LET.  XLI.

TO THE COUNTESS OF B——.

AT length I have heard from my dear Lady B——­, for the first time.  I am persuaded you have had the goodness to write before, but I have had the ill fortune to lose your letters.  Since my last, I have staid (sic) quietly at Constantinople, a city that I ought in conscience to give your ladyship a right notion of, since I know you can have none but what is partial and mistaken from the writings of travellers.  ’Tis certain, there are many people that pass years here in Pera, without having ever seen it, and yet they all pretend to describe it.  Pera, Tophana, and Galata, wholly inhabited by French Christians (and which, together, make the appearance of a very fine town,) are divided from it by the sea, which is not above half so broad as the broadest part of the Thames; but the Christian men are loth to hazard the adventures they sometimes meet with amongst the levents or seamen, (worse monsters than our watermen) and the women must cover their faces to go there, which they have a perfect aversion to do.  ’Tis true, they wear veils in Pera, but they are such as only serve to shew their beauty to more advantage, and would not be permitted in Constantinople.  These reasons deter almost every creature from seeing it; and the French ambassadress will return to France (I believe) without ever having been there.  You’ll wonder, madam, to hear me add, that I have been there very often.  The asmack, or Turkish veil, is become not only very easy, but agreeable to me; and, if it was not, I would be content to endure some inconveniency, to gratify a passion that is become so powerful with me, as curiosity.  And, indeed, the pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea, is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves.  The Asian side is covered with fruit-trees, villages, and the most delightful landskips (sic) in nature; on the European, stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills.—­The unequal heights make it seem as large again as it is, (though one of the largest cities in the world) shewing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress-trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry, as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet, adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars shew themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies and candlesticks.  This is a very odd comparison; but it gives me an exact idea of the thing.  I have taken care to see as much of the seraglio as is to be seen.  It is on a point of land running into the sea; a palace of prodigious extent, but very irregular.  The gardens take in a large compass of ground, full of high cypress-trees, which is all I know of them.  The buildings are all of white stone, leaded on the top, with gilded turrets and spires, which look very