dishes, generally at least seven or eight, and sometimes as many as twenty; but each is only tasted and rapidly removed. At first it looks somewhat mysterious when people apparently wrap up some pieces of string in brown paper and eat the parcel with avidity. But the string is cheese drawn out like very attenuated vermicelli, and the brown paper sheets of very thin bread which serve as a tablecloth and napkin as well as for food. During Ramazan no Moslem may eat, drink, or smoke between sunrise and sunset. The latter phenomenon is announced by a cannon, and some minutes before the gun fires a hungry crowd is gathered round the table waiting for the blessed sound. Then follows half an hour of rapid, silent nutrition, foroccupant of the hotel is the Turkish inspector of Reforms. To rightly understand the duties of this functionary it must be remembered that the Turkish Government is divided into two parts, which have no connection with one another: firstly, the real Government, which is hard to comprehend, but of which one gets a dim idea by observation on the spot; and secondly, the show Government, intended to impress Europe, and having as chief practical result the enrichment of telegraphic agencies. Two common manifestations of the show Government are circulars to the Powers, and commissions despatched to the p. xxxiiiProvinces to rectify abuses. The present Commissioner has come to inspect reforms, and from the official language used respecting him it may be supposed that his mission is to tend