And there in a sort of sumptuous solitude, seated on these _fauteuils_ of a deliciously pale rose, before large open windows, we have from this last promontory of Europe, the splendid view that charmed the Sultans of the past. To our left, and very far below us, the Bosphorus spreads, furrowed with ships and caïques; the whiteness of the marble quays are reflected in it; the whiteness of the new imperial residences, Dolma Bagtche and Tcheragan, are mirrored inverted in long, pale lines; the row of palace and mosques is pictured magnificently upon its banks. Opposite is Asia, still bluish in the remaining drifts of the morning mist; it is Scutari, with its domes and minarets, with its immense cemetery and its forest of dark cypresses. To the right, the infinite expanse of Marmora;--distant steamboats are moving upon it, lost in all that diaphanous blue,--little grey silhouettes trailing delicate clouds of smoke. How well it was chosen, this site, to dominate and watch from above that Turkey, seated superbly on two divisions of the world! And to-day, what peace and what melancholy splendour in this complete isolation from all the agitations of modern life, in this great silence of abandonment, under this clear and mournful sun! When the guardian of the Treasury--an old man with a white beard--is ready to open the iron door with his enormous keys, twenty individuals come to form a hedge, ten to the right, ten to the left, on each side of the entrance. We pass between this double row and enter the rather dark halls, into which they all follow us. The cavern of Ali Baba could never have been filled with such wealth! For eight centuries they have been heaping up here the rarest jewels and the most astonishing marvels of art. As our eyes become rested from the outside sunlight, and get accustomed to the shadowy interior, the diamonds begin to sparkle everywhere. Things in profusion, without age or price, classified by species upon shelves. Arms of all periods, from Genghis Khan to Mahomet; weapons of silver and gold set with jewels. Then there are collections of golden coffers of all sizes and of all styles; some are covered with rubies, others with diamonds and others with sapphires; some of them are even cut out of a single emerald as big as an ostrich’s egg. Then there are services for coffee, for drinking, and ewers of antique and exquisite forms. And the stuffs fit for fays; the saddles; the harness, the housings of parade in brocades of gold and silver, embroidered and encrusted with flowers in precious stones; the large thrones made to sit upon cross-legged: all these in ruby and fine pearl together produce a rosy brilliancy; elsewhere, others covered with emeralds and brilliant in their green reflections, look as if bathed in sea-water.