falls in a cascade.  The road to the Sweet Waters, with one or two others, was made after the sultan’s return from his European trip, and in anticipation of the empress Eugenie’s visit.  European carriages were also introduced at that time.  The ladies of the sultan’s harem drive out in very handsome coupes, with coachmen wearing the sultan’s livery, but you more frequently see the queer one-horse Turkish carriage, and sometimes a “cow-carriage.”  This last is drawn by cows or oxen:  it is an open wagon, with a white cloth awning ornamented with gay fringes and tassels.  Many people go in caiques, and all carry bright-colored rugs, which they spread on the grass.  There they sit for several hours and gossip with each other, or take their luncheons and spend the afternoon.  A Turkish woman is never seen to better advantage than when “made up” for such an excursion.  Her house-dress is always hidden by a large cloak, which comes down to the ground and has loose sleeves and a cape.  The cloak is left open at the neck to show the lace and necklace worn under it, and is generally made of silk, often of exquisite shades of pink, blue, purple or any color to suit the taste of the wearer.  A small silk cap, like the low turbans our ladies wore eight or nine years ago, covers the head, and on it are fastened the most brilliant jewels—­diamond pins, rubies, anything that will flash.  The wearer’s complexion is heightened to great brilliancy by toilet arts, and over all, covering deficiencies, is the yashmak or thin white veil, which conceals only in part and greatly enhances her beauty.  You think your “dream of fair women” realized, and go home and read Lalla Rookh and rave of Eastern peris.  Should some female friend who has visited a harem and seen these radiant beauties face to face mildly suggest that paint, powder and the enchantment of distance have in a measure deluded you, you dismiss the unwelcome information as an invention of the “green-eyed monster,” and, remembering the brilliant beauties who reclined beside the Sweet Waters or floated by you on the Golden Horn, cherish the recollection as that of one of the brightest scenes of the Orient.

These I have spoken of are the upper classes from the harems of the sultan and rich pashas, but those you see constantly on foot in the streets are the middle and lower classes, and not so attractive.  They have fine eyes, but the yashmaks are thicker, and you feel there is less beauty hidden under them.  The higher the rank the thinner the yashmak is the rule.  They also wear the long cloak, but it is made of black or colored alpaca or a similar material.  Gray is most worn, but black, brown, yellow, green, blue and scarlet are often seen.  The negresses dress like their mistresses in the street, and if you see a pair of bright yellow boots under a brilliant scarlet ferraja and an unusually white yashmak, you will generally find the wearer is a jet-black negress.  Sitting so much in the house a la Turque is not conducive to grace of motion, nor are loose slippers to well-shaped feet, and I must confess that a Turkish woman walks like a goose, and the size of her “fairy feet” would rejoice the heart of a leather-dealer.