The sofa on which she was seated, occupied the deep bay of a window overlooking the Bosphorus, at the upper end of a saloon which terminated in a flight of steps leading upwards to a second apartment, that, in its turn, afforded similar access to a third: and this long perspective was bounded by the distant view of a vine-o’ercanopied kiosk, beneath which a fine fountain of white marble was flinging its cool waters on the air, from the midst of clustering vases, filled with rare and beautiful flowering plants. Groups of slaves were standing about the sofa; and gilded cages, filled with birds, were arranged in its immediate vicinity. I was much amused by a superb parrot, evidently the favourite of the harem, which had become so imbued with its high-bred tranquillity, as to speak almost in a whisper: and which kept up a perpetual murmur of such phrases as the following: “My heart!—My life!—My Sultan, the light of my eyes!—Am I pretty?—Do you love to look upon me?” and similar sentimentalities. Devlehäi Hanoum was dressed in an antery of white silk, embroidered all over with groups of flowers in pale green; her salva, or trowsers, were of satin of the Stuart tartan, and her jacket light blue; the gauze that composed her chemisette was almost impalpable, and the cachemire about her waist was of a rich crimson. Her hair, of which several tresses had been allowed to escape from beneath the embroidered handkerchief, was as black as the plumage of a raven; and her complexion was a clear, transparent brown. But the great charm of the beautiful Georgian was her figure. I never beheld any thing more lovely; to the smoothly-moulded graces of eighteen she joined the majesty and stateliness of middle life; and you forgot as you looked upon her, that she had ever been bought at a price, to remember only that she was the wife of one of the great officers of the Empire.