From this point, we proceeded to the inner or garden court, of which one side is laid out in a parterre inclosure, the centre being occupied by the mosque, and the extreme end terminated by the two great halls of study. We entered the first of these by a noble flight of stone steps, and found ourselves in an apartment of vast extent, admirably lighted, and arranged with the most perfect order and conveniency. Thickly set rows of high-backed benches of stained wood extended the whole depth of the hall, leaving a passage on either side just sufficiently wide for the ingress and egress of visitors; and the first ranges of seats were occupied by about one hundred and fifty of the junior pupils, who were busily employed in tracing upon their slates the elegant characters of their language, as sentence after sentence was slowly declaimed by the head boy of the class. This department of the institution is on the Lancastrian system. There are at present only three hundred students on the establishment; a report having been promulgated by its enemies that an attempt would be made to interfere with their religious tenets; in consequence of which many parents declined sending their sons: the only answer of the Governors to this calumny has been to compel the attendance of the boys three times a day at the mosque; a tolerably convincing proof that they entertain no anti-Mohammedan partialities. As the School is expressly intended as a nursery for the army, all the ambition of the students is made to bear upon that point: extraordinary application, or regularity of conduct, is recompensed by a step of military rank; and thus, should the intention of the authorities ever be borne out, a youth of talent and good conduct may hereafter quit the college as an officer, and thus commence his actual career of life, where many of his predecessors have terminated their’s. Having traversed the Lancastrian class, we reached the mathematical hall, where a considerable number of young men were busily engaged in colouring ground-plans of the surrounding country. The lower end of this stately apartment forms a deep bay, round which rows of seats are arranged amphitheatrically, having in the midst of them a table whereon are placed globes, charts, and all the requisites for study. The other extremity of the hall is terminated by a raised gallery, intended for the use of the Sultan, above which hangs his portrait in oils, executed by an Armenian artist, harsh, and crude, and wiry, as though it had been the production of a Chinese easel, and surmounted by a most elaborate drapery. Beneath the portrait is stretched a noble map of the Archipelago, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus. An electrifying machine, and a large map of America, an immense table, and the desks and seats of the students, made up the remainder of the furniture; and the apartment itself was by far the finest that I had yet seen in the country.