of guarantee for their safety. We did afterward meet the poor things on board-at least we saw some bundles of clothes stretched on the deck, lying quite motionless-till at length starting into life, the unfortunate creatures beneath, tortured by the attacks of an enemy there was no escape from, in paroxysms of despair hastily tore off the muslin bandages which had hitherto concealed their faces from the gaze of the unfaithful, and then, struck with horror at the profanity of the act they had been guilty of, sank back in a state of utter prostration, and were one by one sum

in the court, presiding at a feast of green pomegranates, and instantly ran out, saying: "Ah! naughty Ghullanie!"—a name equivalent to our rose-"you know you were forbidden to eat fruit till you were well." This being duly translated to her, the little lady, aged about ten, rose up, and with singular grace and dignity informed me, in the liquid tones of her beautiful Greek, "That she would not eat fruit after having been forbidden to do so, but every one knew that pomegranates were not included in that category; and, in fact, the lining membrane of green ones especially was known to every body as an excel-marily carried down stairs to the ladies' cabin, lent thing for fever." Certainly people here do eat pomegranates in every stage of fever, and the inside skin being very bitter, may have some good effects; but I wonder what English girl of that age would have been able to defend herself in such a manner. The children, from being constantly at liberty, and not confined to a nursery like ours, are all precocious. They are generally pretty, and look so funny dressed up in their miniature turbans and trains, that I always expected them to begin acting some charade or play. Both sexes are dressed exactly alike while they are juvenile.

We went one day to visit the pashaw's wife; and her son, a boy about twelve, left the room at once, with an absurd assumption of manliness, pretending not to see his mother's visitors. He was habited, as his father might have been, in a fez cap, and a dark, badly-fitting surtout of English cloth, with a leather belt. All Turks in government employment must wear this dress, which looks mean and paltry beside their own flowing native costume. The pashaw's wife was a dignified, middle-aged woman, who had been handsome, and still possessed beautiful, almondshaped, dark eyes. Her high-bred ease of manner would have done honor to any drawing-room, and completely distinguished her from the chattering crowd of slaves around. When asked if she was the only wife, she replied in a very stately manner: "Yes, my husband and myself have always been sufficient to each other." I am sure she was a very superior woman, and her husband was a wise man. The house was in great confusion; many curious-looking rounded hair trunks, with iron bands, were lying about, ready packed, as the family were just moving down to Stamboul; and the husband, a man of progress, intended going on board a steamer, shortly expected on the coast. The women had never seen a steamer, and were much alarmed at the prospect, and much relieved to hear we should be there also, thinking our presence a kind

and delivered over to all the unknown miseries of seasickness.

There was a remarkably lovely child in the pashaw's house, with the most purely blue eyes I ever saw; but the Turks do not admire blue eyes-indeed, are very much afraid of them, believing that their possessors have the power of casting the "Evil Eye." A friend of ours was one day standing watching some poor bullocks yoked to a load of wood far too heavy for them to move. After several ineffectual attempts to make them stir, the driver turned to the Englishman, and in no measured terms begged him to go away instantly, as it was of course utterly impossible for the bullocks to move, when his blue eyes were transfixing them. If you admire a child in Turkey, you are supposed to have thrown the Evil Eye on it; and the nurse will most probably spit at you, to avert any evil consequences to her charge. The Turkish domestic servants are nearly all slaves, both black and white, and seem very comfortably off. No doubt they are often tyrannized over, and sometimes harshly treated; but, on the whole, their chains appear to be as light as the chains of slavery can possibly be. Even after death their identification with the family continues. When walking through the lovely cemeteries, you will see a square space railed off, containing perhaps a high headstone, with a sculptured turban on the top, indicating the spot where sleeps the lord of a household; beside it a peaked stone—perhaps two or three-with a rose on it, tells you a wife lies beneath; some smaller stones round will probably complete the family circle; and then adjoining will be a tiny piece of ground, also inclosed, with an inscription relating that here lies some faithful Mustapha, or Ibrahim, who had been in the family fifty or sixty years, and was laid in death, as he had lived, close to the master he had served so well.

The peasants here have a great dread of being drawn in the conscription for the army. One

day, when we were visiting the consul's wife, in so to my ideas. She informed the dismayed and rushed a poor woman in a dreadful state of agita- eager suitor, that, "many foreigners coming here, tion, followed by a group of sympathizing friends, take a fancy to our daughters, and wish to have and dragging along her unfortunate son, a puny, them for wives; but then they go away and sickly lad, who had just been drawn for a soldier. forget their promised brides. Go back, then, He looked about fourteen, and seemed quite stranger, to your own country, and remain there scared and totally unmanned by the fearful pros- a year: at the end of that time, if you have not pect opening before him. The weeping mother altered your way of thinking, return here, and I franticly implored the great lady to take her will gladly give you my daughter." After such son into service in any capacity-the servants of a speech there was nothing to be added or sug. British subjects are exempt from the conscrip- gested by us; and in a few moments both mother tion-vehemently lamenting her hard fate, and and daughter were deep in the discussion of a pointing by turns to the youth of her son, his Turkish dress, which I wanted to have made, great delicacy, his want of hight, and, above all, and appeared far more interested in the details to a slight deformity in one of his fingers; any of colors and trimming, than in the consideration of which reasons ought, in her opinion, to be of the poor unbeliever's offer of marriage. The sufficient to prevent his going to the wars. All only thing that puzzled me was the fact, that in the women chimed in in chorus; while the young this country, where one hears so much about the candidate for martial honors stood behind, sob- subjugation of women, no one seemed to think bing piteously, and certainly looking a most unfit of referring to the paternal parent for his opinsubject to aid in upholding the glory and honor ion. The mother held forth to her friends, and of the Ottoman Empire. It really seemed a discussed minutely her own ideas on the subject, hard case: he was his mother's only son; and without paying the smallest attention to the melafter some consideration, her heart was set at rest ancholy and decidedly henpecked man, who was by seeing him appointed to some nominal post quietly pursuing his daily avocations in the house. about the children, where I often afterward saw Certainly, the ordinary class of Franks in this him looking very happy. The soldiers are gen- country are calculated to give the natives but a erally small, dark-complexioned, and wretchedly poor idea of European society: they are usually poor creatures, from the interior-very different the very refuse of southern Europe-men who, from the stately Turk of the capital. They have from bad conduct, or some unfortunate circuma simple, good-natured look, which is very pleas- stances, find the home circle closed against them, ing. I always heard them spoken of as having and come out here to pick up a living as they good stuff in them, though the attempt to dress best can. From the talented members of this them in a sort of European uniform makes them class springs up that witty, wicked, and dangerfeel uncomfortable and look ridiculous. ous man called a chevalier d'industrie.

On going into the town one day, we went, as usual, to leave our horses at a very decent sort of hotel-as things go here-kept by an Armenian and his wife. They had a pretty daughter, whose round, good-tempered face had often attracted our attention; and as by this time we were looked upon quite as old residents in the country, and friends of the house, we were taken into consultation on the subject of a proposal which had just been received for the young lady from a Frank visitor-I believe Italian-who, attracted solely by her rosy cheeks and dark eyes for he could not speak a word of any language intelligible to her-wished to transplant her to his own home. The mother explained the whole affair to us most volubly, and the daughter listened with frightened looks, and seemed altogether more alarmed than flattered at the honor done her by the Frank. The elder woman seemed to have settled the matter in the most sensible possible manner-quite provokingly

We fell in with a brilliant specimen of this genus, who made his debut at the before-mentioned hotel, where he led a rollicking, pleasant enough sort of life. I scarcely know how we first became acquainted with M. Achille: people are not particular with regard to introductions so far from home; and he was perfect in the art of suiting himself to his company. He spoke both French and Italian so well, that I knew not which country claimed him for her son. He sang exquisitely; and possessed a power of sketching I have never seen equaled: any blank piece of paper that fell in his way, the backs of letters, the fly-leaves of books, were instantly covered with fanciful designs, ruined mosques, and Moorish palaces. I still possess many of these specimens, all finished with a delicacy and rapidity that appeared to my inexperienced eyes quite miraculous. He soon made himself notorious by his furious and reckless riding through the crowded bazars. We afterward heard, that when

pressed for the payment of some silver-mounted pistols, cimeters, and other fancy articles he had selected, he pointed a bright stiletto at the startled trader, and replied: "That's the only payment you'll get from me!" He succeeded in borrowing fifty dollars from my father, and gave him, at the same time, a little gold-headed cane, which he said "his honor was pledged to redeem at all hazards, as it was engraved with the arms of his family." I need not say the family arms are still in the possession of strangers.

lived was almost deserted; the inhabitants had fled, shutting up their houses-they had no servants-the mother was very ill, confined to bed; the father was compelled to go out, leaving these two girls, with two or three little children, alone in the house. He directed them to keep perfectly quiet, shut all doors and windows, and by that means strive as much as possible to escape observation. The immediate neighborhood was quiet, but the distant sounds of riot sometimes reached them; and their suspense becoming at last intolerable, they went to the top of the house to discover if possible what was going on. The death-like silence of the street was for some time unbroken; but at length one of the much-dreaded Albanians appeared. The sisters watched with breathless anxiety, and saw him trying the different doors, till, finding one close to them that yielded to his hand, he entered; and in a few moments, what was their horror and despair to see him come out of a window on the top of the house, and walk along the parapet, apparently looking in at each window in succession, as if to see which promised the best prospect of plunder. It was a fearful moment, but Providence shielded these defenseless children from harm, for the fierce Albanian passed the window behind which the frightened girls were cowering, without look

The children of Englishmen who have married Armenian or Greek wives, are very interesting specimens of humanity. They are generally pretty, and very quick and intelligent. Indeed, to English people they appear remarkably clever, from the extraordinary number of languages they can all speak. Their nurses are chiefly Greek, and they, of course, talk to their nurslings in their own beautiful language; daily intercourse with the natives around instructs them in Turkish; the father speaks to them in English, and the mother probably in Armenian; every visitor teaches them French, and Italian is learned as easily: so that by the time our children at home begin going to school, these little things are conversationally perfect in five or six different languages, and have thus already mastered a great deal of that knowledge our school children toiling in. so painfully after and so seldom attain. Another characteristic of this class that struck us, was the wonderfully large appetite they are generally blessed with; fortunately, the necessaries of life

THE PRECIOUS LITTLE PLANT,
IWO

are cheap out here, or the housekeeping bills maidens, Bridget and Bertha, went to the

would be something frightful. I used to sit in silent amazement, watching the celerity with which immense piles of food disappeared down the throats of pretty piquant girls, who had certainly never been taught to be ashamed of the act of eating. We were much amused once by the naive speech of a young lady who was dining with us. There were two dishes of meat on the table, and when asked which she would prefer, she replied, looking alternately at each: "I'll take some of both, if you please, sir."

Some of these families have passed through most stirring and exciting scenes. I am sure their histories would open thrilling pages of romance to the reader. I remember two girls once giving me a description of a morning of alarm. they had spent some time before near Constantinople. It was a time of great tumult; the town was almost in a state of siege; and bands of lawless Albanian soldiers were wandering about, recklessly plundering whatever they could lay their hands on. The street where these girls

city, and each bore upon her head a heavy basket of fruit.

Bridget murmured and sighed constantly; but Bertha only laughed and sported.

Bridget said, "How canst thou laugh so? Thy basket is as heavy as mine, and thou art no stronger than I."

Bertha replied, "I have placed a certain little plant on my burden, and so I scarcely feel it. Why don't you do so, too?"

"Ay," cried Bridget, "that must be a precious little plant. I would gladly lighten my burden with it. Tell me at once what is its name."

Bertha answered, "The precious little plant that makes all burdens lighter, is called—patience. For

When thy burden's very weighty,
Patience neath it makes it easy."

Older heads than those on the shoulders of these two little girls can learn from them a lesson, patiently to "endure what they can not cure," and hopefully to trust in the providence of Him who does all things well.