The residence of the chief eunuch near by was a small royal palace in itself, between which and the third court flowed a constant stream of black eunuchs, slaves, and servants. Foreign ambassadors passed through on their way to the reception-chamber of the Sultan, and then the gallery would be hung from one end to the other with scarlet cloth, while the walls and pavements were as polished and glittering as the floor of a room. Two hundred Janissaries, spahis, and silidars, members of the Divân guard, would stand drawn up in the shade of the cypress and plane trees, dressed and armed like princes, while troops of white and black eunuchs, perfumed and anointed, flanked the entrance. Everything within this second enclosure indicated the vicinity of the Grand Seignior: voices were pitched in a lower key, steps were more measured, and all noises which indicated labor or toil, and the sounds of horses’ hoofs, were rigorously banished. Soldiers and servants alike went back and forth in silence, and a certain sanctuary-like stillness reigned over the entire courtyard, broken only from time to time by the sudden cry of a bird winging its way among the high branches of the trees or the resounding clang of the great iron doors being swung to by the kapuji. The only one of the buildings in this court visited by me was the hall of the Divân, which is almost precisely as it was in the days when the deliberations of the chief assemblage of the state were held within its walls. It is a large, vaulted apartment, lighted from above by small Moorish windows, lined with marbles, covered with gold arabesques, and without other furniture save the long divan upon which the members of the council took their seats. Directly above the grand vizier’s place may still be seen the small window covered with a gilded lattice from behind which first Suleiman I., and after him all the other pâdishahs, took part unseen, or at all events were supposed to take part, in the sessions.[H] A secret passageway led from this hidden recess to the imperial apartments in the third enclosure. Here the great assembly, composed of all the chief ministers of the empire, met five times a week, presided over by the grand vizier. It was a most impressive sight: facing the entrance sat the grand vizier, and near him the viziers of the dome, the _kapudan pasha_, or chief admiral, the two chief justices of Anadoli and Rumili, representing the judiciary of the provinces of Asia and Europe; on one side the imperial treasurers, on the other the _nisciandgi_, whose duty it was to affix the Sultan’s seal to all decrees; beyond, to the right and left, two long lines of ulemas and chamberlains, and in the angles the sciaùs to whom were assigned the duties of bearing the orders and despatches of the assembly and carrying out the sentences, and who were trained to comprehend at once the exact significance of every look and gesture. Before this gathering the boldest quailed and the most innocent began