"Only 500 lashes, sire," was the prompt reply. This reply added to his majesty's astonishment, "and why so strange a request?" he demanded. "Because, since, I am obliged to share all your majesty's gifts with your majesty's curtain keepers, I wish the rogues to have their share in this also!" Judging from your benevolent countenance, that you are endowed with generous impulses, the keepers allow you to pass within the curtained door. You are now in a large apartment, on three sides of which are windows, with a wide Turkish sofa at the end, some two feet high from the floor, where the sultan is seated entirely alone, with a desk and implements of writing before him, and a long and graceful chibouk, mounted with a splendid amber mouth-piece ornamented with diamonds, carelessly lying by his ride. He utters the simple word, Gel! come! when several attendants appear as if by magic, and stand before him with folded hands. At every command they make the temennah, or Turkish salutation, which is done, not by bending the person, and bringing their arms over their heads, as though they were going to dive, as is often represented in theatres, but simply by raising the right hand to the mouth, the fingers touching the lips, then the right temple, and then carelessly dropping it down. This temennah is performed without uttering a single word, and signifies perfect comprehension of the royal orders. An air of humility is always maintained in the presence of superiors, and such signs of active existence, as coughing or sneezing, are quite unallowable. The person feeling preliminary symptoms of these actions, being obliged either to suppress them, or to withdraw from the presence. Indeed the social etiquettes are very strict, even among equals. Although tobacco is introduced on occasions of ceremony and social intercourse--the chibouk and nargillé are not the calumets of peace, but of hospitality--the disagreeable concomitants of the weed so universal in America, are absolutely unknown in Turkey. Spitting, then, is to the Osmanlis a most repulsive act, and their horror may be imagined when, on a certain occasion, while in the company of a grandee of the realm, the representative of the great American nation (the New World), deliberately took his quid from his pocket, and after cutting the requisite morsel, stored it carefully in the corner of his mouth, and commenced the slow mastication so characteristic of good tobacco chewers! The indulgence of such a luxury having only made his excellency's mouth water, and there being no other accommodation at hand, in order to relieve his salivary glands, he was obliged to aim at an open window close by! His excellency, consequently, became a sort of a proverb among them, and the question was repeatedly asked, "Does your American friend still continue to enact the camel, or does he not weary of chewing the cud?" Unlearned in classic lore, how should they know that the poet once said--