And so I missed seeing a fire in Constantinople, but if I did not actually see the one that destroyed Pera in 1870, I have heard it described so often by eye-witnesses, and have collected such full and accurate details, that I may be said to have seen it with the eyes of my mind, and, it may be, can give as correct an account of what took place as though I had really been present in the flesh. [Illustration: Turkish Firemen.] The fire started in a little house in the Rue Feridee in Pera on the fifth day of June--that is, in the season when the greater part of the well-to-do population of Pera is out of town, spending the summer in their country-houses on the Bosphorus--and at one o’clock, just when the entire community, European as well, is shut up in-doors taking the mid-day siesta. The only occupant of the house in the Rue Feridee was an old female servant--the family having that very day gone to the country--who, as soon as she discovered the fire, rushed into the street and began to run, yelling “Fire!” at the top of her lungs. People at once poured out of the neighboring houses with buckets and little hand-pumps, the idiotic law prohibiting persons from extinguishing a fire until the Serasker officials have arrived upon the scene having already fallen into disuse, and flew of course to the nearest fountain to have them filled. Now, the Pera fountains are only open at certain hours of the day, when the water-carriers who draw the supply for the families of the vicinity can have access to them; once the distribution is over, they are closed and locked, the keys being placed in charge of an official with orders not to give them up “except on receipt of a notice from the authorities.” At this very moment there lounged beside this particular fountain a member of the Turkish municipal guard of Pera, with the keys in his pocket, looking impassively on at the fire; the crowd surrounded him, imploring him in excited tones to unlock the fountain; but this he flatly refused to do, on the ground that he had received no orders to that effect. They pressed closer, grew threatening, and finally laid forcible hands upon him, on which he resisted, defending himself to the best of his ability and declaring that they should never get the key from him alive. In the mean time the flames had made great headway; the original house was completely destroyed, and those next to it were burning merrily. News of the fire had spread rapidly from quarter to quarter; the watchmen on the summits of the Galata and Serasker towers had hoisted the red balloons used in the day-time as fire-signals. All the city guards were running through the streets, striking the pavement with their long staves and raising the dreaded cry, “Yanghen Vahr!” (There is a fire), in response to which was heard the hollow beating of a thousand drums as all the barracks took the alarm. Then three guns fired from Topkhâneh announced the news to every quarter of