Veronica could never have been handsome; the expression of her countenance is sweet and agreeable, but her features are neither regular nor fine; nor does she possess the low soft voice which is so great a charm in the Turkish women, and to which the coarse language of the Armenian nation does not lend itself. She is rather under the middle size, calm in her manner, and graceful in her carriage; and her sable dress and melancholy history invest her with an interest that mere beauty would fail to excite. As I conversed with the widowed wife, and saw her shrink beneath the night air like a withered flower, and fold her furred pelisse closer about her with her thin wasted hand, I could have wept over her faded youth and blighted feelings. It is painfully evident that the memory of her error and of her wrongs sits heavily upon her, and that it is a poisoned chain whose fetters can be flung off only in the grave. Even Time, the great physician of all moral ills, has no power over a grief like her’s. Before we returned home, we rowed slowly towards Therapia; which, etched in fire, and loud with music, threw its bright shadow far along the waves. Caïques glided past us every instant with lights at their stern, whence the sounds of laughter or of song swept cheerily over the ripple; and more than once we narrowly escaped collision with a mirth-laden bark, whose conductors were pressing forward in all the heedless eagerness of hilarity. It was near midnight ere we withdrew from the busy scene: and when I fell asleep, I dreamt that Veronica was the wife of one of the Cæsars; and that a young and dark-eyed Greek prince was leaping over the burning city of Constantinople, while a portly Armenian, who had been of the evening party, was filling his unwieldy calpac with water, as he stood breast-high in the Bosphorus, and handing it to a set of wild Indians who were howling and dancing amid the flames. Truly my sleeping visions produced a second “Festival of Fire.” CHAPTER XI. A Chapter on Caïques—The Sultan’s Barge—Princes and Pashas—The Pasha’s Wife—The Admiralty Barge—The Fruit Caïque—The Embassy Barge—The Omnibus Caïque—Turkish Boatmen—The Caïque of Azmè Bey—Pleasant Memories—The Chevalier Hassuna de Ghies—Natural Politeness of the Turks—Turkey and Russia—Sultan Mahmoud—Confusion of Tongues—Arif Bey—Imperial Present—The Fruit of Constantinople—The Two Banners—The Harem—Azimè Hanoum. Should I ever have time, I murmured to myself as we darted down the Bosphorus in the caïque of Azmè Bey, with whom we were engaged to dine, and who had obligingly sent his boat and his Dragoman to facilitate our arrival at Dolma Batchè:—Should I ever have time, I will write a chapter on caïques.