Soyer's Culinary Campaign: Being Historical Reminiscences of the Late War.: With The Plain Art of Cookery for Military and Civil Institutions

of it were open to the public by ticket, yet very few visitors could boast of having seen so much of the interior as myself of this stupendous and most elegant area, where the modern houri of Mahomet were shortly to be located, they at this time still remaining in the old palace on the Bosphorus. The large room preparing for the reception of the Sultan’s favourites had but very little moveable furniture, but at the same time was most elegantly decorated. Nothing but couches were placed round the room, while the flooring was of highly-polished wood of a most tasty design; the whole of the hangings and coverings were of a rich satin of a lavender colour, with a large flowery pattern; twenty chandeliers, of immense dimensions--about seven feet in height--sprang from the ground, proudly bearing each more than one hundred wax-lights. The wall was after the Oriental fashion, which I do not much admire, here and there painted _al fresco_, representing various views of either landscape, colonnades, palaces, &c. In spite of this defect, the effect was so peculiar at the first glance, that it produced on me a most extraordinary sensation. To my surprise I found the ceiling remarkably low, but which I found, on consideration, would not appear so to its future innumerable tenants, from their habit of squatting on the floor. The effect of the light on this apartment had been tried two nights before, and the ends of the wax-lights still remained in the sockets of the chandeliers, and which, when lit, must have had a most extraordinary effect. Here for the first time I had an uninterrupted view from the interior of a harem, through the latticed windows, which are now made on an improved principle to the old Turkish style, which give you more than ever an opportunity to see from the inside without being seen, the exterior of which is also painted with views of landscapes, which are visible from the Bosphorus. At the further end of this stupendous kind of drawing-room were several apartments for the favourites, most gorgeously decorated