In those old days, too, the khans used to be the resort of the slave-merchants, who kept stowed safely away, for inspection and purchase, Circassian, Georgian or more dingy beauties, to suit all tastes.  But civilization, in its encroachments on Turkey, has compelled the cessation of open sales of either white or black slaves in public places, though so long as the social and domestic system of the East remains unchanged, the sale of women for the house or harem will continue.  It is conducted, however, with more privacy, and Christians are not permitted the privilege of viewing the proceedings.  This restriction has taken away from the khans one of their former great attractions.

To European or American travelers accustomed to the ease, luxury and profusion of our modern hotels, where the guests enjoy more comforts than most of them get at home, this kind of entertainment for man and beast certainly does not seem attractive.  Yet there is enjoyment in it when the khan is tolerably free from fleas and “such small deer,” and one is accustomed “to roughing it,” and blessed with a good appetite and digestion.

Yet, truth to tell, it is more picturesque than pleasant at the best—­more gratifying to the eye than to the other senses, especially to those of smell and hearing.  For the odors arising from Turkish or Arab cooking are not those of Araby the Blest; and the close contiguity of the beasts of burden assails both the senses named more pungently than pleasantly.  Besides, the Oriental, generally making it a rule to wrap up his head carefully in the covering, snores stertorously throughout the night; so that silence, which we regard as necessary for repose, does not rule over the khan; and when daybreak comes, the startled traveler may imagine Babel has broken loose again, since both men and animals rise with the dawn, and make most diabolical noises to indicate that they have risen.

Enterprising Europeans have set up many hotels in Eastern cities, but they are almost exclusively resorted to by strangers or Europeans resident in the country.  Even the high Turks, lapped in luxury and sybaritic in their habits of personal ease, prefer their own hotel system to ours, carrying all their comforts along with them, and a retinue of servants to take charge of them.  You will very rarely see a Turkish gentleman, even if educated in Europe, stopping at Messeir’s or any of the great Eastern hotels on the European plan.

At Messeir’s in Constantinople, or at Shepheard’s hotel in Cairo—­places of historic interest almost, through the vivid descriptions of travelers like the authors of Eothen and The Crescent and the Cross—­a most motley medley of Western nationalities may be encountered, the adventurers, tourists and wanderers of the world congregated there during the winter months, and presenting a panoramic view of all the peculiar phases and contrasts of European civilization, more antagonistic there than elsewhere.