Nothing can rival the physical appearance, dogged perseverance, and power of endurance of the soldiers streaming before you, and the prancing steeds ridden by the officers excite your admiration. But another sound, less musical, may disturb your ear, and a horde of half-naked savages appear, carrying on poles what you would call a garden-pump, but which is really a fire-engine. A man carrying the hose-nozzle precedes, and as they tear along, shouting "_Sagh ol!_" ("Clear out"; literally, "Keep yourself uninjured!"), you imagine a band of maniacs has been let loose. There is now a regular fire-brigade in Constantinople, available where the streets are wide enough to permit its use, but you will not wonder that under the old system conflagrations sometimes destroyed thousands of houses at a time, and still do so in quarters where the streets are too narrow and the houses of wood. Ambulating vendors of all sorts are also to be found on the bridge, advertising their goods in loud falsetto notes, or sometimes singing metrical eulogies over them. _Hamals_, and porters, too, of every description, are there, conveying their burdens, and Turkish sailors, whose duty it is to police the bridge, while at either end are men clad in long white shirts, without pockets, to collect the toll, and not pocket it. And as if to connect the new with the old order of administration, a motorbus, with the words "Progres" emblazoned upon it, traverses the bridge with passengers, while British-built steamers moor on pontoons attached to the bridge, and convey travellers to the villages of the Bosphorus and other suburbs. Crossing the bridge, you arrive at Stamboul, the Turkish quarter, and enter into a long street, arched over, and with numerous windows. It is called the _Missir Tcharchi_, or Egyptian Spice Bazaar, owing to the drugs and spices sold in it. It is dark and badly ventilated; its odours overpower you, but you see there a display of drugs and perfumes never dreamt of before, and gathered from all parts of the empire. Each shop within the bazaar is known by its special sign--a ship, a broom, a bird's-cage, the model of a mosque, a flag, bows and arrows, and so on--while its occupant sits, like a spider in his den, inviting you into his parlour.