“These fat-paunched, crooked-legged pashas,” exclaims Dr Wagner, “what caricatures they appear in their buttoned-up uniforms! Formerly, when the folds of their wide garments concealed bodily imperfections, the Turks were held to be a handsome race. Now, in Constantinople, a handsome man, in the reformed dress, is an exception to the rule. The Turks of the towns are rarely slender and well-built; and the tall, muscular figures which one so commonly finds amongst Arabs, Persians, and Tyrolese, are scarcely ever to be seen in Turkey. Neither do we see in Turkish cities anything to remind us of the fine knightly figures of the Circassians—although, from the female side, so much Circassian blood runs in the veins of the higher classes of Turks. The indolent manner of life, the bringing up of boys in the harem until the age of puberty, too early indulgence in tschibouk-smoking and coffee-drinking, and premature excesses of another kind, have all contributed to enervate and degrade an originally vigorous and handsome race.” In the whole Beiram procession, Dr Wagner declares, there were, besides Riza Pasha, but two handsome men amongst all the Turks of the higher class there present. Of the numerous array of officers and soldiers, it was but here and there that he saw one tolerably well-made, and athletic figures were still more rarely observable. Worse than any looked the debilitated Sultan, cramped in his tight coat, oppressed by his heavy epaulets and gold lace, his diamonds and his plumes, and leaning languidly forward on his fine charger. What a contrast with the portrait of the Emperor Nicholas, which Dr Wagner saw when visiting the summer seraglio of Kadi-Köi! Opposite to a divan upon which Abdul Meschid was wont to repose—whilst his tympanum was agreeably tickled by the harmony of half-a-dozen musical boxes, playing different tunes at the same time—stood two costly porcelain vases, whereon were painted likenesses of the Emperor and Empress of all the Russias. They were presents from Nicholas to the Sultan. “The Emperor’s gigantic and powerful frame and martial countenance were admirably portrayed. The painter had given him a mien and bearing as though he were in the act of commanding his grenadiers. As a contrast, I pictured to myself the Turkish monarch reposing his feeble frame upon the luxurious velvet divan; the harmless ruler who prefers ease in his harem to a gallop at the head of his troops; the trill of his musical boxes, and the flutes of dancing dervishes, to the clatter of cuirasses and the thunder of twelve-pounders.” Russia and Turkey are well typified by their rulers. On the one hand, vigour, energy, and power; on the other, weakness, decrepitude, and decline. What wonder if, as Dr Wagner relates, the young Archduke Constantine, when visiting the city that bears his name, gazed wistfully and hopefully from the lofty gallery of the Galata tower on the splendid panorama spread before him, as though dreaming that, one