Down came the houses, one after the other.  Our sailors behaved splendidly.  They climbed up on to the roofs and fastened ropes, to which we harnessed the whole of the population, while the frameworks were being sawn through below till the whole thing came down with a crash.  Indeed I saw one house come down with five or six sailors perched on its roof.  I rushed forward in horror, thinking they must all be maimed or killed.  Not a bit of it!  Only a few hands and feet torn by nails!  Truly God watches over the brave!  The fall of one Turkish house caused a pretty scene!  The proprietor was determined to prevent it.  He struck and swore at us,—­pulling out his beard.  The anticipation of the destruction of his property drove him wild.  Finding nobody paid any attention to him, he called his women folk to his assistance.  They hastened up like furies, at first.  Then, changing their tactics, they cast themselves on my officers, clasping them in their arms, covering them with kisses and caresses, and trying “the power of their charms on them in every imaginable way.  It was a curious sight truly to watch by the light of the flames, and amidst such a cacophony of races, a handful of sailors stopping the passers-by, Turks as well as the rest, setting them to work, snatching the fire-pumps from the firemen, carrying soldiers and generals too along with them, and in fact ruling the roast in the very middle of Constantinople.

At last, thanks to the fire-pump and thanks to our own selves, the fire stopped just where we had fought it.  I went off then towards the cemetery, where it was still burning, and where the sight was most singular.  An immense crowd of people, the whole population of the burnt-out quarters of the town, in every imaginable costume, and silent like true fatalists, herded on the hill and the plateau, together with whatever had been saved out of the disaster.  Under the red light of the conflagration, the flames of which shot up in great jets into the skies, the huge bivouac made a splendid picture, reminding one of the works of the English painter Martyn, the Last Judgment, Belshezzar’s Feast, and so forth.  Stamboul, with her forest of minarets and her thousands of lights, stood out on the horizon against a lovely starry sky, and in the foreground the Seraskier sat in a big armchair, surrounded by an immense staff, seeming very philosophically resigned to the catastrophe over which he appeared to be presiding.  In one hand he held his pipe, and in the other a slice of melon.  We were already well acquainted, and when he saw me coming up, all blackened with smoke and ashes, he roared with laughter.  But he gave me a slice of his melon, and very grateful it was to my parched throat.