permit people to stare at each other, just as in London, Paris or New
York, minus the salutations to friends or conversation. As the poet
says of the stars--

In silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball,

though the women, while sitting under the trees, chatter like magpies
to one another. The etiquette is to recline languidly back in the
carriage and speak through the eyes alone to the mounted cavaliers,
who prance as near the carriages containing veiled inmates as the
sable guards will permit, to the infinite amusement of Fatima and
Zuleika, and boundless wrath and disgust of Hassan or Mustapha, "with
his long sword, saddle, bridle, etc."

Two of these carriages are so peculiar to the place and people as
to merit description. One of these, the "araba," is an heirloom
from their old Tartar ancestry, and is only an exaggerated ox-cart
with seats, and a scaffolding of poles around it. Over these poles
there hangs a canopy of red to keep off the sun, and the seats are
well-stuffed cushions, making a kind of bed of the bottom of the
wagon. Into this curious conveyance are piled promiscuously the
mother, children and slaves of the establishment--packed in as tightly
as possible; and the contrast of costumes, faces, colors and ages
between its occupants may be imagined, but cannot be described. For a
genuine old-fashioned family carriage commend us to the araba.

This curious conveyance is drawn not by horses, but by white oxen,
whose broad fronts are pleasingly painted between the eyes bright red
with henna, the dye with which the Turkish ladies tinge their own fair