e
horses he had promised for our journey to Constantinople, whereupon the
pasha, standing up on his divan, said, "Proud are the sires and blessed
are the dams of the horses that shall carry your excellency to the end
of your prosperous journey."

Our party, consisting of my companion, Methley, our personal servants,
interpreter, and escort, started from Belgrade, as usual, hours after
the arranged time, and night had closed in as we entered the great
Servian forest through which our road lay for more than a hundred miles.
When we came out of the forest our road lay through scenes like those of
an English park. There are few countries less infested by "lions in the
path," in the shape of historic monuments, and therefore there were no
perils. The only robbers we saw anything of had been long since dead and
gone.

The poor fellows had been impaled upon high poles, and so propped up by
the transverse spokes beneath them that their skeletons, clothed with
some white, wax-like remains of flesh, still sat up lolling in the
sunshine, and listlessly stared without eyes. After a fifteen days'
journey we crossed the Golden Horn, and found shelter in Stamboul.

All the while I stayed at Constantinople the plague was prevailing. Its
presence lent a mysterious and exciting, though not very pleasant,
interest to my first knowledge of a great Oriental city. Europeans,
during the prevalence of the plague, if they are forced to enter into
the streets, will carefully avoid the touch of every human being they
pass. The Moslem stalks on serenely, as though he were under the eye of
his God, and were "equal to either fate."

In a steep street or a narrow alley you meet one of those coffin-shaped
bundles of white linen which implies an Ottoman lady. She suddenly
withdraws the yashmak, shines upon your heart and soul with all the pomp
and might of her beauty. This dazzles your brain; she sees and exults;
then with a sudden movement she lays her blushing fingers upon your arm
and cries out, "Yumourdjak!" (plague), meaning, "There is a present of
the plague for you." This is her notion of a witticism.

_II.--The Troad, Smyrna, and Cyprus_

While my companion, Methley, was recovering from illness contracted
during our progress to Constantinople, I studied Turkish, and sated my
eyes with the pomps of the city and its crowded waters. When capable of
travelling, we determined to go to Troad together. Away from our people
and our horses, we