of our consul at Trebizond, Maxime Outrey, a charming lad, brought up and dressed a l’orientale, whom we had taken with us as our dragoman, and who vied with the Tartar in speed and boldness the whole day long like one possessed.  On the way back from Trebizond our steamer was crammed with passengers coming from every corner of Asia, the strangest medley of Circassians, Persians, and cat merchants, and one pasha.  I bought a splendid Angora during the passage, and the pasha bought himself a wife.  The whole of the negotiations for the latter acquisition, the discussions, the examination and verification of the merchandize, took place in our cabin, and very amusing it was.  The young lady belonged to a Tcherkess family which had eluded the Russian cruisers, and come alongside of us at Trebizond in big boats with triangular sails, spotted like a tiger’s hide.  The head of the family, a tall old man, was going to Mecca, to seek a cure there for the horrible agony caused by a Russian bullet which was still in his head.  His sons, handsome fellows in splendid costumes, with fine features and shoulders broad out of all proportion to waists that were like girls’, were going with him.  There were a dozen women besides, and do you know, my reader, what that pack of women was?  Letters of credit, bank notes, by means of which the old man with his wound expected to pay the expenses of his journey!  Having no cash, he had brought the twelve best-looking girls in his family with him.  He had just disposed of one on board, and he reckoned on doing the same with the rest all along the road.  We soon made the acquaintance of the party.  The girls were huddled together on deck in a sort of cage or trelliswork, where they remained, drenched by the sea, four days and three nights, without their chatter and their outbursts of merriment ever ceasing for a single instant.  They all dreamt of becoming the wives of sultans or pashas and of living in palaces.  As the old man fed them with nothing but millet, to fatten them, we used to bring them our dessert after each meal, and so we were soon good friends.  Thanks to some trifling service I rendered the old man, he consented to bringing the prettiest girl into my cabin, and allowing her to unveil, so that I might do her picture.  I thought the model and her costume both equally lovely, but the sitting was a very short one.  Whether it was shyness or sea-sickness I know not.  But she complained of the heat, began to cry, and I had to send her away.

I merely passed through Constantinople on my way back.  It was the middle of Ramadan, all the mosques lighted up at night, and the women promenading in the square of the Seraskier in the daytime—­a regular persil.  I went there one day with Paul Daru, Lavalette and Cyrus Gerard, all members of the embassy M. de Sercey was taking to Persia.  They came from Paris and told me the news from there.  In my turn I told them all about the battle of Nezib, a very interesting