Take some hundreds of dilapidated farms, outhouses, a lot of rickety tenements of Holy well-street, Wych- street, and the Borough — catch up, wherever you can, any of the seedy, cracked, shutterless structures of planks and tiles to be seen in our cathedral towns — carry off odd sheds and stalls from Billingsgate, add to them a selection of the huts along the Thames between London-bridge and Greenwich — bring them, then, all together to the European side of the Straits of the Dardanelles, and having pitched on a bare round hill sloping away to the water's edge, on the most exposed portion of the coast, with scarcely tree or shrub, tumble them "higgledy piggledy" on its declivity, in such wise that the lines of the streets may follow on a large scale the lines of a bookworm through some old tome — let the roadways be very narrow, of irregular breadth, varying according to the bulgings and projections of the houses, and paved with large round slippery stones, painful and hazardous to walk upon — here and there borrow a dirty gutter from a back street in Boulogne — let the houses lean across to each other so that the tiles meet, or a plank thrown across forms a sort of "passage" or arcade — steal some of the popular monuments of London, the shafts of national testimonials, a half dozen of Irish Round Towers — surround these with a light gallery about twelve feet from the top, put on a large extinguisher-shaped roof, paint them white, and having thus made them into minarets, clap them down into the maze of buildings — then let fall big stones all over the place — plant little windmills with odd-looking sails on the crests of the hill over the town — transport the ruins of a feudal fortress from Northern Italy, and put it into the centre of the town, with a flanking tower at the water's edge — erect a few wooden cribs by the waterside to serve as cafe, custom-house, and government stores — and, when you have done this, you have to all appearance imitated the process by which Gallipoli was created. The receipt, if tried, will be found to answer beyond belief.
To fill up the scene, however, you must catch a number of the biggest breeched, longest bearded, dirtiest, and stateliest old Turks to be had at any price in the Ottoman empire; provide them with pipes, keep them smoking all day on wooden stages or platforms about two feet from the ground, everywhere by the water's edge or up the main streets, in the shops of the bazaar which is one of the " pas-
CRIMEA.
sages " or arcades already described; see that they have no slippers on, nothing but stout woollen hose, their foot gear being left on the ground, shawl turbans (one or two being green, for the real descendant of the Prophet), flowing fur-lined coats, and brighthued sashes, in which are to be stuck silver-sheathed yataghans and ornamented Damascus pistols; don't let them move more than their eyes, or express any emotion at the sight of anything except an English lady; then gather a noisy crowd of fez-capped Greeks in baggy blue breeches, smart jackets, sashes, and rich vests— of soberly- dressed Armenians — of keen-looking Jews, with flashing eyes — of Chasseurs de Vincennes, Zouaves, British riflemen, vivandieres. Sappers and Miners, Nubian slaves, Camel- drivers, Commissaries and Sailors, and direct them in streams round the little islets on which the smoking Turks are harboured, and you will populate the place.
It will be observed that women are not mentioned in this description, but children were not by any means wanting — on the contrary, there was a glut of them, in the Greek quarter particularly, and now and then a bundle of clothes, in yellow leather boots, covered at the top with a piece of white linen, might be seen moving about, which 3rouwill do well to believe contained a woman neither young nor pretty. Dogs, so large, savage, tailless, hairy, and curiously-shaped, that Wombwell could make a fortune out of them if aided by any clever zoological nomenclator, prowled along the shore and walked through the shallow water, in which stood bullocks and buffaloes, French steamers and transports, with the tricolor flying, and the paddlcbox boats full of troops on their way to land — a solitary English steamer, with the red ensign, at anchor in the bay — and Greek polaccas, with their beautiful white sails and trim rig, flying down the straits, which are here about three and a half miles broad, so that the villages on the rich swelling hills of the Asia Minor side are plainly visible, — must be added, and then the picture wTill be tolerably complete.