Our entrance, however, aroused them into something like action; for while our dragoman explained who and what we were, whence we came, and whither we were bound:—questions which are asked by the grave and bearded Moslem, as unceremoniously as by any one of our Trans-Atlantic brethren, and without the slightest suspicion on his own part that he is guilty of any impertinence—I made an easy acquaintance with the pretty children, by permitting them to handle the flowers in my bonnet, to touch my shawl, and to run their little plump fingers over my waist-ribbon. And when the grandee of the party who occupied the upper end of the sofa, whereon, moreover, his attendants had spread a carpet of crimson shag, fringed with gold, as though the ignoble chintz were not worthy the honour of receiving him, had taken the chibouk from his own mouth, and sent it by his pipe-bearer to my father—a mark of high consideration rather flattering than fastidious—and my father had, in his turn, despatched the dragoman, to spread before the children a feast of mohalibè, frosted over with powdered sugar, we were all the best friends in the world. One of the little girls—a calm, self-centered, true Turkish child, with all the premature languishment and indolence so peculiar to the women of the country, with black, sleepy eyes, and lips like rose-buds—was clad in a jacket of purple velvet, lined with ermine, and laced with gold; her antery of pale pink muslin was tucked up within the cachemire shawl that she wore about her waist; and her large trowsers of green chintz fell in ample plaits over the little naked feet, which, when she rose from the sofa, were scarcely covered at the extremities by the yellow slippers that lay beside her. Another, perhaps a year younger, had her jacket of crimson merino doubled with sable, and her little Symrniote fèz worked with seed pearls; her antery was yellow, her trowsers blue, and her chemisette of pale amber-coloured gauze. Nothing can be more outré than the costume of a little Turkish maiden; the long hair hanging in a score of minute braids, each confined at the extremity with a small knot of ribbon; the tight sleeves, open from the elbow, falling below the hip, and edged with elaborately wrought silk fringe; the round, white, dimpled feet, peeping out beneath the full trowsers; and the heavy jacket folding back from the ivory shoulders and snowy throat. There is no distinction of dress between the child of two years old and the woman of twenty; the same jewels, the same fashion, the same material, compose the one and the other; they differ only in quantity; the diamonds, except upon great occasions, are lavished on the children; and in fringe, and embroidery, and ribbon, they only yield to their elders, because there is not sufficient space upon their little persons to enable their parents to equalize the consumption between them.