A---- Pasha was so kind as to send us the next day the music of those we most admired, but without the wild, savage clang of Eastern instruments they lose much of their effect. When the breakfast was at length over, we all adjourned to the garden, where sofas and chairs had been placed in the shade, round a small fountain. Coffee and pipes were brought, and very merry and amusing was the talk. Certainly the Ottomans are moving onwards with the times. A hundred years ago who would have supposed that a grave Turk would have been entertaining, not only Christians, but Christian women, and also devoting himself to them with an attention and kindness worthy of the most "preux chevalier" in Christendom? Rich and luxurious as had been the entertainment, the arrival of the pipes formed the culminating point of magnificence. Many of them were so encrusted with jewels that it was difficult to form any estimate as to their value. The pieces of amber of which they were made were almost priceless, both for their size and the delicacy of their tint. Yellow amber should be of the palest primrose hue, but there is another shade that is now much prized, namely, the black amber. This is exceedingly rare, and of course, therefore, exceedingly costly. The pasha was kind enough to give us a piece when he paid his last farewell visit the day before we left the Bosphorus. Most of our kind friends came on board the yacht that day to wish us good-bye and God speed, for at dawn the next day we were to sail for the Crimea, and to judge by the stories that have been poured into our ears for some weeks past, the perils of the Black Sea for a sailing vessel must not only be very numerous, but very extraordinary. Unluckily the only "detaining" result has been that our maid has taken fright, and resolutely refuses to leave Constantinople. She says that, though devotedly attached to us, she does not think it right to put herself to death for anybody, especially as she has an old mother dependent upon her. She proposes, however, to return to us should we come back alive, which with tears in her eyes she declares is "most improbable." Such being the cheerful view taken of our expedition, we find it impossible on such short notice to replace her. The few maids to be found here have an idea that we are doomed to death, and no amount of wages can tempt them to share our fate. One day we were buoyed up by the hope that there was a female heart stout enough to share our perils, but when a colossal German, about five feet ten high, and broad in proportion, appeared before us, our courage failed, and we felt she would be an incubus not to be endured. Besides, it would be a question of the nicest calculation whether, provided even if she could get down the companion, she could by possibility squeeze into her cabin. The idea, too, of getting her on deck, should there be any sea, made the brain lose itself in a maze of distressing conjectures.