Having completed our tour of the glen, we took possession of our cushions, and regaled ourselves with the delicious water-melons that we had provided to refresh us after our walk; and a small party of Turkish ladies shortly afterwards followed, and established themselves under the shade of the same tree, whom we initiated into the mysteries of _papillotes_, a secret science which has just become highly interesting to them from their adoption of ringlets. We amused ourselves with these follies for half an hour very pleasantly; and, having shared our fruit and sweetmeats with our new acquaintance, and perceiving that the company were rapidly departing for the sea-side, I established myself under a fine beech-tree to take a sketch of the locality. But although comparatively few persons remained in the glen, I soon discovered that enough yet lingered to form a dense crowd about me, which effectually prevented my obtaining a view of any object more picturesque than a yashmac or a feridjhe; and I was about to give up the attempt in despair, when a Turkish Officer approached, and requested me to favour him with a sight of my sketch-book. I complied at once, and was rewarded for my ready acquiescence in the most agreeable way in the world; for, perceiving by its contents that it was not persons but places which I was transferring to my little volume, he explained to the ladies who had gathered about me, that I was prevented from prosecuting my design by the fact of their having entirely shut out the view I was most anxious to secure; and at the first hint they moved aside to the right and left with all the good humour imaginable; one succeeding the other in leaning over me, to examine my work; and all rewarding my forbearance with exclamations of “_Mashallàh_,” and “_Pek Guzel_.” At length the little sketch was completed; and, putting up my pencils, I thanked the Officer who had remained on guard over me and my undertaking, very sincerely for his politeness; and we followed the crowd along a lovely green lane on the opposite side of the bridge, to the shore of the Bosphorus. It was indeed a change of scene. The Castle of Europe, cold, and white, and bare, cut sharply against the blue sky on the opposite coast; and, as the channel is unusually narrow at this point, I was enabled to trace more accurately than I had ever done hitherto, the architectural cypher of the Prophet. [Illustration: CASTLE OF MAHOMET.] Within the walls are clustered about a dozen houses; and their inhabitants are bound by an ancient law not to suffer their descendants to marry without the precincts of the fortress; they are consequently all closely related, and no instance has ever been known of their having slighted the injunction.