When an audience is granted by the sultan to a Frank ambassador, it is notified to him by the dragoman, and a very early hour is appointed for the purpose. Horses, richly caparisoned, are sent to convey him and his suite; and, before light in the morning, if it be not in summer, they mount in their grandest costumes. As all the Frank ministers reside in Pera, they have the harbour to cross, so they clatter down the steep and rugged streets leading to the water, at the imminent hazard of breaking their limbs, and display any thing but a grand and dignified procession. Having passed the harbour, they are received in a small mean coffee-house on the water-edge, where pipes and coffee are presented, after which they resume their march on fresh horses. There stands a great tree, at the point where some streets meet; here the cortege are directed to halt, and here they are condemned to wait till the grand vizir, and other functionaries, are pleased to issue from his bureau, in the Downing-street of Constantinople. The contemptuous manner in which infidel ministers were formerly treated, here began to display itself. Instead of the respect with which the representative of a brother sovereign ought to be received, he was kept standing in an open, dirty street, sometimes under heavy rain, for an hour or more, without the slightest attention shown, or notice taken of him, except being stared at, or called opprobrious names, muttered by some fanatic Turk as he passed by. At length the vizir was seen slowly moving down from his office; and it was supposed that he would courteously greet the expected ambassador, and apologize for his delay:−but no−he passed on with the most imperturbable gravity; not even condescending to look at the ambassador, or seeming to know that he and his suite were not part of the vulgar crowd. They were then permitted to move on, and follow, at an humble distance, the vizir up this street, till they entered the Babu Humayun; and here commenced a new series of degradations, which have been already noticed. These barbarisms, however, are now passing away, and, among other ameliorations of Turkish manners, the sultan receives the representatives of his brother sovereigns in a more becoming manner.

As the houses in the street overlook the gardens of the Seraglio, strangers, who dared not enter, are led, by an idle and dangerous curiosity, sometimes to attempt to overlook the walls of the sacred enclosure, and see what is passing on the other side; and stories are related of persons sacrificed to the perilous effort. Some even who had no such object in view, have fallen victims to the jealousy of the harem. On one occasion, the friend of an Armenian merchant, who had a house here, brought a telescope, to examine the distant objects on the other side of the sea of Marmora: unfortunately the view extended across the gardens, and, while he was intently engaged in tracing the declivities of Mount Olympus, the sultan passed below, and caught with his eye the glitter of the glass of the telescope. Two chaoueshes were instantly despatched, who entered the house, and the unfortunate man found himself seized behind; and, before he had time to take the fatal instrument from his eye, a bowstring was put round his neck, and he was strangled at the window, in view of the sultan, who, it is said, waited below to assure himself of the execution.

But this street witnessed a still more terrible display of Turkish vengeance. After the awful destruction of the Janissaries at the Atmeidan, they were everywhere hunted down like wild beasts through the city. Sometimes they were killed wherever they were overtaken, and their bodies suffered to remain weltering on the spot. Sometimes they were brought to some enclosure, where they were kept till a number was collected together, when armed men rushed among them, and they were destroyed in a mass. Some of them were dragged into this street from the neighbouring ones, as it was the great avenue leading to the Seraglio, and there sacrificed as a grateful offering to the sultan. Their heads were cut off, their trunks were drawn up at each side of the street, and for three days, the appointed time for executed bodies to remain so exposed, he passed up and down between this Oriental display of headless men, lining the street to do the sovereign honour; thus realizing, only a few years since, in a European capital, the horrid exhibitions in which a Bajazet or a Tamerlane delighted, centuries ago.

Along the wall near the great gate was the favourite spot selected for the suspension of those trophies which marked the triumph of Islamism over Christianity. On every victory obtained during their European wars, the standards taken from Germans, Russians, Hungarians, and other powers, were displayed here; and more recently the captive flags of the Greeks were constantly seen fluttering, in an inverted position, over heaps of ears and noses which were piled below. Among them were several on which was depicted the cross, and various representations of Christian events, but particularly the resurrection which was labelled “Anastasis,” intended to be emblematic of their political resurrection. But of all the standards, that of Ipsera was the most interesting. After a gallant and almost incredible defence of this little island against the Turkish fleet, which surrounded it on all sides, and poured in numerous troops at every point, these few brave defenders were compelled to take refuge in their last fortress. Here they displayed their flag inscribed with their determination to die, and their actions coincided with the inscription. The Turks were permitted without much opposition to enter the fortress, and, when it was filled with the crowd, the whole was blown into the air. The last remnant of the Ipsariots, with an equal number of Turks, perished in one indiscriminate carnage. The broad flag which had floated over the self-devoted fortress, was brought in triumph, and suspended on this wall. It was of large size, and inscribed ΗΛΑΗΘΤ, the Greek anagram of “Death or Freedom;” and while the passenger “contemplated its scorched and torn remnants hanging over the mutilated remains of the brave spirits who unfurled it, it forcibly recalled to his mind that desperate devotion which in all ages distinguished the Greeks.”