hile to trouble themselves about me.

I am ashamed, for their sakes, to be obliged to make this
confession; but as I have resolved to narrate circumstantially not
only all I saw, but all that happened to me on this journey, I must
note down this circumstance with the rest. I felt the more deeply
the kindness of these strangers, who, without recommendation or the
tie of country, took so hearty an interest in the well-being of a
lonely woman. I am truly rejoiced when an opportunity occurs of
expressing my sincere gratitude for the agreeable hours I spent
among them.

The distance from Vienna to Constantinople is about 1000 sea miles.

RESIDENCE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.--THE DANCING DERVISHES.

I arrived at Constantinople on a Tuesday, and immediately inquired
what was worth seeing. I was advised to go and see the dancing
dervishes, as this was the day on which they held their religious
exercises in Pera.

As I reached the mosque an hour too soon, I betook myself in the
meantime to the adjoining garden, which is set apart as the place of
meeting of the Turkish women. Here several hundred ladies reclined
on the grass in varied groups, surrounded by their children and
their nurses, the latter of whom are all negresses. Many of these
Turkish women were smoking pipes of tobacco with an appearance of
extreme enjoyment, and drinking small cups of coffee without milk.
Two or three friends often made use of the same pipe, which was
passed round from mouth to mouth. These ladies seemed also to be
partial to dainties: most of them were well provided with raisins,
figs, sugared nuts, cakes, etc., and ate as much as the little ones.
They seemed to treat their slaves very kindly; the black servants
sat among their mistresses, and munched away bravely: the slaves
are well dressed, and could scarcely be distinguished from their
owners, were it not for their sable hue.

During my whole journey I remarked with pleasure that the lot of a
slave in the house of a Mussulman is not nearly so hard as we
believe. The Turkish women are no great admirers of animated
conversations; still there was more talking in their societies than
in the assemblies of the men, who sit silent and half asleep in the
coffee-houses, languidly listening to the narrations of a story-
teller.

The ladies' garden resembles a churchyard. Funeral monuments peer
forth at intervals between the cypresses, beneath which the visitors
sit talking and joking cheerfu