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.
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