,
the old Jewish merchants, possessors of enchanted carpets and wonderful
lamps, passed before me like a procession of phantoms.

BIRDS

From 'Constantinople'

Constantinople has one grace and gayety peculiar to itself, that comes
from an infinite number of birds of every kind, for which the Turks
nourish a warm sentiment and regard. Mosques, groves, old walls,
gardens, palaces, all resound with song, the whistling and twittering of
birds; everywhere wings are fluttering, and life and harmony abound. The
sparrows enter the houses boldly, and eat out of women's and children's
hands; swallows nest over the cafe doors, and under the arches of the
bazaars; pigeons in innumerable swarms, maintained by legacies from
sultans and private individuals, form garlands of black and white along
the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets;
sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of turtle-doves coo
amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; crows croak about the
Castle of the Seven Towers halcyons come and go in long files between
the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of
the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle
meaning, or a benignant virtue: turtle-doves are favorable to lovers,
swallows keep away fire from the roofs where they buil