The Argosy — page 238: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

224 Remembrances of Constantinople. Rosaries are to be had at all prices, from one shilling to twenty pounds. The most prized are of amber, and the next in value of malachite. Some very cheap ones are made of a black composition, scented, gilded, and stamped into stars and crescents; others are manufactured of bitumen from the Dead Sea, and coloured black, green, or red. Whilst we were making our purchases, and turning over everything in this most amusing shop, we were invited to take coffee. To each of us was handed a small filigree silver cup, pointed at the bottom so that it would not stand ; within this one of china filled with coffee was placed. We were not then accustomed to the Oriental style of serving coffee, consequently we allowed the grounds to settle, and found the whole a most unpalatable mess. When well made and drunk quickly while the froth is on it, and before it settles into a thick dark mass, it is refreshing and full of aroma; but at best it will not bear comparison with a cup of good French café noir. In our progress through the bazaar we had observed several much- frequented shops, with clean cool-looking marble counters, on which lay what looked like rows of alabaster paper-weights. Some of these identical things, floating in milk, were served to us in saucers after the coffee. They were, I fancy, composed of ground rice or some thing analogous to it; but the flavouring was exquisite. Why cannot our pastrycooks vary their perpetual display of indigestible buns and greasy tarts with some tempting dainty of this description? We found the polite perfumer’s such a good point whence to observe the motley groups flowing incessantly along, that we gladly remained there an hour or more before visiting the jewel, drug, and other markets. The variety of people and costumes that passed before us was astonishing, and seemed quite to justify the supposition that on visiting Constantinople a learned and reverend gentleman of our acquaintance, who already spoke sixty-three languages and dialects, had “ picked up the rest” in the bazaar. Almost the rarest costume was that of the pure, old-fashioned, unmitigated Turk. Indeed, except in the picturesque drug market, we rarely saw a turban rise, fold after fold, a foot high. The handsome Parsees, in their curiously-shaped black caps, rising straight from the forehead in a tall peak, and sloping off to a few inches behind, were very numerous. Large faced, good-humoured looking, strong-limbed hammals or porters, who are mostly Bulgarians, toiled under heavy weights, in red jackets embroidered with gold, dark-blue baggy trowsers, and buskins to match. The women, in very long, scanty paletot-like dresses, with sleeves down to the ground, their heads covered with hoods, and their faces more or less hidden by yashmaks, looked like bright perambulating bundles. They afforded us infinite amusement: by their awkward scrambles after their heelless slippers. To keep their long robes out of the dirt, they frequently hold them 's ‘so comicbooks.com