Merchants of Galata—Palaces of Pera—Picturesque style of Building—The Perotes—Social Subjects—Greeks, European and Schismatic—Ambassadorial Residences—Entrée of the Embassies—The Carnival—Soirées Dansantes—The Austrian Minister—Madame la Baronne—The Russian Minister—Madame de Boutenieff—The Masked Ball—Russian Supremacy—The Prussian Plenipotentiary—The Sardinian Chargé d’Affaires—Diplomacy Unhoused—Society of Pera. Neither Frank nor Christian is allowed to inhabit the “City of the Faithful;” and the faubourg of Pera, situated on the opposite side of the port, is consequently the head-quarters of the _élite_ of European society. Galata, which skirts the shore of the Bosphorus at the base of the hill on which Pera is built, numbers among its inhabitants many very respectable merchants, whose avocations demand their continual presence; but Pera is the dwelling-place of the beau-monde—the seat of fashion—the St. James’s of the capital. Here every thing social is _en magnifique_: the residences attached to the different Legations glory in the imposing designations of “palaces”—the gloomy _magazins_ of the Parisian _modistes_ are as dear and as dirty as can be desired—all the _employés_ of diplomacy throng the narrow, steep, and ill-paved streets, while the fair Greeks look down upon them from their bay-windows, projecting far beyond the façade of the building; and the bright-eyed Armenians peer from their lattices “all-seeing, but unseen.” The quaintly-coloured houses, looking like tenements of painted pasteboard, appear as though a touch would make them meet, and are picturesque beyond description, as they advance and recede, setting all external order, regularity, and proportion, at defiance. In my rapid definition of European society, I must not omit to mention that the Perotes, or natives of Pera, consider themselves as much Franks as though they had been born and nurtured on the banks of the Thames or the Seine; and your expression of amusement at this very original notion would inevitably give great offence. Conceding this point, therefore, as one which will not admit of argument, I shall simply divide society into two parts—the diplomatic and the scandalous—premising, however, that it requires a delicate touch to separate them, they are so intimately interwoven. Those who have the _entrée_ of the several embassies criticise each other; while those who have not, exercise a still more powerful prerogative; and certain it is that, between the two, the population of Pera is a great circulating medium which would render an official “hue and cry” a work of supererogation. “Not a feather falls to the ground,” but in half an hour every individual in the place knows by whom it was plucked, and the tale is told with a raciness and a zest that would make the fortune of a Sunday paper.