The Great Cemetery looked as though every grave had given up its dead; there was scarcely space to pass among the crowd which thronged it. Dancing, smoking, and gambling for sugarplums, (the only stake that a Turk ever hazards on a game of chance) divided the attention of the loiterers, with swings, round-abouts, and mohalibè merchants. Pillauf and kibaubs were preparing in every direction for the refreshment of the hungry; and tinted and perfumed sherbets, carefully guarded from the sun, were whiling in their turn the weary and the warm to pause on their onward path, and indulge in their tempting freshness. The tents were flaunting their bright colours in the sunshine; the smoking booths were filled with guests; the little wooden kiosk on the edge of the height was unapproachable; the long line of wall surrounding the Artillery Barrack was, as usual on all festive occasions, covered with Turkish women; and the whole space beneath was instinct with life and motion. From the point of the hill above the sea the land shoots sharply down into the valley of Dolma Batchè, clothed with fruit trees, whose perfumed blossoms, then in the height of their beauty, were emptying their tinted chalices, on the air. The road leading to the Palace is cut along the side of the declivity, forming on its upper edge a lofty ridge which was fringed throughout its whole length with tents; in the distance rose the Military College, spanning the crest of the hill like a diadem; with the gilded and glittering crescent that crowns the dome of its mosque flashing in the sunshine. On the right hand the view was bounded by the dense forest of cypresses rising above the tombs of the Turkish cemetery, which swept darkly downwards to the Bosphorus that was laughing in its loveliness, and reflecting on its waveless bosom the lovely height of Scutari which hemmed in the landscape. And as the eye wandered onward along the channel, it took in the dusky shore of Asia, with its kiosk-crowned and forest-clad mountains; until the line was lost in the gradually failing purple, that blent itself at last with the horizon.