Pashas were daily pouring in from the provinces—tribute was flung into the yawning coffers of the state—audiences of congratulation kept the Imperial Palace in a constant whirl—and the streets of the city were thronged with a motley crowd, either invited thither by the authorities, or attracted by the hope of profit. Bulgarians, in parties of three or four, impeded the progress of every respectable passenger who would fain have threaded his way among them unmolested; and by dint of stunning him with their discordant instruments, and intruding themselves upon his path to exhibit their coarse and ungainly dances, wrung from him by their sturdy perseverance a donation whose impulse was certainly not one of charity. Bohemian gipsies, some of them so lovely that they seemed formed to command the prosperity which they subtly promised to others, were bestowing palaces and power on every side at the slender price of a few paras. Arabian tumblers, turned loose for the first time in the streets of a great capital, and appearing scarcely able to keep their feet upon the solid earth, jostled you at every corner. Persian rope-dancers stalked gravely and solemnly along, with large white turbans, and flowing robes. Bedouin jugglers were grouped in coffee-shops and smoking-booths, awaiting the moment when their services would be required; and bewildering the sober brains of the surrounding Turks with loud vauntings of the feats with which they proposed to delight his Sublime Highness, and to astonish his people. Altogether, Constantinople resembled a human kaleidoscope, whose forms and features varied at every turn; and even those who, like myself, had no immediate interest in the festival, caught a portion of the popular excitement, and became anxious for the period of its celebration. At length, the auspicious morning dawned which the Court Astrologer had declared to herald happiness to the Princess; and all Stamboul had crossed the Bosphorus with the rising sun to share in the Imperial festivities. Long before mid-day Pera also was a desert: the stream of life had flowed in one sole direction, and every avenue leading to Dolma Batchè was thronged with human beings, anxious and excited, and yet scarcely knowing what they anticipated. The marriage festival had been the one engrossing subject of discourse and speculation for so many months—such extravagant suggestions had been hazarded, and such wild assertions had been made, that the imagination of the crowd had run riot; and, had the fountains poured forth liquid ore, and the heavens themselves rained diamond-dust, I am not sure that such events would have caused any extraordinary manifestation of astonishment, from the mass of spectators who had clustered themselves like bees in the neighbourhood of the palace.