When we were all seated, rice, pillau, and little birds roasted in vine leaves were brought in, à la Française. The kabobs and maccaroni had too much garlic in them for our taste, but a very light sort of pastry called "paklava" was excellent, and the rice was perfection. The cooking we thought very good, and a great contrast to an experiment we had made a few days previously, in order to see what ordinary Turkish cookery was like. One day during our many expeditions for sight-seeing in Constantinople, we were seized by the pangs of hunger several hours before we had arranged to return to Therapia, so espying a very nice clean-looking cook-shop, where a number of cooks, neatly dressed in white, were chopping and frying little scraps of meat, we proceeded there and ordered a dish of kabobs à la Turque. The kabobs in themselves might have been good, and also the fried bread that accompanied them, but a sauce of fat and garlic had been poured over both that made the dish not only uneatable, but unendurable. The good-natured cook seemed surprised at our bad taste, but yielded to European prejudices, and at last brought some plain rice and tomatoes, with which we made an excellent luncheon. The favourite Turkish sweetmeat, called "Rahat-la-Koum," or Lumps of Delight, is excellent when quite fresh, and makes much better eau sucrée than plain sugar, as there is a slight flavour of orange-peel and roses given to the water. To return, however, to our little breakfast at R---- Pasha's; between each course of meat every one took what pleased her from the dishes on the table--fruits, sweetmeats, or cheese, though the latter was the favourite, as it is supposed not only to increase the appetite, but to improve the taste. Both before and after eating, gold basins and ewers were brought round, and as we held our hands over the former perfumed water was poured upon them. The napkins were so beautifully embroidered in gold thread and coloured silks that it seemed quite a pity to use them for drying the hands. The repast over, coffee and cigarettes again appeared, and then, with many friendly invitations and kindly expressions, we parted. The hanoum offers us her bath-room, her caïques, and her carriages, and proposes also to teach us Turkish. In this harem, as is now generally the case in the best Turkish families, there is but one wife. Our friend, the hanoum, had been a well-portioned bride. She brought her husband, besides the house we had seen, another at Beyuk'dere, considerable property in land, and a large sum of money. Where a daughter is so richly dowered, the father usually stipulates that no other wife shall be taken. Wives also, in Constantinople, as elsewhere, are expensive luxuries, for each lady must have a separate establishment, besides retinue and carriages.