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Updated: May 18, 2025
Having listened to my explanations without understanding a word, and, without condescending to question the Armenians, they survey the machine some minutes in silence and then return to their former positions, their cigarettes, and their meditations, paying not the slightest heed to several caique loads of Greek merry-makers who have rowed out to meet the new arrivals, and are paddling around the steamer, filling the air with music.
I say lovely, for the Turkish woman, when she is unobserved, when she knows her own beauty and meets eyes whose admiration she desires to rouse, always finds means of permitting her veil the most delightful if indiscreet revelations. Consequently I was always on the look-out to try and get a sight of the Sultana's caique.
Three oarsmen, splendid white-skinned fellows with long fair moustaches, and athletic frames scarcely concealed beneath their white drawers and striped silk gauze shirts, sent their mistress's caique flying through the water. She was a tall woman, with piercing eyes and an aristocratic air always seated between two lovely maids of honour.
At last a Mussulman signed to him to approach, and inquired his fare. After some bargaining, the Turk entered the caique, and the boatman still held on to the pier in the hope of securing a third passenger, which, after a very short time, he did. The third passenger happened to be a Jew, who had forsaken his faith for that of Islam.
That boat slim, shining, and shooting through the water like a pike after a small fish was a caique from Tophana; it had distanced the Sultan's oarsmen and the best crews of the Capitan Pasha in the Bosphorus; it was the workmanship of Togrul-Beg, Caikjee Bashee of his Highness. The Bashee had refused fifty thousand tomauns from Count Boutenieff, the Russian Ambassador, for that little marvel.
The building extended so over the water that its owner could drop at once into his caique and be pulled to almost any part of the city, and, like all the people who live along the river's banks, he was much on its surface.
Silently the caique glided over the smooth surface of the Bosphorus; and silently the occupants sat. When beyond Maidens' Tower, the spokesman, turning to the Dervish, said: "Brother, with thy inmost blessing give me that sack, representing everything thou dost possess in this world."
"It did you no harm to ask," answered Alexander testily. "Let us take a caïque and follow her." "You may, if you please," said Paul. "I have no intention of getting myself into trouble." "Nonsense! Why should we get into trouble? We have as good a right to row on the Bosphorus as they have." "We have no right to go near them. It is contrary to the customs of the country."
It was to take place within the Seraglio. The first incident in the day was that my boat met the Russian Minister's caique at the landing-stage, and as neither of our coxswains would yield to the other there was an awful bump, which damaged the dignity of our attitudes by knocking us down like card houses.
"Whether you like it or not, you must go to Santa Sophia to-night, and see the service," said Paul, firmly. "You need not stay long, unless you like." "If you take me there, I will stay rather than have the trouble of coming away," answered the other. "Bah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "there is that caïque again!"
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