Lady Montagu, wife of th e English ambassador Edward Wortley Montagu, lived in Istanbul from the spring of 1717 until the spring of the following year. Her letters written to friends back in London are another fascinating source of information. She tells us that Istanbul's cemeteries were of greater extent than the city itself, and about the Greek antique dealers who bought from Aleppo, Damascus and Cairo, and from whom she purchased a marble bust and ordered an ancient Egyptian mummy. She describes the Russian, Circassian and Georgian slaves in the slave market as "miserable awkward wretches", and tells us how proud Turkish women are of their large families of children.The houses warmed "neither by chimneys nor stoves but by a certain machine called a Tendour" containing hot ashes; and the Turks would "see their houses burn with great philosphy" having rescued their possesions.From her letters we also learn about the palace of Hafize Sultan the daughter of Mustafa II, her female slaves, an excursion which she took with this princess, harem life, a journey she made to Kadiköy by caique, the waterfront houses along the Bosphorus, and the delicious cool climate of a village in the Belgrade forest where she spent the hot summer. In one of her letters she writes,

"Tis true, they wear veils in Pera, but they are such as only serve to show their beauty to more advantage, and would not be per- mitted in Constantinople. These reasons deter almost every creature from seeing it; and the French Ambassadress will return to France without ever having been there... On the European (side) stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills. The unequal heights make it seem as large again as it is, showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques and public buildings, raised one above another with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands."

In another letter to Lady Bristol she describes the visit of a bride-to-be to the hamam for ritual ablutions before her wedding, and a beautiful woman murdered in Beyoglu.

Raczynski visited Istanbul a century later, on 9 August 1814. He describes the sights of the Bosphorus, Besiktas, Üsküdar and Galata:

"Istanbul is not merely unique and unequalled in the sight of artists. For a statesman, too, the city has qualities not to be found in any other place in the world. Poseidon granted privileges to the city which Byzas founded... Towards evening I landed near Beyoglu. From here I watched the shadows of the walls and palace towers fall over the sea towards the shore of Anatolia. They seemed to me like the shadows of the powerful Mehmed or Süleyman Magnificient."

Count Raczynski visited the Suleymaniye Mosque, Agakapisi Tower and meadow of Kagithane, and wandered through streets examining the houses.He notes that Bahçekapi Caddesi was just 2.54 meters wide, and that the jettied upper storeys and eaves shaded the streets from the sun. It vas not customary to ride in carriages within the city, even the sultan going on horseback. Only the women of noble families rode in gilded carriages. He counted 45 streets in the Covered Bazaar, where he found the shopkeepers so trusting that they left their shops unattended when they went to the mosque for prayers, merely spreading a cloth over their wares. We learn about the silk manufactory in the Binbirdirek Cistern, the coffee houses where the opium addicts congregated, he ball given by the French ambassador at Ipsilanti Yali in Tarabya, the beauty and elegance of the Greek women in their red fez with black tassels, and the amusement at Kagithane meadows, where thousands of men and women flocked on holidays but sat in separate groups. Despite their veils the Polish count vas able to discern that the women were very lovely from their "glowing eyes". He watched horse races in the Hippodrome, and a cirit match (an equestrian game between two teams in which short javelins are thrown) between the sultan's pages.