Q^ ^Si la \/7^ ^«;i^ {5).b» ^xanli ^i±fi£x ^icaid CONSTANTINOPLE The Mihrab of the Mosque of jv .. ^cin ^ ^cMia, Showing Pf-rsiar T'Vs CONSTANTINOPLE. BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS, Author oh " Holland," "Spain and the Spaniards." etc. TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTEENTH ITALIAN EDITION BY MARIA HORNOR LANSDALE. ILLUSTRATED. IN TWO VOLUMES Vol. I. THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO, PHILADELPHIA Copyright, 1896, by HENRY T. COATES & CO. y srlp ,^ CONTENTS. PAGE The Arrival 7 Five Hours Later 33 The Bridge 43 Stambul 59 Along the Golden Horn 85 The Great Bazar 121 Life in Constantinople 159 St. Sophia 247 Dolmabaghcheh 279 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOLUME I. Photogravures by W. H. (Jilbo. PAGE The Mihrab of the Mosque of Roustem Pasha, show- ing Persian Tiles Frontispiece. Mosques of Sultan Ahmed and St. SoriiiA 21 View of Pera and (Jalata 29 Ancient Fountain • 39 Bridge of Galata • 45 Fountain of Court of the Mosque of Ahmed .... 05 Burnt Column of Constantine 70 Tower of Galata 90 Panorama of the Arsenal and Golden Horn . . . 105 Date-seller .... 131 View of Stambul, Mosque of ValidSh, and Bridge . KU Serpentine Column of Delphi 1G7 Group of Dogs 170 Types of Turkish Soldiers ISO A Turkish Official 200 TuRBEH OF Sultan Selim II. in St. Sophia 210 Interior of Mosque of Ahmed 227 Entrance and Tower of Serasker 213 5 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Entrance to St. Sophia 249 Fountain of Ahmed 251 Mosque of St. Sophia 255 Interior of the Mosque of St. Sophia 260 First Columns erected in St. Sophia 263 Palace of Dolmabaghcheh 281 Palace of the Sultan on the Bosphorus 296 THE ARRIVAL. THE ARRIVAL. The arrival at Constantinople made such an over- powering impression upon me as to almost efface what I had seen during the previous ten days' trip from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the Bosphorus, The Ionian Sea, blue and unruffled as a lake ; the distant mountains of Morea, tinged with rose color in the early morning light ; the archi- pelago, gilded with the rays of the setting sun ; the ruins of Athens ; the Gulf of Salonika, Lemnos, Tenedos, the Dardanelles, and a crowd of persons and events which had caused me infinite amusement during the voyage, — faded into such indistinct and shadowy outlines at the first sight of the Golden Horn that were I now to undertake a description of them it would be an effort rather of imagination than of memory ; and so, in order to impart something of life and warmth to the opening pages of my book, I shall omit all preliminaries and begin with the last evening of the voyage at the precise moment when, in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, the captain came up to my friend Yunk and me, and, laying his two hands on our shoulders, said, in his pure Palerman 9 10 THE ARRIVAL. accent, " Gentlemen, to-morrow at daybreak we sliall see the first minarets of Stambul." Ah ! you smile, my good reader, you who have plenty of money and are tired of spending it — who, when a year or so ago the fancy seized you to go to Constantinople in twenty-four hours, with your purse well lined and your trunks packed, set forth as calmly as if it were a trip to the country, uncertain up to the last moment whether, after all, it might not pay better to take the train for Baden-Baden instead. If the captain had said to you, " To-morrow morn- ing we shall see Stambul," you would probably have answered, quite calmly, '^ Indeed ? I am very glad to hear it." But suppose, instead, you had brooded over the idea for ten years ; had passed many a winter's evening mournfully studying the map of the East ; had fired your imagination by reading hun- dreds of books on the subject ; had travelled over one-half of Europe merely to console yourself for not being able to see the other half; had remained nailed to your desk for a whole year with this sole object in view ; had made a thousand petty sacri- fices and calculations without end ; had erected whole rows of castles in the air, and fought many a stiff battle with those of your own household ; and finally had passed nine sleepless nights at sea haunted by this intoxicating vision, and so blissfully hap})y as to have a twinge of something like remorse at the thought of all your loved ones left behind ; — then THE ARRIVAL. 11 you would have some idea of the real meaning of tliose words : " To-morrow at daybreak we shall see the first minarets of Stambul ;" and instead of reply- ing phlegmatically, "I am glad to hear it," you would have given a great thump on the bulkhead, as I did. One great source of satisfaction to my friend and myself was our profound conviction that, boundless as our expectations might be, they could not pos- sibly be foiled. About Constantinople there is no uncertainty, and the most pessimistic traveller feels that there, at least, he is safe, since no one has ever been disappointed ; and this, moreover, has nothing to do with the charm of its great associations or the fashion of admiring what every one else does. It has a beauty of its own, at once overmastering and triumphant, before which poets, archeologists, am- bassadors, and merchants, the princess and the sailor, people of the North and of the South, one and all, break forth into loud exclamations of aston- ishment. In the opinion of the whole world it is the most beautiful spot on earth. Writers of travels on arriving there at once lose their heads. Perthu- sier falls to stammering ; Tournefort declares that human language is powerless ; Pouqueville thinks himself transported to another world ; Gautier can- not believe that what he sees is real ; the Viscount di Marcellus falls into ecstasies ; La Croix is intoxi- cated ; Lamartine returns thanks to God ; and all of 12 THE ARRIVAL. them, heaping metaphor upon metaphor, endeavor to make their style more glowing, and search their im- aginations in vain for some simile that shall not fall miserably short of their ideas. Chateaubriand alone describes his arrival at Constantinople with such ap- parent tranquillity of soul as to strongly suggest the idea of stupor, but he does not fail to observe that it is the most beautiful thing in the world ; and if the celebrated Lady Montague, in pronouncing a similar opinion, has allowed herself the use of a, per- haps, she clearly wishes it to be tacitly understood that the first place belongs to her own beauty, of which she had a very high opinion. It is, after all, a cold German who declares that the most beautiful illusions of youth, the very dreams of first love, become poor and insipid when contrasted with the delicious sensations which steal upon the soiU at the first sight of those charmed shores, while a learned Frenchman affirms that the first impression made by Constantinople is one of terror. Imagine, then, if you can, the effect produced by all these impassioned statements on the ardent brains of a clever painter of twenty-four and a bad poet of twenty-eight ! liut still, not satisfied with even all this illustrious praise of Constantinople, we turned to the sailors to see what they would have to say about it ; and here it was the same thing. Or- dinary language was felt })y even these rough men to Itc iii.'ulccpiate, and they rolled their eyes and THE ARRIVAL. 13 rubbed their hands together in the effort to find unusual words and phrases in which to express them- selves, attempting their description in that far-away tone of voice and with the slow, uncertain gestures used by uneducated persons when they try to re- count something wonderful. "To arrive at Con- stantinople on a fine morning," said the helmsman — " believe me, gentlemen, that is a great moment in a man's life.'''' The weather, too, smiled upon us. It was a fine, calm night ; the water lapped the sides of the vessel with a gentle murmuring sound, while the masts and rigging stood out clear and motionless against the sky sparkling with stars. We seemed hardly to move. In the bow a crowd of Turks lay stretched out at full length, blissfully smoking their hookahs with faces turned to the moon, whose light, falling upon their white turbans, made them look like sil- very haloes ; on the promenade deck was a concourse of people of every nationality under the sun, among them a company of hungry-looking Greek comedians who had embarked at Piraeus. I can see before me now the pretty face of little Olga, one of a bevy of Russian children going with their mother to Odessa, very much astonished at my not understanding her language, and somewhat dis- pleased at having addressed the same question to me throe consecutive times without obtaining an intel- ligible answer. Here on one side a fat, dirty Greek 14 THE ARRIVAL. priest, wearing a hat like an inverted bushel-meas- ure, is looking through his glass for the Sea of Mar- mora, and on the other, an English evangelical clergyman is standing stiff and unyielding as a statue, who for three days past has not spoken to a soul nor looked at any one ; near by are two pretty Athenian girls in their little red caps, with hair hang- ing down over their shoulders, who turn simulta- neously toward the water whenever they find any one looking at them, in order to show their profiles, while a little farther off an Armenian merchant is telling the beads of his Greek rosary. Near hira is a group of Hebrews, dressed in their antique costume, some Arabians in long white gowns, a melancholy- minded French governess, and a few of those nonde- script personages one always meets in travelling, about whom there is nothing particular to indicate their country or occupation ; and in the centre of all this mixed company a little Turkish family, consist- ing of a father wearing a fez, a veiled mother, and two little girls in trousers, all four curled up under a tent on a pile of many-colored pillows and cushions, and surrounded by a motley collection of luggage of every shape and hue. How one realized the vicinity of Constantinople ! On all sides there was an unwonted gayety, .and the faces lit up by the ship's lights were all happy ones. The group of children skipjx'd aroiuid their jniUher sljouting the .ancient Russian n.'inu; of Stambul : THE ARRIVAL. 15 " Zavegorod ! Zavegorod !" Passing near one and another of the little groups, I caught the names of Galata, Pera, Skutari, Bujukdcre, Terapia, which acted upon my excited brain like stray sparks from the preliminaries of some grand display of fireworks. Even the sailors were delighted to be nearing a place where, as they said, one forgets, if only for a single hour, all the troubles of life. Among the white turbans in the bow as well there were unusual signs of life : the imaginations of even those sluggish and impassive Mussulmen were stirred as there began to float before their minds the magic outlines of Um- mclunia, "Mother of the World" — that city, as says the Koran, " which commands on one side the earth, and on two, the sea." It seemed as though, had the engine been stopped, the ship must still have gone on, impelled forward by the sheer force of that im- patient longing which throbbed and palpitated from her decks. From time to time, as I leaned over the side and looked down at the water, a hundred differ- ent voices seemed to mingle with the murmur of the waves — the voices of all those who cared for me. " Go," they said, " son, brother, friend ! Go and enjoy your Constantinople. You have well earned it ; now enjoy yourself, and God be with you !" It was midnight before the passengers began to disperse, my friend and I being the last to go, and then with lingering steps. We could not bear to shut up between four walls an exuberance of joy as com- 16 THE ARRIVAL. pared with which the Circle of Propontis seemed narrow and contracted. Halfway down the stair we heard the captain's voice inviting us to come on the bridge the next morning. ''Be up before sunrise," he cried, appearing at the top of the companion- way ; "whoever is late will be thrown overboard." A more superfluous threat was never made since the world began. I did not close my eyes, and I don't believe that the youthful IMuhammad II. on that famous night of Adrianople when he tore his bed to pieces, agitated by visions of Constantino's city, tossed and turned more than did I throughout those four hours of expectation. In order to quiet my nerves I tried counting up to a thousand, keep- ing my eyes fixed on the line of white spray thrown up against my port by the movement of the vessel, humming monotonous tunes set to the throbbing of the engine, but all in vain. I was hot and fever- ish, my breath was labored, and the night seemed endless. At the first glimmer of dawn I leaped out of bed, to find Yunk already up ; we tore into our clothes, and in three bounds were on deck. Despair ! It was foggy. A thick, impenetrable mist concealed the horizon on every side, and it looked like rain ; so the great spectacle of the approach to Constantinople was lost, all our hopes dashed, the voyage, in short, a failure. I was completely stunned. At this moment the captain appeared, wearing his THE ARRIVAL. 17 accustomed cheerful smile. Explanations were un- necessary. The instant his eye fell on us he took in the situation, and, patting me on the shoulder, said, consolingly, " That will be all right ; don't give your- selves the slightest concern. This fog, for which you ought to be very thankful, will help us to make the most glorious entrance into Constanti- nople one could possibly desire. In two hours, you may take my word for it, the sky will be abso- lutely clear." At these brave words my blood began to circulate freely again, and we followed him to the bridge. The Turks were already assembled in the bow, seated cross-legged upon strips of carpet, with their faces turned toward Constantinople. Presently the other passengers began to appear, armed with glasses of all sizes and styles, and took their places, one after another, along the port rail of the vessel, like people in the gallery of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise. A fresh breeze was blowing ; no one spoke, but gradually every glass was levelled upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, where, as yet, nothing could be seen. The fog, however, had lifted so rapidly that it was now little more than a filmy veil hanging over the horizon, while above it the heavens shone out clear and resplendent. Directly ahead of us could be seen indistinctly the little archipelago of the three Isles of the Princes, the Detnomsl of the ancients, Vol. I.— 2 18 THE ARRIVAL. and the favorite pleasure-grounds of the court in the time of the Byzantine Empire, now a popular resort and place of amusement for the people of Constan- tinople. Both shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely hidden. It was not until an hour had gone by that at last there appeared But there is no use in attempting to understand a description of the approach to Constantinople with- out first having a clear idea of the plan of the city. Supposing the reader to stand facing the mouth of the Bosphorus, tliat arm of the sea which separates Asia from Europe and connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora, he will have on his right the continent of Asia, on his left, Europe ; here ancient Thrace, there ancient Anatolia. Following this arm, he will find on his left, immediately beyond its mouth, a gulf, or rather an extremely narrow bay, forming with the Bosphorus almost a right angle, and stretching for some miles into the continent of pjurope, in the shape of an ox's iiorn ; hence the name Golden Horn, or Horn of Abundance, because, when the capital of I5yzantium was here, the wealth of three continents Howcd through it. On that point of land, bathed on the one hand hy the Sea of Marmora and by the Golden Horn on the otlier, on the site of ancient Byzantium, rises, on its Bcvcn hills, Stambul, the Turkish city ; across from THE ARRIVAL. 10 it, on tlie otiior point, washed by the Wcatcrs of the Golden Horn and tlie Bosphorus, lie GaLita and Pera, the Frankish cities ; while on the Asiatic shore, directly opposite the opening of the Golden Horn, Skutari rises from the sea. Thus what is called Constantinople is, in reality, three large cities separated by the sea — two lying opposite each other, and the third facing them both, and all so near together that from each of the three it is possible to distinguish the buildings of the other two nearly as distinctly as one can see across the widest parts of the Thames or the Seine. The point of the triangle occupied by Stambul, which curves back toward the Horn, is the celebrated Cape Seraglio, which con- ceals up to the very last moment, from any one ap- proaching from the Sea of Marmora, the two banks of the Golden Horn ; that is to say, the largest and most beautiful part of Constantinople. It was the captain at last, with his trained sailor's eye, who discovered the first shadowy outline of Stambul. The two Athenian ladies, the Russian family, the English clergyman, Yunk, I, and a number of others, all of whom were going to Constantinople for the first time, had gathered around him in a group, si- lent, absorbed, every eye intent on trying to pierce through the fog, when, suddenly throwing his left arm out toward the European shore, he exclaimed, " Ladies and gentlemen, I see the first building !" 20 THE ARRIVAL. It was a white peak, the summit of some very high minaret whose base remained as yet completely hidden. Immediately every glass was levelled at it, and every eye began to burrow in that little rent in the haze as though trying to make it larger. The ship was now steaming rapidly ahead. In a few minutes an uncertain shape was visible beside the minaret, then another, then two, then three, then many more, which, stretching out in an endless line, gradually assumed the appearance of houses. On the right and ahead of us everything was still con- cealed by the fog. That which was now coming into view was the part of Stambul which extends like the arc of a circle for about three miles, from Cape Seraglio along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora to the Castle of the Seven Towers ; but the Seraglio hill was still invisible. Beyond the houses, one after another, the minarets now flashed into sight, white, hifty, their peaks touched with rose color by the rising sun. Below the houses we could begin to distinguish the dark line of the ancient walls, uneven and tortuous, strengthened at regular intervals by massive towers, their foundations })artially washed by th(! sea-waves, and encircling the entire city. Before long fully two miles of the city lay before us in full view, but, to tell the truth, the sight fvW decidedly sliort of my expectations. It was just here that Lamartine asked himself, '' Can tiiis be Constantino})le V and crii-d, " VViiat a disappoint- , 7, 1 • Mosques of Suitan Anmed ana si. bopnia THE AERIVAL. 21 ment !" The hills being still hidden, nothing was to be seen but interminable lines of houses along the shore, and the city was apparently perfectly flat. " Captain," I too cried, '''■ is this Constantinople ?" The captain seized me by the arm and pointed ahead. " O man of little faith !" said he, ^' look there !" I looked, and an exclamation of amazement escaped me. A shadowy form, vast, impalpable, towering heavenward from a lofty eminence, rose before us, its graceful outlines still partially obscured by a filmy cloud of vapor, and surrounding it four tall and graceful minarets whose peaks shone like >-:ilver as they caught the first rays of the morning sun. " St. Sophia !" cried a sailor, and one of the Athenian ladies murmured in an undertone, " Hagia Sofia !" (Holy Wisdom). The Turks in the bow at once rose to their feet. And now before and around the great basilica were discernible through the fog other vast domes and minarets crowded close to- gether like a forest of gigantic branchless palms. " The mosque of Sultan Ahmed !" cried the captain, pointing ; " the Bayezid mosque, the mosque of Osman, the Laleli mosque, the Suleimaniyeh !" But no one was listening. The mist was now rapidly melting away, and in every direction there leaped into view mosques, towers, masses of green, tier above tier of houses. The farther we advanced, the more the city unfolded before us her charming outlines, irregular, picturesque, sparkling, and tinged 22 THE ARRIVAL. with every hue of the rainbow, while the Seraglio hill now emerged completely from the fog and stood out clear and distinct against the gray mass of cloud behind it. Four miles of city, all that part of Stam- bul which overlooks the Sea of Marmora, lay stretched out before us, her black walls and many- colored houses reflected in the limpid water as in a mirror. Suddenly the vessel came to a standstill. Every one crowded around the captain to know what had happened. He explained that Ave would have to wait, before proceeding any fjirther, until the fog had lifted a little more. And indeed the mouth of the Bosphorus was still completely hidden behind a thick veil of mist. In less than a minute, however, this had begun to disperse, and we were able to move forward, howbcit with caution. ' We were now approaching the hill of the Old Seraglio, and here the general excitement and curi- osity became intense. " Turn your back," said the captain, '' and don't look until we are directly opposite." I obediently did as I was told, and tried to fix my attention upon a camp-stool, which seemed to dance before my eyes. j " Now !" cried the captain, after a few moments, and I spun around. The boat bad again stopped, tliis time; o|)p<)sit(! and very close to the Seraglio, It is a large hill, clothed from top to bottom with THE ARRIVAL. 23 cypress, terebinth, fir, and huge plane trees, whose branches, reaching out across the city-walls, throw their shadow on the water below ; and from the midst of this mass of verdure, separately and in groups, as though dropped at haphazard, rise in a confused, disorderly mass, the roofs of kiosks and pavilions crowned with gilded domes and galleries, charming little buildings of unfamiliar shape, with grated windows and arabesqued doorways, white, small, half hidden, suggesting a labyrinth of avenues, courtyards, and recesses — an entire city enclosed in a wood, shut off from the world, full of mystery and sadness. The sun was now shining full upon it, but above there still hovered a nebulous veil of haze. No one was to be seen, not the faintest sound could be heard. All the passengers stood perfectly mo- tionless, their eyes fixed upon that hill invested with centuries of associations — glory, pleasure, love, in- trigue, bloodshed ; the citadel, palace, and tomb of the great Ottoman monarchy. For a little while no one moved or spoke. Suddenly the first mate called out, " Gentlemen, Skutari is in sight !" Every one turned toward the Asiatic shore, Skutari, the Golden City, barely visible to the naked eye, lay scattered over the summits and sides of her great hills, the morning mist throwing a delicate veil over her radiant beauty, smiling and fresh as though just called into being by the touch of a fairy wand. Who can give any idea of that sight ? The language 24 THE ARRIVAL. we employ to describe our own cities is altogether in- adequate to depict that extraordinary variety of color and form, that marvellous mixture of town and coun- try, at once gay and austere. Oriental and Western, fantastic, graceful, imposing. Imagine a city com- posed of thousands of crimson and yellow villas, thou- sands of gardens overflowing with verdure, a hundred snow-white mosques rising in their midst ; above it a forest of enormous cypresses, indicating the site of the largest cemetery of the East ; on the outer edge huge white barracks, groups of houses and cypresses, villages built on the broAvs of little hills ; beyond them others, again, half hidden in foliage, and over all, the peaks of minarets and summits of domes, sparkling points of light, halfway up the side of a mountain which closes in the horizon as it were with a curtain. A great metropolis scattered throughout «an enormous garden and overhanging a shore here broken by steep precipices, there shelving gently down in green gradations to charming little inlets filled with shade and bloom ; and below, the blue mirror of the Bosphorus reflecting all this splendor and beauty. . As I stood gazing at Skutari my friend touched me on the elbow to announce the discovery of still another city, and, sure enough, turning toward the Sea of Marmora, there, on the saine Asiatic shore and a litth; l)eyond Skutari, lay a long striiif; of houses, mos(pies, and gardens whieli we. had but THE ARRIVAL. 25 lately passed in front of, but which, up to this mo- ment, had been entirely hidden by the fog. With the help of the glass it was now easy to distinguish caf^s, bazars, European-looking houses, flights of stairs, the walls of the market-gardens, and boats scattered along the shore. This was Kadi Keui (Village of the Judge), erected on the ruins of an- cient Chalcedon, the former rival of Byzantium — that Chalcedon founded six hundred and eighty- four years befoi-e Christ by the Megarians, to whom the Delphic Oracle gave the surname of The Blind for having selected that rather than the opposite site, where Stambul is now situated. " That makes three cities," said the captain, checking them off on his fingers as each moment brought a fresh one into view. The ship was still lying stationary between Sku- tari and the Seraglio hill, the fog completely conceal- ing everything on the Bosphorus beyond Skutari, as well as Galata and Pera, which lay directly before us. Boats began to pass close by — barges, steam- launches, sailboats — but no one paid any attention to them. Every eye was glued to that gray curtain which hung over the Prankish city. I trembled with impatience and anticipation. Yet a few mo- ments and there would be unfolded before my eyes that marvellous spectacle which none has liere been able to behold immoved. My hands shook so vio- lently that it was with difficulty I could hold the 26 THE ARRIVAL. glass to my eyes. The captain, worthy man, watched my excitement with keen delight, and, presently clapping his hands together, cried, " There it is ! there it is !" And, true enough, there did at last begin to ap- pear through the mist first little specks of white, then the vague outlines of a lofty eminence, then scattered beams of light where some window caught and reflected the sun's rays, and finally Galata and Pera stood revealed before us — a mountain, a myriad of houses, of all colors, heaped one above another, a lofty city crowned with minarets, domes, and cy- press trees, and towering over all the monumental palaces of the foi'cign ambassadors and the great tower of Galata ; beneath, the vast arsenal of Top- Khaneh and a forest of shipping ; and still, as the fog lifted, more and more of tiic city came into view stretching along the banks of the Bosphorus ; and in bewildering succession there leaped into sight streets and suburbs extending from the hilltops to the water's edge, closely built, interminable, marked here and there with the sparkling white tips of the mosques — line upon line of buildings, little bays, palaces built upon the shore, pavilions, kiosks, gardens, groves ; and, dimly outlined through the distant haze, other suburbs still, their roofs alone distinguishable, all gilded by the sun's rays — a lux- uriance of color, a profusion of verdure, a succession of vistas, a grandeur, a grace, a glory sufficient to THE ARRIVAL. 27 make any one break forth into transports of inco- herent delight. Every one on board, however, stood speechless, staring, with mouth and eyes wide open — passengers, seamen, Turks, Europeans, children. Not a whisper was heard. No one knew in which direction to look. On one side lay Skutari and Kadi Keui ; on the other, the Seraglio hill ; opposite, Gala- ta, Pera, and the Bosphorus. To see it all one had to keep revolving around in a circle like a teetotum, and revolve we did, devouring with our eyes first this and then that, gesticulating, laughing, but speechless with admiration. Heavens above ! what moments in a man's life ! r>ut yet the most beautiful and imposing sight of all was to come. We were still lying stationary off Seraglio Point, and until this has been rounded you caniuit see the Golden Horn or got the most wonder- ful of all the views of Constantinople. " Now, gentlemen and ladies, pay attention !" cried the captain before giving the order to proceed. " This is the critical moment ; in three minutes we shall be opposite Constantinople." I felt myself grow hot and cold. For a moment all was still. How my heart beat ! How feverishly I waited for that blessed word, " Forward !" '^ Forward !" shouted the captain. The ship be- gan to move. On we go ! Kings, princes, potentates, ye great ones of the earth ! at that moment I felt nothing but 28 THE ARRIVAL. compassion for you. All your wealth and power seemed but little in comparison with my place on that boat, and an empire a poor thing to offer in ex- change for one look. A minute passes, then another. We are gliding by Seraglio Point, and see opening before us an enormous space flooded with light and a huge mass of many shapes and colors. The point is passed, and behold ! before us lies Constantino])le — Constan- tinople, boundless, superb, sublime ! The glory of creation and mankind ! A triumph of beauty, far surpassing one's Avildest dreams ! And now, poor wretch, attempt to describe it. Profane with your connnonplace words that divine vision. Who indeed can describe Constantinojile f Chateaubriand! Lamartine? Gautier? What things you have all stannnered and stuttered about it ! and yet no one can resist trying. Words, phrases, comparisons crowd through the brain and drop off the end of one's pen. I gaze, talk, write, all at the same time, hopeless of success, and yet com- pelled to the attem})t by some overmastering in- fluence. Let us see, then. Tin* (Jolden Horn lies directly opposite us like a wide river; on each bank there extends a ridge; upon them stretch two parallel lines of the city, cmbraeing eight miles of hill and valley, bay and pronumtory, a hundred anijihithea- tres of buildings ;ind gardens, an enermeus space ^fi^ mmrf ■ — m^^* ■m it..iS..abv- View of Pera and Galata TlIK AKKIVAL. 29 (lotted over with houses, inosqucs, baz/irs, seraglios, baths, kiosks, of" an infinite variety of eolor and form, and from their midst the s})arkling points of thousands of minarets reaching heavenward like great })illars of ivory ; then groves of cypresses descending in dark ranks from the hilltops to the water's edge, fringing the outskirts, outlining the inlets ; and through all a wealth of vegetation, crowning the heights, pushing up between the roofs, overhanging the water, flinging itself up in radiant luxuriance wherever it can obtain a foothold. To the right, (jalata, her foreground a forest of masts and flags ; above Galata, Pera, the imposing shapes of her P^uropean palaces outlined against the sky ; in front, the bridge connecting the two banks, across which flow continually two opposite, many-hued streams of life ; to the left, Stambul, scattered over her seven hills, each crowned with a gigantic mosque with its leaden dome and gilded pinnacle : St. Sophia, white and rose-tinted ; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six mina- rets ; Svdciman the Great, crowned by ten domes ; the Valideh Sultan, reflected in the waves ; on the fourth hill the mosque of Muhammad II. ; on tlie fifth, that of Sclim ; on the sixth, tlie seraglio of Tekyr ; and, high above everything else, the white tower of the Seraskerat, which commands the shores of two continents from the Dardanelles to tlie Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill of Stambul on the one hand, and Galata on the other, nothing can be distinguished 30 THE ARRIVAL. save a few vague outlines of buildings, faint indica- tions of towns and villages, broken up by bays and inlets, fleets of little vessels, and groups of trees hardly visible through the blue haze, and which ap- pear more like atmospheric illusions than actual objects. How can one possibly take in all the details of this marvellous scene ? For a moment the eye rests upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret close by, but, immediately abandoning it, roams off once more at will into that boundless space of light and color, or scales the heights of those two opposite shores with their range upon range of stately buildings, groves, and gardens, like the terraces of some en- chanted city, while the brain, bewildered, exhausted, overpowered, can Avith difficulty follow in its wake. An inexpressible majestic, serenity is diffused throughout this wonderful spectacle, an indetinable sense of loS-eliness and youth which recalls a thou- sand forgotten tales and dreams of boyhood — some- thing a;erial, mysterious, overpowering, transporting the imagination and senses far beyond the bounds of the actual. The sky, in which are Idendod together tlic most delicate shades of blue and silver, tiirows every- thing into marvellous relief, whih^ the w.ifer, (»1 a sapphire ])lue and dott^'d over with little purple buoys, reflects tlu^ minarets in long trembling lin(>3 of white ; the ciipohis glisten in tlie simlight ; all THE ARRIVAL. 31 tli.'it mass of vegetation sways and palpitates in tlie morning air ; clouds of pigeons circle about the mosques ; thousands of gayly-painted and gilded pleasure-boats flash over the surface of the water ; the zephyrs from the Black Sea come laden with the perfumes of a thousand flower-gardens ; and when at length, intoxicated by the sights and sounds and smells of this paradise, and forgetful of all else, one turns away, it is only to behold with fresh sensations of wonder and amazement the shores of Asia, with their imposing panorama of beauty ; Skutari and the nebulous heights of the Bithynian Olympus ; the Sea of Marmora dotted over Avith little islands and white with sails ; and the Bosphorus, covered with ship- ping, winding away between two interminable lines of kiosks, palaces, and villas, to disappear at last mysteriously amid the most smiling and radiant hill- sides of the Orient. To deny that this is the most beautiful sight on earth would be churlish indeed, as ungrateful toward God as it Avould be unjust to his creation ; and it is certain that anything more beautiful would surpass mankind's powers of enjoy- ment. On recovering somewhat from my own first over- whelming sensations I turned to see how the other passengers had been impressed. Every countenance Avas transfixed. The eyes of the two Athenian la- dies Avcre suspiciously moist ; the Russian mother had, in that supreme moment, clasped her little Olga 32 THE ARRIVAL. to her breast ; even the voice of the icy English priest was now heard for the first time, murmuring to himself, " Wonderful ! wonderful !" The vessel having in the mean time dropped anchor not far below the bridge, we were quickly surrounded by small boats from the shore, which a moment later discharged a rabble of Greek, Arme- nian, and Hebrew porters upon our decks, and these, while anathematizing the aliens from the other world, at the same time took possession of our property and our persons. After making some feeble show of resistance, I shook hands with the captain, gave a kiss to little Olga, and, bidding our fellow-passen- gers farewell, went over the side with my friend, where a four-oared barge rapidly transported us to the custom-house. Thence, after threading a laby- rinth of tortuous streets, we finally reached our (piar- ters in the Hotel de Byzance on the sunnnit of the hill of Pera, FIVE HOURS LATER. Vol. I.— 3 FIVE HOURS LATER. The visions of the morning have disappeared, and Constantinople, that dream of light and beauty, turns out to be a huge city, cut up into a succession of hills and valleys, a labyrinth of human anthills, cemeteries, ruins, and desert-places — a mixture with- out parallel of civilization and barbarism, reflecting' something of every city in the world, gathering within its borders every aspect of human life. That comparatively small part enclosed within the walls forms, as it were, the skeleton of a mighty city ; as for the rest, it is a vast aggregation of barracks, an enormous Asiatic encampment, in which swarms a population of every race and religion under the sun. It is a great city in a state of transformation, com- posed of ancient towns billing into decay, of new ones built but yesterday, and of still others in pro- cess of erection. Everything is topsy-turvy ; on all sides are seen the traces of some gigantic under- taking — mountains tunnelled through, hills levelled, suburbs razed to the ground, great thoroughfares laid out, heaps of stone, and the traces of disastrous tires, portions of the earth's surface for ever under- 3o 36 FIVE HOURS LATER. going some alteration at the hand of man. The disorder and confusion and the never-ending succes- sion of strange and unexpected sights make one dizzy. Walk down a stately street, and you find it ends in a precipice ; come out of a theatre, and you are surrounded by tombs ; climb to the summit of a hill, beneath your feet you discover a forest, while a new city confronts you from some neighboring hilltop ; the street you have this moment left suddenly winds away from you through a deep valley half hidden by trees ; walk around a house, you discover a bay ; descend a lane, farewell to the city : you find your- self in a lonely defile, with nothing to be seen but the sky above you ; towns appear and disappear con- tinually. Tiiey start into view over your head, be- neath your feet, over your shoulder, far off, near by, in sun and shadow, on the tops of mountains and on the shore below. Take a step forward, an immense pan- orama is spread out before you ', backward, and you see nothing at all ; lift your head, and the points of a thousand minarets flash before your eyes ; turn it, and not one is in sight. The network of streets winds in and out among the hills, overtopping ter- races, grazing the edges of precipices, passing be- neath aqueducts, to break up suddenly in footpaths leading down some grassy incline to the water's edge, or else, skirting piles of ruins, meanders .away among rocks and sand to tiii; open country. Here and tluirc FIVE HOURS LATER. 37 the huge metropolis stops, as it were, to take breath in the solitude of the country, then recommences, more crowded, gay, noisy, bewildering, than before ; here it spreads out flat and monotonous, there scales the hillside, disappears over the summit, disperses ; then once more gathers itself together. In one section it ferments with life, noise, movement ; in another there is the stillness of death ; one quarter is all red, another white, a third shines with gilding, a fourth looks like a mountain of flowers : stately city, village, country, garden, harbor, wilderness, market, cemetery, in endless succession, rear themselves, one above another, in such a manner that certain heights command in a single view all the aspects of life which are usually found embraced in an entire prov- ince. In every direction a series of strange and unfamiliar shapes is outlined against the sea and sky, so close together and so indented and broken up by the extraordinary variety of architectural forms that the eye becomes confused and the various ob- jects seem to melt one into another. In among the Turkish dwelling-houses, European palaces rise suddenly up, spires overtop the mina- rets, and cupolas crown the garden-terraces, with battlemented walls behind them ; roofs of Chinese kiosks appear above the fagade of a theatre ; barred and grated harems face rows of glazed windows ; side by side with open balconies and terraces are found Moorish buildings with recessed windows and 38 FIVE HOURS LATER. small forbidding doorways. Shrines to the Madonna are set up beneath Arabian archways ; tombs stand in the courtyards ; towers arise amid the hovels ; mosques, synagogues, Greek, Catholic, Armenian churches, crowd one upon the other, as though each were striving for the mastery, and, from every spot unoccupied by buildings, cypress and pine, fig and plane trees stretch forth their branches and tower above the surrounding roofs. An indescribable architecture of expedients, fol- lowing the infinite caprices of the soil, portions of buildings cut up into sections, triangular, upright, prone, surrounded and connected by bridges, })rops, and defiles, heaped up in confused masses, like huge fragments detached from a mountain-side. At every hundred steps the scene changes. Now you are in a suburb of Marseilles ; turn, and it be- comes an Asiatic village ; another turn, and it is a Greek settlement ; still another, a suburb of Trebi- zond. The language and dress, the faces you meet, the look of the houses in the various quarters, all suggest a different country from the one you have just left ; they are bits of France, slices of Italy, samples of England, scraps of Kussia. One sees de- picted in vivid colors on the great surface of the city that battle which is iiere being waged between the various groups of Christians on the one hand lighting to rcjpossess themselves of, and Jslamisin on the other dtifending with all its remaining strength, Ancient Fountain FIVE HOURS LATER. 39 the sacred soil of Constantinople. Stambvil, once entirely Turkish, is assailed on all sides hy settle- ments of Christians, before whose advance it is slowly giving way all along the banks of the Golden Horn and the shores of the Sea of Marmora ; in other directions the conquest is proceeding much more rapidly : churches, hospitals, palaces, public gardens, schools, and factories are rending asunder the Mus- sulman's quarters, encroaching upon his cemeteries, and advancing from one height to another, until already, on the dismayed soil, there are sketched the vague outlines of another European city, as large as the one now covering the banks of the Golden Horn, and destined one day to einbrace the European shore of the liosphorus. But from such general observations as these the attention is distracted at every step by some fresh object of interest : on one street it is the monastery of the dervishes, in another a great Moorish build- ing, a Turkish cafd, a bazar, a fountain, an aqueduct. In the course of a quarter of an hour, too, one is obliged to alter his gait at least a dozen times. You must descend, mount, climb down some steep in- cline or up by stairs cut out of the rock, wade through the mud and surmount a thousand different obstacles, threading your way now through crowds of people, then in and out among shrubbery ; here stooping to avoid lines of clothes hung out to dry ; at one moment obliged to hold your breath, at the 40 FIVE HOURS LATER. next inhaling a hundred delicious odors. From a terrace flooded with light and commanding a mag- nificent view of the Bosphorus, Asia, and the blue arch of heaven one step will bring you to a network of narrow alley-ways, leading in and out among wretched, half-ruined houses and choked up with heaps of stone and rubbish ; from some delicious retreat filled with verdure and bloom you emerge on a dry, dusty waste littered with d(5bris ; from a thoroughfare glowing with life, movement, and color you step into some sepulchral recess, where it seems as though the silence had never been broken by the sound of a human voice ; from the glorious Orient of one's dreams to quite another Orient, forbidding, oppressive, falling into decay, and suggestive of all that is mournful and depressing. After walking .about for a few hours amid this medley of strange sights, one's brain becomes completely confused. AVere any one to suddenly put the question to you, " What sort of a place is Constantinople f you would only stare at him vacantly, quite incapable of giving any intelligible reply. Constantinople is a Babylon, a world, a chaos. — Is it beautiful? — Mar- vellously. — Ugly? — Horribly so. — Do you like it? — It fascinates me. — Shall you remain ? — IIow on earth can I tell ? Can any one tell how long he is likely to stay on another planet? You return at last to your lodgings, enthusiastic, slisappointccl, enchanted, disgusted, stunned, stupe- FIVE HOURS LATER. 41 fled, your head whirling around like that of a person in the first stages of brain fever. This condition gradually gives way to one of complete prostration, utter exhaustion of mind and body ; you have lived years in the course of a few hours, and feel yourself aged. And the population of this huge city ? THE BRIDGE. ^"41 Bridge of Galata THE BRIDGE. TjiE best place from which to sec tlic population of Constantinople is the floating bridge, about a quar- ter of a mile long, which connects the extreme point of Galata with the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, just below the mosque of the Valideh Sultan. Both banks are European territory, but, notwith- standing this fact, the bridge may be said to connect Europe and Asia, since nothing in Stambul but the ground itself is European, and even those quarters occupied by Christians have taken on an Asiatic cha- racter. The Golden Horn, though in appearance a river, in reality separates two different worlds, like an ocean. European news reaches Galata and Pera, and at once it is in every one's mouth, and circulates rap- idly, fresh, minute, and accurate, while in Stambul it is heard only like some vague, far-away echo ; the fame of worldwide reputations and the most startling events roll back from before that little strip of water as from some insuperable barrier, and across that bridge, daily traversed by a hundred thousand feet, an idea does not pass once in ten years. Standing there, you can see all Constantinople pass 45 46 THE BRIDGE. by in the course of an hour. Two human currents flow incessantly back and forth from dawn to sunset, affording a spectacle which the market-places of In- dia, the Pekin fetes, or the fairs of Nijnii-Novgorod can certainly give but a faint conception of. In order to get anything like a clear idea you must fix your attention on some particular point and look nowhere else. The instant you allow your eyes to wander everything becomes confused and you lose your head. The crowd surges by in great waves of color, each group of persons representing a different nationality. Try to imagine the most extravagant contrasts of costume, every variety of type and so- cial class, and your wildest dreams will fall short of the reality ; in the course of ten minutes and in the space of a few feet you will have seen a mixture of race and dress you never conceived of before. Behind a crowd of Turkish porters, who go by on a run, b(!nding beneath the weight of enormous burdens, there comes a sedan chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, out of which peeps the head