purpose, who immediately collect and clear it away. They afterwards dry the horsedung in the sun, beat it with a mallet through fine sieves, and make it into litter for the horses; for no straw can be obtained for litter in Constantinople. Our people also learned this from the Turks, and littered the horses in this way, and when the horses had become used to it they rested as willingly upon it as upon straw.
When we had dismounted, my lords the ambassadors went on foot through the gate into the third square, and we after them. Two pashas, counsellors of the Sultan, came out to meet and welcome them. At this gate stood several hundred janissaries. The two pashas led my lords the ambassadors into the divan or council, and we stood there also; and upon its being explained to the pashas what was to be said to the Sultan in conversation, they gave orders that nothing else should be said but what they had now heard. The two pashas went first, with their hands placed crosswise, out of the council-chamber, and proceeded to the Emperor to announce my lord the ambassador. This third square is large and clean, and the imperial apartments are opposite the gate. On both sides and also on the third side, where the gate is, the whole building is only two stories high; the eunuch chamberlains live in the apartments on the right hand, and the Emperor’s wives in those on the left. From the gate to the imperial apartments stood about two or three thousand janissaries on the right, in caps and coloured mantles, that looked as if they had been painted, and on the left as many spahis or horse-soldiers, who were, however, on foot, there being no horses there, quite up to the imperial apartments. And although
