The taste for “shopping”—what an excellent essay might the “_piquante_ and _spirituelle_” Lady Morgan write on this universal feminine mania!—is as great among the eastern ladies as with their fair European sisters; but it is indulged in a totally different manner. Constantinople boasts no commercial palace like those of Howell and James, or Storr and Mortimer; and still less a Maradan Carson: no carriage draws up at the door of an Ebers or a Sams for “the last new novel;” nor does a well-warmed and well-floored bazar tempt the satin-slippered dame to wander among avenues of glittering gewgaws and elaborated trifles: the carriage of the veiled Osmanli stops at the door of some merchant who has a handsome shopman; and the name of the latter, having been previously ascertained, Sadak or Mustapha, as the case may be, is ordered by the _arabajhe_, or coachman, to exhibit to his mistress some article of merchandize, which he brings accordingly, and, while the lady affects to examine its quality and to decide on its value, she enters into conversation with the youth, playing upon him meanwhile the whole artillery of her fine eyes. The questioning generally runs nearly thus:—“What is your name?”—“How old are you?”—“Are you married?”—“Were you ever in love?”—and similar misplaced and childish questions. Should the replies of the interrogated person amuse her, and his beauty appear as great on a nearer view as when seen from a distance, the merchandize is objected to, and the visit repeated frequently, ere the fastidious taste of the purchaser can be satisfied. Nor are women of high rank exempt from this indelicate fancy, which can only be accounted for by the belief that, like caged birds occasionally set free, they do not know how to use their liberty: the Sultana Haybétoullah, sister to his Sublime Highness, the Light of the Ottoman Empire, is particularly attached to this extraordinary _passe-temps_. The following morning we started on an exploring expedition, accompanied by the closely-veiled and heavily-draped “Juno,” and attended by her nurse and child, and her quaintly-habited footman; and, as the carriage could not approach the house by a considerable distance, owing to the narrowness and steepness of the streets in that quarter of the city, (which, built upon the crest and down the slope of one of the “seven hills,” overlooks the glittering and craft-clustered port), we were obliged to walk to it through the frozen snow, upon the same principle that, as the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet was compelled to go to the mountain.