Beyond the Orta Kapou no one may pass except by special irardé from the Sultan. This can only be obtained through the Embassy. Of recent years it is rarely refused; but it is usual to make a party, for the expense is large. Some five pounds or so must be given in presents. The visitors are treated as the Sultan's guests, are placed under charge of an imperial aide-de-camp, are refreshed with coffee and roseleaf jam in one of the kiosks, and taken on, usually, to the modern palaces of Dolma bagtché and Beylerbey. The Orta Kapou is strictly guarded. Here one must walk, for only a Sultan may enter on horseback. On the right was the room in which the Christian envoys waited till the Sultan pleased to send out clothes in which alone they might appear before him. As they came forth the Janissaries, ranged in military order, "darted like arrows" at the food placed before them in their kettles, a quaint custom intended to impress the foreigner with the feeling that he was in the power of a still savage people. At the left was the room where Viziers were beheaded. [Illustration: APPROACH TO THE OLD SERAGLIO] The court of the divan, now neglected, is the place where the ministers discussed, and the Sultans, when they would, listened from a latticed window. To the right were the vast kitchens. Then comes the Bâb-i-s'âddet, Gate of Felicity, which leads to what was once the Serai, the royal palace with its harem, which the Italians called Seraglio. It was through this gate that Murad IV. in 1632 walked alone to face the rebels, and hushed them to obedience, and that in 1808 the dead body of Selim III. was thrown out to the Pacha Baraicktar (see p. 201), and that a few days later the corpse of his murderer, Mustafa IV., was carried forth to burial. Within, we are among a maze of small buildings, without dignity but not altogether without beauty. They represent the caprice of sultan after sultan, and of their ladies. First we see the Arz Odassi, the throne room, built by Suleiman I., where on a large couch, like a great bed, the Sultans reposing on cushions received their ministers and the foreign envoys. Here the first French ambassadors were received by Suleiman, and here in 1568 Elizabeth's envoy sought assistance against Spain. Here again is a lattice behind which the Sultan could sit, if he would assume the state of the unapproachable Oriental. [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE OLD SERAGLIO]