Soldiers are drilling everywhere and a raw lot they are. The treasury is empty, and many of them have only one shoe, and some none at all, only a coarse stocking bound round with rags. They may be experts at killing women and children, but they would make a sorry showing against trained soldiers. And then there are the "battleships:" fierce, devilish-looking bulldogs that could demolish any tin-lined fort in existence if they could only hit it, or even if the sailors could manage to fire the guns—or in fact, if only the guns could be fired by any one—which is exceedingly doubtful.
In smells, the vilest of the vile, including the acrid variety that cuts the nostrils like a razor, Constantinople stands forever and alone on a plinth of infamy, and no language that can be dragged into the arena of expression can be utilized to describe them. They paralyze the intellect and dull the sense of punishment and acute agony. No gladiator could enter the lists with them in deadly combat and live to tell the tale. They arise in part from the debris and remnants of cheese whose position in the flight of time was contemporaneous with that of Alexander the Great; from fish that must have darted beneath the keels of the ships at the battle of Salamis; from tallow, used to grease the chariot wheels at the battle of Marathon (now sold as butter); and from the embalmed beef that was left over from the Crimean War. These with many powerful additions supply the main force and foundation of all this pervading "sweetness;" but the distinguishing "high lights" come from minor causes, such as the onions of last year rotting in nets hanging in the sun, strings of garlic returned to circulation by the Argonauts when they came back from hunting the golden fleece, but now hung as a badge of trade on the door-jambs; and the frying of eggs, that have long lost their market value, with Bombay ghee and young garlic, the whole mellowed and perhaps refined by the continual vapors from open sewers. One fragrance that perhaps tickles the olfactory nerve with more delicacy than all others and might be called a perfumed "dream," comes from baking a garlic pie piping hot in the open, with Turkish Limburger as a substantial ingredient. This zephyr when in full action sets at naught the vain attempt of asafoetida to hold its place in the history of smells that used to rank with Araby the Blest. If Alexander had inhaled one whiff of this combination in its full purity it would have floored him in Constantinople and he could not have lived to conquer the world. One of the "Corks" fainted when he hit the embalmed beef zone and was taken to the rear in a red cross ambulance.
A CROWD AT THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM, WAITING FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN. EACH TRIBE IS IMPATIENT TO ENTER AND OCCUPY ITS OWN SPACE
The sights in these places are too dreadful for publication, and as for the taste—well, I tried a speck of fried sausage and thought I had touched a live wire! it left a scar on my tongue. We made a special excursion to see these sights and experience the smells. The driver of our carriage took advantage of a stop to take a drink at a Turkish café; the procession of vehicles began to move, and as we were in the middle of it our horses had to move too. This left us without a driver and I had to mount his seat and drive half a mile at a walk before our man caught up with us. In the crowded, narrow streets this experience was not a pleasant one, but I did the best I could and nothing happened of note excepting that in turning a sharp corner the team ran up on the sidewalk, from which I was chased with wild gestures and eastern profanity by a Turkish son of a wooden gun, much to the amusement of the natives and the rest of the procession. Still, the Turks, who are steeped in these conditions, seem to enjoy them: they laugh and joke at the unsuccessful attempts of the outlander to acquire their tastes. If they are happy, why should we object?
THIS IS QUEEN HATSHEPSET'S DE-AL-BAHARA TEMPLE AT THEBES, ORNAMENTED WITH FINE GOLD. THE ORIGINAL METHODS BY WHICH "HATTY" SWIPED THE MONEY TO BUILD THIS TEMPLE LEAVE WALL STREET TIED TO THE HITCHING POST AT THE SUB-TREASURY STEPS
The costumes of the Turk are without number: there is no cut nor pattern of garment that is not embraced in their fashion plates and the colors run riot through all the gamut of the rainbow. But, seriously, they beat all other nations in the arrangement of their head-dress; no Turk is too poor or too low in caste to devote his time and attention to what he wears on his head. Of course, the rich ones have immense turbans, woven with stranded ropes of cloth in bright parti-colors, placed on the head as a finish to the toilet with as much care as a wedding cake is posed on a table; but the poor Turk takes a red fez as a basis to build on, and will, with cheese-cloth, or a strip of old toweling, or a wisp of worn-out silk and some feathers, turn out an effect that it is almost impossible to imitate even where ample facilities are at hand. Some of them wear their turbans well back on the head, some pitched forward, many with a rake to the side; but all with the artistic instinct that compels instant admiration. They are the "old masters" of headgear and their masterpieces may be seen by the thousand in any crowded street.