court of the palace. I have read "Bluebeard," and don't care for
peeping into forbidden doors; so that the second court was quite
enough for me; the pleasure of beholding it being heightened, as it
were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting next door, with
uplifted scimitar ready to fall on you--present though not seen.

A cloister runs along one side of this court; opposite is the hall
of the divan, "large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, after
the Moorish manner, plain enough." The Grand Vizier sits in this
place, and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be conducted
hence on horseback, attired with robes of honour. But the ceremony
is now, I believe, discontinued; the English envoy, at any rate, is
not allowed to receive any backsheesh, and goes away as he came, in
the habit of his own nation. On the right is a door leading into
the interior of the Seraglio; NONE PASS THROUGH IT BUT SUCH AS ARE
SENT FOR, the Guide-book says: it is impossible to top the terror
of that description.

About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans and
pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses; and among them, sunning
himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old fat, wrinkled, dismal white
eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head sunk into his
chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed incapable to hold
up his bloated old body. He squeaked out some surly reply to my
friend the dragoman, who, softened and sweetened by the tarts he
had just been devouring, was, no doubt, anxious to be polite: and
the poor worthy fellow walked away rather crestfallen at this
return of his salutation, and hastened me out of the place.

The palace of the Seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the