“I thought Turks wore long beards?”

“The lower-class Turks, and the country ones, and those who like to follow the old fashions, wear beards, but they have their heads shaved, and wear the turban.  Most modern Turks, Government officials, and so forth, shave off their beards and whiskers, and wear short hair and a moustache, with the fez, or cloth cap.  The old-fashioned dress is much the handsomest, I think, and I am sorry it is dying out.”

“The poor women-Turks aren’t allowed to go out, are they, Cousin Peregrine?”

“Oh yes, they are, but they have to be veiled, and so bundled up that you can not only not tell one woman from another, but they hardly look like women at all—­more like unsteady balloons, or inflated sacks of different colours.  They wear yellow leather boots, and no stockings.  Over the boots they wear large slippers, in which they shuffle along with a gait very little less awkward than the toddle of a cramp-footed lady in China.  If they are ungraceful on foot, matters are not much better when they ride.  Sitting astride a donkey (for they do not use side-saddles), a Turkish lady is about as comical an object as you could wish to behold, though I have no doubt she is quite unconscious of looking anything but dignified, as she presses on to her shopping in the Bazaar, screaming to the half-naked Arab donkey-boy to urge on her steed with his stick.  As the great cloak dress, in which women envelop themselves from head to foot when they go out, is all of one colour, they have this advantage over Englishwomen out shopping, that they do not look ugly from being bedizened with ill-assorted hues and frippery trimmings.  In fact a mass of Turkish women, each clothed in one shade of colour, looks very like a flower-bed—­a flower-bed of sole-coloured tulips without stalks!”

“The Bazaars are bigger than Charity Bazaars, I suppose,” said Maggie thoughtfully; “are they as big as the Baker Street Bazaar?”

“The Bazaar of Stamboul, the Turkish Quarter of Constantinople, is almost a Quarter by itself.  It takes up many, many streets, Maggie.  I am sure I wish with all my heart I could take you children through it.  You would think yourselves in fairy-land, or rather in some of those underground caves full of dazzling treasures such as Aladdin found himself in.”

“But why, Cousin Peregrine?  Do the Turks have very wonderful things in their shops?”

“I fancy, Maggie, that in no place in the world can one see such a collection of valuable merchandise gathered from all quarters of the globe.  But it is not only the gold, the jewels, the ivories, the gorgeous silks and brocades, morocco leathers, and priceless furs, which make these great Eastern markets unlike ours.  The common wares for everyday use are often of a much more picturesque kind than with us.  There is no great beauty in an English boot-shop, but the shoe-bazaar in Stamboul is gay with slippers of all colours, embroidered with gold and silver thread,