But you, I am sure, would prefer a candy-shop. Even if you have tasted our Turkish paste, you have only a remote idea of how succulent a goody the real _loukoumi_ is. Then there is _halva_, full of nuts and all sorts of other good things which you can never guess. It is sticky, and, when you bite it, it nearly pulls your teeth out. Then there are _courabiés_ and _smits_, both of which are cakes which you must buy on a ferry-boat to get the real flavor. A man comes in, carrying a basket in one hand and waving a sheet of paper in the other. The _courabiés_ are stuck to this paper and you pull them off yourself. The _smits_ are on a stick which protrudes from the top of the basket. For you must know that a _smit_ is shaped like a doughnut. (Only the hole has grown larger without affecting the size of the eatable part. This part is not sweet and is covered with aniseed.) It would make your mouth water if I should tell you of all the delectable dishes you might have in the cafés all over the city. The Turk loves to eat, he loves to sit, and he loves to stare at his garden, at his beloved Bosporus, or at space. They never say in Turkey, "Where do you live?" but always, "Where do you sit?" In spring and autumn the hills about Constantinople are dotted with spots of color. They are the Turkish men and women sitting on the grass. And what a wonderful view they look at! There they sit for hours and hours, usually silent, occasionally chatting, sometimes grunting "_Uh, uh, uh, uh_," in descending tones. The chief other thing a Turk does in times of peace is to pray. From the gallery of a minaret the muezzin calls him to prayer five times a day. Do you know what a minaret is? It is the tower of the Turkish church, or mosque. Mosques built by royalty may have two minarets, others only one. These minarets are slender, very tall, with a gracefully pointed top that draws the eye right up to the sky. There is a Turkish proverb that says, "Never steal a minaret unless you have a place to hide it in." Two thirds of the way up, there is a carved gallery, very light and beautiful, where the priest stands and chants down through the air the call to prayer, which in English prose is this: "There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is His Prophet; let us go and pray; let us go save our souls; God is great; there is no god but God." A pious Turk either goes to the mosque, or prays wherever he may happen to be. I once saw a soldier praying on a ferry-boat. Inside the mosques the cooing of many pigeons adds to the rhythmic murmur of the prayers. There are pigeons inside and outside of all the mosques; one, of which a picture is here shown, is called the Pigeon Mosque.