a domestic look, though it is in the full open
streets.

The correspondent is very anxious, the writer
very grave and consequential, the gossip very
deferential and attentive. Before the writer
are a small box of paper, reed-pens, pen-cases,
inks, and seals; his chibouk has gone out,
negIected in the hurry of business. The three men
represent three types of Turks; the one, a bigoted,
dull, day-dreamer; the letter-sender, a
mean, puzzled, opium-eating knave; the centre
man, a full-brained, but sorrowful,
simple-hearted, honest Mussulman. He looks quite
the pasha with his yellow turban, red fez,
light-coloured robe, and blue-striped inner dress; the
gossip, with broad red sash and purple robe, is
the thorough old Turk; the correspondent
is a feeble, miserable mixture of European and
Asiatic dress— flapping, buttonless waistcoat,
and trousers of dirty grey plaid silk. What it
was that wise Abdallah wrote— whether news
of hope or sorrow, of birth or death, of joy or
grief — I shall never know; it has gone, like the
great river of events that flows by daily. Be
sure, however, that if of joy or grief, it ended
with some pious ejaculation, as, "It is ordained,"
or, " It is decreed by Allah."

But let us get at once to our fountain.
It is not such a mean little sink, guarded by
sticks of black sealing-wax, as charity has
provided for us in London streets; no, it is a
complete institution— a sort of water-temple. It is
like the gated entrance to an Eastern palace.

This fountain, too, is a memorable fountain;
not that it is the one from which Sultan Mahmoud
used to send his slaves with silver vessels
to fetch water, which vessels, when filled, were
immediately sealed with the royal seal; it is
memorable, because of its situation. Do you see
that tall, narrow archway, with the inner
door-way below leading into a court-yard, with the gilt
sun and royal cypher above it, and the striped
red and white sentry-boxes on either side?
That is the Imperial Gate of the Seraglio —
the Sublime Porte from which we derive our
silly name for the Turkish government. That
gate has let in and out, more villains, murderers,
thieves, and horrid rascals, than any
gate in the world. Near it are still shown the
niches where old Ali Pasha's head, and those
of his family, were put for show when brought
from Albania. Those plain, square, grated
windows above, are the windows of private
apartments. That gate leads to the Downing-street
of Constantinople. There, are all the public
offices, with long matted passages filled with
suitors, smoking and waiting great men's pleasures.

Now, these fountains arose either from royal
magnificence (how easy it is to be generous with
other people's money!), or from the bequests of
charitable people: dying Turks not unfrequently
leaving enormous legacies, not only to build,
but also to maintain fountains. Sometimes
they are square, isolated buildings standing
by the river-side, or usefully in the centre
of some market-place: never, however, for
mere ornament or display. Generally, as in
this instance, they project in a sort of bow, or
apse, from the wall; sometimes, in the humbler
instances, mere brass taps project from a sort of
ornamental altar-piece flush with the wall. They
are never quite alike, but these features all of the
larger ones have in common:— an overlapping
roof of extreme breadth, so as to cast the greatest
possible amount of shadow; much inscription and
cursive and undulating floral ornament, either
painted or carved in marble; a terrace with steps
round its base and tall gratings, round the lower
openings of which, are chained small brass
vessels to drink out of. No wonder that as people
come here to bathe in shadow, and to drink
the liquid coolness fresh from the well that guards
it, as the melon does its inner juice, the fountain
becomes, almost from necessity, a special lounge
for everybody but the women. Hither come the
roast chesnuts and the green peaches, the figs
and the pickled cucumbers, the sherbet and the
lemonade, the horse-boys and the beggars, the
fakir and the guitar player, the street boy and
the wild dog; here, the porter rests his luggage
mountains, and the araba man looks for custom.

The inscriptions, inserted in gilt sickle-blade
letters in oblong panels in front of the buildings
and above their external tanks, run generally
somewhat in this way:

"Rest, O traveller, for this is the fountain of
enjoyment; rest here, as under the shadow of
the plane-tree, for this roof casts a shade as
deep as that of the cypress, but with more of
joy. Ask one day of the angels in Eden if this
water is not as delicious as the rivers of that
garden, or as the stream of Zemzem. Sultan
Achmed, the second Alexander, he whose glory
is as the sun, and his generosity perpetually
increasing, like the tree of life, has reared this
kiosk and stamped it with his signet ring. This
water flows unceasingly, like his benevolence, as
well for the king as the beggar, the wise man
and the foo. The first of all the blessings of
Allah is water."

As these poems in blue and gold, sometimes
run to whole yards of verse, let this specimen
suffice. To those thirsty people who can
read the fish-hook and serrated Turkish
characters, these fountains are perpetually chanting
poems.

The iron gratings that shut in the fountain
rooms are always specially beautiful, and
generally of a pattern devised on purpose for the
building. They are fine as jeweller's work, and full of
the most cunning harmony of flowing lines, trefoiled
and heart-shaped, and blossoming into a
thousand shapes of ingenuity and fairy-like art.
The shafts between the gratings are marble, and,
waist high, comes the lower wall, on the top of
which rest the brass chatties.

Most of these fountains have a guardian who
lives within, at least by day, and who sees that
nothing is injured or defaced. There, this
venerable Dryad hears the water rinse and trickle,
as he reads his Koran, and dreams about
Paradise, and the future rewards of the charitable,
such as he who endowed the fountain.