In the evening a new and distinct feature was added to the entertainments, by the introduction in the outer court of the Palace of a raised platform, on which a score of performers, clad in half armour, attempted a species of war-dance to the light of a dozen bonfires, which flashed and faded by turns; now revealing the glittering costume of the struggling and straggling combatants, and now enveloping them in a cloud of dense black smoke, as impenetrable as the waves of Erebus. The whole thing was a failure; and the only charm attendant on the exhibition, was the singular transition of light and shade that played over the surface of the painted palace, and which produced effects almost magical; now touching the lofty portal with a golden gleam, and then fading away into a faint green, caught from the leafy boughs which fed the fires. The Turks are decidedly not a dancing nation. CHAPTER XXVIII. Monotonous Entertainments—Bridal Preparations—Common Interest—Appearance of the Surrounding Country—Ride to Arnautkeui—Sight-loving Ladies—Glances and Greetings—Pictorial Grouping—The Procession—The Trousseau—A Steeple-Chase. Thus far all had been monotonous from its constant repetition; the same dramas had been enacted, the same lamps had been lighted, and the same banquets had been prepared; but the seventh day was the eve of the Imperial marriage, on which the _trousseau_ of the bride was to be borne in state from the Palace of Dolma Batchè, to her own glittering Seraï on the Bosphorus. The period was arrived when her slaves, on withdrawing her from the bath, were to braid her long tresses with threads of gold, and strings of pearl, and to stain the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet with henna. At an early hour the streets of Pera were crowded with arabas and saddle-horses; and my own eager little chesnut was neighing out his impatience under my window before eight o’clock. It was a glorious morning, bright and sunny, without a cloud; and, as I sprang into my saddle, I felt that this was a day on which the Fates had resolved to weave a white thread into the web of my existence. All the three hundred thousand persons said to have been collected in Constantinople on the occasion of the Imperial marriage, must have been beside our path that morning! I never before beheld such a gathering of human beings. There had been divided interests during the previous days of festival: different points of attraction, which had wrenched asunder the mighty mass of mortality, and fashioned it into divers portions; but on the present occasion, men’s minds were all bent upon one object; and this community of purpose had collected them together in one vast multitude.