There is no consistency, no keeping, in Oriental splendour. The Pasha, with the diamond on his breast, is generally attended by a running footman who is slip-shod; and the Sultana, whose araba is veiled by a covering of crimson and gold, not infrequently figures in pantaloons of furniture chintz, and an antery of printed cotton. The same startling contrasts meet you at every step: and tourists and historians pass them over, because they destroy the continuity of their narrations, and the rounding of their periods; and yet they are as characteristic of the people as the chibouk or the turban, and therefore equally worthy of record. The Fêtes were to continue for eight days—the diamond was to be shivered into fragments, and thus divided into many portions without sacrificing its lustre. All the population of Constantinople was in a ferment—the charshees had yielded up their glittering store of gold and silver stuffs—the diamond-merchants had exhausted themselves in elegant conceits—the confectioners had realized the fabled garden of enchantment visited by Aladdin in his search for the magic lamp, and the candied fruits peeped from amid their sugary cases, like masses of precious ore, and clusters of jewels—the silk-bazar of Broussa was a waste—the environs of Pera resembled a scattered camp—the heights around the valley of Dolma Batchè were guarded by mounted troops—provisions of every description trebled their price: and one vessel, laden with a hundred and fifty thousand fowls for the market of Constantinople, which arrived from the Archipelago, was secured for the exclusive use of the Sultan’s kitchen.