Greek, Turkish, and Armenian women may only be spectators of these games from a distance; they therefore occupy the adjoining heights.  For the rest, the arrangements are the same as at the Greek Easter feast.  People eat, drink, and dance.  No signs of beer, wine, or liqueur are to be discovered, and consequently there is no drunkenness.

The Turkish officers were here polite enough to surrender the best places to us strangers.  I had many opportunities of noticing the character of the Mussulman, and found, to my great delight, that he is much better and more honest than prejudices generally allow us to believe.  Even in matters of commerce and business it is better to have to do with a Turk than with a votary of any other creed, not even excepting my own.

During my stay at Constantinople (from the 5th of April until May 17th) I found the weather just as changeable as in my own country; so much so, in fact, that the temperature frequently varied twelve or fourteen degrees within four-and-twenty hours.

Excursion to Brussa.

The two brothers, Baron Charles and Frederick von Buseck, and Herr Sattler, the talented artist, resolved to make an excursion to Brussa; and as I had expressed a similar wish, they were obliging enough to invite me to make a fourth in their party.  But when it came to the point, I had almost become irresolute.  I was asked by some one if I was a good rider; “for if you are not,” said my questioner, “it would be far better for you not to accompany them, as Brussa is four German miles distant from Gemlek, and the road is bad, so that the gentlemen must ride briskly if they wish to reach the town before sundown, starting as they would at half-past two in the afternoon, the general hour of landing at Gemlek.  In the event of your being unable to keep up with the rest, you would put them to great inconvenience, or they will be compelled to leave you behind on the road.”

I had never mounted a horse, and felt almost inclined to confess the fact; but my curiosity to see Brussa, the beautiful town at the foot of Olympus, gained the day, and I boldly declared that I had no doubt I should be able to keep pace with my companions.

On the 13th of May we left Constantinople at half-past six in the morning, on board a little steamer of forty-horse power.  Passing the Prince’s and Dog Islands, we swept across the Sea of Marmora towards the snow-crowned Olympus, until, after a voyage of seven hours, we reached Gemlek.

Gemlek, distant thirty sea miles from Constantinople, is a miserable place, but nevertheless does some trade as the harbour of Bithynia.  The agent of the Danube Navigation Company was civil enough to procure us good horses, and a genuine, stalwart, and fierce-looking Turkoman for a guide.  This man wore in his girdle several pistols and a dagger; a long crooked scimitar hung at his side; and instead of shoes and slippers, large boots decked his feet, bordered at the top by a wide stripe of white cloth, on which were depicted blue flowers and other ornaments.  His head was graced by a handsome turban.