Litchfield enquirer., 1876-11-30

shipmen from some foreign vessel, soli-
 tary beauties reclining in selfish lowell
 ness, grave fat Turks, in stupid enjoy
 ment. No voyage could be gayer than
 this through the shipping, with the null tltudinoasshouses of the deity rising on
 either hand. As We advance, the shore is
 lined with people, mostly ladies in gay
 holiday apparel, squatting along the
 stream, as on spring day in Paris those
 who cannot afford carriages line the ave- nues to the Bois de Cologne to watch the passing pageant. The stream grows more narrow, at length winds in graceful turns, and finally is only few yards wide, and the banks are retained by masonry. The vale narrows also, and the hills draw near. The waterway is choked with gayly paint ed caiques, full of laughing beauties and reckless pleasure seekers, and the reader of Egyptian history might think himself in saturnalia of the revel makers in the apcient fete of Bubastis on the Nile. The women are clad in soft silks,--blue, red, pink, yellow and gray,-some of them with their faces tied up as if they were victims of toothache, others wearing the gauge veiis, which enhance, without con- cealing, charms; often the color and beau ty that nature has denied are initiated by paint and enamel. ...... ... -.-...-.
 We land and walk on. Singers and players on curious instruments sit along the bank and in groups under the trees, and fill the festive air with the plaintive and untrained Oriental music. The vari- ety of costumes is innumerable; here meet all that is gay and fantastic in Flu rope and Asia. The navigation ends at the white marble palace and mosque which we now see shining amid the trees, fresh with May foliage. Booths and tents, green and white, are erected every where, and there are many groups of gyp- sies and fortune tellers. The olive-com- plexioned,. black-eyed, long haired wo- men, who trade in the secrets of the Orient and the vices of the Occident, and do thriving business with those curious of the future, or fascinated by the mys- terious beauty of the soothsayers. Be- sides the bands of music, there are soli- tarY bagplpers whose instrument Is a skin, with pipe for mouth-piece and another at the opposite end having graduated holes for lingering; and I noticed with pleasure that the lingering and the music continued long after the musician had ceased to blow into the inflated skin. Nothing was wanting to the most brilliant scene: ladies in bright groups on gay rugs and mats, children weaving head-dresses from leaves and rushes, crowds of car riages, fine horses and gallant horsemen, sellers of refreshments balancing great t'ays on their heads, and bearing tripod stools, and all degrees of the most cosmo- politan capital enjoying the charming spring holiday.
 In the palace grounds dozens of pea cocks were stunning themselves, and the Judas-trees were in full pink bloom. Above the palace the river flows in walled banks, and before it reaches It, tumbles over an artificial fall of rocks, and sweeps round the garden in graceful curve Be yond the palace, also on the bank of the st cam, are grove of superb trees and greens~ ard; here military band plays, and th1s is the fashionable meeting place of carriages, where hundreds were circling round and round in the initiated etiquette of Hyde Park.
 We came down at sunset, racing swiftly among the returning caiques. passing and passed by laughing boatfuls, whose gay geant on the Grand Canal of Venice, and watching, with the interest of the philos- opher only, the light boat of beauty and A "AAOx PuAouCA ny epO SOutAIu1 CdlQu0 OI and desire. The hour con- tributed to make the scene one of magical beauty.
 Clouds had collected in the vest. and the heavy smoke of innumerable steamers lay dark upon the Bosphorus. But as we came down, the sun broke out and gave us one of those effects of which nature is sparing. On the heights of Stamboul, dozen minarets, only half distinct, were touched by the gold rays; the windows of both cities, piled above each other, blazed in it; the smooth river and the swift cai- ques were gilded by it.; and behind us, domes and spires, and the tapering shafts of the Muezzin, the bases hid by the mist, rose into the heaven of the golden sunset and appeared like mansions, and most nnsubstantial ones, in the sky And ever the light caiques flew over the rosy water in chase of pleasure, in motion that satisfied the utmost longing for repose. while the enchantment of heaven seemed to have dropped upon the earth.
 The world has lost it's gloss for us,
 Since We went boating on the Bosphorua.