The title of _porte_, or door, is used in Constantinople to designate other departments of the government. The bureau of the Minister of War is called the _Seraskier Kapousee_, or the Gate of the _Serasker_ (head of the army); and those of the Ministers of Commerce and Police are called, the one _Tijaret Kapousee_, and the other _Zabtieh Kapousee_. These, however are sufficient, without mentioning any other facts, to explain the origin and nature of the title of the Ottoman government, known as “The Sublime Porte.” The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire is known by his subjects under the title of _Sultân_, which word signifies a ruler; and generally as _Shevketlu Padischah Effendimiz_, “His Majesty the Emperor our Lord;” and all foreign governments now recognize him as an Emperor, and call him by the title of “Imperial Majesty.” The definition of the word _Padischah_ is supposed to be “Father of Kings,” and originally was _Peder Schah_, the first part of it (Peder) being the origin of our Saxon word _Fâder_, or father. In his own tongue he is called _Khan_, in Persian _Shah_, and in Arabic _Sultan_, all meaning, _in extensu_, the same, viz. King, Sovereign, or Prince. He reigns over one of the most extensive empires of the world, all possessed or acquired by inheritance from his ancestors, who obtained it by conquest. Until the reign of the late Sultan, Mahmoud the Second, the Ottoman sovereigns had their residence in _the_ “Seraglio” before alluded to, in the city of Constantinople. Its high walls were not, however, sufficiently strong to protect them against the violence of the Janizaries, and after their destruction the remembrance of the scenes of their cruelty induced the late and present Sultan to forsake it for the safer and more agreeable banks of the Bosphorus. The extensive and very picturesque buildings of the Seraglio are now left to decay; they offer only the spectacle of the “dark ages” of Turkey, gloomy in their aspect, as in their history, and yet occupying one of the most favored spots in the world, on which the eyes of the traveler are fixed as by a charm in approaching the great capital of the East, and on which they dwell with a parting feeling of regret as he bids the magnificent “City of the Sultan” farewell. On the Bosphorus are two splendid palaces, one on the Asiatic and the other on the European shore. The first is called _Beylerbey_, “Prince of Princes,” the latter _Teherâgiân_, “The Lights.” Both are beautiful edifices, in excellent taste; and, as architecture has done in all ages, they serve to show the advance of the people who erected them in the noblest of the arts.