A more graceful subject could scarcely be selected. From the gilded barges of the Sultan, to the common passage-boat that plies within the port, the caïques are all beauty; and, as they fly past you, their long and lofty prows dipping downward towards the current at every stroke of the oars, you are involuntarily reminded of some aquatic bird, moistening the plumage of its glistening breast in the clear ripple. That bright mass of gilding and glitter which is flying over the water, shaped like a marine monster, and gleaming in the sunshine, is one of the Imperial barges. Mahmoud is returning from the mosque. Hark! to the booming of the loud cannon, which announces his departure from the coast of Europe, for his delicious summer-palace of Beglierbey; the most lovely (for that is the correct term)—the most lovely object on the Bosphorus—rising like the creation of a twilight dream beneath the shadow of an Asian mountain—a fanciful edifice, looking as though its model had been cut out of gold paper in an hour of luxurious indolence, and carried into execution during a fit of elegant caprice. The long, dark, crescent-shaped caïque immediately in the wake of the Sultan, with its three gauze-clad rowers, and its flashing ornaments, carries a Pasha of the Imperial suite. He is hidden beneath the red umbrella which the attendant, who is squatted upon the raised stern of the boat, is holding carefully over him. You may see a third bark, just creeping along under the land; a light, buoyant, glittering thing, with a crimson drapery fringed with gold flung over its side, and almost dipping into the water; a negress is seated behind her mistress, with a collection of yellow slippers strown about her; and at the bottom of the boat, reclining against a pile of cushions, and attended by two young slaves, you may distinguish the closely-veiled Fatma or Leyla, whose dark eyes are seen flashing out beneath her pure white yashmac, and whose small, fair, delicately rounded, and gloveless hand draws yet closer together the heavy folds of her feridjhe as she remarks the approach of another caïque to her own. She is the wife of some Pasha—the favourite wife, it may be—musing as she darts along the water, with what new toy her next smile shall be bought. And now her light boat is lost to view, for it has shot beneath the arched entrance of the court of yonder stately harem; and you can only follow the fair Turk in thought to the cool, shady, spacious saloons of her prison-palace, where the envious yashmac is withdrawn in deference to the yet more jealous lattice; and where the heavy feridjhe is flung off to reveal the graceful antery, the gold-embroidered vest, and the hanging sleeves.