When I rose to take my leave, my courteous entertainer begged that I would remain as long as I found any amusement in the Palace, assuring me that every effort should be made to render my visit agreeable; and that the Salemliek should be as free for me as the harem, if I desired to see it. Of course I accepted the offer; and, on leaving the Pasha, I found Emin Bey and a negro waiting to conduct my friend and myself through the mysterious passages which connect the two portions of the establishment. In the Salemliek itself there was nothing remarkable. It was a handsome house, well fitted up, and exquisitely clean; the greatest charm to me existed in its open windows, which, after the closely-latticed and stifling apartments of the women, were truly agreeable; nor was the feeling of enjoyment lessened by the sight of a crowd of birds, that, entering through the wide casements, with the sunshine glittering on their wings, and the song of liberty gushing from their throats, sailed to and fro the vast apartments, as though they could appreciate their magnificent comfort. But the garden was a little paradise, with its fountains of white marble, its avenues of orange trees, its beds of roses, and verbena, and geraniums, formed into a thousand fanciful devices! And before I could make up my mind to leave it, the young Bey had so loaded me with the fairest flowers he could select, that I breathed nothing but perfume. We were greatly amused, on passing one of the marble bridges which are flung over the street to connect the grounds, at the astonishment of a party of worthy Musselmauns who chanced to look up as we were crossing, attracted by the unwonted sounds of female voices; and the “Mashallàhs!” with which they greeted our apparition. “Who can they be?” asked one: “And how came they there?” “She with the fair hair is a Frank as well as a Giaour;” was the reply of a second: “I would swear it on the Prophet’s beard.—The infidels are making way among us indeed when their women are thus at liberty to shew their unveiled faces in the Salemliek of one of our great Pashas—but it is no affair of mine—Mashallàh—I trust in God!” The Kiosk of the Reiss Effendi was by far the most beautiful that I had yet seen—A painted dome, representing the shores of the channel, occupied the centre of the roof; and beneath it a graceful _jet d’eau_ threw up its sparkling waters, which fell back into a capacious bason. The walls were washed by the Bosphorus on the one side, and covered with parasites on the other; and it was floored with marble of the most dazzling whiteness. Here were collected the younger sons of the Minister, and three or four other children, amusing themselves by running barefooted round the basin, and suffering the glittering dew of the fountain to fall upon them in its descent; while each was laughing out in his young joyousness as he marked the dripping condition of his companions, and forgot that he was himself in the same predicament.