When an audience is granted by the sultan to a Frank ambassador, it is notified to him by the dragoman, and a very early hour is appointed for the purpose. Horses, richly caparisoned, are sent to convey him and his suite; and, before light in the morning, if it be not in summer, they mount in their grandest costumes. As all the Frank ministers reside in Pera, they have the harbour to cross, so they clatter down the steep and rugged streets leading to the water, at the imminent hazard of breaking their limbs, and display any thing but a grand and dignified procession. Having passed the harbour, they are received in a small mean coffee-house on the water-edge, where pipes and coffee are presented, after which they resume their march on fresh horses. There stands a great tree, at the point where some streets meet; here the cortege are directed to halt, and here they are condemned to wait till the grand vizir, and other functionaries, are pleased to issue from his bureau, in the Downing-street of Constantinople. The contemptuous manner in which infidel ministers were formerly treated, here began to display itself. Instead of the respect with which the representative of a brother sovereign ought to be received, he was kept standing in an open, dirty street, sometimes under heavy rain, for an hour or more, without the slightest attention shown, or notice taken of him, except being stared at, or called opprobrious names, muttered by some fanatic Turk as he passed by. At length the vizir was seen slowly moving down from his office; and it was supposed that he would courteously greet the expected ambassador, and apologize for his delay:−-but no−-he passed on with the most imperturbable gravity; not even condescending to look at the ambassador, or seeming to know that he and his suite were not part of the vulgar crowd. They were then permitted to move on, and follow, at an humble distance, the vizir up this street, till they entered the Babu Hummayoun; and here commenced a new series of degradations, which have been already noticed. These barbarisms, however, are now passing away, and, among other ameliorations of Turkish manners, the sultan receives the representatives of his brother sovereigns in a more becoming manner.