And Selinda and I a-feelin’ that chokin’ a pardner wuz the last thing we wanted to undertake, we went through it at a pretty good jog, and anon we found ourselves in Turkey; and here I found the Turkeys had done first-rate.

Why, one piece of their hand-wrought lace wuz worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  While I wuz a-admirin’ of it, Josiah whispered firmly—­

“Don’t go to thinkin’ of that old night-cap in sech a time as this.”

And I whispered back, “I hain’t no more idee on’t than you have of buyin’ that old tent to take down to the lake with you a-fishin’.”

That very old battle-tent wuz all hand work, embroidered in gold and silver and silk in nateral figgers, and they said it wuz worth five millions of dollars—­

And a silver bedstead the Sultan is a-goin’ to give to his daughter as a part of her settin’ out when she marries wuz worth four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

You can from this form some idee of the value of the other enormous exhibits.

And the most beautiful horses you ever see, right from the Sultan’s stable, wuz a-prancin’ round.  And one hundred Beoudins with camels and dromedaries added to the picteresqueness of the seen.

And then we see Cleopatri’s needle, that tall column a-risin’ up to the sky, all covered with writin’ worse than mine, and that’s a-sayin’ a good deal.  I couldn’t read a word on’t, nor Josiah couldn’t.

And to the back of the Grand Bazaar wuz leven cottages, where male and female Turkeys wuz workin’ at their different trades, showin’ jest how rugs, and carpets, and embroideries, and brass work is made.

As I said to Selinda, “Would you believed it possible, Selinda, if we’d been told on’t a dozen years ago that you and I should be a-travellin’ in Turkey to-day?”

And she said, “No, indeed; she had never imagined that she should ever visit sech foreign shores.”

Yes, we felt considerable riz up to think that we wuz engaged in foreign travel, but not hauty.  No, we are both on us well-principled, and don’t believe in puttin’ on airs.

Wall, we stayed here a good while, and Josiah thought he’d eat sunthin’ here, too.  If he’d had his way, he would had a good square meal in every foreign country, and native one, too.  That man’s appetite is wonderful.  Foreign countries can’t quell it down, nor rumatiz, nor nothin’.

Hakenbeck’s animal show comes next, and it is the most complete—­so they say—­that wuz ever exhibited.

The tent is two hundred feet square, and is filled with all the animals that ever went into the Ark, and more, too, I believe.  Five thousand people can go in here at one time, and set down, and see lions a-ridin’ on horseback, with a woman to run the performance, and see animals a-doin’ everything else that ever wuz done by ’em, and tigers, and elephants, and performin’ horses, and two hundred monkeys, and one thousand parrots.