"Oh yes, they are, but they have to be veiled, and so bundled up that you can not only not tell one woman from another, but they hardly look like women at all—more like unsteady balloons, or inflated sacks of different colours. They wear yellow leather boots, and no stockings. Over the boots they wear large slippers, in which they shuffle along with a gait very little less awkward than the toddle of a cramp-footed lady in China. If they are ungraceful on foot, matters are not much better when they ride. Sitting astride a donkey (for they do not use side-saddles), a Turkish lady is about as comical an object as you could wish to behold, though I have no doubt she is quite unconscious of looking anything but dignified, as she presses on to her shopping in the Bazaar, screaming to the half-naked Arab donkey-boy to urge on her steed with his stick. As the great cloak dress, in which women envelop themselves from head to foot when they go out, is all of one colour, they have this advantage over Englishwomen out shopping, that they do not look ugly from being bedizened with ill-assorted hues and frippery trimmings. In fact a mass of Turkish women, each clothed in one shade of colour, looks very like a flower-bed—a flower-bed of sole-coloured tulips without stalks!"
"The Bazaars are bigger than Charity Bazaars, I suppose," said Maggie thoughtfully; "are they as big as the Baker Street Bazaar?"
"The Bazaar of Stamboul, the Turkish Quarter of Constantinople, is almost a Quarter by itself. It takes up many, many streets, Maggie. I am sure I wish with all my heart I could take you children through it. You would think yourselves in fairy-land, or rather in some of those underground caves full of dazzling treasures such as Aladdin found himself in."
"But why, Cousin Peregrine? Do the Turks have very wonderful things in their shops?"
"I fancy, Maggie, that in no place in the world can one see such a collection of valuable merchandise gathered from all quarters of the globe. But it is not only the gold, the jewels, the ivories, the gorgeous silks and brocades, morocco leathers, and priceless furs, which make these great Eastern markets unlike ours. The common wares for everyday use are often of a much more picturesque kind than with us. There is no great beauty in an English boot-shop, but the shoe-bazaar in Stamboul is gay with slippers of all colours, embroidered with gold and silver thread, to say nothing of the ladies' yellow leather boots. A tobacconist's shop with us is interesting to none but smokers, but Turkish pipes have stems several feet long, made of various kinds of wood, and these and the amber mouth-pieces, which are often of very great value, and enriched with jewels, make the pipe-seller's wares ornamental as well as useful. Nor can our gunsmiths' shops compete for picturesqueness with the Bazaar devoted to arms, of all sorts and kinds, elaborately mounted, decorated, sheathed, and jewelled. Turkey and Persian carpets and rugs are common enough in England now, and you know how handsome they are. Turbans, and even fezes, you will allow to look prettier than English hats. Then some of the shops display things that one does not see at all at home, such as the glass lamps for hanging in the mosques and Greek churches. Nor is it the things for sale alone which make the Bazaar so wonderful a sight. The buyers and sellers are at least as picturesque as what they sell and buy. The floor of each shop is raised two or three feet from the ground, and on a gay rug the turbaned Turk who keeps it sits cross-legged and smokes his pipe and makes his bargains, whilst down the narrow street (which in many instances is arched overhead with stone) there struggle, and swarm, and scream, and fight, black slaves, obstinate camels, primitive-looking chariots full of Turkish ladies, people of all colours in all costumes, and from every part of the world."
"It must be a wonderful place," sighed Maggie; "streets full of beautiful shoes, and streets full of beautiful carpets."
"Just so, Maggie."