wives, but the old lady near him dressed in green has done better yet, having been the lawful wife of no less than twelve husbands.--There goes a personage who makes her living by purchasing young girls of fourteen or so, and, after teaching them music, singing, dancing, and the manners of good society, resells them at a premium of five hundred per cent.--Now, there goes a very handsome woman whose exact value I happen to know: she is a Circassian bought at Topkhâneh for one hundred and twenty Turkish francs, and resold three years later for a bagatelle of four hundred.--This one near us, who is adjusting her veil, has had a somewhat checkered career. She began as a slave; then she was an odalisque; then she married, was divorced, and married again; at present she is a widow and is looking about for some fresh matrimonial venture.--Do you see that effendi? Well, you could hardly guess what has happened in his household: his wife has fallen in love with a eunuch, and they say that if he does not look out there will be something queer in his coffee one of these days, and she will be free to end her life in peace with the object of her choice; nor will it be the first time that that kind of thing has happened.--There is a merchant who has married his four wives with an eye to business: he keeps one in Constantinople, one in Trebizond, one in Salonika, and one in Alexandria. Thus at the end of each journey he finds a home awaiting him.--There is a handsome young pasha only twenty-four years old: a month ago he was nothing but a poor subaltern in the Imperial Guard, whom the Sultan promoted at a bound, so as to marry him to one of his sisters; but he is not an object of envy to the other men, for it is no joke to be the husband of one of the sultanas: as every one knows, they are as ‘jealous as nightingales.’ Probably were we to search through the crowd we would find a slave dogging his footsteps now, so as to note and report every one whom he either does or does not look at.--See that slender, graceful figure over there? One need not be very discriminating to know her at once for a flower from the Seraglio. She was one of the Sultan’s beauties: a few months ago an official of the War Office, who has managed to ingratiate himself at court, obtained her hand in marriage, and before long he will mount rapidly.--That little five-year-old girl was betrothed to-day to a youngster of eight. The groom elect was taken to see her, and, finding her to his taste, promptly flew into a violent passion because a small boy cousin about a yard high kissed her in his presence.--There goes an old hag who had two sheep killed the day before yesterday in gratitude to Allah for having removed a daughter-in-law whom she hated.--There goes the wife of a friend of mine with her face completely covered and wearing a lilac _ferajeh_: he is a Turk, but she is a Christian and goes to church every Sunday: don’t speak of it, though, to any one--on her account, not his.