I could easily pass all bounds in enumerating the glories of Galata, which Murray’s guide-book dismisses with little more than a remark about the most depraved population in Europe. Of depravity I am not connoisseur enough to pass judgment on this dictum. I can only say that if the Galatiotes are the worst people in Europe, the world is not in so parlous a state as some persons have imagined. I presume it must be to the regions called Kemer Altî—Under the Arch—lying between Step Street and the pious walls of S. Benoît, that the critic refers. Here the primrose path of Galata winds among dark and dismal alleys, Neapolitan save for the fezzes, the odour of mastic, and the jingling _lanterna_, the beloved hand piano of Galata. Yet even here simplicity would be a truer word than depravity. Among primrose paths this is at once the least disguised and the least seductive which I have happened to tread. There is so little mystery about it, its fantastic inhabitants make so little attempt to conceal their numerous disadvantages, that no Ulysses should be compelled to stop his ears against such sirens. But Galata is by no means all primrose path. Other, more laborious paths abound there, of drudgery manifold but chiefly of those who go down to the sea in ships. The tangle of narrow streets between the “Bowery” and the harbour is given up almost entirely to sailors and watermen—their lodging, their outfitting, and their amusement. The thickest of these streets in local colour are in the purlieus of Pershembeh Bazaar. Pershembeh Bazaar means Thursday Market, and Thursday is a day to come here. Then awnings shade the little streets around Arab Jami, and venders of dreadful Manchester prints, of astonishing footwear, of sweets, of perfumes, of variegated girdles, leave no more than a narrow lane for passers-by, and there is infinite bargaining from sunrise to sunset. The next morning there will be not a sign of all this commerce. It has gone elsewhere: to be precise, to Kassîm Pasha. On Tuesdays you will find these peripatetic merchants near Top Haneh. [Illustration: Fountain near Galata Tower] [Illustration: The Kabatash breakwater]