he would collect among the poorer patrons of the place in two hours.  Soon a company of five strolling acrobats and conjurers happens along, and these likewise are summoned into the “presence” and ordered to proceed.  Many of the conjurer’s tricks are quite creditable performances; but the pasha occasionally interferes in the proceedings just in the nick of time to prevent the prestidigitator finishing his manipulations, much to the pasha’s delight.  Once, however, he cleverly manages to hoodwink the pasha, and executes his trick in spite of the latter’s interference, which so amuses the pasha that he straightway gives him a medjedie.  Our return boat to Galata starts at seven o’clock, and it is a ten minutes’ drive down to the landing.  At fifteen minutes to seven the pasha calls for a public carriage to take us down to the steamer.

“There are no carriages, Pasha Effendi.  Those three are all engaged by ladies and gentlemen in the garden,” exclaims the waiter, respectfully.

“Engaged or not engaged, I want that open carriage yonder,” replies the pasha authoritatively, and already beginning to show signs of impatience.”  Boxhanna. “(hi, you, there!)” drive around here,” addressing the driver.

The driver enters a plea of being already engaged.  The pasha’s temper rises to the point of threatening to throw carriage, horses, and driver into the Bosphorus if his demands are not instantly complied with.  Finally the driver and everybody else interested collapse completely, and, entering the carriage, we are driven to our destination without another murmur.  Subsequently I learned that a government officer, whether a pasha or of lower rank, has the power of taking arbitrary possession of a public conveyance over the head of a civilian, so that our pasha was, after all, only sticking up for the rights of himself and my friend of the artillery, who likewise wears the mark by which a military man is in Turkey always distinguishable from a civilian — a longer string to the tassel of his fez.

This is the last day of Ramadan, and the following Monday ushers in the three days’ feast of Biaram, which is in substance a kind of a general carousal to compensate for the rigid self-denial of the thirty days ‘fasting and prayer’ just ended.  The government offices and works are till closed, everybody is wearing new clothes, and holiday-making engrosses the public attention.  A friend proposes a trip on a Bosphorus steamer up as far as the entrance to the Black Sea.  The steamers are profusely decorated with gaycolored flags, and at certain hours all war-ships anchored in the Bosphorus, as well as the forts and arsenals, fire salutes, the roar and rattle of the great guns echoing among the hills of Europe and Asia, that here confront each other, with but a thousand yards of dancing blue waters between them.  All along either lovely shore villages and splendid country-seats of wealthy pashas and Constantinople