so delightful that I fancy myself nearer the Creator. I enjoy the same
peace, the same repose, when I am seated on the banks of a river, when I
look upon the water so quiet, yet always moving, which flows constantly,
yet never disappears from my sight, never loses any of its clearness in
spite of its constant motion. It strikes me as the image of my own
existence, and of the calm which I require for my life in order to reach,
like the water I am gazing upon, the goal which I do not see, and which
can only be found at the other end of the journey."

Thus did the Turk reason, and we passed four hours in this sort of
conversation. He had buried two wives, and he had two sons and one
daughter. The eldest son, having received his patrimony, had established
himself in the city of Salonica, where he was a wealthy merchant; the
other was in the seraglio, in the service of the Grand Turk and his
fortune was in the hands of a trustee. His daughter, Zelmi, then fifteen
years of age, was to inherit all his remaining property. He had given her
all the accomplishments which could minister to the happiness of the man
whom heaven had destined for her husband. We shall hear more of that
daughter anon. The mother of the three children was dead, and five years
previous to the time of my visit, Yusuf had taken another wife, a native
of Scio, young and very beautiful, but he told me himself that he was now
too old, and could not hope to have any child by her. Yet he was only
sixty years of age. Before I left, he made me promise to spend at least
one day every week with him.

At supper, I told the baili how pleasantly the day had passed.

"We envy you," they said, "the prospect you have before you of spending
agreeably three or four months in this country, while, in our quality of
ministers, we must pine away with melancholy."