The whole process is admirably conducted. The several branches of the establishment are perfectly distinct; and the greatest industry appears to prevail in every department. The manufactory was suggested and founded by Omer Lufti Effendi, in consequence of the extremely high price paid by the Sultan to the Tunisians, with whom this fabric originated, for the head-dress of his troops. Having induced a party of Arabian workmen from Tunis to accompany him to Constantinople, he established them in the old palace, which has since been replaced by the present noble building; and under their direction the knitting and shaping of the caps acquired some degree of perfection. But the dye was a secret beyond their art; and the Turkish government, anxious to second the views of the energetic Omer Effendi, made a second importation of Tunisians with no better success, although they were chosen from among the most efficient workmen of their country. The caps, while they were equal both in form and texture to those of Tunis, were dingy and ill-coloured; and the Arabs declared that the failure of the dye was owing to the water in and about Constantinople, which was unfavourable to the drugs employed. As a last hope, a trial was made at Smit, but with the same result; and the attempt to localise the manufacture was about to be abandoned, when Omer Effendi, suspecting the good faith of the Arabian workmen, disguised a clever Angorian Armenian, named Avanis Aga, as a Turk, whom he placed as a labourer in the dye-room. Being a good chemist and a shrewd observer, Avanis Aga, affecting a stupidity that removed all suspicion, soon made himself master of the secret which it so much imported his anxious patron to learn; and, abandoning the ignoble besom that he had wielded as the attendant of the Tunisian dyers, immediately that he discovered the fraud which, either in obedience to the secret orders of their Regent, or from an excess of patriotism, they had been practising ever since their arrival; he set himself to work in secret; and, with the water of Smit, dyed two caps, which, having dried, he presented to Omer Effendi, who was unable to distinguish them from those of Tunis. Delighted at the successful issue of his experiment, Omer Effendi summoned the Arabs to his presence, and shewed them the fèz; when, instantly suspecting the masquerade that had betrayed them, they simultaneously turned towards the Armenian, and, throwing their turbans on the ground, and tearing their hair, they cried out: “Yaccoup! Yaccoup!” (Jacob! Jacob!) The Superintendent having dismissed them, after causing them to be liberally remunerated for the time which they had spent at Constantinople, sent them back to Tunis; while Avanis Aga, elected Head Dyer of the Imperial Manufactory of Eyoub, now enjoys the high honour of deciding on the exact tint to be worn by Mahmoud the Powerful, the “Light of the Sun,” and “Shadow of the Universe.”