The Great Bazaar, or Charschey, was erected by Mohamed II. when he took possession of Constantinople, and began to change its character from a European to an Asiatic city, by introducing the edifices and usages of the East. It was afterwards re-edified by his successors, and its parts distinguished by Eski and Yeni, the Old and the New Bazaar. They now consist of long avenues covered over with lofty arches of brick, lighted by apertures in the roof, and branching off in various directions. The ceilings of the vaults, and other parts of the walls, are painted with various flowers and devices. On each side of the passage are counters, or stalls, ranged along, leaving a wide way between. On the counter of each stall the merchant sits, generally smoking a chibouque, or narghillai, with his crossed legs drawn under him. If he be distinguished by a calpac, or inverted cone, upon his head, or a large snow-white turban, he is either an Armenian or a Turk; so he quietly abides his time, and suffers you to pass with imperturbable gravity, seldom condescending to ask your custom. If he wear a cross-barred handkerchief, twisted round the crown of a hat, or a coarse muslin wound about a red fez, he is either a Jew or a Greek, and is as importunate with you to buy as a salesman in Monmouth-street. Behind him, his larger wares are ranged against the walls, and his smaller in clumsy glass-cases beside him on the counter, where all articles are confounded in a heap. In his rear is generally a low door, opening into a small room in the thickness of the walls, where his unexposed goods are stored. These edifices, filled with light and inflammable goods, are liable to danger from the constant fires which occur at Constantinople, though they are in some measure protected by their construction, and the thickness of the walls. When fires have penetrated, they have been attended with the most awful consequences. It has happened that both ends of the covered way have been blazing at once, and all egress prevented to the crowd within, and hundreds have miserably perished, either consumed or suffocated in these vaults of fire. In order to guard against this, no smoking, or light of any kind, is allowed: notwithstanding this, the inveterate propensity of the Turk is not to be controlled, and, relying on his unalterable destiny, he is often seen with the glowing bowl of his pipe thrust among the inflammable materials of his counter. Every evening at sunset, the bazaar is closed with iron gates, and the merchants having locked up their wares behind certain partitions drawn before them, are seen wending their way in groups to the several quarters of the city in which each class is located−-the Jew to Galata, the Greek to the Fanar, the Armenian to Ypsomathia, and the Turk to various quarters.