English, Americans, French, Germans, Greeks, Armenians, and even Moslems, reside there, preferring the bustle and public amusements which are to be secured, to the quiet atmosphere of Stamboul. The opera house and the fashionable emporiums of commerce have their attractions. On a Friday, it is amusing to see the crowds of Turkish women in the different shops, relentlessly handling the merchandize to the infinite annoyance of the proprietors themselves, who are not so patient as the merchants of the Bazaars. Often the most extravagant prices are paid for trifling articles of luxury, by the Osmanlis of wealth, who, even in this sort of trade, seem to feel that everything à la Franca must cost them dear. The modistes have grown rich by selling them feathers, flowers, and haberdashery, and the confiseurs have exchanged their honeyed stores for bags of Turkish gold. There is a great fondness for dress in the population of Pera, and the balls, soirees and reunions are so numerous that many shopkeepers, having reaped a rich harvest, have retired from business. Feast days and holidays, which are so frequent, require their appropriate garb, and the Carnival, its masquerades and costumes de bal. All the people, high and low, are determined to dress well, and display their toilets, so that the marts of fashion and luxury are never deserted. The great rendezvous for these happy souls, when their supremest efforts in outward adorning are accomplished, is the Grand champ des Morts. Whither they resort in crowds, and sit among the verdure that springs from the dust of their ancestors, the white tombstones, the only records of those who once walked in their midst! Occasional funeral trains, slowly moving towards the newly opened graves, and the mournful strains of the requiems of the dead, do not distract the thoughts of those who are bent in chasing the shadows of Time, even while the realities of Eternity are passing in review before them, and the very spectres of the tombs seem ready to burst their cerements, and start up in mocking derision. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ARISTOCRACY AND THE PEOPLE. As in every country there ate two classes, viz., the aristocracy and the people, so in Turkey, there are the Kibars and the Nass. Aristocracy may everywhere be sub-divided into the aristocracies of birth, of letters, wealth and position. In Turkey, all hereditary rank is vested solely in the person of the sultan; titles are conferred at his sovereign will and pleasure, and they do not descend from father to son. There is not, therefore, a regular or systematic aristocracy, and the spirit of democracy is there very evident.