did not live to see her there.  I have a great mind to describe it to you; but I check that inclination, knowing very well, that I cannot give you, with my best description, such an idea of it as I ought.  It is situated on one of the most delightful parts of the canal, with a fine wood on the side of a hill behind it.  The extent of it is prodigious; the guardian assured me, there are eight hundred rooms in it; I will not, however, answer for that number, since I did not count them; but ’tis certain the number is very large, and the whole adorned with a profusion of marble, gilding, and the most exquisite painting of fruit and flowers.  The windows are all sashed with the finest crystalline glass brought from England; and here is all the expensive magnificence that you can suppose in a palace founded by a vain luxurious young man, with the wealth of a vast empire at his command.  But no part of it pleased me better than the apartments destined for the bagnios.  There are two built exactly in the same manner, answering to one another; the baths, fountains, and pavements, all of white marble, the roofs gilt, and the walls covered with Japan china.  Adjoining to them are two rooms, the uppermost of which is divided into a sofa, and in the four corners are falls of water from the very roof, from shell to shell, of white marble, to the lower end of the room, where it falls into a large basin, surrounded with pipes, that throw up the water as high as the roof.  The walls are in the nature of lattices; and, on the outside of them, there are vines and woodbines planted, that form a sort of green tapestry, and give an agreeable obscurity to those delightful chambers.  I should go on and let you into some of the other apartments (all worthy your curiosity); but ’tis yet harder to describe a Turkish palace than any other, being built entirely irregular.  There is nothing that can be properly called front or wings; and though such a confusion is, I think, pleasing to the sight, yet it would be very unintelligible in a letter.  I shall only add, that the chamber destined for the sultan, when he visits his daughter, is wainscotted with mother of pearl, fastened with emeralds like nails.  There are others of mother of pearl and olive wood inlaid, and several of Japan china.  The galleries, which are numerous, and very large, are adorned with jars of flowers, and porcelain dishes of fruit of all sorts, so well done in plaster, and coloured in so lively a manner, that it has an enchanting effect.  The garden is suitable to the house, where arbours, fountains, and walks, are thrown together in an agreeable confusion.  There is no ornament wanting, except that of statues.  Thus, you see, Sir, these people are not so unpolished as we represent them.  ’Tis true, their magnificence is of a very different taste from ours, and perhaps of a better.  I am almost of opinion, they have a right notion of life.  They consume it in music, gardens, wine, and delicate eating, while we are tormenting