The most unlimited confidence is stamped upon all their reciprocal transactions, and they intrust each other with any amount of goods, without demanding a receipt, check, or counter check. In the exercise of their avocation as hamals, they are often intrusted with bags of money untold; they are generally the watchmen or guardians to the stores and mercantile houses of the Franks, and in any deficiency or robbery, their character and integrity are never questioned or suspected. The Osmanlis possess the domestic virtues of kindness and affection in a remarkable degree; their love of offspring is very great, and their patient endurance of the whims and caprices of their women quite exemplary. Merhamet, or compassion, is an essential component in their character, and induces them to extend a most unlimited patronage even to the lower orders of creation. Hence the streets in Turkey swarm with dogs, the roofs of the houses with cats, and the domes of the mosques with venerated pigeons, which, one and all, are objects of special charity. The thousands of cayiks that ply up and down the Bosphorus, acting as aquatic omnibuses, besides their designated load of passengers, make a point to carry one or more boys gratuitously, as an act of charity; and how astonished would they be at the cry of "cut behind," which so often greets the ears of beggars in more eminent Christian lands, who mistaking wishes for horses might otherwise chance to ride. Yet a Turk is a singular being, apparently composed of contrarieties, of savage traits, as well as domestic virtues, and this contrariety is to be attributed solely to his fanaticism. Social and humane until you touch his religious prejudices, when he becomes implacable. It has been the interest of the clergy to nurture a fanatical conceit, by which the great principle of human nature, self-glorification, has well sustained, and the Mussulmans been led to consider themselves the very salt of the earth, and the rest of the human family as contemptible Giavours. Hence they will not honor a Christian with the Mohammedan salutation, Selamin Aleküm, "Pax vobiscum," nor will they observe any one in the company, until they have looked for a true believer, to whom, however humble he may be, is offered the Arabic, or orthodox salutation; and on the Christians present, however great in their own estimation, will afterwards be bestowed as their due, a simple Sabahlar-Hayr Olsoon, or good morning, in plain Turkish. Though they have been subdued into a certain degree of external deference by the progress of civilization, yet in the exchange of social etiquettes, there is always a meaning slight cast upon their unbelieving friends, which is well understood and appreciated among themselves.