Their turbans and baggy breeches of scarlet gave them a very Oriental aspect; but their swinging gait and rollicking air, together with the remarkably free-and-easy manner in which they "marched at ease," and the songs they sang, announced them all sons of _la belle France_; and, singularly enough, every second or third file had a pet cat perched on the top of his knapsack. The tricolor was decorated with laurel; their long brass trumpets played a strange and monotonous, but not unwarlike measure, to which they all stepped in rapid time; and in the intervals of the music many of them joined in a song, which was led by Mademoiselle Sophie, who was riding _à la cavalier_ at their head, in rear of the staff, with her little brandy-keg slung over her left shoulder. I caught just a verse as she passed; but I frequently heard her sing the same song at a future time— Vivandière du régiment, C’est Catin qu’on me nomme, Je vends, je donne, et bois gaiment, Mon vin et mon rogomme. J’ai le pied leste et l’oeil mutin. Tin-tin, tin, tin, tin, tin, r’lin tin-tin. J’ai le pied leste et l’oeil mutin. Soldats, voilà Catin! Above all other voices, I could hear that of her friend, or lover, Jules Jolicoeur, most lustily— Soldats, voilà Catin! as he marched along with his hands in his pockets, and his musket slung butt uppermost. Our transport was taken in tow by a war steamer. Thus our progress through the Sea of Marmora was rapid. We passed Constantinople in the night, to our great regret; and as no part of it, save the palace of the Sultan, was then lighted with gas, it was involved in darkness and silence. At least, we heard only the voices of the patrols, and the barking and howling of the thousands of homeless dogs which prowl through the streets. Being unclean, they are never domesticated; yet their litters are never destroyed, and they feed on the offal of the houses, or on the headless trunks that are at times washed up from the Golden Horn. Next day, as we proceeded up the Bosphorus, a swift (Clyde-built) Turkish steamer was running ahead of us; and we remarked that, whenever she passed a fort or battery, the standard with the star and crescent was immediately hoisted, and a trumpet was heard to sound.