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Title: The beauties of the Bosphorus
Author: Miss Pardoe
Illustrator: W. H. Bartlett
Release date: September 16, 2026 [eBook #79601]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Published for the proprietors, by George Virtue, 1838
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79601
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS ***
[Illustration: MISS PARDOE.
H. Room. Thompson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
THE
BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS;
BY MISS PARDOE,
FROM DRAWINGS
BY WILLIAM H. BARTLETT.
[Illustration: SCENE OF THE BARBYSES IN THE VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.]
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS BY GEORGE VIRTUE, 26, IVY LANE
1839.
THE
BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS;
BY MISS PARDOE,
Author of “The City of the Sultan,”
ILLUSTRATED IN A SERIES OF
VIEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
AND ITS ENVIRONS,
FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY W. H. BARTLETT.
“’Tis a grand sight, from off the ‘Giant’s Grave,’
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia.”
BYRON.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, BY
GEORGE VIRTUE, 26, IVY LANE.
1838.
LONDON:
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD-STREET-HILL.
TO
THE MOST EXCELLENT VIZIR
MUSTAFA RÉCHID PASHA,
MUSHIR, AND MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE SUBLIME PORTE,
DECORATED WITH THE NISHAM OF HONOUR
APPERTAINING TO HIS ELEVATED RANK.
KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR OF FRANCE,
OF THE ORDER OF LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM,
AND OF ISABELLE OF SPAIN,
&c. &c. &c. &c.
This Volume is Inscribed,
AS A TOKEN OF REGARD FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS TALENTS,
BY
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 3
The Valley of the Sweet Waters 6
Eyoub 9
Turkish Baths 13
Palace of Beshik-Tash 17
The Castles of Europe and Asia 20
Fountain of the Asian Sweet Waters 22
Aqueduct near Pyrgo 24
The Mausoleum of Solyman “the Magnificent” 25
Yeni Djami 28
The Tcharchi, or Bazārs of Constantinople 29
Fountain in Galata 37
View from Mount Bulgurlhu 39
Turkish Houses on the Bosphorus 40
Mosque of Sultana Validè, from the Port 43
The Mosque of Sultan Achmet 44
The Column of Marcian 48
Scutari 50
Musicians at the Asian Sweet Waters 55
Beglier-Bey 57
Saint Sophia 60
The Ocmeidan 64
The Seraï Bournou 66
Top-hannè 72
The Walls of Constantinople 74
The Mosque of Chazade 79
Suleimaniè 80
The Port of Constantinople 82
Entrance to the Black Sea 84
The Palace of Belisarius 89
The Seraglio Point 91
Yenikeuï 92
Dolma-Batchè, from the Grand Champ-des-Morts 94
A Bendt, in the Forest of Belgrade 96
Mosque of Sultan Bajazet 106
The Riven Tower, (near the Top-Kapousi) 110
Istenia 111
The Arsenal, (from Pera) 113
The Tower of Galata 115
The Tchernberlè Tasch 117
The Ferry at Scutari 118
A Turkish Apartment 125
The Slave-Market 127
Petit Champ-des-Morts, Pera 130
The Guz-Couli, or Maiden’s Tower 134
Bebec, on the Bosphorus 135
A Public Khan 138
Fort Beil-Gorod, on the Bosphorus 142
The Aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï 143
A Coffee-Kiosque 147
The Bosphorus 151
Conclusion 156
DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.
LIST OF PLATES.
_To face Page_
PORTRAIT OF MISS PARDOE, TO FACE THE VIGNETTE
PALACE OF THE SWEET WATERS 6
COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF EYOUB 9
EYOUB 11
THE GOLDEN HORN, FROM THE CEMETERY OF EYOUB 12
COOLING-ROOM OF A HAMMĀM 15
SCENE FROM ABOVE THE NEW PALACE OF BESHIK-TASH 17
THE BOSPHORUS, FROM ABOVE BESHIK-TASH, LOOKING NORTH 19
THE CASTLES OF EUROPE AND ASIA 21
FOUNTAIN NEAR THE ASIAN VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS, ON THE BOSPHORUS 22
AQUEDUCT OF THE EMPEROR VALENS, NEAR PYRGO 24
MAUSOLEUM OF SOLYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT, AND ROXALANA 26
INTERIOR OF THE MAUSOLEUM OF SULTAN SOLYMAN 27
YENI DJAMI, OR MOSQUE OF THE SULTANA VALIDÈ 28
GREAT AVENUE IN THE TCHARTCHI 29
THE ARMOURY BAZĀR 31
A SCENE IN THE TCHARTCHI 32
KAÏMAC SHOP IN THE TCHARTCHI 34
FOUNTAIN IN GALATA 37
VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU 39
TURKISH COUNTRY HOUSES, ON THE BOSPHORUS 40
MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ, FROM THE PORT 43
THE ATMEIDAN, OR HIPPODROME 45
COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET 47
COLUMN OF MARCIAN 48
CEMETERY OF SCUTARI 50
FOUNTAIN AT SCUTARI 53
MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS 55
THE SUMMER PALACE AT BEGLIER-BEY 57
COURT AND FOUNTAIN OF ST. SOPHIA 61
INTERIOR OF ST. SOPHIA’S 63
VIEW FROM THE OCMEIDAN 64
COLUMN OF THEODOSIUS 66
FOUNTAIN AND SQUARE OF ST. SOPHIA 69
THIRD COURT OF THE SERAÏ BOURNOU 70
FOURTH COURT OF THE SERAÏ BOURNOU 71
FOUNTAIN AND MARKET AT TOP-HANNÈ 72
THE CITY WALLS, DESCENDING TO THE PORT 74
TOP-KAPOUSI, OR THE CANNONGATE 76
FOUNTAIN AND MOSQUE OF CHAZADE 79
MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ, FROM THE SERASKIER’S TOWER 80
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ 81
MIHRAB OF THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ 82
THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE 83
ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA, FROM THE GIANT’S GRAVE 84
THE BOSPHORUS, OPPOSITE THE GENOESE CASTLE 85
THERAPIA, AND THE GIANT’S GRAVE 86
BUYUKDÈRÈ, FROM THE GIANT’S GRAVE 88
PALACE OF BELISARIUS 89
THE SERAGLIO POINT 91
YENIKEUIJ, ON THE BOSPHORUS 92
DOLMA-BATCHÈ, FROM THE NECROPOLIS OF PERA 94
A BENDT, IN THE FOREST ABOVE BELGRADE 96
AQUEDUCT OF VALENS, IN THE CITY 99
CISTERN OF BEN-VEBER-DIREG, OR THE THOUSAND AND ONE 100
YÈRÈ-BATAN-SERAÏ 103
MOSQUE OF BAJAZET, WITH THE SERASKIER’S GATE 106
COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF BAJAZET 107
THE SEA OF MARMORA, FROM THE SERASKIER’S TOWER 109
RIVEN TOWER, NEAR THE TOP-KAPOUSI 110
ISTENIA, NEAR THERAPIA 111
THE ARSENAL, FROM PERA 113
THE TOWER OF GALATA 115
THE FLOATING BRIDGE 116
THE TCHERNBERLÈ TASH, OR BURNT PILLAR 117
VIEW FROM THE FERRY AT SCUTARI 118
CONSTANTINOPLE, FROM SCUTARI 121
ENTRANCE TO THE SEVEN TOWERS 122
A TURKISH APARTMENT, IN THE FANAR 125
THE MOSQUE OF OSMANIÈ, FROM THE SLAVE-MARKET 127
THE PETIT CHAMP-DES-MORTS, PERA 130
TOMB IN THE CEMETERY OF SCUTARI 132
THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN’S TOWER 134
BEBEC, ON THE BOSPHORUS 136
A PUBLIC KHAN 138
FORT BEIL-GOROD 142
AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ 143
VIEW THROUGH THE AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ 145
A COFFEE-KIOSQUE, ON THE PORT 147
MAP OF THE ENVIRONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, WITH THE THRACIAN BOSPHORUS 151
THE BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS.
“’Tis a grand sight, from off the ‘Giant’s Grave’,
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia.”
BYRON.
Every enjoyment of life has three distinct
stages—anticipation—reality—and reminiscence; and it is more difficult
than it at first appears to be, to decide on the comparative extent and
value of each. Hope is the most extravagant and imaginative; action, the
most engrossing and tangible; and memory, the most calm, and durable, and
sober.
I feel this truth forcibly at a moment like the present, when, after
having laid aside the pen with which, upon the glorious shores of
the Bosphorus, I recorded the observations growing out of passing
circumstances, and glowing with reality and action, I am once more
called upon mentally to retrace my steps. For months before I visited
the picturesque capital of Turkey, I had nourished visions as bright and
as impalpable as the rainbow. I anticipated I knew not what—adventures
as numerous and as romantic as those of the “Thousand and One Nights;”
and I dreamt dreams impossible of accomplishment; not caring to inquire
too curiously of my reason whether such things would be; but content to
inhabit my cloud-land castle, and to look down from the unstable edifice
in all the luxury growing out of my self-created images.
When I was subsequently dwelling in the “City of the Sultan,” and that
reality had succeeded to anticipation, much of the mist of romance,
indeed, rolled away; but the fair face of the landscape suffered little
from its absence, for Constantinople needs no aid from the imagination
to make it one of the brightest gems in the diadem of nature: its clear
calm sky, its glittering sea, its amphitheatre of thickly-peopled hills,
its geographical position, its political importance, and, above all,
its surpassing novelty, tend to make every day and every hour in that
gorgeous scene, and under that sunny sky, a season of intense enjoyment;
while the varying character of the native population, constituted as
it is of such anomalous materials—the truthful Turk, the wily Greek,
the stately Armenian, and the timid Jew—coupled with the blended air of
mystery and of magnificence which pervades the whole locality, suffice
to render the Turkish metropolis a sojourn of unwearied and exciting
delight: and when, favoured by circumstances which seemed to shape
themselves to my wishes in a manner to make me doubt whether the spells
of fairy-land were indeed all broken, I was enabled to penetrate to the
very centre of Turkish society, and to domesticate myself both with
princes and peasants, I found that the fallacies which had evaporated,
would have been but a sorry exchange for the reality that remained; and I
gave the advantage to the fact over the anticipation.
And now, once more, when the heat and the hurry of the expedition are
over, when the pride and the pageantry have passed away, and that I
am preparing to live over again that brief period of delight—conjured
back, as by magic, in gazing on the extraordinarily faithful and
admirable sketches which lie upon my table in “merrie England,” from
the pencil of Mr. Bartlett,—I am tempted to believe that my hour of
real enjoyment has arrived; an hour which I may prolong or multiply at
my pleasure, by memories of scenes well known, and individuals vividly
remembered—of beauty and of luxury, of legend and of song. I look back
upon my residence at Constantinople and its environs as upon a bright
vision, which I am glad to have an opportunity of calling up once more,
and investing with tangibility: and thus I feel that I am now, perhaps,
enjoying the true and enduring privilege of the traveller, as I turn
from one graphic sketch to another, and recall the circumstances and
incidents which have tended to impress each spot upon my memory; while I
am compelled to doubt if the romance of anticipation, or the fatigue and
risk of positive residence, indeed outweighed the quiet memories which
throng about me to-day, and people my cheerful apartment with by-gone
brilliant shapes, and scenes never to be forgotten.
The great charm of Constantinople to an European eye exists in the
extreme novelty, which is in itself a spell; for not only the whole
locality, but all its accessories, are so unlike what the traveller has
left behind him in the West, that every group is a study, and every
incident a lesson; and he feels at once the necessity of flinging from
him a thousand factitious wants and narrow conventional prejudices,
and of looking calmly and dispassionately upon men and scenes wholly
dissimilar to those with which he had previously been acquainted.
Nor is even this all; for the march of expediency has been so rapid, and
the mania for reform so active during the reign of the present Sultan,
that the most extraordinary changes are constantly taking place, not
only in the habits and feelings of the people, but in the very aspect of
their city. The beautiful remains of Moorish architecture, so essentially
Oriental in their character, are giving place to European innovation; the
heavy, drooping, convoluted roofs of the fountains are disappearing, to
make room for light iron railings; and the bright frescoes and painted
screens of the wooden palaces are superseded by columns of sculptured
marble; an anomaly sufficiently startling to convince the traveller that
it is only a first step towards the total extinction of that peculiar
and fairy-like species of architecture which renders the vicinity of the
Bosphorus so unlike every other locality, that it appears to be rather
the embodyment of a “Midsummer night’s dream,” than a mere earthly
landscape.
If it be indeed desirable to
“Catch the living manners as they rise,”
it can be no less so to preserve a record of the past. There is a fine
moral in the representation of things that have passed away, if it be
read aright. We gaze on the pictured glories of Tyre and Sidon, of
Nineveh and Carthage, and the lesson is a salutary one. In after-years,
in like manner, when the Constantinople of to-day shall have become
changed, (as it surely will,) into a mere city of European palaces, and
marts, and manufactories, it will be a reposing place for the spirit
to dwell upon the semblance of that which it once was, while Turkey
was yet (ostensibly at least,) an independent Empire, with a distinct
faith, and feeling, and principle of existence; ere the progress of
events, political as well as moral, swept away, with the unsparing besom
of reform, the web which the spider of antiquity had woven about “the
palaces of the Caliphs.”
THE VALLEY OF THE SWEET WATERS.
“From its base emerged
A vital spring of water; which thence flow’d
In winding rills across the flow’ry glade,
At which the beasts of earth and fowl of air
Refreshed their palates, after dainty feed.”
ABINGTON’S _Chaos_.
Kyat-Khana, called by the Franks the “Valley of the Sweet Waters,” is
a lovely glen, nestled at the base of a chain of hills, and situated
between Eyoub and Hassa Kuï, the quarter of the Jews. It is entirely
shut in on all sides; and looks from the heights above, which are bleak
and arid, like a huge emerald. Through the thick grass of the valley,
and under the shadow of its magnificent trees, flows the Barbyses; a
limpid, but inconsiderable stream, upon whose banks rise two of the
most fairy-like edifices that ever sheltered prince or peasant! The
larger building is a summer-palace, where the favourite wives of the
Sultan lounge away many of the long sunshiny days of the warm season in
comparative freedom; and exchange the closely-latticed apartments of
the Imperial harem for the shady groves and grassy paths of the palace
gardens; dreaming through the hot hours in gilded kiosques[1] on the
river bank; or driving amid the tall plane-trees in arabas,[2] bright
with gilding, and drawn by cream-coloured oxen.
It must not be supposed, however, that, in addition to these enjoyments,
the fair Sultanas are even here permitted to look upon a world from which
they are elsewhere so jealously shut out; I have already enumerated
all the privileges of their summer residence. When the harem is about
to remove to Kyat-Khana, a military _cordon_ is established along the
whole range of the heights overlooking the valley, and the public are
entirely shut out from that portion of it which immediately surrounds the
palace. Occasional glimpses of the pretty prisoners may, nevertheless,
be obtained, as they glide along the Barbyses, in their magnificent
caïques,[3] closely veiled, and followed by other boats, filled with a
portion of the negro guard of the household.
[Illustration: PALACE OF THE SWEET WATERS.
_PALAIS DES EAUX DOUCES._ _DER PALAST DES SÜSSEN WASSERS._
W. H. Bartlett. After a sketch by Miss Pardoe. W. Mossman.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The locality owes its name of Kyat-Khana, (literally signifying the
House of Paper,) to the fact that a paper manufactory was formed in
the valley by a renegade, named Ibrahim, in the year 1727, during the
reign of Achmed III. It was, however, abandoned, as well as a printing
establishment instituted by the same individual, in consequence of a
refusal from the Ulema to permit the printing of the Korān, which they
declared to be too holy to be submitted to so infidel a process; and the
machinery and buildings were in a state of almost equal dilapidation,
when Sultan Selim, the uncle and predecessor of the present sovereign,
anxious to revive so useful an art among his people, gave up the palace
as a manufactory, and munificently encouraged the re-establishment of
the fabric; but he was fated to see this attempt fail, like many others
which he made to ameliorate the condition of his subjects, and which he
ultimately expiated with his life. All traces of the undertaking have now
vanished from the valley, and the palace has become once more an Imperial
residence.
The smaller edifice to which allusion has been made, is a kiosque,
also appertaining to the Sultan, and occasionally occupied by the high
officers of the household: it stands on the very edge of the Barbyses,
and the caïques glide under the windows, or shoot along beneath the thick
branches of the trees on the opposite bank, with a velocity which, to
the eye of a stranger, is perfectly surprising; while the inmates of the
kiosque smoke their _chibouques_ in luxurious indolence, fanned by the
air of the river, and amused by the passing groupes.
The valley itself is delicious; the greensward is bright and rich, to
a degree unknown in any other environ of the city. In spring it is the
grazing-ground of the Imperial stud; and the beautiful Arabians are
installed with great pomp, picketted after the Eastern fashion, and
superintended by parties of Bulgarians, whose tents are pitched in
the valley, and who never quit it under any pretence until they are
released from their charge. In summer it is the resort of all ranks;
who, on every Friday (the Turkish Sabbath,) resort thither, to enjoy
what none know better how to appreciate than the Orientals—a bright sky,
a running stream, flowers, leaves, and sunshine. Bullock-carriages,
covered with gay-coloured awnings of silken shag, fringed with gold;
gilded arabas, drawn by swift horses; and caïques, the number of whose
elegantly-clad rowers denotes the rank or wealth of their owners, pour
forth their tenants every moment; while the thick branches of the noble
trees protect from the glare of the sun parties of white-veiled women,
who, squatted on their mats or carpets, and attended by their slaves,
sit for hours listening to the Wallachian and Bulgarian musicians, who
collect _paras_[4] and praises at a very trifling expense of melody;
purchasing the prettily and significantly arranged bouquets of the
dark-eyed Bohemian flower-girls; or watching the ungainly dances of
the Sclavonians, who, with their discordant bagpipes under their arms,
perform evolutions which resemble the saltatory attempts of half-educated
bears. Here and there, a little apart from the crowd, may be seen a party
of Greeks, engaged in their graceful romaïka; while groups of lovely
children, and water-venders, and sweetmeat merchants, wander up and down
the greensward, and are greeted with smiles and welcome on all sides. It
is, in short, a spirit-stirring scene; and the poorer classes who are
unable to command a carriage, or a caïque, will cheerfully toil on foot
from the city, under a scorching sun, in order to secure their portion of
the festival.
A great deal of public business is occasionally transacted at Kyat-Khana;
and then the sparkling Barbyses is alive with the gilded barges of the
Pashas and Beys, shooting over the ripple like meteors; the grandee
himself being carefully shielded from the sun by a red umbrella, held
over him as he reclines on his cushions at the bottom of the boat,
quietly smoking his chibouque, by an attendant, who is squatted on the
raised stern of the arrow-like bark, immediately behind him.
The valley of Kyat-Khana is a very favourite resort of the present
Sultan, who has expended considerable sums in beautifying the palace,
and in ornamenting the fountains and kiosques which appertain to it; but
only a short time since it was entirely abandoned for two years, owing
to the death of a favourite Odalisque, who expired suddenly, in the very
zenith of her youth and beauty, during a visit which she made here with
her Imperial master; whose grief at her loss was so intense, that he
could not bear to inhabit the valley until time had blunted his regret.
A handsome head-stone, erected to her memory, lettered with gold, and
overshadowed by a weeping willow, stands upon a square platform, beneath
the windows of the saloon occupied by the Sultan; and the breeze, as it
sweeps through the flexile branches of the tree, almost carries them into
the apartment. Sultan Mahmoud, who is esteemed a very respectable poet
for an Emperor, is said, during his season of despair, to have written a
pathetic ballad in her honour; but, be that as it may, it is certain that
she has been long forgotten among the bevy of beauties who now tread the
gilded chambers of the palace of Kyat-Khana.
EYOUB.
“It is a goodly sight to see
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!”
BYRON.
Eyoub, beautifully situated at the eastern extremity of the walls of
Constantinople, and stretching down to the very lip of the harbour,
is the “holy of holies” of the Turks. Its magnificent mosque and its
picturesque cemetery are equally historical; while its position,
overlooking the whole extent of the Golden Horn, and commanding a noble
view far up the Bosphorus, is possibly unrivalled. Smoothly-rounded
hills, feathered with trees varying in character, but all rich in beauty,
form a background eminently scenic; the lofty maple and the leafy
plane-tree, the fan-like acacia and the rigid cypress, flourish side by
side, and overshadow a wilderness of graves; while the suburb itself,
unusually well-built and regular, circles a portion of the harbour with
stately and pleasant dwellings.
[Illustration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF EYOUB.
_COUR DE LA MOSQUÉE D’EYOUB._ _DER HOF DER MOSCHEE ZU EYOUB._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
The mosque, built of the purest white marble, with a court gloriously
shaded by gigantic trees, and paved with the same material of which the
edifice is composed, is the most sacred of all the Constantinopolitan
temples; for on this spot tradition says that Abu Eyoub, the
companion-in-arms of the Prophet, was slain, during the siege of the
Saracens in 668, a fact which was revealed in a vision to Mahomet II.
about 800 years afterwards; who, in commemoration of the event, laid the
foundation of the present mosque, which is one of the most elegant in the
capital; and is rendered still more holy in the eyes of the Turks, from
the circumstance that it is within these walls that every Sultan, on his
accession, is invested with the sword of sovereignty. No infidel foot is
permitted, under whatever pretence, to desecrate the mosque of Eyoub; and
Christians are rarely, and always reluctantly, admitted even to the court.
At Eyoub, on the very verge of the water, stands one of the summer
palaces built by the unfortunate Sultan Selim, and overlooking the lovely
glen through which the Barbyses flows calmly onward, to lose itself in
the harbour. It is now the property of the Sultana Asmè, the elder sister
of the present Sultan.
“The decorations throughout are heavy, but of the greatest richness,
and perfectly oriental in their character. What was formerly the
reception-room of the ill-fated sovereign is entirely lined with gilding;
the walls being niched and overhung with stalactited cornices similar to
those which decorate many of our old cathedral tombs; and the weight of
this elaborate ornament is relieved by a ceiling of faint blue, sprinkled
with silver stars.”[5]
The exterior of the building is in the Moorish taste, with a convoluted
and projecting roof; and the façade is of considerable extent.
Near this palace stands the great Fèz manufactory, where all the caps for
the court and the army are now made. It is a modern building, erected on
the site of one of the dilapidated kiosques of the Sultan, and is a very
important and ornamental feature in the landscape.
There is an anecdote connected with this establishment, which is
sufficiently characteristic and amusing to merit transcription; and it
may be inserted here for the benefit of the many, to whom it will be
entirely novel. “The manufactory was suggested and founded by Omer Lufti
Effendi, in consequence of the extremely high price paid by the Sultan
to the Tunisians, with whom this fabric originated, for the head-dress
of his troops. Having induced a party of Arabian workmen from Tunis to
accompany him to Constantinople, he established them in the old palace,
which has since been replaced by the present noble building; and under
their direction the knitting and shaping of the caps acquired some degree
of perfection.
“But the dye was a secret beyond their art; and the Turkish government,
anxious to second the views of the energetic Omer Effendi, made a
second importation of Tunisians with no better success, although they
were chosen from among the most efficient workmen of their country. The
caps, while they were equal both in form and texture to those of Tunis,
were dingy and ill-coloured; and the Arabs declared that the failure of
the dye was owing to the water in and about Constantinople, which was
unfavourable to the drugs employed.
“As a last hope, a trial was made at Smit, but with the same result; and
the attempt to localise the manufacture was about to be abandoned, when
Omer Effendi, suspecting the good faith of the Arabian workmen, disguised
a clever Angorian Armenian, named Avanis Aga, as a Turk, whom he placed
as a labourer in the dye-room. Being a good chemist and a shrewd
observer, Avanis Aga, affecting a simplicity that removed all suspicion,
soon made himself master of the secret which it so much imported his
anxious patron to learn; and, abandoning the ignoble besom that he had
wielded, as the attendant of the Tunisian dyers, immediately that he
discovered the fraud, which, either in obedience to the secret orders of
their Regent, or from an excess of patriotism, they had been practising
ever since their arrival, he set himself to work in secret; and, with the
water of Smit, dyed two caps, which, having dried, he presented to Omer
Effendi, who was unable to distinguish them from those of Tunis.
“Delighted at the successful issue of his experiment, Omer Effendi
summoned the Arabs to his presence, and showed them the Fèz; when,
instantly suspecting the masquerade that had betrayed them, they
simultaneously turned towards the Armenian; and throwing their turbans on
the ground, and tearing their hair, they cried out, ‘Yaccoup! Yaccoup!’
(Jacob! Jacob!)
“The superintendent having dismissed them, after causing them to
be liberally remunerated for the time which they had spent at
Constantinople, sent them back to Tunis; while Avanis Aga, elected Head
Dyer of the Imperial Manufactory of Eyoub, now enjoys the high honour of
deciding on the exact tint to be worn by Mahmoud the Powerful, the ‘Light
of the Sun,’ and ‘Shadow of the Universe.’”[6]
[Illustration: EYOUB.
W. H. Bartlett. Chas. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
By far the most interesting feature of Eyoub is, however, its
beautifully-situated cemetery, occupying the slope of a thickly-wooded
hill. After the necropolis of Scutari, that of Eyoub is the most
venerated by the Turks; and to the stranger it is rendered peculiarly
interesting by the fact, that it contains the tombs of the “Tiger-Pasha,”
Ali of Tepeleni, whose life, revolt, and death, form a wild and
thrilling romance; and those of his three sons, and his grandson; who,
in accordance with Eastern ideas of expediency, shared his punishment;
and whose trunkless heads now lie in the burial-ground of Eyoub, beside
his own. On a parapet wall directly facing the Selyvria gate, five oblong
blocks of marble of unequal height, and crowned with turbans, are ranged
side by side in a conspicuous situation. That which covers the head of
the traitor himself is thus inscribed:—“Here lies the head of the once
celebrated Tepedelenly Ali Pasha, Governor of the Sangiac of Yanina;
who for more than fifty years pretended to independence in Albania.”
The others simply record the name and rank of the respective victims,
and terminate the inscription very _naïvely_ with the words, “who has
been put to death by the cutting off of his head;” without attempting
to perpetuate any accusation of crime or misdemeanour; their unlucky
relationship to the rebel Pasha being accounted a sufficient treason.
When on a visit at the Fanar, or Greek quarter of the city, I had once
a momentary glimpse of the widow of this celebrated rebel. She was the
daughter of a Greek papas, or priest, of Yanina, of great beauty and
some erudition, to whom the Pasha was reported to have been passionately
attached; though she is accused (it is doubtful with what justice) of
having stipulated to receive her “thirty pieces of silver” for betraying
him to the Government. Be this as it may, it is certain that she
possessed great influence over his mind; and that it was entirely by
her arguments and entreaties that he was dissuaded from the desperate
intention of blowing her, himself, and his treasures, up with gunpowder,
to prevent their falling into the hands of the Sultan; and that it was
she who negotiated the affair between Ali and Hourchid Pasha; while it
is equally a fact, that let her have made what compact she might, she
received neither money nor land from the Turkish Government after the
execution of her husband, but was turned over in a state of positive
destitution to the custody of the Patriarch, where she literally owed
her daily comforts to the charity of the benevolent. She was a voluntary
prisoner in her apartment, from which she seldom emerged save to attend
some ceremony in the Patriarchal Church; and her time was said to be
generally passed in prayer.
The view from the cemetery is strikingly fine; on the one hand the city,
throned on its seven hills, with a thousand stately domes gleaming in
the sunshine, and a thousand taper minarets glancing towards heaven,
stretches along the edge of the harbour, until the line is lost at the
abrupt and palace-cumbered point of the ancient Byzantium; beyond which
may be descried the termination of the Bosphorus, and the mountain-chain
of Bulgurlhu, on the Thracian shore of the channel.
On the other side of the land-locked harbour the gently-flowing Barbyses
glides, like a silver thread, through the valley of Kyat-Khana, to pay
its tribute to the wealth-freighted waters of the Golden Horn; and on the
verge of a small hamlet not above two furlongs from this calm stream,
stands a small mosque, half buried in trees, insignificant in appearance,
and seldom remarked by strangers; which is, however, too historically
interesting to be passed over. It is called the “Mosque of Blood,” and is
painted a dull red from the base of its walls to the summit of its single
minaret. It is a desecrated temple, having been forced during the last
siege by a party of combatants, some of whom expired beneath its roof,
and thus brought the presence of death where, on religious principles,
it is never suffered to intrude; while in its immediate vicinity rises
a bleak, treeless, and desolate-looking eminence, occupied by the bones
of all the True Believers who perished during that memorable struggle,
to the amount of some thousands: their remains have been respected, but
there is neither monument nor inscription to perpetuate the memory of
their good services.
Beyond this mosque, the out-buildings of the Imperial arsenal, the
dry-dock for the construction of shipping, the galleys, (which are under
the immediate control and authority of the High Admiral,) the powder
magazines, and the ruined palace of a former Capudan Pasha, occupy the
shore as high as the suburb of Kassim Pasha, where stands the Marine
Barrack, a huge pile, chiefly remarkable for the wretched taste of
its tawdry fresco-painting, and its air of chilling desolation; and
near to it the new Tershana, or Admiralty, a bright, many-coloured,
highly-ornamented edifice, in the Russian taste; occupying the side of
a small creek, and overlooking a wooden pier. A wet-dock, handsomely
enclosed within solid and well-made walls, and entered through a noble
pair of iron gates, below Kassim Pasha, is succeeded by a height covered
with cypresses, which leans downward to the water, where it terminates in
a steep flight of steps, partly artificial and partly hewn in the rock,
and designated the _Meit-iskelli_, or Ladder of the Dead. This gloomy
forest is the “Little Cemetery,” or lesser burial-ground of Pera, the
faubourg inhabited by the Franks; and the jetty at the foot of the stair
which has just been described, is principally used for the embarkation of
the bodies of deceased Turks, whom their friends are conveying for burial
to the Asian necropolis of Scutari.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN HORN, FROM THE CEMETERY OF EYOUB.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Immediately beyond this jetty, a floating bridge, stretching from the
pier of Galata (the quarter of the Frank merchants, dominated by the hill
on which Pera is built,) to the “Gate of the Garden,” near the Kiosque
of Pearls, and immediately under the walls of the Seraglio, shuts in the
harbour; while the line of shore in the distance, fringed with the houses
and public buildings of Top-hannè, gently recedes, until it disappears
under the stately shadow of Bulgurlhu.
TURKISH BATHS.
Here Beauty on her ’broidered cushion lies
With languid brow, and dreaming downcast eyes—
A rose o’ercharg’d with rain: beside the fair
A kneeling slave binds up the glossy hair;
Pours perfumed water o’er the drooping face,
And lends to loveliness another grace.
MS. POEM.
There is, perhaps, no luxury throughout the luxurious East more perfect,
or more complete, than the Baths. Those of the great and the wealthy
in Constantinople embody the idea of a scene in the “Thousand and One
Nights”—they are so bright and fairy-like in their magnificence—so light
and gay with painted glass, white marble, brocade, and embroidery.
Every bath, however small may be its dimensions, consists of three
apartments; the outer hall, in which the bathing-dress is arranged; the
cooling-room, a well-cushioned and comfortable space, moderately heated,
and intended for the temporary reception of the bathers before they
venture to encounter the pure free air of the exterior apartment; and
the bath itself, where the atmosphere is so laden with sulphuric vapour,
that, for some seconds, the breath is impeded, and the suffocating
sensation which ensues is positively painful.
The Imperial Bath at the summer-palace of Beglier-Bey, is one of the
most elegant and costly in the city or its environs: and as it can only
be seen by the express permission of the Sultan himself, is well worthy
of description. Passing a crimson door, surmounted by a crescent-shaped
cornice of rich gilding, the visitor enters a small hall, in which stands
a basin of fine white marble, occupied by two swans, wrought in the same
material, and appearing to sport in the limpid water; which, escaping
from this charming fountain, falls through concealed pipes into the
basins destined to supply the bathers. The cooling-room, opening from
this dim apartment, (where the light only penetrates after struggling
through stars and crescents of painted glass, inlaid in the marble
roof like clusters of jewels,) is hung with draperies of silk, richly
embroidered; and the large mirror which occupies the wall at the lower
end of the divan, is set in a frame-work of gold and enamel, surmounted
by the Ottoman arms, skilfully executed; while the divan itself,
formed of gay-coloured satin, is wrought in silks until it resembles a
flower-bed; and the cushions which are scattered over it are of the same
beautiful and costly description. The bath is a vast hall, of the most
elegant proportions, lined, and roofed, and paved with marble. It is
lighted like the cooling-room, and surmounted by exquisitely-imagined
fountains; and gives back a long and subdued echo at every footfall which
disturbs its deep and dreamy silence.
This description will serve to convey an idea of the baths of the great,
and will give no exaggerated impression of their magnificence; the
establishments of the Pashas and Beys being all precisely similar in
their arrangement, and only varying in splendour with the resources of
their owners. Here the fair Zibas and Heyminès of the different palaces
pass whole hours, folded in long scarfs of muslin, worked and fringed
with gold, their dark hair streaming over their ivory shoulders; inhaling
the sulphuric atmosphere, and enjoying the luxurious languor which it
creates; sipping sherbets made of the most delicate conserves, or the
finest fruits; and, not unfrequently, enjoying a slumber which is nowhere
deeper than amid the dense vapours of the bath-room.
But the public _Hammām_ is altogether a different scene. No dreamy
silence, no thoughtful abstraction can be indulged in the far-stretching
hall, where hundreds congregate, and where the echoes of the many-domed
roof heighten and prolong every harsh sound into tenfold discordance.
These establishments are numerous in Constantinople, and fortunes,
really colossal for that country, are said to be made by them, although
they pay a heavy tax to the government. From eight in the morning they
are open until sunset, men and women frequenting them on alternate days;
and the ladies seldom fail to avail themselves of the whole of the time
allowed, by spending it almost entirely in the Hammām.
[Illustration: COOLING ROOM OF A HAMMĀM.
W. H. Bartlett. J. T. Willmore.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The bath is the very paradise of Eastern women. Here they assemble to
discuss every subject of interest and amusement, whether politics,
scandal, or news; to arrange marriages, and to prevent them; to ask and
to offer advice; to display their domestic supremacy, and to impart their
domestic grievances; but, above all, to enjoy the noise, the hurry, and
the excitement, which form so great a contrast to the calm and monotony
of the harem.
On leaving the outer hall, the bather is supplied with a pair of wooden
pattens, raised several inches from the floor, which is so much heated
in the inner apartments, that, until the vapour has had time to operate
upon the frame, it is impossible to touch it with the naked foot. Thus
provided—and among the higher classes these pattens are objects of
great cost and luxury, the band by which they are secured across the
instep being frequently inlaid with jewels—the bather passes into the
cooling-room, where a number of little channels, filled with warm water,
traverse the floor in every direction; which, while they add to the
heat, serve to diminish the oppression of the vapour that escapes at
each opening of the door of the bath itself; an extensive octagon hall,
containing eight fountains, and surrounded by small cabinets for those
who do not choose to avail themselves of the more public apartment.
We cannot, perhaps, do better than take a description of the
extraordinary scene presented by this locality from the pages of an
eye-witness.
“For the first few moments I was bewildered; the heavy, dense,
sulphureous vapour that filled the place, and almost suffocated me—the
wild shrill cries of the slaves pealing through the reverberating domes
of the bathing-halls, enough to awaken the very marble with which they
were lined—the subdued laughter and whispered conversations of their
mistresses, murmuring along in an under-current of sound—the sight of
nearly three hundred women, only partially dressed, and that in fine
linen so perfectly saturated with vapour that it revealed the whole
outline of the figure—the busy slaves passing and repassing, naked
from the waist upwards, and with their arms folded upon their bosoms,
balancing on their heads piles of fringed or embroidered napkins—groups
of lovely girls, laughing, chatting, and refreshing themselves with
sweetmeats, sherbet, and lemonade—parties of playful children, apparently
quite indifferent to the dense atmosphere which made me struggle for
breath—and, to crown all, the sudden bursting forth of a chorus of
voices into one of the wildest and shrillest of Turkish melodies, that
was caught up and flung back by the echoes of the vast hall, making a din
worthy of a saturnalia of demons, all combined to form a picture like
the illusory semblance of a phantasmagoria, almost leaving me in doubt
whether that on which I looked were indeed reality, or the mere creation
of a distempered brain.”[7]
In this hall, amid the noise and hurry here described, those who frequent
it collect round the fountains, which are plentifully supplied with both
hot and cold water, each lady attended by one or more slaves; her hair
is then combed and saturated with water, poured over it from a basin of
metal; and her limbs are gently rubbed by a hand covered with a small
glove, or rather bag, woven of camel’s hair; after which, she changes
her dripping garments for others that await her near the door of the
hall, and passes into the cooling-room. Here, reclining on mats and
carpets, the bathers sometimes lie for hours, with their hair concealed
beneath heavy napkins, and their whole persons wrapped closely in long
white scarfs, like winding-sheets. Were it not that they are flushed by
the action of the vapour, and for the ceaseless conversation which they
maintain, they would look like a party of corses prepared for burial.
When at length they venture into the outer hall, they at once spring upon
their sofas, where the attentive slaves fold them in warm cloths, and
pour essence upon their hair, which they twist loosely without attempting
to dislodge the wet, and then cover with handsome head-kerchiefs of
embroidered muslin; perfumed water is scattered over the face and hands,
and the exhausted bather sinks into a luxurious slumber beneath a
coverlet of satin or of eider-down.
The centre of the floor, meanwhile, is like a fair; sweetmeat,
sherbet, and fruit-merchants, (old crones, who frequently have as
many _billet-doux_ as bowls of _yahourt_[8] in their baskets,) parade
up and down, hawking their wares. Negresses pass to and fro with the
dinners, or _chibouques_,[9] of their several mistresses; secrets are
whispered—confidences are made; and, altogether, the scene is so strange,
so new, and withal so attractive, that no European can fail to be both
interested and amused by a visit to a Turkish Hammām.
PALACE OF BESHIK-TASH.
“The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces: the ocean-stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia’s cupola with golden gleam:
The cypress groves: Olympus high and hoar.”
BYRON.
The new palace of Beshik-Tash, erected by the present Sultan, commands
a noble view of the Propontis; sweeps the Bosphorus through nearly its
whole length; looks towards Scutari, (the Asian jewel seated at the foot
of the dark mountain-chain of Bulgurlhu-Dagi;) affords a glimpse of the
ancient Chalcedon; and includes within the range of its magnificent
prospect the snow-crowned summit of Mount Olympus, flashing out in the
distance through the clear blue of the horizon like a huge pearl set
in sapphires; the Seraï Bournou, whose imperial walls enclose what was
once a city; and the “Seven Hills” of glorious Stamboul. The world can
probably produce no similar panorama; and as the traveller stands on the
height above the palace gardens, and looks down upon the heavy inelegant
wooden edifice, protected on the seaward side by a stately colonnade
of white marble, he may well be pardoned should he indulge a regret
that this imperial residence should be so unworthy of its admirable and
unequalled site.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM ABOVE THE NEW PALACE OF BESHIK-TASH.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
During the youth of Sultan Mahmoud, he was induced to consult a
celebrated astrologer, who, among other predictions, foretold, that
while he continued to build palaces, he should be successful in all his
undertakings. And it would appear that he put the most perfect faith in
the prophecy, for every pretty bay in the Bosphorus has its kiosque; and
the number of his residences in the immediate vicinity of the capital,
amounts to fifty-seven. The palace of Beshik-Tash is the last and
most extensive of the whole, but decidedly the least picturesque and
elegant. Its Armenian architect was not, however, selected without due
consideration on the part of the Sultan, who was won to decide on the
present plan by the assurance that it was thoroughly European; a fact
which could not be disputed, were the glittering and well-proportioned
columns that support the open peristyle swept away, when this huge pile,
which has cost upwards of a million sterling, would present precisely
the appearance of a manufactory.
There is an anecdote connected with the palace which is extremely
characteristic of its regal builder, and which may appropriately be
introduced here. While yet undecided unto whom he should confide
the great work of its erection, an architect (also an Armenian) was
introduced to the Sultan by one of his favourites, and was desired to be
upon the spot destined for its site at a particular hour, in order to
judge of its capabilities, and to explain them to his imperial master.
Ere they entered upon the actual subject of their meeting, Mahmoud
stretched forth his arm towards the Seraï Bournou,[10] of which nothing
could be seen above the surrounding walls but the gleaming roofs, with
here and there a tall white minaret, or a stately dome, standing out
from amid a forest of cypress and maple-trees; and drily inquired what
the stranger thought of the palace of Amurath? The Armenian cautiously
replied, that never having been enabled to examine the nature of the
building, he was totally inadequate to form any judgment. “Let him
have the opportunity;” said the Sultan to the Bey by whom he had been
introduced, “and to-morrow I will hear the result.”
The astonished raïah,[11] consequently, found himself in a few moments
darting over the ripple in the caïque of his patron; and, ere long,
actually passing the sacred threshold which it had hitherto been
death to any infidel to tread. Bewildered and, perhaps, misled by his
astonishment, and dazzled by the gilding and glitter of the celebrated
Seraï—or, it may be, fearful of undervaluing by a word an edifice which
had so long been a world’s wonder—or, again, tutored by his friend, the
courtier—he declared, when he next stood in the presence of the Sultan,
that, in as far as his poor judgment served, earth held nothing to
compare with the palace of Amurath.
“Would you tell me that Europe boasts not its equal?” asked the Sultan
calmly.
“I have visited many of the cities of the west;” said the obsequious
raïah, “and I have seen nothing from the rising of the sun to its going
down, so perfect as the Seraï Bournou.”
“_Chok chay_—that is much!” smiled the Sultan; “then the Franks are liars
when they send me things like these, and tell me that they represent
the palaces of their Padishahs;”[12] and as he spoke he drew out a roll
of paper which he held in his hand, and displayed to the discomfited
Armenian views of the different imperial and royal edifices of Europe.
“Have you ever seen any of these Seraïs? and do they really not resemble
the drawings now before me?”
“They do, may it please your highness; I have looked on many of them.”
“Then,” said the Sultan, “you are unsuited to the undertaking which I
contemplate; for none, save a rogue or a fool, could class that place,
fitted only for deeds of blood and mystery”—and he pointed once more
towards the Seraï Bournou; “that place, hidden beneath high walls,
and amid dark trees, as though it could not brave the light of day;
with these light, laughing palaces, open to the free air, and the pure
sunshine of heaven. Such would I have my own; and such it shall be:—we
have therefore met for the last time.”
And the Armenian, having prostrated himself before the “Lord of the Three
Seas,” withdrew from the presence of his master to comfort himself as he
might under his disappointment and disgrace.
[Illustration: THE BOSPHORUS, FROM ABOVE BESHIK-TASH. (Looking North.)
_LE BOSPHORE (NORD) VU DU HAUT DE BESHIK-TASH._ _DER BOSPHORUS NACH
NORDEN HIN, GESEHN VON BESHIK-TASH HER._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The ground upon which the palace stands was formerly occupied by an
elegant kiosque, built by Sultan Selim—a glittering gaily-tinted
pavilion, looking like a huge tulip amid the cluster of cypresses in the
centre of which it rose; and a Tekiè or chapel of Turning Dervishes;
whose community, undaunted by the displeasure of the Sultan, persisted in
the occupation of their dwelling, although the walls of the new palace
grew higher from day to day, until they fairly overtopped the more modest
roof of the holy building. To the frequent orders which they received
to vacate their Tekiè, they replied only that they were not free to
depart, as they guarded the ashes of a saint; whose tomb, surrounded
by a lattice-work of bright green, about half way up the height above
the channel, was indeed a conspicuous object from their windows. In
this dilemma, the Sultan applied to the Chèïk-Islam, or High Priest, to
enforce their removal; but he was again met by a steady refusal, the
Chèïk-Islam pleading the danger of such a precedent, and declining all
interference. Sultan Mahmoud heard him in silence, and did not again
agitate the question until the chapel was fairly built in, when he simply
informed the chief Dervish of the precise day on which he was to vacate
the premises; or, in default of his so doing, the roof would be pulled
about the ears of his community. The holy man stood aghast, but there was
no alternative; and the brotherhood in a few hours took quiet possession
of a handsome house on the edge of the water, which had been made over
to them by the Sultan, on the death of the court jester, to whom it had
previously belonged.
The magnificent Turkish line-of-battle ships, when in harbour, are
anchored about mid-stream, in the immediate vicinity of Beshik-Tash;
and nothing can be finer than the effect of their stupendous brass guns
when firing a salute. The peal rattles along the hills, flung back at
intervals by the walls of the Seraglio, until it finally dies away in the
distance, throwing a long musical sound, like the hollow rumbling of a
coming storm along the billows of the Black Sea.
The gardens of the palace are extensive, but will require time to make
them worthy of description; at present, a great portion of the hill-side
behind the building is left in its original state, boasting for all
ornament sweeps of fine cypresses, and here and there a tuft of almond
trees, a group of acacias, or a majestic maple; while the white tents
of the Bulgarian workmen employed upon the walls, give to the scene the
picturesque and cheerful appearance of a summer encampment.
THE CASTLES OF EUROPE AND ASIA.
“Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight
Along the leaguered wall and bristling bank
Of the arm’d river.”
BYRON.
These fortresses stand on either shore of the Bosphorus, about half way
up; where the channel is unusually narrow, and was once traversed by the
celebrated bridge of Darius. The Anadoli Hissari, or Castle of Asia, was,
during the reign of the Janissaries, the prison of the Bostangis, or
body-guard of the Sultan, who were here immured or executed as the nature
of their crimes dictated. It rises on the lip of a pleasant rivulet which
empties itself into the Bosphorus, and washes the tree-fringed valley of
the Asian Sweet Waters, called by the natives Guiuk-Suy, or Chest-water,
from the extreme purity of the spring.
[Illustration: THE CASTLES OF EUROPE AND ASIA.
W. H. Bartlett. G. K. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Roumeli Hissari, or Castle of Europe, on the opposite shore, is of
very singular construction, the ground-plan forming the characters of
the Prophet’s name; by whom, tradition says that it was built in six
days, by permission of the Greek emperor, who, with more courtesy than
policy, acceded to the desire of Mahomet to possess a _pied-à-terre_
on the European edge of the channel. This fortress was the celebrated
prison of the Janissaries; and the large gun yet fills its embrasure on
the lower rampart, which was fired on the execution of every criminal,
to announce to the Sultan that the guilty one had expiated his crime.
The strength of the Castle is much greater than its appearance from the
sea would indicate; and it is well supplied with water, and the means of
storing provisions. The Traitor’s Gate is the only seaward entrance to
the fortress; and through its low wide arch the bodies of the strangled
Janissaries were dragged by the heels, and flung into the Bosphorus.
There are four principal towers, one of which occasionally served as a
state-prison for persons of distinction; that immediately above it, is
called the Tower of Blood, where the Agas, or chiefs of the Janissaries,
were put to death privately, and their bodies conveyed to the Bosphorus
through a tunnel excavated beneath the foundations of the fortress; it
being considered unsafe and impolitic to dishonour their remains in the
eyes of that formidable body, in the public manner in which the corses of
their less distinguished comrades were mutilated and insulted.
The Janissaries’ Tower is built upon the highest point of land within
the walls, and commands one of the finest views in the world; having
on one hand the whole stretch of the channel to the opening of the
island-studded Propontis; and on the other, the entrance of the Black
Sea, with the “blue symplegades” in the dim distance, looking as if they
were indeed fulfilling the ancient superstition, and wandering over the
waters of the “storm-vexed Euxine.”
The instrument to which the fatal cord used in strangling the Janissaries
was attached, is an old Roman bow of extraordinary strength; and the
place of execution was a portion of the covered way that connects the
towers throughout the fortress; and it is painful to look from this place
of death upon the brightness and the beauty of nature, and to remember
how many have so looked for the last time! The blue, sun-lighted sky—the
sparkling water—the fantastic and changeful shadows cast by the broad
leaves of the wild fig-trees upon the earth—the song of the wild-birds
from the underwood beneath the ramparts—all seem to conspire in investing
the world with a dearer charm, and in lending to life a value which must
enchance tenfold the bitterness of death.
The few houses built within the walls of the fortress are in good
repair, and are surrounded by pleasant gardens. Their tenants marry and
intermarry continually, not being permitted to form any alliance with
families unconnected with the Castle; and, altogether, the celebrated
Roumeli Hissari, (a sealed book, save in one recent instance, to all
European travellers,) possesses a great moral interest, as well as
extreme picturesque beauty.
FOUNTAIN OF THE ASIAN SWEET WATERS.
“A glowing scene of water, leaves, and light,
And white-veil’d dames, and turban’d men are there;
And all around the earth and sea are bright
And beautiful in the sunshiny air;
Soft ripples dance upon the channel’s breast,
Light breezes sweep along the mountain’s crest,
And woman’s voice, and childhood’s laugh of glee,
Come blended on the ear harmoniously.”
MS. POEM.
The Valley of Guiuk-Suy, charmingly situated about midway of the
Bosphorus, and called by Europeans the Asian Sweet Waters, owes its charm
and its popularity (like the glen of Kyat-Khana, already described,) to
the circumstance of its being intersected by a pretty stream of fresh
water, which, after flowing along under the shadows of tall and leafy
trees, finally mingles its pigmy ripples with the swifter waves of the
channel. The Anadoli Hissari, or Castle of Asia, stands upon its margin,
and painfully recalls the mind to the darker and sterner realities of
life; or the visitor to Guiuk-Suy might fancy himself in Arcadia, so
lovely is the locality.
On Fridays, (the Mahommedan Sabbath,) the valley is thronged with
holiday-keeping idlers; and here the Frank traveller may see more of
the habits and _morale_ of the Turkish women than he can hope to do
elsewhere; for here, being on Asiatic ground, they appear to feel more
at home, and less trammelled by the restrictions of their creed than in
any other environ of the capital; their yashmacs are less scrupulously
arranged, they are more accessible to strangers, and they do the honours
of their lovely valley with a gentle courtesy extremely pleasing.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN NEAR THE ASIAN VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS, ON THE
BOSPHORUS.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
All ranks alike frequent this sweet and balmy spot. The Sultanas move
along in quiet stateliness over the greensward in their gilded arabas,
drawn by oxen glittering with foil, and covered with awnings of velvet,
heavy with gold embroidery and fringes; the light carriages of the
Pashas’ harems roll rapidly past, decorated with flashing draperies,
the horses gaily caparisoned, and the young beauties within pillowed on
satins and velvets, and frequently screened by shawls of immense value;
while the wives of many of the Beys, the Effendis, and the Emirs, leave
their arabas, and seated on Persian carpets under the leafy canopy of
the superb maple-trees which abound in the valley, amuse themselves for
hours, the elder ladies with their pipes, and the younger ones with their
hand-mirrors; greetings innumerable take place on all sides; and the
itinerant confectioners and water-venders reap a rich harvest.
The Fountain of Guiuk-Suy stands in the midst of a double avenue of
trees, which fringe the border of the Bosphorus. It is built of delicate
white marble, is extremely elegant in design, and elaborately ornamented
with arabesques. The spot which it adorns is a point of reunion for the
fair idlers of the valley, when the evening breeze upon the channel
renders this portion of the glen more cool and delicious than that in
which they pass the earlier hours of the day; and is only separated from
it by the stream already named, which is traversed by a heavy wooden
bridge.
The whole _coup-d’œil_ is charming; slaves hurry hither and thither,
carrying water from the fountain to their respective mistresses, in
covered crystal goblets, or vases of wrought silver. Fruit-merchants
pass and repass with amber-coloured grapes and golden melons; Sclavonian
musicians collect a crowd about them, which disperses the next moment to
throng round a gang of Bedouin tumblers; serudjhes gallop over the soft
grass in pursuit of their employers; carriages come and go noiselessly
along the turf at the beck of their fair occupants; a fleet of caïques
dance upon the ripple, ready to convey a portion of the revellers to
their homes on the European shore; and the beams of the bright sun fall
full on the turretted towers of the Castle of Europe, on the opposite
side of the channel, touching them with gold, and contrasting yet more
powerfully their long and graceful shadows upon the water.
AQUEDUCT NEAR PYRGO.
“Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts.”
BYRON.
This fine remain of by-gone industry and taste is indifferently ascribed
to the Emperor Valens, and to Justinian; no positive record of its date
or founder being now in existence. It spans a lovely hill-embosomed
valley near Pyrgo, and is one of several aqueducts still in existence
between the city of Constantinople, and the beautiful, romantic, and
Frank-peopled hamlet of Belgrade, on the Black Sea.
The necessity of an ample supply of water to a population of nearly eight
hundred thousand souls, and the frequency of drought in the capital, have
led to great care and some ingenuity in its conveyance to the cisterns
and reservoirs of the city from the numerous streams that fall from the
mountains which fence the Euxine, and the rivulets that irrigate the
valleys among them. Every rill, however apparently trifling, is arrested
in its progress, when it descends from a height into the lower lands; by
which means the valleys become inundated, and form deep and extensive
lakes, whence the water is conveyed in tile pipes along the mountains,
to pour its volume into the aqueducts which span the valleys, and give a
noble character to the wild landscape. These artificial reservoirs are
called bendts, and were originally formed by the Greeks; and the dams
by which they are shut in are mounds, faced with marble, sculptured in
oriental devices and characters, which are extremely imposing, and even
magnificent. The Turks are, however, suffering the aqueducts of their
predecessors to fall slowly to decay; and have supplied their places
by detached square hydraulic pillars, sufficiently ingenious in their
construction to merit description. A small reservoir is on the summit of
each; and tubes, similar to those laid along the heights, pour the water
into this tank on one side, and discharge it on the other. Each pillar is
six inches lower than that which preceded it; and thus a gradual descent
is produced along the tops of these _suy-terrasi_, or columns, from the
mountains to Stamboul; and as they are spread in considerable numbers
over the country, the supply is generally abundant, though it sometimes
fails when the season is unusually dry, as in the years 1822 and 1836.
[Illustration: AQUEDUCT OF THE EMPEROR VALENS, NEAR PYRGO.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
At such periods, the terror of a people like the Osmanlis, who not only
connect ideas of comfort and convenience with the pure element, but to
whom it is essential in the offices of their religion, may be readily
conceived; and not the least affecting of its demonstrations is the
appearance of a Dervish on the crest of the Jouchi-Daghi, or Giant’s
Mountain, whose duty it is to watch for, and to announce to the thirsting
city, the anxiously-awaited appearance of a small, lowering, heavy cloud,
hovering above the waves of Marmora, or the Euxine—a certain indication
of coming rain, which causes the Christian sojourner in the East to
revert at once to the Sacred Volume, whose holy truths are constantly
recalled to his memory in the land of the Infidel.
The artist seized a happy moment in which to transfer to his sketch-book
the Aqueduct of Pyrgo. The sunshine rested lovingly on the old grey
stones of the stupendous pile at one extremity, while the cool shadows of
the mountain, with its flowery mantle of cistus, caper-plants, and wild
vines, were flung in soft contrast over the other. A party of travellers,
with their _serudjhes_,[13] sumpter mules, and araba drawn by buffaloes,
were about to halt for their mid-day meal; and the sounds of human life
and human laughter joyously awoke the echoes of the arch-spanned valley.
Nature and art, the present and the past, were before him; and the result
has been not only a faithful, but a strikingly characteristic sketch.
THE MAUSOLEUM OF SOLYMAN “THE MAGNIFICENT.”
“A dome with convoluted roof, whose fold
Projected o’er a gate of polished stone;
A hoary tree, in stateliness grown old,
The germ of by-past ages, now unknown;
A wild vine wreathing round the regal gold
And azure of the tinted pane; a tone
Of sadness sighing through the lofty gloom
Of a tall cypress.”
MS. POEM.
A beautiful covered way, leading from the outer court of Solimaniè, and
richly trellised with those luxuriant and leafy parasites so common in
the East, leads to the splendid tomb of Solyman; a light and elegant
sexangular building of white marble, overshadowed by one of those
enormous plane-trees which defy all calculation of their age, and seem
each a mimic forest in themselves. Clusters of the rare and beautiful
purple lily, grow, as it were, out of the foundation of the edifice,
and intrude their imperial blossoms within the sculptured screen that
protects the arched colonnade by which it is surrounded. The whole
exterior of the tomb is graceful and attractive; and it looks rather
like a temple dedicated to cheerfulness, than a shrine for the ashes of
the dead. The sunshine struggles through the fresh green leaves of the
giant-tree, and falls flickeringly upon the marble steps, painting them
with a thousand fantastic figures; and the blue doves which nestle amid
its branches fill the air with their soft cooings, destroying the deep
silence of the sacred spot. Altogether, the Mausoleum of the magnificent
Solyman conveys no idea of death and the grave, nor is it forced upon
you even when you step across the threshold on to the richly carpeted
floor, and see before you the sarcophagi of the imperial founder of the
building, of his successor, of Sultan Akhmet, and of the two daughters
of Solyman. Those of the Sultan’s are surmounted by lofty and curiously
folded turbans of white muslin, decorated with aigrettes; while those of
the princesses are simply covered with shawls of green cashmere, much
dilapidated by time. On a stand near the entrance, rests an admirable
model of the Mosque at Mecca, and the Prophet’s tomb, with parties of
pilgrims on their way to and from the holy city; it is well executed, and
bears an appearance of great accuracy.
A few paces from the resting-place of Solyman is that of his favourite
wife, the far-famed and tiger-hearted Roxalana, who, in the feelings of
the mother, suffered those of the woman to be extinguished, and turned
the holiest of virtues into crime. She also rests under a dome of marble,
and her sarcophagus is overlaid with costly shawls. The same plane-tree
darkens over the two tombs, but the vermilion patches flung by the
painted windows on the bier of the inexorable Roxalana, seem like records
of the innocent blood shed to feed her ambition. Not satisfied with the
proud distinction of having given birth to the Sultan’s eldest son, and
of seeing the bitter tears wept over his grave by Solyman, who, to mark
his grief for the untimely death of the ill-fated Mahomet, released a
number of slaves on the day of his burial, that they might ever look
back with veneration to his memory; the renegade Sultana, false alike
to her God and to her sex, excited the infatuated sovereign to murder
Mustapha, another of his sons by a rival beauty. Heavy accusations, laid
by a reckless enemy, who possessed the ear and perverted the judgment
of Solyman, were all-sufficient to secure the ruin of the young and
high-hearted Mustapha; who, moreover, when summoned to the presence of
his imperial father, entertained no suspicion of the treachery to which
he was about to fall a victim.
[Illustration: MAUSOLEUM OF SOLYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT AND ROXALANA.
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MAUSOLEUM OF SULTAN SOLYMAN.
W. H. Bartlett. W. Radclyffe.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
To render the tragedy more complete, Mustapha, when he received the
summons of the Sultan, was not alone; Zeangir, the son of Roxalana, to
whom he was tenderly attached, was beside him; who, when the message was
communicated to the prince, immediately determined on accompanying him to
the camp of their common parent. On their arrival at the imperial tent,
Mustapha was disarmed; and then first suspecting treachery, he advanced
in silence beyond the line of guards who were posted over the person of
the Sultan, and had scarcely done so, when four mutes sprang upon him,
armed with the fatal bowstring; but life was young and strong in the
betrayed prince, and he burst from their hold, and flung them from him
with indignant pride, as he turned to alarm the troops, by whom he was
greatly beloved, and in whom he felt, even at that awful moment, that
he might depend. But no time was allowed him for the effort, for as he
sought to escape, Solyman himself appeared at the entrance of the tent;
and one look of rage, one gesture of vengeance, recalled the scattered
senses of the mutes, who once more seizing their victim, strangled him
under the eyes of his infuriated father, and then flung his quivering
body on the carpet at his feet. It was the work of a moment; and the
paralyzed Zeangir beheld the brother whom he fondly loved, and who had
stood beside him in health and pride but a moment back, a livid and
distorted corpse, like an unnatural barrier suddenly raised by crime
between him and his father. From his wolf-hearted mother he had long
shrank, for his gentle nature quailed before the dark workings of her
iron spirit; and now two holy links were wrenched asunder which could
never again be united—he had no longer a parent; and his brave brother,
the idol of the troops and of the people, he was gone! Without a word,
without a tear, the young prince cast himself upon the corse of the
murdered Mustapha; and when the officious pity of some court parasite
would have separated him from his dead brother, he was unconscious of the
attempt: he was not born for blood, and his heart had burst upon the body
of the victim! Once again Roxalana stood beside a dead son; but there
was no compunction in her eyes, as they rested on the pale face of him
whom her cruelty had murdered: there was no shadow over them, as when the
grief of earth seems to throw a veil over the decrees of Heaven. They
were bright with intense light—vivid with fearful brilliancy—they told a
tale of vengeance!
The arrow was shot by a sure hand! Solyman, enslaved by the personal
beauty, and cowed by the resistless passions of his wife, became the
puppet of her will; and the moon had not yet grown old, when Roxalana
once more held a death-warrant signed by the misguided Sultan. Mustapha
had left behind him a son, a fair boy who had scarcely numbered ten
summers—brave, and beautiful, and, until now, beloved. This was the new
victim; but the implacable Sultana, fierce as she was, knew all the
intensity and watchfulness of a mother’s love, and she felt that the
vigilance of the new-made widow must be eluded. The boy was, therefore,
on some fair pretence dispatched to a kiosque near Broussa, attended by
a proper guard, and accompanied by his mother in a covered litter. In
the plain beyond Moudania, the litter broke down; and the eunuch who was
entrusted with the death-warrant, proposed to the little prince that they
should together gallop forward to the city, and send back assistance.
The gallant boy complied; and as he sprang from his horse at the door of
the kiosque, the executioner stopped him on the threshold, and extending
towards him the bowstring, intimated to him that such was the will of the
Sultan.
“God is great!” said the brave boy, “and the Sultan is his shadow upon
earth—I am ready.” And when she reached Broussa, the widow of Mustapha
found that she was childless!
YENI DJAMI.
“Lightly tread, ’tis hallowed ground.”
The beautiful mosque of Yeni Djami, known also as that of Sultana Validè,
was built by the mother of Mahomet IV., and is esteemed one of the most
magnificent in the capital. The minarets are peculiarly elegant, each
being encircled by no less than three galleries, of the most minute
and thickly-perforated sculpture, in the Saracenic taste. The portal
is of ponderous size, and the brazen gates are thickly studded with
mother-of-pearl; three lofty arches enclose an open peristyle, terraced
in, and sufficiently spacious to contain more than a hundred persons.
The double range of exterior galleries, running along the façade of the
temple, are of fine and delicate workmanship, and the arches by which
they are formed, are chastely and beautifully designed. The principal
dome springs majestically from the centre of the spacious roof, and rests
upon four lesser ones, which appear to lift it to the clouds; while the
tomb of the illustrious founder nestles beneath the more lofty edifice,
comparatively minute in size, but equally elegant in construction.
[Illustration: YENI DJAMI, OR MOSQUE OF THE SULTANA VALIDÈ.
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Varrall.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
The mosque stands near the edge of the harbour, and its court stretches
down almost to the water. It is overshadowed by two of the most
majestic maple-trees in the city, whose gnarled and knotted trunks and
fantastically twisted branches bespeak them of a date coeval with that
of the gleaming temple which they so greatly embellish. Beneath their
long cool shadows congregate groups of idlers, attracted thither by the
calm stillness and refreshing breezes; and there they loiter for hours,
erecting in the court their awnings of striped cotton, and spreading
their mats for the mid-day _siesta_; while the melon and sherbet-venders
ply their fragrant trade, and the perfumed vapour of the Salonica tobacco
exhales from many a chibouque.
The court of Yeni Djami generally presents the characteristic scene
which I have here described; and of the mosque itself, the Turks have
a popular tradition, that it was built from the produce of one of the
Sultana-mother’s diamond-studded slippers, piously disposed of for the
purpose of its erection; a legend which doubtlessly owes its origin
to the probable fact of the expenses having been defrayed from the
_bishmalik_ (or slipper-money) of the imperial lady—a national grant to
the female members of the reigning family, bearing some analogy to the
“privy purse” in England.
THE TCHARTCHI, OR BAZĀRS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
“Richly furnished with plate and gold;
Basons and ewers,——
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry:
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpanes,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions bost with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needle-work,
Pewter and brass——”
SHAKSPEARE.
The Bazārs of Constantinople have ever been to home-staying Europeans
as a vision of the “Arabian Nights;” travellers have lost themselves in
hyperbole in their descriptions of them; and the antique glories of the
Atmeidan, and even the solemn grandeur of St. Sophia, do not subject the
returned pilgrim to half the questioning curiosity which is elicited by
the great exchange of the City of the Three Seas.
[Illustration: GREAT AVENUE IN THE TCHARTCHI.
_GRANDE VUE DANS LE TCHARTCHI._ _GROSSE ALLEE IM TCHARTCHI._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
In by-past years, ere “the schoolmaster was abroad,” the chubby urchins
of half the remote villages in England believed that the dust of
London was gold-dust, and its pavements silver; and even now, in like
manner, there are many individuals to be found, who almost persist in
believing that the Bazārs of Stamboul are as sparkling and gorgeous as
the enchanted garden of Aladdin; and yet nothing can be further from
the fact. The interest of the Tcharchi exists in its great extent, its
peculiar arrangement, and the picturesque effects constantly produced
by the shifting groups who people it, and whose diversity of costume,
countenance, and national character, tends to arouse the admiration and
curiosity of every visitor. It must not be imagined that the bazārs
of the East are vast apartments filled with rows of trim counters,
overstrewn with toys and trinkets, and all the gaud and glitter which are
the charm of such lounging-places in London. There is no prettiness in
the great commercial mart of the Moslems; their Tcharchi is composed of
a cluster of streets, of such extent and number as to resemble a small
covered town, the roof being supported by arches of solid masonry. A
narrow gallery, slightly fenced by a wooden rail, occasionally connects
these arches: and it is extraordinary to look down from one of them upon
the changeful and motley crowd below; nor is it, perhaps, less singular
to the stranger, when he has gained this giddy elevation, to find himself
surrounded by numbers of doves, whom his vicinity fails to disturb, and
who appear to be so habituated to human contact and human turmoil, and to
have suffered both so long with impunity, as to have become regardless
alike of the one and the other.
[Illustration: THE ARMOURY BAZĀR.
W. H. Bartlett. F. W. Topham.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Every avenue of the bazār is appropriated to a particular branch of
commerce; thus, in the street known as the Bezenstein, the two ranges of
counters are occupied by jewellers, and are placed on a raised wooden
platform, where the merchants spread their carpets, and make their
calculations on strips of a strong yellowish paper, resembling parchment,
that they rest against their knee; while, without withdrawing the
chibouque from their lips, they dip their reed pen into an ink-bottle,
nestled amid the folds of the shawl about their waist, and thus gravely
await their customers. Beyond the platform is a strong-room, of which the
door is made fast; for many of them contain some of the most costly gems
in the world, particularly pearls, turquoises, and brilliants; although
the dingy and ill-supplied glass-cases on the counters would lead a
stranger to imagine that nothing rare or curious was to be met with in
the Bezenstein: but let the keen and quick-sighted dealers (who are
almost entirely Armenians) see a prospect of securing a good customer,
and the door of the inner apartment once thrown back, the eye must be
steady indeed that is not dazzled by the mass of jewels which surround
it. The
——“Plate and gold,
Basons and ewers”——
are there in abundance; drinking-cups, lipped with gems; _tusbees_, or
rosaries, where every bead is a jewel; clusters of diamonds in fanciful
devices, for the turbans of the young beauties of the harem; aigrettes
for the caps of the nobles; housings for the Arab steeds of the Pashas,
stiff with pearls and gold rings, chains, and stars;—it were idle, in
short, to attempt a recapitulation of the treasures of the Bezenstein.
The avenue of the money-changers is gloomy and uninviting, save to those
who can feel a pleasure in listening to the ring of the precious metals,
which goes on hour after hour, as the solemn-looking bankers pass heaps
of coin, or bars of unwrought gold, from scale to scale, to test their
weight and quality. This branch of commerce, also, is almost entirely
monopolised by Armenians, many of the principal men of that nation
resident at Constantinople being sarafs, or bankers to the different
Pashas, and remarkable for their high principle and honesty. There are
few Turkish money-changers,—as the Osmanlis are not naturally speculative
in their commercial undertakings, and prefer a less uncertain and anxious
occupation,—and still fewer Greeks; I believe, simply from the difficulty
they find in obtaining clients. The great mass of Constantinopolitan
bankers are, consequently, Armenians and Jews, and many of the latter
are highly respectable and trustworthy; the interests of their employers
being further ensured from the known extent of their wealth, and the
constant vigilance which is exercised by the Turkish government over that
degraded and oppressed people.
One of the most interesting portions of the Tcharchi, is that known as
the Armoury Bazār, where, in five minutes, a person may, like the ghost
of Hamlet’s father, be—
“Armed from top to toe,”—
in the garb and with the weapons of almost every period and nation. The
walls on either side are lined with pieces of armour;—antique shields,
from that of the paladin to the more modern buckler of the crescent;
horse-gear, embossed and studded with shining metals; warlike ornaments,
so ponderous that they could, apparently, only have been wrought for
giants; helmets of all forms and sizes, many of them surmounted with
devices which recall the best days of chivalry; spears, as light as
fairy-wands, and almost as glittering; suits of mail, dimmed by the rust
of centuries; the English musket, the American rifle, and the Indian bow,
hang side by side; while Damascus swords, Egyptian scymitars, and Turkish
handjars, are heaped together in picturesque confusion. Leopard skins,
saddle-worn and venerable, are there also; and resting against them may
frequently be seen the heavy match-lock, crusted with embossed silver in
those beautiful arabesques peculiar to the East.
The anxiety of the vendors to secure a Frank customer is quite ludicrous.
He is beckoned from one to the other with a gesticulation and earnestness
against which it is almost impossible to contend; a score of articles
is exhibited in succession, with a rapidity which prevents their being
thoroughly examined; and the plain dark steel of Khorassan gives place
to the heavy and elaborate Albanian pistol, and that in its turn to
the Korān-inscribed Damascus sabre, before the quality of either can
be ascertained. Then, suddenly, as though he doubted the taste of his
customer for warlike weapons, the dealer thrusts them all aside, and
spreads before him a tempting display of delicate amber mouth-pieces for
the chibouque; under-coats from the costly looms of Persia; hangings of
Tyrian tapestry; and all his hoard of fanciful and expensive luxuries.
Others, too impatient to await their chance of wiling the wealthy infidel
from the stalls of their neighbours, employ one of their slaves to
perambulate the bazār, and to pass and repass before the Frank, carrying
some especially attractive object—such as a jewel-hilted pistol, or a
buff coat embroidered with gold with a skill and intricacy which cannot
fail to attract his eye.
All nations alike trade in this fascinating commerce; the Armenian
spreads his carpet beside that of the Turk; and the sallow Jew elbows the
keen-eyed and cunning Greek; here and there a Persian may be seen sitting
restlessly in the midst of his wares, his flexible and mobile features
partially overshadowed by his large white turban; while throngs of idlers
block up the entrance of the avenue, shoving, laughing, and vociferating,
and waking a perpetual thunder amid the echoes of the long building.
The Shoe bazār presents a most gay and novel appearance, from the
circumstance of its being customary—and, indeed, a law—in Constantinople
for each nation to be shod with its own particular colour. Thus the Turk
wears a boot and slipper of bright yellow morocco, the Armenian crimson,
the Jew purple, and the Greek black; and this fact, coupled with the
utter disregard of the Orientals to every thing like _a fit_, which
enables the dealer to manufacture large quantities with the certainty
of a speedy sale, makes the street of the shoe-makers like a bed of
tulips. But the most beautiful feature of their trade is the velvet,
gold-embroidered, jewel-sprinkled slipper of the harem, worn by the fair
Turks on all occasions of festivity, and, indeed, by the higher classes
on all occasions within their dwellings; an article of expenditure so
serious in a great Osmanli family, as to have suggested the application
of the term _bishmalik_, or slipper-money, (to which I have already had
occasion to allude,) to the grant of a considerable annual income to the
ladies of the imperial family.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE TCHARTCHI.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Mingled among these slippers may also be seen a number of circular
_analies_, or hand-mirrors, with short handles, mounted in gold or silver
embroidery, and frequently enriched with seed pearls. These pretty toys
are indispensable to the Turkish ladies, as they are the companions, not
only of their toilets but of their voyages up and down the Bosphorus,
where, reclining on their cushions, they repair, as the swift caïque
shoots along, the disarray which the sharp sea-breezes create in the
folds of their snowy veils and ample mantles.
But decidedly the most glittering street in the Tcharchi, is that
appropriated to the embroiderers; where silks, stiff with the most
elaborate needle-work, wrought in gold and silver threads; almost
impalpable muslin, gay with clusters of bright-coloured silken flowers;
tobacco bags of cachemire, which appear to have cost the maker years of
labour; and costly scarfs from Persia, with golden borders formed of
verses from the Korān, or love-ballads from Hafiz, are to be seen on
all sides. All the embroidery wrought in Constantinople, with very few
exceptions, is the work of the Armenian women, who, secluded even more
strictly than the fair Turks within the recesses of the harem, emulate
their thrifty and pains-taking husbands in their untiring industry; but
much of the most costly, particularly that which is worked on cachemire,
is imported from Persia.
The Fruit Bazār stands close to the water’s edge, and abounds with dried
fruits of every description—figs and dates from Smyrna; raisins, plums,
the small sweet currant of Corinth, and every other variety capable
of preservation; the only inconsistency being the sale of cheese, and
Russian butter, packed in calf-skins, and most unpleasant in appearance,
among the more attractive articles already enumerated.
The Broussa silks occupy a very considerable street, as the produce of
the celebrated looms of that city is greatly esteemed by the Turks, both
for pattern and texture. The staple trade of the ancient capital of
Bithynia being raw silk, two-thirds of the houses are colonized by the
“spinning-worm;” and the silk is consequently used by the weavers with a
profusion which renders the quality of the manufacture so solid, that
many individuals have been deluded into the belief that it was mixed with
cotton—a material which is to them much more expensive and difficult of
access. The colours are seldom bright; for the waters about Broussa are
so highly mineralized, as to dull the silk very materially in the process
of spinning; but it probably derives from the same circumstance its
unusual strength and durability. The workmen of the city are extremely
expert in interweaving gold and silver threads in the warp; and the
silks so woven are greatly esteemed in the harems. The plainer patterns
are used by both sexes indiscriminately; and nearly the whole costume
of every respectable Turk or Armenian is composed of Broussa silk. The
demand is hence very great, and the supply commensurate with it; and
there are few busier localities in the Tcharchi than this. A few Genoa
velvets and European satins may be found in the bales of the merchants;
but as they are comparatively unsaleable, the Frank lady who seeks them
has no opportunity of being fastidious in her selection.
The Confectionary Bazār is also extremely well worthy of a visit, for the
Orientals excel in all the delicate preparations of sugar and perfume
which can be produced. Preserved rose-leaves—a feast for the fairies—look
as bright, as soft, and almost as sweet, as though they had just been
shaken to the earth by a truant zephyr wandering in the gardens of
Nishapor; gums, mixed with sugar, perfumes, and the juices of fruits,
are moulded into a hundred pretty shapes, and may be purchased of as
many different flavours; cakes of sherbet-paste, casks of _chalva_, (a
composition of flour, honey, and oil,) delicate sweetmeats from Smyrna
and Scio, and strings of sausages, hung in festoons, and filled with
the inspissated juice of grapes, mixed with walnuts or almonds, are
among the most popular articles of the _sekeljhes_,[14] if we except,
indeed, the _kaïmac_, or clotted cream, which is also sold in this
bazār. The name _kaïmac_, signifying in the Turkish language the excess
of excellence, will give some idea of the estimation in which this
dainty is held by the natives; and, truly, it deserves the appellation
it has obtained, for there are few edibles in the luxurious East more
delicate than the kaïmac. The rush of customers to the counter on which
it is freshly set forth, is most amusing, and very unfavourable to the
vendors of _mahalabè_, another preparation of milk, forming a species of
blancmange, which is eaten with rosewater, and sugar, or honey. In the
immediate neighbourhood of this confectionary colony, the water-venders
ply a busy trade, and constantly thread among the crowd with their
classically-formed vases, or jars of red clay, upon their shoulders, and
a wooden case strapped before them, containing large crystal goblets,
scrupulously clean and cool: their cry is harmonious and melancholy, but
they are brisk, civil, and industrious; and for about a farthing and a
half the pedestrian can always secure a refreshing draught.
[Illustration: KAÏMAC SHOP IN THE TCHARTCHI.
_KAÏMAC BOUTIQUE DANS LE BAZĀR._ _DER KAUFLADEN KAÏMAC IN DEN TCHARTCHI._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The lapidaries have also their distinct locality, where curious antique
gems may occasionally be purchased, but always at an exorbitant price,
the merchants having discovered the partiality of the Franks for that
species of ornament; they cut and engrave well, but the expense is
greater than in Europe.
The Tobacco Bazār is a very important feature in the Tcharchi; the
quantity consumed yearly in the city being immense, and the qualities
numerous. Those most esteemed, however, are from Salonica and Latakia;
the former by the women, from its mildness and perfume, and by the
more luxurious among the men; and the latter by the lower classes, on
account of its great strength. Other varieties from the Crimea, Ormus,
and many parts of the East, and also from Hungary, are in abundance; and
when it is remembered that in Constantinople a visit is never paid, a
bargain is never negociated, an hour is never passed, without the eternal
chibouque, there will be no necessity for the assurance that this is the
most bustling of all the bazārs. The _narghilè_, or water-pipe, which is
seldom used until after the mid-day meal, and which greatly resembles
the hookāh of Hindostan, is always filled with Shiraz tobacco, sprinkled
with rosewater, and frequently rendered still more odoriferous by having
a scented pastile placed on its summit, while the water through which the
vapour passes is impregnated with the perfume of some flower or spice.
The Spice Bazār is perhaps, however, the most perfectly oriental
department of the Tcharchi; for it is laden and groaning with all the
costly condiments of the Levant, in enormous quantities. There are
pyramids of cloves, hillocks of ginger, piles of cinnamon, bags of mace,
and a combination of sweetness which wafts the sense at once to the
“spiced groves of Araby the Blest.”
The Porcelain Bazār is very beautiful; for within it are congregated
every species of ancient and modern China, from the pure, well-finished,
fresh-looking cup of Worcestershire manufacture, to the elegantly-formed
but time-worn vase, dug from some Athenian ruin. The mimic flowers of
Dresden are beside the productions of Sèvres; and the combinations of
colour are extremely pretty. Jars of artificial flowers, and or-molu,
buhl, and alabaster clocks from Paris and Geneva, abound; for the Turks
are very partial to these ornaments, and scatter them over every room in
their houses; and, altogether, the Porcelain Bazār is a very agreeable
lounge.
In order to avoid the imputation of tediousness, we will conclude the
chapter with a description of the Shawl Bazār—a mart of luxury and
expense which is the terror of many an Eastern husband. The goods
exposed are rather gaudy than valuable, and consist principally of Scotch
and French manufactures, both of which are eagerly purchased by the
middle and lower classes; these are hung against the walls, or spread
over the carpets of the dealers, in juxta-position with Greek coiffures
of gold-spotted muslin, scarfs of lama-gauze, and embroidered bathing
wrappers. But in the private store behind the merchant lie the most
precious shawls of Lahore and Thibet, gold stuffs from Bagdat, and all
the more costly articles of an oriental toilette. Many of the traders
in this bazār are Persians; and wo betide the unsuspecting Frank who
falls into their clutches! They have all the cunning of the Greek, the
pertinacity of the Armenian, and the roguery of the Jew, to which is
superadded their own national fearlessness of a lie, and proficiency in
dissimulation. Does the worthy merchant show a shawl for which he is
aware that he would be well paid by a thousand piastres, he will begin by
demanding two, or even three thousand; and so long as he believes that
there is the slightest probability of effecting his purpose, he will
swear by the beard of his father, and the grave of his mother, that he
is selling it far beneath its value, because he sees something fortunate
in the aspect of his customer—or because he has dreamt a dream—or for
some other equally probable and rational reason; when, no sooner does
he become convinced of the impracticability of the cheat, than he
unblushingly decreases his demand by two or three hundred piastres at a
time, until he has reduced it to a fair amount.
The mania of the Greek ladies for cachemires is a national
characteristic; and as all the oriental females are both extravagant
and fastidious on the subject of shawls, this branch of commerce is
very weighty; while the bazār is also visited by the slaves, whose
business it is in every great household to superintend the wardrobes
of the harem; and who barter, chaffer, and exchange, with a knowledge
of the comparative value of the articles quite equal to that of the
merchants themselves; and who bring hither all the cachemires requiring
repair, to a number of grave old Moslems, who are squatted upon their
carpets—spectacle on nose, and needle in hand—at the lower end of the
street; and who perform their task most skilfully, weaving in every
thread of a corresponding colour to the pattern of the shawl, and
perplexing the eye to discover the fracture.
Such is the Tcharchi of Constantinople, where a week may be wholly and
not unprofitably spent, without ennui or weariness.
FOUNTAIN IN GALATA.
“’Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain’d by fever’d lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.”
ION.
The fountains of Constantinople and its environs are all more or less
elegant; and among the most beautiful, both as regards architecture
and ornament, may be classed the subject of the present sketch, which
occupies the centre of a small square, at the foot of the steep ascent
leading up from the merchant-suburb of Galata to the “Infidel Hill” of
Pera.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN IN GALATA.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Its form is singularly graceful and well-proportioned; and as the hand of
innovation has not yet touched its massive and deeply-projecting cornice,
it is perhaps as correct a specimen of the pure Moorish style as any now
existing in the city. Four small domes compose the roof; and they are
circled by a net-work of dentated sculpture, which gives them a light
and pretty appearance, and relieves the eye as it glances upward from
the face of the fountain, which is beautifully and profusely painted in
arabesques, as well as the wide and undulating cornice at the base of the
domes.
Five slender pillars of white marble divide the bayed front of the
building into four equal compartments, which are screened to about
midway of its height by a gilded lattice-work, behind whose protecting
shadow stands a range of brass vessels, occupying the lip of a reservoir
containing a constant supply of cool water for the use of the thirsty
passenger; while on either side of this, the principal face of the
fountain, stretch two receding wings, where exterior basins, fed with
a flow of water which rarely fails in its volume, offer a constant and
abundant mean of comfort and cleanliness to the immediate neighbourhood.
Coffee-kiosques, sheltered from the summer heats by rude wooden terraces,
overshadowed by acacia-trees and wild vines, occupy a portion of the
square; and the quiet-loving Moslem smokes his chibouque in luxurious
repose, under the very shade of the fountain whence he draws his cool and
healthful draught. Here the khamals[15] deposit the heavy bale, which
has been slung upon two long poles resting on their shoulders, being
secure at once of rest and refreshment; and recover their failing breath
ere they venture on the steep ascent, whose rugged paving doubles its
difficulty. Here the lounging household servant, a slave only in name,
loiters away an idle half-hour, collecting or retailing the gossip of
the neighbourhood. Here the crouching Jew offers for sale his paltry
mouth-pieces of artificial amber or discoloured ivory; the first of these
being made from the dust of the gum, and the fragments of those which
break under the hands of the workmen—an accident so common with amber, as
considerably to enhance the price of the perfect article. Here, too, the
wayfarer and the idler alike linger willingly; and seated upon low wicker
stools, not raised more than a few inches from the ground, they form
groups of picturesque comfort in admirable keeping with the locality, as
they smoke their chibouques, sip their coffee, and drain deep draughts
of the clear water of the fountain. The houses which surround the square
give a perfect idea of Turkish domestic architecture: the projecting
story above the ground-floor, supported by stout buttresses of timber,
and thickly set with latticed windows, is the harem of the establishment;
while the owner of the dwelling plies his trade or vends his wares below,
squatted on a wooden counter close beside the street, with his slippers
lying near him, his pipe between his lips, and his goods hung all round
his shop.
Among the prettiest of these small trades is that of the sherbet[16]
and mohalibè[17] merchants, whose tinkling fountains of metal, pouring
forth streams of lemonade and other cool drinks, are very inviting to the
passer by; while the large carefully-kept trays of white wood, with the
blancmange covered by a fine cloth moistened with rosewater, are scarcely
less enticing. The shops of the boudaka[18] venders are also very
attractive, as the forms of most of the bowls are extremely elegant, and
the gilding and enamelling of many of the more costly even curious. Near
this fountain is situated the street of the pipe-stick makers, a race of
men who are sure of success in their calling, and who are comparatively
independent in their manner of doing business; and many a bargain is
struck between the itinerant dealer and these worthy perforators of
cherry-sticks and jasmin-wood, under the wild vines and acacias of the
pretty fountain in the square.
VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU.
’Tis hard to quit the East’s inspiring sky,
From citron groves and spicy gales to fly;
To look on Nature in her brightest dress,
Nor heave a sigh for her lost loveliness.
MS.
The scene which is spread out before the wanderer, as he stands upon the
dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu, with the town of Scutari immediately at his
feet, and the city of Constantinople mapped out in the distance in its
frame of clear and pellucid water, is one which throughout his after
life, be it of what duration it may, he can never cease to remember. He
looks down into the mysterious gardens of the Seraï Bournou, far over
the glittering Propontis, along the shores of the Bosphorus, into the
Golden Horn, upon “St. Sophia’s gleaming dome;” on the seven hills of the
imperial city, the gloomy remains of the Seven Towers, the ancient walls
of Byzantium, the modern palaces of the Sultans, the fair islands of the
Sea of Marmora, and the far-off and snow-crested Mount Olympus, lording
it over the fertile plains of Broussa.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
It is well for those who wish to form a correct idea of such a scene as
this, that the pencil of the artist can call it up and place it palpably
before them; for mere words could never succeed in creating so bright a
vision. Hours are necessary to the traveller to enable him to appreciate
all its glory; and it is an additional enjoyment to pitch his tent
among the wild thyme and olive-trees of the mountain, and in the midst
of the camels, which, after gaining the summit of the height, repose
there for a time in some shady spot, as they are on their way into the
interior, laden with merchandise from the bazārs of the capital. As these
animals are never seen on the European side of the channel, they give a
localizing effect to the picture, and the wanderer at once feels that he
is in Asia.
This is, perhaps, the most favourable point for contemplating Stamboul in
all its extent, and fully comprehending its extraordinary magnificence
as a whole; its singular outline, its ocean-girdle, where the blue waves
seem to follow lovingly whithersoever the sinuosities of the shores
invite them; its thousand domes, and its shaft-like minarets beckoning
to the blue heavens, against which they glitter like polished ivory; its
forest-trees overshadowing the party-coloured dwellings; its cypress
groves stretching down to the water’s edge; and all the blended beauties
of the unrivalled locality.
The artist has indeed a rich field for his talent when he gazes around
him from Mount Bulgurlhu; but the traveller, although he may idly heap
expletive on expletive, until his praises swell into hyperbole, must ever
fail in conveying by mere verbal description, a correct impression of so
bright, so varied, and so beautiful a panorama.
TURKISH HOUSES ON THE BOSPHORUS.
“It was indeed a wide extensive building
Which opened on their view, and o’er the front
There seem’d to be besprent a deal of gilding,
And various hues, as in the Turkish wont—
A gaudy taste; for they are little skill’d in
The arts of which these lands were once the font:
Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen
New painted, or a pretty opera-scene.”
BYRON.
However the description of the noble poet which heads the present chapter
may apply to many of the country residences on the channel, it cannot be
denied that to others it is entirely inapplicable; for there are only too
great a number which resemble nothing less than
“A screen new painted.”
The shores of the Bosphorus are a study—not only for their beauty, but
because, in the general aspect of the dwellings that fringe them, the
traveller may read a great moral lesson; for Turkey is a country where
the population do not fall back upon the past, where they are almost
careless of the future, and where the present is every thing. The Turk
builds for himself, toils for himself, intrigues for himself, as his
father did before him; and leaves his children to strive and to create in
their turn with the “Inshallah!” of an earnest and unaffected philosophy.
Fortune, even in the West, is a fickle tenure; but in the East, it is
sometimes the mere ephemera of a day; and thus, as the Osmanli rises
in that favour which alone can lend it, he at once erects or purchases
a residence suited to his brightening prospects, gay with temporary
ornament and evanescent decoration, whose freshness may even thus chance
to outlive his prosperity. Should it do otherwise, he gladly renews the
paint and the gilding, and repairs the ravages of the weather, or the
effects of accident; but when, as is frequently the case, it outlasts his
fortunes, he contents himself with the faded and discoloured reliques of
by-gone luxury, and satisfies himself by making the dwelling habitable,
and awaiting a more golden season to renew its vanished glories.
[Illustration: TURKISH COUNTRY HOUSES, ON THE BOSPHORUS.
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Thus, as the light caïque of the observer skims over the ripple, the
circumstances of almost every householder on the Bosphorus may be
ascertained by the appearance of his dwelling. The residence of the
favourite and the courtier is indeed a “wide extensive building,” over
whose front is “besprent a deal of gilding, and various hues.” The
lattices of the harem are gaily painted, the terraces are bright with
flowers, the marble steps against which the blue ripple chafes in the
sunshine are thronged with attendants, and the caïque that awaits its
owner at their base is like a fairy bark, glittering with gold and
crimson. Arabesques adorn the walls, and pretty kiosques peep from among
the leaves of the tall trees of the extensive gardens; the perfume of
flowers and the sounds of music come blended along the water, and the
very atmosphere breathes prosperity.
The discarded Bey and the disgraced Minister boast dwellings as stately
and as proud, but the trace of change is over all. A heavy hand has
fallen upon the edifice, and the bright colours have faded beneath its
pressure. Grass grows upon the marble terraces; the wind finds its way
into the apartments through shivered glass and shattered lattices; and a
certain parade of decay, which leaves an impression of design upon the
mind, is palpable throughout.
But the empty residence of the exile tells a far sadder tale. There
all is real and unstudied ruin; the grass and weeds are rank in the
fissures of the pavement; the hingeless shutters rattle in the wind;
the mouldering roof no longer excludes the rain, which forms a thousand
discoloured currents through the faded frescoes of the desolate and
echoing apartments; doves build in the galleries, and locusts are loud
among the garden-branches; theirs is the only song that awakens the
deserted groves.
The houses of the Armenians and Greeks (the raïahs, or vassals of the
Porte,) are universally painted a dull red, or lead colour; the gayer
tints in which the Turks delight being prohibited to them, while the Jews
are compelled to confine themselves to black; and among the wealthier
raïahs it is common to paint a residence which is unusually spacious,
in two distinct colours, to produce the effect of its being separate
dwellings.
Nothing can be more irregular, and consequently more picturesque, than
the style of building on the Bosphorus; for the Turks are such sincere
lovers of nature, that they invariably throw out a bay, or contract a
wing, when by so doing they can secure a fine view, or a pretty peep,
not otherwise attainable; and as these present themselves at every turn
of the channel, the Turkish country houses have much the appearance of
buildings that have been put together by fragments.
When it is remembered that these houses are backed by a chain of
fertile and richly-wooded hills, forming a succession of gardens and
pleasure-grounds, and are washed by the rapid current of the Bosphorus,
it will be readily conceded that they present a _coup-d’œil_ probably
unique; while the salubrity of the air, the elasticity of the atmosphere,
the constant movement upon the channel—which may, without affectation, be
denominated the high-way of the capital—and the splendid scenery which
they command on all sides, render them, as summer residences, well worthy
of the universal popularity which they enjoy.
In many instances the buildings are raised along the extreme edge of the
shore, and are unprotected, even by a terrace; and the upper stories
generally projecting beyond the basement, they hang over the water in a
singular manner. Nor do they always enjoy this privilege with impunity,
as the channel is several feet in depth under their very windows; and
it not unfrequently happens, that the wind failing when a vessel is
beating on a “tack,” and the current impelling it onward with a force
which it is unable to resist, portions of the rigging become entangled
with the houses, bowsprits enter the windows of the saloons and carry
away the roof, and the most ridiculous accidents are the result. But
the inhabitants will not sacrifice a positive enjoyment to a probable
evil; and thus they build their water-palaces as daringly as though no
intrusive bark ever parted with its gleaming prow the bright waves over
which they fling their long dark shadows.
Not the least beauty of these singular residences consists in their
hanging terraces, frequently latticed in for the convenience of the
harem, which make the Bosphorus fragrant with the breath of flowers; and
the little canals terminating in arched entrances for the caïques of the
establishment, which are thus admitted to a large basin in the centre
of the court-yard, where the fair inhabitants may embark and disembark
at their pleasure, without being subjected to the profaning gaze of the
passers-by.
The interior of these interesting dwellings is generally fitted up
with much taste, and always with a careful regard to cheerfulness. The
walls are painted in frescoes, with landscapes, fruits, or flowers; and
the ceilings are always beautifully ornamented. In short, they are as
fanciful, and almost as frail, as fairy-palaces.
MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ, FROM THE PORT.
“Look on this picture, and on this;
A miniature resemblance.”
SHAKSPEARE.
The handsome court of the Mosque of Yeni Djami has been already
described, but the whole effect of the edifice from the water is too
striking to be neglected by the artist.
The white and dazzling marble of which it is built, its slender and
highly-ornamented minarets, its stately portal, and solemn stillness,
are brought out in such fine relief against the dark and dingy
buildings which cumber the port, and which are loud with industry
and contention—that while the mere traveller involuntarily wishes to
transport the gleaming temple to a more consistent locality, the painter
forgets the turmoil, the filth, and the uproar amid which he gazes on it,
in his anxiety to transfer to the pages of his sketch-book so beautiful
an object.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ. (From the Port.)
W. H. Bartlett. W. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Mosque of the Sultana Validè stands almost on the edge of the port,
from which its court is only separated by the Balook, or Fish Bazār; and
this point being the ferry between Galata and Stamboul, is constantly
thronged with boats. And here it is that almost every Frank first lands
in the “City of the Faithful.” The scene is a singular one to the western
traveller; and the noise and bustle of the busy crowd are totally at
variance with all his preconceived ideas of the grave and turbaned
easterns. The sharp shrill voice of the irritable and loquacious Greek,
the expostulatory vehemence of the angry Armenian, the solemn intonations
of the stately Turk, the hurried greetings of the merchants passing to
and from the bazārs, and the vociferous appeals of the rival boatmen to
the impatient passengers, swell on the air together; while the confusion
on the water emulates that on land.
Sharp and high-prowed Arab barks, taking in their lading, and exposing
their carved and gilded ornaments to the contact of the swift caïques
that shoot along among them, and the heavy clumsy-looking European
boats constantly plying between the shore and the vessels to which they
belong; local functionaries darting past on their errands of hidden
import; the caïque of the idler, with its crimson carpet, its comfortable
cushions, and its drowsy caïquejhes, awaiting, half asleep, the return
of their lounging employer; the ferry-boat, with its dingy gilding, and
eager owner; the well-kept and graceful caïque of the princely harem,
glittering with ornament and bright with beauty, bearing the veiled
favourite and her muffled slaves to the other shore; the barge of the
Minister, shooting over the water with the speed of a wild bird, and
flinging the silver spray right and left like a shower of diamonds, as
the sturdy rowers bend to their toil;—or, perchance, in the distance,
even the passing bark of the Padishah[19] himself, on his way to the
shady retreats of Kyat-Khana, moving along beneath the sunshine, one
bright mass of glittering gold. And high above all this movement, and
hurry, and human coil, towers the snowy temple of the unhappy Sultana
Validè: near it sleeps in peace its imperial founder in her splendid
mausoleum; and day by day the busy scene is renewed, the picturesque
groupes are variously repeated, and the deep blue Heaven smiles down
on all alike; while the clear surface of the port reflects at once the
solemn Mosque, the quiet tomb, and the flitting shadows of each chance
caïque and its busy freight.
THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET.
“The house of prayer profaned by words of strife—
The shrine of peace loud with unholy war—
The silent courts made vocal with the voice
Of human passion——”
The Mosque of Sultan Achmet, although less spacious than that of St.
Sophia, and less elegant in its details than Suleimaniè, is superior to
both in exterior effect. Its position is admirable; for the noble and
well-shaded space in which it stands occupies a side of the Atmeidan, or
Place of Horses, one of the most elevated portions of the city, and is
only separated from the ancient race-course of the Romans by a handsome
wall of white marble, intersected with gilt railing.
[Illustration: THE ATMEIDAN, OR HIPPODROME.
_L’ATMÉIDAN OU HIPPODROME._ _DIE REITBAHN ATMEIDAN._
W. H. Bartlett. C. K. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
A singular feature in this mosque, and one by which its beauty is
much enhanced, is the circumstance of its being the only temple in
Constantinople having six minarets; and the peculiarity is stated to have
grown out of the desire of its Imperial founder to possess a mosque in
his capital rivalling that at Mecca in this particular. The permission
of the Mufti having been with difficulty obtained, and the number of
minarets at Mecca being increased to seven, in consequence of its not
being deemed expedient that any other mosque should emulate that which is
sanctified by the tomb of the Prophet, the temple built by Sultan Achmet
at once exceeded in beauty every other in Stamboul. The arrangement of
the minarets is effected in the most graceful manner; two of them only
being attached to the principal building, while the remainder cut sharply
and irregularly through the dense mass of foliage amid which the mosque
is buried. Their galleries of Saracenic architecture look like fringes of
lace, and their slender spires are touched with gold, and glitter in the
sunshine; while the extreme beauty of the ancient trees, which are coeval
with the building, throw out the dazzling whiteness of the whole pile,
and their own sober depth of shadow relieves the eye with its refreshing
coolness.
At the upper end of the Atmeidan stands the monument of Constantine, a
square pillar, ninety feet in height, and indebted only to tradition
for its name. And tradition has been but a sorry godmother, for, in the
nineteenth century, she is unable to decide to which of the fourteen
Emperors so called, it was really dedicated. It may have been the founder
of the Empire—the first and almost the greatest of the whole; and then,
indeed, it were worthy to exist for ever as the memorial of a strong
arm and a brave spirit; but to him succeeded twelve other Constantines,
supine and imbecile; mere cumberers of the earth, to whom it could
but serve as a finger pointing to heaven to beckon thence the scorn
of the angry gods upon his degenerate and dishonouring successors. It
should have been—but, alas! it cannot—a record of the last, who washed
away the reproach of the whole world upon his line, in the blood of a
heroic heart—of that Constantine Paleologus, who offered himself up on
the ruins of an expiring dynasty; the Imperial victim, who fell in the
breach he had no longer strength to defend, and left a glorious name and
a crumbling city to the victorious arms of the Infidels; the last and
greatest of the Constantines, of whom no memorial now exists, save in the
pages of the historian, and the strains of the poet. Had the column been
indeed erected to his honour, the hand by which it was denuded might
well have withered at its work; for the brazen covering by which the
imperfect masonry was originally concealed has been torn away, and with
it every vestige of its ancient splendour and appropriation. The stones,
now laid bare to the unsparing touch of time, have every appearance of
being carelessly and inartificially piled together; and traces of the
huge brazen nails that formerly secured the outer surface, still remain
to attest the Vandalism which no regret can now repair. To a casual
observer, it appears incredible that so slight and imperfect a pile, so
small in circumference and so great in height, should thus long have
maintained its equilibrium.
Near this column, and about midway of the Atmeidan, are seen the
remains of the Delphic Tripod—a relic rendered principally interesting
by a tradition in which the Turks have firm faith, and which affirms,
that when by any accident it shall be either destroyed or displaced,
Constantinople will become once more a Christian capital. They
furthermore assert that the first brazen head of the three serpents whose
evolved bodies form the column, was lost in the transfer of the trophy to
Stamboul; that the second was stricken off by Sultan Achmet, at a single
blow of his scimetar, to prove the strength of his arm to his assembled
troops; and that the third disappeared, no one knew how nor whither. It
is certain that the fragment which now remains is headless, and, were it
not for this national legend, almost unworthy of notice.
At the extremity of the square stands a handsome Obelisk of red Egyptian
granite, raised upon a pedestal of white marble, coarsely embellished
with the victories of Theodosius, which blend but badly with the
elaborate hieroglyphics inscribed with such minute care immediately
above them. The Obelisk is sixty feet in height, and is in itself very
beautiful; but its charm is considerably weakened from its juxta-position
with the architecture of another age and country.
But the Atmeidan has become in itself famous during the reign of the
present Sultan by its historical associations—associations which are far
more interesting than even the antiquarian treasures that it contains;
for it was here that, during the destruction of the Janissaries in 1823,
that fated body made a vigorous though ineffectual stand against the
troops of their Imperial master. Thousands are said to have fallen in
this square alone by the weapons of the soldiery of the Nizam Attick,[20]
and the musketry to which they were exposed from the windows of the
neighbouring houses. Here, too, several of the ringleaders were captured,
and hanged by order of the Sultan, on a large plane-tree near the gate
leading into the outer court of the mosque, which has since been called
by the Turks, “the Tree of Groans.”
[Illustration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET.
W. H. Bartlett. S. Fisher.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The interior of Sultan Achmet is chiefly remarkable, architecturally,
for the immense size of the four columns which support the dome; for its
spacious and elegant galleries, roofed with mosaic; and for its lofty
marble pulpit. Its paramount claim to interest exists, however, in the
fact, that it was within these walls that the Sandjâk Sherif, or Sacred
Standard of Mahomet was exposed, after the refusal of the Janissaries to
submit themselves to the will of the Sultan.
The Sandjâk Sherif had not been publicly exhibited in the capital
for half a century; and the idea was a most politic one, as all the
enthusiasm and fanaticism of the empire was sure to be enlisted under its
folds. This standard, so revered by all good Musselmauns, is believed to
have been the nether garment of Mahomet, and is the most solemn relic
possessed by his disciples; and its appearance rallied at once every
devout Moslem in the ranks of the sovereign.
A procession was formed from the Imperial Treasury to the mosque of
Sultan Achmet; the Sultan, attended by all his court and household, was
preceded by the Ulema and Softas of the city, rehearsing verses from
the Korān. Public criers announced the exhibition of the holy standard
throughout the capital, and the excitement was beyond all precedent.
When the cortège reached the mosque, which they entered by the great gate
opposite the Atmeidan, the Chèïk-Islam mounted the steps of the pulpit,
and planted the Sandjâk Sherif there with holy reverence; and as he did
so, the Sultan pronounced an anathema against all those who refused to
obey an authority so supported.
These circumstances throw a halo around the mosque of the Sultan Achmet
which greatly enhances its actual beauty; and the traveller loiters
willingly amid its dim magnificence, calling up visions of the past which
stamp an extraneous value upon every detail of the edifice.
A curious and valuable collection of antique vases, of the most graceful
designs and beautiful workmanship, many of them inlaid with gems and
mother-of-pearl, are suspended throughout the mosque from transverse
bars of iron; together with the eggs of ostriches, emblems of dependence
on Providence; ears of corn, the symbols of plenty; and similar typical
decorations.
But the glory of Sultan Achmet, as an edifice, is its inner, or
cloistered court, surrounded by graceful Saracenic columns, whose
capitals resemble clusters of stalactites, forming the base of arches
of extraordinary beauty. In the centre of the court, which is paved
throughout with rich marble, a stately fountain, surmounted by a
handsome cupola, gives an aspect of refreshing coolness to the enclosure.
On the left hand of the gate of entrance is situated a balcony, upon
which opens one of the windows of the mosque, whence all firmans of
public interest are read aloud to the people; and, taken altogether,
whether as a public building, as a religious monument, or as the site
of stirring incident, there is no temple in Stamboul more worthy of
attention than the Imperial Mosque of Sultan Achmet.
THE COLUMN OF MARCIAN.
There Rome’s proud eagle, carved in living stone,
Is lifted to the skies, and forms the base
Of a still prouder statue, now unknown—
Which, when first raised to its imperial place,
Had thought to make futurity its own.
MS. POEM.
The Column of Marcian stands near the gate of Adrianople, in the garden
of a Turkish house; and is a fine remain of Roman splendour. The pedestal
of the pillar is ornamented with wreaths of oak-leaves; the shaft is
eighty feet in height; and on the richly carved Corinthian capital rests
a block of marble supporting a second capital, formed by four gigantic
eagles, sustaining upon their extended wings the base of a statue now
entirely destroyed. The name of the column would infer that the missing
effigy was that of the Emperor Marcian; but many of the Greeks cling
to the tradition that it was erected in honour of one of the heathen
divinities, by whose statue it was surmounted: and they ascribe it
indifferently to Apollo, Mercury, and Mars. By the Turks it is called
_Kestachi_, and valued only as a stately feature in the landscape;
although the worthy Moslem in whose garden it stands, is evidently much
gratified by the admiration it elicits from strangers. A venerable
olive-tree, whose rude and knotted trunk is in a state of picturesque
decay, leans against the slender shaft; flowers bloom at its base; a
cluster of dark cypresses, looking, despite their great height, like mere
pigmies beside this lofty monument of human art, are in its immediate
vicinity; while a small mosque, and a modest mausoleum, peep out in the
distance from among the leafy trees of the enclosure.
[Illustration: COLUMN OF MARCIAN.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Occasionally, as the tourist meditates beside it, or the artist, seated
near the mouldering wall which separates it from the road, transfers its
noble proportions to his canvass or his sketch-book, the cheerful voices
of women come on his ear from the latticed casement of the dwelling by
which it is immediately overlooked: nor can he fail to feel that he is
himself the subject of their harmless mirth; his foreign and tasteless
garb, his unturbaned head, his beardless chin—even the very nature of
his occupation, is food for laughter and for jest; while the certainty
of a present to old Akif, which is never refused by those who visit his
classic garden, adds, in no inconsiderable degree, to the gratification
of his harem, when the apparition of a wandering giaour comes to relieve
the tedium of their existence.
Old Akif himself is also a worthy subject for the easel of the artist;
he seems to have grown grey with the column, and to have withered with
the olive-tree. The innovations of late years have wrought no reform
in the garb or manner of Akif; he looks like an Asiatic Turk who had
never gazed on the glories of the “Golden City.” His turban is large
and loosely folded; his tchalvar[21] are of the widest dimensions; his
open sleeves of the extremest length; his waist-shawl is freighted with
an ample tobacco-purse; and he leans upon his chibouque with an air of
sturdy and majestic independence finely demonstrative of his proud and
self-centered disposition. He does the honours of the monument like one
who is conscious that he is conferring a favour. He neither murmurs at
the heartless haste, nor at the tedious delay of his visitors; and he
ultimately receives the gratuity of his departing guests with all the
quiet and unmoved composure of a creditor tendering his hand for the
payment of a well-won debt. The venerable Akif is no antiquarian in
spirit; to him stones are stones, and inscriptions which do not treat
of the Korān a mere waste of words; and as the smoke from his chibouque
curls slowly over his long white beard, many a thought probably passes
through his placid brain, not altogether flattering to the earnest Frank
who scrambles about the ruin, seeking for traces of a time and people now
passed away for ever.
SCUTARI.
“——the place of thousand tombs
That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms
And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamp’d with an eternal grief,
Like early unrequited love.”
BYRON.
The first object connected with the city of Constantinople visible to the
voyager who approaches it from the Dardanelles, is the cypress canopy of
the great Cemetery of Scutari. Its dark mass of funereal foliage rests
like a thundercloud “no bigger than a man’s hand” against the clear blue
sky for a time; and then, as the vessel ploughs her way through the
yielding waters, gradually looms out larger and larger upon the horizon,
until the mind begins to take in some idea of its vast extent.
This extraordinary necropolis, perhaps the largest and most picturesque
in the world, stretches its cold and silent shadows over hill and valley,
covering upwards of three miles of country with the sable livery of
death, and shutting out the sun-light from unnumbered graves. The Moslem,
when he breathes his last, may truly be said to have sunk into “the quiet
grave;” for his ashes are never desecrated for the sake of the poor
space which they fill up; no second tenant ever crushes yet more deeply
the remains of the original occupant of each narrow tomb; and thus the
burial-places yearly extend themselves in every direction, and form a
prominent feature in the Turkish landscape.
Nothing can be conceived more solemn than the effect of the deep and
chilling gloom of the Cemetery of Scutari, with its thousand intersecting
paths dimly perceptible in the noonday twilight; and its million
head-stones leaning against each other, as though to dispute every inch
of the thrice-holy earth they occupy.
[Illustration: CEMETERY OF SCUTARI.
W. H. Bartlett. J. T. Willmore.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
As the Turks have a superstition, in which they place implicit faith,
that ere the end of the world the Mahommedans are to be expelled from
Europe, they universally covet a grave in this Asiatic wilderness of
tombs, in order to preserve their ashes from the contaminating contact
of the giaour; and thus, year after year, the cypress forest encroaches
on the purple vineyard, and the golden cornfield; the blossoming
fruit-trees, and the graceful maize waving its long and flexible leaves
to the breeze, gradually disappear. The scythe of the reaper and the
knife of the vintager are no longer busy; for the harvest now preparing
where the husbandman once toiled, can be gathered in only on the Last Day!
It is the custom at every Turkish burial for the officiating Imaum, or
priest, to plant one cypress at the head and another at the foot of each
grave; and hence, although the greater number necessarily perish for want
of air and space, those which survive still stand sufficiently close to
form a dense and gloomy forest. In a few instances, open spaces have been
left (similar to that selected by the artist) in order to promote the
entrance of the exterior air, and thus prevent the danger of infection
from the exhalations of the graves; but the greater portion of the
cemetery is one unbroken stretch of death-cumbered gloom, where turbaned
head-stones and lettered columns gleam out among the dark boles of the
cypresses like spectres of the past. Many a lesson may be learnt within
the silent precincts of this vast necropolis. The gilded tombs enclosed
within railings, and surmounted either by a rose-branch to designate the
mistress, or a turban to indicate the master of the family, surrounded
by the same emblems more minutely executed, are pompously inscribed with
the names and titles of some powerful and wealthy race, who lie apart,
and moulder unmingled with more common dust; though the depth of their
slumber and the quiet of their rest are enjoyed as fully by the tenants
of the less aristocratic graves on every side. The time-worn tablet,
whose weight has pressed down the crumbling soil beneath it until it has
lost its hold, lies half buried among the rank grass on one hand; while
on the other, gilded and dazzling columns tell their tale of death,
undefaced by the foul weather-stains which have made their predecessors
recordless; and thus the work of years goes on—generation succeeds to
generation even in this city of the dead—there lie the departed of
yesterday and to-day, and there is “ample space and verge enough” for
those who are to follow to-morrow. But a darker consciousness even
than this grows on the wanderer who penetrates the depths of the still
necropolis, as he pauses beside a group of lofty and turban-crested
columns, each rising from a small square slab of stone—they tell of
death, but the minute block of granite or marble at their base does
not indicate a grave, for there is not the space allowed, narrow as
are the limits needed, to lay the limbs of a human being decently and
reverently in the earth. The eye of the stranger has not deceived him;
for each of those small stones covers only the head of a victim to his
own folly, or to the intrigues of others, whose dishonoured trunk found
a fouler resting-place—some baffled politician, or betrayed traitor,
or hated rival, cut off amid his dream of pride and power, and denied
even the grave which would have once more levelled him with his kind.
What a mockery are the elaborate turbans carved above each dissevered
head; minutely tracing forth in their form, and fold, and size, the rank
of the poor victim of whom a mere portion lies beneath, and serving as
a perpetual scoff—the more bitter, that it is wordless! but the graves
of love are there also, flower-strown, and tended by the gentle hand of
regret and tenderness; and it is a relief to turn to these, and to forget
that any hand save That One which holds the breath of a world within its
palm, has helped to people the cypress-canopied Cemetery.
Every Turkish burial-place has its local superstition, but that of
Scutari is the wildest and the most poetical of them all, and must not be
passed over in silence.
The Bosphorus is haunted by clouds of birds, about the size of thrushes,
and of dark plumage save on the breast, where the feathers are of a
pale blue; they are said to be a species of _alcedo_, but as the Turks
will not permit them to be destroyed, and it would be dangerous for
any Frank to fire on them, the ornithologist has had no opportunity of
determining the fact. These singular birds are never seen either to feed
or to alight; nor will they deviate from their course even to admit the
passage of a caïque, when, as occasionally occurs, they are flying very
low; they merely rise a few feet higher in some instances, and in others
suffer the boat to cleave its way through them without appearing to heed
the fact. They fly rapidly, and in perfect stillness, from the Black Sea
to the Propontis, where they instantly turn and wend their way back to
the Euxine; arrived there, they wheel again, and return to the Sea of
Marmora; and thus, from day-dawn till twilight, from day to day, and from
month to month, they come and go along the channel without any apparent
end or aim—without an instant’s repose, without food, and without the
slightest deviation from their course.
No instance of one of these singular birds having been picked up dead
has ever occurred; and so mysterious and unearthly are their habits,
that they have obtained the appellation of the “damned souls,” from a
tradition, partially believed, that they are the condemned spirits of
the unholy ones, whose ashes have found a resting-place in the great
cemetery, but whose spiritual essence is not permitted to mingle with
the purer immortality of their less sinful neighbours. This superstition
is supposed to have arisen from the circumstance, that, during a time
of tempest, when the storm-wind will not permit the migratory flight of
the birds along the channel, they fly skrieking to the cypress forest of
the necropolis for shelter; and as these are the only periods at which
they are known to emit a sound, the credulous in such matters—and in
the East they are not few—have decided that their sharp thrilling cry is
one of agony; and that they are compelled, during the continuance of the
elemental warfare, to narrate to each other the catalogue of crime which
has cut them off from the repose of the grave, and condemned them to
everlasting wandering over the face of the waters!
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN AT SCUTARI.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
But in describing the peculiarities of the great Asiatic Cemetery, the
“Silver City” of Scutari, to which it is so striking an appendage, must
not be passed over without notice. Its gleaming houses crowd the graceful
point of land which forms the termination of the mountain-chain that
shuts in the Asian side of the Bosphorus, and then falls back only to be
bathed at its base by the wider and wilder waves of the Sea of Marmora.
Nothing can be imagined more perfectly beautiful than the position of
the town of Scutari, as it sweeps round this graceful point, and throws
the long shadows of its arrowy minarets far across the ripple of the
Bosphorus towards the European shore; and then, where the rocky coast, at
the base of which it is set like a pearl, recedes before the billows of
the Propontis, is itself overshaded by the majestic Bulgurlhu Daghi, dark
and frowning, and standing out amid the clear blue of heaven in stern
defiance, a mark for the storm and the tempest; while as the sun-light
falls upon the shimmering waters at its foot, towards which the hanging
gardens of the principal dwellings lovingly incline, clothing the rocky
descent with fringes of changeful embroidery, its graceful outlines are
lengthened or widened in fairy circles as the fitful breeze plays over
the surface of the glittering sea. Clusters of houses are framed in by
luxuriant foliage; imperial kiosques, painted in rainbow tints, give an
air of midsummer gladness to its shores; verdure descends in rich masses
to the very lip of the two seas by which it is laved; and not an arrow’s
flight from its quay stands the “Maiden’s Tower,” a small and picturesque
castle, built upon so diminutive a rock that its foundations cover the
whole surface, and give to the edifice the appearance of floating upon
the waves.
This little fortress, with its lofty tower and castellated walls, is also
the subject of a legend; and thus it runs:—A certain Sultan, whose name
is now forgotten, had a most fair daughter, the only child which had been
vouchsafed to him by the Prophet, and on whom his heart was anchored,
as on his best hope. Beautiful as a Houri, graceful as a Peri, and gay
as the summer wind when it sweeps over the rose-garden of Nishapor, the
girl was growing into womanhood, when the anxious father consulted a
celebrated astronomer on her future destiny; who, after having carefully
turned over the party-coloured pages of the mysterious volume of human
fate, uttered the frightful prophecy, that, in her eighteenth year, she
was to become the prey of a serpent.
Horror-stricken at so dreadful a denunciation, the agonized Sultan caused
the erection of the Guz-couli, or Maiden’s Tower, wherein he immured
his lovely daughter; in order, by thus cutting her off from the very
earth until the fateful period should be overpast, to remove even the
possibility of the threatened calamity. “But,” pursues the legend, “who
can war against his _kismet_?[22] Who can control his _felech_?[23]
What is written, is written; and the page of the future had been read.”
Death came to the princess in a case of fresh figs from Smyrna, in which
a small asp had been concealed; and she was found on her eighteenth
birth-day dead upon her sofa, with the fruit beside her; and the reptile,
like that which poisoned the crimson tide in the veins of the imperial
Cleopatra, lying gorged and loathsome upon her bosom!
The tale is a pretty one; but there is another tradition, which
terminates somewhat differently, and which clothes the serpent in the
garb of a young Persian prince, whose curiosity having been aroused by
the marvellous whisperings around him of the matchless beauty of the
imprisoned fair-one, had dared to row his caïque by night beneath the
very walls of the Guz-couli; and had contrived an interview with the
captive, won her heart, and contrived by means of a silken cord and a
strong arm, to carry her off at the very crisis of her fate! The reader
can select his own version of the “eventful historie.”
The Fruit-market of Scutari touches on the shore; and in the midst stands
an ancient fountain, of simple but pleasing architecture. The volume of
water is very great, and its quality almost unrivalled; it descends from
the dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu; and from some superstition, which it
would be difficult to comprehend, the Turks never permit its supply to
be appropriated by the inhabitants of the European shore of the channel,
even on occasions of the greatest drought; and thus, in 1836, when water
was frightfully scarce, and was transported from the villages at the
very mouth of the Black Sea to the thirsting city, at immense cost both
of time and money, the fountain of Scutari was suffered to run to waste,
and to pour the overflow of its tempting and abundant streams into the
Bosphorus.
The view from the market across the Channel is very beautiful; and
the locality in itself eminently characteristic and interesting. The
profuse supply of the most luscious and delicious fruits is amazing to
an European eye, while the prices at which they are sold are equally
astonishing. The grapes and melons of Scutari are renowned throughout
the East; its figs almost rival those of Smyrna; and there is no island
throughout the Archipelago where the pomegranate is richer or more
juicy. Oranges, lemons, peaches, and the delicate golden apple, which
resembles that of the West only in form, also abound; and with a handful
of piastres, the amused Frank, determined on a harmless experiment, may
freight his caïque with an offering which would do no discredit to Pomona
herself.
MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN SWEET WATERS.
We’re coming, we’re coming to gladden the throng,
With laughter and legend, with music and song;
Dark eyes gleaming round us; light tones on the air:
And the greetings of childhood to welcome us there;
A sun in the sky, and a breeze on the sea,
Oh! shew us the minstrels more happy than we!
MS. POEM.
A description has already been given of the Asian Valley of Sweet Waters;
of its majestic plane-trees, its laughing river, and its delicious
greensward; of the young beauties who throng its recesses, the Sultanas
who grace its drives; and the rosy children who make its echoes vocal.
But its musicians are a race apart, and the artist demands for them
“A separate mention and a guarded page.”
and in truth they are well worthy of it!
[Illustration: MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Their minstrelsy is none of the sweetest; it requires not the ear of
science to detect their discords, nor the taste of the poet to smile at
their absurdities; and yet, it is impossible not to welcome them with
smiles, for you know that joy and laughter follow in their train: the
calpac of the one, and the turban of the other, alike covers a shrewd
and a busy brain. How much may be told in a song, or hinted in a stanza!
Look at the group around them! The matron is there, wary and watchful,
remembering the years of her own youth, and the evils by which she was
then surrounded; and yet beguiled by the “cunning minstrelsie” of the
wandering bards into temporary forgetfulness of all save the charm of
their ready wit and simple seeming: the young beauty is beside her,
veiled and draped with jealous care, it is true, but with a heart as
warm, and a fancy as buoyant, as though yashmacs and lattices were
unknown in the land of her birth; her pale cheek flushes, and her pulses
quicken as she listens; for to her the songs of the pilgrim-bards tell
a deeper and a dearer tale than to her placid grand-dame; while the
attentive children gather together in groupes, and gaze and hearken
in mute and wondering admiration. Many a wild legend do the minstrels
chaunt, in a slow, drawling, monotonous tone, which can add but little
to the charm of the subject-matter of their song; while an occasional
rasp of the grating tambourine, a rapid rattling of its silver bells, and
the hollow sound emitted by the small Arab drums which are their usual
accompaniment, alone serve to relieve the tedium of recitation. Pleasant,
however, must be the lays which they pour forth; for many of their fair
auditors will remain unweariedly for hours, listening and applauding with
low-breathed “Mashallahs!” and “Ajaibs!”[24] and without a single symptom
of ennui.
Wallachian and Jewish musicians are common; and the extraordinary length
of time during which they will dwell upon a single note, with their heads
thrown back, their mouths open, and their eyes fixed, and then follow
it up with a whole sentence, rapidly and energetically uttered, is most
singular. But these oriental troubadours are not without their rivals
in the admiration of the veiled beauties who surround them; conjurors,
improvvisatori, story-tellers, and Bulgarian dancers, are there also,
to seduce away a portion of their audience; while the interruptions
caused by fruit, sherbet, and water-venders, are incessant. They are,
however, the most popular of all; and a musician, whose talent is known
and acknowledged, seldom fails to pass a very profitable day at the Asian
Sweet Waters on every occasion of festival.
BEGLIER-BEY.
——“The coast
Lay at this period quiet as the sky,
The sands untumbled, the blue waves untoss’d,
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird’s cry,
And dolphin’s leap, and little billow cross’d
By some low rock or shelve that made it fret,
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.”
...
“Mother-of-pearl, and porphyry, and marble,
Vied with each other on this costly spot;
And singing birds without were heard to warble;
And the stain’d glass which lighted this fair grot
Varied each ray.”
BYRON.
The Sultan’s summer-palace of Beglier-Bey, on the Asiatic shore, is the
most elegant object on the Bosphorus. It is an irregularly fronted and
extensive edifice, stretching along the lip of the channel, whose waves
wash its long and stately terraces of glittering marble, and sometimes
penetrate into their latticed and mysterious recesses. The building is of
wood; and the harem presents a line of gables perforated with long ranges
of windows secured by most minute screens of gilded wood: the Salemliek,
containing the State apartments, the private saloons of the Sultan, and
the rooms occupied by the Imperial household, is an octagonal pile, of
which the pointed roof is surmounted by a crescent supporting a star,
whose richly gilded points flash in the sunshine like lambent fire. The
entire building is painted in white and pale gold; and it has rather the
appearance of a fairy-palace, called into existence by enchantment, than
the mere every-day work of human hands.
A marble gate, terminating the terrace in the direction of the city,
admits the visitor into a garden bright with flowers, and redolent of
perfume; where fountains for ever fling their delicate jets of water
against the sky, with a soft and soothing music well suited to the spot;
and where birds of gorgeous plumage wander at will, as rainbow-tinted as
the blossoms amid which they sport. A line of gilt lattices veils the
seaward boundary of this delicious retreat; and, passing beside these,
an inlaid door of stately proportions gives admittance to the Hall of
Entrance.
[Illustration: THE SUMMER PALACE AT BEGLIER-BEY.
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
“The first glance of the interior is not imposing. The double staircase,
sweeping crescent-wise through the centre of the entrance, contracts its
extent so much as to give it the appearance of being insignificant in
its proportions; an effect which is, moreover, considerably heightened
by the elaborated ornaments of the carved and gilded balustrades and
pillars. But such is far from being the case in reality; as, from this
outer apartment, with its flooring of curious woods, arabesqued ceiling,
and numerous casements, open no less than eight spacious saloons,
appropriated to the Imperial household.
“Above this suite are situated the State Apartments, which are gorgeous
with gilding, and richly furnished with every luxury peculiar alike to
the East and to the West. The Turkish divans of brocade and embroidered
velvet are relieved by sofas and lounges of European fashion—bijouterie
from Geneva—porcelain from Sèvres—marbles from Italy—gems from
Pompeii—Persian carpets—English hangings; and, in the principal saloons,
six of the most magnificent, if not actually the six most magnificent
pier-glasses in the world: a present to the Sultan from the Emperor of
Russia, after the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. Enclosed within a deep frame
of silver gilt, bearing the united arms of the two Empires, these costly
glasses reflect in every direction the ornaments of the apartment, and
produce an effect almost magical; while the highly-ornamented ceiling,
richly wrought with delicate wreaths of flowers, and the bright-coloured
carpets covering the floor, combine to fling over the saloon an
atmosphere of light and gladness, which is increased by the dazzling
glories of the parterre spread out beneath the windows, with its flashing
fountains, golden orangery, and long line of gleaming lattices.
“The Reception-room is small, and remarkable only for the
comfortably-cushioned divan on which the Sultan receives his visitors;
and the noble view that it commands of the channel, from the Seraglio
point to the Castle of Mahomet.
“The Banquetting Hall is entirely lined with inlaid woods of rare and
beautiful kinds, finely mosaiced; the ceiling and the floor being alike
enriched with a deep garland of grapes and vine leaves, flung over groups
of pine-apples of exquisite workmanship.
“Hence, a long gallery conducts to the private apartments of the Sultan;
and on every side are graceful fountains of white marble, whose flashing
waters fall with a musical monotony into their sculptured basins. In
one, the stream trickles from a plume of feathers, so delicately worked
in alabaster that they almost appear to bend beneath the weight of the
sparkling drops that gem them: in another, the water gushes forth,
overflowing a lotus-flower, upon whose lip sports a group of Cupids. The
private apartments, which separate the harem from the state wing of the
palace, are the very embodiment of comfort: two of them are lined with
wicker-work, painted cream-colour—the prettiest possible idea, executed
in the best possible style.
“The harem is, of course, a sealed book; for, as the ladies of the
Sultan’s household have never been allowed to indulge their curiosity by
a survey of that portion of the palace appropriated to Mahmoud himself,
it can scarcely be expected that any intruder should be admitted beyond
the jealously-barred door forming their own boundary.”[25]
The Bath of this imperial residence has already been described in an
earlier portion of our work; and we have now only to notice the extensive
and princely gardens, which rise, terrace above terrace, to the very
summit of the mountain which overhangs the palace. Each terrace is under
the charge of a foreign gardener, and arranged according to the fashion
of his own land; but the finest portion of the grounds contains a noble
sheet of water, called the Lake of the Swans, whose entire surface is
frequently thickly covered with these graceful birds, of which the Sultan
is so fond, that he sometimes passes hours in contemplating them as they
glide over the Stillwater; and, in the words of Wordsworth,
“Swim double—swan and shadow.”
Boats, gaily gilded and painted, are moored under the shadows of the
magnolias, willows, and other beautiful trees which form the frame-work
of the lake; and about fifty yards from the bank stands a pretty,
fanciful edifice, called the Air Bath,—an elegant retreat from the
oppressive heats of summer; whose roof, and walls, and floor, are alike
formed of marble, wrought in marine devices; and whose fountains,
trickling down the walls, pour their waters over a succession of
ocean-shells, marine divinities, sea-weeds, and coral reefs; and keep
up a constant current of cool air, and murmur of sweet sound, perfectly
charming. Inferior apartments branch off on either side from this
beautiful saloon, and altogether it is as pretty a toy as ever exhausted
fancy in its invention.
A gilded kiosque glitters amid the group of cypresses and plane-trees
by which the last height is crowned; and the artist has ably portrayed
the magic beauty of the scene which is mapped out beneath him as he
stands beside the boundary-wall of the palace garden. The undulating
shores, belted with houses, and sheltered by richly-wooded hills,—the
castle-crowned rocks,—the gleaming sails of the passing vessels upon the
channel,—and, far away, the “storm-tossed Euxine,” lashing its billows
as if in scorn against the fortress-barriers that bristle its shores—all
combine to form a picture well calculated to arrest the eye of the
painter and the admiration of the tourist.
SAINT SOPHIA.
“Sophia’s cupola, with golden gleam.”
BYRON.
The great object of every lion-hunting traveller in Turkey is to obtain
ingress to the mosques; and as this privilege is only accorded to great
personages, and to each European Ambassador once during his residence
in Constantinople, many are necessarily fated to disappointment. No
golden key will unlock the mysterious gates, nor lift aside the veil
of the temple; and it is with a disgust and a reluctance which they
scarcely care to conceal, that the officiating priests condescend to do
the honours of the shrine, even when the Imperial firman leaves them no
alternative.
The court of St. Sophia, like that of every other mosque in the city,
is paved with marble, and shaded by magnificent plane-trees, whose
far-spreading branches and luxuriant foliage chequer the vast space with
alternate patches of light and shadow, which produce a fine effect; and
collect in the vicinity of the holy edifice groups of quiet-looking
Moslems, who spread their carpets, and seat themselves to smoke their
chibouques, and watch the pious who pass into the temple from sunrise to
sunset.
An elegant fountain, with a projecting octagonal roof, whose marble basin
is screened by a covering of iron net-work from the pollution of the
birds which swarm upon the roof and amid the intricacies of the building,
affords to the Faithful the necessary opportunity of performing their
preliminary ablutions ere they enter the mosque; while in its immediate
vicinity, amulet and scent merchants, generally hadjis or pilgrims, with
their green turbans and flowing beards, spread their mats, and expose for
sale all descriptions of chaplets, perfumes, relics from Mecca, charms
against the Evil Eye, amber and ivory mouth-pieces for the chibouque, and
dyes and toys for the harem.
As these pilgrim-merchants are generally gifted with a quiet
facetiousness of manner which never fails to amuse a Turk, they collect
about them numbers of idlers, whose picturesque costume and graceful
attitudes form at every moment studies for the painter: the tall Effendi,
with his turban of cachemire and his furred pelisse, stands beside the
red-capped and blue-coated soldier; while, squatted at their feet, pipe
in hand, and passing the beads of his tusbee[26] listlessly through his
fingers as he intently follows the discourse which is going on around
him, may be seen the Emir in his green robe, proud of his descent from
the Prophet; and near him the Dervish, with his conical hat of grey
felt; the Santon, or saint, all filth and holiness; and occasionally a
closely-muffled female, her dark eyes flashing out between the folds
of her snowy veil, her feet covered with boots and slippers of yellow
morocco, and her form shrouded in a heavy cloak of dark-coloured cloth.
[Illustration: COURT AND FOUNTAIN OF ST. SOPHIA.
_COUR ET FONTAINE DE STE SOPHIE._ _DER HOF UND DIE FONTAINE ZU ST.
SOPHIE._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Redaway.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
If a stranger approach to examine the wares of the hadji, it is curious
to witness the interest which every individual takes in the success
of his trade. The lookers-on will seize a chaplet of Arabian wood,
rub it rapidly in their hands, and hold it towards him, that he may
inhale its perfume, expatiating all the time on its extreme sweetness;
while exclamations of “_Guzel! peh guzel!_—good! very good!” form a
perfect chorus: or they will smear their beards with dye to convince
him of its efficacy, if by these means they can induce the sale of
any of the scattered articles about them. Nor are they fastidious in
their commercial notions, for they stand quietly and encouragingly by,
while the wily hadji cheats the unclean giaour, without evincing any
inclination to rescue the victim; and as he bears away some treasure, for
which he has probably paid about five times its value, the worthy Moslems
see him depart with an ejaculation of “_Allah buyûk der_—God is great!”
and then calmly resume the chibouque and the narration where each had
been interrupted.
From the court, a stately covered peristyle, similar to that of St.
Peter’s at Rome, whose ponderous granite columns are imbedded in the
walls, conducts to the body of the mosque; and here the visitor casts off
his shoes, and puts on the slippers of yellow morocco, which are alone
permitted to press the floor of the temple. This done, the great gates
(which close upon a block of porphyry) are thrown back, the curtain of
tapestry is drawn aside, and in a moment the eye is bewildered amid the
space which is suddenly spread out before it.
The richly mosaiced floor of jasper, porphyry, verd-antique, and marble,
is covered with bright-coloured carpets; thousands of stained glass
lamps are suspended in complicated designs from transverse rods of
iron which traverse the body of the building in every direction; the
Imperial closet, facing the pulpit, is of finely and intricately-wrought
marble, with a cornice that looks like petrified point-lace; but it is
the vastness of St. Sophia which for a time fills the imagination and
satisfies the fancy of the traveller; and it requires time to divest him
of the feeling of involuntary awe by which he is at first overwhelmed,
ere he can compel himself to any analysis of the detail around him.
Gigantic pillars encircle the dome, which is of a magnitude strikingly
majestic; and a host of antique treasures are collected together, each
a gem in itself; but they are forced into most incongruous contact.
Columns of various proportions and architectural orders,—some of
Egyptian granite, others of porphyry, or scagliola, or precious and rare
marbles,—are to be seen on all sides; but the mind is confused by their
extraordinary juxta-position; and they lose half their beauty from their
want of arrangement. Eight majestic porphyry pillars from the Temple
of Heliopolis are contrasted with columns of verd-antique from that of
Ephesus; the walls are incrusted with marble, jasper, porphyry, and
verd-antique, to about mid-height, where a gallery, entirely surrounding
the mosque, supported by plain pillars, and floored with marble, affords
accommodation for several hundred persons; but the dome, which was
formerly adorned with minute mosaics, was whitewashed when the conquering
Mahommedans converted the Christian church of St. Sophia into a temple
of Islamism; and the original richness of the design is now only to be
distinguished in spots where the plaister has fallen away; while, as if
to render the ruin more complete, the inferior Imaums attached to the
mosque make a trade of the fragments of mosaic, which they tear away and
dispose of to travellers, who thus thoughtlessly contribute towards the
destruction of a noble work of industry and art.
St. Sophia also boasts of two miraculous objects, which must not be
passed over in silence—the “Sweating Stone,” and the “Bishop’s Door.” The
first is a column, partially cased with iron, and having a deep cavity
worn away beneath the metal in one particular spot, where the visitor is
directed to insert his finger, and to test the humidity of the marble,
which is said thus to have resisted the contact of any merely human touch
since the hand of the Prophet rested upon it. It is, however, certain
that the miracle sometimes fails.
The “Bishop’s Door” is situated on the northern side of the gallery, and
is veiled by a mass of masonry, on which are many traces of violence, the
cement being of so powerful a nature as to have resisted all attempts
at its destruction. The door-frame is of fine white marble, and quite
perfect; and the legend runs, that the united efforts of all the masons
in Stamboul, are insufficient to force a passage to the apartment,
in which, protected by a powerful talisman, a Greek Bishop, who was
officiating at the altar when the Turks poured into the city after the
defeat of Constantine, sits in his full canonicals, perusing an open
volume of so holy a nature that Moslem eye must never look upon it; and
this same Bishop will, as both the Turks and Greeks firmly believe, on
the day when St. Sophia becomes again a Christian shrine, walk forth from
his walled-up chamber, and chaunt a solemn high mass at the great altar!
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. SOPHIA’S.
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
From this gallery the best view of the whole interior of the edifice is
obtained; as that which encircles the dome is at such an immense height
from the ground, that it reduces the dimensions of the building almost
to insignificance, while the eye takes in the vast proportions of the
dome itself, and the mind is absorbed by that single contemplation.[27]
Clouds of blue doves occasionally wing their way across the body of
the mosque; and it is a singular and beautiful fact, that they are the
unmolested descendants of the birds which were found there by the Turks
when they first became the masters of St. Sophia; and so holy are they in
their eyes, that the destruction of one of them would be attended with
great danger to the aggressor.
From the lower gallery the whole extent of the mosque may be contemplated
in its silent and solemn grandeur. In the centre of the wide and
uncumbered space, the mighty dome rests on the capitals of a circle of
gigantic and rudely-fashioned columns; immediately beneath you are the
pillars that support the far-stretching gallery in which you stand; on
one hand rises the marble pulpit, with its noble flight of steps shut in
by an elaborately sculptured door; and on the other, the Imperial closet,
with its delicate tracery and gilded lattices. Two huge wax candles flank
the _mihrab_, or arched recess at the eastern end of the building, which
are lighted every night, and last exactly twelve months; they are about
eighteen inches in circumference, and throw their light over the Korān
of the Chèïk-Islam, or High Priest, who occupies the _mihrab_ during the
hours of worship. No private shrines, as in the Catholic churches—no
stalls or pews, as in our own places of worship—contract and cumber the
body of the building; and the effect of its extent is, consequently,
much heightened. Altogether, St. Sophia, despite all its incongruities,
is decidedly an architectural wonder, and well worthy of the admiration
which has been lavished upon it for centuries.
THE OCMEIDAN.
“The tough bow yields before the sinewy arm;
And, swift as lightning, through the yielding air
The winged arrow whistles to the mark.”
The Ocmeidan, or Place of Arrows, is an extensive plain, situated behind
the village of Tatavola, called by the Greeks who inhabit it the hamlet
of St. Demetrius; and stretching along above the deep valley of this
little Christian colony, and beside the cemeteries of Pera.
The view which it commands, where it touches upon the harbour, is most
magnificent; the “Seven Hills” are all before it, with their galaxy of
mosques and palaces: two of them linked together by the hoary aqueduct
of Valens, and all gleaming in white marble, and overtopped by the dusky
mountains of Asia Minor. Beneath it spreads the Golden Horn, crowded with
shipping, and traversed by a light floating bridge, seeming to the eye
as frail and unstable as that of El Sirat; but which is crossed by the
Faithful from the Golden City only to arrive at the infidel dwellings of
the Franks, instead of the houri-tenanted valleys of Paradise; forming,
meanwhile, an extremely pretty feature in the landscape.
A fringe of forest-trees descends to the very edge of the plain, which is
full of gentle undulations, and is rendered remarkable by being studded
over at irregular distances by columns of stone or marble, bearing
inscriptions, and not unfrequently lettered with gold. These columns,
which have much the appearance of funereal monuments, are simply records
of the skill of the Imperial Toxopholite who now sways the sceptre of the
Ottoman empire, and whose dexterity in the use of the “cloth-yard shaft”
is presumed to be unequalled throughout his dominions. Archery is a sport
to which Sultan Mahmoud is much attached; and he is said to boast that,
during the last forty years of his life, he has never suffered a week to
pass in which he has not practised his well-worn bow. His proficiency in
the science may therefore be inferred: though it is certain that none,
save an Imperial arm, could ever have
“Sped the winged arrow”
to such a distance, as some of the columnar records, to which allusion
has just been made, appear to testify.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE OCMEIDAN.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Three hundred yards is, in one instance, cited as the space cleared by
the feathered messenger of the Caliph: the ground was measured, and the
pillar was raised, and the Sultan departed from the Ocmeidan, satisfied
that no subject throughout his empire could outdo “the shooting of that
day;” nor was it probable that any bowman could be found to controvert
his opinion; and none, it is said, knew this better than the page who
had picked up the marvellous arrow, and received two purses[28] when he
restored it to his imperial master.
There is much etiquette observed in the archery parties of the Sultan.
First flies the arrow of Mahmoud himself, as he stands on the right of
a line of Pashas and Beys, who have been formally invited to partake
of the sport; and immediately off start half a dozen of the pages of
the household to recover the missive, and to mark the spot where it
falls. These functionaries, who endeavour to out-speed each other, and
to secure the prize which, on the occasion of a longer shot than usual,
they are sure to receive from their sovereign, run with their heads
close to the earth, and generally contrive to pick up the arrow without
checking their speed, and to carry it on for some distance before they
affect to find it, when they proclaim their success with a shrill cry;
and the measurement of the ground takes place at once, where the shot is
considered sufficiently remarkable to warrant the ceremony.
The very “long bow,” which we have cited to have been drawn by the Sultan
on the happy occasion when the space over which his arrow had travelled
was declared to be three hundred yards, is said to have been the frolic
of a sportive and daring page, who, having gathered it up at a reasonable
distance, ran on until he had a vision of detection, when he stopped,
unquestioned if not unsuspected, and at once established the fame of his
Imperial master as the first Toxopholite in Europe.
When the Sultan has ascertained his success, each of his courtly
companions shoots in turn; but it is almost needless to remark, that
their arrows always fall short of the mark: while, despite the diplomatic
frauds of time-serving dependants, it is equally certain that there are
few archers either so skilful or so graceful as the Emperor of Turkey.
THE SERAÏ BOURNOU.
“A rich confusion form’d a disarray
In such sort, that the eye along it cast
Could hardly carry any thing away,
Object on object flashed so bright and fast:
A dazzling mass of gems, and gold, and glitter,
Magnificently mingled in a litter.”
BYRON.
The celebrated Seraï Bournou, occupying the obtuse point of the triangle
on which Constantinople is built, boasts, as perhaps its greatest
peculiarity, that it was once in itself a city. The ancient Byzantium was
founded in the year A.C. 660, by a Lacedæmonian colony; and a portion of
the original walls are actually standing at this day, and still serve to
separate the palace gardens from the public street. The mouldering but
solid masonry which now girdles the Imperial residence of the Caliphs,
once belted a city; and the groves and alleys that are to-day scantily
traversed by slaves, eunuchs, and women, were in times of old thickly
peopled with an active, busy, and enterprising population.
Byzantium, enriched by the first Constantine, and made the key-stone of a
new Empire, and the capital of a second Rome—Byzantium, where a hundred
of his august race feasted and governed in their turn, and which was
ultimately lost to Christendom by the last and bravest of the line—is
now a mere Moslem palace, where the echoes of the war-trumpet, and the
neighing of the war-steed, have been replaced by the twanging of the
lute, and the voices of women; even its ancient name is never heard, and
its broad sun-lighted honours have been exchanged for silence and mystery.
It is asserted by historians that the capital of Byzantium was formerly
enriched with columns and statues, and that monuments, now no longer in
existence, were profusely collected within its walls: be that as it may,
the only remnant of classic antiquity now remaining is a stately column
of marble, formed of huge blocks piled upon each other to the height of
ninety feet, and standing upon a raised square platform, or terrace,
planted with trees, in an outer court of the palace; and known as the
Column of Theodosius; though it is evident, in comparing this pillar
with the descriptions of antiquaries, that it cannot be the original
monument called by that name; nor, it is presumed, can its present
position be that which it originally occupied in the city. A venerable
cypress, many feet higher than the column, screens it on the seaward
side, but the statue which once surmounted the capital is gone; and one
deep rent, almost separating the shaft throughout its whole thickness,
and evidently produced by the shock of one of those earthquakes to which
Constantinople was formerly so subject, attests its ancient origin; while
its graceful proportions, and the elaborately-defined acanthus of its
capital, render it one of the most interesting monuments now existing in
the capital.
[Illustration: THE COLUMN OF THEODOSIUS.
_COLONNE DE THÉODOSE._ _DIE SÄULE DES KAISERS THEODOSIUS._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
The most striking feature of the Seraï Bournou in the present day
is its surpassing orientalism. Fountains, palaces, streets, and
market-places—all the public rendezvous of Stamboul have suffered change,
save the mysterious dwelling of the Caliphs. European innovations have
crept with spirit-steps across the land: tapestry hangings and jewelled
toys are scattered over the summer-palace of Asia; gaudy chintzes from
the looms of Britain shut out the sun-light from the gilt-latticed
casements of the imperial kiosques; silks from the warehouses of Genoa
and Lyons cover the sofas of the regal pile at Beshik-Tash; but in the
hidden recesses of the palace of Amurath all is unchanged, as though the
genius of mutability had never waved his wand over the children of the
Prophet.
Its effect from the sea of Marmora is as singular as it is beautiful. The
wall by which it is enclosed is separated from the water only by a narrow
wharf or terrace, pierced at intervals by a close lattice-work, through
which the fair tenants can look out upon the sun-lighted waves, and on
to the fantastic islands of the Propontis; in some places overgrown
with the most luxurious parasites, among which are conspicuous the rich
dark leaves of the ivy, and the clustering verdure of the gorgeous
caper-plant, with its galaxy of blossoms; and in others, surmounted by a
light and graceful kiosque, now, however, tarnished by the weather, and
mouldering into disuse; for since the present Sultan girded himself with
the sword of sovereignty, and eschewed the mysterious exclusiveness of
his predecessors, the Seraï Bournou has ceased to be a chosen residence
for the Ottoman court. And even as the victorious Mahomet II. feelingly
apostrophized the denuded and desecrated palace of the last Constantine,
when he entered as a conqueror the august abode of his vanquished enemy,
only to find it ravaged by his own soldiery, may the silent Seraï be
addressed to-day in the celebrated words of a Persian poet:—“The spider
has woven his web in the halls of the Cæsars, and the owl has kept her
unstartled watch on the towers of Afrasiab.”
Nothing can be seen from the water save a line of gilded kiosques,
gracefully clustered together on the extreme point of the land; the
roofs and domes of a few scattered buildings; and here and there a
slender minaret pointing heavenward from the midst of a dense forest of
rich and stately trees, of which numbers overhang the boundary walls,
and throw their long cool shadows over the current of the Propontis;
whose depth is so great, even to the edge of the terrace, that vessels
of burthen pass close beside the Golden Gate, or seaward entrance to the
palace—a stately portal of marble, so richly overlaid with arabesques of
burnished gold, that it is scarcely possible to look upon it beneath a
mid-day sun.
Gliding round the point into the harbour, the voyager next comes
upon a pavilion nestled beneath the walls of the Seraï, and known as
the waiting-room of the Franks, where, in the previous reigns, the
European Ambassadors were detained on days of audience until it was
the pleasure of the Sultan to admit them within the sacred boundaries
of the palace-grounds; and a few roods beyond this pavilion is a low
door, of which the bars are now thickly overgrown with rust, and the
bolts immovable from disuse, known as the Pasha’s Gate, through whose
ill-omened opening, tradition tells, that recreant or suspected nobles
who suffered the bowstring, were formerly cast into the deep waters of
the harbour; while romance, greedy of her own legend, asserts that hence
were also burled the degenerate beauties who chanced either to offend, to
weary, or to disgust the Sardanapalus of the hour, to the mercy of the
——“rolling waves, which hide
Already many a once love-beaten breast,
Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide.”
The one assertion is, however, probably as apocryphal as the other; for
the sluggish waters of the port must have been assuredly less inviting
to the ministers of death than the hurried current of Marmora, where,
scarcely an arrow’s flight from the Seraglio walls, it rushes towards the
gulph of Nicodemia. Be that as it may, however, the walls of the Seraï,
terminating a short space beyond this gate, where the court of Yeni
Djami descends to the harbour, take an upward direction, and are flanked
at their extreme point as they traverse the city, by a gaily-gilded
kiosque, poised, as if by magic, upon one of the buttresses, and entirely
surrounded by lattice-work, which, while it conceals the interior of the
building, permits its tenants to command every object beneath them.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN AND SQUARE OF ST. SOPHIA.
_FOUNTAÍNE ET PLACE STE SOPHIE._ _DER SOPHIENPLATZ MIT SPRINGBRUNNEN._
W. H. Bartlett. T. Higham.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Directly opposite to this glittering pavilion, called the Kiosque of
Justice, is situated the magnificent portal which gives its name to
the Turkish government—the “Sublime Porte”—a stately and imposing gate
of entrance to the great public offices of the Empire. This noble and
finely-proportioned structure, perhaps one of the most striking in the
world, is flanked by two deep niches, containing slabs of marble, whereon
are exposed the heads of such criminals below the rank of Pashas, or
enemies taken in battle or captured by stratagem, as it is the pleasure
of the monarch to reveal to the eyes of the people; and the gilded
kiosque, to which allusion has been made, owes its appellation to the
circumstance, that it is from thence that the Sultan ascertains the
effect of the exhibition upon the populace, and the fact that his orders
have been executed by the proper functionaries.
The principal and highest entrance to the Seraï Bournou occupies one side
of a square, of which the Mosque of St. Sophia encloses a second; while
the remainder is formed by lines of mean-looking houses and coffee-shops.
A very beautiful fountain, now fast falling to decay, stands in the
centre of the space; whence the water gushes forth in an ample volume,
dancing and glittering in the sun-light. It is a fine specimen of the
ancient Moorish architecture, and is surmounted by five domes—one
occupying the centre of the pile, and richly perforated with transparent
chiselling; while four minor lateral cupolas form the extremities of
the roof, which is terminated by a deep overhanging cornice, highly
ornamented with a heavy cornice and a series of minute arabesques. Two
broad and steep steps of white marble lead to the building, which is,
with the exception of the Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini at Top-hannè, the
finest structure of the kind in the capital; and a group of sentinels and
eunuchs loitering under the lofty portal of the Seraglio gate, give a
last touch of orientalism to the picture.
The first court of this celebrated Palace cannot fail to disappoint the
highly-wrought anticipations of the visitor, who imagines, when he has
once succeeded in passing the magic threshold so rarely trodden by any
foot save those of the monarch and his immediate court, that all the
wonders of Eastern mystery and magnificence are to burst on him at once;
and his astonishment may be conceived, when he finds himself standing
in a spacious oblong enclosure, which is rather an excrescence than an
appendage to the palace; in which the only striking object is one of
the most enormous and beautiful maple-trees in the world, looking like
a forest growing from a single trunk, chequering an immense space with
light and shadow, and affording shelter to a perfect colony of beautiful
blue doves. On the right hand of the court are situated the infirmaries,
the wood-stores, and the bakehouses; on the left, the once elegant Greek
church of St. Irene, now converted into an arsenal; and on a line with
this desecrated edifice, the Mint, a handsome range of building, to which
are attached the dwellings of the _Chekir-Encine_, or Superintendent
of the Public Works; and the _Tarafhannè_, or Inspector of the same
department.
Passing along beside a high wall, the visitor finds himself at the
Orta Kapousi, or Middle Gate, a place of death and doom, where rivers
of blood are declared to have been shed. This gate is flanked by two
towers, forming a _saillie_; and near it is the _Djillāt Odossi_, or
executioner’s apartment, the temporary prison of condemned Vèzirs, who,
on their entrance to the Seraï, when they had fallen under the suspicion
and displeasure of the Sultan, were arrested on this spot without
previous warning; and hence the Turkish expression, “arrested between
the two doors.” In case of exile, their sentence was read to them on
this spot, and its fulfilment enforced by the officers of the Seraï;
in that of death, it was at once carried into effect by the tenant of
the tower. Above the gate-way is a range of iron spikes, on which the
forfeited heads were exposed to blacken in the sunshine; while on the
wall immediately beneath, a _yafta_, or proclamation of the crime which
had drawn down the destruction of the culprit, was affixed to the wall.
These _yaftas_ were written in large characters, on a scroll shaped like
a cone, and remained exposed so long as the weather spared them, unless
the bostanji of the guard could be bribed by the friends of the victim,
when they generally disappeared.
It was at the _Orta Kapousi_ that the celebrated mortar of the Ulema is
said to have been formerly deposited, but no trace of it now remains; and
a hope may be indulged that this revolting instrument of torture never
really had existence. Indeed, every vision of death and suffering is
swept from the mind as the threshold of the _Orta Kapousi_ is passed, and
the pilgrim stands at the entrance of the third court. The gate, fraught
with images of doom as it is approached from without, is all gaiety,
gilding, and glitter, within. No sound of wail, no voice of weeping is
permitted to penetrate deeper into the dwelling of the Light of the
World, and Brother of the Sun! In the thickness of the wall is situated
a guard-room, where the eunuchs of the palace vary their monotonous and
imprisoned existence by bandying vapid pleasantries with the lounging and
listless soldiery; weapons both for use and ornament are hung upon the
walls, and a range of low sofas afford the means of rest and enjoyment to
the guard. The other face of the gate is screened by a rich projecting
roof, all paint and gilding, which advances at least five feet beyond the
façade of the building, and is supported by two lofty columns of white
marble, whose shafts are wrought into the semblance of palm-trees, and
whose heavily carved capitals are surmounted by square pillars overlaid
with mosaic and gilded arabesques. The roof itself is pointed, and
crowned by a flashing crescent of gold; while underneath it is divided
into a lattice-work of gilt bars, traversing a ground of the brightest
blue, and looking like a sheet of turquoise.
[Illustration: THIRD COURT OF THE SERAÏ BOURNOU.
W. H. Bartlett. J. B. Allen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
[Illustration: FOURTH COURT OF THE SERAÏ BOURNOU.
_QUATRIÈME COUR DU SÉRAI BOURNOU_ _DER VIERTE HOF DES SERAI BOURNOU_
W. H. Bartlett. S. Bradshaw.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
The elaborately tesselated pavement beneath, apparently intended to
represent the reflection of the roof, is composed of curious stones,
cemented together with some preparation, which, in its present state,
appears as though liquid gold had been used to connect the different
portions; and the effect of the whole is so extraordinary, so sumptuous,
and so totally unlike any thing that can be seen in Europe, that it is
presumed that any apology for this somewhat prolix description will
be deemed unnecessary; and the rather, that very few Franks have yet
penetrated into the mysteries of this stronghold of the Mahommedan
Emperors. The court into which this magnificent gate gives entrance,
contains the Throne-room and the Library. The former is the State
Reception-room in which Abdul Hamet Khan, the father of the present
Sultan, received the European ministers, and the Great Officers of
the Empire on all occasions of ceremony. It is a handsome building,
surmounted by a dome, and approached by a double flight of steps, having
a fountain in the centre, and forming a terrace, protected by an awning
of crimson silk. The interior is simple in its arrangement, and perfect
in its proportions. The ceiling is heavy with arabesques, and rich
with gilding; and the shadows of the mighty maples and thickly-planted
cypresses which overhang it, tend to increase its beauty.
The Imperial Library occupies a range of kiosques in the Saracenic
taste, with open peristyles, whose columns support a row of arches
of the most graceful dimensions, and is said to possess treasures in
manuscripts of untold value; but the hour is not yet arrived when those
treasures will be laid bare to the research of the student, and the
antiquary, the philosopher, and the man of science. Meanwhile, the
_coup-d’œil_ is charming; and it is almost with regret that the visitor
finds himself hurried on to the fourth court, containing the beautiful
edifice sometimes called the Kiosque of Bagdat. Here it is asserted that
the jewels of the Constantines, and the treasures of all the preadamite
Sultans are secured; that the towers are vaulted, and that each is a
mine of wealth. Here also, it is said, that rebellious beauties have
pined away a joyless existence, when they have been bold enough to oppose
the power of their personal attractions to the despotic pleasure of a
sensual master, who would not destroy his own hope while there remained a
prospect of subjecting their distaste to his arbitrary will.
Beyond the fourth court is situated the “Garden of Delight,” in which
stand the gilded kiosques appropriated to the harem, and the young
princes of the Imperial house. Here, all is a confusion of glare and
glitter; parterres, only less gorgeous than the buildings which rise
among them; and pavilions, besprent with paint and gilding, looking
as bright as the flowers which blossom on every side. Clusters of
roses, blooming in baskets of gilded wicker-work; fountains, murmuring
sweet music under the deep shadows of overhanging boughs: and in every
direction, the carefully-latticed and jealously-guarded casements of the
harem, which no infidel foot may tread with impunity.
None of the ladies belonging to the household of the present Sultan
inhabit the Seraï Bournou, save when he is himself an inmate of the
palace; and the extensive harem is now solely occupied by half a dozen
octogenarian wives of the Sultan Selim, whose age preserved them from the
fate of the younger and more beautiful portion of his establishment; who,
in accordance with Eastern ideas of expediency, were put to death on the
accession of the present Sultan, lest they should dishonour themselves by
an alliance with a subject, after having formed part of the household of
the sovereign: but notwithstanding this fact, the harem is sacred, and no
prying eye nor intrusive foot is permitted to disturb the peaceful repose
of the worthy relicts of the unfortunate, misguided, and martyred Selim.
TOP-HANNÈ.
“——Leave the sail still furl’d, and ply
The nearest oar that’s scatter’d by,
And midway to those rocks where sleep
The channel’d waters dark and deep,
Rest from your task.”
BYRON.
Had the noble bard from whom the lines which head the chapter are
derived, written them as a guide to the traveller who first seeks to look
on the suburb of Top-hannè, situated between Galata and the valley of
Dolma-Batchè, they could not have been more judiciously framed; for, as
the caïque heaves, unpropelled for an instant by the oars of the rowers,
midway between the rocky shore of Asia and the pier of Top-hannè, the eye
of taste is greeted by a scene of surpassing beauty.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN AND MARKET AT TOP-HANNÈ.
_FONTAINE ET MARCHÉ DE TOP-HAUNE._ _DIE FONTAINE UND DER MARKT ZU
TOP-HANNÈ._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Mosque of Sultan Mahmoud, with its slender minarets, dipped in gold
for a third of their height, and cinctured with galleries as light as
petrified cobwebs—its gilded gates, and noble flight of marble steps—is
seen to the rear of the Arsenal, where a long line of brass guns (whence
salutes are fired on all occasions of public rejoicing) are ranged
along the head of the channel. The cannon-foundry, which gives its name
to the locality, terminates the battery at one extremity; and above it,
on the side of the hill, stand the remains of the Galata Seraï, which
having been grievously injured during the great fire of Pera, from an
Imperial palace, has now degenerated into a college for the pages of the
household. A handsome barrack bounds the suburb on the side next the
harbour, and the Top-hannè pier is the great landing-place for caïques
plying from Scutari, and the villages on the Bosphorus. But the especial
boast of this pretty spot is the fountain in the fruit-market, the
celebrated Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini, or Fountain of the Mosque of Ali
Pasha, a French renegade, who built the temple bearing his name, which
stands on the western side of the square.
Rich as Constantinople avowedly is in fountains of various architecture,
the whole city cannot boast another of equal beauty and workmanship; its
elaborate arabesques are beyond praise, and when the sun-light touches
them, almost look like jewels. Its proportions are perfect; and it stands
in the centre of an unencumbered space, pouring out its dense volume
of water into a capacious basin of glittering marble, and producing an
effect highly scenic. On one side rises the mosque to which it belongs—a
heavy pile, with thick and stunted minarets—a memorial of the days when a
Christian, after denying his God and forswearing his faith, might still
enjoy the confidence, and earn the honours of the Moslem; days now gone
for ever, and looked back upon with surprise by the Osmanli themselves,
who have learnt to feel that services based upon apostasy, and zeal
whose germ was falsehood, are alike hollow, worthless, and untenable.
On the other hand is situated the elegant Kiosque of Halil Pasha, with
its lordly portal and gold-latticed casements—an embodiment of the
fairy-palaces of the Arabian Tales; and all around and about are piled
the luscious fruits of Europe and of Asia. As this is the great market
for the growers of Scutari, the islands of Marmora, and all the Asiatic
villages on the channel, the display may be imagined; piles of perfumed
melons are heaped beside pyramids of grapes, which look as though they
were carved in amber; delicate pasteks, green and glittering as emeralds,
are contrasted by golden pomegranates; pistachio-nuts, lemons, quinces,
oranges, and apples, are scattered in all directions; while the downy
peach, and the plum, blushing through its own bloom, tempt the touch
of the wanderer at every step. The Moslem merchant is there, gravely
squatted upon his mat, with his yellow slippers lying beside him, and his
chibouque, charged with the potent tobacco of Latakia between his lips,
quietly awaiting a customer; while the restless Greek is near him, now
trilling a romaïka—now cursing, in the name of his saints, the tardiness
of the buyers—now mumbling a prayer to the Panagia,[29] as his fitful
humour serves; while, here and there among the merchants, wanders a bowed
and bearded Jew, with shabby _beniche_[30] and cringing gait, vending
spurious opium, second-hand finery, and stale sweetmeats.
Altogether, the scene is singularly attractive; and the Frank traveller
must pay many visits to the Fruit-market of Top-hannè, and the beautiful
Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini, ere he wearies of so novel and so exciting a
spectacle.
THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Girdling a peopled world they stretch along—
A mighty grasp about a mightier space;
Where heroes strove in vain, and poet’s song
Hath shed around a glory and a grace.
Here the proud Crescent braved the holy Cross,
And reared its symbol on each saintly shrine;
And here, triumphant ’mid an Empire’s loss,
Thy proud heart ceased to beat—Imperial Constantine!
MS. POEM.
The walls of Constantinople are fraught with interesting memories. To the
historian they tell of the varying fortunes of a mighty empire; to the
antiquary, of the noblest days of Roman art; and to the soldier, of the
bold and heroic deeds of a race long gone, but living still in the page
of tradition; while, to the traveller and the man of taste, they offer
scenes of picturesque beauty, varying at every point of his pilgrimage;
and presenting a succession of landscape-views which defy alike the
description of the tourist, and the pencil of the painter.
The city of Constantinople occupies a triangular promontory above the
Propontis, and it has been strongly fortified on all sides, as well
those which are washed by the sea, as on that which is the base of the
triangle, and connects it with the main land. The walls extend twelve
miles, sweeping from sea to sea, running along the whole length of the
harbour, restraining the billows of the sea of Marmora, and terminating
in the celebrated fortress of the Seven Towers. They are every where
ruinous, and in several places so utterly dilapidated as to be wholly
useless for the purposes of defence; their reparation being a herculean
project at present unmeditated by the Turks, and probably never to
be accomplished. At some points the foundation of the walls is formed
by huge masses of rock, a species of architecture still to be traced
in a few of the most ancient Grecian structures, and formerly termed
Cyclopæan; and fabulously asserted to be the work of giants, owing to
the enormous size and weight of the stones employed. In other spots,
particularly on the side of Marmora, the masonry commences regularly
from the very edge of the water; and where the action of the waves has
displaced the original material, piles of broken shafts of the most
beautiful proportions, hewn into fragments, have, in endless instances,
been substituted to prevent the ingress of the water to the gardens and
kiosques by which the shore is fringed. The antiquarian treasures thus
recklessly lavished where baser material would have sufficed, are said to
be beyond price; and many a sculptured capital and graven stone may be
detected as the caïques slowly glide along over the glittering ripple,
which render the traveller willing to believe and to mourn over the
fact. Permission has in several instances been sought by strangers to
remove some of these tempting reliques, but it has always been coldly and
resolutely denied.
[Illustration: THE CITY WALLS. (Descending to the Port.)
_MURS DE LA VILLE._ _DIE FESTUNGSWERKE DER STADT._
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Varrall.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The most ancient portion of the walls is necessarily that which enclosed
the ancient Byzantium, now known as the Seraglio Point, where the apex of
the triangle divides the Propontis from the port, and instead of being
peopled by the busy multitude of a city, is silent in the stateliness of
its gilded palace and overhanging groves. Portions of the original walls
are still standing, and separate the seraglio gardens from the adjacent
streets; and even in their ruin they retain traces of the strength and
massiveness which have enabled them to exist from the year 660 A.C.—at
which period they were erected by the hands of the Lacedæmonian colony
who first peopled this magnificent spot—even to the nineteenth century,
as if in scorn of the frail and unstable works of later and less
laborious architects.
The wall which encircles the present city was built nine hundred and
seventy-eight years subsequently, by the Emperor Constantine, and
frequently repaired by Theodosius, and other sovereigns, who have each in
succession left commemorative inscriptions upon the masonry. Thus, on one
spot is graven “Theodosius, King, by the grace of Christ;” on another,
“The illustrious Theodosius, the great King, by the grace of Christ;”
while numberless crosses, and the remains of half-obliterated sentences,
now beyond solution, are to be found in various places.
Perhaps the most picturesque portion of the walls is that which stretches
from the cemetery of Eyoub along the road leading to Balouclé, or the
“Church of Fishes.” A dilapidated palace, known as the “Palace of
Constantine,” (and supposed to have belonged to the first of that name,)
is among the most striking objects in this quarter of the city; it
appears to be coeval with the wall, and to have mouldered under the same
influences. The view which it commands is extensive and magnificent;
and its ruin has a regality about it which speaks of Rome in her best
days of pride and power. The walls are, in this direction, unusually
well preserved, and of great height, and no breach is perceptible
for a considerable distance, as this side of the city offered fewer
facilities to an invading army than many other points, and the defences
have consequently been subjected to no violence beyond that of the
ever-gnawing and corroding tooth of time. A dense coating of ivy clothes
the whole hoary mass of masonry; octagonal towers, draperied with the
same rich parasite, rise at intervals like a succession of feudal
castles; and the moat at their base is rife with vegetation, amid which
the wild fig-tree with its broad fan-like leaf, the acacia with its
peach-like blossoms, and the weeping birch, waving its flexile branches
to the wind like the hair of a young beauty, are the most conspicuous.
Two of these octagonal towers flank the more lofty portion of the
wall, and several breaches are shortly afterwards discernible. Here
the defences are tripled; and a double moat, commencing at the Rodosto
Gate, terminates only at the entrance of the Seven Towers, on the Sea of
Marmora. This triple wall is considerably lower than that which stretches
along from Eyoub; and as it follows the undulations of the hills upon
which the city is built, it necessarily permits a great portion of the
enclosure to be visible from without; and to this circumstance may
possibly be attributed the fact, that it was on this side that Mahomet,
encouraged by a sight of the fair capital which he coveted, was induced
to attempt its capture. The Top-Kapousi, or Gate of the Cannon, remains
as a memorial of his success; and it derives its name from the fact of
its being surmounted by several immense balls of marble, such as are used
by the Turks for the supply of their most ponderous pieces of ordnance,
and which were placed there by the triumphant Moslems to perpetuate the
capture of the devoted Christian city.
[Illustration: TOP-KAPOUSI, OR THE CANNONGATE.
_TOP-KAPOUSI, VU LE CANNONGATE._ _TOP-KAPOUSI ODER DAS KANONEN THOR._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Immediately in front of the Cannon Gate, but at a short distance from
the moat, rises an artificial mount called by the Turks, Maltèpè, on
whose summit the invading Prophet planted his standard, and whence he
directed the attack. The view from this height is magnificent, as the
eye sweeps the whole of the city, commands a vast extent of country,
and loses itself among the far-stretching waves of the sea of Marmora,
glancing over the islands by which it is studded, and the mountain-belt
which partially hems it in. Here it was, near this stately gate, and
in one of the numerous breaches made in the city wall during this
unequal war, where more than two hundred thousand Turks besieged, both
by sea and land, a town defended only by eight thousand men at arms,
and those depressed by long sufferings, and pent up in this their last
stronghold, without a hope beyond their own arms and hearts, that the
last Greek Emperor, the immortal Constantine Paleologus, proved to the
world the power and pride of individual genius and heroism. Here it was
that he fought, that he struggled—and that, spurning an existence which
would have outlived his cause, he nobly fell, offering himself up as
the last and proudest victim to his religion and his country. The body
of the brave Paleologus was found in a breach near the Top-Kapousi; he
had bought his freedom from Moslem thrall with his heart’s blood, and
with him perished a long line of Grecian Emperors. A dense vegetation
now chokes up the moat; and forest-trees, nourished by the rich soil,
flourish on the very spot; but while one Greek heart beats in a noble
breast, and one Greek hand can wield a worthy pen, the memory of the last
of the Paleologi can need no graven epitaph, nor can the heart of man
devise for him a more fitting mausoleum!
The next point of interest is the fortress known as that of the Seven
Towers. What a spell is in the very name, to all those who are either
interested in, or conversant with, Eastern history! What volumes of human
power and of human suffering does it not involve! Captives have sickened
with despair—ambassadors have sighed at delay within those walls of
darkness and of crime—monarchs have made a jest of foreign vengeance, and
nobles have felt the weight of native displeasure!
This extensive fortress originally consisted, as its name implies, of
seven principal towers, dominating a series of dungeons, courts, and
guard-rooms, whose secrets seldom transpired beyond the walls. A strong
garrison, lofty outworks, and jealously-barred cells, insured the safety
(in so far as escape was concerned) of the captives whom state policy or
private hate consigned to this formidable prison. Hecatombs of heads,
sacrificed to one or the other of these impulses, gave their name to a
small enclosure now called the “Place of Heads,” where they are said to
have been piled upon each other until the mound was of sufficient height
to enable the executioners to command from its summit a wide view of the
sun-lighted Propontis; while a dark vault is shown, upon whose brink
the stranger stands with quailing heart, and looks down upon the “Well
of Blood,” whose ensanguined stream once overflowed its margin, and ran
reeking under the broad daylight over the marble pavement of the court
beyond, to pollute the pure waters of the sea of Marmora. Stone tunnels,
into which the writhing wretches who were doomed to this merciless death
were forced by the sharp scimitars and handjars[31] of their jailors,
and there left to expire of famine; and _oubliettes_, whose gnawing jaws
opened to receive their victims only to deliver them back mutilated
and bleeding to the depths of the ocean-grave, where their sufferings
were destined to end for ever, are to be seen on all sides; while the
promenades provided for the prisoners within the guarded precincts are
overshadowed by the funereal cypress, as though fresher and brighter
foliage would there have been a mockery.
Not the least remarkable object pointed out to the stranger within
the walls of the Seven Towers is a dry well, celebrated as that into
which Mustapha III., on some misunderstanding between the courts of
the Sultan and the Czarina Catherine, very unceremoniously caused her
representative, the Count Obrescoff, to be lowered, and left during
several days, ere he entered upon his more legitimate period of a
captivity which endured three weary years; while racks, and wheels, and
other complicated instruments of torture, are scattered through the
fortress, as if to prove the ingenuity of mankind in inventions of pain
and horror!
Four of the towers to which the stronghold is indebted for its
appellation, are now partially in ruin; and the gloomy walls no longer
give back the stifled echoes of moral suffering. From a state-prison
for attainted Turks, the fortress became the compulsatory abode of
the Moscovite Ambassadors on all outbreakings of discord between
the Autocrats of Russia and Turkey; and still more recently it has
served as a plague-hospital for the Greeks, and thus exchanged its
experience of human torture for one which, although equally bitter, is
Heaven-inflicted, and not born of the malice or the tyranny of man. But,
although the record of blood is now filled up, and the dark volume of
violence sealed—it may be hoped, for ever—the entrance-gate of the Seven
Towers is still an object of dread and terror to the Turks; and it is
difficult even for the traveller to pass it by without a quickening pulse!
THE MOSQUE OF CHAZADE.
“And as the smoke condensed itself into a vapoury outline, and
I saw a giant form rise into the air, I found words, and spoke.
‘In the name of the Prophet,’ I faultered out, ‘what art thou?’
And the shape answered in a shrill whistle, like the east wind
through the storm-stripped branches of the forest, and said,
‘Pass on thy way, and impede me not: I guard the graves of the
mighty.’ And I looked, and lo! the vapour rested on the tombs
of two of earth’s proudest; so I veiled my eyes, and departed
thence in trembling.”—THE GNOME KING.
The Mosque of Chazade (or Choabbas) is beautifully situated near the
Aqueduct of Valens, which spans the valley upon whose edge it stands.
Like all the other religious edifices of Constantinople, it is built in
the form of a Greek cross, and is ornamented throughout its interior with
arabesques, and sculptured marble. The trees which surround its court
are ancient, and of majestic growth; but its principal beauty exists in
the very elegant fountain, and the noble tombs which are attached to
it. These buildings fringe the street in which it stands, and form an
architectural group unequalled for its perfect orientalism throughout
the city. The gilded lattices of the fountain, its domed and graceful
roof, and the shifting crowd ever collected about its marble steps,
contrast finely with the silent stateliness of the mosque itself, upon
whose white and glittering surface no trace of mere perishable ornament
can be detected. A cluster of domes, rising from amid a mass of foliage,
where the broad-leafed and far-stretching maple mingles its fresh bright
greenness with the dark, rigid, and eternal gloom of the cypress, marks
the site of the mosque, and of the four tombs by whose vicinage it is
distinguished; the larger and taller cupola being that of the temple,
which, however, does not so greatly dominate the others as to injure the
harmony of their effect.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN MOSQUE OF CHAZADE.
_FONTAINE ET MOSQUÉE DE CHAZADE._ _DIE FONTAINE UND MOSCHEE._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Sands.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The most richly ornamented Mausoleum is that of the Sultana Chazade—which
name is supposed to be a corruption of Sheherazade, an appellation
bringing at once to memory the fair and wily Princess of tale-telling
notoriety, so dear to our youth; and admitting the possibility that the
Imperial founder of the mosque, and occupant of the mausoleum, were
indeed the namesake of the indefatigable bride of the fable-loving
Sultan, the eye which rests upon her tomb does not disturb the illusion
which old associations have woven about the fancy; for even had its
tenant been the renowned daughter of the Vèzir herself, she could not
have found a fitter resting-place. The elegant tomb-house is hexagonal,
and the fluted dome is supported on eight light and graceful columns,
whose Saracenic capitals form a portion of the sculptured cornice which
surrounds the base of the cupola. The windows are of richly stained
glass; and the sarcophagus rests on a low platform in the centre of the
marble floor, in solitary state.
The other three tombs attached to the Mosque of Chazade, are those of
three Vèzirs; and, in two instances, their wives and sons lie beside
them. A few scattered graves, almost overgrown with the dense vegetation
common to the country, have been niched here and there in the recesses
formed by the angles of the buildings; and clouds of blue doves inhabit
the eaves of the temple, and fill the air with their low monotonous note,
giving a solemnity to the spot congenial to its use. They call to each
other from the roofs of the tombs sadly and soothingly, like sentinels
passing the watchword of peace over the ashes of the dead, and seem, in
their earnest melancholy, to echo the answer of the Gnome King to the
pilgrim Hamet—“Pass on thy way, and impede me not: I guard the graves of
the mighty.”
SULEIMANIÈ.
“——Solyman, the glory of their line.”
BYRON.
The Mosque of Solyman “the Magnificent,” called by the Turks Suleimaniè,
is esteemed the most elegant religious edifice in Constantinople. The
splendid windows of painted glass, which are said to be unequalled
throughout the world, were a spoil from the Persians, from whom they were
wrested by Solyman to decorate the temple of which he was the founder;
and the effect of their elaborately-blended rays on the marble walls of
the mosque is strikingly fine and impressive. The dome is supported by
four slight and well-proportioned pillars, and rests upon their delicate
capitals so lightly, as to give a character to the interior of this
beautiful building quite distinct from that of every other mosque in the
city. But the four columns of porphyry which occupy the angles of the
edifice, are the boast of Suleimaniè. The rare relics of a pagan temple,
they are of the most exquisite symmetry and finish, and are supposed to
have originally served as pedestals to as many antique statues. Hanging
arches of that delicate Arabian architecture so little known in Europe,
and so justly prized by the Turks, relieve the base of the dome; and the
cornice of the platform on which the meuzzin performs his prostrations,
and regulates the devotions of the faithful during the service, is finely
chiselled to represent a wreath of lotus leaves. The pulpit is shaped
like the blossom of the arum, and being composed of fine white marble,
has the effect of a gigantic flower petrified into stone. The great
entrance-gates of the edifice are very costly, being thickly inlaid with
devices of mother-of-pearl; and the marble floor is over-strown with rich
carpets.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ FROM THE SERASKIER’S TOWER.
_MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ VUE DE LA TOUR DU SÉRASKIER._ _DIE MOSCHEE VON
SULEIMANIÈ, VOM SCHLOSS DES SERASKIERS GESEHN._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE SULEIMANIÈ.
_INTERIEUR DE LA MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ._ _DAS INNERE DER MOSCHEE ZU
SULEIMANIÈ._
W. H. Bartlett. W. Radclyffe.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The entire roof of the building is highly ornamented, and sentences
from the Korān, beautifully written in the oriental character, are
scattered over the walls. The _mihrab_, or niche at the eastern extremity
of the edifice, occupying the position which, when the ground-plan of
the Mahommedan temples was borrowed from St. Sophia, was filled by the
Christian altar, is also inscribed with the names of the Deity and the
Prophets. The immense wax candles that flank the mihrab are lighted every
night during the reading of the Korān by the officiating Kiatib.[32]
Those at the mosque of St. Sophia are eighteen inches in circumference,
and last for twelve months; and the waxen giants of Suleimaniè, although
considerably smaller, are still of enormous size; but as these are merely
supposed to light the holy page of the priest, the body of the building
is illuminated by thousands of small coloured lamps, suspended from the
roof in various devices, by slight rods of iron, and producing to an
European eye, a festal effect strangely incompatible with the sacred uses
of the place.
But Suleimaniè possesses one peculiar feature, to which it is indebted
for an interest beyond all the other mosques of Constantinople, and one
of so high and honourable a character, that it is even more worthy of
record than its pillars of porphyry, or its “cunning work” in glass and
marble; and it is of so distinctive a nature that it must not be passed
over in silence.
A richly-wrought gallery, extending along the whole northern face of the
edifice, is heaped with chests of sundry sizes, and of all descriptions,
from the rude trunk of cypress-wood, painted a dull green, and decorated
with huge groups of flowers, tawdrily and clumsily executed—the
treasure-hoard of the petty trader, or the roving tatar[33]—to the heavy
iron-clamped strong box of the exiled noble, or the wandering merchant:
these are piled one on the other to the very roof of the building, and
each is carefully marked with some hieroglyphic known only to its absent
owner, and to its temporary guardians. Each package, when received by
the authorities at Suleimaniè, is described and registered with the most
scrupulous exactness; and when once it has been deposited within the
holy precincts of the mosque, it remains intact and inviolate, whatever
time may elapse, or whatever changes may ensue ere it is reclaimed by
its proper owner, either in the government, or the institutions of the
Empire. The sacredness of the trust is felt, acknowledged, and respected;
and men of every nation, and professors of every creed, are free to
deposit their property within the walls of Suleimaniè, secure of its
restoration whenever they may see fit to reclaim it.
[Illustration: THE MIHRAB OF THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ.
_LE MIHRAB, VU NICHE, DANS LA MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ._ _DER MIHRAB DER
MOSCHEE SULEIMANIÈ._
W. H. Bartlett. J. H. Le Keux.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
It is said that the amount of treasure in gold, silver, jewels, and
rich stuffs, thus collected together, is immense; and that many of the
chests have occupied their place in the gallery for a century. But this
fact does not operate against their security—no seal is ever forced at
Suleimaniè; and this great national bank, for such it truly is, remains
untouched and sacred throughout every popular convulsion, and every
intestine change. Here the Turkish government exercises no despotism,
exacts no avaniah,[34] levies no tax; and amid all its reverses, and all
its necessities, preserves an admirable integrity which is less generally
known than it deserves to be.
THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
“Where’er we gaze, around, above, below,
What rainbow-tints, what magic charms are found!
Rock, river, forest, mountain—all abound,
And bluest skies that harmonize the whole.”
BYRON.
There is no better point whence to obtain a view of the Port of
Constantinople than from the great cemetery of the “Infidel Hill” of
Pera. The harbour lies at your feet, crowded with shipping, moored in
treble lines along the shore, and filling every little creek and bay. The
minaretted city cresting the opposite height like a diadem, stretches
along in all the splendour of its mosques and palaces; terminated in
one direction by the Eski-Seraï, glittering among its cypresses and
plane-trees, and enclosed within the picturesque walls, which are
washed by the blue waves of the Bosphorus and the Propontis, to which
the hoary trees that overhang them pay back their tribute of shade and
freshness; and on the other, by the historical suburb of Eyoub; while, in
the distance, the bright sea of Marmora dances in the light, bearing a
thousand gleaming sails upon its bosom, and its scattered islands heave
up their fantastic outline like marine monsters; the Thracian Olympus,
and the mountain-chain of which it is the monarch, form the frame-work of
the picture; while Scutari closes in upon the eye, sweeping gracefully
along the edge of the Propontis, until it grows into majesty as it nears
the Bosphorus, and flings over the waves of “the ocean-stream,” the
stately shadow of Bulgurlhu Daghi.
[Illustration: THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
_PORT DE CONSTANTINOPLE._ _DER HAFEN VON CONSTANTINOPEL._
W. H. Bartlett. G. K. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Innumerable caïques dart from shore to shore across the harbour,
freighted with veiled women, and men of many lands; and the shrill
warning cry of the boatmen as they shoot along, cutting through the
water like wild-birds, continually passing and repassing, and yet never
coming in collision—the crowds of sea-fowl sporting among the shipping,
and diving under the oars of every boat—the light bridge, flung like a
fairy-wand across the port—all conspire to render the Golden Horn one
of the most picturesque scenes in the world; while above the bright
landscape and the glittering sea, spreads a sky of such intense and vivid
blue, as invests every object with a tint and a distinctness from which
it derives a new and a peculiar beauty.
The variety of costume, the constant succession of living groups, and
the rapid motion of the arrowy caïques, are altogether beyond the reach
of description; while the pencil of the artist can alone convey any
distinct idea of the numerous objects of interest and beauty which throng
the shores. Close beside the termination of the floating bridge, where
it abuts on the Stamboul side of the harbour, (at a gate-way known as
“the Gate of the Garden,” owing to its vicinity to the grounds of the
ancient palace,) and close under the walls, stands a green pavilion, in
which former Sultans were accustomed to give audience to the European
Ambassadors; while immediately above it, erected on a buttress of the
wall itself, is a light-looking summer saloon, canopied with creeping
plants, called the Kiosque of Pearls, whence the sovereign can overlook
the whole extent of the port and the European shore. Not far from this
pretty kiosque, and level with the water’s edge, is a low iron door,
through which the bodies of those who were executed within the Seraglio
are said to have been cast into the sea at midnight, and committed to
the current that sweeps rapidly round the point; but it bears little
appearance of having latterly been in request, as its massy hinges are
rusted, and immovable.
Stately trees, sweeping downward to the water—lofty minarets, shooting
gracefully towards heaven—crowds of shipping—groups of human beings,
varying alike in feature, language, and costume—lofty mountains,
far-stretching forests, and thickly-peopled hills—the junction of two
seas—an unrivalled landscape, and a cloudless sky, are among the many
distinctive glories of the Golden Horn.
ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA.
“Then by the lightning’s blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shatter’d bark;
Her vain distress-guns hear:
And when a second sheet of light
Flash’d o’er the blackness of the night—
To see no vessel there!”
COLERIDGE.
The entrance to the Black Sea, as seen from the summit of the
Jouchi-Daghi, or Giant’s Mountain, (the spot selected by the artist,)
is the grandest _coup-d’œil_ on the Bosphorus. As the line of shore
terminates on either hand, the picturesque and jagged rocks suddenly
yield to a low and sandy stretch of coast; and beyond are visible the
“Blue Symplegades,” heaving up their dark and irregular masses from the
encircling waters of the Sea of Storms, which, stretching far away on all
sides, is ultimately blent with the horizon.
The ruins of two Genoese Castles crown the abrupt peaks of a portion
of the mountain-chain of which the Jouchi-Daghi is the monarch. One of
them, whose mouldering walls descend nearly to the lip of the channel,
has its beautiful legend of womanly high-heartedness; for a tale is there
recorded of a young fair girl, scarcely yet arrived at the first years
of womanhood, the daughter of the Governor, who defended the fortress
for three entire days after the death of her father, who fell mortally
wounded by a poisoned arrow, as he was gallantly meeting the enemy; and
with a diminished and despairing garrison, boldly held the castle until
she was herself killed in its defence. Fable has now peopled the gray
old pile with supernatural visitants; but if the spirit of that high and
heroic girl still presides within the walls, their contact can scarcely
be dreaded.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA. (From the Giant’s Grave.)
_ENTRÉE DE LA MER NOIRE, VUE DU TOMBEAU DU GÉANT._ _SCENERIE DES
SCHWARZEN MEERES VON DER RIESENGRUFT HER._
W. H. Bartlett. S. Bradshaw.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
[Illustration: THE BOSPHORUS. (Opposite the Genoese Castle)
_LE BOSPHORE VU DU COTÉ OPPOSÉ AU CHATEAU GÉNOIS._ _DER BOSPHORUS,
GEGENÜBER DEM GENUESISCHEN SCHLOSS._
W. H. Bartlett. E. Benjamin.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
It is impossible to write of the Bosphorus without enthusiasm, for both
its historical and fabulous associations serve to deepen its actual
beauty; while the endless variety of its perspective keeps the eye and
the mind continually on the stretch, never cheating either the one or the
other of the anticipated feast. Could it be contemplated in its entire
length, and swept from sea to sea by one long gaze, much of its charm
would necessarily be lost with its novelty; but as it winds in graceful
curves between its enchanting shores, it is like a chain of cunningly
wrought gold, of which, as it uncoils, every link appears more beautiful
than the last. The caïque of the traveller is one moment overshadowed by
the tall trees of the “Hill of the Thousand Nightingales,” and in the
next instant it is darting past a brightly-painted palace; now it is with
some difficulty urged forward against the eddying Sheitan Akindissi, or
Devil’s Current, where the mad waves leap to its high and pointed prow;
and now, as by some sudden spell, it is again gliding over a surface
blue, and clear, and almost rippleless. Valleys, gay in their eternal
greenery, are succeeded by steep and wooded hills; villages fringe the
little bays, and villas crown the picturesque and fantastic heights; a
double line of fortresses stud the shores from the castle of Mahomet
to the entrance of the Black Sea; cemeteries, contrasting their white
head-stones with the dark foliage of the cypresses by which they are
overshadowed, lean on the hill-side, and stretch to the very edge of
the channel; and between and among these objects, pass, in perpetual
movement, the gilded galleys of the Sultan, the splendid barges of the
ministers, the graceful caïques of the veiled beauties of the city, ships
of war, Arab barks, quaint in their form and covering, merchant-brigs,
and every description of small craft; now seeming, in the distance, to be
plying among the trees by which the channel is overhung, and anon shaking
out their white sails to meet the shifting wind, and bounding into the
centre of the stream.
From the European side of the strait, immediately opposite the old
Genoese Castle, the _coup-d’œil_ is, perhaps, even more beautiful than
on that of Asia, for the traveller commands from thence a scene of
unparalleled variety, as he looks towards Constantinople. Far away, on
the extreme right, cluster the domes and minarets of the hill-seated
city, while the distant line is continued by the shores of Asia Minor,
dominated by Mount Olympus, and sweeping the horizon until the eye is
unable to follow them. At their base lies the sea of Marmora, looking
calm and sunny like some inland lake; while the foreground of the
picture is formed by the undulating banks and glorious channel of the
Bosphorus—castled rocks, laughing valleys, bays, where the busy caïques
come and go like aquatic birds over the ripple—and gay green woods,
which change both in form and in colour as the fresh breeze sweeps
through their leafy depths. Nor is it the least curious feature of the
scene, that, as the boat of the wanderer dances upon the channel-wave,
his ear catches the gay sounds of laughter, or the voices of his
fellow-men, from both sides of the stream—alike from the shores of Europe
and of Asia—and he feels himself to be, for the moment, a connecting link
between two distinct portions of the earth!
From the time-worn ruins of the old Genoese Castle, the opposite shore
is full of scenic interest. A succession of small fortresses, niched
into the _débouches_ of several of the low valleys at the base of the
rocky chain, gleam out gay and white against the dark background of the
mountains, and pretty villages, and overhanging groves, are mirrored in
the blue waters of the channel.
Therapia and Buyukdèrè, (or the Great Bay,) however, deserve more
especial mention, being the favourite summer residences of the European
Ambassadors, and, consequently, the occasional focus of the Frank
aristocracy. Both are beautifully situated: Buyukdèrè stands boldly near
the very junction of the two seas, while Therapia is less exposed to the
tempest-blasts of the “storm-vexed Euxine,” by occupying a station higher
up the channel. It is backed by a richly-wooded hill, on which the houses
of the upper town have, however, considerably and very picturesquely
encroached. And here the English and French embassies, since the great
fire of Pera, when the ambassadorial residences were destroyed, have
entirely established themselves, only occasionally visiting the city;
and hence the commerce of the place has become very respectable, and
the appearance of its inhabitants acquired no slight tinge of the
restlessness and business-like manner of their Frank visitors.
The lower town occupies the edge of a small bay, the point of land by
which it is terminated standing out abruptly into the channel, as if for
the mere purpose of effect, and a long terrace stretching away from its
opposite face. On this terrace stand the two ambassadorial residences;
the “Palace” of the English Legation being a small, half-ruinous,
irregularly-gabled wooden building, without “mark or likelihood,” and
that of France, by comparison, a handsome and spacious edifice, with a
noble garden.
[Illustration: THERAPIA AND THE GIANT’S GRAVE.
_THÉRAPIA ET LE TOMBEAU DES GÉANS._ _THERAPIA UND DIE RIESENGRUFT._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
At Therapia the Sultan has both a summer-palace and a kiosque, each
touching upon the channel. The former is a plain unpretending pile,
looking extremely like a manufactory, scantily furnished, and but rarely
visited by its Imperial owner; but the grounds attached to it are most
magnificent, and extend over three leagues of land, the whole of which
is enclosed by high walls. The ornamental timber is of the rarest and
finest description, and the entire face of the height behind the palace
is thickly and richly wooded, while fountains, kiosques, and terraces,
abound. These gardens are generally visited on horseback, in consequence
of their great extent; and nothing can be more delicious on a sultry
day, when the mountain-tops are steaming under the hot sunshine, than
to loiter among the groves, or along the majestic avenues of these
lordly grounds, with the leaves quivering above your head, and the long
shadows lying dark and cool upon your path. The kiosque is an octagonal,
brightly-painted, many-windowed retreat, commanding views on all sides
of the Bosphorus and its shores, and overshadowed by a couple of very
fine maple-trees. Buyukdèrè is altogether on a grander scale; backed by
a noble meadow, gay and green, at whose extremity is seen the stately
aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, it extends gracefully along the lip of the
shore at the base of a sloping ridge, (the terminus of one of the
branches of Mount Hæmus,) rich with vineyards and gardens. Its houses are
light and handsome, fringing the channel for a considerable distance, and
only parted from it by a stately terrace of immense length and breadth,
the favourite promenade of the inhabitants.
Nothing can be more beautiful than the view from Buyukdèrè on a summer
night, when the intense blue of the sky is reflected by the waves of the
“ocean-stream,” which take a fringe of pearl as they heave themselves
gently against the terrace, and then break away in light; while the moon,
clear, and polished like a silver shield, floods earth and sea with
lustre, and the stars tremble brightly about her, as though they were too
glad for rest.
But the sublimity of a tempest from the same spot, as it rolls onward
from the Euxine to the Bosphorus, mocks at description. Fold upon fold,
shade upon shade, the dense vapour rolls along, wrapping itself about
the hills, and draping them in darkness; the distance becomes blotted
out—space is no longer a feature of the scene—and as the awe-inspiring
storm-cloud spreads itself over every object, the hoarse voice of the
blast sweeps onward with it, deepening its terrors; while, through the
impenetrable gloom, in every lapse of the wind, the ear is deafened by
the wild dash of the angry billows, as they chafe against the rocky
barriers of the coast!
The nerves must be strong indeed which would not be shaken in such an
hour, when standing on the Jouchi-Daghi, amid three storm-tossed seas,
and under a sky freighted with terrors; a sail, perchance, labouring in
the distance, tempest-shattered, but toiling on for life, revealed only
at intervals as the fierce but transient lightning cuts like a fiery
scymetar through the thick vapour, and lost at last, none can tell how
nor where, amid the shrill requiem of the sea-birds.
Nor must the Giant’s Mountain itself be passed over in silence, claiming,
as it does, the notice of the traveller, not more by its stateliness of
outline, than by its romantic legend; both the one and the other being
occasionally so enveloped in clouds, that it is difficult to determine
the exact features of either.
This noble height is, during the summer months, a favourite resort of the
Franks, who, fanned by the cool breezes from the Black Sea, and regaled
by one of the finest views in nature, give pic-nic parties and dances
under the shade of the trees, or in the neat wooden tenement appropriated
to visitors, near the Tekiè, or Convent, which occupies its summit. The
Dervishes who inhabit this mountain-hermitage derive no inconsiderable
portion of their revenue from the presents tendered by their guests, and
willingly show to the stranger their small but well-kept chapel, and the
grave of their gigantic hero, who has given his name to the spot; and
with the most devout and solemn simplicity, the narrow oblong enclosure,
thickly planted with rose and jasmine-trees, called the “Giant’s Grave,”
is then pointed out by the simple recluses. It is about fifty feet in
length, guarded with the most religious care, lighted by a lamp which is
constantly kept burning in one of the alcoves, and rich in propitiatory
offerings of strips of cloth, and rags of every tint and texture.
The Musselmauns affirm that the “illustrious dead” was a Dervish, whose
sanctity equalled his stature; a belief which does him infinite honour,
as he is said to have seated himself on the summit of the mountain, while
he bathed his feet in the cool waters of Buyukdèrè. His mode of interment
must, consequently, have been similar to the planting of a flag-staff,
as the grave is not too long to admit the breadth of his shoulders; and
this perpendicular burial can alone account for its comparatively pigmy
dimensions—unless, indeed, the mountain is hallowed only by containing
a mere fragment of his remains. His history, and the epoch in which he
flourished, are alike unknown; but as his sanctity is undoubted, they are
minor facts, unworthy of analysis.
[Illustration: BUYUKDÈRÈ. (From the Giant’s Grave.)
_BUYUKDÈRÈ, VU DU TOMBEAU DU GÉANT._ _BUYUKDÈRÈ VOM RIESENGRABE HER._
W. H. Bartlett. S. Bradshaw.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Such is the Mahommedan tradition; that of the Christians, if quite as
apocryphal, is at least much more poetical.
Their legend saith, that the grave of the Jouchi-Daghi contains the bones
of a huge and ferocious giant, to whom the Symplegades were thralled
vassals; and who, from his station on the mountain-crest, watched the
approach of every vessel that ventured to brave the billows of the
Euxine. It was at his beck that the subject-islands wandered over the
waters, and crushed between their rocky sides all those unwary barks
which, tempted by the vision of a new El Dorado beyond the channel,
sought to force the passage of the Bosphorus. It was he also, who,
fearful lest any daring vessel might escape through the rocky barrier
during his transient and infrequent slumber, created that swift and
dangerous reaction of the tide midway of the channel, well known as the
“Devil’s Current;” while he is likewise accused of devouring drowning
mariners, conjuring up tempests, and of having tinged the waters of the
Black Sea by performing his ablutions in its polluted bosom!
Such is the legend of the Jouchi-Daghi, and such the glorious scene
spread out beneath it.
THE PALACE OF BELISARIUS.
“To what base uses may we come at last!”
SHAKSPEARE.
The ruin known by the name of the Palace of Belisarius, is situated at an
angle of the city walls; and, according to the authority of the learned
Constantius, Archbishop of Senaï, and Ex-Patriarch of Constantinople,
(still in exile for his work on the Antiquities of Byzantium,) it was
one of the Imperial residences of the first Constantine; and he asserts,
that it owes its present designation to the fact of its being placed in
a quarter of the city called Balata, a corruption of Balati, or the Gate
of the Palace, which has gradually grown, from the hasty and undigested
impressions of Frank travellers, into the Palace of Belisarius. There
are the remains of a lofty and handsome gate-way, and the disposition of
the masonry is highly extolled by architects; but to the mere tourist,
the ruined Palace of Constantine, reft of its old-world associations, is
possessed of little interest; and that little is absolutely negatived by
the price which he is compelled to pay for a visit to its neighbourhood.
To all oriental travellers it will be sufficient to state that the
building has been given up to the Jews as a pauper-hospital, for them
to understand at once that it is almost unapproachable, being the
head-quarters of filth, and the hotbed of pestilence, where every sense
is pained by scents and sights calculated to inspire dread and disgust.
[Illustration: PALACE OF BELISARIUS.
_PALAIS DE BÉLISAIRE._ _DER PALLAST DES BELISARIUS._
W. H. Bartlett. F. W. Topham.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Masses of the fallen masonry cumber the foundations of the ruin, and
every niche is alive with its noisome tenant; here it is a sallow and
fleshless crone, whose lean and shrivelled hands can with difficulty
disengage themselves from the filthy rags which are wrapped about her,
in order to stretch themselves supplicatingly towards the stranger;
while her cracked voice screams out in doggrel Spanish a petition for
relief, as servile as it is eager; there it is a reckless child, with
the marked features of its race, rolling naked under the hot sunshine,
and gambolling with the wretched and half-starved dogs of the miserable
colony. On one side the visitor is jostled by disease, and on the other
persecuted by importunity; while a number of wretched houses have grown
up about the ruin, whose dilapidated roofs, shattered lattices, and
windows stuffed with rags and grass to exclude the weather, are in
melancholy keeping with their inhabitants.
Under these circumstances it will readily be believed that a visit to the
desecrated palace of Constantine requires a painful effort on the part
of an European traveller, whose eyes are taxed with the contemplation
and contact of the most nauseous objects; and whose sympathies cannot
fail to be excited by a congregated misery which he must feel his utter
incapacity to relieve. Nor can the most determined antiquary hope to
discover any relic of old to repay him for even an hour’s sojourn within
the ruin, when he remembers that it is thickly tenanted by a horde of
necessitous and keen-witted Hebrews, who are familiar with every recess
of the dilapidated edifice.
From afar off the crumbling pile is a noble and majestic object, but,
like many and more familiar things, it will not bear a nearer contact
without losing all its best attributes. Close beside it the common sewers
of the city empty themselves into the port; and, altogether, it may well
be said, in the words of Shakspeare—
“It is unsavoury, and smacks not with our humour.”
THE SERAGLIO POINT.
“_Claudius_:—Look forth—What see you?
“_Benedict_:—Every thing, and nothing!
Bright skies, clear waters, sunshine, snow, and flowers;
Islands, that seem as if in sport they laved
Their bosoms in the tide; and shores that smile
At their own beauty, mirrored in the glass
Of a blue, waveless sea; dwellings that rise
Upon the eye like party-coloured flowers;
And a warm sunshine, wantoning in sport
With the white veil of winter, cast about
A foot-defying mountain, round whose brow
The amorous clouds cling like a bridal garland.
And ever and anon there flits a sail
Over the surface of the waters, swift,
And graceful as the passage of a spirit,
Bound on some pure behest.”
OLD PLAY.
The Seraglio Point has been so often described in this volume, that
it is merely necessary to introduce the present beautiful sketch, by
explaining that it is taken from a height, and, consequently, compresses
and embraces a greater number of objects than have yet been introduced
into one view of this celebrated spot. The Seraï Bournou is more fully
revealed, with its clustering domes and kiosques; St. Sophia lords it
more majestically over the Seven Hills; and the glimpse of the harbour is
shut in by a portion of one of the quaintly-fashioned houses so peculiar
to the locality. In the distance rises Mount Olympus, pale with its
eternal snows; with one fantastic rock looming out of the blue waters
immediately beneath it, like a huge marine monster sleeping under the
still sunshine. To the left, still stretching along the same line of
coast, cluster the nest of islets, once known as the “Demon Islands,”
and said to have been haunted by a foul spirit; who, however, it may be
presumed—
“Visits no more the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous;”
as three holy houses have been erected within their limits, and a royal
lady sheltered there safely for many days to elude a hated and infidel
suitor; whence these pleasant retreats have since been more invitingly
christened the “Princess’ Islands;” and they are now a place of great
resort with the holiday-loving Greeks, during the summer months. On the
extreme left lies Scutari, with its noble and palace-like barrack and
mosque, over which the rock-seated Guz-couli, rising up amid the waters,
seems to be standing sentinel; while the narrow stretch of land, running
in a direct line into the sea, is occupied by the poor dingy little
Greek town of Cadi Küi, which is built upon the site of the ancient
Chalcedon—called, in derision, the “City of the Blind,” in contempt
for the wretched taste and narrow policy of the Greeks, who founded
it several years before they took possession of the superior position
occupied by the present capital.
[Illustration: THE SERAGLIO POINT.
_POINTE DU SERAIL._ _DAS ENDE DER SERAGLIO STRASSE._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Add to these several and enduring features of the scene, the constant
passage of hundreds of swift and arrow-like caïques, of fleets of
merchantmen of all lands, of the high-prowed and classical Arabian barks,
and, occasionally, the stately ships of war, with their blood-red flag
glittering with a silver crescent, gracefully making their way to their
moorings off the palace of Beshik-Tash—and the artist will readily be
forgiven, though he should have multiplied his memories of so glorious a
spectacle.
YENIKEUIJ.
“Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play’d
Some tricks of desperation: all
Plung’d in the foaming brine—cry’d
Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here!”
SHAKSPEARE.
There are few prettier villages on the Bosphorus than Yenikeuij, which is
situated on the European shore, within two miles of Therapia. The houses,
in numerous instances, overhang the sea; and the beating of the waves
against the narrow terraces, as the rapid current forces them onward,
keeps up a constant murmur, which, in the hot months, is extremely
refreshing. The heights above the hamlet are profusely wooded; and many
wealthy Armenian Sarafs and Greek merchants have their _maisons de
plaisance_ among them.
[Illustration: YENIKEUIJ ON THE BOSPHORUS.
_YENIKEUIJ SUR LE BOSPHORE._ _YENIKEUIJ AM BOSPHORUS._
W. H. Bartlett. J. J. Hinchliffe.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The largest mansion in the village was built by the celebrated and
unfortunate Dooz Oglou, the great banker and diplomatist, and one of the
most talented, as well as the wealthiest Armenian in Turkey. When high
in favour with the Sultan, he purchased a small kiosque at Yenikeuï, and
formed so great an attachment to the locality, that he determined on
erecting there a residence worthy of his princely fortunes. This spacious
palace—for, although, as is common in the country, the building is almost
entirely composed of wood, it cannot be consistently called by any
other name—presents a comparatively insignificant façade to the water;
but occupies the whole line from thence to the foot of the height, and
traverses the public street of the village by a covered bridge, which is
occupied by a wide gallery leading to the dining saloon.
To obtain sufficient space for the erection of this noble dwelling, and
the formation of the grounds about it, Dooz Oglou purchased no less than
five and thirty houses, for which he paid, in every instance, several
hundred piastres beyond the demand of their owner; and once established,
he filled his spacious apartments with costly furniture, and all the
luxuries which unbounded wealth and a fine taste could command. Alas!
he was but gilding his own ruin, and lavishing his resources upon a
pile which was not even destined to be his monument. This outlay awoke
the cupidity of the Ottoman court, which was at that period much more
venal than it is at present, and his ostentation alarmed its vanity; he
was accused of usury, or treason, or both—for the nature of his crime
was never very clearly defined—his property was confiscated, and he was
hanged upon his own threshold, from a staple driven into the wood-work of
the gate opening upon the seaward terrace. The mansion at Yenikeuï was
subsequently presented by the Sultan to Nicholas Aristarchi, the present
Logotheti,[35] by whom it is inhabited during the summer.
Yenikeuï is also remarkable as being one of the three hamlets in which
the Greek “Festival of Fire,” instituted in commemoration of the second
capture of Constantinople by the Cæsars, is still permitted to be held.
This singular ceremony was formerly common in all the Greek villages, and
even in that quarter of the capital itself in which that nation reside;
but the privilege of promiscuous illumination has been withdrawn, owing
to the great risk of conflagration to which it subjected the city; and
the festival is now held only at Yenikeuï, Therapia, and Buyukdèrè.
Artificial islands, formed of hurdles, and heaped with inflammable
matter, are formed in the bay—caïques, saturated with bitumen, are moored
off the shore—and lines of bonfires are raised along the coast, linking
the three hamlets together—all of which are simultaneously ignited at
a given signal, and the effect is awfully grand and impressive. The dim
outline of the Asian hills is suddenly revealed, as by the touch of an
enchanter’s wand, and seems to be traced in gold; the ripple of the
channel dances along like sparks of fire; while around, and on every
side, are to be seen groups of people in their holiday-dresses, seated
upon mats and carpets, enjoying the extraordinary spectacle.
But, perhaps, the most novel feature of the entertainment is presented by
a crowd of men, partially clad in white cotton, their shaven heads bare,
and their arms tossing wildly in the air; who, with shrieks and yells,
which are sullenly thrown back by the rocky heights above them, at one
time feed the fires that are floating in the bay, above their waists in
water; and at others, joining hands, dance in a fantastic circle round
their flaming islands. Meanwhile, servants are flitting here and there,
holding paper lanterns, and guiding the different parties of revellers
to the houses of their respective friends; while the channel is alive
with caïques, each with a light at its prow, and freighted with mirth and
music.
These wild sports continue for hours, until the fuel and the energies of
the assistants are alike exhausted, when the fires gradually die away;
though the pale light of morning not unfrequently breaks above many a
homeward-bound caïque, ere it is safely moored beside the terrace of its
owner.
DOLMA-BATCHÈ, FROM THE GRAND CHAMPS DES MORTS.
“Fair the vernal mead,
Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars,
True impress each of their creating sire.”
COLERIDGE.
Dolma-Batchè, or the Valley of the Gourds, is a fair and fertile spot,
situated between Top-hannè and Beshik-Tash, and partially occupied by an
Imperial residence, seated on the lip of the channel, along which its
gilded terraces stretch for a considerable distance, and are succeeded by
the Palace itself, gay with paint and bright with gold, which, in turn,
yields its place to groves and kiosques overhanging the water; while its
spacious gardens and pleasure-grounds, jealously walled in for the use
of the ladies of the Imperial Harem, fill a large portion of the valley.
Beyond these guarded precincts the ground gradually rises, rich with
vegetation; while clusters of fruit-trees overshadow the gourds for
which the spot is famous, and the bright patches of Indian corn that are
scattered on all sides.
[Illustration: DOLMA-BATCHÈ. (From the Necropolis of Pera.)
_DOLMA-BATCHÈ (VU DU CIMETIÈRE DE PÉRA.)_ _DOLMA-BATCHÈ (VOM LEICHENHOFE
ZU PERA.)_
W. H. Bartlett. E. Benjamin.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The spot chosen by the artist to give a glimpse of this lovely valley,
is one which is much frequented by the Turks: it is a height at the
extremity of the beautiful Necropolis of Pera, whence the land suddenly
takes a downward slope, and descends to the edge of the Bosphorus,
covered with foliage; the almond-tree mingling its bright sunny green
with the dense hues of the cypress, and the apple-blossom laughing out in
its pure beauty beside the overshadowing and majestic maple. The cemetery
itself is very picturesque, occupying a portion of this same slope, where
it descends less abruptly to the sea; and then stretching away like a
dark fringe along the edge of the height for a considerable distance, in
the direction of Pera.
The Turks have a singular tradition attached to this burial-place, of
which mention must not be omitted. They believe that, on particular
anniversaries, sparks of fire exude from the graves, and lose themselves
among the boughs of the cypresses by which they are overshadowed; an idea
so eminently poetical, that it induces a disinclination to canvass its
rationality.
A wooden kiosque occupies the crest of the hill immediately above the
valley, and is a favourite resort with all classes of people who can
afford to enjoy an hour’s leisure in the balmy season, and to indulge
themselves in the contemplation of one of the loveliest spots on the
Bosphorus. The Cafejhi, by whom it is tenanted, not only provides the
everlasting coffee, and the eternal chibouque, but also adds a low
wicker stool for the accommodation of his visitor, which enables him to
select his own favourite spot beneath the sheltering branches of the
trees planted about the kiosque; and to feast his vision with the fair
scene, whose blended beauties can gain no single charm from mere verbal
description with which they have not already been embued by the pencil of
Mr. Bartlett.
A BENDT IN THE FOREST OF BELGRADE.
“A lovely spot, half sunshine, and half shade,
Where flickering boughs a shifting picture made;
And tranquil waters, ’mid the general hush,
Gazed on the sun until they stole his blush!”
The village of Belgrade, formerly called Beil-Gorod, (a word signifying,
in the Sclavonian language, White Fortress,) is situated at the
termination of the Great Bendt, or Reservoir, which forms the subject
of the accompanying sketch. Nothing can exceed in beauty the situation
of this mountain-hamlet, nestled in a green valley bright with turf
and flowers, and traversed by a sparkling stream, which, after winding
gracefully for two or three miles through the plain, finally empties
itself into the Bendt.
The heights by which the valley is encompassed are a portion of the chain
of the Lower Balcan, and are, in this immediate neighbourhood, richly
clothed with stately forests of chestnut, maple, oak, and other noble
timber; while the glen itself is studded with groups of beech-trees,
whose soft and fantastic outlines cut gracefully against the sunny sky,
and whose flexile and leafy branches throw their long and refreshing
shadows across the grass, and the dancing ripple of the pigmy river.
[Illustration: A BENDT, in the Forest above Belgrade.
_UN BENDT, DANS LA FORÉT PRÈS DU BELGRADE._ _EINE BIEGUNG IM WALDE
OBERHALB BELGRAD._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
But Belgrade, beautiful as it undoubtedly is, is nevertheless much
changed since the year 1717, when the talented Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
courting its shades in the sultry month of June, thus wrote to the
immortal bard of Twickenham.
“The heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, which
perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields. I am in the
middle of a wood, consisting chiefly of fruit-trees, watered by a vast
number of fountains famous for the excellency of their water, and divided
into many shady walks, upon short grass, that seems to me artificial,
but, I am assured, is the pure work of nature, and within view of the
Black Sea, from whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool
breezes, that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The village
is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every
night at a fountain, forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The
beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient
nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and
painters.”[36]
When the fair and gifted Ambassadress sketched this beautiful picture
of the spot, she must have been, as she herself expresses it, “in the
middle of a wood;” for, until the summer of 1823, the Valley of Belgrade
was rich in chestnut, beech, oak, walnut, lime-trees, plantains, and
every description of forest timber; but, unfortunately for the lover of
“the gay green wood,” the recesses of Belgrade became at that period the
retreat of parties of the scattered Janissaries, who had escaped during
the massacre; and who, carrying along with them all the surviving rabble
of the city who had espoused their cause, and sided with them during
the carnage, divided themselves between the forest of Belgrade and the
heights of Moudania; the more active passing over into Asia Minor, and
infesting the mountains as far as Broussa; and the less far-seeing,
concealing themselves in the dense woods bordering the Black Sea.
Here the wretched men subsisted for a time on fruits and herbs; but,
despairing of brighter fortune, they soon became desperate, and sallying
forth upon every chance traveller, in parties of eight or ten, as they
had associated themselves, they constantly robbed, and occasionally
murdered, until the roads were considered to be impassable. Various, and
even strenuous efforts were made by the government to capture or disperse
them, but as they amounted to some hundreds, they set at defiance both
the soldiery and the police; and although an occasional straggler was
captured by the troops, summarily strangled, and his body flung by the
wayside for the purpose of terrifying his comrades into submission, no
effect was produced; until the Sultan, irritated and wearied by their
prolonged enormities, decided on setting fire to the forest, and thus
destroying their stronghold. This expedient was accordingly adopted;
the woods were ignited in several directions, and a military _cordon_
established on the heights, with strict orders to fire upon every
individual who attempted to escape. Could the mind have been freed from
the consciousness that the fierce flames were serving as the ministers of
a painful and relentless death, the scene would have been surpassingly
magnificent!
The primeval forest which had stood tall and dark upon the earth in
solemn grandeur for centuries, challenging the antiquity of the hoary
heights beyond, and excluding from its mysterious depths the brightness
of the stars; defying the glorious day-beam which failed to penetrate
its wild recesses, and concealing amid its trackless wilderness a
thousand things of life, became suddenly girdled with fire—the tall trees
shivered, crackled, swayed, leant towards each other as the tongues of
flame bound them in one apparently solid mass—stood out for an instant,
charred and leafless against the sky, as the scared ocean-wind struggled
for a brief interval with its rival element—and then fell with a crash
that woke the caverned echoes of Asia, while the leaping waves that
chafed against the bleak Symplegades, caught, the deep tint, and turned
the sea to gold; and the majestic aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, above the
valley, lost for a time its snowy tint, and seemed to be formed of
sculptured ore.
The ruin wrought bravely. Belgrade was girt with fire; the flames
extended for several square miles, and ere many hours elapsed, all was
desolation; while, (meet accompaniment for such a scene!) the constant
report of musquetry was blent with the shrieks of human agony, and the
deep groan of human suffering filled up the horrid diapason. Of all who
had been sheltered by the forest of Belgrade, it was believed that not
one escaped with life. Most of the fugitives fell beneath the bullets of
the soldiery; while a few, strong and stern even in extremity, disdained
to fly merely to exchange a death of suffering for a prompter end at the
hands of their exulting victors; and thus they perished in their silent
fortitude, with the forest-trees amid which they had been so long hidden.
The Bendts, or Tanks, are of classic origin, having been formed by the
Greek Emperors when Byzantium became a second Rome, and the necessities
of an increasing population rendered it imperative on their rulers to
secure to the growing city a sure and sufficient supply of water. They
were constructed with considerable ingenuity, extreme care, and great
cost; and their preservation was anxiously insured by repeated edicts,
several of which are still in the Imperial Library of the Eski-Seraï,
insisting strongly upon their immense utility, regulating the planting
of the trees by which they were to be surrounded, and prohibiting, under
pain of the Imperial displeasure, and a heavy fine, the abstraction of
water by any individual whomsoever; every such offender being compelled,
upon detection, to pay a pound of gold for each ounce weight of water!
All the rills which trickle through the valley have been directed to one
point, and now unite in a stream of considerable volume, which flows
between two hills, and finally empties itself into the Great Bendt;
while, in every instance where a similar arrangement is feasible in this
region of springs and moisture, another of these mountain-reservoirs,
smaller in size, but equally perfect in construction, will repay the
search of the traveller.
[Illustration: AQUEDUCT OF VALENS. (In the City.)
_AQUEDUC DE VALENS._ _WASSERLEITUNG DES K. VALENS._
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Suy-Terrasi, by whose means the water is now conveyed on a summit
level, were described earlier in the work; and their effect, scattered
for miles over the face of the country, from the Black Sea to Pera, is
extremely singular, setting all the conjectures of the uninitiated at
defiance. These were invented at a later period by the Turks themselves,
in order to avoid the enormous outlay necessary to the erection of
Aqueducts; but they were not allowed, nevertheless, to supersede them
altogether—a fact which must gratify every lover of the picturesque,
as he gazes on the majestic Aqueduct of Validè, which is flung across
the fair valley of Buyukdèrè, terminating the vista as seen from the
Bosphorus, and linking the heights with a range of snowy arches.
Another, of more vast, but, perhaps, less graceful proportions, and
certainly less happily situated, is that of Solyman, near Pyrgo, of which
a sketch has been already given. It dominates a valley one thousand six
hundred feet in width, is formed by a double range of fifty arches, and
is of very imposing appearance, and constructed with great solidity.
The Aqueduct of Valens is one of the most striking objects that meets the
eye of the stranger, as he gazes enraptured on the far-famed city of the
Bosphorus. Dark, and hoar, and massy, it links two of the seven hills,
and spans the peopled valley with a giant grasp; in strong contrast
to the gaiety and glitter of the marble mosques, and party-coloured
houses. Festoons of the graceful wild-vine, and the scented honeysuckle,
drapery its mouldering masonry; masses of the caper-plant, with its
beautiful blossoms, conceal the ravages of time; lichens trail among
its arches; and a variety of stone plants, fed by the moisture which is
continually oozing through the interstices of the building, flourish in
picturesque luxuriance, and lend a glory to its decay. Historians allude
to several other Aqueducts, which they assert to have had existence in
Constantinople, but no trace now remains within the walls of the city
of any, save this; and its origin is thus curiously accounted for by a
modern traveller.
“The Emperor, incensed at the conduct of the people of Chalcedon, who had
favoured the party of Procopius, ordered their walls to be pulled down.
Among the stones was found one with an oracular inscription, implying
that ‘the walls of Chalcedon would bring a great supply of water to the
city;’ and, to complete the prophecy, Valens erected his Aqueduct with
the materials.”[37]
It is impossible to calculate how often this venerable ruin must have
overlooked a scene of flame and terror; in 1836, the streets by which it
is surrounded were levelled by an extensive conflagration, that lit up
the sky of midnight with a wild and lurid gleam, and turned the ripple
of the channel into liquid metal. Every object within the harbour was
as visible as at noonday, but wore a spectral brightness never to be
forgotten by those who witnessed the grand and imposing spectacle; the
dark hulls of the shipping seemed to float upon a sea of molten lead,
while the delicate tracery of the cordage appeared to be hanging in links
of gold from mast to mast. The dome of St. Sophia glowed like a huge
carbuncle; and the slender minarets stood out like silver wands from an
atmosphere of brass; while the rigid cypresses, whose dense foliage flung
back the unnatural brightness as if in mockery, loomed darkly on the eye
like the presiding forms of destroying demons overlooking their work of
devastation.
Amid all this ruin, the Aqueduct of Valens remained unscathed. Some
portions of its leafy coronal, parched by the intense heat, hung on the
morrow, scorched and blighted; but the hoary remnant of by-gone centuries
still soared proudly above the prostrate city at its feet, and received
as incense the smoke of its destruction.
No single inscription can now be traced on any portion of the work; not
a lettered stone has ever repaid the search of the curious, or rewarded
the labour of the antiquary; and the tradition cited by Dr. Walsh is said
to be the only record of its date, or of its founder. To the picturesque
traveller, the Aqueduct of Valens will, however, require no historical
interest to lend it value; as of all the antiquities of Constantinople,
none form so prominent a feature in the landscape, or tend so greatly to
contrast their classic and graceful shadowing with the broad lights and
vivid colouring of the remainder of the picture.
Many others exist without the city, but all more or less in a state
of decay; the Turks, by an unaccountable fatality, neglecting their
aqueducts and cisterns, while they are rigorously strict on the subject
of the Bendts; planting the embankments; and condemning to severe
penalties, not only the “drawers of water,” but also the “hewers of
wood,” who may be rash enough to exercise their vocation within the
guarded precincts.
The cisterns of the city are, in many instances, merely immense tanks, or
wells, excavated beneath the houses, and intended to act as reservoirs
for rainwater; but these are far from being the most important; four
vast subterraneans being yet in existence, which were the work of the
Greek Emperors, and which were formerly supplied by aqueducts from the
waters of the Bendts. One of them, called by the Turks Ben-Veber-Direg,
is supported by three hundred and thirty-six pillars of rough marble;
and is known as the “Thousand and One,” because the separate blocks
employed in forming the columns are said to amount to that mystic number;
but in the time of the Romans this cistern enjoyed the appellation of
the “Stranger’s Friend,” being a public reservoir, of which every comer
might claim his share. The tank was computed to contain one million
two hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine hundred and thirty-nine
cubic feet of water, and to suffice for the consumption of the whole
city more than fifty days. It is now, however, perfectly dry, and filled
with earth to one-third the height of the columns; and is the damp and
unwholesome resort of a score or two of silk-twisters, who ply their
rapid wheels beneath its hoary and time-tinted arches. Tradition says
that the water-courses were diverted from this reservoir by order of the
Emperor, who, when digging the foundations of Saint Sophia, caused all
the soil to be flung into the cistern, rather than submit to the delay
necessary to its transport beyond the walls of the city. The channel worn
in the stone by the water that once flowed into it, is distinguishable
on three different sides of the reservoir, which is lighted by narrow
grated windows, level with the street; and the loud clamours of the
silk-twisters, as they besiege the visitor for backschish, (_Anglicè_
money,) prolonged by the dull and distant echoes of the vaulted recesses,
die away with a sound so hollow and supernatural as to induce a momentary
belief that no human being could have given them utterance.
[Illustration: CISTERN OF BIN-VEBER-DIREG. (Or the Thousand and One.)
_CITERNE DE BIN-VEBER-DIREG, OU LES MILLE ET UNE._ _DIE CISTERNE
BIN-VEBER-DIREG, ODER DIE TAUSENDSTE UND EINE._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
A second and smaller tank, known only as the Boudroum, or Subterranean,
is situated in the same quarter of the city, not ten minutes’ walk from
Bin-Veber-Direg; and, although of lesser dimensions, is infinitely
handsomer; the columns being at least three times the circumference of
those in the other cisterns, uncovered to their base, and composed of a
single block. Two only of the pillars are imperfect, and the _coup-d’œil_
from midway of the stone stair which leads into the vault is most
imposing. Here, not a sound breaks the deep and dreary silence; for,
although this reservoir is tenanted during the day like the other, the
squalid and miserable objects who frequent it, and who earn a scanty and
painful subsistence by spinning cotton, are too much enervated by the
clammy and unwholesome atmosphere of the place to have any strength to
lavish upon supplication; nor, indeed, to the humane traveller who may
chance to visit their gloomy work-room would supplication be necessary,
for one glance at their pallid and livid faces, and their bent and
attenuated bodies, must be more effective than any words, whatever were
the tale of wretchedness those words might tell.
But there yet remains one subterranean beneath the city streets which
has not been entirely diverted from its original purpose; the most vast
and impressive, the most dim and mysterious of all; and one which has
defied alike the power of time, and the curiosity of a newer and less
glorious generation—the far-spreading and extraordinary Hall of Waters,
known by the Turks as the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï, or Swallowed-up Palace. The
roof of this immense cistern is supported, like that of Bin-Veber-Direg,
by marble columns, distant about ten feet from each other, each formed
from a single block, with elaborately wrought capitals, and, in some
instances, entirely covered throughout the whole length of the shaft with
sculptured ornaments in high relief to the level of the water, which
varies in depth according to the season, from five to fifteen feet.
The spot whence the traveller looks through the gloomy arches of the
Yèrè-Batan-Seraï, is not a regularly constructed entrance to the
vault, (nor is it known if such an one really exists,) but an opening,
formed by the failure of several of the pillars, which, yielding to
the superincumbent weight, have caused the roof to fall in, and thus
revealed the watery waste beneath. Nor does any boat now offer the means
of penetrating the wilderness of columns: so many accidents having
occurred through the rashness of strangers who could not be prevailed
upon to forego the gratification of their perilous curiosity, and their
desire of ascertaining the size of the subterranean—a fact hitherto
undetermined—that the little bark was removed; and the traveller is,
consequently, fain to rest satisfied with the view of this extraordinary
structure which he commands from the ruined aperture.
The artist has embodied in his drawing a melancholy incident, which took
place only a few years back, in this singular spot. He has shadowed forth
the adventure of a young, spirited, high-hearted Englishman, who, on his
visit to the vault, was so excited by the wild mystery of the place—its
undefined limits, its deep silence, its dim majesty, and the desire of
being the first to discover its extent, that he resolved to put forth
alone in a small boat, which at that period was moored beside one of the
columns.
Vain were all the expostulations of the worthy old Effendi, in the garden
of whose house the accidental revelation of the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï had
taken place; vain were the examples of previous failure repeated to the
reckless adventurer by his anxious dragoman;[38] equally vain the threats
of foul air, imaginary Afrits, and visionary dangers, marshalled in long
array before him;—when did an Englishman ever yield to such arguments? He
laughed at the terrors of his companions, and declared his determination
to explore the subterranean. What was it but a cistern—the work of men’s
hands? and would they weakly endeavour to persuade him that he could not
achieve his purpose? Opposition did but render him the more resolved; and
such was the power of his excited eloquence, that he almost persuaded
his hearers of the certainty of his success; he did all, indeed, save
engage them to become his partners in the attempt: and when they had
furnished him with the torches of bitumen which were to light him on his
way, and that he had gaily pushed off his little bark, laughing at the
pusillanimity of those who stood to witness his departure, until the
echoes of his reckless mirth rang through the dim arches, and died away
in hollow mutterings deep in the distance; they flung themselves down
upon the earth on their soft mats, and prepared their chibouques, with a
strong faith in the success of his hardy adventure.
[Illustration: YÈRÈ BATAN SERAÏ.
W. H. Bartlett. J. T. Willmore.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Gradually a crowd, to whom the bold attempt of the young Frank had been
whispered, stole one by one into the garden of the Effendi, and clustered
about the cistern. At times they fancied that they distinguished strange
sounds sweeping through the subterranean, and mingling with the fall of
the large drops which gathered on the vaulted roofs, grew into size and
weight, and then plashed heavily on the broad sheet of water beneath; at
others, some one among them, deceived by a sun-glint shimmering through
the leaves of the noble trees of the garden, and reflected in the still
basin, proclaimed the return of the boat, and the flashing of the torch;
but the boat came not. Hours passed away, and the watchers wearied at
their post; expectation became weakened; hope waxed fainter and fainter;
the brief twilight softened for a short interval the face of nature; and
then down fell the darkness, glooming athwart the net-work of the silvery
stars that were woven over the deep blue of the tranquil heavens.
A low whisper grew audible among the awe-struck group: their watch had
endured long; it was now almost unavailing—the reckless Infidel had met
his fate! Each went to his home, and told the tale in his harem; and many
a fair cheek paled, and many a bright eye grew dim with tears that night,
in the city of the Moslem.
Morning came—bright, rosy, laughing morning—and all was fair, and gay,
and sunny, in that happy clime; and as the watchers resumed their station
upon the brink of the subterranean, each turned a long searching gaze
into its depths: but they looked in vain—the boat and its doomed freight
never appeared again!
The brain grows dizzy as it attempts to follow in idea the mysterious
progress of the fated wanderer over those mysterious waters! Rapid was
the splash of his oar as the little bark bounded away; the torch-light
flashed broadly upon the gleaming columns of the vault, and were cast
back from the marble far over the rippleless sheet beneath; his reckless
laughter made wild music until it was lost in the distance, and that he
could no longer distinguish the anxious group whom he had left behind;
and then—_then_—all was still, and dark, and solitary about him! Above,
dome succeeded dome; around, column rose beside column; beneath, far
as the eye could penetrate the gloom, the still, waveless water spread
itself out, to the right and to the left, before and behind—the same
wild, stern, chilling monotony reigned throughout the subterranean!
For a time, perchance, he rowed on in a straight line—his watery path
could thus be easily retraced—and still the vista lengthened as he went.
Hours crept slowly by, and his vigorous arm relaxed somewhat of its
strength; and the atmosphere grew dense, and engendered strange vapours,
which pressed upon his brain, and induced a languor that caused him to
draw in his oars, and ruminate for a while upon the scene around him. The
torch had grown more feeble in its effects, and the shadowy darkness of
the vaulted aisles by which he was encompassed on all sides pressed more
closely upon him, and he strained his eye-balls to look deeper into their
black depths! His breathing, too, became impeded; and the hand was less
firm than its wont, which loosened the kerchief about his neck: while in
the act of doing so, he suffered the little boat to swing round, and at
once became conscious that he no longer recognised the avenue by which he
had entered the vault.
As the frightful truth flashed upon him, he again seized the oars with
the impulse of despair, and laboured until big drops of moisture rolled
down his clammy brow, and every nerve quivered; but what availed his
toil? He knew not in what direction he was advancing—whether he were
indeed returning to his friends, and to that world which he had so rashly
abandoned; or only plunging further into the mysterious subterranean.
Meanwhile, who can doubt that the fœtid and unwholesome atmosphere was
slowly and surely doing its work, and that the high heart sank gradually,
sickening beneath the horrors of this living death—the victim sitting
motionless for a time to ascertain whether the slightest under-current
from some hidden spring might not give a faint impetus to the boat, and
thus afford a hope of escape; and learning, as the still caïque lay like
a log upon the water, that there was _no_ hope! And then the doomed one
laughed—laughed long and loudly, until the echoes of that unnatural mirth
were cast back in mockery upon the idiot who had given it voice; and ten
thousand gibbering fiends seemed to be coining it into foul and bitter
words, and bandying them to and fro with fierce and wanton industry! Then
came clouds of dusky and unnatural forms, woven out of the darkness,
pressing upon each other to board the little boat, and to overset it—and
then he shrieked as the icy waters rose to his chin, and he gasped for
breath—when suddenly he was saved, he knew not how; and he lay on the
fresh greensward of a sweet meadow near his old ancestral home, with his
head on his mother’s lap, and a fair girl bending over him, and singing
in a low soft voice, to which his ear had been long familiar, a simple
ballad, which he had loved from his boyhood; and he listened long, until
at length he dropped asleep to that fond familiar music.
He awoke once more—awoke to madness and despair! He remembered all—_all!_
and his brain failed beneath the horrors of the retrospect! He was again
a maniac; and in his first fierce paroxysm, he dashed the still burning
torch into the hissing waters, and the darkness fell upon him—crushed
him—pressed upon his heart, and upon his throat—and who shall say how
that wild tragedy was terminated?
Other, but more prudent attempts have since been made, but, as yet, no
determined limits have been assigned to the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï; in three
other directions the roof has failed, but these have occurred in such
distant quarters of the city, that far from resolving to the curious the
question of its extent, they have only been enabled to arrive at the
fact, that it stretches under a great portion of Constantinople, and even
beyond its walls; and that the same apparently endless avenues of arches,
multiplied, _ad infinitum_, on the right and left, stretch in dim,
mysterious, monotonous, and chilling silence beneath the crowded streets
of a busy capital—canopied by darkness, while all is light above—and
yawning like a vast sepulchre to receive the load of human life and human
treasure, which time must ultimately hurl in one huge ruin into its
greedy depths!
The Yèrè-Batan-Seraï is, without any exception, the noblest remain of
Roman intellect and industry in Constantinople.
MOSQUE OF SULTAN BAJAZET.
——“This enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here.”
BYRON.
The Mosque of Sultan Bajazet is situated in the angle of a large open
area, known as the “Square of the Seraskier,” from the circumstance
that his palace, or rather its extensive court, forms another side of
the enclosure; its large and lofty projecting gate, elaborately wrought
and fretted with gold, and surmounted by a dome crowned with an immense
gilded star, being, perhaps, the most oriental feature of the scene.
The Mosque of Bajazet is built in the immediate neighbourhood of the
great Tcharchi, or Bazār, and hence the square is constantly thronged
with merchants, traders, and strangers, passing to and from this vast
commercial mart; while groups of _khamals_, or street-porters, lounge on
every side with their baskets, waiting to be hired by such visitors to
the Tcharchi as chance to make purchases. Numbers of Greek and Armenian
_mahalibè_[39] and _yahourt_[40] merchants are also perpetually to
be seen; the first with their dainty fare temptingly set forth upon
fine linen cloths, and protected from the sun by huge white umbrellas,
looking like gigantic mushrooms; and the others, wandering from side to
side, balancing the large wooden scales on which the small basins of
red clay, containing the _yahourt_, are arranged with extreme care and
cleanliness; while, at intervals, the water-venders cross the path, with
their classically-moulded earthen pitchers on their shoulders, and their
capacious goblets of crystal, carried on a narrow tray attached to the
leathern girdle about their waists; giving out, as they move along, the
low, plaintive, and by no means unmusical cry peculiar to their calling;
and exerting a very successful rivalry with the sherbetjhes, who plant
their portable fountains under the cool shadows of some lofty wall, and
invite customers by the fairy chime of the metal bells which the flow of
the beverage keeps in perpetual play.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF BAJAZET, WITH THE SERASKIER’S GATE.
_MOSQUÉE DE BAJAZET AVEC LA PORTE DU SÉRASKIER._ _DIE MOSCHEE DES BAJAZET
UND DER EINGANG ZUM SCHLOSS DES SERASKIERS._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
[Illustration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF BAJAZET.
_COUR DE LA MOSQUÉE DE BAJAZET._ _DER HOF DER MOSCHEE BAJAZET._
W. H. Bartlett. T. Higham.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
Occasionally, a detachment of the Seraskier’s guard pass into the square,
and after having demurely walked their horses from beneath the august
_kapousi_, or gate, suddenly break into a brisker pace as they speed on
their errand, scattering the lounging populace to the right and left, as
their eager horses bound from the stroke of the iron stirrup. And well
may they hasten on their way, for those errands frequently involve a
question of life and death; all criminals taken in _flagrante delicto_
within the precincts of the city being first committed to the prisons
of the Seraskier, whence the tidings of their crime and capture are
transmitted to the Porte.
The portal of the Mosque is very beautiful, being elaborately wrought
in the Saracenic taste, with those receding dentated arches which look
as though they were formed by stalactites; and the battans of the gate
itself being skilfully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in arabesques. Its
exterior galleries are also very gracefully designed, and the form and
fashion of its two slender minarets singularly pleasing.
The court of the Mosque is a favourite rendezvous with the merchants
trading in the Tcharchi, who frequently retire for a time from their
shops to smoke a chibouque beside the fountain, under the shadow of the
maple-trees; or to complete there a bargain more legitimately commenced
in the great mart itself; all commercial transactions of any extent being
uniformly concluded over a pipe, or broken off with the same ceremony.
Nor may it be uninteresting to remark, that, whenever a Turkish trader
decides on retiring for an hour’s relaxation from the labours of his
calling, he does not trouble himself to place his merchandise under lock
and key, even in this extensive thoroughfare; but simply letting fall a
tapestry curtain above the platform on which he is accustomed to sit and
to display his wares, as a signal that he is away, he goes quietly to the
coffee-kiosque without one misgiving as to the safety of his property,
which is sacred during his absence; a trust in the public integrity which
was never in any instance known to be violated.
But the most remarkable object in the vicinity, is decidedly the _Yanguen
Kiosque_, or Fire-Tower, which occupies a portion of the palace court. It
is of immense height, of a circular form, and entirely surrounded almost
at its summit by windows, which command a view of every quarter of the
city; the apartment from which they open being the head-quarters of the
fire-guard, six of whom are constantly on duty day and night, relieving
each other every second hour like military sentinels. At sunset, in order
to counteract the feeling of weariness which grows upon the watchers as
the darkness gathers about them, the individual on duty wears a pair of
wooden slippers, with double heels, the lower of which beats against the
floor by a spring at every step of the wearer, keeping up a perpetual
noise quite sufficient to assist his efforts against sleep, although,
when he resigns his watch, he throws himself down upon his mat, and
slumbers in happy heedlessness of the dissonance.
On the first appearance of a fire, the sentinel gives the alarm to a
second division of the guard, occupying the lower portion of the Tower;
and having indicated the quarter of the city in which the conflagration
has burst forth, he returns to his post, and leaves them to do their
duty. This consists in summoning the firemen, who are a bold and hardy
band (less judiciously trained, perhaps, than those of England, but
yielding nothing to them in courage and perseverance)—in informing the
authorities of the misfortune, when every Pasha within reach is compelled
to repair to the spot, and to assist, by his counsels and exertions, in
repairing or subduing the evil—and in warning the inhabitants of the
city and suburbs of the impending catastrophe. This latter ceremony is
performed by traversing the streets, armed with a long staff shod with
iron, which is perpetually and violently struck against the rude pavement
by the fireman, who having thus “murdered sleep,” next shouts at the
pitch of his voice, “_Yanguen var_—There is a fire!” adding, an instant
afterwards, “_Scutari-a—Galata-a—Stamboul-da_”—as the case may be; thus
indicating to his anxious listeners the scene of terror, in order to
enable those who have friends or property in that neighbourhood to speed
to their rescue.
In a city of wood like Constantinople, where, save only the Mosques,
the Khans, and the Tcharchi, there are very few buildings of stone,
conflagrations are of frequent and almost continual occurrence, and
scarcely a night passes in which the trembling Frank is not awakened by
the hoarse cry of _Yanguen var_ beneath his window; casements are hastily
flung up; heads are anxiously protruded; and then there is a hurried
tramp along the streets, as with swift step and labouring breath those
hurry by who fear to be involved in the catastrophe; while others quietly
return to court a renewal of the rest which has been so rudely broken,
thanking Allah, or the Panagia,[41] according to their several creeds,
that their turn is not yet come!
Such is the use of the Fire-Tower, which, moreover, affords to the
lover of nature an enjoyment probably unrivalled in the world, as from
its immense height it commands a series of views, so varied and so
magnificent, as almost to defy competition. Immediately beneath it lies
the court of the Palace, with the noble dwelling of the Seraskier, the
long range of grated prisons, and the green tents of the guard, forming a
pigmy encampment; the dome and minarets of the Mosque of Bajazet appear
beyond the walls, beside the clustering and far-reaching roofs of the
Tcharchi; and this is, perhaps, the only point from which the traveller
can form a just estimate of the immense extent of the far-famed Bazārs of
Constantinople. But it is the distance—the stretch of sea and shore, of
isle and mountain, of lake and forest, of light and shadow—the infinite
variety, the surpassing majesty of nature in her brightest and most
beautiful of garbs, which make the pulses bound, and the brow burn, as
the traveller looks down and around him; awe-struck, spell-bound, and
silent, drinking in deep draughts of loveliness, and seeming to revel in
a new existence!
[Illustration: THE SEA OF MARMORA. (From the Seraskiers Tower.)
_MER DE MARMORA, VUE DE LA TOUR DU SÉRASKIER._ _DAS MARMOR-MEER, (VOM
SCHLOSS DES SERASKIER.)_
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
On one side, the city of Constantinople is spread out beneath him like a
map; and he gazes on its thousand domes, and its five thousand minarets;
its majestic maples dwindled into bushes; and its dark cypresses seeming
like finger-posts indicating the scattered resting-places of the
dead—upon its busy khans, its crowded Tcharchi, its luxurious palaces,
and its gloomy prisons. The hand and mind of man are visible throughout,
and human pride swells high during the contemplation of human power; but
let the gazer move a few paces onward—only to the next window—and he
will be instantly rebuked. There stretches away the sea of Marmora—the
sunny Propontis—with its rocky islets, and its glittering waves, dancing
beneath the bright blue sky; Mount Olympus, stately with its crown of
snow and its mantle of vapour, perceptible on the verge of the horizon;
and the glorious Bosphorus, winding between its rich and peopled shores,
guiding his vision onward to the Sea of Storms. Another move, and the
Golden Horn is before him; a thousand barks safely moored within its
land-locked limits, pouring forth the riches of other lands, or lading
with the treasures of this; the flag of many nations flying proudly at
their masts, and the voices of many lands swelling upon the breeze. When
his eye is sated, and his mind is satisfied with this spirit-stirring
scene, a few feet onward he will find a spot whence he may repose his
excited vision on the dark and arid rocks which enclose the lovely
“Valley of the Sweet Waters;” the most delicious spot of earth that ever
was cinctured by a mountain-girdle; and lose himself in fancy amid its
woods and waters, the golden-latticed chambers of its summer-palace, and
the veiled beauties who inhabit them.
Such is a faint outline of the majestic and varied scenes to be enjoyed
at the expense of the fatigue attendant on mounting the three hundred
and thirty steps of the _Yanguen Kiosque_—a physical exertion which is
forgotten at the first glance from its dizzy height upon the fairy
wonders of the surrounding objects; the busy breathing city—the sweet
still valley—the ocean-channel, linking two quarters of the globe as with
a silver string—and the wide sea, the unfathomable, trackless, mysterious
sea, bounding the vision, where it blends in one deep, rich, purple tint,
with the far horizon.
THE RIVEN TOWER, (NEAR THE TOP-KAPOUSI.)
“’Twas studded with old sturdy trees,
That bent not to the roughest breeze;
...
But these were few, and far between,
Set thick with shrubs more young and green,
Luxuriant with their annual leaves,
Ere strown by those autumnal eves
That nip the forest’s foliage dead,
Discolour’d with a lifeless red,
Which stands thereon like stiffen’d gore
Upon the slain when battle’s o’er.”
BYRON.
This very remarkable object overhangs the fosse, or ditch, surrounding
the city, and is one of the two hundred and eighteen towers surmounting
the walls. It is a singular monument of the last siege, when it was
stricken by one of the marble balls used by the Turks in their heavy
pieces of ordnance; which it is supposed must have been partially spent
ere it fell upon the tower, as although its weight rove it to the very
earth, cleaving through the solid masonry, and forcing the two portions
asunder, it failed to overthrow either; and there, after the lapse of
centuries, still stands, or rather leans, the ruin, nodding over the
moat like the remnant of some feudal castle, amid the wild fig-trees
and luxuriant foliage which now choak up the ditch, fill every rift
and chasm of the mouldering walls, and contend with the dense coating
of ivy, lichens, and other creeping plants by which they are clothed.
This striking monument of the fall of the Greek Empire stands near the
Top-Kapousi, or “Gate of the Cannon,” and, consequently, not far from
the spot where fell the last and bravest of the Paleologi; and beside
it grows a splendid specimen of the _Pistacia Terebinthus_, of unusual
size, whose bright leaves and scarlet berries are perfectly magnificent
during the season.
[Illustration: RIVEN TOWER NEAR THE TOP-KAPOUSI.
_TOUR CREVASSÉE PRÈS DE LA CIME KAPOUSI._ _TRÜMMER DES THURMS AN DER
SPITZE DES KAPOUSI._
W. H. Bartlett. E. Benjamin.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Association is thus blent with natural beauty in wreathing about the
Riven Tower a distinct and powerful interest for the imagination; while
the extraordinary duration of the pile in so apparently insecure and
threatening a state, when, to the eye, it seems as though the next gust
of wind heaving its ivied drapery must inevitably prostrate it to the
earth, cannot fail to attract the notice of the curious in gravitation,
from whose law it appears to be so singularly exempt.
ISTENIA.
“——in famed Attica such lovely dales
Are rarely seen; nor can fair Tempè boast
A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails,
Though classic ground and consecrated most,
To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast.”
BYRON.
The beautiful little village of Istenia, called by the Greeks Mirgheun,
and principally inhabited by that nation, is situated in one of the
prettiest spots on the Bosphorus; although the opposite shore is rocky,
sterile, and fantastically flung together; the edge of the water at the
base of the dusky chain of hills, being, however, fringed with houses,
and gay with trees.
The Moorish fountain, which forms the subject of the accompanying
sketch, is of an extremely graceful character, and built of a marble
whose whiteness is almost dazzling. It occupies the termination of the
main street of the village, where it touches upon the channel; and is
entirely overshadowed by the far-stretching branches of a glorious
maple-tree, which after spreading its gay green canopy over the dome and
richly-wrought roof of the fountain, finally mingles its leafy honours
with those of two other trees of the same description, beneath whose
shelter the cool wooden terraces of a couple of coffee-kiosques have been
erected.
[Illustration: ISTENIA, NEAR THERAPIA.
_ISTENIA PRÈS DE THÉRAPIA._ _ISTENIA BEI THERAPIA._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Crowds of caïques dance on the heaving current within twenty paces of the
fountain; the transparent nets of the fishermen hang in festoons from the
branches; veiled women come and go with their earthen vessels in quest
of the pure water of the village spring; the gay sounds of the zebec
ring out from the coffee-kiosques; the channel-wind, as it sweeps along
the ripple, awakens the mysterious music of the leaves which overhang
it; the white sails of the passing vessels glimmer in the sun-light—the
fruit-merchants heap up their luscious stores in tempting profusion,
ready to be conveyed in boats to the markets of the city—and the whole
scene is so cool, so shady, and so still, that it is not wonderful that
the nature-loving Orientals should have selected it as a village site,
even in a land abounding with pleasant glens, and nooks teeming with
loveliness.
The broad street, opening from the shore, climbs the hill behind it;
its irregularly-gabled and many-coloured houses finally terminating in
vineyards and olive-groves; while a mountain-stream, feeding the wheels
of a mill, goes dancing in the light, now fully visible, and now buried
beneath the dense vegetation upon its banks, until it throws itself into
the Bosphorus. A very pretty, well-kept, and rather extensive garden,
belonging to Achmet Pasha, occupies a portion of the height behind the
village; and is succeeded by a small forest, where groups of Turkish and
Greek ladies are constantly to be seen during the summer months, enjoying
the _dolce far niente_ so congenial to the climate; forming gipsy-parties
under the trees, or sauntering slowly along beneath the dense shadows of
the boughs, collecting the beautiful wild-flowers which abound in that
pleasant place.
Many of the Greek merchants have their summer residences at Mirgheun; and
there is, consequently, an air of cheerfulness imparted to the village
by the freshly-painted houses of these gentlemen, which adds much to
its attraction; while, in its immediate neighbourhood, the traveller
will look upon the castle-fortress of Mahomet, with the peaceful little
cemetery of Isari sleeping at its foot.
THE ARSENAL, (FROM PERA.)
The sunshine fell not on that place of graves,
But wantoned with the waves, and with the hills,
Blushed on the rose, and turned the leaves to gold:
While shadows stretched in darkness o’er the dead.
The spot whence the artist has obtained his view of the Turkish Arsenal
at Pieri Pasha, commands the harbour about midway, and, consequently,
presents it to the eye under an essentially different character from that
of any of his preceding sketches. The building itself terminates the long
line of docks, warehouses, rope-walks, and workshops, appertaining to the
Imperial establishment, which extends from Galata for a mile and a half
along the lip of the water; and which, in whatever point of view it is
considered, must be admitted to be highly creditable to the government.
The wet docks are very ably constructed, and are enclosed within high
walls of stone, whence a pair of noble gates open upon the harbour. The
dry docks are also on a very magnificent scale, one of them (constructed
by a French engineer) being nearly three hundred and fifty feet in
length. The Tershana, or Admiralty, independently of its position,
standing as it does upon a point of land projecting into the harbour,
is in itself a very pleasing object; it is in the Russian taste, gaily
and carefully painted, and has a noble entrance. It commands from its
different casements the whole extent of the Golden Horn, which it sweeps
from the village of Eyoub to the entrance of the sea of Marmora and the
Bosphorus; and an upper suite of apartments have been richly fitted
up for the occasional occupation of the Sultan, who frequently amuses
himself by watching the progress of the magnificent ships built for his
navy, and the business-like bustle of the workmen.
[Illustration: THE ARSENAL FROM PERA.
_L’ARSENAL, VU DE PÉRA._ _DAS SEEARSENAL VON PERA HER._
W. H. Bartlett. S. Bradshaw.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The vessels which are constructed at Pieri Pasha are worthy of the
Arsenal from which they emanate, being finely built, and perfectly
equipped. The superintendent of the establishment is an American, in high
favour with the Sultan; who, in order to preserve the brigs and ships
of the line, only suffers them to cruise during the summer, and at the
fall of each year causes them to be anchored in the Bosphorus, where they
produce a beautiful effect from the shore.
Above the Admiralty stand the ruins of what was once the palace of the
Capudan Pasha, looking more like the remains of an aqueduct than of a
dwelling; and forming a long line of arches extremely picturesque in
their effect. Before it spreads the harbour, bounded by the seven hills
of the Golden City, and the wide and historical plain of Daoud Pasha; and
beside it stands the barrack of Kassim Pasha, whence the cemetery of Pera
stretches away, built in by houses, and covering every height and hollow,
until it is bounded by the streets of the infidel faubourg.
The little nook which lay at the artist’s feet, as he looked upon the
scene that I have endeavoured to describe, gives an admirable idea of
this singular necropolis. Every house, whose upper stories overhang the
graves, is filled with tenants, wholly unsaddened by their constant
companionship with death; the head-stones are closely clustered together,
each group denoting the resting-place of a family, and situated as
near to the habitation of the surviving relatives as circumstances
will permit; while rigid cypresses deepen the gloom of the death-glen,
and parasitical plants trail along the walls, and wave their feathery
branches over the mouldering sods.
It was in this very corner of the far-spreading cemetery, that, in the
year 1836, a Frank lady, residing in Pera, was one day attracted by a
line of graves, flung up on the border of a narrow pathway through the
hollow; they had evidently all been filled since sunrise, for there was
that fresh, humid, clammy look about the mould which it loses after
four-and-twenty hours’ exposure to the atmosphere; and the work was
still going on as she reached the spot. The idea of plague was instantly
suggested; for, as her eye rapidly ran over the nineteen graves already
completed, and then fell upon the four others which were in process of
preparation, it was evident that some unusual cause must have produced
so fatal an effect, this obscure nook being so very minute a portion of
the burial-ground, as to receive seldom more than one new tenant weekly.
It had been one of her favourite haunts; for she loved its stillness,
its long deep shadows, and its almost unbroken solitude, coupled with
the feeling that she was within sight and hearing of her fellow-beings,
although apparently alone; and she was painfully startled by so
unexpected an invasion of the hallowed spot.
PLAGUE was indeed naturally the first thought, and she shuddered
sickeningly as she uttered the inquiry: it was a relief to be negatively
answered, though the tale of the grave-digger was sad enough. He was
consigning to the earth the wretched fever-stricken victims who had been
rescued from a life of slavery by an Austrian brig, then anchored in the
Golden Horn. They had been taken by pirates in the Archipelago—youths,
women, old men, and children! The ocean-robber, grown daring and
haughty by success, had attacked the Austrian, and had been taken; but
retribution came too late to the pirate to avail his wretched prisoners.
They had all perished miserably within a few hours of each other, just as
the minarets of Constantinople, cutting against the horizon, gave them a
blessed glimpse of home; and this dark, silent glen had been selected as
their resting-place—they could not have found one more fitting!
THE TOWER OF GALATA.
’Twas night—and over sea and land there fell
The silver mantle of the midnight queen:
While dark and long the shadows stretched away
’Neath sighing cypresses and lofty towers.
The suburb of Galata occupies a portion of the base of the hill
upon which Pera is built, and is the focus of European commerce in
Constantinople. Many of its streets are of considerable width; and
some of its houses, inhabited by the principal Frank merchants, of
even princely dimensions. A magnificent Armenian schismatic church is
conspicuous among its religious edifices, while the constant traffic kept
up with the shipping in the harbour fills its stores with men of many
nations, and its thoroughfares with the clamour of many tongues.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF GALATA.
_TOUR DE GALATA._ _DAS CASTELL ZU GALATA._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The name of the suburb is stated to be a corruption of γάλα, or milk,
Galata having originally been the milk-market of the Lower Empire. It
subsequently became the site of a Genoese town, that people having,
during the period of the Crusades, established themselves on this
eligible spot for forwarding their commercial undertakings; its situation
between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn being eminently calculated for
every species of maritime traffic. Here they continued for some time,
effecting an immense trade with every commercial nation, until at length
their increased and increasing prosperity excited the jealousy of the
Venetians, who, after engaging them in a quarrel, profited by their own
superior strength, and prostrated nearly the whole suburb. The Genoese,
beaten and unhoused, fled to Constantinople for shelter and protection;
where they were favourably received by Cantacuzene the Emperor, who
supplied them with means to rebuild their desolated dwellings, and even
allowed them to surround their town with a wall, protected by a wide
ditch.
It is on this line of wall, now rapidly crumbling away into picturesque
ruin, and wholly worthless as a mean of defence, that the Tower of Galata
is situated. It was originally built to commemorate the fall of some of
the principal Genoese settlers, who died upon this spot in the defence
of their lives and properties; but having in process of time partially
perished, and become not only useless, but dangerous, the Turks renewed,
or rather reconstructed it with great solidity, to serve as a second
Fire-Tower; for which service it is admirably calculated, as it commands
the shipping in the harbour, and all the European suburbs of the city.
A handsome gallery surrounds the “look-out house,” near its summit; and
as an object from the Marmora, on approaching the Golden Horn, it is
extremely striking.
Notwithstanding the dilapidated state of the walls, the gates which
separate Galata from Pera are still closed every night by the Turks,
though a kind word and a small coin to the guard will always suffice to
open them for any tardy passenger.
The coffee-kiosques are constantly crowded with Maltese, Genoese, Greek,
Ragusan, and Italian seamen, who are in want of ships, and who are hired
by merchant-vessels to supply the casualties in their own crews; and
these lounging and unregulated idlers are, perhaps, with the exception
of the bazār near the water’s edge, which is always dirty, unsavory, and
thronged with the rabble from the ferries—the most intolerable nuisances
to the stranger that he has to encounter in his wanderings about the city.
A novel feature in the Golden Horn, is the Floating-bridge by which it
is spanned, and which has been constructed within the last three years.
It is flung across the harbour from the ferry of Galata, and is a great
and commodious mean of communication with the opposite shore. Two rather
lofty arches admit the passage of small craft beneath the bridge, which
is singularly elegant in its design; and a small toll is exacted from
each passenger, horse, or carriage, by which it is traversed. Many
are the individuals who still, however, prefer the more uncertain and
expensive mode of reaching the city through the medium of the caïques
which ply between the two shores; and these are principally to be found
among the women, who have a superstitious horror of all innovation,
and who cling to their old habits and their old associations with a
perseverance worthy of a better cause.
[Illustration: THE FLOATING BRIDGE.
_LE PONT FLOTTANT._ _DIE SCHWIMMBRÜCKE._
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Teskari, or Custom-House, is also situated at Galata, where
passengers and merchandise are landed from the different vessels which
are constantly arriving in the harbour; and the extreme urbanity and
politeness of the officers of the establishment to travellers, has been
a constant theme of admiration and acknowledgment with all sojourners in
the East.
When a group of strangers approach the Teskari, the only inquiry made,
is, whether they have brought out any merchandise for the purposes of
traffic; and a simple negative from the parties addressed suffices for
the unimpeded passage of the travellers to their resting-place.
Few are the weary and the wayworn who, at that moment, would wish
themselves at the Custom-house of London, or at one of the still more
irritating Douanes of France!
THE TCHERNBERLÈ TASCH.
“A tale of the times of old.”
OSSIAN.
The Tchernberlè Tasch, or Burnt Pillar, is a striking Roman remain,
within a short walk of the Seraskier’s Tower. It is a relic of the
Temple of Apollo at Rome, whence it was transported to Stamboul by
Constantine, and placed upon an hexagonal pedestal. It was surmounted
by a fine statue of the god, from the immortal chisel of Phidias,
which the conqueror appropriated with more ambition than modesty, and
beneath which he caused to be inscribed, “The Justice of the Sun to
the Illustrious Constantine.” The destruction of this noble statue is
variously described by different writers. Genaro Esquilichi asserts
that it was overthrown by a thunderbolt; while the sententious Anna de
Comnena mentions its prostration by a strong southerly wind, during the
reign of her kinsman Alexius; and moreover declares that several persons
were killed by its fall. Other authors speak more vaguely, naming the
storm-shock as a cause of its partial destruction, and alluding to the
second accident as having also tended to its final demolition. The shaft
of the pillar measures ninety feet in height; it is circular, and girdled
at regular distances with garlands of laurel and oak-leaves; but its
beauty is entirely gone, as it has suffered so severely from the repeated
conflagrations in its immediate vicinity, that it is cracked in every
direction, and merely kept together by a strong wirework, which has been
carefully woven about it.
[Illustration: THE TCHERNBERLÈ TASH, OR BURNT PILLAR.
_LE TCHERNBERLÈ TASH, OU COLONNE BRÛLÉE._ _DER TCHERNBERLÈ TASH ODER
GEBRANNTE PFEILER._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Carter.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The pedestal upon which it stands measures thirty feet at its base, and
is rendered interesting by the fact, that several portions of the Holy
Cross were built up within it, and that the space amid which it stood
consequently became a popular place of prayer, every mounted passenger
reverently alighting from his horse as he passed before it; but the
Moslem, not recognising the divinity of the relics enshrined within
its solid masonry, nor the sanctity of the spot thus hallowed, have
surrounded the pillar on every side with mean and unsightly houses; and
it is only in one solitary direction that the anxious antiquary can
obtain a satisfactory view of this singular monument. The pedestal bears
a Greek inscription, now nearly obliterated, which has been translated
thus:—
“O Christ, Master and Protector of the World, I dedicate to Thee this
City, subject to Thee; and the Sceptre and the Empire of Rome. Guard the
City, and protect it from all evil!”
THE FERRY AT SCUTARI.
“The tints of beauty, which the sun above
Spread, as though left as tokens of his love
For that fair clime which had for ages given
Earth’s loveliest pictures to his light from heaven.”
JAMES BIRD.
Scutari, the Chrysopolis of the Greeks, occupying the promontory opposite
Constantinople, won its ancient name from the circumstance that here,
during their European wanderings, the Persians deposited their treasures,
and paid their tribute. The Turks now call it Iskuidar, and entertain
vast reverence for its wide necropolis; while the handsome Kislas, or
barrack, which dominates the town, is an object of no less admiration to
the Frank traveller.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE FERRY AT SCUTARI.
_VUE PRISE DU DÉTROIT, À SCUTARI_ _PROSPECT VON DER FÄHRE ZU SCUTARI_
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Its main street, leading from the ferry to this military establishment,
is much wider than any in Stamboul; lessening, however, from the plain
upon which the barracks are built, where it degenerates into a narrow,
and somewhat difficult road, continuing to the summit of the Bulgurlhu
Daghi, a link of the Bithynian chain, dominating the Euxine. At its
base stretches away the vast and sombre cemetery, of which mention has
already been made; and beside it extends a wide plain, known as the
“Pilgrim’s Plain,” from its being the starting point of the caravans
assembling for Mecca. Here, on particular occasions, tens of thousands
of the pious congregate, clothing the plain with tents and banners; and
hence they start for the tomb of their Prophet;—the Ihrām, or holy dress,
is assumed;—and from that moment they are no longer free to deprive
any thing of life; indeed, to so extreme a pitch is this observance
carried, that the very vermin upon their persons remain unmolested: a
fact which accounts for the filthy and loathsome state of the santons
and hadjis who infest the city, and whom to touch is almost infection.
The dignity of _hadji_, however, is only conceded to those who have
performed their pilgrimage; and such have hitherto been objects of marked
respect, though recent innovations have greatly tended to diminish their
consequence. Considerable inconvenience is at times experienced from
these “chartered libertines,” who, under the guise of religion, drive
a lucrative trade by making pilgrimages for more wealthy individuals,
who are glad, by paying a liberal sum to these itinerant pietists to
exempt themselves from an arduous, fatiguing, and hazardous journey; and
as the accommodating creed of the Korān permits this deputy-devotion,
there are swarms of vagabond-devotees ever ready to perform it for their
more wealthy compatriots; and on their return to Constantinople, when
they have received the wages of their venture, they infest the public
thoroughfares with filth, to parade their holiness; and at night occupy
the most squalid khans, or the ruined tombs, both of which are too often
desecrated by their debaucheries.
Let it not be inferred, however, that all the hadjis are of this
description: many of them leave their homes and their families full of
pious ardour, and genuine enthusiasm, looking towards Mecca as the Jew
looks towards Jerusalem, or the Christian towards eternity—full of hope,
of faith, of long-suffering, and of charity; ready to help and to uphold
their fainting brother on the way, and content to lay down their lives
when the goal is won.
The start of a caravan is eminently picturesque and oriental; and as the
writer of these sketches never had the advantage of being witness to one
of these interesting ceremonies, it has been deemed desirable to give its
description in the words of a distinguished traveller.
“In the spring of the year the pilgrims from Constantinople and the
vicinity assemble on the large plain of Scutari; and, as it was a sight
worth contemplating, I crossed the Bosphorus with some friends to see
it. The whole of this extensive space seemed to be covered with a vast
multitude, as if all the inhabitants of the city were about to proceed
on their pilgrimage. After some time the wave of the multitude subsided,
and they assumed a regular order. First appeared the Emir Hadji, or
Leader of the Pilgrims, carried in a litter, or tartaravan, between
stately mules, and accompanied by several others. Then the crowd arranged
themselves according to their several companies, or corporations, each
preceded by a banner, with some device to mark it, and attended by a
train of camels bearing cradles or litters, to accommodate and carry on
the sick who might faint by the way. They were accompanied by the Imaum,
or officiating minister, to perform the functions of his office to all
that needed, and crowds of antics, or jesters, who threw themselves into
ridiculous postures to amuse them. Some were of another cast. They seemed
like maniacs—they cried, and howled, and foamed at the mouth, and were
supposed to be under the influence of a demon, to be expelled only by
this pilgrimage. Then followed troops of armed horsemen, and, finally,
droves of camels loaded with provisions and furniture, and among them
torches to enlighten their march when they proceeded in the night.
“But the most remarkable object was the camel that bore the Mahmel,
or covering of the Prophet’s Tomb. This seems to be essential to all
tombs of his descendants, as those of the Sultans in their mausoleums
at Constantinople are covered with them. This for Mecca consisted of
bales of velvet, embossed with characters in gold, and containing sundry
sentences from the Korān. The camel which bore it was white, and was
considered so sacred as never to be employed for any other purpose, but
exempt from all labour. He was adorned with plumes of red feathers, had
bells suspended from him, and was caparisoned with rich housings. The
people pressed eagerly to touch the holy animal, and those who could not
come near unbound their turbans, and cast one end of it towards him, if
haply any part of their dress might be sanctified by such contact. Even
the air through which he passed had valuable qualities communicated to
it. The multitude seemed to grasp it by handfuls, and thrust it into
their bosoms, or placed it on their bare heads under their turbans. I
found it was the general belief that this was the actual camel that bore
Mahomet in his hegeira, or flight; and so it was not without reason
they attributed extraordinary properties to the animal on whom Allah had
conferred such a miraculous longevity.”[42]
The Imperial kiosque at Scutari is a lovely little edifice, built on
the very edge of the rock overhanging the Propontis, and commanding a
glorious view of Constantinople, the harbour, the European shore, and
the sunny sea of Marmora, frequently crowded with shipping, awaiting
a favourable wind to cast anchor in the Golden Horn. Its walls are
painted in pale green; and its snow-white jalousies give to it a
cheerful holiday look, which the plain but beautiful arrangements of its
interior tend greatly to heighten. It is indeed as pretty a toy as even
Imperial caprice could engender, and holds its place worthily among the
fifty-seven residences of its illustrious owner.
[Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE. (From Scutari.)
_CONSTANTINOPLE, VUE DE SCUTARI._ _CONSTANTINOPEL, VON SCUTARI AUS
GESEHN._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The barrack of Scutari, which is occupied by the Imperial Guard, is
remarkable even in Turkey, where these establishments are always princely
both in their extent and construction: it is a quadrangle, flanked with
square towers, built in three sections, gradually lessening, and each
crested by a slight spire. The gate of entrance is lofty, and elaborately
wrought in iron, giving ingress to a noble square or court, where twelve
thousand men may be commodiously exercised; and surrounded on three sides
by an open gallery, screening the long ranges of apartments above the
basement of the building. The ground-floor is occupied by workshops;
the whole of the clothing, cartridges, and other equipments, excepting
arms, being manufactured within the precincts of the barrack, and very
creditably produced. The kitchens are vast, cleanly, and convenient,
and elaborately fitted with apparatus for steam, and the vessels used
in cooking scrupulously kept; while the vegetable store, where piles of
every description of herb and root necessary to the cooks are carefully
housed, are floored, lined, and roofed with marble; and copious basins
of the same material, are supplied with the purest and coolest water,
from the fountain of the magnificent mosque of Selim III., which stands
immediately opposite to the principal gate of the barrack.
The armouries, clothing-stores, and regimental schools, are all in the
highest order; and no disrule awakens the ready echoes of the extensive
building. Indeed, it would be difficult to find throughout the whole of
Europe, a nobler military establishment than that of the Turkish Imperial
Guard at Scutari.
Hence, a somewhat steep descent sweeps downward to the ferry, which
is generally crowded with bales of merchandise, piles of fruit, laden
donkeys, lounging hadjis, and busy boatmen, clamorous for passengers;
while the magnificent views of Stamboul and its environs, which
are commanded from the hanging gardens of the principal residences
overlooking the Sea of Marmora, are almost beyond description.
Immediately before them runs the glittering current, sweeping the
sunshiny waves onward from the Bosphorus into the far-reaching Propontis;
girdling with liquid light the rocky foundations of the isle-seated
Guz-Couli; and, finally, mingling with the world of waters mapped out
before it; while beyond rises the long castellated wall of the ancient
city of the Constantines, lost to the view at one point amid a cluster
of Imperial kiosques, and at the other, beneath the gloomy shadows of
the _Yēaidhe_—the mysterious prison of the Seven Towers—which link the
land and seaward sides of the external wall, forming an angle eminently
picturesque, from its startling contrast to every surrounding object. The
original design of the fortress, as has been elsewhere stated, can no
longer be traced beyond the walls, only four of the towers now remaining,
the other three having been prostrated by earthquakes, and suffered to
moulder away unrenewed.
At intervals along the wall appear the latticed kiosques of the Imperial
Seraï, whence the incarcerated beauties of the harem look forth upon
the bright scene without; while above and about them rise the shadowy
plane-trees, the leafy beeches, lofty cypresses, feathery acacias, and
other magnificent trees of the palace gardens. Away, amid the heaving
waves, lies the archipelago of islands formerly called Demonesia, or the
Demon Islands (since modified into the Princess’ Islands,) lying about
nine miles from Constantinople, within a short row of the Asian coast. Of
these, four are extremely fertile, and partially inhabited; the nearest
to Stamboul is Proté, so called from its situation, it being the first
approached from the Bosphorus. It is about three miles in extent; and is
a favourite resort with the Greeks of the Fanar, many of whom spend the
summer months in its pleasant valley, situated between two rather abrupt
acclivities. A small village is built on the east side of the island;
and on one of the heights stands a monastery, looming out cold and bare
against the horizon, without a tree to soften down its rigid outline,—a
mark alike for the hot sunshine and the laden storm-cloud.
The second of the group is known as “Platé,” from its being a dead flat;
though many of the Franks, disregarding the ancient Greek name, call
it “Gull Island,” from the immense number of those birds which are to
be found there, feeding on the clustering marine plants by which it is
covered, and rearing their young, undisturbed by the vicinity of a busy
and crowded city.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE SEVEN TOWERS.
_ENTRÉE DES SEPT-TOURS._ _EINGANG ZUM CASTELL DER SIEBEN THÜRME._
W. H. Bartlett. E. Benjamin.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The next island, Oxea, is the highest of the whole, and is surrounded
by steep and rugged precipices, which render it extremely picturesque
from the water; particularly on the eastern side, where the bend of
the shore forms a fine bay, beautifully framed in by tall and jagged
rocks. On this island still exist some very interesting and curious
remains of the reservoirs which formerly supplied the whole archipelago
with water; fresh springs being rare on any of the other islands. Two
of them yet remain almost perfect, and the water which they contain is
clear and pure. The ruins of various edifices are also apparent in many
of the precipitous portions of the islands: walls of bricks made flat,
and cemented together with lime and powdered tiles, are to be found on
all sides, and small water-cisterns are numerous in every direction. The
most remarkable vegetable production of the island is the giant fennel,
which here grows commonly twelve feet in height, and almost assumes the
importance of a forest tree, as it spreads abroad the deep shadows of its
feathery umbels.
The next island is that of Pitya. It is small, and boasts but slight
remnants of the abundance of pine wood with which it is stated to have
been once covered; possessing, moreover, no single object of interest
to compensate for the loss; while Antigone, the ancient Panormus, about
a mile beyond, boasts its vineyards and its villages, its monastery
crowning an eminence which dominates the whole island; and the presence
of the learned and illustrious exile, Constantius, Archbishop of Mount
Sinai, and ex-Patriarch of Constantinople—a prelate renowned alike for
his virtues and his erudition, who was deposed and banished by the Turks
for his literary productions; not the least obnoxious among them being
a Statistical Account of the past and present State of Constantinople,
printed at Venice in 1824, in modern Greek, for the use of his
countrymen—a work during whose compilation he had incurred considerable
personal risk, disguising himself as a dervish, in order to penetrate
into their sanctuaries; and which had cost him not only his liberty, but
even great pecuniary embarrassment, his income in exile being barely
sufficient to secure to him the common comforts of life.
From Antigone the traveller proceeds to Chalki, perhaps the most
interesting islet of the group, from the fact that it abounds with
spars, and that the remains of mines are still perceptible, as well as
piles of the waste flung from the shafts centuries ago. At Chalki stands
the monastery of the Trinity, probably so named from the fact that it
occupies one of the three headlands for which the island is remarkable.
It was once very extensive, but was nearly destroyed by fire; the wing
containing the chapel is, however, still perfect, and its porch is an
object of great curiosity to travellers, from the fact of its containing
an extraordinary and somewhat grotesque representation of the Last Day.
On a second height stands another convent, dedicated to the Virgin;
and approached by a very fine road, commanding glorious views of the
surrounding landscape, and fringed with arbutus, cistus, myrtle, and
pine trees, among which the convent is embosomed.
The first resident British Ambassador at the Ottoman Court retired to
this island in order to recruit his health, which had suffered from
the climate, and ultimately died here. His tomb is now destroyed,
and the inscription-stone is inserted sideways in the wall above the
entrance-gate of the monastery, whence it cannot be removed without an
Imperial firman.
Four noble lines of cypress trees, sweeping downward to the shore, lead
to a splendid palace, formerly belonging to Prince Mavroyeni, who after
serving in the Turkish army against Russia, was decapitated by the Grand
Vèzir for some alleged offence; which proved, however, so inadequate
in the eyes of the Sultan, that he struck off the heads of the Vèzir
and his son, and bestowed the palace and gardens of the unhappy victim
upon the family of Affendooli, whose representative was executed at
the commencement of the Greek revolution. The house was sacked by the
Turks, and then became for a time the summer residence of the Austrian
minister, Baron Ottenfels; but it is now a favourite resort of the
Sultan, who has caused it to be fitted up in the most costly manner; and
who occasionally, during his sojourn on the island, gives sumptuous balls
in the European style to the respectable Greek inhabitants and visitors.
Next comes Prinkipo, celebrated for the cruelties and subsequent exile
of Irene, the widow of Flavius Leo, who gave its name to the island,
which is the largest and most populous of the group. The town, seated on
its eastern shore, contains upwards of three hundred inhabitants; its
circumference is about eight miles, and the remains of a convent still
exist, which was formerly tenanted by a sisterhood of fifty nuns. A
monastery in a state of dilapidation, dedicated to the Transfiguration,
and now occupied by a solitary monk, gray with age, stands on the summit
of one of the heights; while another, crowning the loftiest hill on the
island, and inscribed to St. George, is celebrated for its sanctity, and
much frequented by the Greeks.
The two remaining islands of Neandros and Antirovithi are mere rocks,
wholly uninhabited, and only occasionally visited for the purposes of
sport, as they abound with sea-fowl and rabbits.
On the verge of the horizon rises Mount Olympus, with its crown of snow,
and mantle of vapour; while far away stretches the rocky coast of Asia,
hemming in one of the noblest scenes of earth and water under the wide
canopy of heaven.
A TURKISH APARTMENT.
“The moveables were prodigally rich:
Sofas ’twas half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they; carpets every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, that made you wish
You could glide o’er them like a golden fish.”
BYRON.
Nothing can exceed the beautiful cleanliness of a Turkish harem, save
its order: not a grain of dust, nor a footmark, sullies the surface
of the Indian matting that covers the large halls whence the several
apartments branch off in every direction; while the furniture of the
rooms themselves is always fresh, and scrupulously arranged. The ceilings
are elaborately ornamented; and in the houses of the rich, where the
apartments are of great size, a curtain of tapestry is frequently used
as a mean of reducing their extent. The windows are always closely set
together, and very numerous; and where the room chances to be situated in
an angle of the building, the three unconnected sides have very much the
appearance of a lantern.
[Illustration: A TURKISH APARTMENT IN THE FANAR.
_L’APPARTEMENT TURC, DANS LE FANAR._ _EIN TÜRKISCHES ZIMMER IM FANAR._
W. H. Bartlett. E. Challis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The interior chosen by the artist as the subject of his sketch is a
fair specimen of the higher order of domestic architecture, and belongs
to a house once inhabited by one of the Greek princes, which will
account for the ample hearth,—an accessory never found in an apartment
originally designed by a Turk; in every other respect it is precisely the
description of room common to every handsome harem.
At the lower end of each apartment are large closets for the reception of
the bedding (for none are appropriated exclusively as sleeping chambers),
and the slaves of the household no sooner ascertain that the visitor has
risen, than half a dozen of them commence removing every vestige of the
couch, and depositing within the closet the mattrasses of embroidered
satin, the sheet of gauze, or worked muslin, the half dozen pillows of
brocaded silk, and the wadded coverlets, rich with silver fringe, and gay
with party-coloured needle-work, which have formed the bed. A low sofa
or divan runs round the other three sides of the apartment, luxuriously
supplied with cushions, and richly covered with cut velvet or embroidered
satin; and the floor is invariably spread with soft and handsome carpets.
It is an amusing fact, that an idea of impropriety is attached by
Europeans who have never visited the East, to the very name of a harem;
while it is not less laughable, that they can never give a reason for
the prejudice! How little foundation exists for so unaccountable a fancy
must be evident at once, when it is stated that the harem, or women’s
apartments, are held so sacred by the Turks themselves, that they
remain inviolate even in cases of popular disturbance, or individual
delinquency; the mob never suffering their violence to betray them into
an intrusion on the wives of their victims; and the search after a
fugitive ceasing the moment that the door of the harem separates him from
his pursuers.
It is also a fact, that although a Turk has an undoubted right to enter
the apartments of his wives at all hours, it is a privilege of which he
rarely, if ever, avails himself. One room in the harem is appropriated
to the master of the house, and therein he awaits the appearance of
the individual with whom he wishes to converse, and who is summoned to
his presence by a slave. Should he, on passing to this apartment, see
slippers at the foot of the stairs (a token that a female visitor is
in the harem), he cannot, under any pretence whatever, intrude himself
into her presence; it is a liberty which every woman in the empire
would resent; and when guests are on a visit of some days, he sends a
slave forward to announce his approach, and thus gives them time and
opportunity to withdraw.
Every good harem has a commodious bath, and a garden gay with flowers and
fountains attached to it, where the women may wander at will among the
leaves and birds, or dream away the sultry hours in their pretty kiosques
overhanging the Bosphorus; where from behind the shade of their latticed
casements they can breathe the cool air from the water, and mark the
arrowy speed of the graceful caïques, as they fly along the channel.
The amusements of the harem are few and simple;—the bath is its greatest
luxury, the remainder of the day being spent in lounging on the divan,
listening to the music of the zebec, played by one of the slaves, and
accompanied by the voices of others; in the arrangement of the jewels
worn upon the turban; in playing with the birds whose gilded cages
glitter upon the walls; in spoiling all the children within reach; in
eating sweetmeats, and drinking water; or amid the cool shadows of the
garden, hearkening to the fall of the fountains and the whisperings of
the leaves, or listening to the wondrous tales of the Massaldjhe,[43]
ever a welcome guest in the harem, where her marvellous narrations are
received with a deep attention and a perfect faith eminently inspiring.
Then there is the _namaz_, or prayer, five times a day, never neglected
by Turkish women; when deeply veiled, as unworthy to appear before Allah
with a bare brow, they spread their prayer-carpet, and turning their
faces Mecca-ward, they humbly and earnestly perform their devotions.
These are their home-occupations; but it is a great fallacy to imagine
that Turkish females are like birds in a cage, or captives in a cell;—far
from it; there is not a public festival, be it Turk, Frank, Armenian,
or Greek, where they are not to be seen in numbers, sitting upon their
carpets, or in their carriages, surrounded by slaves and attendants,
eager and delighted spectators of the revel. Then they have their gilded
and glittering caïques on the Bosphorus, where, protected by their veils,
their ample mantles, and their negro guard, they spend long hours in
passing from house to house, visiting their acquaintance, and gathering
and dispensing the gossip of the city.
All this may, and indeed must appear startling, to persons who have
accustomed themselves to believe that Turkish wives were morally manacled
slaves. There are, probably, no women so little trammelled in the world;
so free to come and to go unquestioned, provided that they are suitably
attended; while it is equally certain that they enjoy this privilege
like innocent and happy children, making their pleasures of the flowers
and the sunshine; and revelling like the birds and bees amid the summer
brightness, profiting by the enjoyment of the passing hour, and reckless
or thoughtless of the future.
THE SLAVE-MARKET.
“Veritatis simplex oratio est.”
SCHOOL CLASSICS.
The fables which have been both written and painted on the subject of
the _Yesèr Bazār_, or Slave-Market of Constantinople, with a tenacity of
error perfectly extraordinary, have tended to excite in Europe a feeling
of horror and disgust, totally uncalled for by the aspect of the place
itself. This is no arena for controversy; nor has the writer of these
sketches either wish or intention to defend a traffic utterly revolting
to every principle of our nature; but justice to the Turkish nation
calls for a contradiction of those absurd and indelicate episodes with
which the active and wonder-creating imaginations of certain writers and
artists have laboured to render the name of the Yesèr Bazār odious, not
only inferentially, but actually. A sentimental chapter is easily woven
of the tears and terror of a fair and fainting girl, torn from her home
and her kindred, and exposed to the gaze of a coarse and ribald crowd;
a pretty picture may be readily produced when the formal quadrangle of
the market is relieved by groups of beautiful Georgians or Circassians,
habited in flowing draperies of white muslin, and unveiled by the coarse
hands of the dealer to gratify the whim of every lounging passenger; but
surely if the creators of these flimsy prettinesses were to reflect for a
moment that they are not only violating good taste in their own persons,
but moreover libelling a whole people, and distorting truth at the same
time, they would consent to sacrifice a sentence, or to dispense with an
effect, in order to be at once more decent, more veracious, and more just.
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF OSMANIÈ. (From the Slave-Market.)
_MOSQUÉE D’OSMANIÈ, VUE DU MARCHÉ._ _DIE MOSCHEE OSMANIÈ, WIE SIE SICH
ZEIGT VOM SCLAVENMARKTE._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
It is only those who look superficially at the East,—the travellers
against time, who make deduction serve for experience, and inference
for fact,—who fall into such gross errors as these; and Turkey is not a
country to be described on inference and deduction. Not one of those who
have spread the fallacy which we are now deprecating, ever witnessed the
revolting spectacle born of their own fancy. How does Dr. Walsh speak
of the Yesèr Bazār? And we quote him, not only because he was resident
in Constantinople many years, looking deeply and earnestly into its
institutions, but because the whole tone and tendency of his work must at
once acquit him of any leaning to the Turkish people:—
“Here decorum is no further violated than in the act of sale. It consists
of a quadrangular building, with an open court in the middle. Round this
are raised platforms, on which black slaves sit; behind are latticed
windows, lighting apartments where the white and more costly women are
shut up till they are sold; and there is a certain decency and propriety
observed in the purchase.”[44]
The wanton exposure, therefore, which has been represented as a
concomitant of the sale of slaves in the Yesèr Bazār, did not originate
with the Turks; to whom Dr. Walsh (certainly not their most lenient
historian) thus concedes the merit of “decency and propriety.”
We have been somewhat prolix on this point, because it is one which has
been deeply and painfully felt by many individuals of the calumniated
nation; and also because it is an useless and cruel misrepresentation
of facts, of which common justice demands the refutation. There is
always a painful and a revolting association connected with the idea of
slavery, and an insurmountable disgust excited by the spectacle of money
given in exchange for human beings; but, beyond this, (and assuredly
this is enough!) there is nothing either to distress or to disgust in
the slave-market of Constantinople. No wanton cruelty, no idle insult is
permitted: the slaves, in many instances, select their own purchaser from
among the bidders; and they know that when once received into a Turkish
family, they become members of it in every sense of the word, and are
almost universally sure to rise in the world if they conduct themselves
worthily. The Circassians and Georgians are generally brought there by
their parents at their own request; preferring a youth of ease, and a
future of probable luxury, to labour in the fields, and the life of
household drudgery, which must be their lot if they continued in their
own mountain-homes. These voluntary slaves occupy the closed apartments,
and are only seen by such individuals as are likely to purchase them;
care being taken to protect them against gratuitous annoyance, and the
gaze of the idlers who throng the court. The utmost order, decency, and
quiet prevail; and a military guard is stationed at the entrance to
enforce them, should the necessity for interference occur, which is,
however, very rarely the case.
The Negro slaves squat in groups upon their mats all over the court; some
laughing, jesting, and devouring huge slices of _pastek_,[45] or clusters
of purple grapes; others sleeping; and some again looking anxious, or
sulky, or sad, according to their mood; but nothing takes place around
them which can embitter their position: the Turks never make either a
sport or a jest of human suffering, or human degradation; they have not
yet discovered that it is witty to do so; and accordingly they drive
their odious bargain seriously and quietly, and lead away the slaves whom
they purchase without one act of wanton cruelty or tyrannical assumption.
The Yesèr Bazār is situated in the immediate vicinity of the Tchernberlè
Tasch, or Burnt Pillar; and commands a view of the mosque of Osmaniè, or
“the Light of Osman;” a splendid temple of pure white marble, beautifully
covered with carpets of bright and rich colours, and having the _Mihrab_,
or niche at its eastern extremity, guarded by a gilded railing. Like
almost every mosque in the city, it is embosomed in fine maple-trees,
which, springing from amid the marble pavement of the court, spread
their leafy branches far and wide, and afford a sweet and refreshing
resting-place for the eye, which has been pained by immediate contact
with the interior of the Slave-Market.
PETIT CHAMPS DES MORTS, PERA.
“Come, wander with me in the place of graves—
The tall trees wave a welcome, and the wind
Sighs like soft music through the clustered tombs.
Come, wander with me there, where thousands rest;
We shall not waken them—theirs is the sleep
Which, dreamless, knows no waking.”
There is certainly nothing which more impresses the mind or fills
the imagination of the traveller in Turkey, than the appearance and
situation of the burial-places. The sunniest spots, where all is gaiety
and gladness, yet find room for a grave, without being saddened by the
partial occupancy of death. The gardens of the great are open to the
remains of those who have been dear to them in life, and the lovely
_Acacia Gul-ibrasim_, or “silk rose,” is often gathered from the tomb
of a dead beauty to adorn the hair of a living one; nor does the soft
wind which sighs through the branches of the pensile willow by which it
is overshadowed seem more sad, nor its cool shade less welcome to the
survivor, because they are the accessories to a grave.
In the grounds of the Sultan’s “Palace of the Sweet Waters” there is a
tomb of fair white marble, erected immediately beneath the windows of
his own private apartments, to the memory of one whom he had loved and
lost—a beautiful Odalisque, who died in the first bloom of her youth and
favour—whom the Imperial Poet immortalized in song—whom the man wept in
the solitude of his chamber—and whose head was laid low where he could at
least see the fresh turf spring about her tomb.
The Reis Effendi, an old gray man, in whom it might have been thought
that the weight of years and the cares of office must have worn out the
sensibilities which lead us to yearn after the departed, and to cling
morbidly to the poor remnant which is shrouded in the grave;—even he,
surrounded by state intrigues, each of which might have cost him both
place and power; hastening to the termination of his earthly pilgrimage,
and accustomed to the sight of death for long and weary years;—even he,
when in the winter of his days he lost one whom he deeply loved, suffered
not the body to be borne away from him, but raised the tomb in his
garden, where, beneath the long shadows of the over-arching trees, he
could sit on the cold marble of the gilded sepulchre, and weep. And yet
it was but upon the grave of a young child that he shed these bitter and
frequent tears—the little son of a dead daughter, who had not yet seen
seven summers: but the boy had clung to him, had never learnt to bow
before his greatness, but had sat upon his knee, and made a plaything of
his gray beard, as he prattled to him in the language of the heart in
which there is no guile: and the hoary statesman loved the child—and lost
him; and he felt bitterly that he had not time enough left on earth to
learn so to love another!
And there stood the little tomb in that shady garden, with its gilded
turban, and its fond record, where the grandsire could look upon it
unobserved.
[Illustration: THE PETIT CHAMP-DES-MORTS, PERA.
_LE PETIT CHAMP-DES-MORTS, VU DESSUS DE PÉRA._ _DER KLEINE TODTENACKER,
OBERHALB PERA._
W. H. Bartlett. J. T. Willmore.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Is there a narrow nook at the corner of a street in the most crowded
thoroughfares of the city,—there you will find a head-stone and a grave.
Like the ancient Romans, from whom they probably imbibed the custom,
the Turks form burial-places by the way side; and, like them, they also
inscribe upon their tombs the most beautiful lessons of resignation and
philosophy.
The Petit Champs, or lesser Necropolis of Pera, offers a singular
spectacle: it is entirely sacred to the Musselmauns, (who never suffer
the ashes of their dead to mingle with Infidel clay,) and fringes with
its dark cypresses the crest and a portion of the declivity of the hill
which dominates the post: it is hemmed in with houses, overlooked by a
hundred casements, grazed by cattle, loud with greetings and gossipry;
and commands from its higher points extensive and noble views of the
harbour and the opposite shore. The ground is very undulating, forming
deep dells where the sunshine never penetrates, and then suddenly and
abruptly rising, as though to fling its funereal grove in contact with
the blue sky above it. There are footpaths among the trees, sunny glades
gleaming out from among the dark shadows, head-stones clustered against
the grassy slopes, and guard-houses with their portals thronged with
lounging soldiers, arousing the echoes of the death-forest by the clash
of steel.
In the bottom of the valley, in the very midst of the cemetery, stands a
small octagonal building, from whose solitary chimney a dense white cloud
of smoke may generally be seen to emerge, wreathe itself for an instant
about the nearest cypresses, and finally lose itself in the atmosphere.
This is the dead-house, to which the body of every deceased Moslem
destined for interment in this burial-place is brought, in order that
the last worldly duties may be performed—the corse carefully washed, the
beard shorn, the nails cut, and the limbs decently composed; and this is
a ceremony never omitted, ere what was so lately a True Believer is laid
to rest in the narrow grave.
On the verge of the cemetery, where it touches on the faubourg of Pera,
the rocky ground rises precipitately, forming a natural division between
the habitations of the dead and the living; but not a hand’s space has
been left waste by either. A narrow road along the side of the descent
alone separates the houses of the Perotes from the graves of the Moslem,
which lean against the base of the ridge. These houses have many of them
terraces overlooking the cemetery,—gay with flowers, loud with laughter,
and bright with smiles: trees have been planted before them; cafés, where
the young and the idle congregate during the summer evenings to enjoy
their ices and cigars, awaken with their light revelry the echoes of the
death-place; and many a fond couple wander away amid the graves, and sit
hand in hand upon some lettered stone, to exchange their vows, and to lay
plans for the future on the very threshold of the past!
Some of the Turkish tombs are very elaborate and beautiful, particularly
in the solemn Necropolis of Scutari: there are none of the prettinesses
of Père-la-Chaise to be found amid its wide solitudes; and it is equally
free from colossal statues of statesmen, looking as though they had
been transplanted from a council-chamber or a cathedral, and appalling
representations of grinning skeletons and eyeless sculls; no fanciful
calembourgs on roses and reine-marguerites are graven into the eternal
stone, which had been better enshrined in some gilded volume:—all is
stern, and still, and solemn: the fatuities of life have no place in that
city of the dead; its very atmosphere is unlike that which is breathed
elsewhere, for the clustering together of the cypresses diffuses a strong
aroma of resin, purifying the air, and counteracting the pernicious
effects of such a mass of perishing mortality as that which lies below;
while its deep shadows, and its occasional gleams of light falling upon
the myriad head-stones scattered around, are like glimpses of an unknown
world.
Those head-stones themselves form a striking and peculiar feature of
the scene; they are extremely picturesque and various in design; and as
the Musselmauns never disturb the ashes of the dead, and never bury and
re-bury on the same spot, as is too commonly the case in the more narrow
and confined grave-yards of Europe, the time-worn, weather-stained, and
leaning column, beneath which the clammy _human_ soil has failed, is
seen in juxta-position with the brightly-gilded, fresh-lettered pillar
of yesterday, against which time has yet had no power, and over which no
storm-cloud has yet burst, standing turban-crowned and erect, telling its
tale of recent bereavement. At the base of many of these columns a small
reservoir for water is hollowed in the stone that marks the dimensions
of the grave, to slake the thirst of the wandering dogs and birds which
may chance to pass through the cemetery; while the sex of the dead may
be at once distinguished by the turban (varying in form according to
the rank of the deceased, and faithfully serving as the index to his
social position) which marks the grave of the man, and the sculptured
rose-branch that indicates the resting-place of the female.
[Illustration: TOMB IN THE CEMETERY OF SCUTARI.
_TOMBE DANS LA CIMETIÈRE DE SCUTARI._ _EIN GRABMAL AUF DEM KIRCHHOFE ZU
SCUTARI._
W. H. Bartlett. W. F. Topham.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Nothing can be more marked than the contrast between the Turkish and the
Christian burial-grounds. The Greek cemetery at Pera is slovenly and ill
kept; the slabs covering the bodies are mutilated and defaced by wanton
violence; the trees, scantily distributed among them, are hacked and
ragged; and were it not that it is on three of its sides overlooked by
houses, it would present the very embodyment of desolation.
The Frank grave-yard is as obnoxious to good taste as that of the Greeks
to good feeling. There are Latin inscriptions, signifying nothing which
can awaken either sympathy or devotion; flourishes of French sentiment
in prose and rhyme; injunctions to pray for the souls of the departed,
coupled with Italian elaborations of eulogy and despair; concise English
records of births, ages, deaths, and diseases; and all the common-places
of an ordinary grave-yard, without a single object which can tend to
deepen a solemn or a pious thought.
But the Armenian necropolis is well worthy the attention of the stranger.
It is a thickly-peopled spot, where the acacia-trees blossom in their
scented beauty, and shed their withered flowers, like a sweet pall
dropped by the hand of nature on the quiet graves. The Armenian tombs are
peculiarly inscribed, giving you a lesson, and reading you a homily as
you wander among them. The noble Armenian character is graven deeply into
the stone; name and date are duly set forth; but that which renders these
slabs (for there is not an upright head-stone in any Eastern cemetery,
save those of the Turks and Jews) peculiarly distinctive, is the singular
custom observed by this people, of graving upon the tomb an emblem of the
profession or trade of the deceased.
Thus the priest is distinguished even beyond the grave by the mitre that
surmounts his name; the diamond-merchant by a group of ornaments; the
money-changer by a pair of scales; the florist by a knot of flowers:
besides many more ignoble hieroglyphics, such as the razor and basin of
the barber, the shears of the tailor, and so on; and when the calling
is one which may have been followed by either sex, a book, placed
immediately above the appropriate emblem, distinguishes the grave of the
man.
Nor is this all; for the victims of a violent death have also their
distinctive mark; and more than one tomb in this extraordinary
burial-place presents the rude representation of a headless trunk,
from whose severed throat the gushing blood is spirting upwards like a
fountain, while the head itself is pillowed on the clasped hands!
Many of the more ancient of the tombs are very richly and intricately
wrought; and the shapes of several of these sarcophagi are eminently
classical; but nearly all the modern ones are mere oblong slabs, mounted
in some cases upon circular pedestals three or four inches in height, and
perfectly simple in design. The situation of the Armenian burial-place
is superb; and it is generally occupied by groups of people of that
nation, seated upon the grave-stones, beneath the cool shadows of the
acacia-trees, talking and smoking, as though no symbol of the dead were
near.
Death has no gloom for the philosophical Orientals!
THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN’S TOWER.
A fairy-fortress, girdled by the sea,
Rock-seated, and alone; whose single tower
Was mirrored in the waves, and from whose heights
The eye glanced round on two fair cities, spread
Along still fairer shores.
MS.
The popular and poetical traditions attached to this sea-girdled edifice
have already been given, and its peculiar position has rendered it a
very striking object in several of the sketches of Mr. Bartlett; it is,
indeed, so essentially one of the “Beauties of the Bosphorus,” that it
could not fail to create its own interest, even were it without its
peculiar record; but such is far from being the case. The massaldjhes
love to tell the tale of the fair and high-born girl, who died,
Cleopatra-like, from the bite of an adder, within its walls; the poets
love to sing the adventures of the Persian Prince who delivered the
imprisoned beauty on a night of storm, when there was no tell-tale moon
to reveal the enterprise to jealous guards and watchful eunuchs; and when
the wild waves of the Propontis were lashing themselves to foam against
the rocky shores of Asia, while the hoarse gusts which swept down from
the Black Sea, driving the current of the Bosphorus madly before them,
swelled the midnight diapason, and was sweeter than the voice of the
bûlbûl of Nishapor in the ears of the lovers.
[Illustration: THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN’S TOWER.
_LE GUZ-COULI, OU TOUR DE DEMOISELLE._ _DER GUZ-COULI, ODER MÄDCHEN
THURM._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
But neither has the sober historian passed it by; and pretty and fanciful
as may be the fables which we have quoted, we are bound in our turn to
treat the subject more gravely; and to admit that the island-fortress
owed its erection to a more rational impulse than obedience to a wild
dream, or the desire to counteract a still wilder prophecy.
The Square Tower, now known as the Guz-Couli, was, it is stated,
originally built by the Emperor Manuel, for the purpose of communicating
with the point of coast occupied by the Seraï Bournou by means of an iron
chain, which, on the approach of an hostile fleet, was drawn across the
whole mouth of the strait, protecting both the harbour and the channel
from the occupancy of the intruders. No other trace of this ingenious
expedient now remains, however, and the historian is consequently as
traditional as the poet; nor do the Turks appear to be at all aware that
the Guz-Couli was ever appropriated to such an use—to them it is now a
plague-hospital, and nothing more; while many European travellers, full
of old associations, combine the peculiar situation of the castle with
memories of Hero, Leander, and the Hellespont, and, confirmed in their
error by its modern appellation of Guz-Couli, without hesitation christen
it “Leander’s Tower.”
By whatever name it may be called, it is a very pleasing object from both
shores, and stands amid the waves like the guardian of the strait.
BEBEC, ON THE BOSPHORUS.
“Nor oft I’ve seen such sight, nor heard such song,
As woo’d the eye, and thrill’d the Bosphorus along.”
BYRON.
This very pretty village, situated about midway of the Bosphorus, and
stretching for a considerable distance along the European shore, is
chiefly remarkable from the channel for its beautifully-shaded square,
overarched by forest-trees, of gigantic growth, and an Imperial Kiosque,
formerly an object of much mystery and dread, but which has now lost in
romance as much as it has gained in beauty; for having become a favourite
retreat of the Sultan, it has lately been gaily, and, indeed, tastefully
painted.
The Kiosque of Bebec possesses an historical interest from the fact that
it was at one time the appointed rendezvous of those European ambassadors
with whom the Sultan wished to confer without the cognisance of the
other Frank ministers, or of the members of his own government. At that
period it was suffered to remain in a state of partial disrepair, in
order that it might not attract attention; and thither the envoy whose
presence was desired quietly proceeded in his barge, without state or
ceremony of any description; and, having landed, entered the building,
and awaited the arrival of the Moslem monarch; there, with closed
jalousies, through which they could themselves see every thing which
passed along the channel without being visible to any one, sat the Sultan
and the minister weaving the intricate web of diplomacy; and thence,
when the conference was ended, they departed with the same mystery and
caution. Of the present Sultan, however, it may truly be said that _il
a changé tout cela_—he no longer gives audiences stealthily; and the
Kiosque of Bebec has, consequently, become a mere Imperial _pied-à-terre_
for an hour of relaxation.
[Illustration: BEBEC, ON THE BOSPHORUS.
_BEBEC, SUR LE BOSPHORE._ _BEBEC AM BOSPHORUS._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Nor was this the only remarkable feature in the history of this
summer-pavilion; for it was once the chosen lounge of the famous, or
rather celebrated Ali Pasha of Tepeleni, whose tiger heart and bitter
expiation have alike been the theme of story and of song. In this Kiosque
he is affirmed to have spent some hours each day when he was Camaican
to the Vèzir, ere he was removed to his command at Yanina; and to have
amused his idleness by studying the “human face divine” as keenly, and
far more cruelly, than Lavater; as he ever carried his deductions to a
pitch fatal to those on whom he speculated; for he had no sooner suffered
his eye to rest for a moment on some physiognomy which displeased him,
than a motion of his hand arrested the progress of the passing boat; the
obnoxious countenance was brought into immediate contact with that of the
ruthless dignitary, and the unhappy individual by whom it was owned was
sternly greeted with an assurance that he must be a rogue, and the son of
rogues, or that Allah the All-merciful! would never have cursed him with
so ill-looking a face, whereon were written characters of evil, which
the Pasha could read as though they had been inscribed by the pen of a
_khoja_[46] upon a skin of parchment; a man wearing such a countenance
must necessarily be a _karadhan_[47] of the vilest class, and all unfit
to walk at large among the chosen people of Mahomet; and such being the
case, the miserable victim of ugliness was forthwith consigned to the
gallies to expiate his inferred crimes! Expostulation was vain, for the
Camaican was a sophist; and with cat-like cruelty he was ever ready to
sport a moment with the agonies of his victim, in order to congratulate
the trembling wretch who quailed before him, gasping out assurances of
his innocence of all offence, either against his faith or his neighbour,
that the opportunity was taken from him of perpetrating all the misdeeds
which were registered in his face, and from whose dark effects the Pasha
had so fortunately rescued the public: for there they were; and if yet
to do, the greater the blessing which had been vouchsafed to him in an
interference that might prevent them altogether. And upon these premises,
or rather to satisfy this caprice, it is seriously asserted that so many
miserable and guiltless wretches were sent to suffer and to die amid the
filth, and squalor, and toil of the public bagnio, that the Sultan found
it necessary to interfere with the pursuit of his minister, and to compel
a discontinuance of the pastime.
It was possibly from a consciousness of his own great personal beauty
that Ali indulged in so inhuman a hatred towards those who were less
physically gifted; and that his taste for bringing his victim into
immediate contact with himself, grew out of the savage vanity of forcing
upon him a sense of his own ugliness. Be that as it may, he is described
by those who knew him as one of the mildest and most benevolent looking
of men.
On the page of the poet the same record is inscribed; for thus “the
Childe” bears witness to the fidelity of the description at a later
period of the Pasha’s life:—
“In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
ALI reclined, a man of wars and woes;
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace,
While gentleness her milder radiance throws
Along that aged venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.
“It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard
Ill suits the passions which belong to youth;
Love conquers age—so Hafiz hath averr’d,
So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth—
But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth,
Beseeming all men ill, but most the man
In years, have mark’d him with a tiger’s tooth;
Blood follows blood, and through their mortal span,
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.”
On the crest of the hill behind Bebec, there is an oak wood, in whose
depths is a small space covered with short fresh turf, without a single
tree, where the human voice awakens a multiplied echo so singular as
to have become a source of much amusement to its visitors. A horse,
gallopped rapidly round the enclosure, produces precisely the effect
upon the ear of a distant charge of cavalry; and a peal of laughter is so
extraordinarily prolonged, as almost to turn wonder into pain.
The village of Bebec is principally inhabited by Greeks.
A PUBLIC KHAN.
A place where merchants congregate—where wealth
Takes many forms—is bartered, bought, and sold;
Is earned by labour, flung away on chance,
Exchanged, computed, watched with eager eyes,
Weighed, balanced, won, and scattered o’er the globe.
MS.
The Khans, or Caravanseraïs of the East, are as purely oriental in their
character as the Mosques in whose immediate neighbourhood they are
generally situated, or the Bazārs which they supply with merchandise.
The Caravanseraï, or lodging of the caravan, is a large quadrangular
court, surrounded by stone buildings, solidly massed, and presenting much
the appearance of the inner cloisters of a monastery. The apartments on
the basement serve as counting-houses for the merchants, one only being
reserved as a coffee-kiosque, for the accommodation of the tenants of the
Khan, which always has a fine fountain in the centre of its paved court,
and is closed two hours before midnight by a pair of massive gates;
beside one of which is the little hut of the Khanjhi, who is answerable
for all comers and goers after that time, until day-break; a precaution
rendered highly necessary by the immense value of the merchandise which
is frequently contained in these establishments.
The upper story of the building is faced by an open gallery, supported
on arches, which stretches round the entire square, and is reached by
exterior flights of stone steps, situated at two of its angles; and from
this gallery open the store-rooms of the merchants, which are generally
filled with bags of raw silk, European cottons, bales of rich stuffs,
tobaccos, spices, arms—and, in short, all the most precious articles of
Eastern traffic.
It must not, however, be imagined that the articles here described are to
be found promiscuously in every Khan; on the contrary, the silk-merchants
have their own peculiar rendezvous; the hyperbolical Persians pile their
gold and silver stuffs apart; and the gebeli-dealers sort their various
tobaccos in a caravanseraï of their own; while the mere traveller,
pilgrim, and dervish, take up their abode in common in very inferior
Khans, where heat, vermin, and filth are their certain companions; and
where the acquaintanceless European, driven to this resource in towns
where no hotels exist, is initiated into a thousand personal miseries, of
which he could previously have formed no idea.
[Illustration: A PUBLIC KHAN.
_KHAN PUBLIC._ _EINE UNENTGELTLICHE HERBERGE._
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
The Khan of the silk-merchants at Broussa in Asia Minor is a very
beautiful establishment, with a noble gate-way, opening from the bazār
of the city, finely set in a frame-work of mosaiced porcelain; while
its Caravanseraï for pilgrims is wretched in the extreme. And the
same distinction is visible in those of Constantinople itself, where
dervishes, santons, and other wayfarers, who can afford to pay for their
scanty lodging, and yet more scanty fare, leave behind them traces of
disorder and want of cleanliness, which are, indeed, almost enough to
challenge the skill of all the khanjhis of the city to obliterate.
Dr. Walsh, in the first volume of his “Residence in Constantinople,”
gives an account of his arrival in a Turkish hamlet, situated in a
magnificent valley, surrounded by the distant branches of Mount Rhodope,
when on his way overland to Stamboul from the Dardanelles—which, as
it not only gives an admirable picture of one of the inferior village
Caravanseraïs of the East, but also illustrates a virtue universally
practised in Turkey, we shall extract entire:—
“The villages scattered about these mountains are inhabited by Turks,
Greeks, or Armenians; if by the former, a traveller is never admitted
into a house, but must lie in the stable with his horse, at a place
called a Khan. This is generally a very large edifice, like one of the
great cow-houses in England, filled with cattle of all kinds. At one end
is a little enclosure, separated by a low partition, just sufficiently
high to prevent the cattle from walking over him, but in other respects
a continuation of the stable. That in which I now found myself had the
luxury of a bit of rugged straw mat, just large enough for me to sit
on; and I found myself lodged with about fifty buffaloes and camels. A
traveller gets nothing to eat but what he brings with him, and my stock
of provisions consisted of a grain of coffee in a paper in one waistcoat
pocket, and a little zacchari, or brown sugar, in the other. Hasan had a
bag of tobacco. I had eaten nothing from the first light in the morning,
and I was as hungry as tired, after a long day’s ride; but there I sat
solitary, between three mud walls, on a bit of dirty straw mat, with the
more fortunate cattle crunching their provender about me. Occasionally, a
camel, or a buffalo, would put his neck across the partition, and having
looked at me with considerable curiosity, would then begin to move his
jaws just close to my face, as if to mock my hunger. Meantime, Hasan sat
cross-legged before me, smoking his pipe with the most imperturbable
gravity, quite reconciled to the state of inanity in which we were doomed
to pass the night. I several times gave him an imploring look, and put
my finger in my mouth, closing my teeth on it, that even a Turk might
comprehend what I wanted. Hasan slowly moved his head, and said, ‘Yoke,’
the first word I had heard him utter. I hoped that yoke might have
something to say to eggs, but I was mistaken; yoke, I found, was Turkish
for ‘nothing.’ I now made myself about a thimbleful of coffee, in a
little tin measure, which I found among some embers in an earthen pot in
the corner, and stretching myself out for the night, I took Hasan’s pipe,
and smoked myself into a doze.
“I know not how long I remained in this state, but when I opened my eyes,
I found by the light of a lamp stuck in the wall, the place crowded with
Turks, sitting round me cross-legged, three or four deep, all smoking
and silently gazing on me, waiting, apparently, until I should awake.
I asked for Hasan, whom I could not see; and one of them, rather a
truculent-looking man, drew his hand across his throat, and with a solemn
countenance, motioned me to hold my peace. ‘Here then,’ said I to myself,
‘I am about to suffer the penalty of travelling with a false firman;[48]
my janissary has been punished in the summary way of a Turk, and I must
submit to whatever they please to do to myself; the Elchi Bey[49] can’t
protect a British subject in this remote place.’ While engaged in these
pleasant reflections, a joint-stool was brought in and set before me, and
a large metal tray laid on it, with a number of broad horn spoons, like
shovels. I had some vague notions of barbarian nations feeding people
before they kill them; and here was my last meal.
“The first course was a basin, the size of a cauldron, of pease-porridge,
which was soon dispatched by the company; the next was a seasoned
substance, like macaroni; and the last was a bowl of an acidulated
liquor, the most grateful I ever tasted. During the whole of the
entertainment, not a sound was uttered, nor was I ever asked to eat.
But a man in a green turban, to mark his being a descendant of Mahomet,
and who seemed the master of the feast, had his eye on me. When he saw
me relaxing with my spoon, he said not a word; but he nudged the man
next him with his elbow, and he his neighbour, till it came round to me;
and in this way I was pressed to eat more. A large bunch of grapes was
fished up from the bottom of the last bowl, and held for a moment by the
Turk in the green turban; it was then passed on to me, without any one
helping himself, and laid on the tray before me; and it seemed a part of
the ceremonial of the entertainment. When every thing was removed, I was
presented with a cup of coffee, and a pipe; but having declined them,
one of the company laid the side of his head on his hand, intimating
that I should go to sleep; I drew my cloak over me as I was bid, and
when I awoke in the morning, I found the company still sitting round
me, smoking as before I fell asleep. The horses were now brought to the
door, and my hosts departed as silently as they entered, without asking
remuneration, or seeming to expect even thanks. I afterwards found that
my friendly Turks were the voivode and principal men of the village, who,
being informed that I was a stranger and a Frank with a firman, had given
me an entertainment; and the man who drew his hand across his throat,
had intimated that Hasan had gone to get himself shaved and dressed for
dinner. There was something singular in their taciturn hospitality, but
the kindness of a Turk is divested of all pretension; it is rude, but
cordial, whenever it is offered.”
At the town of Rodosto, the same writer says:—
“The Khans for travellers here are of a most enormous size, some of
them, apparently, as large as Westminster Hall, and resembling it in
appearance; an open edifice, with a high roof, supported on naked walls,
unbroken by any object. Some of them contain two or three hundred horses,
or camels, which appear like mice ranged round the floor below.”
But the khanjhis, or keepers of the Khan, must not themselves be passed
over without a word of mention. They are usually keen-witted, crafty,
intelligent men—the very focus of all the news and gossip of the city;
chartered rascals, moreover, who will cheat every one to his face who
has any thing to lose, and against whom every one is consequently on his
guard; but who are at the same time so true to the trust reposed in them,
that the goods of the merchants, however valuable, are never violated
when once placed in the charge of the khanjhi, who will die at his post
rather than suffer even a suspicious eye to rest upon them.
There is a certain foppery about the khanjhi of a first-rate
Caravanseraï; he wears his turban with an air, carries his chibouque
between the second and third fingers of his right hand, and flourishes
a tusbee in his left, as though it had never any other employment than
that of coquetting with the beads of the chaplet; although his well-worn
slippers, and the weather-stained folds of his dress, tell a tale of more
active and useful occupations.
The khanjhis are universally patient and good-humoured, and from living
constantly among strangers, are much less prejudiced in favour of their
own habits and manners than most of their countrymen; though they
evidently consider the mere visitors to the establishment as decided
intruders, interfering with the comfort and seclusion of their tenants,
and trammelling them in their business; and consequently receive the
parting _backschish_[50] of the stranger with a grim satisfaction
wondrously amusing.
Altogether, could the wandering European make the acquaintance of a
khanjhi in every Eastern city that he visits, without being compelled
to make that of the Khan itself, he would enjoy a novel and interesting
phase of society, totally distinct from all that he had left behind him
in the far west.
FORT BEIL-GOROD, ON THE BOSPHORUS.
“Where glide the Bosphor’s lovely waters,
All palace-lined from sea to sea.”
N. P. WILLIS.
The fortress of Beil-Gorod, which forms the subject of the accompanying
sketch, is situated immediately opposite to the Jouchi Dajhi, or Giant’s
Grave. It is in the most efficient state of any of the double line of
forts bristling the shores of the Bosphorus; and is frequently visited by
Sultan Mahmoud, who, during the summer months, occasionally spends whole
days at Beil-Gorod, whither he repairs in his gilded barge, attended by
a train of Pashas and Beys in their graceful caïques, sweeping along the
channel like a flight of swans.
It is a singular and beautiful sight to watch the action of the rowers
in the larger boats, or galleys, pulling six or eight pairs of oars, as,
clad in a uniform dress composed of white silk shirts with loose open
sleeves, cotton drawers of extreme width, and small red caps scarcely
covering the crown of their shaven heads, they bend to the long sweep
of the pliant oars with an action as symmetrical as though it were
produced by machinery, and increase their speed to the utmost stretch,
when two rival boats are striving for the lead,—while on every occasional
rencontre with each other on the same course, the foremost boat makes it
a point of honour not to lose its place; the rowers voluntarily exerting
their strength and skill in mimic regattas of perpetual recurrence.
The caïques themselves are beautiful; long and narrow, with high prows
glittering with gilding, and raised sterns, where the attendants sit
behind their employers, who occupy the bottom of the boat, which is
always luxuriously carpetted and cushioned, the build of the caïque
not admitting of transverse seats, even did the habits of the Osmanli
favour them: and thus they skim along upon the ripple like wild-birds; or
bound over the “Devil’s current” with the assistance of the _yelik_, or
towing-rope, which is flung on board by persons who gain a subsistence in
assisting the labouring boats through the whirling eddies, where the oars
of the boatmen cannot avail. A small silver coin, its amount depending on
the liberality of the traveller, repays this service; and the _Sheitan
Akindessi_ once passed, the oars are resumed, the _yelik_ cast off, and
the freed caïque again shoots forward like an arrow.
[Illustration: FORT BEIL-GOROD. (On the Bosphorus)
_FORT BEIL-GOROD SUR LE BOSPHORE._ _DAS FORT BEIL-GOROD AM BOSPHORUS._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Cousen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1840.]
There is probably no boat in the world so thoroughly elegant—the
canoe of the Indian, the gondola of the Venetian, even the antique
classical-looking bark of the Arab, beautiful as it is, must yield the
palm to the fairy boats of the Bosphorus.
The situation of Beil-Gorod is very fine, as it commands the entrance
of the Bosphorus from the Euxine; and every vessel bound from the “Sea
of Storms” to the Golden City necessarily passes before it, producing
a constantly varied panorama full of movement and interest. The
Jouchi-Daghi frames in the picture on one side, sobering its tints,
and recalling the tradition of its former occupant, who, if he did
not actually “sit upon a rock, and bob for whales,” was, according to
the legend, quite able to have done so, had he wished it; while in
the other direction the “ocean-stream,” winding between its romantic
shores, stretches away far as the eye can reach, now lost behind some
wooded height, now seen again beyond it, until earth and water, bay and
mountain, become blent in one pure glittering purple, and are lost amid
the horizon.
THE AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ.
Closed be the eye which coldly has beheld
The long-enduring monuments of eld,
Nor read upon their proud and hoar decay
A lesson to the vanity, which, based
Upon the empty follies of to-day,
Lets all the soul’s best feelings run to waste.
MS.
Allusion has already been made to this fine old aqueduct, which spans
the beautiful meadow above Buyukdèrè with its lofty arches. The view
from it is singularly lovely, and very extensive; valley and mountain,
land and water, waste and forest, are spread out on all sides in noble
combination; while the deep stillness of the spot gives a sublimity to
the landscape which must be felt to be understood.
[Illustration: AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ.
_AQUEDUC DE LA BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ._ _DER WASSERLEITUNG DER BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ._
W. H. Bartlett. J. B. Allen.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
There is a season called by the Turks _Patlinjam Melktem_, a time in
autumn remarkable for producing a particular species of gourd, when a
north-east wind invariably sets in, and the Black Sea, violently driven
against the western shore, sends forth a low and solemn moaning like
the continuous voice of human agony. The effect of this awful diapason
from the aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï is thrilling,—one long wail of woe
fills the air—while the wild waves, hurled against the rocks at the
mouth of the Bosphorus, carry upon their crests the foaming banner of
destruction, warning from their vicinage the daring bark which would
essay the entrance of the Boghaz. At this period dense banks of fog
are packed against the rocks, and the whole line of coast presents one
mass of heavy uniform obscurity; rendering a passage, at all times
sufficiently perilous, almost impossible: the entrance is flanked
by two bold and abrupt promontories, crowned with light-houses, and
known as the Phanaraki Points. A small village is situated near each
of these beacon-towers: and at no great distance stand two of the
channel-fortresses, strikingly defined against the dark green rocks on
which they are built.
[Illustration: VIEW THROUGH THE AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ.
_POINT DE VUE À TRAVERS L’AQUEDUC DE BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ._ _AUSBLICK DURCH DIE
WASSERLEITUNG BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ._
W. H. Bartlett. J. Redaway.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Between the two promontories, but considerably on the European side of
the Boghaz, stands one of the Symplegades; the other is at a considerable
distance, quite within the Euxine, and very close to the shore. Dr.
Walsh, who visited this latter, gives the following very graphic and
interesting account of it:—
“We landed with some difficulty, the great swell rising nearly half way
up the rock, and threatening to throw our light skiff on the ledge of
some precipice. It stands about half a mile from the light-house point
of the European shore, just within the Black Sea. It consists of a rocky
eminence, twenty or thirty yards in height, and two or three hundred in
circumference. On the summit is a very beautiful circular pedestal of
pure white marble and fine sculpture. It is four feet three inches in
height, and two feet seven inches in diameter; round it is a rich festoon
of flowers, supported on bulls’ heads, with stars between the folds.
It is of superior workmanship, and seems to have been sculptured at an
era when the arts were cultivated; but of its origin, date, or name,
there is nothing certain; even its shape is not agreed on. The Byzantine
historian, Dionysius, says the Romans erected a fane on this rock, and
hence it is called ‘the Altar.’ Whatever might have been its original
destination, it was latterly appropriated to another use; this is the
opinion of Gillius, who saw it in 1545. There stood upon it a Corinthian
column, and the monument obtained the name of ‘Pompey’s Pillar,’ by
which it is sometimes known. There was a vague tradition that he had
erected it after his victory over Mithridates, whose kingdom of Pontus
was close beside, on the coast of Asia. He named a city on the coast,
built by that monarch, ‘Pompeiopolis;’[51] but there is no historical
record of erecting a column; and Pompey has lost the reputation of this
pillar, as well as of that at Alexandria, which it now appears was
raised to Dioclesian. When Tournefort visited the rock in 1700, he saw
the pillar, twelve feet in length, but it has now disappeared. On the
summit of the pedestal which remains, are four square apertures sunk into
it, and they seem to have been intended to fasten on the top some other
object. There is now no inscription, or trace of it, except some modern
scribbling of travellers who have visited the spot; the earliest I could
find was dated 1623. This beautiful piece of sculpture, on the summit of
so remote and solitary a rock, is a very striking object, and strongly
contrasted with the rude wildness of every thing about it.
“The substance of which the rock is formed seems an extraordinary
composition. It is a kind of breccia, of various coloured lava, trap,
basalt, and limestone, intersected by veins of agate, or chalcedony, of
considerable extent. It seems, in fact, an agglomeration of heterogeneous
substances, fused together by the action of intense fire. But the colour
most predominant is blue or dark green, arising from the presence of some
metallic oxide. This has conferred upon the rocks their comparatively
modern name: when they were no longer an object of terror, and ceased to
crush ships between them, they lost their first appellation, and were
called from their hue, Cyanean, a property which remains to this day.”[52]
In a season of storm, such as we have endeavoured to describe, the ear
of the wanderer lingering at Baghtchè-Keuï is more thralled than the
eye; for it is only when the lightning shimmers for an instant on the
foam-crested waves by which the rocks are girdled, that the sublimity of
the scene can be discerned,—when the “vexed Symplegades” are battling
with the billows, and the dark coast casts back the watery charge with a
moan of thunder, as though it mourned over the devastation which might be
borne onward upon the wild and reckless storm-waves. The aqueduct should
be visited at a more genial season, for its wide sweep of prospect to be
fully enjoyed.
The valley of Buyukdèrè is the largest glen on the European shore of the
channel, extending for five or six miles, and boasting its historical
interest as well as its picturesque beauty; for here it was, in a
flower-laden meadow of about a mile in width, that the doughty Godfrey
de Bouillon encamped his Crusaders in the year 1097, when they were on
their way to the siege of Micæa,—a reminiscence which is often renewed
by the sight of Turkish tents on the same spot; the meadow of Buyukdèrè
being a favourite resort of the Sultan, who in the summer months repairs
thither to witness wrestling matches, the exercise of the _jereed_, and
other athletic games performed in the open air.
Near the centre of the valley stands a platanus of enormous size, which
is considered to be probably the largest in the world. It measures
forty-seven yards in circumference near the root, and it is asserted that
its branches overshadow a circular extent of upwards of four hundred
feet. The enormous trunk is divided into fourteen stems, the forks of
several being now hidden by the soil which has accumulated above them,
while others are distant as much as seven or eight feet from the earth.
One has been broken off at an immense height, and another is entirely
hollow, apparently from fire, and is frequently used by the goat-herds as
a refuge during storms.
Perhaps no platanus ever sung by the ancients, honoured by the admiration
of an Emperor, haunted by the philosopher and the patriot, or nourished
by the Anacreontic libations of Roman revellers, deserved immortality
more fully than that of Buyukdèrè. A French naturalist has conjectured
that it must have existed more than two thousand years; yet still its
gigantic branches spread far and wide, garlanded with fair fresh leaves,
and its sturdy boughs rebound from the pressure of the tempest-wind
which sweeps over them in its fury, with all the firm free vigour of
eternal youth: generations pass away—the infant rises into the boy—the
boy strengthens into the man—manhood withers into old age—and the grave
closes over the dead:—another race succeeds, and yet another, and
another; while the same tree lives on, hale, and green, and flourishing,
mocking at poor mortality, and weaving a new web of beauty with every
changing season. The triumph of man’s strength and of man’s ingenuity,
the stately aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, still stands indeed, and has
also endured throughout its weary centuries; but like all man’s works
it is perishable and imperfect. The ponderous masonry is loosened and
displaced—the surface of the stone is corroded by the tooth of time,
and the action of the atmosphere—lichens and caper-plants have rooted
themselves amid the interstices of the building; and while the platanus
bursts out into fresh youth with every coming spring, each revolving
year renders the human monument more weak and hoar and writes upon its
gigantic arches the characters of decay.
A COFFEE-KIOSQUE.
’Tis the resort of public men; the haunt
Of wealthy idlers; and the trysting-place
Of such as have no home to indicate.
A place where each may come and go at will,
Think his own thoughts, pursue his own affairs,
Or fling his ore of feeling and of sense
Into the common crucible.
MS.
Even as the English have their _tavern_, the French their _restaurant_,
and the Portuguese their _estralagem_, so have the Turks their
Coffee-Kiosque—the rendezvous alike of the idle and the exhausted—of
the man of pleasure who lives only for self-indulgence, and the man
of business who reluctantly snatches an hour of relaxation from the
all-absorbing toils of commerce. What the public baths are to the women
of Turkey, the public coffee-houses are to their lords—the head-quarters
of gossipry, and news, and enjoyment—where every passing event is
canvassed, and weighed, and judged; and time is suffered to slide by as
carelessly as though it might one day be redeemed.
[Illustration: COFFEE-KIOSQUE, ON THE PORT.
_CAFÉ SUR LE PORT_ _DAS KAFFEEHAUS AM HAFEN._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
In the villages, the Coffee-Kiosques are erected in pleasant shady nooks,
where the maples shed a glory and a grace over the hamlet, (for these
are never wanting in a village on the Bosphorus;) and where, with the
leaves above their heads, canopied by the bright blue sky which peeps in
among them as if to lend them an added beauty, and the “ocean-stream”
flowing at their feet, the placid and nature-loving Moslems inhale the
fragrance of the chibouque, and drain their tiny cups of scented mocha.
But in the city, few are the coffee-kiosques which can boast better shade
than that of the deeply-projecting roof of the building, which, flung
boldly forward several feet from the walls of the house itself, serves to
shelter the open terrace that stretches along each side of the edifice;
and this terrace, furnished with wide seats, on which the visitor can
lounge at ease, forms the nearest approach to out-of-door enjoyment
compatible with their situation.
The Coffee-Kiosque chosen by the artist for his sketch, is that of Pieri
Pasha, near the Arsenal, and overlooking the harbour—a position eminently
calculated to render it popular. The moving panorama which it commands,
is a perpetual source of interest; and the breeze comes softly from the
sea of Marmora, with freshness and perfume on its wing.
The amusements provided, or rather customary, at these places of resort,
are numerous, but seldom commence before noon, the morning passing
listlessly away in the gossipry of which mention has already been made.
They consist principally of music, (the performers being usually young
Jews,) improvisation, matches at tric-trac, and an exhibition somewhat
resembling a magic-lantern in effect, though not in principle; the mover
of the puppets occupying an angle of the apartment screened off, and
presenting a front covered with muslin stretched over a frame, against
which the puppets are pressed, to exhibit their grotesque antics.
Their performance is accompanied by the ceaseless _recitative_ of the
exhibitor, who must be a decided humourist, if not a genuine wit, to
judge by the effect of his oration. The Turks are too well-bred, and too
self-possessed, to indulge in the boisterous laughter which is often
elicited by a clever mime in Europe; but the low quiet chuckle, and
the hand passed slowly and complacently over the beard, proclaim their
thorough appreciation of the attempt to amuse them: nor is the mountebank
backward in deciding on the precise moment in which the richest harvest
may be reaped; for no sooner has he secured the good-will of his audience
by a burst of humour, and excited their curiosity by a mystery, than
forth he pops from his concealment with a little metal basin in his hand
to levy contributions; and this ceremony is repeated several times during
the evening.
The Improvvisatori generally accompany themselves on a rude sort of
guitar, which they twang most unmercifully, as they pour forth their
lays of love, or their tales of tradition, in a heavy, monotonous,
sleep-inspiring drawl, never seeming themselves to become inspired by
their subject; while their hearers, apparently quite insensible to the
soporific medium through which the legends are conveyed, frequently
betray extreme emotion as they listen, grasping the hilts of the
_handjars_[53] in their girdles, setting their teeth firmly, clenching
their fingers rigidly upon their palms, and drawing their breath hard, as
though their respiration were impeded.
The Hebrew music already mentioned comprises several performers, and the
instruments are commonly a small Arab drum, two or three bad guitars, and
a tambourine; these are relieved by the voices of the younger boys, which
are generally very thin and shrill, and they sometimes accompany their
songs with a heavy languishing movement—a caricature of the graceful
dance of the Harem.
That some of these establishments, however, not only emulate, but even
exceed in luxury and magnificence the most costly and fashionable
European “Clubs,” we have the evidence of Mr. St. John, (no mean
authority on oriental subjects,) who thus describes one visited by
himself during a season of high festival:—
“We now proceeded to the coffee-house of Kodjia Ben Lolo, near the great
_Hammams_,[54] the approaches to which were so crowded, that it was with
much difficulty we found our way in. This establishment, which is on a
grand scale, corresponds in a great measure with our ideas of Oriental
splendour. Erected, like a caravanseraï, about a spacious quadrangular
court, it contains an infinite number of magnificent rooms, paved with
marble, and furnished with superb divans of crimson velvet, bordered with
gold fringe a foot deep. The windows are glazed, if one may so speak,
with large panes of gypsum,[55] gorgeously painted in various colours;
and in the midst of the principal apartment, an elegant marble fountain,
constantly playing, maintains an agreeable freshness in the air. None
but opulent Turks frequent this establishment, the expense of the
entertainment being considerable....
“Small brazen censers, placed on the summit of pyramidal flower-stands,
and constantly burning, filled the apartment with the perfume of
sandal-wood, benzoin, and wood of aloes, intermingled with the rich
odours of Indian myrtle, jasmine, and other rare or sweet plants.”[56]
In establishments, such as the one here described, the most rare and
costly coffee and tobacco is served to the guests, by the owner of the
house; but in the common run of Coffee-kiosques, each individual brings
his own tobacco in a small bag, which he carries amid the folds of the
shawl that he wears about his waist, or, should he have adopted the new
costume, in his bosom. A brazier, full of heated charcoal, stands in
the apartment, and the stranger is no sooner seated, and has filled his
chibouque, (two almost simultaneous operations,) than the cafèjhe seizes
a small live coal in a pair of iron pincers, and deposits it on the
summit of the tobacco. When the customer has smoked a few long whiffs,
he calls for coffee, which is made over another and larger brazier,
and handed to him in its minute cup of porcelain, standing in a metal
_zarf_;[57] and the few paras which, on departing, are paid for the
coffee, are considered a sufficient compensation to the attentive cafèjhe
for his house-room, his goblets of clear cool water, and his exhausted
charcoal, as well as for the article for which they profess to pay.
There is a marked difference in the method of smoking pursued by the
upper class of Turks and that practised by the poorer orders. The wealthy
and fastidious Effendi fills the _boudaka_[58] of his chibouque with the
mild and costly tobacco of Salonica, which he inhales, until round the
edges of the bowl a circle of white ash is formed, which rises buoyantly
from the superincumbent morsel of heated charcoal, when he immediately
empties the _boudaka_, and flings the exhausted weed away, for its
aroma has then perished, and the tobacco, to a connoisseur, has become
worthless; while the boatmen and mechanics smoke the strong, coarse
produce of Latakia, even to the last fragment. There are other varieties
of the “scented weed” imported from the Crimea, Ormus, Circassia, and
different parts of the East, but the two already quoted are by far the
most popular, and the most extensively consumed.
There were, formerly, establishments at Constantinople, called Teriarki
Tcharchi, or opium-houses, but these exist no longer; they were conducted
on the same principle as the Coffee-Kiosques; but in the Teriarki
Tcharchi, the comparatively innoxious use of tobacco was accompanied by
that of opium, which was handed from guest to guest, made up into pills.
One of them, no longer appropriated to its original purpose, but rapidly
mouldering to decay, may still be seen in the neighbourhood of the
Mosque of Solimaniè. It differs in nothing from a common coffee-house,
save in its extent, which is considerable; and the miserable victims to
this singular vice, so painfully described by the Baron de Tott, nearly
a hundred years ago, are fortunately no longer to be seen, as the use
of opium is now considered disgraceful by the Turks; and an individual
addicted to its use, is regarded as that almost obsolete animal, a sot,
would be among ourselves.
The motive of such of the population as still adhere to this disgraceful
practice in private—a practice reprobated by the respectable portion of
the community, and formally forbidden by the government, is, as they
express it, to _make kef_; a phrase perfectly untranslatable, but which
would seem to mean the creation of a species of unnatural but pleasurable
excitement, unconnected with any physical exertion, as _kef_ may be
made where the person under the operation of the drug lies quietly on
his cushions, wrapped in a sort of drowsiness indicative of no emotion
whatever to the lookers-on; although it is asserted that there are
frequent cases where the effects of the _kef_ would be well worthy the
attention of any oriental police-office.
The habit of opium-eating, is, however, rapidly declining among the
Turks. Denounced by the government, despised by the bulk of the
population, and only practised by the dissipated and the depraved, it
will probably soon cease to exist altogether; while the legitimate
Coffee-Kiosque, quiet, orderly, and moderate, is as essential a feature
of the country as the Mosque, the Khan, or the Tcharchi.
THE BOSPHORUS.
The chain is forged, the web is wrought,
Woven of memory and thought;
And to myself each link is set
Alike with fondness and regret.
Oh! could I only call to view
Each scene in its own fairy hue,
And the same brightness that it wore
For me, on Bosphor’s lovely shore,
The eye, in lingering o’er my line,
Would see the gilded minaret shine,
Trace the stern mountain’s lofty peak.
Bound onward with the swift caïque.
And count the thousand glories o’er
Of either palace-girdled shore;
Spell-bound by thy bright witcheries,
Fair city of the Triple seas!
MS.
Ere I take my leave of the reader, whom I have endeavoured, in
conjunction with Mr. Bartlett, to interest in one of the most glorious
portions of the earth, I cannot deny myself the gratification of once
more addressing him in my own proper person.
In the volume which is now nearly completed, space was not permitted to
me for mention of many things on which it would have been a pleasure
to expatiate; nor have I made an effort towards this self-indulgence.
The work is a purely descriptive one, and I have followed the talented
artist wheresoever he has led me, and have found him no inefficient
guide. Together we have visited mosques, wandered in burial-places,
clombe mountains, and glided over the sun-lighted Bosphorus: and there
were times when such a pilgrimage would have been deemed no trifling
undertaking; but STEAM has now annihilated both time and space; and we
can only hope that our pictorial and literary pictures may induce the
traveller on his summer trip to Palmyra, Balbek, or Jerusalem, not to
overlook in his haste the fair city of Byzantium.
[Illustration: ENVIRONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE; WITH THE THRACIAN BOSPHORUS.
Drawn & Engraved by W. Hughes.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Snatches of exquisite poetry have frequently been written on the subject
of the Bosphorus; from the days of Lady Mary Wortley Montague to our own,
every pilgrim-bard has wooed the glorious “ocean-stream” in song—every
traveller has freely offered to it the meed of his admiration; yet
still I feel convinced that those who know it only by verse and story
cannot form a correct or adequate idea of its peculiar beauties. The
description of one tourist gives a balloon view of the whole channel,
sweeping it from the Euxine to the Sea of Marmora, levelling mountains,
prostrating forests, and making curved lines straight; while an eminent
French traveller and _literateur_, in an eloquent and elegant burst
of imaginative genius, setting fact at defiance, removes some of the
windings of the Strait, and enlarges the range of vision with true
poetic license, in order to present a more rich and animated _tableau_
at a single _coup-d’œil_, instead of distinguishing the series of points
in keeping with the original. This bold and energetic style of verbal
painting may produce a powerful picture, well calculated to impress the
mind of the reader, but it by no means does justice to its subject,
for the surpassing beauty of the Bosphorus is its exquisite variety.
History and fable go hand in hand, walking over its waters, and awakening
pleasant memories of the past; but it needed not these additional
incitements to admiration, for nature has woven so powerful a spell about
its shores that the present scarcely asks the _prestige_ of the past.
The liveliest creations of the fancy are not likely to be disappointed
on the spot; and hence there is no reason why even the most enthusiastic
tourist should overcharge the colouring, or aim at additional ornament in
grouping the details.
The true charm of the Bosphorus, as I have already remarked, lies in
its endless variety of perspective: it is like a garland, woven by the
hand of beauty, of which each blossom is brighter than the last; not
a rock, not a tree, not a tower, could be displaced without injury to
the whole. Rival castles, looking each upon the other from the shores
of Europe and of Asia, stand on the nearest point of approach between
the two coasts, and seem at one interval to close the entrance of the
channel; but, as the rapid caïque starts onward, they yield to laughing
groves, and painted palaces, and hamlets scattered along the lip of the
water, and mirrored in the waves; and the beautiful curve is lost only
to be succeeded by another, and another. At almost every boat’s length
the vista changes, and presents new combinations; inlets and glens at
intervals peeping out in their pleasant greenery, break the rigid outline
of the rocks; valleys, such as even Rasselas might have loved to dwell
in, studded with trees to the very edge of the current which their
branches overhang, are sheltered by the woods on the sloping sides of the
adjacent heights—the cypress and pine retaining throughout the year their
deep perpetual green, and the brighter foliage ever shifting under the
breeze, and wearing new shapes and hues as it sweeps over them.
A range of populous villages, composed of party-coloured houses,
intermingled with trees and gardens, and handsome mansions backed by
lofty hills, extends for about twelve miles on either shore; the finest
sites being occupied by the palaces and kiosques of the court, either
erected or embellished by the present Sultan, with their bright façades
and fanciful parapets glittering in the sun-light; while numerous private
villas are interspersed among them, always gaily and fancifully painted
when belonging to a Turk, and in sober grey or lead colour when tenanted
by an Armenian or a Greek, Christians not being permitted to use any
other colours on the exterior of their dwellings; while the houses of the
Jews are invariably black. These villas frequently have terraces, formed
into parterres and flower-beds, cut in the face of the precipitous rocks,
and leading by winding steps to the pretty kiosque, or pavilion, pitched
like an eyrie on the cliff above; others have gardens laid out along
the banks of the channel, whose rose-wreaths, suspended from the walls,
almost drop into the current; while their fading blossoms, scattering
their loosened petals on the tide, freight it as with a fleet of fairy
barks!
One Imperial Kiosque, perched on the apex of a cone-like rock on the
Asiatic coast, about midway of the strait, is a very conspicuous object.
From below it appears as though it covered the whole summit of the
height; not a tree breaks its beautiful Grecian outline as it stands out
in strong relief against the intense blue of the sky, and it is very
appropriately called the “Kiosque of the Sun.”
It has been said that travellers should never set foot in the city of
Constantinople, in order not to dispel by unsightly contacts in its
mean and narrow streets the glorious illusion of the spectacle from
the waters. This assertion is hyper-fastidious, and must have emanated
from a mind totally unable to appreciate the treasures to which those
streets conduct. Should the Tchernberlè Tasch remain unvisited because
the unsavoury lanes in its vicinity are disagreeable to traverse? Should
the Palace of Belisarius be avoided because Jews burrow among the ruins?
Should the Mosques, the Khans, the Tcharchi, and the Seraï, continue
unexplored, because the wandering Sybarite cannot walk to them over
rose-leaves? Surely some sacrifice may well be made in order to insure a
pilgrimage round the old, ivy-clad, historical walls of Byzantium, or a
glance into one of its stately Mosques—some annoyance undergone to obtain
an opportunity of studying the national character, and judging of the
national manners.
The most celebrated view in the environs is that from the Bulgurlhu
Daghi, behind Scutari, overlooking the Marmora, the city, the harbour,
and the whole line of coast in the direction of Asia Minor; but, by
ascending some other peak a few miles from the shore, the oblique and
narrow strait of the Bosphorus may be traced in all its windings,
until diminished in appearance to a mere meadow rivulet; while at each
extremity of the horizon, seemingly linked together by this silver chain,
the Euxine and the Propontis spread their broad waters.
A ramble over the mountain-heights of the Asian coast is delicious: the
pure cool wind comes lovingly to your cheek, untainted by one touch of
earth; and the silence is unbroken, save by the shrill whistle of the
shepherd, and the responsive bark of his trusty dog; the call of the
goat-herd to his truant flock; the short keen stroke of the woodcutter;
or, frequently, the rustle of a pheasant springing from the copse beside
you, rather startled than alarmed, and sailing away in all his primitive
glory and wildness, such as he is still found in his native woods of the
Phasis.
The Bosphorus wears the most animated appearance early in June, when
the trees are in full foliage, and every leaf is redolent of life, ere
the heats have withered the herbage, and when a light southerly wind
is wafting hundreds of vessels up the strait towards the Black Sea,
the inner tiers almost touching the houses with their spars; while all
the caïques are plying busily between the city and the villages on the
channel, laughter is ringing out on the clear air, roses blossoming along
the banks, and the waters are buoyant with life and motion, and adding to
the magic of the landscape.
But to be seen in all its beauty, it should be looked upon by moonlight.
Then it is that the occupants of the spacious mansions which overhang
its waters enjoy to the fullest perfection the magnificence of the scene
around them. The glare of noonday reveals too fully the colours of the
picture, and the garish sun withers as it shines; while the deep, purple,
star-encrusted sky, the pure moonlight, and the holy quiet of evening,
lend to it, on the contrary, a mysterious indistinctness which doubles
its attraction.
The inhabitants of the capital are conscious of this fact; and, during
the summer months, when they occupy their marine villas, one of their
favourite recreations is to seat themselves upon their seaward terraces
to enjoy the passing music of the caïques which skim over the ripple,
freighted with amateur minstrels gliding from house to house, and
warbling their good-night at each, to the accompaniment of a guitar; or
in listening to the evening hymns of the seamen on board the Italian and
Greek vessels anchored in the strait; amused at intervals by the rolling
by of a huge shoal of porpoises on their way to the harbour, (where they
frequently abound,) gambolling in the moonlight, and plunging among the
waves with a sound like thunder; while, in the distance, loom out the
dark mountains of the Asian coast, casting their long dusky shadows far
across the water; and close beside them are the quivering summits of the
tall trees on the edge of the channel, sparkling like silver, and lending
the last touch of loveliness to a landscape, perhaps unparalleled in the
world.
The Bay of Naples—the fairest and most picturesque points of the
Rhine—the approach to sea-seated Venice—the entrance of the Tagus—and
the noblest portions of the Danube, have each in turn been quoted
as all-excelling, and unsurpassable in natural beauty; but who that
has anchored in the Golden Horn, just where beyond the shadow of the
Guz-Couli, his eye could wander onward along the channel, will not at
once yield the palm to the “rolling seas between the Bosphorus?” Truly,
the Bay of Naples boasts its volcanic mountain, which in sublimity must
stand unrivalled; but it has not the freshness, the changefulness, the
never-ending variety of the Golden Horn; and it, moreover, wants the
strait which renders the site of the Moslem city unique in its character.
The great German streams, noble and majestic as they may be, are devoid
of those lovely breaks and varied vistas which render the Bosphorus so
beautiful, and divest it of all tameness and monotony; grandeur and
softness vie with each other upon its banks; and it is, moreover, the
swift ocean-tide which flows between them, while the shores of the
Danube and the Rhine are laved only by the waters of one of its humble
tributaries.
And now my pleasant task is ended. I have exhausted the artist’s
portfolio, and I have nothing left to do, save to take leave of the
reader, who has wandered with me in idea under the sunny skies of the
fair East.
I have said little—almost nothing, of the inhabitants of the “City of
the Sultan;” not because I could not have said much, very much, which
might have gratified both them and myself, but because the nature of
the present work did not admit of my doing so; and it is only now, at
the “eleventh hour,” that I permit myself to remark, that the courtesy,
kindness, and friendship, which I universally experienced from the
natives of the country, and the veneration which I felt for their many
virtues, tended greatly to endear to my heart “The Beauties of the
Bosphorus.”
CONCLUSION.
“——upon mine honour,
I free you from it. You are not to be taught
That you have many enemies, that know not
Why they are so, but, like to village curs,
Bark when their fellows do.”
KING HENRY VIII.
At this crisis, when both the political and transition state of
Turkey render it a subject of more than usual importance to all who
are interested in Oriental affairs, a work on the Bosphorus would be
incomplete if wanting a record of the most remarkable period of its
modern history, during the presence of the Russian expedition, which
arrived upon its shores in February, 1833; and this I am fortunately
enabled to give through the kindness of a diplomatic friend who was
resident at Constantinople at the time, and who obligingly furnished me
with the very interesting details.
It was known that the Sultan had accepted the offer of Russian
assistance, after having in vain applied to France and England in the
extremity to which he was driven by Mehemet Ali. But the design had been
decidedly disapproved of in a grand council of his people and ministers,
summoned to take it into consideration:—“Were it the English, they might
bid them welcome; but to invite the Muscovite infidel, their bitter and
hereditary foe, was inadmissible; they would rather leave the event to
Providence.” Not so judged the Sultan, who had seen no reason to change
his mind. The battle of Konia was his last cast, and had been lost; he
had no army left, and the people would not fight in his cause; whilst
Ibrahim, at the head of his victorious troops, had advanced to within a
fortnight’s march of the capital, and menaced the throne. The order for
relief from Russia had been despatched by the Envoy, under discretionary
authority from his Court, and never been recalled; a circumstance of
which only a few Europeans were aware, besides the parties to the
arrangement. Various rumours on the subject were afloat, and the public
in anxious suspense, when all doubt was ended by the intelligence that
the Russian fleet had appeared in sight. Hearing the news, numbers of
persons crowded the windows of the houses which commanded a view of the
passage from the Black Sea, whence they could discern one or two large
ships already advanced within the channel, followed by several others,
looming in the distance. The blue cross in a white field soon became
visible, salutes were interchanged with the Turkish batteries, and,
in another hour, a Russian squadron of seven line-of-battle ships was
anchored at Buyukdèrè.
Never before had a naval force visited these waters since they owned the
sway of the Crescent, but what bore its emblem. A single frigate, or,
occasionally, a two-decker, conveying an Ambassador, was admitted as a
favour—their mission being regarded as a tribute to the sublime dignity
of the Porte. Even the English, the heroes of the sea, and countrymen
of Nelson, had, under Duckworth, ventured only in sight of the bristled
walls of Stamboul, but not in reach of their cannon; and the granite
masses launched from the huge guns of the Dardanelles, had taken revenge
on their return for their audacity in forcing an entrance. For nearly
four centuries since its conquest from the Greeks, the Imperial City of
Islamism had not bowed to the dominion of strangers.
The Ghiaours, the fleet of the Muscov Ghiaours, arrived! It seemed
incredible to the astonished and bewildered Turks. They would not at
first believe the assurances of eye-witnesses of the fact; and numbers
ascended the channel, and gazed on the ships, before they were fully
satisfied. “Ah! where are our own that fought so manfully at Navarino?”
some exclaimed. Others, “Why did we not make a stand in defence of our
Sultan and country, when we might have squeezed like paste (as truly they
could) the handful of infidels that crossed the Balkans with Diebitch?”
Mehemet Ali was also a favourite with the populace, and they wished him
success in order to keep out the Russians, with hopes of better fortune
under his command. A Turkish workman standing by as their ships entered,
cast one look at them, and then quietly resumed his labour, with the
ejaculation, “Zavali Mehemet Ali yeldizin caboul edemez;” It was not your
destiny, Mehemet Ali—your star would not permit.
An encampment was ordered for the Russian troops on the hills, on the
Asiatic side, above Unkiar Skelessi,[59] famous afterwards for the
treaty concluded there before their departure; but in the country,
more noted for the delightful valley of the same name to which it is
the landing-place. Mouravieff, the commander-in-chief of the army, was
a bluff, uncouth Russian, who seemed indifferent to intercourse with
strangers, and concerned only with his military duties, taking notice
of no one but to give his orders and receive visitors of rank with a
stiff, formal salute. He scarce felt at ease, more than his soldiers,
as to what part they might have to act, and how the inhabitants would
endure their presence. Strict precautions were taken to keep the men
within their lines, placed where not a hut or human being was to be
seen in their immediate neighbourhood; and the ships in sight, not two
miles distant, with which they could communicate. The Turks, however,
suppressed their indignation, submitting to circumstances which they
could not control, and considering that the strangers had come by the
authority of their Sultan. Their national character, at times furious
and ungovernable on sudden excitement, is tractable under command, and
guided by calm discretion when they have time for reflection; and there
is, perhaps, scarcely an instance of a people entertaining such a rooted
animosity, and restraining it so completely, when thus placed in contact
with the objects of their hate.
The heights soon exhibited a novel and picturesque appearance, dotted
over by the Russian encampment; and some regiments of Turkish guards,
with their circular and blue tents, according to national usage, shortly
after took their quarters a little below, in unwonted fraternity. The
representatives of the other great powers, anxious to see the Sultan’s
new allies dismissed as quickly as possible, made an arrangement in a few
weeks to that effect. It was proposed by the French Ambassador, supported
by the Austrian, under the guarantee of the former, that Mehemet Ali
should accept the terms. Our minister, who was only _ad interim_, of
minor rank, and without instructions, also assisting in promoting a
settlement. The compact, however, was rejected by Mehemet Ali, and
disapproved of by the French government; and although the basis was
far more favourable to the Porte than that of the Convention of Kutaya
afterwards concluded, as Adana and Tarsus were reserved, and Syria only
ceded to the Egyptian chieftain, it was fortunate for the Sultan that
the sailing of the expedition, if ever seriously intended at the time,
did not then take place. A few days before that fixed for the purpose,
news arrived of an event which caused its indefinite postponement, and
superseded all diplomatic combinations.
Smyrna, the second city in Turkey, with a population of 120,000
inhabitants, had withdrawn from its allegiance to the Porte, and under
circumstances, notwithstanding the gravity of the change, perfectly
ridiculous. Ibrahim’s detached parties had already assumed the command
of Magnesia, another city, thirty miles distant; and from thence, three
individuals, the bearers of a pretended letter, with his sanction,
presented themselves to the Governor of Smyrna, requiring him to abdicate
in favour of a successor appointed by their Chief. The Egyptian General,
who had agreed to an armistice until an answer should be received from
his father to the recent proposals, disavowed having sent the summons
when called on for an explanation. It had, however, been immediately
obeyed by the notables of Smyrna, who, when consulted on the occasion,
judged submission to be the most prudent course; and an intriguing
personage of their own body, named Buladauli, who contrived the plot,
was, without a dissentient voice, installed in the Government, like
Sancho Panza in that of Barrataria. The customs and other branches of
the revenue, of which he took possession, showed afterwards by the empty
state of the money chests, deep traces of his ten days’ administration,
for it lasted no longer. As soon as the matter came to be understood,
orders were despatched by the Porte to the legitimate Governor to
resume his functions. On the firman to that effect being read, the
foreign Consuls, who, without instruction, had judiciously declined to
acknowledge the intruder, again hoisted their flags, his mock lordship
decamped, and in the brief space mentioned, a second revolution took
place as tranquilly as the first. No violence or disorder occurred on
either occasion; and the principals in the contrivance having sought
Ibrahim’s protection, no other individual suffered, either at that time,
or since, the slightest molestation for having been its dupes. But the
example must have been dangerous, perhaps contagious, at the capital, on
the first shock, had the Sultan possessed no foreign support. It was at
the option of England to have rendered him the service he then received
from another power; and we may regret to this day that our Government
did not seize the opportunity of securing the lasting advantage to both
countries to which it would have led.
Further reinforcements for the fleet and army next followed from Russia,
accompanied by Count Orloff, as Ambassador Extraordinary, and invested
with the supreme command by sea and land. Shortly before, in March, Lord
Ponsonby arrived to fill his post, and, with his political associate
and colleague, Admiral Roussin, the French Ambassador, saw with great
dissatisfaction this increase of strength, and appearance of a prolonged
sojourn. It was remarked that the Russian ships, in conveying the new
troops to the camp, passed under their Excellencies’ windows at Therapia,
making a sweep, as if for the purpose, before proceeding to the opposite
side. A corvette, armed _en flute_, with her decks crowded, and a band
playing, was particularly conspicuous in paying this compliment; one
of the most unwelcome serenades to which Lord Ponsonby, a thorough
anti-Russian in politics, had probably ever been treated.
From the first entrance of the squadron, there had been abundant firing
of salutes for distinguished visitors; and in mutual courtesy between the
flags of Russia and the Porte, every national anniversary receiving from
both the like honours. But now began the full roar of cannon, till scarce
an hour elapsed but the whole line of the channel re-echoed with the
sound, and as much powder was expended as might have sufficed to decide
the fate of the empire in battle. When the fine season set in, with
calm, cloudless nights, the tones of the Russian sentinel’s challenge,
mellowed in traversing the water to the European shore, fell on the ear
in the stillness with an effect not easy to describe. Again, on the
morrow, recommenced the continuous discharge of artillery from the ships
and forts, as the Sultan, or other high personages, passed in state in
their visits to the military stations. The stirring news and discussions
of the day more seriously occupied the public mind amidst this joyous
show of ceremony and cordiality between the Porte and its allies, since
it was yet uncertain how the event might terminate for the country, and
with whom the sovereignty would remain. From their warlike attitude on
the hills, where they were making additional entrenchments and depôts,
it appeared that the danger for which the Russians had been summoned was
not past, or that they were in no haste to depart. Suspicions were not
wanting that the temptation to keep possession was too strong for them
to resist. But reserve and distrust gradually gave way to more placid
feelings and cheerful prospects; and _fêtes_ and spectacles assumed their
wonted gaiety. Some of the foreign ministers, who had hitherto declined
visiting the camp, attended a grand review, where it was announced that
the Sultan was to be present; and the whole diplomatic corps, invited by
his special desire, came in full pomp to meet his Highness.
He was received with due honours on landing by Count Orloff, and after
consulting his pleasure, aides-de-camp were sent off at full gallop to
form the troops immediately under arms, till then remaining at ease near
their posts. They were placed under the Sultan’s command for the day,
the General-in-chief acting as his adjutant, and repeating the orders
for the different manœuvres, after they had been first submitted to his
approbation. The Sultan, equipped in a splendid military cloak, the
collar ornamented with diamonds, a surtout, light pantaloons, boots,
with massive gold spurs, and a red fur cap, rode through the field on
a noble Arab charger with the ardour of an accomplished horseman, and
the air of a soldier, attended by Orloff and a numerous staff. All the
expertness of Russian tactics was displayed, and men and officers decked
in their best attire; the soldiers, having their mustachoes stiffened
with grease, and their chests thickly padded. The evolutions, performed
with due precision, presented nothing remarkable, with the exception
of one manœuvre, in which two battalions crossed each other’s ranks by
companies, each file spreading a little for the purpose, and the first
battalion occupying the ground from which the former retired. A Russian
officer, standing by, observed, that this manœuvre, which the Turks did
not comprehend, had cost them dear in battle. It is, however, known in
our army, and allows any corps which may be weakened or harassed in
action, or whose services might be more effective at some other point,
to be relieved by an almost instantaneous change, scarce requiring any
additional space, and in no degree deranging the order of the line in
bringing up the reserves.
The extent of the valley afforded more than ample room for the exercises,
and an immense concourse of spectators assembled, of both sexes and of
every nation. The whole scene was, from the circumstances, exciting, far
beyond mere parade, for the Russian force, stated to consist of fifteen
thousand troops, appeared to have been far overrated when their camp was
emptied; and they had, moreover, brought with them but a single troop of
Cossack cavalry, and a very slender train of light artillery.
At the close of the review the Sultan received the staff and the members
of the diplomacy in an adjoining kiosk, the same in which the treaty was
afterwards signed. His position was a trying one for a sovereign, as
he stood in the midst of a foreign soldiery, whom he might consider as
his masters, having accepted their protection against his own subjects.
It was therefore expected that he would appear somewhat subdued on the
occasion,—not such, however, was his bearing; and never did he acquit
himself with more _éclat_. Count Orloff was very remarkable during
the ceremony of audience; a fearless soldier, of massive stature, and
renowned as one of the most powerful men living for muscular strength,
a noble and a courtier; and, still more, he was the generalissimo and
delegate of his Emperor, selected by him, and entrusted with unlimited
powers for this important service; but in the presence of Sultan Mahmoud
he seemed completely overcome by the commanding aspect of the Turkish
sovereign; and his looks and attitude, in tendering his homage, bespoke
that sort of submissiveness and awe which he might himself inspire in
his own humblest dependents. It is this imposing, lofty air, accompanied
by extreme energy of will, which has given to the Sultan the wonderful
ascendant he possesses over the minds of all who surround him. Those who
have been accustomed to intercourse with royalty, and contact with the
most distinguished statesmen and geniuses of their time, speak of the
Moslem monarch as the most remarkable person they have ever seen, beside
whom every other individual sinks into insignificance. A stranger meeting
him _incognito_, would be struck by his appearance, as if denoting a more
than common dignity; and at times, the expression of his countenance
will cause an impression which none other could excite. His features are
manly, though not regular, his cheeks being angular and prominent, and
his complexion is flushed, when he is in exercise, as if from vigorous
health. His person is a little above the middle size, neither spare
nor corpulent, well-proportioned except in the legs, which are bent
slightly inwards from the knee; and his whole appearance much enhanced
by a handsome jet beard, arranged and preserved with special care. In
minute attention to his person and dress he resembles George IV.; but he
is, both physically and mentally, more active than that monarch. While
flattered by the deference he inspires, and the observance of the forms
of devotedness paid to absolute sovereignty in the East, he assumes no
studious gestures, or affectation of majesty. Regality is stamped by
nature on his brow, animating every feature and every movement; and
even on that day, when surrounded by Russian bayonets, and his armies
scattered in the field by a vassal—his spirit remained unquenched—he was
“every inch a king!”
Terms had, meanwhile, been made with Ibrahim, whose army was withdrawn
from Kutuya to Syria; and the Russians, who had only waited for the
intelligence of his having retired within his own boundary, quitted the
country a few weeks after the review. During their stay, they constantly
remained twelve miles distant from Constantinople, which was not even in
sight from their position; and the precautions taken in keeping the men
to their quarters, and the placid temper of the inhabitants, prevented
any squabbles of the least consequence arising between them. Their
semi-barbarism was, however, constantly showing itself to strangers,
in some shape or other. On one occasion, during an inspection of the
troops, the Crown Prince of Bavaria, a tall slim youth, was presented
to the Sultan on the ground. As the concluding ceremony, a soldier of
each regiment advanced singly to his Imperial Highness, and gave the
history of his corps, recapitulating the actions in which it had acquired
its honorary titles. No one offered to explain; but the names of the
places had almost all reference to campaigns in Turkey or Persia, whence
the Sultan could sufficiently understand the drift of an address, not
calculated to revive in his mind any agreeable recollections. It appeared
to me that the mortification was harsh and displaced, if designed to
gratify Russian pride; or very bad taste if it were mere formality. The
artificial step and starched attitude of the soldier in this piece of
acting were highly amusing and ludicrous; not a muscle of his boorish
features changed as he delivered his set speech; after which he presented
arms, turned round, and marched off with the same automaton strut. This
rapidity was more conspicuous in a single individual than when the
men were seen _en masse_, and proved how perfectly Russian discipline
reduced them to mere living machines, guided by an instinctive impulse to
obedience, the character for which this army is justly distinguished. So
severe are the rules, and so rigidly are they observed, that several of
their sentinels perished at St. Petersburg, some years since, during an
inundation of the Neva, from remaining at their post till submerged, when
they could have saved themselves on the first rise of the waters, by a
prompt retreat, which they dared not attempt without receiving orders in
the regular routine.
One of the minor Perote Diplomatists, who had gone _en grande tenue_
to the camp at Unkiar Skelessi, had a soldier assigned to him, in
compliment, as his attendant in taking a survey. By this guide, who
could only speak Russian, not a word of which the other understood, he
was led round their quarters, obliged to listen to long unintelligible
details, till his patience became exhausted, and he made some significant
signs of a desire to depart. But he was a prisoner; for the soldier, who
had received orders to show and to explain to his charge every thing
necessary, fulfilled his instructions to the letter, and detained him
for hours, to complete his office; not sparing an item from the titles
of the colonels, and the distinctions in the colours of each regiment
or battalion, down to the calibre of a howitzer, and the mess in their
kettles, which was not of the most savoury description, consisting of
beans and other coarse vegetables, and sour crout, eaten with black
bread, with the addition of an allowance of fresh meat twice a week. On
this rude fare the men looked prim and hardy enough in their limbs, but
dingy in their complexion, and stunted in size.
One morning in the beginning of July, their tents were struck; ten
thousand troops, with their equipage, reimbarked, and their fleet
advanced before evening to the head of the Bosphorus. A single vessel
was reserved for Count Orloff, who followed the next day, having been
occupied to the last in the settlement of the secret treaty relating to
the Dardanelles, which was signed on the 8th July, 1833. The Russians
came to the Moslem nation as friends, and might have left with the
glory of generosity towards their ally, but for this act of rapacity,
which emulated the prowess of a bird of prey leaving the marks of its
talons on its victim. Orloff had well performed his mission in obtaining
the consent of the Porte to the contract, of which it is believed he
carried the draft in his pocket—giving to Russia the power she had not
attempted to enforce, of closing or opening the passage for ships of war
at her pleasure. Such was the General’s eagerness to arrive, under the
apprehension that affairs might be already so settled as to thwart his
object, that he flew into a violent rage with the captain of the ship
for losing some hours’ way, by mistake, in making the Bosphorus, and
he is stated to have knocked him down on the quarter-deck. Their naval
officers, nettled at this story being made public, denied the concluding
circumstance, but admitted the remainder. Orloff had next a trial of
pride, as well as temper, to undergo, which he is not likely to have
borne with complacency. It happened that both himself and Lord Ponsonby
waited on the Sultan the same day for their introductory audience;
and his Lordship learning that Count Orloff, who had preceded him to
the palace, was to be honoured with the earliest reception, sent in a
message that in such case he would quit the country without delivering
his credentials. They were of equal rank as ambassadors, but the British
envoy asserted his right of precedence from priority of arrival at the
capital, which regulates the etiquette, and carried his point, leaving
the Count to pass the time as he best might, till the ceremony of his own
presentation was ended.
The legitimate line of the Orloffs is extinct, and the name is now borne
by two natural nephews of the famous Prince Orloff, the favourite of
Catherine, and the leader in the conspiracy which deprived the Emperor
Paul of his throne and life. Count Alexis, who figured in the expedition,
owes his honours and favour to the zeal which he displayed in supporting
the reigning Emperor at the time of the insurrection at St. Petersburg,
in December 1826, on his Majesty’s accession to the throne. The brother
of Alexis, who had unhappily connected himself with the revolutionists,
was said, by an English writer, to have obtained a remission of the
severer part of his sentence; but there is every reason to believe that
he continued up to that very period an exile in Siberia, to expiate his
crime. Such is the diversity of fortune, and the extreme of summary
reward and punishment among Russian nobles of the same family at the
present day.
A stone, erected at the foot of their lines, near the sea, commemorates
by a simple inscription of dates in Turkish, the visit of the Muscovite
forces to the Bosphorus; no other vestiges of the event being now
visible, save in the bare and shorn aspect of the hills on which they
were encamped; and, doubtlessly many a longing on their part did that
visit excite for their permanent establishment in a land and climate, so
superior to their own flat and icy regions.
PRINTED BY RICHARD CLAY, BREAD-STREET-HILL.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Pavilions.
[2] Turkish carriages.
[3] Boats.
[4] The smallest actual coin known; twenty of them being only equal to
one penny English.
[5] The City of the Sultan.
[6] The City of the Sultan.
[7] The City of the Sultan.
[8] Coagulated buttermilk.
[9] Pipes.
[10] The Seraglio at the point.
[11] Vassal.
[12] Sovereigns.
[13] Grooms.
[14] Confectioners.
[15] Street-porters.
[16] Literally, “cool drink.”
[17] Blancmange.
[18] Pipe-bowls.
[19] Emperor.
[20] The attempt of the Sultan Selim to organize a regular army had
nearly failed, from the fact of his having named the troops Nizam Djedid,
or the New Regulation, which the present Sultan changed to Nizam Attick,
or the Old Regulation, in order to appease the popular outcry against
innovation; the first murmur being silenced by a declaration that the
force then forming was a revival of that instituted by Solyman I., an
assurance which at once reconciled the people to the change.
[21] Trowsers.
[22] Fate.
[23] Constellation.
[24] Wonderful!
[25] City of the Sultan.
[26] Chaplet.
[27] The height of the mosque to the summit of the dome is one hundred
and eighty-five French feet; the dome itself, from the gallery to the
leads, forty-seven; and its diameter fifty-four.
[28] Ten Pounds sterling.
[29] Virgin.
[30] Robe.
[31] Daggers.
[32] Reader of the Korān.
[33] Professional courier.
[34] Fine.
[35] Archi-Chancellor of the Patriarchate, and Head of the Greek Synod in
1836.
[36] Lady Montagu’s Letters, Vol. I. page 162, Sharpe’s edition.
[37] Dr. Walsh’s Journey from Constantinople.
[38] Interpreter.
[39] A composition resembling blancmange, and very popular in Turkey.
[40] Sour and congealed milk.
[41] Virgin.
[42] Dr. Walsh’s “Residence in Constantinople,” vol. ii. pp. 461, 462.
[43] Professional tale-teller.
[44] Dr. Walsh’s “Residence in Constantinople,” vol. ii. p. 2.
[45] Water-melon.
[46] Scribe.
[47] Literally “black soul”—the acmé of opprobium.
[48] Passport, or safe-conduct, granted by the authorities to travellers.
[49] Ambassador.
[50] Present.
[51] Pliny, lib. vi. cap. 2.
[52] Walsh’s Residence at Constantinople, vol. i. pp. 282, 283.
[53] Daggers.
[54] Public Baths.
[55] The art of painting on glass, or gypsum, is practised in great
perfection at Cairo.
[56] Tales of the Ramad’han, by J. A. St. John, Esq.
[57] The zarf is a small stand, shaped like an egg-cup, and of about the
same size.
[58] Bowl of red clay, frequently gilt, and always beautifully formed.
[59] Literally the Sultan’s pier, whence the plain in the vicinity is
also called the Sultan’s valley.
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