The esplanade on which we looked down was crowded with horsemen, footmen, and carriages. Groups of women were squatted immediately in the rear of the soldiers, who lined the space along which the procession was to move; others occupied a raised platform erected by some speculative Moslem, whereon a place could be secured for the modest remuneration of a piastre, (two-pence halfpenny.) Rows of arabas, like beds of scarlet poppies, were ranged behind the pedestrians; while, further from the scene of action, parties were scattered over the whole square in the most picturesque confusion. Here a train of Serudjhis walked the horses that they had brought for hire; there a knot of Jews chattered and gesticulated; while their women huddled themselves up in the coarse cotton scarfs which concealed their head-dresses. On one side the snowy turbans and dark robes of half a dozen Ulemas formed a striking contrast to the green shawls bound about the brows of a group of Hadjïs, and their ample pelisses of crimson or maroon, lined and overlaid with fur. Here it was a party of soldiers—there a band of Bulgarians, dressed in jackets of sheepskin, with the wool turned inwards, round caps of black lambskin, and leather leggings. Then moved by a score of Armenians, with their tall calpacs and crimson slippers—jostled, as they passed slowly along, by a set of Franks, crushing and squeezing, as though they were resolved to carry their point, _coute qui coute_. On a little hillock near the window that we occupied, a couple of Turks had spread their carpet, and were quietly smoking their chibouks, attended by their negro pipe-bearers; while here and there a gigantic umbrella of white cotton overshadowed a round stand covered with sherbet and mohalibè, around which were clustered a throng of noisy Greeks, each with eyes as black as the shawl that he wore about his scarlet _fèz_. Nor was the scene within the room less characteristic than that without; the remaining windows had been hired by four grave-looking elderly Turks, who had brought with them half a dozen pretty little girls, of eight or ten years of age; who were sitting, doubled up at one corner of the sofa, with all the early taught awe and deference for the lordly sex which is the leading sentiment of the harem.