92	PRECIOUS STONES.
	passage affords, on personal veracious evidence, a glowing picture of the splendour, magnificence, and richness of Eastern dresses. " I was led into a large room, with a sofa extending the whole length of it, covered with pale blue figured velvet, on a silver ground, with cushions of the same ; where I was desired to repose until the Sultana appeared, who had contrived this manner of reception so as to avoid rising at my entrance : though she made me an inclination of the head when I rose up to her. She did not seem to me to have ever been so beautiful as the fair Fatima, (whom I saw at Adrianople,) though she had the remains of a fine face, more decayed by sorrow than time. Her dress was something so surprisingly rich that I cannot forbear describing it. She wore a vest called ' dualma,' which differs from a caftan by longer sleeves, and folding over at the bottom. It was of purple cloth, straight to her shape, and thick set, on each side, down to her feet, and round the sleeves, with pearls, of the best water, being of the same size as their buttons usually are, about the bigness of a pea. And to these buttons large loops of diamonds were fastened in the form of those gold loops so common on birthday coats. This habit was tied at the waist with two large tassels of smaller pearls, and round the arms embroidered with large diamonds. Her shift was fastened at the bottom with a large diamond shaped like a lozenge : her girdle, as broad as the broadest English ribbon, was entirely covered with diamonds : round her neck she wore three chains which reached to her knees ; one, of large pearls, at the bottom of which hung a fine coloured emerald, as big as a turkey egg : another consisting of two hundred emeralds, close joined together, of the most