Turks are extremely particular in regard to the quality of the water they drink, and are willing to be at much trouble and expense to obtain water of the kind they prefer. To be a perfect beverage, water must issue from a rock, fall from a height, be of medium temperature, flow rapidly and copiously, taste sweet, spring in high and lonely around, and run from south to north, or from east to west. The excellence of any water is accordingly determined by the number of these conditions it fulfils. It is remarkable how much pleasure Turks find in visiting a famous spring in the country, to spend the whole day beside it, under the shade of trees, doing little else but drink carafe after carafe of the water, as the elixir of life. Resorts of this description abound on the shores and in the valleys of the Upper Bosporus, under such names as “The Water of Life,” “The Silver Water,” “The Water under the Chestnut Trees,” “The Water beside the Hazels.” The spectacle of the great gatherings there, on Fridays, arrayed in bright colours, seated tier above tier on the terraced platforms built against the green slope of a hill, the women above, the men below, all in the deep shade of branches meeting overhead, forms a picture beyond a painter’s power to reproduce. In this connection may be mentioned also the attractive little scenes upon which one comes frequently in walking through the city--quiet nooks, a little off the great thoroughfares, with a vine or westeria spread on a trellis across the street for an awning, and a group of humble workmen, seated on low stools at the door of a cafeneh, sipping tiny cups of coffee, drinking water, smoking the narghileh, too happy to speak much. Occasionally, the court of a small khan, or a portion of a large court, is thus canopied by a trellised vine, making an oasis in the desert of lowly toil. [Illustration: OPEN-AIR CAFÉ, STAMBOUL Smoking the narghileh and drinking coffee occupy a large part of the Turk’s time.] CHAPTER XI RELIGIOUS COLOURING