Shortly after our return from Broussa, we took possession of a house which we had rented for the summer at Yenekeui, and we had only been established there a few days when we had an opportunity of witnessing one of the most ancient of the Greek commemorative usages,—the “Festival of Fire”—instituted in memory of the second capture of Constantinople by the Cæsars. Some years ago the Greek quarter of the city was illuminated on this anniversary, as well as the villages occupied principally by their nation: but the Turks no longer permit this demonstration of rejoicing, as well from jealousy of its subject, as from the danger attendant on all such manifestations in a city where fires are so frequent, and the nature of the buildings so unfortunately calculated to encourage the evil. For my own part, after having passed a few nights in Constantinople, both in Turkish and Greek houses, I was only surprised that the frightful conflagrations which so frequently occur do not take place every week instead of ten or twelve times a-year. Like the husbandman who plants his vines, and sows his grain at the base of a volcano, apparently unconscious or careless that the next eruption may lay waste his lands, and negative his labour, the inhabitants of Stamboul appear never to reflect that fire is one of their deadliest enemies, but wander over their wooden dwellings with their lighted chibouks, or their unsnuffed candles; as heedlessly as though both were innoxious: while their attendants traverse carpeted and curtained apartments, carrying fragments of live coal between their iron pincers to supply the pipes. Nor is this all. The Tandour is a fire-conductor of the first class: the wooden frame that covers the charcoal ashes is frequently very slight, and the silken draperies which veil it are generally lined with cotton, and not infrequently wadded with the same inflammable material. The effect of the Tandour is highly soporific; and it consequently occurs that persons who fall asleep under its influence, by some sudden movement overturn the frame-work, when their own clothes as well as the coverings of the Tandour come in contact with the hidden fire: the chintz-covered sofas are ready to feed the flame, and the natural consequence ensues. Still more dangerous is the system of drying linen during the winter, which is universal throughout the city. A frame, formed of wooden laths, about three feet high, and shaped like a beehive, is placed above a small brazier, filled with heated charcoal; and the linen is flung over this frame, one garment above another, where it gradually dries. But should the laundress omit to remove the lower portions of it directly that they are free from damp, they ignite, and the whole becomes one burning mass.