you to interrogate a Turk in regard to them, you would cover him with confusion. * * * * * We learn through the same channels what the dress of the Turkish women is in the seclusion of the harem--the details of that charming costume, at once rich and fantastic, which every one has some idea of, and which lends to every woman who wears it the dignity of a princess and freedom and grace of a child. We will never see it unless the fashion should be adopted in our own country, for even should the _ferajeh_ be some day discarded, every Turkish woman will by that time be found dressed like a European underneath. What anguish for the artists, and what a pity for all concerned! Just fancy a Turkish beauty, “slender as a cypress,” with the coloring “of all the blended tints of a rose’s petals,” wearing a little red-velvet or silver-brocade cap slightly on one side, her black hair falling down over the shoulders, clad in a garment of white-silk damask embroidered in gold, with wide, open sleeves, and a long skirt parted in front so as to show the full trousers of rose-colored silk falling in close folds over little feet encased in tiny pointed slippers turned up in Chinese fashion; a sash of green satin around the waist, and diamonds flashing from neck and arms and hair, the tassel of the cap, slippers, girdle, forehead, so that she glitters from head to foot like the Madonna in a Spanish cathedral as she lies extended on a wide divan in an attitude of childish grace, surrounded by a circle of pretty Circassian, Arabian, or Persian slaves, enveloped like statues of antiquity in long, sweeping garments; or imagine a bride, “white as the summit of Olympus,” arrayed in sky-blue satin with a large gold-embroidered veil falling over her entire person, seated upon a pearl-embroidered ottoman; or picture to yourself the adored favorite in the most retired apartment of the harem, wearing the jacket and trousers which set off to the utmost advantage the exquisite contours of her person, making her look like a graceful, well-formed boy. Then you can realize what those beasts of “reforming” Turks, with their bald heads and black coats, have to answer for. These house-costumes, however, vary with the changing fashions. The Turkish women, having nothing else in the world to occupy them, devote a large part of their time to trying to devise some new style of dress: they cover themselves with finery and trinkets, stick feathers and ribbons in their hair, tie scarfs around their heads and fur around their necks and arms, borrowing something from all the different styles of Oriental costume; they combine the fashions of Europe and the East, wear wigs, dye their hair black, red, yellow, indulge every sort of fancy, and vie with one another every whit as much as the leaders of fashion in other lands. If at one of the gatherings at the Sweet Waters a fairy should suddenly wave her wand