ABSTRACT
The old wooden house of Stamboul is never very tall. It sits roomily on the ground, seldom rising above two storeys. Its effect resides in its symmetry and proportion, for there is almost no ornament about it. A last fragment of old Stamboul is walled in the heart of this maze, a square enclosure of deeper twilight which is called the Bezesten. Tradition has it that the shopkeepers of the Bezesten originally served God as well as mammon, and were required to give a certain amount of time to their mosques. A last fragment of old Stamboul is walled in the heart of this maze, a square enclosure of deeper twilight which is called the Bezesten. Tradition has it that the shopkeepers of the Bezesten originally served God as well as mammon. The coffee-houses indeed are an essential part of Stamboul, and in them the outsider comes nearest, perhaps, to intimacy with that reticent city.
