there is no limit to the number of ways in which they may be grouped. By adding to an inscription its reverse, it is possible to make a symmetrical figure which sometimes resembles a mosque, or the letters may be fancifully made to suggest a bird or a ship. Texts from the Koran, invocations of the Almighty, the names of the caliphs and of the companions of the Prophet, and verses of Persian poetry are all favourite subjects for the calligrapher. I have also seen what might very literally be called a word-picture of the Prophet. To paint a portrait of him would contravene all the traditions of the cult; but there exists a famous description of him which is sometimes written in a circle, as it were the outline of a head, on an illuminated panel. [Illustration: The house of the pipe] However, I did not start out to describe the interior of Stamboul, of which I know as little as any man. That, indeed, is one element of the charm of Stamboul—the sense of reserve, of impenetrability, that pervades its Turkish quarters. The lattices of the windows, the veils of the women, the high garden walls, the gravity and perfect quiet of the streets at night, all contribute to that sense. From the noisy European quarter on the opposite bank of the Golden Horn, where life is a thing of shreds and patches, without coherent associations and without roots, one looks over to Stamboul and gets the sense of another, an unknown life, reaching out secret filaments to the uttermost parts of the earth. Strange faces, strange costumes, strange dialects come and go, on errands not necessarily too mysterious, yet mysterious enough for one who knows nothing of the literature of the East, its habits, its real thought and hope and belief. We speak glibly of knowing Turkey and the Turks—we who have lived five or ten or fifty years among them; but very few of us, I notice, have ever known them well enough to learn their language or read their books. And so into Stamboul we all go as outsiders. Yet there are aspects of Stamboul which are not so inaccessible. Stamboul at work, Stamboul as a market-place, is a Stamboul which welcomes the intruder—albeit with her customary gravity: if a man buttonholes you in the street and insists that you look at his wares you may be sure that he is no Turk. This is also a Stamboul which has never been, which never can be, sufficiently celebrated. The Bazaars, to be sure, figure in all the books of travel, and are visited by every one; but they are rather sighed over nowadays, as having lost a former glory. I do not sigh over them, myself. I consider that by its very arrangement the Grand Bazaar possesses an interest which can never disappear. It is a sort of vast department store, on one floor though not on one level, whose cobbled aisles wander up hill and down dale, and are vaulted solidly over with stone. And in old times, before the shops or costumes of Pera were, and when the _beau monde_ came here to buy, a wonderful department store