The Esir Han or slave market was situated near the mosque of the Nurosmaniye. It was a series of wooden booths with galleries round a courtyard which was destroyed in one of the disastrous fires at the end of the 19th century and now no trace remains. The girl for sale here is a Nubian, sitting on a mat in the courtyard. The more expensive Circassian slaves were kept indoors and were only shown to prospective buyers. In Fisher's Constantinople (1839) the Rev. Robert Walsh described the scene with some perplexity, since a visitor would expect to see 'helpless victims overwhelmed with grief . . .' In fact, he said, 'He sees no such thing: they are singularly cheerful and gay, use every means to attract his attention, and in their various dialects, invite him to purchase them'.