hands and the soles of their feet. The oxen bear high wooden yokes
covered with fringes and tassels, and their tails are often looped up
with bright cords. Their pace, bearing their heavy burden of wood and
flesh, is slow and stately, and the jolting of the springless wagon
over the rough roads seemingly very severe. But the inmates seem
used to their discomforts, and sit placidly and contentedly on their
uneasy seats, apparently proud of their turn-out and the effect
they are producing. These cumbrous vehicles are much affected
by the elder ladies of the sultan's court, who constitute the
Faubourg-Saint-Germain portion of society. True old-school Turks
these, who look down with scorn on the new fashions, both in costume
and carriage, stolen or adopted from the despised Franks.

Chief and most conspicuous of these latter is the small imitation
brougham or coupé, termed a "teleki," and generally built at Paris
regardless of cost, and resembling a Christian carriage about as
nearly as the Turk resembles a European when he puts on a similar
dress. The teleki is pumpkin-shaped, almost round, painted and gilded
in the gayest colors, with large bunches of the brightest flowers
painted on panels and on the glasses which shut it in all round. It
is the most dazzling carriage the imagination of carriage-makers ever
devised, and well adapted to the taste of the grown-up children it is
intended for, who, clad in raiments of rose-color, pink, bright blue
or scarlet, seem a fit lining for the gorgeous exterior. Unlike the
French carriage, the teleki has no springs; so the exercise these fair
ladies get is about equal to that of a ride on a hard-trotting horse.

Another peculiarity consists in the driver's dismounting from his box
and walking gravely alongside the carriage, holding in his hands the
colored silken reins to guide the well-bred horses.