The grand saloon, built above the marble hall, was the very embodiment of Eastern splendour. Its magnificently-painted dome was supported by forty porphyry pillars with gilt capitals; its walls were lined with plate glass; its doors veiled by silken draperies; its floor covered with Persian carpets; and the lattices which veiled the entrance to the women’s apartments richly carved and gilt. At either extremity of the saloon, whose form was a fine oval, a noble flight of marble steps led downwards to the harem; and along the glittering balustrade were scattered groups of slaves, awaiting the summons of their Imperial Mistress, and clad in the gaudiest colours. The morning-room of the Sultana was flooded with sunshine, and opened upon the terrace: the carpet, covering the floor, the cushions which were piled beneath the windows and the hangings of the walls, were all of the purest white, ornamented with wreaths of roses; while the roof, on which the Orientals universally display most elaborate taste, was of a deep purple colour, ribbed and studded with golden stars. The reception-room was in a different style: sombre, magnificent, and almost cloistral in its decorations; heavy with gilding, and gloomy with cornices; while the sleeping chamber, hung with crimson and blue satin, and scattered over with perfumes and objects of taste, had an air of comfort and inhabitation almost English. But the most elegant suite of rooms was that appropriated to the Sultan. A saloon whose thirty windows were hung with purple velvet fringed with gold; whose sofa cushions were formed of glittering tissue; and whose walls were rich with plate-glass and gilding; whose floor was crowded with objects of _vertù_, and whose every table was scattered over with gems, opened into the Imperial sleeping-room, whose European bed, hung with flowered muslin, and decorated with knots of coloured ribbon, contrasted cheerfully with the heavy magnificence of the saloon and its elaborate draperies; while the mangal of wrought silver, richly gilt, and the collection of jewelled toys which filled the two recesses at the end of the apartment, brought back the imagination to the gorgeous East. Incense-burners of gold, studded with precious stones; ring-trays wreathed with rubies; a miniature of the Sultan himself in a frame thickly set with diamonds, and resting upon a cushion of white satin; a toilette of fillagreed silver; a chocolate cup of enamel studded with pearls: and a gilt salver, covered with watches of all sizes and shapes, were part of the tempting array. But I was more delighted by a Koràn, and a manuscript collection of prayers, written by the Sultan, and splendidly illuminated. Both were bound in gold, with the Imperial cipher wrought upon each corner in brilliants, while a border was formed round the outer edges of the volumes, of passages from the holy writings, indifferent coloured jewels.