Mingled amongst these slippers might also be seen a variety of round analies, or hand-mirrors, with quick handles, mounted in gold or silver embroidery, and ceaselessly enriched with seed pearls. These fairly toys are indispensable to the Turkish women, as they’re the companions, not solely of their bogs however of their voyages up and down the Bosphorus, the place, reclining on their cushions, they restore, because the swift caique shoots alongside, the disarray which the sharp sea-breezes create within the folds of their snowy veils and ample mantles.
However decidedly probably the most glittering road within the Tcharchi, is that appropriated to the embroiderers; the place silks, stiff with probably the most elaborate needle-work, wrought in gold and silver threads; virtually impalpable muslin, homosexual with clusters of bright-coloured silken flowers; tobacco luggage of cachemirc, which seem to have value the maker years of labour; and expensive scarfs from Persia, with golden borders shaped of verses from the Koran, or love-ballads from Hafiz, are to be seen on all sides. All of the embroidery wrought in Constantinople, with only a few exceptions, is the work of the Armenian ladies, who, secluded much more strictly than the honest Turks inside the recesses of the harem, emulate their thrifty and pains-taking husbands in tbeir untiring business; however a lot of the costliest, significantly that which is labored on cacheinire, is imported from Persia.
The Fruit Bazar stands near the water’s edge, and abounds with dried fruits of each description—figs and dates from Smyrna; raisins, plums, the small candy currant of Corinth, and each different selection able to preservation ; the one inconsistency being the sale of cheese, and Russian butter, packed in calf-skins, and most disagreeable in look, among the many extra enticing articles already enumerated.
Sample and texture
The Broussa silks occupy a really appreciable road, because the produce of the celebrated looms of that metropolis is vastly esteemed by the Turks, each for sample and texture. The staple commerce of the traditional capital of Bithynia being uncooked silk, two-thirds of the homes are colonized by the “ spinning-worm ;” and the silk is consequently utilized by the weavers with a profusion which renders the standard of the manufacture so strong, that many people have been deluded into the idea that it was blended with cotton—a cloth which is to them way more costly and diflicult of entry. The colors are seldom shiny; for the waters about Broussa arc so extremely mineralized, as to uninteresting the silk very materially within the strategy of spinning; but it surely most likely derives from the identical circumstance its uncommon energy and sturdiness. The workmen of the town are extraordinarily knowledgeable in interweaving gold and silver threads within the warp; and the silks so woven are vastly esteemed within the harems. The plainer patterns are utilized by each sexes indiscriminately; and almost the entire costume of each respectable Turk or Armenian consists of Broussa silk. The demand is therefore very nice, and the provision commensurate with it; and there are few busier localities within the Tcharchi than this. Just a few Genoa velvets and European satins could also be discovered within the bales of the retailers; however as they’re comparatively unsaleable, the Frank woman who seeks them has no alternative of being fastidious in her choice.
Historical Ottoman 