their faces” before going into public.  Not only do they smear their faces freely with white and red, but they also join together their eyebrows by a thick black band of kohl, and with the same pigment blacken the lower lids of the eyes, giving a wicked and peculiar expression to the eyes.  The tips of the fingers are stained red with henna; and without these appliances no Eastern woman deems her toilette complete.  Many of them would doubtless be exceedingly lovely were they to let themselves alone, but Turkish taste requires these appliances, and an unpainted woman is a rarity.

It is an Eastern saying that a woman should be a load for a camel, and in deference to this taste they fatten themselves up until they become mountains of flesh.  Where obesity is considered a charm, delicacy of outline ceases to be regarded, and a woman who has not rotundity is regarded as an unfortunate being.  They are decidedly the greatest collection of well-fed females to be seen in the world.

The task of the black guards who accompany these houris is anything but a sinecure, and “nods and becks and wreathed smiles” are freely bestowed on the male passers-by in spite of etiquette and eunuchs.  If the scandalous chronicles of the coffee-shops and bazaars are to be relied upon, “Love laughs at locksmiths” here as well as in more civilized lands, and Danger and Opportunity wink at each other.  There is far less decorum and outward reserve of manner here than in our parks, but this freedom is all confined to looks and gestures, access and converse being both forbidden.

Frequently, however, the bad-tempered guardians of the hareem commit outrages on the persons of real or supposed aggressors in this way, and from these even members of the foreign embassies have not always been exempt.  The difficulty of identifying the offender in such cases enhances the impunity of these wretches, for to arrest one on the spot would be impossible in the midst of a crowd which sympathizes with the offender, instead of the sufferer, and looks upon it as a proper punishment for the insolent Giaour.  A private person unconnected with an embassy has still less chance for satisfaction, but must pocket the affront, even if smitten by whip or flat of sabre, considering himself fortunate to have escaped maiming or mutilation should he incautiously give a pretext for Ethiopian or Nubian intervention.

Few persons of foreign birth and training would go more than twice to visit the Sweet Waters of Asia, whose peculiarities and amusements have been thus briefly sketched.  The spectacle at the European Sweet Waters differs somewhat from the routine already described.  There, although you also meet the Turks, the greater proportion of the visitors are either Greeks or native Christians of different races.  You see fewer arabas and telekis, and more carriages, or rather hacks, and men galloping along on raw-boned horses in a kind of imitation “Rotten-Row”