The leader flourished a painted muslin handkerchief, while he lifted up first one foot and then the other, as fowls do sometimes in a farmyard; poising the body on one leg for an instant, and then changing the position. This movement was followed by the whole of the party with more or less awkwardness; and thus hopping, balancing, and shifting their feet, they slowly worked round and round the circle, without changing either the time or the movement for several consecutive hours; the different individuals falling in and out of the ring as their inclination prompted, without disturbing in the slightest degree the economy of the dance. There was nothing exclusive in these Terpsichorean circles, where the smart serving-man’s neck was clasped by the sinewy hand of the street-porter, and where the embroidered Albanian legging and European shoe were placed in juxtaposition with the bare limb and heelless slipper. There must have been at least a dozen of these dances going forward in the fair, (for such I may truly call it), with a perseverance and solemnity perfectly astonishing, when it is remembered that many of the individuals thus engaged had walked five and six leagues to share in the festival, and would have no resting-place but the earth whereon to sleep away their fatigue. Great was the commerce of the water-venders, who traversed the crowd in every direction, with their classically formed earthen jars upon their shoulders, and their crystal goblets in their hands, who, for a couple of _paras_, poured forth a draught of sparkling water, which almost made one thirsty to look at it; and were as particular and punctilious in cleansing the glass after every customer, as though they were under the _surveillance_ of his successor. A few, a very few, of the revellers had indulged in deeper potations, and were exhibiting proofs of their inebriety in their unsteady gait and uncertain utterance; but intemperance is not _yet_ the common vice of the East; although it bids fair in time to become such. A very talented and distinguished individual, with whom I was lately conversing on the subject of the different degrees of civilization attained by particular nations, said of the Russians that they had commenced with champagne and ballet-dancers. Glorious was it, therefore, for the half dozen Armenians who were staggering among the crowd, to have profited as far as they could by so brilliant an example. Being intoxicated is, according to the Eastern phraseology, being _à la Franka_. Apart from the crowd were wrestling-rings, where the combatants exhibited their prowess precisely after the fashion of the Ancient Romans; and on all sides were bands of Bohemians, as dark-eyed and as voluble as the gipsies of Europe.