Here, it was a party of Jews—there, a knot of Armenians—further on, a circle of Greeks—and close beside us a cluster of women huddled together, and holding by the hand their rosy children, whose appearance I cannot more appropriately describe than by comparing them to the sweeps on May-day—such costumes! such pinks, greens, reds, and yellows, each out-glaring the other on the girls; the most grotesque prints fashioned into the most _outré_ forms—pendent sleeves, trailing _anterys_, and little curly heads enveloped in painted handkerchiefs: while the boys from three years of age figured in surtout coats as brightly buttoned, and as ill-cut as those of their fathers—miniature pantaloons, corded with scarlet—and minute _fez’s_, with their purple tassels attached by stars of pearl of great beauty, or decorated with magnificent brilliant ornaments, fastened to the cap with pearl loops, to which were generally added golden coins, blue beads, and other preservatives against the Evil Eye! A few Franks were distinguishable among the crowd; but they appeared and disappeared like wandering spirits, never resting long on the same spot, and earning many a quiet smile from their Moslem neighbours, who are never weary of marvelling at the perpetual locomotion of the Giaours, so opposed to their own love of rest and quiet. Give a Turk a moderately good position on such an occasion as this, and he will never abandon it on the bare possibility of procuring a better; but the Greek and the European fidget and fuss to the last moment, and very probably do not always profit by their pains. The Kourban-Baïram, or festival of sacrifice, differs from that which takes place at the conclusion of the Ramazan, by its greater pomp and the circumstance that, on the occasion of the present festival, animals are sacrificed to propitiate the favour of the Divinity: and, as we drove along the streets, they were crowded with sheep and lambs about to be offered up. Every head of a family sacrifices an animal with his own hands; and every male member of his household is at liberty to indulge his piety in a similar manner; but the chief of the house is bound to observe the ceremonial. On his return from the Mosque, the Sultan puts on a sacrificial dress, and, while two attendants hold the lamb which is to be honoured by suffering the stab of the Imperial knife, he slaughters it with his Sublime hands. The first victim that he destroys is a propitiation for himself, but he afterwards offers up one for each member of his family, and consequently his office is by no means a sinecure.