RESIDENCE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.--THE DANCING DERVISHES.

I arrived at Constantinople on a Tuesday, and immediately inquired
what was worth seeing. I was advised to go and see the dancing
dervishes, as this was the day on which they held their religious
exercises in Pera.

As I reached the mosque an hour too soon, I betook myself in the
meantime to the adjoining garden, which is set apart as the place of
meeting of the Turkish women. Here several hundred ladies reclined
on the grass in varied groups, surrounded by their children and
their nurses, the latter of whom are all negresses. Many of these
Turkish women were smoking pipes of tobacco with an appearance of
extreme enjoyment, and drinking small cups of coffee without milk.
Two or three friends often made use of the same pipe, which was
passed round from mouth to mouth. These ladies seemed also to be
partial to dainties: most of them were well provided with raisins,
figs, sugared nuts, cakes, etc., and ate as much as the little ones.
They seemed to treat their slaves very kindly; the black servants
sat among their mistresses, and munched away bravely: the slaves
are well dressed, and could scarcely be distinguished from their
owners, were it not for their sable hue.

During my whole journey I remarked with pleasure that the lot of a
slave in the house of a Mussulman is not nearly so hard as we
believe. The Turkish women are no great admirers of animated
conversations; still there was more talking in their societies than
in the assemblies of the men, who sit silent and half asleep in the
coffee-houses, languidly listening to the narrations of a story-