THE SLAVE MARKET.





Upon one of those hot, sultry summer afternoons that so often
prevail about the banks of the Bosphorus, the sun was fast sinking
towards its western course, and gilding as it went, the golden
crescents of a thousand minarets, now dancing with fairy feet over
the rippling waters of Marmora, now dallying with the spray of the
oarsmen's blades, as they pulled the gilded caique of some rich old
Mussulman up the tide of the Golden Horn. The soft and dainty
scented air came in light zephyrs off the shore of Asia to play upon
the European coast, and altogether it was a dreamy, siesta-like hour
hat reigned in the Turkish capital.

Let the reader come with us at this time into the circular area that
forms the slave market of Constantinople. The bazaar is well filled;
here are Egyptians, Bulgarians, Persians, and even Africans; but we
will pass them by and cross to the main stand, where are exposed for
sale some score of Georgians and Circassians. They are all chosen
for their beauty of person, and present a scene of more than usual
interest, awaiting the fate that the future may send them in a kind
or heartless master; and knowing how much of their future peace
depends upon this chance, they watch each new comer with almost
painful interest as he moves about the area.

A careless crowd thronged the place, lounging about in little knots
here and there, while one lot of slave merchants, with their broad