town; neat wooden bridges were built over them, and though in the immediate neighbourhood of the town they were choked with filth, the rich verdure nourished by their stream was very ornamental. We dined in the usual style at a Greek convent, where we were lodged, and entering our boats at sunset, were landed the next morning at seven at the village of Silivria, the ancient Selymbria, of which it still retains considerable ruins; among others, 35 arches of a Roman bridge, extending about a quarter of a mile over an arm of the sea, and some large remains of the old wall standing on a high cliff that overhangs the sea. We were lodged in the wretched house of the Aga (Governor) of the village, at whose door inside was a wooden cage for prisoners, and a poor Greek confined in it for a debt of 100 piastres, which the ambassador freed him by paying. passing here the heat of the day, we rowed off again at sunset; breakfasted next morning at the village of Santo Stephano, six miles from Constantinople, with Signor Lorenzo, the Sultan's physician, the inhuman murder of whom I shall soon have to relate; and at half-past eleven on that day (the 28th June) entered the British palace at Pera. The Mehmendah, as we passed the Seraglio Point, lowered the awning of his boat, and sent a message to the Ambassador advising him to do the same, which he of course declined. We were delighted to arrive at a comfortable house, and to sleep on beds again, for we were feverish for want of sleep, which the boats had been too thronged

After

with vermin to admit of our enjoying, and our bones ached with lying on the decks in the vain attempt to obtain it.

The banks of the Hellespont, and the Western shore of the Sea of Marmora, are shamefully neglected, there being scarcely any marks of cultivation, except in the immediate neighbourhood of a town or village, where its richness gives ample proof that the general barrenness is not the fault of the soil. Numerous masses of ruin lay along the banks, and I was struck by the number of barrows I saw on them, similar to the supposed tombs of heroes on the Troad. Their purport must be left to conjecture; but their frequent occurrence must stagger the faith of the most credulous traveller in the appropriation of those on the plain of Troy. If the latter had stood alone in the neighbourhood, it would be less difficult to believe, that they had contained the ashes of the heroes from whom they are named. Our journey to Constantinople, though fatiguing, had been interesting. The greatest attention had been every where paid us; the Mehmendah always preceded us to announce our approach, and bespeak our accommodations. We were every where met on landing by the principal inhabitants, whose attendants carried incense before us to the house appointed for our lodging, and every comfort was provided for us that the place could supply.

AUDIENCES.

Ambassador's Audience of the Kaimakam.

THE Grand Vizir being at this time with the camp at Schumla, we had our first audience of the kaimakam (the officer who represents the vizir, with the same degree of power, during his absence from the capital,) on the 27th of July. At eleven, we left the palace in procession on horseback; embarked in our boats at Mé-eet Iskellesi (the Scale of the Dead, so called from its being the landing-place to which bodies are brought for interment from Constantinople to Pera), and landed on the Constantinople side, at the Vizir Iskellesi, where we found waiting for us saddle-horses provided for the occasion by the Ministers of the Porte, each of whom supplies a certain number. Here we stopped to take coffee, pipes, sherbet and sweetmeats, with the Chiaous Bashee, who received us in a wretched little room over a stable, to which we mounted by a ladder. After being delayed by him about a quarter of an hour, we rode, preceded by him, in the same procession to the Porte, of which the gate is very handsomely decorated with gilding, and inscriptions from the Koran. We descended from our horses, which waited for us in the large square court, and

were shewn into a large hall, richly painted and gilt, through which we passed; and having ascended a staircase, followed the Chiaous Bashee through a suite of handsome rooms to the spacious apartment intended for our reception. The kaimakam and the ambassador entered the room at the same moment by different doors*. On the appearance of the former, the Turkish attendants (of whom the room was so full that we entered with difficulty) set up a loud shouting. The kaimakam took no notice of any one till he had seated himself on a corner of the divan, when he saluted the ambassador, who sat on a chair purposely placed opposite to him on the same level as the divan. The gentlemen of the embassy stood round the ambassador, the secretary of embassy at his side holding the letter from the Prince Regent to the vizir. The ambassador recited his speech in French, which the dragoman of the Porte translated to the kaimakam, whose reply was rendered in French to the ambassador by the same interpreter, and the royal letter was delivered to the kaimakam. The pelisses were then distributed: to the ambassador a superb one of sable fur and cloth of gold; to the gentlemen of the embassy, the dragomans, and the merchants of the factory, eight of marten fur, and twelve of ermine fur; and to the upper servants and some Ionians who attended us, twenty of shalloon without fur. After remaining twenty mi

This simultaneous entrance is contrived in order to save the kaimakam from the indignity of rising to receive a Christian.

nutes in the presence of the kaimakam, we returned to the palace in the same order as we had left it; but with less comfort, being obliged by etiquette to wear our pelisses, though the sun was oppressively hot.

For a few days after the audience, we were none of us quite at ease, as the plague was known to exist in the city at the time it took place; and besides the number of people with whom we had necessarily come in contact, the pelisses we had put on were reasonable sources of apprehension, fur being the readiest vehicle of infection.

Ambassador's Audience of the Sultan.

Tuesday, the 11th of August, being fixed for the ambassador's audience of the Sultan, we left the palace in the morning, at a quarter before six, in the same order of procession as before, embarked at Topehana, landed at Vizir Iskellesi, where we found horses waiting for us, and again took coffee, &c., with the Chiaous Bashee; in our presence, he changed his turban for a cap of ceremony, generally worn on public occasions by the officers of state, being a narrow bonnet, not less than two feet high, and covered with white muslin. He preceded us to the entrance of the Porte, where it is usual for ambas

* An ambassador's audience of the Sultan, is always appointed to take place on a Tuesday, that being the day of divan in the seraglio