I KNOW, you’ll expect I should say something particular of the slaves; and you will imagine me half a Turk, when I don’t speak of it with the same horror other Christians have done before me.  But I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to these creatures; they are never ill used, and their slavery is, in my opinion, no worse than servitude all over the world.  ’Tis true, they have no wages; but they give them yearly clothes to a higher value than our salaries to our ordinary servants.  But you’ll object, that men buy women with an eye to evil.  In my opinion, they are bought and sold as publicly, and as infamously, in all our Christian great cities.

I MUST add to the description of Constantinople, that the historical pillar is no more.  It dropped down about two years before I came to this part of the world.  I have seen no other footsteps of antiquity, except the aqueducts, which are so vast, that I am apt to believe they are yet more ancient than the Greek empire.  The Turks indeed have clapped in some stones with Turkish inscriptions, to give their natives the honour of so great a work; but the deceit is easily discovered.—­The other public buildings are the hanns and monasteries; the first are very large and numerous; the second few in number, and not at all magnificent.  I had the curiosity to visit one of them, and to observe the devotions of the dervises, which are as whimsical as any at Rome.  These fellows have permission to marry, but are confined to an odd habit, which is only a piece of coarse white cloth, wrapped about them, with their legs and arms naked.  Their order has few other rules, except that of performing their fantastic rites, every Tuesday and Friday, which is done in this manner:  They meet together in a large hall, where they all stand with their eyes fixed on the ground, and their arms across, while the imaum or preacher reads part of the alcoran from a pulpit placed in the midst; and when he has done, eight or ten of them make a melancholy concert with their pipes, which are no unmusical instruments.  Then he reads again, and makes a short exposition on what he has read; after which they sing and play, ’till their superior (the only one of them dressed in green) rises and begins a sort of solemn dance.  They all stand about him in a regular figure; and while some play, the others tie their robe (which is very wide) fast round their waist, and begin to turn round with an amazing swiftness, and yet with great regard to the music, moving slower or faster as the tune is played.  This lasts above an hour, without any of them shewing the least appearance of giddiness, which is not to be wondered at, when it is considered they are all used to it from their infancy; most of them being devoted to this way of life from their birth.  There turned amongst them some little dervises, of six or seven years old, who seemed no more disordered by that exercise than the others.