Some Arabic signets bore peculiarly apt inscriptions. One of these reads: “Correspondence is only a half-joy,” a delicate piece of flattery for the recipient of a letter bearing this seal. Another signet gives the following very necessary warning to the person to whom the letter is addressed, should it happen to contain something which ought not to be revealed. “If more than two know it, the secret is out.”[244] Such inscriptions are certainly more significant than a motto of less special meaning. In an essay on Arabic signets, Hammer-Purgstall[245] calls attention to a fundamental distinction between talismans and signets. With the former, the inscription is engraved so that it may be read as it stands, while with the latter the characters are reversed so that only the impression gives them in their proper order. Besides this, the talismans rarely contain the wearer’s name, which is the most essential part of the signet. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that in many cases the signet was at the same time a talisman. That lovers--even Mohammedan lovers--in the seventeenth century, had romantic designs engraved upon seal rings, is illustrated by what Garzoni relates concerning the seal ring of “Mahometh Bassa.” This bore the figure of a silk-worm upon a mulberry leaf, the design commemorating the wearer’s love for a Moorish girl, and signifying that he drew his life from her as did the silk-worm from the leaf.[246] Tavernier relates that in his time, the last half of the seventeenth century, the secret treasure of the Sultans in Constantinople was guarded in an innermost treasure-chamber of the Serail. This chamber was only opened at intervals to receive the surplus gold that had been collected from the Empire or received in any way, when the total sum had reached 18,000,000 livres (over $7,000,000] according to the value of the livre in Tavernier’s day). The gold was contained in sacks, each of which held 15,000 ducats. When an addition to the treasure was to be deposited, the Sultan himself led the way to the treasure-chamber and stamped his seal, with his own hand, on red wax spread over the knot of the cord with which the sack was secured. This seal was engraved on the bezel of a gold ring and constituted no design, but simply the name of the reigning sovereign, the characters being probably intricately combined in the elaborate and cryptic manner used in the case of the imperial name and titles.[247]