picture of Helen's beauty, has recourse to the same artifice, representing the old statesman exclaiming, as she approaches them veiled upon the ramparts,
[Greek: Ou nemesis, Trôas kai euknêmidas Achaious
Toiê d'amphi gynaiki polyn chronon algea paskein
Ainôs athana têsi theês heis ôpa heoiken].
When, to cut the matter short, he tells us at once that she resembled the immortal goddesses in beauty; and our traveller, with equal felicity, observes, that they were as finely proportioned as any goddess, and that most of their skins were "shiningly white, only adorned with their beautiful hair divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or riband, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces." She was here thoroughly convinced, she observes, of the correctness of an old theory of hers, "that if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed"—for, continues she, "I perceived that the ladies of the most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions." The whole scene was highly picturesque. Some of the ladies were engaged in conversation, some were working, some drinking coffee or sherbet, and others, more languid and indolent, were reclining negligently on their cushions, "while their slaves, generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen, were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies."
This spectacle our traveller quitted for the purpose of examining the ruins of Justinian's church; but after the bath these appeared so remarkably insipid, that, pronouncing them to be a heap of stones, which may be predicated of most ruins, she returned to her apartments, and prepared with regret to accompany her husband over the Balkan into Roumelia. The road throughout a great proportion
