trtglft
 
 Q 
 <s
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMONDO DE AMICIS 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SEVENTH ITALIAN EDITION 
 
 BY 
 
 CAROLINE TILTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1878 
 
 r-
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ARRIVAL i 
 
 FIVE HOURS AFTER 
 
 THE BRIDGE 
 
 STAMBOUL 
 
 Ax THE INN . 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 GALATA 49 
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR . .71 
 
 THE LIGHT 95 
 
 BIRDS 98 
 
 MEMORIALS too 
 
 RESEMBLANCES 102 
 
 COSTUME 104 
 
 THE FUTURE CONSTANTINOPLE 106 
 
 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 108 
 
 THE EUNUCHS 114 
 
 THE ARMY 120 
 
 IDLENESS 127 
 
 NIGHT 130 
 
 LIFE AT CONSTANTINOPLE 132 
 
 ITALIANS . . . , . . . . . . .135
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THEATRES 138 
 
 COOKERY 140 
 
 MAHOMET 144 
 
 RAMAZAN 146 
 
 ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE 148 
 
 THE ARMENIANS 153 
 
 THE HEBREWS 158 
 
 THE BATH 160 
 
 THE TOWER OF THE SERASKIARAT 164 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 167 
 
 SANTA SOFIA 169 
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE 190 
 
 TURKISH WOMEN 206 
 
 YANGHEN VAR , . . 238 
 
 THE WALLS 247 
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO . 265 
 
 LAST DAYS . . .292 
 
 THE TURKS 304 
 
 THE BOSPHORUS 316
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE, 
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 
 
 THE emotion I felt on entering Constantinople, almost ob- 
 literated from my recollection all that I had seen in my ten days 
 voyage from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the Bos- 
 phorus. The blue Ionian Sea, motionless as a lake, the distant 
 mountains of the Morea tinted with rose by the first rays of the 
 sun, the ruins of Athens, the Gulf of Salonica, Lemnos Tenedos, 
 the Dardanelles, and many persons and things that had 
 diverted me during the voyage, all grew pale in my mind at the 
 sight of the Golden Horn ; and now, if I wish to describe them, 
 I must work more from imagination than from memory. 
 
 In order that the first page of my book may issue warm and 
 living from my mind, it must commence on the last night of the 
 voyage, in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, at the moment 
 when the captain of the ship approached me, and putting his 
 hands upon my shoulders, said, " Signori, to-morrow at dawn 
 we shall see the first minarets of Stamboul." 
 
 Ah ! reader, full of money and ennui ; you, who a few years 
 ago, when you felt a whim to visit Constantinople, replenished 
 your purse, packed your valise, and within twenty-four hours
 
 2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 quietly departed as for a short country visit, uncertain up to the 
 last moment whether you should not after all, turn your steps 
 to Baden-Baden ! If the captain had said to you, " To-morrow 
 morning we shall see Stamboul," you would have answered 
 phlegmatically, "I am glad to hear it." But you must have 
 nursed the wish for ten years, have passed many winter even- 
 ings sadly studying the map of the East, have inflamed your 
 imagination with the reading of a hundred books, have wandered 
 over one half of Europe in the effort to console yourself for not 
 being able to see the other half, have been nailed for one year 
 to a desk with that purpose only, have made a thousand small 
 sacrifices, and count upon count, and castle upon castle, and 
 have gone through many domestic battles ; you must finally 
 have passed nine sleepless nights at sea with that immense and 
 luminous image before your eyes, so happy as even to be con- 
 scious of a faint feeling of remorse at the thought of the dear 
 ones left behind at home ; and then you might understand what 
 these words meant, " To-morrow at dawn, we shall see the first 
 minarets of Stamboul ;" and instead of answering quietly, " I 
 am glad to hear it," you would have struck a formidable blow 
 with your closed fist upon the parapet of the ship as I did. 
 
 One great pleasure for me was the profound conviction I had 
 that my immense expectations could not be delusive. There 
 can be no doubt about Constantinople, even the most diffident 
 traveller is certain of his facts ; no one has ever been deceived, 
 and there are none of the fascinations of great memories and 
 the habit of admiration. It is one universal and sovereign 
 beauty, before which poet and archeologist, ambassador and 
 trader, prince and sailor, sons of the north and daughters of the
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 3 
 
 south, all are overcome with wonder. It is the most beautiful 
 spot on the earth, and so judged by all the world. Writers of 
 travels arriving there are in despair. Perthusers stammers, 
 Tournefort says that language is impotent, Fonqueville thinks 
 himseif transported into another planet, La Croix is bewildered, 
 the Vicente de Marcellus becomes ecstatic, Lamartine gives 
 thanks to God, Gautier doubts the reality of what he sees, and 
 one and all accumulate image upon image ; are as brilliant as 
 possible in style, and torment themselves in vain to find expres- 
 sions that are not miserably beneath their thought. Chateau- 
 briand alone describes his entrance into Constantinople with a 
 remarkable air of tranquillity of mind ; but he does not fail to 
 dwell upon the beauty of the spectacle, the most beautiful in 
 the world, he says, while Lady Mary Wortley Montague, using 
 the same expression, drops a perhaps, as if tacitly leaving the 
 first place to her own beauty, of which she thought so much. 
 
 There is, however, a certain cold German who says that 
 the loveliest illusions of youth and even the dreams of a first 
 love are pale imaginations in the presence of that sense of 
 sweetness that pervades the soul at the sight of this enchanted 
 region ; and a learned Frenchman affirms that the first impres- 
 sion made by Constantinople is that of terror. Let the reader 
 imagine the illusions which such words of fire a hundred 
 times repeated, must have caused in the brains of two enthu- 
 siastic young men, one of twenty-four, and the other twenty- 
 eight years of age ! But even such illustrious praises did not 
 content us, and we sought the testimony of the sailors. Even 
 they, poor, rough fellows as they were, in attempting to give an 
 idea of such beauty, felt the need of some word by simile beyond
 
 4 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the ordinary, and sought it, turning their eyes here and there, 
 pulling their fingers, and making attempts at description with 
 that voice that sounds as if it came from a distance, and those 
 large, slow gestures with which such men express their wonder 
 when words fail them. "To come into Constantinople on a 
 fine morning," said the head steersman, "you may believe me, 
 Signori, it is a great moment in a man's life." 
 
 Even the weather smiled on us ; it was a warm, serene 
 night ; the sea caressed the sides of the vessel with a gentle 
 murmur ; the masts, and spars, and smallest cordage were 
 drawn clear and motionless upon the starry heaven j the ship 
 did not appear to move. At the prow there lay a crowd of 
 Turks peacefully smoking their narghiles with their faces turned 
 up to the moon, their white turbans shining like silver in her 
 rays ; at the stern, a group of people of every nation, among 
 them a hungry-looking company of Greek comedians who had 
 embarked at the Piraeus. I have still before me, in the midst 
 of a bevy of Russian babies going to Odessa with their mother, 
 the charming face of the little Olga, all astonishment that I 
 could not understand her language, and provoked that her 
 questions three times repeated should receive no intelligible 
 answer. On one side of me there is a fat and dirty Greek 
 priest with his hat like a basket turned upside down, who is 
 trying with a glass to discover the Archipelago of Marmora ; 
 on the other, an evangelical English minister, cold and rigid as 
 a statue, who for three days has not uttered a word or looked 
 a living soul in the face ; before me are two pretty Athenian 
 sisters with red caps and hair falling in tresses over their shoul- 
 ders, who the instant any one looks at them, turn both together
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 5 
 
 toward the sea in order to display their profiles ; a little further 
 on an Armenian merchant fingers the beads of his oriental 
 rosary, a group of Jews in antique costume, Albanians with 
 their white petticoats, a French governess who puts on melan- 
 choly airs, a few of those ordinary looking travellers with noth- 
 ing about them to indicate their country or their trade, and in 
 the midst of them a small Turkish family, consisting of a papa 
 in a fez, a mamma in a veil, and two babies in full pantaloons, 
 all the four crouched under an awning upon a heap of mat- 
 tresses and cushions, and surrounded by a quantity of baubles 
 of every description and of every color under the sun. 
 
 The approach to Constantinople had inspired every one with 
 an unusual vivacity. Almost all the faces that were visible by 
 the light of the ship's lanterns were cheerful and bright. The 
 Russian children jumped about their mother, and called out the 
 ancient name of Stamboul ; Zavegorod ! Zavegorod ! Here 
 and there among the groups could be heard the names of 
 Galata, of Pera, of Scutari ; they shone in my fancy like the 
 first sparkles of a great firework that was just about to burst 
 forth. Even the sailors were content to arrive at a place where, 
 as they said, they could forget for an hour all the miseries of 
 life. Meantime a movement was perceptible at the prow 
 among that white sea of turbans ; even those idle and impassi- 
 ble Mussulmen beheld with the eyes of their imagination the 
 fantastic outline of Ummelsmia undulating upon the horizon ; 
 the mother of the world ; the " city," as the Koran says, " of 
 which one side looks upon the land and the other upon the 
 sea." The very vessel seemed to quiver with impatience and 
 to move forward of her own will without the aid of her engines.
 
 O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Every now and then I leaned upon the railing and looked at 
 the sea, from which seemed to arise the confused murmur of a 
 hundred voices. They were the voices of those who loved me, 
 saying, " Go on, go on, son, brother, friend ! go on, enjoy your 
 Constantinople. You have fairly earned it, be happy, and God 
 be with you." 
 
 Not until night did any of the travellers descend under 
 cover. My friend and I went in among the last, with slow and 
 reluctant steps, unwilling to enclose within four narrow walls a 
 joy for which the whole circuit of the Propontis seemed insuf- 
 ficient. About half-way down the stairs we heard the voice of 
 the captain inviting us to come up in the morning upon the 
 officers' reserved deck. " Be up before sunrise," he called ; 
 "whichever one comes late shall be thrown into the sea." 
 
 A more superfluous threat was never made since the world 
 existed. I never closed an eye. I believe that the youthful 
 Mahomet the Second, when on that famous night of Adrianople, 
 agitated by his vision of the city of Constantinople, he turned 
 and re-turned on his uneasy couch, did not make so many revo- 
 lutions as I did in my berth during those four tedious hours of 
 waiting ; in order to dominate my nerves, I tried to count up to 
 a thousand, to keep my eyes fixed upon the white water wreaths, 
 which constantly rose around the port-hole of my cabin, to hum 
 an air in cadence with the monotonous beat of the engines ; but 
 it was all in vain. I was feverish, my breath came in gasps, 
 and the night seemed eternal. At the first faint sign of dawn I 
 rose my friend was already afoot ; we dressed in wild haste 
 and in three b'ounds were on deck. Horror of horrors ! a black 
 fog ! The horizon was completely veiled on every side ; rain
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 7 
 
 seemed imminent; the great spectacle of the entrance to Con- 
 stantinople was lost, our most ardent hopes deluded ; our voy- 
 age, in one word, a failure ! I was annihilated. At this 
 moment the captain appeared with his unfailing smile upon his 
 lip. There was no need of speech, he saw and understood, and 
 striking his hand upon my shoulder, said, in a tone of consola- 
 tion, " It is nothing, nothing, do not be discouraged, gentlemen, 
 rather bless the fog, thanks to it, we shall make the finest en- 
 trance into Constantinople that could be wished for; in two 
 hours we shall have clear weather, take my word for it !" I felt 
 my life come back to me. We ascended to the officers' deck ; 
 at the prow all the Turks were already seated with crossed legs 
 upon their carpets, their faces turned toward Constantinople. 
 In a few minutes all the other passengers came forth, armed 
 with glasses of various kinds, and planted themselves in a long 
 file against the left hand railing, as in the gallery of a theatre. 
 There was a fresh breeze blowing ; no one spoke. All eyes 
 and every glass, became gradually fixed upon the northern 
 shore of the Sea of Marmora ; but as yet, there was nothing to 
 be seen. The fog now formed a whitish band along the hori- 
 zon ; above, the sky shone clear and golden, directly in front of 
 us, on the bows, appeared confusedly the little archipelago of 
 the Nine Islands of the Princes, the demonesi of the ancients, a 
 pleasure resort of the court in the time of the Lower Empire, 
 and now used for the same purpose by the inhabitants of Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 The two shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely 
 hidden ; not until an hour had passed, did those on deck behold 
 them. But, it is impossible to understand any description of the
 
 8 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 entrance to Constantinople without first having clearly in one's 
 mind the configuration of the city. We will suppose the reader 
 to have in front of him the mouth of the Bosphorus, that arm of 
 the sea which divides Asia from Europe and joins the Sea of 
 Marmora to the Black Sea. So placed, he has on his right hand 
 the Asiatic coast, and the European shore on his left ; here the 
 antique Thrace, and there the ancient Hanatolia ; moving on- 
 ward, threading this arm of the sea, the mouth, is hardly passed 
 before there appears, on the left, a gulf, a narrow roadstead, 
 which lies at a right angle with the Bosphorus, and penetrates 
 for several miles into the European land, curving like the horn 
 of an ox ; whence its name of Golden Horn, or horn of abun- 
 dance, because through it Cowed, when it was the port of Byzan- 
 tium, the wealth of three continents. 
 
 At the angle of the European shore, which on one side is 
 bathed by the waters of the Sea of Marmora, and on the other 
 by those of the Golden Horn, where once Byzantium stood, now 
 rises upon seven hills, Stamboul, the Turkish city, at the other 
 angle, marked by the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, stand 
 Galata and Pera, the Frankish cities, opposite the mouth of the 
 Golden Horn, upon the hills of the Asiatic side, is the city of 
 Scutari. That then which is called Constantinople is composed 
 of three great cities, divided by the sea but placed the one op- 
 posite the other, and the third facing the other two, and so near, 
 each to each, that the edifices of the three cities can be seen 
 distinctly from either, like Paris or London at the wider parts 
 of the Seine or the Thames. 
 
 The point of the triangle upon which stands Stamboul, 
 bends toward the Golden Horn, and is that famous Seraglio
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 9 
 
 Point which up to the last moment hides from the eyes of those 
 approaching by the Sea of Marmora, the view of the two shores 
 of the Horn, that is. the finest and most beautiful part of Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 It was the captain of the ship, who with his seaman's eye 
 discovered the first glimpse of Stamboul. 
 
 The two Athenian sisters, the Russian family, the English 
 clergyman. Yank atad I, and others who were all going to Con- 
 stantinople for the first time, stood about him in a compact 
 group, silent, and straining our eyes in vain to pierce the fog, 
 when he, pointing to the left towards the European shore, 
 called out, " Signori, behold the first gleam." 
 
 It was a white point, the summit of a very high minaret 
 whose lower portion was still concealed. Every glass was at 
 once levelled at it, and every eye stared at that small aperture 
 in the fog as if they hoped to make it larger. The ship ad- 
 vanced swiftly. In a few moments a dim outline appeared 
 beside the minaret, then two, then three, then many, which little 
 by little took the form of houses, and stretched out in lengthen- 
 ing file. In front and to the right of us every thing was still 
 veiled in fog. What we saw gradually appearing was that part 
 of Stamboul which stretched out, forming a curve of about four 
 Italian miles, upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, 
 between Seraglio Point and the castle of the Seven Towers. 
 But the hill of the Seraglio was still covered. 
 
 Behind the houses shone forth one after another the mina- 
 rets, tall and white, with their summits bathed in rosy light 
 from the ascending sun. Under the houses began to appear the 
 old battlemented walls strengthened at equal distances by 
 1*
 
 IO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 towers, that encircle the city in unbroken line, the sea breaking 
 upon them. In a short time a tract of about two miles in 
 length of the city was visible ; and, to tell the truth, the spec- 
 tacle did not answer my expectation. We were off the point 
 where Lamartine had asked himself, " Is this Constantinople," 
 and exclaimed, " What a delusion ! " " Captain," I called out, 
 " Is this Constantinople ?" The captain, pointing forward with 
 his hand, " Oh, man of little faith !" he cried " look there !" 
 
 I looked and uttered an exclamation of amazement. An 
 enormous shade, a mass of building of great height and light- 
 ness, still covered by a vaporous veil, rose to the skies from the 
 summit of a hill, and rounded gloriously into the air, in the 
 midst of four slender and lofty minarets, whose silvery points 
 glittered in the first rays of the sun. " Santa Sophia f" shouted 
 a sailor ; and one of the two Athenian girls murmured to her- 
 self, " Hagia Sophia ! " (The Holy Wisdom.) The Turks at 
 the prow rose to their feet. But already before and around the 
 great basilica, other enormous domes and minarets, crowded 
 and mingled like a grove of gigantic palm trees without 
 branches, shone dimly through the mist. "The mosque of 
 Sultan Ahmed," called out the captain, pointing ; " the mosque 
 of Bajazet, the mosque of Osman, the mosque of Latili, the 
 mosque of Soliman." But no one gave heed to him any more, 
 the fog parted on every side, and through the rents shone 
 mosques, towers, mosses of verdure, houses upon houses ; and 
 as we advanced, higher rose the city, and more and more dis- 
 tinctly were displayed her grand, broken and capricious outlines, 
 white, green, rosy and glittering in the light. Four miles of 
 city, all that part of Stamboul that looks upon the Sea of Mar-
 
 THE ARRIVAL. II 
 
 mora, lay spread out before us, and her dark walls and many- 
 colored houses were reflected in the clear and sparkling water 
 as in a mirror. 
 
 Suddenly the ship stopped to await the dissipation of 
 the fog before advancing further, which still lay like a thick 
 curtain across the mouth of the Bosphorus., After a few 
 moments we cautiously proceeded. We drew near to the 
 height of the old Seraglio. Then my curiosity became uncon- 
 trollable. 
 
 " Turn your face that way," said the captain, " and wait for 
 the moment when the whole hill becomes visible." After a 
 moment, " Now ! " exclaimed the captain. I turned ; the ship 
 was motionless. We were close in front of the hill. It is a 
 great hill, all covered with cypresses, pines, firs, and gigantic 
 plane trees, which project their branches far beyond the walls, 
 and throw their shadows upon the water, and from the midst 
 of this mass of verdure, arise in disorder, separate and in 
 groups, as if thrown about by chance, roofs of kiosks, little 
 pavilions crowned with galleries, silvery cupolas, small edifices 
 of strange and graceful forms, with grated windows and Ara- 
 besque portals ; half hidden, and leaving to the fancy to create 
 a labyrinth of gardens, corridors, courts ; a whole city shut up 
 in a grove ; separated from the world, and full of mystery and 
 sadness. , 
 
 In that moment, though still slightly veiled in mist, the sun 
 shone full upon it. No living soul was to be seen, no sound 
 broke the silence. We stood with our eyes fixed upon those 
 heights crowned with the memories of four centuries of glory, 
 pleasure, love, conspiracy and blood, the throne, the citadel, the
 
 12 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 tomb of the Great Ottoman Empire ; and no one spoke or 
 moved. 
 
 Suddenly the mate called out ; " Signori, Scutari !" All eyes 
 were turned to the Asiatic shore. There lay Scutari, the golden 
 city, stretching out of sight over the tops and sides of her hills, 
 veiled in the luminous morning mists, smiling and fresh as if 
 created by the touch of a magic wand. Who can express that 
 spectacle ? The language that serves to describe our cities 
 would give no idea of that immense variety of color and of 
 prospect, of that wondrous confusion of city and of country, of 
 gay, austere, European, Oriental, fanciful, charming and grand ! 
 Imagine a city composed of ten thousand little purple and 
 yellow houses, of ten thousand gardens of luxuriant green, of a 
 hundred mosques as white as snow; beyond a forest of enor- 
 mous cypresses, the largest cemetery in the East, at the end 
 immeasurable white barracks, villages grouped upon heights, 
 behind which peep out others half hidden in verdure ; and 
 over all tops of minarets and white domes shining half way up 
 the spine of a mountain that closes in the horizon like a cur- 
 tain ; a great city sprinkled into an immense garden, upon a 
 shore here broken by jagged precipices clothed with sycamores, 
 and there melting into verdant plains doited with spots of shade 
 and flowers ; and the azure mirror of the Bosphorus reflecting 
 all their beauly. , 
 
 While I stood looking at Scutari, my friend touched me 
 with his elbow to announce the discovery of another city, and 
 there it was indeed, looking toward the Sea of Marmora, be- 
 yond Scutari and on the Asiatic side a long line of houses, 
 mosques and gardens, near which the ship was passing, and
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 13 
 
 which had until now been hidden by the fog. With our glasses 
 we could distinctly see the cafes, bazaars, the European 
 houses, the staircases, the walls, bordered by kitchen gardens, 
 and the small boats scattered along the shore. It was Kadi 
 Kioi (the village of the Judges) built upon the ruins of the 
 ancient Calcedonia, once the rival of Byzantium, that Calce- 
 donia which was founded six hundred and eighty-five years be- 
 fore Christ, by the Megarians to whom the oracle of Delphi 
 gave the title of the blind people, for having chosen that site 
 instead of the point where Stamboul stands. 
 
 At last came glimmering through the veil some whitish 
 spots, then the vague outline of a great height, then the scat- 
 tered and vivid glitter of window panes shining in the sun, and 
 finally Galata and Pera in full light, a mountain of many col- 
 ored houses, one above the other ; a lofty city crowned with 
 minarets, cupolas, and cypresses; upon the summit the monu- 
 mental palaces of the different embassies, and the great Tower 
 of Galata ; at the foot the vast arsenal of Tophane and a forest 
 of ships ; and as the fog receded, the city lengthened rapidly 
 along the Bosphorus, and quarter after quarter started forth 
 stretching from the hill tops down to the sea, vast, thickly sown 
 with houses, and dotted with white mosques, rows of ships, lit- 
 tle doors, palaces rising from the water; pavilions, gardens, 
 kiosks, groves ; and dimly seen in the mist beyond, the sun- 
 gilded summits of still other quarters ; a glow of colors, an ex- 
 uberance of verdure, a perspective of lovely views, a grandeur, 
 a delight, a grace to call forth the wildest exclamations. On" 
 the ship every body stood with open mouths ; passengers and 
 sailors, Turks, Europeans and babies, not a word was spoken,
 
 14 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 no one knew which way to look. We had on one side Scutari 
 and Kadi-Kioi ; on the other side the hill of the Seraglio; in 
 front Galata, Pera, the Bosphorus. To see them all one must 
 spin round and round, and spinning throw on every side our 
 hungry eyes, laughing and gesticulating without speech. Great 
 Heaven ! what a moment ! 
 
 And yet the grandest and loveliest remained to be seen. 
 We still lay motionless outside of Seraglio Point, and beyond 
 that only could be seen the Golden Horn, and the most won- 
 derful view of Constantinople is on the Golden Horn. " Gen- 
 tlemen, attention," called out the captain, before giving the 
 order to advance ; " In three minutes we shall be off Con- 
 stantinople." A cold shiver ran over me, my heart leaped. 
 With what feverish impatience I awaited the blessed word, 
 Forward ! The ship moved, we were off! Kings, princes, 
 potentates, and all ye fortunate of the earth, at that moment 
 my post upon the ship's deck was worth to me all your 
 treasury. 
 
 One moment, two, to pass Seraglio Point, a glimpse of an 
 enormous space filled with light and colors, the point is passed. 
 Behold Constantinople ! sublime, superb Constantinople, glory 
 to creation and man ! I had never dreamed of such beauty ! 
 
 And I, poor wretch, to describe, to dare to profane with my 
 poor weak words that divine vision ! W T ho could describe it ? 
 Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Gautier, what have you stammered? 
 And yet imagination and words rush to my mind while they 
 flee my pen. But let me try. The Golden Horn directly be- 
 fore us like a river ; and on either shore two chains of heights 
 on which rise and lengthen out two parallel chains of city, em-
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 15 
 
 bracing eight miles of hills, valleys, bays and promontories ; 
 a hundred amphitheatres of monuments and gardens ; houses, 
 mosques, bazaars, seraglios, baths, kiosks, of an infinite variety 
 of colors ; in the midst thousands of minarets with shining pin- 
 nacles rising into the sky like columns of ivory ; groves of 
 cypress trees descending in long lines from the heights to the 
 sea, engarlanding suburbs and ports ; and a vigorous vegetation 
 springing and gushing out everywhere, waving plume-like on 
 the summits, encircling the roofs and hanging over into the 
 water. To the right Galata, faced by a forest of masts and 
 sails and flags; above Galata, Pera, the vast outlines of her 
 European palaces drawn upon the sky ; in front, a bridge con- 
 necting the two shores, and traversed by two opposing throngs 
 of many-colored people ; to the left Stamboul stretched upon 
 her broad hills, upon each of which rises a gigantic mosque 
 with leaden dome and golden pinnacles; Saint Sophia, white 
 and rose colored ; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six minarets ; 
 Soliman the Great crowned with ten domes ; Sultana Valide 
 mirrored in the waters; on the fourth hill the Mosque of 
 Mahomet Second ; on the fifth the Mosque of Selim ; on the 
 sixth the Seraglio of Tekyr ; and above them all the white Tower 
 of the Seraskiarat which overlooks the shores of both continents 
 from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill 
 of Stamboul and beyond Galata there is nothing but vague 
 profiles to be seen, points of city or suburb, foreshortened 
 glimpses of ports, fleets, groves, vanishing into the azure air, 
 looking not like realities, but visions of the light and atmos- 
 phere. How shall I seize the features of this prodigious pic- 
 ture ? The eye is fixed for one moment upon the nearer shore,
 
 1 6 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret ; but suddenly it darts 
 off into that depth of luminous space towards which fly and 
 vanish the two lines of fantastic cities, followed by the bewil- 
 dered mind of the spectator. An infinite serenity and majesty 
 is diffused over all this loveliness ; a something of youthful and 
 passionate which rouses a thousand memories of tales of en- 
 chantment and visions of spring ; a something airy and grandly 
 mysterious that carries the fancy beyond realities. The misty 
 sky tinted with opal and with silver, forms a background on 
 which everything is drawn with marvelous clearness and precis- 
 ion ; the sapphire-colored sea dotted with crimson buoys gives 
 back the minarets in trembling white reflections ; the domes 
 glitter ; all the immensity of vegetation waves and quivers in 
 the morning air ; clouds of doves hover about the mosques ; 
 thousands of gilded and pointed caiques dart about the waters ; 
 the breeze from the Black Sea brings perfume from ten thou- 
 sand gardens ; and when drunk with the beauty of this Para- 
 dise, and forgetful of all else, you turn away, you see behind 
 you with renewed wonder the shores of Asia closing the pano- 
 rama with the pompous splendors of Scutari and the snowy 
 peaks of Mount Olympus, the Sea of Marmora sprinkled with 
 islets and white with sails ; and the Bosphorus covered with 
 ships winding between the endless files of temples, palaces, 
 and villas and losing itself mysteriously among the smiling 
 hills of the East. 
 
 The first emotion past, I looked at my fellow travellers ; 
 their faces were all changed. The two Athenian ladies had 
 wet eyes ; the Russian in that solemn moment, held the little 
 Olga to her breast ; even the cold English priest, for the first
 
 THE ARRIVAL. \J 
 
 time, let his voice be heard, exclaiming from time to time, 
 *' wonderful ! wonderful !" 
 
 The ship had stopped not far from the bridge ; in a few 
 moments there had gathered about it a crowd of boats, and a 
 throng of Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, who, swearing 
 and cursing in barbarous Italian, took possession of our persons 
 and effects. After a vain attempt at resistance, we embraced 
 the captain, kissed the little Olga, said good-bye to all, and 
 descended into a four-oared caique, which took us to the cus- 
 tom house, from whence we climbed through a labyrinth of 
 narrow streets to the Hotel de Byzantium, upon the top of the 
 hill of Pera.
 
 1 8 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 FIVE HOURS AFTER. 
 
 THE vision of this morning has vanished. The Constan- 
 tinople of light and beaut}' has given place to a monstrous city, 
 scattered about over an infinity of hills and valleys ; it is a 
 labyrinth of human ant-hills, cemeteries, ruins and solitudes ; 
 a confusion of civilization and barbarism which presents an 
 image of all the cities upon earth, and gathers to itself all the 
 aspects of human life. It is really but the skeleton of a great 
 city, of which the smaller part is walls and the rest an enormous 
 agglomeration of barracks, an interminable Asiatic encamp- 
 ment ; in which swarms a population that has never been 
 counted, of people of every race and every religion. It is a 
 great city in process of transformation, composed of ancient 
 cities that are in decay, new cities of yesterday, and other 
 cities now being born ; everything is in confusion ; on every 
 side are seen the traces of gigantic works, mountains pierced, 
 hills cut down, houses leveled to the ground, great streets 
 designed ; an immense mass of rubbish and remains of con- 
 flagrations upon ground forever tormented by the hand of man. 
 There is a disorder, a confusion, of the most incongruous 
 objects, a succession of the strangest and most unexpected 
 sights, that make one's head turn round ; you go to the end of 
 a fine street, it is closed by a ravine or precipice ; you come 
 out of the theatre to find yourself in the midst of tombs ; you
 
 FIVE HOURS AFTER. 1 9 
 
 climb to the top of a hill, to find a forest under your feet and a 
 city on the hill opposite to you ; you turn suddenly to look at 
 the quarter you have just traversed and you find it at the bot- 
 tom of a deep gorge, half hidden in trees ; you turn towards a 
 house, it is a port ; you go up a street, there is no more city ; 
 only a deserted defile from which nothing but the sky is visible ; 
 cities start forth, hide themselves, rise above your head, 
 under your feet, behind your back, far and near, in the sun, in 
 the shade, among groves, on the sea ; take a step in advance, 
 behold an immense panorama ; take a step backward, 
 there is nothing to be seen ; lift your eyes, a thousand mina- 
 rets descend one step, they are all gone. The .streets, bent 
 into infinite angles, wind about among small hills, are raised 
 on terraces, skirt ravines ; pass under aqueducts, break into 
 alleys, run down steps, through bushes, rocks, ruins, sand hills. 
 Here and there, the great city takes as it were, a breathing 
 time in the country, and then begins again, thicker, livelier, 
 more highly colored ; here it is a plain, there it climbs, farther 
 on it rushes downwards, disperses, and again crowds together ; 
 in one place it smokes and is land, in another sleeps ; now it is 
 all red, now all white, again all gold colors, and further on it 
 presents the aspect of a mountain of flowers. The elegant 
 city, the village, the open country, the gardens, the port, the 
 desert, the market, the burial place, alternate without end, 
 rising one above the other, in steps, so that at some points 
 these embrace at one glance, all the diversities of a province ; an 
 infinity of fantastic outlines are drawn everywhere upon the 
 sky and water, so thickly and richly designed, and with such a 
 wondrous variety of architecture, that they cheat the eye, and
 
 2O CONSTANTINOPLE, 
 
 seem to be mingling and twisting themselves together. In the 
 midst of Turkish houses, rise European palaces ; behind the 
 minaret stands the bell-tower ; above the terrace, the dome ; 
 beside the dome, the battlemented wall ; the Chinese roofs of 
 kiosks hang over the facades of theatres ; the grated balconies 
 of the harem confront the plate glass window ; Moorish lattices 
 look upon railed terraces ; niches with the Madonna within, are 
 set beneath Arabian arches ; sepulchres are in the courtyards, 
 and towers among the laborers' cabins ; mosques, synagogues, 
 Greek churches, Catholic churches, Armenian churches, rise one 
 above the other, amid a confusion of vanes, cypresses, umbrella 
 pines, fig and plane trees, that stretch their branches over the 
 roofs, an indescribable architecture, apparently of expediency, 
 lends itself to the caprices of the ground, with a crowd of houses 
 cut into points, in the form of triangular towers, of erect and 
 overturned pyramids, surrounded with bridges, ditches, props, 
 gathered together like the broken fragments of a mountain. 
 
 At every hundred paces all is changed. Here you are in a 
 suburb of Marseilles, and it is an Asiatic village ; again, a 
 Greek quarter ; again, a suburb of Trebizond. By the tongues, 
 by the faces, by the aspect of the houses, you recognize that the 
 country is changed. There are points of France, strips of 
 Italy, fragments of England, relics of Russia. Upon the im- 
 mense fafade of the city is represented in architecture, and in 
 columns, the great struggle that is being fought out, between 
 the Christians that reconquer and the children of Islam, that 
 defend with all their strength, the sacred soil. Stamboul, once 
 a Turkish city only, is now assailed on every side by Christian 
 quarters, which slowly eat into it along the shores of the
 
 FIVE HOURS AFTER. 21 
 
 Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora ; on the other side the 
 conquest proceeds with fury ; churches, palaces, hospitals, pub- 
 lic gardens, factories, schools, are crushing the Mussulman 
 quarters, overwhelming the cemeteries, advancing from hill to 
 hill, and already vaguely designing upon the distracted land 
 the outlines of a great city, that will one day cover the Euro- 
 pean shore of the Bosphorus, as Stamboul now covers the shore 
 of the Golden Horn. 
 
 But from these general observations the mind is constantly 
 distracted by a thousand new things ; there is a convent of 
 Dervishes in one street, a Moorish barrack in another, and 
 Turkish cafes, bazaars, fountains, aqueducts, at every turn. 
 In one quarter of an hour you must change your manner of 
 proceeding ten times. You go down, you climb up, you jump 
 down a declivity, ascend a stone staircase, sink in the mud and 
 clamber over a hundred obstacles, make your way now through 
 the crowd, now through the bushes, now. through a forest of 
 rags hung out, now you hold your nose, and anon breathe 
 waves of perfumed air. From the glowing light of an elevated 
 open space whence can be seen the Bosphorus, Asia, and the 
 infinite sky, you drop by a few steps into the gloom and obscu- 
 rity of a network of alleys, flanked by houses falling to ruin, 
 and strewn with stones like the bed of a rivulet. From the 
 fresh and perfumed shade of trees, into suffocating dust and 
 overpowering sun ; from places full of noise and color, into 
 sepulchral recesses, where a human voice is never heard ; 
 from the divine Orient of our dreams, into another Orient, 
 gloomy, dirty, decrepit, that gradually takes possession of the 
 imagination. After a few hours spent in this way, should any
 
 2 2 COATS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 one suddenly ask what is Constantinople like ? You could only 
 strike your hand upon your forehead, and try to still the tem- 
 pest of thoughts. Constantinople is a Babylon, a world, a 
 chaos. Beautiful? wonderfully beautiful. Ugly? It is horri- 
 ble ! Did you like it ? madly. Would you live in it ? How 
 can I tell ! who could say that he would willingly live in 
 another planet ? You go back to your inn, full of enthusiasm, 
 and disgust ; bewildered, delighted, and with your head whirl- 
 ing, as if cerebral congestion had begun, and your agitation 
 gradually quiets down into a profound prostration and mortal 
 tedium. You have lived through several years in a few hours 
 and feel old and exhausted.
 
 THE BRIDGE. 2$ 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 To see the population of Constantinople, it is well to go 
 upon the floating bridge, about one-quarter of a mile in length, 
 which extends from the most advanced point of Galata to the 
 opposite shore of the Golden Horn, facing the great mosque 
 of the Sultana Valide. Both shores are European territory ; 
 but the bridge may be said to connect Asia to Europe because 
 in Stamboul there is nothing European save the ground, and 
 even the Christian suburbs that crown it are of Asiatic char- 
 acter and color. The Golden Horn, which has the look of a 
 river, separates two worlds, like the ocean. 
 
 The news of events in Europe which circulates in Galata 
 and Pera clearly and minutely, and much discussed, arrives on 
 the other shore confused and garbled, like a distant echo ; 
 the fame of great men and great things in the west are stopped 
 by that narrow water as by an inseparable barrier; and over 
 that bridge, where every day a hundred thousand people pass, 
 not one idea passes in ten years. 
 
 Standing there, one can see all Constantinople go by in an 
 hour. There are two exhaustless currents of human beings 
 that meet and mingle forever from the rising of the sun until 
 his setting, presenting a spectacle before which the market- 
 places of India, the fair of Nijui-Novgorod, and the festivals of 
 Pekin grow pale. To see anything at all, one must choose a
 
 24 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 small portion of ihe bridge and fix his eyes on that alone, other- 
 wise in the attempt to see all, one sees nothing. The crowd 
 passes in great waves, each one of which is of a hundred colors, 
 and every group of persons represent a new type of people. 
 Whatever can be imagined that is most ektravagant in type, 
 costume, and social class may there be seen within the space of 
 twenty paces and ten minutes of time. Behind a throng of 
 Turkish porters who pass running, and bending under enormous 
 burdens, advances a sedan-chair, inlaid with ivory and mother 
 of pearl, and bearing an Armenian lady ; and at either side of 
 it a Bedouin wrapped in a white mantle and a Turk in muslin 
 turban and sky-blue caftan, beside whom canters a young 
 Greek gentleman followed by his dragoman in embroidered 
 vest, and a dervise with his tall conical hat and tunic of camel's 
 hair, who makes way for the carriage of a European ambassa- 
 dor, preceded by his running footman* in gorgeous livery. All 
 this is only seen in a glimpse, and the next moment you find 
 yourself in the midst of a crowd of Persians, in pyramidal bon- 
 nets of Astrakan fur, who are followed by a Hebrew in a long 
 yellow coat, open at the sides ; a frowzy-headed gypsy woman 
 with her child in a bag at her back ; a Catholic priest with 
 breviary staff; while in the midst of a confused throng of 
 Greeks, Turks, and Armenians comes a big eunuch on horse- 
 back, crying out, Larya ! (make way !) and preceding a 
 Turkish carriage, painted with flowers and birds, and filled with 
 the ladies of a harem, dressed in green and violet, and wrapped 
 in large white veils ; behind a Sister of Charity from the hos- 
 pital at Pera, an African slave carrying a monkey, and a pro- 
 
 * Batistrada.
 
 THE BRIDGE. 2$ 
 
 fessional story-teller in a necromancer's habit, and what is quite 
 natural, but appears strange to the new comer, all these diverse 
 people pass each other without a look, like a crowd in London ; 
 and not one single countenance wears a smile. The Albanian 
 in his white petticoat and with pistols in his sash, beside the 
 Tartar dressed in sheepskins ; the Turk, astride of his capar- 
 isoned ass, threads pompously two long strings of camels; 
 behind the adjutant of an imperial prince, mounted upon his 
 Arab steed, datters a cart filled with all the odd domestic rub- 
 bish of a Turkish household ; the Mahometan woman a-foot, 
 the veiled slave woman, the Greek with her red cap, and her 
 hair on her shoulders, the Maltese hooded in her black faldetta, 
 the Hebrew woman dressed in the antique costume of India, 
 the negress wrapped in a many-colored shawl from Cairo, the 
 Armenian from Trebizond, all veiled in black like a funeral 
 apparition, are seen in single file, as if placed there on purpose, 
 to be contrasted with each other. 
 
 It is a changing mosaic of races and religions that is com- 
 posed and scattered continually with a rapidity that the eye 
 can scarcely follow. It is amusing to look only at the passing 
 feet and see all the foot-coverings in the world go by, from 
 that of Adam up to the last fashion in Parisian boots yellow 
 Turkish babouches, red Armenian, blue Greek and black Jew- 
 ish shoes ; sandals, great boots from Turkestan, Albanian 
 gaiters, low cut slippers, leg-pieces of many colors, belonging 
 to horsemen from Asia Minor, gold embroidered shoes, 
 Spanish alporgatos, shoes of satin, of twine, of rags, of wood, so 
 many, that while you look at one you catch a glimpse of a 
 hundred more. One must be on the alert not to be jostled- 
 2
 
 26 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 and overthrown at every step. Now it is a water-carrier with a 
 colored jar upon his back; now a Russian lady on horseback, 
 now a squad of Imperial soldiers in zouave dress, and step- 
 ping as if to an assault ; now a crew of Armenian porters, two 
 and two, carrying on their shoulders immense bars, from which 
 are suspended great bales of merchandise ; and now a throng 
 of Turks who dart from left to right of the bridge to embark in 
 the steamers that lie there. There is a tread of many feet, a 
 murmuring, a sound of voices, guttural notes, aspirations inter- 
 jectional, incomprehensible and strange, among which the few 
 French or Italian words that reach the ear seem like luminous 
 points upon a black darkness. The figures that most attract 
 the eye in all this crowd are the Circassians, who go in groups 
 of three and five together, with slow steps ; big bearded men 
 of a terrible countenance, wearing bear-skin caps like the old 
 Napoleonic Guard, long black caftans, daggers at their girdles, 
 and sil'ver cartridge-boxes on their breasts ; real figures of ban- 
 ditti, who look as if they had come to Constantinople to sell a 
 daughter or a sister with their hands embrued in Russian 
 blood. Then the Syrians, with robes in the form of Byzantine 
 dalmatic, and their heads enveloped in gold-striped handker- 
 chiefs ; Bulgarians, dressed in coarse serge, and caps encircled 
 with fur; Georgians in hats of varnished leather, their tunics 
 bound round the waist with metal girdles ; Greeks from the 
 Archipelago, covered from head to foot with embroidery, tas- 
 sels and shining buttons. 
 
 From time to time the crowd slackens a little ; but in- 
 stantly other groups advance, waving with red caps and white 
 turbans, amid which the cylindrical hats, umbrellas and pyra-
 
 THE BRIDGE. 2/ 
 
 midal head-dresses of Europeans, male and female, seem to float 
 borne onward by that Mussulman torrent. It is amazing even 
 to note the variety of religions. 
 
 The shining bald head of the Capuchin friar, the towering 
 janissary turban of an Ulema, alternate with the black veil of 
 an Armenian priest, Imaums with white tunics, veiled nuns, 
 chaplains of the Turkish army, dressed in green, with sabres at 
 their side, Dominican friars, pilgrims returned from Mecca with 
 a talisman hanging at their necks, Jesuits, Dervises, and this is 
 very strange, Dervises that tear their own flesh in expiation of 
 their sins, and cross the bridge under a sun-umbrella, all pass 
 by. If you are attentive, you may notice in the throng, a thou- 
 sand amusing incidents. Here it is a eunuch, showing the 
 white of his eye at a Christian exquisite, who has glanced too 
 curiously into the carriage of his mistress ; there is a French 
 cocotte, dressed after the last fashion plate, leading by the hand 
 the begloved and bejewelled son of a pacha ; or a lady of 
 Stamboul, feigning to adjust her veil that she may peer more 
 easily at the train of a lady of Pera; or a sergeant of cavalry 
 in full uniform, stopping in the middle of the bridge to blow his 
 nose with his fingers in a way to give one a cold chill ; or a 
 quack, taking his last sous from some poor devil, and making a 
 cabalistic gesture over his face, to cure him of sore eyes ; or a 
 family of travellers arrived that day, and lost in the midst of a 
 throng of Asiatic ruffians, while the mother searches for her 
 crying children, and the men make way for them by dint of 
 squaring their shoulders. Camels, horses, sedan-chairs, oxen, 
 carts, casks on wheels, bleeding donkeys, mangy dogs, form a 
 long: file that divides the crowd in half.
 
 28 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Sometimes there passes a mighty pasha with three tails, 
 lounging in a splendid carriage followed by his pipe-bearer on 
 foot, his guard and one black slave, and then all the Turks 
 salute, touching the forehead and breast, and the mendicant 
 women, horrible witches, with muffled faces and naked breasts, 
 run after the carriage crying for charity. Eunuchs not on service 
 pass in twos and threes and fives together, cigarette in mouth ; 
 and are recognized by their corpulence, their long arms, and 
 their black habits. Little Turkish girls dressed like boys, in 
 green full trousers and rose or yellow vests, run and jump with 
 feline agility, making way for themselves with their henna- 
 tinted hands. Boot-blacks with gilded boxes, barbers with 
 bench and basin in hand, sellers of water and sweetmeats cleave 
 the press in every direction, screaming in Greek and Turkish. 
 At every step comes glittering a military division, officers in 
 fez and scarlet trousers, their breasts constellated with medals ; 
 grooms from the Seraglio, looking like generals of the army, 
 gendarmes, with a whole arsenal at their belts ; zeibecks, or 
 free soldiers, with those enormous baggy trousers, that make 
 them resemble in profile, the Hottentot Venus ; imperial guards 
 with long white plumes upon their casques and gold-bedizened 
 breasts ; city guards of Constantinople ; guards as one might 
 say, required to keep back the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. 
 The contrasts between all this gold and all those rags, between 
 people loaded down with garments, looking like walking bazaars, 
 and people almost naked, are most extraordinary. The spec- 
 tacle of so much nudity is alone a wonder. Here are to be 
 seen all shades of skin-colors, from the milky whiteness of 
 Albania, to the crow blackness of Central Africa and the
 
 THE BRIDGE. 2g 
 
 bluish-blackness of Darfur ; chests that if you struck upon 
 them, would resound like a huge bass, or rattle like pot- 
 tery ; backs, oily, stony, full of wrinkles, and hairy like the 
 back of a wild boar ; arms, embossed with red and blue, and 
 decorated with designs of flowers and inscriptions from the 
 Koran. But it is not possible to observe all this in one's first 
 passage over the bridge. While you are examining the tattoo 
 on an arm, your guide warns you that a Wallachian, a Servian, 
 a Montenegrin, a Cossack of the Don, a Cossack of Ukraine, 
 an Egyptian, a native of Tunis, a prince of Imerezia is passing 
 by. It seems that Constantinople is the same as it always 
 was ; the capital of three continents, and the queen of twenty 
 vice realms. But even this idea is insufficient to account for 
 the spectacle, and one fancies a tide of emigration, produced 
 by some enormous cataclysm, that has overturned the antique 
 continent. 
 
 An experienced eye discerns still among the waves of that 
 great sea, the faces and costumes of Caramania and Anatolia, 
 of Cyprus and Candia, of Damascus and Jerusalem, the 
 Druse, the Kurd, the Maronite, the Croat, and others, innu- 
 merable varieties of all the anarchical confederations which ex- 
 tend from the Nile to the Danube, and from the Euphrates to 
 the Adriatic. Seekers after the beautiful or the horrible will 
 here find their most audacious desires fulfilled ; Raphael would 
 be in ecstacies, and Rembrandt would tear his hair. The 
 purest types of Greek and Caucasian beauty are mingled with 
 flat noses and woolly heads ; queens and fairies pass beside 
 you ; lovely faces, and faces deformed by disease and wounds ; 
 monstrous feet, and tiny Circassian feet no longer than your
 
 3O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 hand, gigantic porters, enormously corpulent Turks, and black 
 sticks of skeleton shadows of men that fill you with pity and 
 disgust ; every strangest aspect in which can be presented the 
 ascetic life, the abuse of pleasure, extreme fatigue, the excess 
 of opulence, and the misery that kills. Who loves colors may 
 here have his fill. No two figures are dressed alike. Here 
 are shawls twisted around the head, savage fillets, coronets of 
 rags, skirts and under-vests in stripes and squares like harle- 
 quins, girdles stuck full of knives that reach to the arm-pits, 
 Mameluke trousers, short drawers; skirts, togas, trailing sheets, 
 coats trimmed with ermine, vests like golden cuirasses, sleeves 
 puffed and slashed, habits monkish and habits covered with 
 gold lace, men dressed like women, and women that look like 
 men j beggars with the port of princes, a ragged elegance, a 
 profusion of colors, of fringes, tags, and fluttering ends of child- 
 ish and theatrical decorations, that remind one of a masquerade 
 in a mad -house, for which all the old-clothes dealers in the 
 universe have emptied their stores. Above the hollow murmur 
 that comes from this multitude, are heard the shrill cries of the 
 sellers of newspapers in every tongue ; the stentorian shout of 
 the porters, the giggling laugh of Turkish women, the squeak- 
 ing voices of eunuchs, the falsetto trill of blind men chanting 
 verses of the Koran, the noise of the bridge as it moves upon 
 the water, the whistles and bells of a hundred steamers, whose 
 dense smoke is often beaten down by the wind so that you can 
 see nothing at all. All this masquerade of people embarks in 
 the small steamboats that leave every moment for Scutari, for 
 the villages on the Bosphorus, and the suburbs of the Golden 
 Horn ; they spread through Stamboul, in the bazaars, in the
 
 THE BRIDGE. 31 
 
 mosques, in the suburbs of Fanar and Balata, to the most dis- 
 tant quarters on the Sea of Marmora ; they swarm upon the 
 Frankish shore, to the right towards the sultan's palace, to the 
 left, towards the higher quarters of Pera, from whence they 
 fall again upon the bridge by the innumerable lanes that wind 
 about the sides of the hills ; and thus they bind together Asia 
 and Europe, ten cities and a hundred suburbs, in one mighty 
 net of labor, intrigue and mystery, before which the mind be- 
 comes bewildered. It would seem that the spectacle should 
 be a pleasing one ; but it is not so. The first amazement over, 
 the festive colors fade ; it is no longer a grand carnival pro- 
 cession that is passing; it is humanity itself filing by with all 
 its miseries and follies, with all the infinite discord of its beliefs, 
 and its laws ; it is a pilgrimage of a debased people and a fallen 
 race ; an immensity of suffering to be helped, of shame to be 
 washed out, of chains to be broken : an accumulation of tre- 
 mendous problems written in characters of blood, which can 
 only be solved by torrents of blood ; and it is all horribly sad. 
 And then the sense of curiosity is rather blunted than satisfied 
 by this endless variety of strange objects. What extraordinary 
 evolutions occur in the human soul ! A quarter of an hour had 
 not passed after my arrival on the bridge when I was abstract- 
 edly drawing arabesques with my pencil upon a beam and 
 thinking to myself between two yawns, that there was some 
 truth in Madame de Stael's famous sentence " travelling is the 
 most melancholy of amusements."
 
 32 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 STAMBOUL. 
 
 To recover from this condition of amazement, one has only 
 to dive into one of the thousand alleys that wind about the 
 flanks of the hills of StambouL Here there reigns profound 
 peace, and here can be contemplated in tranquillity every aspect 
 of that mysterious and jealous East, which on the other side of 
 the Golden Horn is only seen in fugitive glimpses, amidst the 
 noisy confusion of European life. Here everything is strictly 
 Oriental. After a quarter of an hour's ramble, you have seen 
 no one, and heard not a sound. The houses on either side 
 are all of wood, painted in different colors, their upper stories 
 projecting over the lower ; and the windows protected in front 
 by a sort of grated gallery, and closed by small wooden lat- 
 tices, giving to the street a singular aspect of mystery and 
 gloom. In some places the streets are so narrow that the 
 projecting parts of opposite houses almost touch each other, 
 and you may walk for a long distance under the shadow of 
 these human cages, and under the very feet of the Turkish 
 women, who pass the greater part of the day seeing only one 
 thin strip of sky. The doors are all closed, the windows o( 
 the ground floor grated ; everything betrays jealousy and sus- 
 picion ; it is like going through a city of monasteries. Sud- 
 denly you hear a laugh, and raising your eyes, catch a glimpse 
 through some small aperture, of a tress of hair and a sparkling
 
 STAMBOUL. 33 
 
 eye that instantly disappear. Here and there you may sur- 
 prise a lively, low-voiced conversation going on across the 
 street, but it ceases at once, at the noise of footsteps. Who 
 knows what network of gossip and intrigue you may have 
 momentarily disturbed. You see no one, but a thousand eyes 
 see you ; you are alone, but you feel as if you were surrounded 
 by a crowd ; and involuntarily you lighten your step, and cast 
 down your eyes, as if wishing to pass unobserved. An opening 
 door or the sound of a closing lattice, startles you lilce a loud 
 noise. The street seems to promise nothing of amusing or 
 interesting ; but in a moment you see a green grove with a 
 white minaret darting from the midst of it ; a Turk dressed in 
 red coming toward you; a black woman slave standing in a 
 door-way ; a Persian carpet hanging from a window, and each 
 forms a picture so full of life and harmony, that you could look 
 at it for an hour. Of the few people who pass you by, not one 
 looks at you. Only now and then a voice at your shoulder calls 
 out giaour ! (infidel) and turning, you see a boy just disap- 
 pearing round a corner. Sometimes you see the door of a 
 house open, and you stop short, expecting to behold some 
 beauty of the harem, when out trips an European lady in full 
 Russian costume, who with a murmured adieu, or au revoir, 
 walks quickly away, leaving you with eyes and mouth wide 
 open. In another street, quite Turkish and completely silent, 
 you are startled by the sound of a horn, and the trampling feet 
 of horses ; you turn, and can hardly believe your eyes. An om- 
 nibus of large dimensions, rolling forward on two iron rails, 
 that had escaped your notice, and full of Turks and Franks, 
 with its conductor in uniform, and its placards with the tariff 
 2*
 
 34 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 like a tramway of Paris or New York. The astounding nature 
 of such an apparition in one of these streets is not one to be 
 expressed in words ; it seems- an immense joke, and you look 
 at the familiar vehicle as if you had never seen one before. 
 Some of these solitary streets open into squares, shaded by one 
 great plane tree. On one side there is a fountain, where camels 
 are drinking ; on the other a cafe, with a row of mattresses 
 before the door, and some Turks reclining, smoking ; close by, 
 a monstrous fig-tree, embraced by a vine whose branches bend 
 nearly to the ground, showing between their leaves, the distant 
 azure of the Sea of Marmora, with two or three white sails. A 
 glowing white light and a mortal silence invest these places 
 with so solemn and melancholy a character, that they are never 
 to be forgotten, though seen but once. Onward you go, drawn 
 as by some hidden charm in the quiet, which enters little by 
 little into the soul, and steeps it in dreamy reverie, and after a 
 little all sense of time and distance is lost. You come to vast 
 spaces with traces of a recent conflagration ; declivities with a 
 few houses scattered here and there, the grass growing about 
 them and great paths winding among them ; high points, from 
 which the eye embraces streets, alleys, gardens, hundreds of 
 houses, and nowhere any human creature, nor smoke arising, 
 nor open door, nor the least trace of life ; so that you might 
 fancy yourself alone in that immense city, and you feel a shiver 
 of terror at the thought. But, descend the slope, arrive at the 
 end of these narrow streets, and all is changed. You are in 
 one of the great thoroughfares of Stamboul, flanked by monu- 
 ments of the most magnificent character. You walk in the 
 midst of mosques, kiosks, minarets, arched galleries, fountains in
 
 STAMBOUL. 35 
 
 marble and lapis-lazuli, mausoleums of departed sultans, re- 
 splendent with arabesques and gold inscriptions, walls covered 
 with mosaics ; under roofs of carved cedar wood, in the shadow 
 of a luxuriant vegetation, that overtops the walls and gilded 
 railings of the gardens, and fills the air with perfume. At 
 every step you meet the carriages of pashas, officers, aid-de- 
 camps, eunuchs of great houses, a procession of servants and 
 parasites that comes and goes between the different ministries. 
 Here you recognize the metropolis of a great empire in all its 
 magnificence and power. There is a grace of architecture, a 
 murmur of water, a freshness of shade, which caress the senses 
 like soft music, and fill the mind with smiling images. By 
 these streets shall you reach the great squares where the Imperial 
 mosques are situated, and you stand amazed before them. 
 Each one of these forms, as it were, the nucleus of a small 
 city of colleges, hospitals, schools, libraries, shops, baths, that 
 almost pass unnoticed, shadowed as they are by the enormous 
 dome that overtops them. 
 
 The architecture, which you had imagined to be very simple, 
 presents instead an extraordinary variety of detail that attracts 
 the eye on every side. Here are domes covered with lead, 
 strangely formed roofs that rise one above the other, aerial gal- 
 leries, enormous porticoes, windows with columns, arches with 
 festoons, fluted minarets, surrounded by small terraces in open 
 work, like lace ; monumental doors and fountains covered with 
 embroidery in stone ; walls spangled with gold, and of a thou- 
 sand colors ; the whole chiselled, and worked in the boldest and 
 lightest manner, and shaded by oak trees, cypresses and willows, 
 from which come flocks of birds that circle in slow flight around
 
 36 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the domes, and fill with music all the recesses of those immense 
 buildings. One is conscious of a feeling stronger and deeper 
 than that of mere curiosity. Those monuments that are as it 
 were a colossal marble affirmation of an order of sentiments 
 and ideas diverse from those in which we have been born and 
 grow, the skeleton of a race and faith hostile to our own, which 
 tell us in mute language of superb lines and daring heights, the 
 glories of a God who is not ours, and of a people before whom 
 our ancestors trembled, inspire a respect mingled with awe that 
 overcomes curiosity and holds it at a distance. 
 
 Within, under the shadow of the colonnades are a few Turks 
 making their ablutions at the fountains, beggars crouching at 
 the bases of columns, veiled women gliding slowly under the 
 arches ; a solemn silence reigns, and the mind is conscious of 
 a sort of voluptuous melancholy, that both attracts and puzzles 
 the understanding. Galata and Pera seem very far away. 
 You are alone in another world, in an olden time, in the Stam- 
 boul of Soliman the Great and Bajazet the Second, and when 
 emerging from among these stupendous works of the Osmanlee, 
 you stand in that other Constantinople, meanly built of wood, 
 falling into decay, full of filth, misery, and squalor, you feel be- 
 wildered, as if awaking from a splendid dream. As you ad- 
 vance, the houses become colorless, and the lattices are drop- 
 ping to pieces, the basins of the fountains covered with slime 
 and refuse ; dwarfish mosques with cracked walls and wooden 
 minarets, stand in the midst of weeds and nettles ; ruined mau- 
 soleums, broken steps, passages choked with stones and rub- 
 bish, whole quarters fallen into a dreary decrepitude, where no 
 sound is heard, save the flutter of a stork or falcon, or the gut-
 
 STAMBOUL. 37 
 
 tural cry of the muezzin, as he chants the word of God from the 
 top of some hidden minaret. 
 
 No city represents the nature and philosophy of the people 
 better than Stamboul. All grand and beautiful things are of 
 God, or of the sultan, image of God upon earth ; every thing 
 else is transitory and is unregarded, being a mere mundane 
 thing. The pastoral tribe has become a nation ; but its instinc- 
 tive love for rural nature, for contemplation and indolence, has 
 preserved to its metropolis the aspect of an encampment. 
 Stamboul is not a city ; she neither labors, nor thinks, nor 
 creates ; civilization beats at her gates and assaults her in her 
 streets ; she dreams and slumbers in the shadow of her 
 mosques, and takes no heed. It is a city unbound, scattered, 
 deformed, that rather represents the resting place of a pilgrim 
 race than the power of a founded state ; an immense sketch 
 of a metropolis ; a great spectacle, but not a great city. And 
 it is not possible to conceive any just idea of it. One must 
 start from the first hill, that which forms the point of the tri- 
 angle, and is bathed by the Sea of Marmora. Here is what 
 may be called the head of Stamboul ; a monumental quarter, 
 full of memories, of splendor, and of light. Here are the old 
 Seraglio, where Byzantium first rose with her Acropolis, and the 
 temple of Jove, and the palace of the Empress Placidia, and the 
 baths of Arcadio ; here are the mosques of Saint Sophia 
 and the Sultan Ahmed, and the At-Meidan which occupies the 
 site of the ancient Hippodrome, where upon an Olympus of 
 bronze and marble, and amid the shouts of a crowd, robed in 
 silk and purple, flew the golden chariots before the eyes 
 of the Emperors, glittering with jewels. From this hill you
 
 38 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 descend into a valley not very deep, where extend the western 
 walls of the Seraglio, marking the confines of ancient Byzantium, 
 and here is the Sublime Porte, by which you enter the palace of 
 the Grand Vizier and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ; an austere 
 and silent quarter in which seems gathered all the sadness of the 
 empire's fate. You ascend a second hill, upon which stands 
 the marble mosque of Miri-Osmanie, Light of Osman, and 
 the burned column of Constantine, that once sustained a bronze 
 figure of Apollo with the head of the emperor, and stood in the 
 middle of the ancient Forum, surrounded by porticoes, triumphal 
 arches, and statues. Beyond this hill opens the valley of the 
 bazaars, which extends from the mosque of Bajazet to that of 
 the Sultana Valide, and contains an immense labyrinth of cov- 
 ered streets or arcades, full of noise and people, from which 
 you emerge with dimmed eyes and buzzing ears. On the 
 third hill, which dominates both the Sea of Marmora and the 
 Golden Horn, rises the gigantic mosque of Soliman, the rival 
 of Saint Sophia "joy and splendor of Stamboul," as the Turk- 
 ish poets say, and the wondrous tower of the Ministry of War, 
 which stands upon the ruins of the ancient palace of Constan- 
 tine, sometime inhabited by Mahomet the Victorious, then 
 converted into a Seraglio for the old Sultanas. From the 
 third to the fourth height extends like an aerial bridge the 
 enormous aqueduct of the Emperor Valentinian, formed of rows 
 of light arches, and garlanded with green, its pendent vines and 
 creeping plants waving above the houses in the populous valley. 
 Passing under the aqueduct, you mount the fourth hill. 
 
 Here, upon the ruins of the famous church of the Holy 
 Apostles, founded by the Empress Helena, and rebuilt by
 
 STAMBOUL. 39 
 
 Theodora, stands the mosque of Mahomet the Second, sur- 
 rounded by hospitals, schools, and caravanserais; beside the 
 mosque, are the slave bazaars, the baths of Mahomet, and the 
 granite column of Marcius, still bearing its marble cippus, with 
 the imperial eagles ; and near the column, the place where the 
 famous massacre of the Janissaries was accomplished, then 
 called the place of the Et-Meidan. Upon the fifth hill is the 
 mosque of Selim, near the ancient well of St. Peter, now con- 
 verted into a garden. Below, along the Golden Horn, extends 
 the Fanar, or Greek quarter, the seat of the patriarchate, where 
 antique Byzautium took refuge, with the descendants of the 
 Paleologlii and the Comneni, and where the horrid massacres 
 of 1821 took place. Upon the sixth hill is the land that was 
 occupied by the eight cohorts of the forty thousand Goths of 
 Constantine, outside the circuit of the first walls, which only 
 embraced the fourth hill ; the space occupied by the seventh 
 cohort still bears the name of Hebdomon. Here also remain 
 the walls of the palace of Constantine Porfirogenitus, where the 
 emperors were crowned, now called by the Turks Tekir- Serai, 
 or Palace of the Princes. At the foot of the sixth hill lies 
 Balata, the Jews' quarter, a filthy place, running along the 
 shore of the Golden Horn as far as the walls of the city, and 
 beyond Balata, the ancient suburb of Blacherne, once orna- 
 mented by palaces with gilded roofs, the favorite residences of 
 the emperors, famous for the great church of the Empress 
 Pulcheria, and for its sanctuary of relics ; now full of ruins and 
 sadness. At Blacherne begins the battlemented wall that 
 runs from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmora, encircling 
 the seventh hill, where was once the Forum-Boarium, and
 
 4O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 where still lies the pedestal of the column of Arcadio ; the most 
 oriental and the grandest of the hills of Stamboul, between 
 which and the other six, flows the little river Lykus, that enters 
 the city near the Carisio gate, and throws itself into the sea 
 not far from the ancient gate of Theodosius. From the walls 
 of Blacherne can be seen the suburb of Ortaksiler, descending 
 gently towards the sea and crowned with gardens ; beyond 
 Ortaksiler, the suburb of Eyub, the holy ground of the Os- 
 inanlee, with its pretty mosque, and its vast cemetery white with 
 tombs and mausoleums, and shaded by a grove pf cypresses ; be- 
 hind Eyub is the high plain of the ancient military camp, where 
 the legions raised the new emperors upon their shields ; and 
 beyond the high plain, other villages, whose vivid colors sparkle 
 amid the verdure of groves bathed by the last waters of the 
 Golden Horn. Such is Stamboul. It is divine ; but the heart 
 swells at the thought that this interminable Asiatic village 
 stands upon the ruins of that second Rome, that immense 
 museum of treasures torn from Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Asia- 
 Minor, whose record fills the mind like some heavenly vision. 
 Where now are the grand porticoes that traversed the city from 
 the sea to the walls, the gilded cupolas, the colossal equestrian 
 statues that rose upon Titanic pedestals in front of amphithea- 
 tres and baths ; the bronze sphinxes couched upon porphyry 
 pedestals, the temples and palaces that reared their granite 
 fronts among an aerial company of marble gods and silver em- 
 perors ? All gone and transformed. The bronze statues have 
 been melted into cannon ; the copper sheathing of the obelisks 
 reduced to money ; the church of St. Irene is an arsenal, the 
 well of Constantine an office ; the pedestal of the column of
 
 STAMBOUL. 41 
 
 Arcadio a blacksmith's shop ; the Hippodrome a horse-market ; 
 ivy and rubbish cover the foundations of the imperial city, 
 church-yard grasses grow upon the threshold of the amphi- 
 theatres, and a few inscriptions calcined by fire and mutilated 
 by the scimetars of the invaders, record that upon this hill once 
 stood the wonderful metropolis of the Empire of the East. 
 Stamboul sits upon the ruins like an odalisque upon a tomb, 
 awaiting her hour.
 
 42 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 AT THE INN. 
 
 AND now the reader will follow me to my inn and take 
 breath for a while. 
 
 A great part of that which I have described was seen by my 
 friend and myself on the day of our arrival ; let the reader im- 
 agine what a condition our heads were in when we returned to 
 our hotel at night. In the street we had not exchanged a word, 
 and we were hardly in our room before we sank upon a sofa, 
 and looking each other in the face, asked at the same moment 
 and in one voice : 
 
 " What do you think of it ? " 
 
 " And to think that I came here to paint ! " 
 
 " And I to write ! " 
 
 And we laughed in each other's faces with friendly compas- 
 sion. Indeed, that evening, and for several days after, his ma- 
 jesty Abdul-Aziz might have offered me as a prize a whole 
 province of Asia Minor, and I could not have succeeded in 
 putting together ten lines about the capital of his states, so 
 true is it that, to describe great things you must be at a dis- 
 tance from them, and to remember well, you must have for- 
 gotten a little first. And then how could any one write in a 
 room from which he could see the Bosphorus, Scutari, and the 
 summit of Mount Olympus ? The hotel itself was a spectacle. 
 Every hour in the day the staircases and corridors swarmed
 
 AT THE TAW. 43 
 
 with people from every country. Twenty nationalities sat down 
 every day at the table de htte : at dinner, I could not get it out 
 of my head that I was a delegate from the Italian government, 
 and would be expected to get upon my legs as soon as the 
 fruit was on the table to discuss some great international ques- 
 tion. There were blooming faces of ladies, wild artist heads, 
 ill-favored visages of not to be mistaken adventurers, Byzantine 
 virgins who only lacked the golden nimbus, strange and sinister 
 faces ; and every day they changed. When everybody talked 
 at once at dessert it was a veritable tower of Babel. From the 
 first day I had made the acquaintance of several Russians who 
 were infatuated with Constantinople. Every evening we met, 
 returning from the extremest points of the city, and each of us 
 had a story to tell of his travels that day. One had climbed to 
 the top of the tower of Seraskierat, another had visited the 
 cemetery of Eyub, a third came from Scutari, a fourth from a 
 sail on the Bosphorus ; the conversation was all interwoven 
 with brilliant bits of description ; and when words were want- 
 ing, the sweet and perfumed wines of the Archipelago came to 
 our aid and suggested them. There were also some of my own 
 fellow-citizens, dandy critics, who caused me to devour much 
 silent wrath at the way in which, from soup to fruit, they did 
 nothing but say evil of Constantinople ; there were no side- 
 walks, and the theatres were dark, and there was no place to 
 pass the evening. They had come to Constantinople to pass 
 the evening ! One of them had made the journey up the Dan- 
 ube. I asked him how he liked the great river. He answered 
 that nowhere in the world did they cook the sturgeon as upon 
 the royal and imperial Austrian company's steamers. Another
 
 44 CONSTANTINOPLE. - 
 
 was a charming type of the travelling amoroso / one of those 
 who travel to seduce and subjugate, with a note-book in which 
 he jots down his conquests. He was a long, bland youth, who 
 inclined his head with a mysterious smile when the Turkish 
 women were talked of, and when he took part in the conversa- 
 tion it was in short sentences, broken by sips of wine. He ar- 
 rived always a little late for dinner, and seated himself with the 
 air of one who had just been playing the Sultan, and between 
 one dish and another, he toyed with small folded notes, that 
 might have been love letters from the ladies of the harem, but 
 were probably hotel bills. There was a young Hungarian, tall, 
 nervous, with two most diabolical looking eyes, and a hasty, 
 feverish way of talking, who after having been secretary to a 
 rich gentleman of Paris, had enrolled himself among the Pon- 
 tifical Zouaves at Algeria, was wounded and taken prisoner by 
 the Arabs, escaped from Morocco, and returning to Europe, 
 went off to the Hague hoping to get an officers' brevet to go 
 and fight the Achins ; failing at the Hague, he decided to enter 
 the Turkish army; but passing through Vienna on his return to 
 Constantinople, got a pistol ball in his neck, in a duel about a 
 woman (and here he showed the scar) ; rejected also at Con- 
 stantinople "What am I to do? " he said. "I am the child 
 of fortune ; I must fight somewhere. I have found some one 
 who will take me to India ;" and here he showed the ticket for 
 his voyage. " I will be an English soldier ; in the interior 
 there is always something doing ; I only want to fight ; what 
 does it matter whether I get killed or not ? One of my lungs is 
 gone already." 
 
 Another original was a Frenchman, whose whole life seemed
 
 AT THE INN. 45 
 
 to pass in a perpetual war against the postal administrations, 
 He had a question pending with the Austrian, French and 
 English post-offices ; he sent protests to the Neue Freie Presse ; 
 launched telegraphic impertinences at all the postal stations q.n 
 the Continent, had every day a dispute at some post-office win- 
 dow, did not receive a letter in time, or wrote one that did not 
 arrive at its address, and related all his misfortunes and all his 
 altercations at table, always concluding with the assurance 
 that the postal service had shortened his life. I remember also 
 a Greek lady, with a diabolical countenance, oddly dressed, and 
 always alone, who every evening rose from the table in the 
 middle of dinner and went away, after having made a cabalistic 
 sign over the plate which no one ever succeeded in making 
 out. Nor have I forgotten a Wallachian couple, a handsome 
 young fellow of five and twenty, and a girl just past childhood, 
 .who appeared one evening only, and who were indubitably fugi- 
 tives ; he the ravisher and she the accomplice; for, you had 
 only to fix your eye upon them for an instant to see both blush 
 crimson, and every time the door opened, they jumped as if set 
 on springs. There were a hundred others whom T might recall. 
 It was a magic lantern. My friend and I, on the days of the 
 arrival of a steamer, amused ourselves watching the people as 
 they came in, tired and bewildered, some of them still excited 
 by the spectacle they had seen on entering the harbor, and an 
 expression on their faces as if they said what world is this ? 
 Where are we ? One day there arrived a young lad who was 
 quite mad with the delight of finding himself in Constantinople, 
 the dream of his childhood ; and he held his father's hand in 
 both of his, while the father said, in an agitated voice : J?
 
 46 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 suis heureux de te voir heureux, mon cher enfant* We passed 
 the hot hours of the day at our window, and looked at the 
 Tower of the Maiden, that rises, white as snow, on a solitary 
 rock in the Bosphorus, opposite Scutari, and while we weave 
 our own fancies round the legend of the Prince of Persia, that 
 sucked the aspic poison from the arm of the beautiful Sultana, 
 every day at the same hour a little boy in the opposite house 
 came and made mouths at us. Everything was strange in this 
 hotel. Among other things we encountered every evening at the 
 entrance door two or three equivocal looking figures, who 
 seemed to be providers of models for painters, and who appar- 
 ently took us all for painters, for they whispered in our ears, 
 mysteriously : " A Turk ? a Greek ? 'an Armenian ? a Jew- 
 ess ? a negress ? " 
 
 * I am happy to see you happy, my dear child.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 47 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 BUT let us return to Constantinople, and rove about like the 
 birds of the air. Here all caprices may be permitted. We 
 can light our cigars in Europe, and drop the ashes in Asia. 
 Rising in the morning, we can inquire "What part of the 
 world shall I visit to-day ? There is choice between two conti- 
 nents and two seas. We have at our command, horses standing 
 saddled in every square, sailboats in every cove, steamboats 
 at every flight of steps ; the darting caique, the flying 
 talika, and an army of guides speaking all the languages of 
 Europe. Do you wish to hear an Italian comedy ? to see the 
 dancing dervishes ? or the buffoons of Casagheuz ? or the 
 Turkish Pulcinella ? Do you crave the licentious songs of the 
 smaller Parisian theatres ? or will you assist at a gymnastic 
 performance by gypsies ? Will you hear an Arabic legend related 
 by a professional story-teller, or will you go to the Greek 
 theatre? hear an Imaum preach; seethe Sultan pass by? Ask 
 and receive. All nationalities are at your service j the Arme- 
 nian to shave you, the Jew to black your boots, the Turk to 
 show you to your boat, the negro to shampoo you in yoQr 
 bath, the Greek to bring you your coffee, and every one of them 
 to cheat you. If you are thirsty, as you walk about, you can 
 refresh yourself with ices made from the snows of Olympus ; 
 you can drink the water of the Nile, like the Sultan ; or, if you 
 have a weak stomach, the water of the Euphrates ; or if you 
 are nervous, the water of the Danube. Vou can drive like the
 
 48 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Arab of the Desert, or like the gourmand at the Maison Dor^e. 
 Do you wish to take a midday nap, there are the cemeteries ; 
 to distract your thoughts, the bridge of the Sultana Valide ; to 
 indulge in dreamy revery, the Bosphorus ; to pass the Sunday, 
 the Archipelago of the Princes ; to see Asia-Minor, the- Mount 
 of Bulgurla ; to see the Golden Horn, the Tower of Galata ; to 
 see every thing, the tower of the Seraskierat. But this is a city 
 even more strange than beautiful. Things that never present 
 themselves together in your mind, are here seen together by your 
 eyes. The caravan for Mecca, and the direct train for the an- 
 cient metropolis of Brussa, both start from Scutari ; under the 
 mysterious walls of the Old Seraglio passes the railway to 
 Sofia ; Turkish soldiers cross the path of the Catholic priest as 
 he carries the Holy Sacrament to the dying ; the people keep 
 holiday in the burial grounds ; life, death, pleasure, pain, are 
 all mingled and confounded. There is the movement of Lon- 
 don with the lethargy of oriental idleness, an immense public 
 life, and a private life of impenetrable mystery ; an absolute 
 despotism, and a license without bounds. For the first few 
 days you can comprehend nothing every moment it seems as 
 if the disorder must cease, or a revolution must break out ; 
 every evening you return to your inn, feeling as though you 
 were arriving after a long journey ; every morning you ask your- 
 self " Am I really near Stamboul ? " One impression effaces 
 another, wishes crowd upon you, time hurries by ; you would like 
 to stay there all your life ; you would like to get away to-morrow. 
 But when the attempt is to be made to describe this chaos ! 
 then comes the temptation to make one bundle of all the books 
 and papers on your table, and throw the whole out of the window.
 
 GALA TA. 49 
 
 GALATA. 
 
 MY friend and I did not really recover our usual calmness 
 of mind until the fourth day after our arrival. We were on the 
 bridge one morning, uncertain as to what we should do that 
 clay, when Yank proposed to me to make one first grand prom- 
 enade with one determined purpose, and with tranquil souls, to 
 observe and study. "We will take," said he, "the northern 
 shore of the Golden Horn, and do the whole of it, even if we 
 have to walk till nightfall. We will eat our breakfast in a 
 Turkish tavern, take our siesta under the shade of a plane tree, 
 and come home in a caique." I accepted the proposition ; we 
 provided ourselves with cigars and small change, and giving 
 one glance at a map of the city, turned our faces toward 
 Galata. 
 
 Let the reader who wishes to know Constantinople sacrifice 
 himself and bear us company. 
 
 It was from Galata that our excursion was to commence. 
 Galata is built upon a hill that forms a promontory between the 
 Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, and upon the site of the 
 great cemetery of ancient Byzantium. The streets are almost 
 all narrow and tortuous, bordered by taverns, pastry-cook shops, 
 butchers' and barbers' shops, Greek and Armenian cafes, mer- 
 chants' offices, workshops, and barracks ; the whole dark, damp, 
 muddy and sticky as in the lowest London quarter.. A dense 
 3
 
 50 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 and busy crowd throng the streets, constantly opening before 
 carriages, porters, donkeys, and omnibuses. Almost all the 
 trade of Constantinople passes through Galata. Here are the 
 Exchange, the Custom House, the officers of the Austrian 
 Lloyds, those of the French Messageries ; churches, convents, 
 hospitals and warehouses. An underground railway unites 
 Galata to Pera. If it were not for the turbans and fezes in the 
 street, it is not at all Oriental in its character. French, Italian, 
 and Genoese are heard spoken on all sides. The Genoese are 
 here as if in their own houses, and have still rather the air of 
 masters, as when they closed the port at their pleasure, and 
 answered the Emperors' threats with cannon. But little re- 
 mains of the monuments of their ancient power, beyond some 
 old houses upheld by great pilasters and heavy arches, and the 
 antique edifice where once resided the Podesta. Old Galata 
 has almost entirely disappeared. Thousands of small houses 
 have been cleared away to make room for two long streets, one 
 of which mounts the hill towards Pera, and the other runs par- 
 allel to the sea-shore from one end of Galata to the other. 
 
 My friend and I chose the latter for our ramble, perpetually 
 taking refuge in the shops before the advance of great omni- 
 buses, preceded by half naked Turks who cleared the way 
 with strokes of a whip. At every step resounded in our ears 
 the cry of the Turkish porter, Sacun-ha ! (clear the way !) 
 or the Armenian water-carrier, Varmz-su ! the Greek water- 
 seller, Crio nero the Turkish donkey boy, Barada! the 
 sweetmeat seller, Sherbet /the newspaper vender, Neologos ! 
 the Frank coach m an, guarda ! guarda ! After about ten min- 
 utes walking, we were deaf. At a certain point we discovered,
 
 GALATA. 51 
 
 to our astonishment, that the street was no longer paved, and 
 that the pavement appeared to have been recently taken up. 
 We looked about for a reason, and an Italian shopkeeper sat- 
 isfied our curiosity. That street leads, it appears, to the Sul- 
 tan's palaces. A few months ago, as the Imperial cortege was 
 passing through it, the horse of his majesty Abdul-Aziz slipped 
 and fell, and the good Sultan, justly irritated, ordered that the 
 offending pavement should be removed, from the point where 
 the horse fell, as far as his palace. At this memorable spot we 
 fixed the eastern terminus of our pilgrimage, and turning our 
 backs upon the Bosphorus, directed our steps, by a series of 
 dirty, winding alleys towards the tower of Galata. The city 
 has the form of an expanded fan, and the tower represents its 
 handle. It is a round an-d very high tower, of a dark color, 
 terminating in a conical point, formed by its copper roof, under 
 which runs a range of large windows, or kind of glazed gallery 
 where night and day a guard watches for the first sign of any 
 conflagration that may break out in the city. The Galata of the 
 Genoese extends as far as this tower, which rises in fact upon 
 the line of the wall that once separated Galata from Pera ; no 
 traces of which wall are now to be found. Nor is the tower, the 
 antique edifice, erected in honor of the Genoese who fell in 
 battle ; for it was rebuilt by Mahomet the Second and before 
 that had been restored by Selim the Third ; but it is none the 
 less a monument crowned with the glory of Genoa, and an 
 Italian can not look upon it without proudly remembering that 
 handful of merchants, sailors and soldiers, haughty and bold and 
 heroically stubborn, who for ages held aloft the banner of the 
 republic, treating on equal terms with the Emperors of the East.
 
 5 2 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 Passing the tower we found ourselves in a Mussulman cem- 
 etery, the cemetery of Galata ; a great cypress wood that from 
 the summit of the hill of Pera descends steeply to the Golden 
 Horn, shading a myriad of little columns of stone or marble, 
 that incline in all directions and are strewn in disorder all 
 down the descent. Some of these little columns are crowned 
 with the figure of a turban, and retain traces of color and in- 
 scriptions ; others end in a point ; many are overturned; and 
 some are broken off at top, their turbans carried clean away ; 
 and these are supposed to have been raised to the janissaries, 
 whom Sultan Mahmoud thus dishonored after death. The 
 greater part of the graves are indicated by a prism shaped 
 mound with a stone at either end, upon which, according to 
 the Mussulman belief, the two angels Nekir and Munkir are to 
 seat themselves when they come to judge the souls of the dead. 
 Here and there are to be seen small enclosures surrounded by 
 a low wall or a railing, in the middle of which stands a column 
 surmounted by a large turban, and about it other small col- 
 umns : it is a pasha, or some great noble, buried in the midst 
 of his wives and children. Little paths wind all about the 
 wood ; a Turk sits in the shade smoking his pipe ; some chil- 
 dren run and jump among the graves ; a cow is feeding there ; 
 hundreds of turtle-doves coo among the cypresses ; groups of 
 veiled women pass by; and in the distance between the trees 
 shines the blue background of the Golden Horn striped by the 
 white minarets of Stamboul. 
 
 Leaving the cemetery we enter the principal street of Pera. 
 Pera is one hundred metres above the level of the sea, is airy 
 and cheerful, and looks down upon the Golden Horn and the
 
 GALATA. 53 
 
 Bosphorus. It is the West End of the European colony ; the 
 centre of pleasure and elegance. The street we follow is 
 bordered by English and American hotels, handsome cafes, 
 glittering shops, theatres, consulates, clubs, and palaces of am- 
 bassadors ; among which that of Russia is the largest and most 
 conspicuous, dominating Pera, Galata, and the suburbs like 
 some great fortress. Here swarms a crowd quite different from 
 that of Galata. 
 
 Almost all wear stove-pipe hats, and the ladies are crowned 
 with plumed and flow :ry French bonnets. There are exquisites 
 from Greece, from Italy, and France ; merchants of high pre- 
 tensions, attaches of the different legations, officers of foreign 
 ships of war, ambassadorial coaches, and equivocal figures of 
 every country. Turks stop to admire the wax busts in the bar- 
 bers' shops, and Turkish women stand open-mouthed before 
 the windows of the milliners ; Europe talks in a loud voice, 
 jokes and giggles in the middle of the street ; the Mussulman 
 feels himself in a strange land and hastens by with his head 
 a shade less lofty than at Stamboul. My friend made me turn 
 and look back at Stamboul that lay behind an azure veil in the 
 distance, with the Seraglio, Santa Sofia, and the Mosque of 
 Sultan Ahmed gleaming through ; another world than that we 
 stood in " and now," said he "look here." I dropped my 
 eyes and read in a shop-window La Dame aux Camillas 
 Madame Borary Mademoiselle Giraud ma femme* Presently 
 it was my turn to stop. my companion and show him a marvel- 
 lous cafe, where, at the end of a long dark corridor, an im- 
 mense window, spread wide open, displayed at what seemed a 
 * Three licentious French novels.
 
 54 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 great distance, a magnificent view of Scutari illuminated by 
 the sun. 
 
 We had nearly reached the end of the grand street of Pera, 
 when we heard a thundering voice declaiming in French " I 
 love thee, Adele I love thee more than life ! " We looked in 
 each other's faces in amazement. Presently through a fissure 
 in the wall we beheld a garden with rows of seats, a stage, and 
 a company of actors rehearsing. A Turkish lady at a little dis- 
 tance peeped also through the wall and quivered with laughter. 
 An old Turk passing by shook his head reproving!}'. Suddenly 
 the lady gave a shriek and fled ; other women near screamed 
 and turned their backs. What had happened ? Only a Turk, 
 as naked as he was born, a man about fifty years old, known to 
 all Constantinople, whose fancy it is to promenade in that 
 fashion. The poor wretch jumped along over the stones, yell- 
 ing and laughing, while a crowd of boys followed him making a 
 most infernal racket. " He will be arrested, I hope ? " said I 
 to the door keeper of the theatre. " Not at all," he replied ; 
 " He has been going about like that for months, in perfect lib- 
 erty." Meantime down the street of Pera we could see people 
 coming out of their shops to look, women running away, girls 
 hiding their faces, doors being closed, heads popping in and 
 out of windows ; and this goes on all day, and nobody troubles 
 himself to put an end to it ! 
 
 Coming out of the street of Pera, we found ourselves near 
 another Mussulman cemetery, shaded by a cypress grove, and 
 enclosed by a high wall. We never should have guessed if we 
 had not been told, the meaning of that wall, newly erected ; 
 that the grove sacred to the repose of the dead had been turned
 
 GALA TA. 55 
 
 into a sort of pleasure garden for soldiers ! Further on, in 
 fact, we found the enormous artillery barrack, built by Schalil- 
 Pasha ; a solid rectangular edifice, in the Turkish renaissance 
 style, with a door flanked by light columns and surmounted by 
 the crescent and golden star of Mahmoud, with projecting gal- 
 leries, and windows emblazoned with arms and arabesques. 
 Before the barrack passes the street of Dgieclessy, which is a 
 prolongation of that of Pera, and beyond, various squares and 
 streets. Here every Sunday evening there passes a long pro- 
 cession of carriages and foot passengers, all the fashionable 
 world of Pera, that comes to pass its evening in the cafes and 
 beer-gardens of the Barrack. We stopped at the cafe of the 
 Bella-Vista worthy of its name, for it commands a most en- 
 chanting view of the Mussulman suburb of FunducU, the Bos- 
 phorus covered with ships, the Asiatic shore sprinkled with 
 gardens and villages, Scutari and her white mosques, and a 
 lovely confusion of green and azure, and light that seems a 
 dream to remember. We left it with regret, and felt ourselves 
 wretchedly mean as we paid eight miserable cents for our two 
 cups of coffee, and that vision of a terrestrial paradise. 
 
 From the Bella- Vista we passed directly into that great 
 field of the dead where are interred, in separate cemeteries, 
 people of all religions, except the Hebrews. It is a thick for- 
 est of cypresses, acacias and sycamores, amid which glimmer 
 thousands of white sepulchral stones, looking in the distance 
 like the ruins of a city. Between the trees shines the Bospho- 
 rus with the Asiatic shore. Wide paths wind about it, where 
 Greeks and Armenians are walking. Upon some of the tombs 
 sit Turks, cross-legged, and admiring the view. There is a
 
 5 5 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 freshness of shade, and a peacefulness that give one the sensa- 
 tion of having entered some great sombre cathedral. We 
 stopped in the Armenian cemetery. The sepulchral stones are 
 all large and flat, and covered with inscriptions in the elegant 
 Armenian character, and on nearly all of them is sculptured 
 some emblem of the trade or profession of the deceased. 
 There are hammers, pens, necklaces ; the banker is represented 
 by a pair of scales, the priest by a mitre, the barber by a basin, 
 the surgeon by a lancet. On one stone we saw the image of a 
 severed head, streaming with blood ; it was the tomb either of 
 a murdered man, or of one who had been judicially executed. 
 An Armenian lay beside it in the grass, asleep, with his face 
 turned up to the sky. We entered the Mussulman cemetery. 
 Here also was an infinity of short columns scattered about in 
 disorderly groups ; those erected to women had an ornament 
 in relief representing flowers ; many were surrounded by shrubs 
 and flowering plants. As we stood looking at one of these, two 
 Turks came up, leading a child between them, and seating 
 themselves upon a tomb, opened a bundle and began to eat. 
 When they had finished, the elder one of the two wrapped up 
 something in a paper it looked like a fish and a piece of 
 bread and with a respectful gesture, placed the little packet in 
 a hole near the head of the grave. This done, they both 
 lighted their pipes and smoked, while the child played about 
 among the tombs. It was after explained to us that this fish 
 and bread were left as a mark of affection to their friend, proba- 
 bly recently deceased ; and the hole in which they placed it is 
 to be found in every Turkish tomb, near the head, so that 
 through it the dead may hear the lamentations of their friends,
 
 GALATA. 57 
 
 and may receive from them a few drops of rose water or the 
 perfume of a flower. Their funeral smoke completed, the two 
 pious Turks took the child between them, and vanished among 
 the cypresses. 
 
 Proceeding on our way, we soon found ourselves in another 
 Christian quarter Pancalcli, with spacious streets and new 
 buildings, surrounded by villas, gardens, hospitals, and barracks. 
 It is the farthest from the sea of all the suburbs, and after vis- 
 iting it, we turned back toward the Golden Horn. In the last 
 street, we witnessed a new and solemn spectacle ; the passage 
 of a Greek funeral. A silent crowd filled the street on both 
 sides ; first came a group of Greek priests, in embroidered 
 robes ; then the archimandrite with a crown upon his head, and 
 a long gown richly decorated with gold ; some young ecclesias- 
 tics in brilliant-colored dresses ; a quantity of friends and rela- 
 tions in their richest costumes, and in the midst of them a bier, 
 wreathed with flowers, on which lay the body of a girl of fifteen, 
 with uncovered face, and resplendent in satin and jewels. The 
 little snow-white face had an expression of pain about the con- 
 tracted mouth, and two beautiful tresses of black hair lay over 
 the shoulders and bosom. The bier passed by, the crowd 
 closed in, and we remained alone and saddened in the deserted 
 street. 
 
 Ascending the hill of Pancaldi, and crossing the dry bed of 
 a torrent, we mounted another hill and reached another suburb ; 
 San Dimitri. Here the population is almost all Greek. Black 
 eyes and thin aquiline noses are to be seen on every side ; 
 old men of patriarchal aspect ; slender, haughty young men ; 
 women with their hair on their shoulders ; boys with astute 
 3*
 
 5 3 CO NS TA N TINOPL E. 
 
 visages, romping in the middle of the street among the hens 
 and pigs, and filling the air with the sound of their silvery and 
 harmonious speech. We approached a group of these last, 
 who were playing with stones and chattering all together, when 
 one, a child of about eight years old, and the wildest of them 
 all, every moment throwing his little fez into the air and yelling, 
 Zito ! Zito ! (Hurra !) suddenly turned to another who was 
 seated on a door-step, and called out Checchino ! Buttami la 
 palla!" I seized him by the arm, and said " You an Ital- 
 ian ? " " No, sir," he replied, " I belong to Constantinople." 
 
 " And who taught you to speak Italian ? " I asked. 
 
 " Who indeed ! " said he, " why, mamma, of course." 
 
 "And where is mamma?" At this there advanced a smil- 
 ing woman, with a child in her arms, and told me that she was 
 from Pisa, the wife of a Leghorn marble-cutter, that she had 
 lived eight years in Constantinople, and this was her son. If 
 this good woman had been a handsome matron, with a turreted 
 crown upon her head, and a mantle upon her ample shoulders, 
 she coulrl not have represented Italy more vividly to my heart 
 and eyes. " How came you here ? " I asked. "And what do 
 you think of Constantinople? " 
 
 "What shall I say?" she answered, smiling ingenuously. 
 " It is a city which to tell the truth, it always seems like 
 the last day of the carnival." And here giving the rein to her 
 Tuscan tongue, she told me that as for the Mussulmans, their 
 god is Mahomet, that a Turk may marry four wives, that the 
 Turkish language is a good one for those who can understand 
 a word of it, and other novel things of the same kind ; but 
 * " Frank, throw me the ball."
 
 GALA TA. 59 
 
 spoken in that tongue, in that Greek quarter, it seemed to me 
 sweeter than any fresher news could be, and I went away 
 leaving a few coins in the boy's hand, and murmuring to my- 
 self " Ah ! a taste of Italy, now and then, does one a world 
 of good." 
 
 We turned up next in another Greek quarter, called Sata- 
 ola, where, as our stomachs cried out for food, we seized the 
 occasion to visit the interior of one of those innumerable tav- 
 erns, which are so singular of aspect, and all formed upon one 
 model. An immense room, big enough for a theatre ; lighted 
 generally only by the door, and surrounded by a high balus- 
 traded gallery of wood. On one side there is an enormous 
 stove, at which a brigand in his shirt sleeves is frying fish, 
 turning roasts, mixing sauces, and in other ways occupying 
 himself in the shortening of human life ; on the other side a 
 bench where another bandit is distributing red and white wine 
 in goblets with handles ; in the middle and in front some dwarf 
 seats without backs, and some tables but little higher than the 
 seats, which remind one of a cobbler's bench. We entered 
 with some hesitation, because of a group of Greeks and Ar- 
 menians of the lowest class, who might have resented our 
 presence in a disagreeable way, but they did not deign even 
 to glance at us. The inhabitants of Constantinople are, I 
 think, the least curious of any people in the world ; one must 
 be either the Sultan, or the madman of Pera, and run naked 
 through the streets, in order to attract the slightest notice. 
 We seated ourselves in a corner and waited. No one came. 
 Then we remembered that in a Constantinople tavern, people 
 waited on themselves. First we went to the stove and de-
 
 60 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 manded a roast ; God only knows of what animal ; then to the 
 counter and secured a goblet of the resinous wine of Tenedos, 
 and carrying the whole to a table that just reached to our 
 knees, we turned up our eyes at each other, and consumed 
 the sacrifice. We paid our score with resignation, and silently 
 issued forth, in dread that if we opened our mouths, we 
 should bark or bray, and resumed our journey towards the 
 Golden Horn. 
 
 After ten minutes walk, we are once more in the heart of 
 Turkey ; in the great Mussulman suburb of Kassim-Pasha, a 
 city thick set with mosques and convents of dervishes, full of 
 flower and vegetable gardens, which occupies a hill and a val- 
 ley, and which extending to the Golden Horn, embraces the 
 whole of the ancient bay of Mandracchia, from the cemetery of 
 Galata to the promontory that overlooks Balata, on the oppo- 
 site shore. From the heights of Kassim-Pasha, the spectacle is 
 an enchanting one. Below upon the shore, you see the immense 
 arsenal of Ters-Kane ; a labyrinth of docks, factories, squares, 
 storehouses and barracks, that extends for a mile along that 
 part of the Golden Horn which is used as a port for vessels of 
 war ; the light and elegant building of the Ministry of Marine, 
 that seems floating on the water, is seen upon the dark green 
 background of the cemetery of Galata ; the harbor is full of 
 small steamboats and caiques full of people, that dart about 
 among the iron-clads lying at anchor, and old frigates dating 
 from the Crimean war ; and on the opposite shore, Stamboul, 
 the aqueduct of Valentinian, that throws its lofty arches against 
 the blue sky, the great mosques of Soliman and Mahomet the 
 Second, and a myriad of houses and minarets. To enjoy the
 
 GALATA. 6 1 
 
 spectacle longer, we seated ourselves before a Turkish cafe, and 
 absorbed a fourth or fifth of those twelve cups of coffee which 
 every one at Constantinople is required to swallow in a day, 
 whether he wants them or not. It was a mean little place, but 
 like all the Turkish cafes, perfectly original ; not very different 
 probably, from the first cafi of the time of Soliman the Great, 
 or from those into which Amurath Fourth broke, with his 
 scimetar in his hand, when he made his noctural rounds and 
 castigated- the vendors of the prohibited liquor. Of how many 
 imperial edicts, of how many -theological disputes and sangui- 
 nary struggles has not this black liquid been the cause ; " this 
 enemy of sleep, and of fecundity " as the more austere 
 ulemas call it ; " this genius of dreams and exciter of the im- 
 agination," as it is named by the ulemas of broader opinions ; 
 now, after love and tobacco, it is the dearest comfort to all, 
 even the poorest Osmanle. Coffee is drank on the tops of the 
 Towers of Galata and the Seraskierat, in all the steamboats, in 
 the cemeteries, in the barbers' shops, at the baths, in the 
 bazaars. No matter in what corner of Constantinople you may 
 find yourself, you have only to cry out, without turning your 
 head : cafegel (coffee seller!) and in three minutes a cup is 
 smoking before you. 
 
 Our cafe was a whitewashed room, wainscoted with wood 
 to the height of a man, with a low divan running all round it. 
 In one corner there was a stove at which a Turk with forked 
 (sic) nose was making coffee in a small copper coffee-pot, and 
 turning it out as he made it into tiny cups, putting in the sugar 
 at the same time ; for, at Constantinople, the coffee is made 
 fresh for every customer, and is brought him already sugared,
 
 62 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 together with a glass of water that every Turk drinks before 
 approaching the cup of coffee to his lips ; upon the wall was 
 suspended a small mirror, and beside it a sort of rack contain- 
 ing razors with fixed handles ; the greater part of the car'.s 
 being also barbers" shops, and not unfrequently the cafi keeper 
 is also a dentist and a blood-letter, and operates upon his vie 
 tims in the same room where the other customers are taking 
 their coffee. Upon the opposite wall hung another rack full of 
 crystal narghiles with long flexible tubes, twisted like serpents, 
 and chibouks of earthenware with cherry wood stems. Five 
 pensive Turks were seated upon the divan smoking the narghile, 
 while three others sat in front of the door on low straw seats 
 without backs, one beside the other, pipe in mouth, and their 
 shoulders leaning against the wall; before the mirror sat a fat 
 dervish in a camels' hair gown, having his head shaved by one 
 of the shop boys. No one looked at us when we sat down, no 
 one spoke, and except the master of the cafe and his assistant, 
 no one made a movement. There was no sound but the bubble 
 of the water in the narghiles, that resembled the purring of so 
 many cats. Each one looked straight before him with fixed 
 eyes, and absolutely no expression. It was like a small wax- 
 work show. Many of these scenes remain forever impressed 
 upon my memory. A wooden house, a Turk seated, a lovely 
 distant view, a great light, and a great silence. Such is Tur- 
 key. Every time that name rises in my memory, these mazes 
 pass before it, as when I think of Holland, a canal and a wind- 
 mill instantly present themselves. We next find ourselves in 
 the small Turkish suburb of Piale-Pasha, and stop before the 
 mosque which gives it its name. It is a white mosque, sur-
 
 GALA TA. 63 
 
 mounted by six graceful domes, wilh a court surrounded by an 
 arched colonnade, a slender minaret, and a grove of gigantic 
 cypresses. At that moment all the small houses about it were 
 closed, the streets deserted, the court of the mosque itself in 
 perfect solitude ; the light and shadow of high noon lay over all 
 things, and no sound broke the silence save the buzzing of 
 wasps, or flies. We looked at our watches; it wanted three 
 minutes to twelve ; one of the five canonical Mussulman hours, 
 in which the muezzin appears upon the terrace of his minaret to 
 chant to the four quarters of the horizon the sacramental 
 formula of Islam. We knew well that there was not in all 
 Constantinople, a minaret upon which there does not appear, 
 at the moment fixed, punctual as a clock-work automaton, the 
 announcer of the Prophet. And yet it appeared a strange thing 
 that there also, in that remote extremity of the immense city, 
 upon that solitary mosque, in that profound silence, the figure 
 should appear and the voice be heard. I held my watch in my 
 hand, and both of us watched intently the small door upon the 
 terrace of the minaret. The minute hand touched the sixteenth 
 black dot, and no one had appeared. " He will not come ! " I 
 said. " He is here ! " cried Yank. There he was. The para- 
 pet of the terrace concealed all but his face, and the distance 
 rendered the features invisible. He stood a moment silent: 
 then covering his ears with his hands, and turning up his face 
 to the sky, he chanted in a high, tremulous voice, and very 
 slowly, with a solemn and lamenting accent, the sacred words, 
 that were then resounding from every minaret in Africa, Asia, 
 and Europe : " God is great ! There is but one God ! Ma- 
 homet is the prophet of God ! Come to prayer ! Come and
 
 64 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 be saved ! God is great ! God is one alone ! Come to 
 prayer ! " 
 
 He chanted the same words towards each of the four points 
 of the compass, and then vanished. At the same instant, there 
 came to our ears faintly, the last notes of another distant voice, 
 that sounded like the cry of some creature in distress, and then 
 the silence fell again, and we remained also silent, conscious of 
 a vague sadness, as if those voices of the air had counselled 
 prayer to us alone, and left us to ourselves, like two souls aban- 
 doned of God. No tolling bell has ever touched my heart like 
 this ; and on that day I understood for the first time why Ma- 
 homet, calling the faithful to prayer, had preferred the human 
 voice to the trumpet of the Israelites, or the rattle of the early 
 Christians. He was long uncertain as to his choice, and it was 
 a chance that the whole world did not take on an entirely dif- 
 ferent aspect from that which it now bears ; because, had he 
 chosen the rattle, which would afterwards have been changed 
 into a bell, the minaret also would have necessarily been trans- 
 formed, and one of the most original and graceful features of an 
 oriental city and landscape would have been lost forever. 
 
 Ascending the hill from Piale-Pasha towards the west, we 
 saw the whole of the Golden Horn, and alt Stamboul, from 
 Eyub to the Seraglio hill ; four miles of gardens and of mosques, 
 a prospect of such beauty and grandeur that it should have been 
 contemplated on one's knee, like a celestial vision. The deso- 
 late spot on which we stood was the Ok-Meidan, or place of 
 arrows, where the Sultans used to go to draw the bow, according 
 to the usage of the kings of Persia. There are still standing, 
 at unequal distances, a few small marble columns, with inscrip-
 
 GALA TA. 65 
 
 tions, marking the points where the Imperial arrows fell. The 
 elegant kiosk, with its tribune, from which the Sultan shot, is 
 also there. In the fields to the right, once stretched a long file 
 of beys and pashas, living points of admiration, with which the 
 Padishah did homage to his own dexterity, to the left stood 
 twelve pages of the Imperial house, who ran to pick up the ar- 
 rows and to mark the points where they fell ; around behind the 
 trees and bushes, a few rash Turks contemplated in hiding the 
 august figure of the grand Seigneur; and upon the tribune in a 
 superb athletic attitude stood Mahmoud, the most vigorous 
 archer in the empire, whose sparkling eyes made all beholders 
 drop their own in humility, and whose famous beard, black as a 
 crow of Mount Taurus, stood out from afar, upon his milk-white 
 mantle, splashed with the blood of the Janissaries. Now, every- 
 thing is changed and prosaic ; the Sultan fires at a mark with a 
 revolver in the court of his palace, and the Ok-Meidan is given 
 over to infantry soldiers and rifle-practice. There is a convent 
 of dervishes on one side, a solitary cafe on the other; and the 
 whole plane is desolate and melancholy as a steppe. 
 
 We descended into another small Turkish suburb, called 
 Piri-Pasha, perhaps after the famous Grand Vizier of Sultan Se- 
 lim, who educated Soliman the Great. Piri-Pasha looks over 
 the Israelitish suburb of Balata, on the opposite shore. We 
 met no one but a few beggars and dogs. But the solitude ena- 
 bled us the better to consider the peculiarities of the place. It 
 is a singular thing. In that suburb as in every other part of 
 Constantinople, when you are within it, after having seen it first 
 from the sea or from the neighboring heights, you have the same 
 impression as when you go upon the stage during the perform-
 
 66 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ance of a ballet, after having seen it from the boxes j you are 
 astonished that such an assemblage of mean and ugly things 
 should have produced such a brilliant illusion. I believe there 
 is no city in the world where beauty is so purely an appearance, 
 an illusion, as it is in Constantinople. Seen from Balata, Piri- 
 Pasha is a charming little spot, all glowing with color and gar- 
 landed with verdure, reflected in the waters of the Golden Horn 
 like a nymph, and invoking a hundred images of love and 
 pleasure. Go into it, and all this beauty vanishes. A few 
 small shabby houses, painted in staring colors like booths at 
 a fair, a few narrow and dirty courts looking like the haunts 
 of witches ; dusty fig-trees and cypresses in groups, gardens 
 encumbered with rubbish, deserted alleys, misery, dirt, and 
 wretchedness, such is Piri-Pashi. But go down a few steps, 
 jump into a caique, and with four or five strokes of the oar, 
 behold a fantastic little town, in all the pomp of its unreal grace 
 and beauty. 
 
 Still skirting the Golden Horn, we descend into another 
 suburb, vast, populous, and of a strange aspect, when we be- 
 come almost immediately aware that we are no longer among 
 Mussulmen. The ground seems to swarm with diseased and 
 filthy children ; deformed and ragged old women sit in the 
 doorways, working with skeleton hands among old iron-ware, 
 bones, and rags ; men clothed in long, dirty garments and with 
 a ragged handkerchief bound round their heads, glide furtively 
 by close to the walls ; sinister faces at the windows ; rags pen- 
 dent from house to house: litter and filth at every step. It 
 is Hasskioj, the Jewish quarter, the ghetto of the northern 
 shore of the Golden Horn, which fronts that of the other shore,
 
 GALA TA. 67 
 
 and which during the Crimean war were connected together by 
 a wooden bridge now entirely disappeared. Here begins an- 
 other long chain of arsenals, military schools, barracks and 
 exercising grounds, that extend almost to the end of the Golden 
 Horn. But of all this we saw nothing, because by this time 
 both head and legs had given out. Already everything that 
 we had seen was confounded in our minds ; we felt as if we 
 had been journeying for a week ; we thought of distant Pera 
 with a slight sensation of home-sickness, and would have turned 
 back then and there, but for the solemn compact made upon 
 the bridge ; and Yank reviving my spirits, according to his cus- 
 tom, with the march in Aida, we proceeded on our way. 
 
 Crossing another Mussulman cemetery, and ascending an- 
 other hill, we entered the suburb of Halidgi-Oghli, inhabited by 
 a mixed population ; a little city, where at every turn, one en- 
 countered a new race and a new religion. We went up, we 
 went down, we climbed, we wound about among tombs, mosques, 
 churches, and synagogues ; we skirted gardens and crossed 
 squares ; we met handsome Armenian matrons, and light-man- 
 nered Turkish women who leered at us from under their veils ; 
 we heard Greek, Armenian, and Spanish spoken the Spanish 
 of the Hebrews and we walked, and walked. Some time or 
 other we must arrive at the end of this Constantinople ! we said 
 to each other. Everything in the world has an end ! already 
 the houses were less thick, kitchen-gardens appeared, we passed 
 one last group of sheds, and arrived at another suburb. 
 
 The Christian suburb of Sudludge, standing upon a hill 
 snrrounded, as usual, by gardens and burial grounds. At the 
 foot of this hill once existed the only bridge that united the two
 
 68 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 shores of the Golden Horn. But we have come to the end, for 
 this suburb is the last, and God willing, our excursion is fin- 
 ished. Looking about for a place to rest, we mounted a steep 
 and bare ascent and found ourselves in the largest Jewish cem- 
 etery of Constantinople : a vast plain covered with myriads of 
 overturned stones, which looks like a town ruined by an earth- 
 quake, without tree or flower, or blade of grass, or trace of path 
 within it ; a desolate solitude that oppresses the heart, like the 
 spectacle of some great misfortune. Seating ourselves upon a 
 tombstone, we rested, and admired the magnificent panorama 
 that lay spread out before us. Below could be seen Sudludge, 
 Halidgi-Oghli, Hasskioj, Piri-Pasha, a perspective of suburbs 
 closed in by the azure of the sea and the verdure of gardens; 
 to the left the solitary Ok-Meidan, and the hundred minarets 
 of Kassim-Pasha; further on Stamboul, vague and intermina- 
 ble; beyond Stamboul the lofty lines of the Asiatic mountains 
 almost lost. in the heavens; in front, on the other side of the 
 Golden Horn, the mysterious quarter of Eyub, of which one by 
 one could be distinguished the rich mausoleums, the marble 
 mosques, the verdant and tree-shaded slopes sprinkled with 
 tombs; the solitary alleys, and the recesses full of sadness and 
 grace; to the right of Eyub other villages mirrored in the water, 
 and finally the last curve of the Golden Horn, losing itself be- 
 tween two high banks clothed with trees and flowers. 
 
 Gazing upon this spectacle, tired and almost half asleep, 
 we unconsciously put all the beauty into music, and sang low 
 to ourselves I know not what forgotten tune ; we wondered 
 who had been the dead upon whose tomb we sat ; we poked 
 an ants' nest with a straw ; we talked about a hundred foolish
 
 GALA TA. 69 
 
 things; and from time to time we asked each other: Are we 
 really in Constantinople ? then we thought that life is brief 
 and that all is vanity; and then we shivered with delight; but 
 at heart we felt that no beauty of the earth can give a perfect 
 joy if we must contemplate it away from all we love. 
 
 The sun was about to set when we descended to the shore 
 and took a four-oared caique ; and had hardly given the order 
 Galata ! when the light boat was already far from land. The 
 caique is certainly the prettiest boat that ever floated on water. 
 It is longer than the gondola, but narrower and more shallow ; 
 it is carved and painted and gilded ; it has neither rudder nor 
 benches; you are seated upon a carpet, or cushion, so that 
 only your head and shoulders appear above the side ; it is 
 pointed at both ends so as to be able to move in either direc- 
 tion ; it loses its equilibrium at the slightest movement, and 
 darts from the shore like an arrow from the bow, seeming to 
 skim the water like a swallow ; and passing everywhere, it 
 glides and flies, its many colors reflected in the water like a 
 dolphin held in chase. Our two rowers were handsome young 
 Turks, bare armed and legged, with blue shirts, wide whit-e 
 trousers, and red fezes ; two bronzed young athletes of twenty, 
 clean, hardy and gay, who sent the boat her own length ahead 
 at every stroke ; we passed other caiques so swiftly as scarcely 
 to distinguish them ; flocks of ducks went by, and birds flew 
 over our heads; we grazed great covered barges full of veiled 
 women, and here and there the sea-weed covered everything. 
 Seen from the water at that hour the city presented a new 
 aspect. The Asiatic shore was invisible because of the curving 
 roadstead ; the hill of the Seraglio closed in the Golden Horn,
 
 7O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 making it like a long lake ; the hills of the opposing shores 
 seemed gigantic, and Stamboul in the remote distance melting 
 into soft gradations of blue and grey tints, appeared like an 
 enchanted city, lightly floating on the sea and lost in the sky. 
 The caique darted, the two banks fled backward, bay succeeded 
 bay, grove to grove, suburb to suburb ; and as we advanced 
 everything seemed to rise and grow larger before us ; the 
 colors of the city grew faint, the horizon flamed, the water sent 
 back reflections of purple and gold, and the amazed spectator 
 remained mute and delighted at the wondrous spectacle. When 
 the caique stopped at Galata, one of the boatmen had to yell 
 monsh I arrivar ! in our ears, before we wakened from our 
 dream and stepped on shore.
 
 THE G -R 'EAT BAZAAR. 
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 
 
 AFTER having taken a rapid flight around Constantinople, 
 passing both shores of the Golden Horn, it is time to enter into 
 the heart of Stamboul, and see that universal and perpetual 
 fair, that dark and hidden city full of marvels, treasures, and 
 reminiscences, which extends from the hill of Muri-Osmanle, 
 to that of the Seraskierat, and is called the Great Bazaar. 
 
 We start from the mosque of the Sultana Valide. Here 
 perhaps some epicurean reader would wish to stop and give a 
 glance at the Balik-Bazaar, the fish-market, famous in the time 
 of that Andronicus Paleologus, who, as has been recorded, 
 drew from the fisheries along the walls of the city alone, enough 
 to meet the culinary expenses of his entire court. Fish, indeed, 
 is still most abundant at Constantinople, and the Balik-Bazaar 
 in its best days, might offer to the author of the Venire de Paris* 
 a subject for a pompous and appetizing description, like the 
 great suppers of the old Dutch pictures. The vendors are 
 almost all Turks, and stand ranged around the square, with 
 their fish piled up on mats spread on the ground, or upon long 
 tables, around which a crowd of buyers and an army of dogs, 
 vociferate and yelp. There are to be found the exquisite mul- 
 let of the Bosphorus, four times as large as those in our waters ; 
 oysters from the island of Marmora, which only Greeks and Ar- 
 menians know how to broil to a point upon the coals ; pilchards 
 * The Belly of Pans, book of that name.
 
 72 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 and tunny-fish that are salted almost exclusively by the Jews ; 
 anchovies, which the Turks have learned how to prepare from 
 the people of Marseilles; sardines, with which Constantinople 
 provides the Archipelago ; the ulufer, the most highly flavored 
 fish of the Bosphorus, which is always taken by moonlight ; the 
 mackerel of the Black Sea, that makes seven successive inva- 
 sions into the waters of the city, making a disturbance that is 
 heard far and wide ; colossal isdaurids, enormous sword fish, 
 turbot, and, as they are called in Turkey, kalkan balitk, or 
 shield-fish, and a thousand smaller fishes, that dart between 
 the two seas, followed by dolphins and faldone ; and chased by 
 innumerable halcyons, or king-fishers. Cooks from the kitch- 
 ens of pashas, old Mussulman bon-vivants, slaves, and tavern- 
 keepers, approach the tables, look at the merchandise with a 
 meditative air, make their bargains in monosyllables, and de- 
 part with their purchase dangling by a string, grave and taci- 
 turn, as if they bore the head of an enemy ; at noon the place 
 is empty, and the vendors are all dispersed among the neigh- 
 boring cafes, where they stay till sunset, dreaming with open 
 eyes, their backs against the wall, and a narghile, between their 
 lips. 
 
 To reach the great Bazaar, you go through a street that be- 
 gins at the fish-market, so narrow that the upper stories of the 
 houses almost touch each other, and lined with a double row of 
 low, dark shops, where tobacco is sold, " the fourth column of 
 the canopy of voluptuousness," after coffee, opium, and wine, or 
 "the fourth sofa of enjoyment." Like coffee, it has been fulmi- 
 nated in its time by edicts of the Sultans, and sentences of the 
 muftis, and has been the cause of troubles and punishments that
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. " 73 
 
 only rendered it more delicious. The entire street is occupied by 
 tobacco-merchants. The tobacco is displayed in pyramids, or 
 round masses, each one surmounted by a lemon. There is the lat- 
 akiaoi Antioch, the Seraglio tobacco, bland and fine as the finest 
 silk, tobacco for cigarettes and for the chibouk, of all grades of 
 strength and flavor, from that smoked by the gigantic Galata 
 porter, to that in use by the idle odalisque of the Imperial kiosk. 
 The tombeki, a very strong tobacco that would go to the head of 
 the oldest and most seasoned smoker, if its fumes did not reach 
 the lips purified by the water of the narghile, is kept in closed 
 glass jars, like a medicine. The tobacconists are almost all 
 Greeks or Armenians, of ceremonious manners, affecting lordly 
 airs ; the customers stand in groups and chat; here you may 
 see personages from the different ministries, or get an occasional 
 nod from some great man ; politics, the last bit of news, the last 
 bit of scandal are discussed; it is a small, private and aristo- 
 cratic bazaar, which invites to repose, and even in passing, gives 
 forth a breath of the pleasure of talk and smoke. 
 
 Going on, you pass under an old archway, festooned with 
 vines, and arrive in front of a vast stone edifice, through which 
 runs a long, straight, covered street, flanked by dark shops, and 
 crowded with people, cases, sacks, and heaps of merchandise. 
 You are met by so strong an odor of drugs and spices, that it 
 almost drives you backwards. It is the Egyptian bazaar wherein 
 are gathered alt the Indian, Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian 
 wares, that afterwards reduced to essences, pastes, powders, and 
 unguents, go to color the faces and figures of the odalisques, to 
 perfume rooms and baths and breaths and beards and dishes, to 
 reiuvigorate exhausted pashas, to calm unhappy wives, to stupefy 
 4
 
 74 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 smokers, to spread dreams, intoxication and forgetfulness over 
 the interminable city. After advancing a few steps you begin 
 to feel your head swim, and retreat; but the sensation of that 
 warm, heavy atmosphere, and those inebriating perfumes, accom- 
 panies you into the outer air, and remains vivid in the memory as 
 one of the most powerful and significant impressions of the East. 
 Coming out from the Egyptian bazaar, the way passes 
 through a street of noisy coppersmiths, Turkish taverns that 
 fill the air with nauseous smells, and a thousand little black 
 holes of shops, where are manufactured quantities of nameless 
 objects, and finally arrives at the Great Bazaar. But long before 
 reaching it you are assailed and have to defend yourself. At a 
 hundred paces from the great entrance gate are stationed the 
 sensale or middlemen, like so many bandits, who know a stran- 
 ger at the first glance, have at once divined that he is coming 
 to the bazaar for the first time, and in general can guess pretty 
 well from what country he comes and in what language to ad- 
 dress him. They advance fez in hand and smilingly offer their 
 services. Then follows a dialogue something like this : 
 
 " I am not going to buy anything," says the stranger hastily. 
 "No matter, sir ; I only want to show you the bazaar." 
 " I don't want to see the bazaar." 
 " But I do not ask to be paid for it." 
 "I do not desire to have your services for nothing." 
 " Well, then, I will only accompany you to the end of the 
 street, to give you some information that will be useful when 
 you do come to buy." 
 
 " But suppose I do not wish for any information ?" 
 
 " Then we will talk of other things, sir. Have you come to
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 75 
 
 Constantinople for the first time ? Are you satisfied with your 
 hotel ? Have you got a permission to visit the mosques ?" 
 
 " I tell you that I do not wish to talk. I want to be alone. " 
 
 u Well, I will leave you alone ; I will only follow you ten 
 steps behind." 
 
 " Why do you want to follow me ?" 
 
 " To prevent you from being cheated in the shops." 
 
 " Suppose I do not go into the shops ?" 
 
 "Then, to prevent you from being annoyed in the street." 
 And so you lose your breath, and are obliged to resign yourself 
 to his companionship. 
 
 The Great Bazaar has nothing exteriorly to attract the eye, 
 or give an idea of its contents. It is an immense stone edifice, 
 of Byzantine architecture, and irregular form, surrounded by 
 high grey walls, and surmounted by hundreds of little cupolas, 
 covered with lead, and perforated with holes to give light to the 
 interior. The principal entrance is an arched doorway without 
 architectural character ; no noise from without penetrates it ; 
 at four paces from the door you can still believe that within 
 those fortress walls there is nothing but silence and solitude. 
 But once inside you stand bewildered. It is not an edifice, but 
 a labyrinth of arcaded streets flanked by sculptured columns 
 and pilasters ; a real city, with its mosques, fountains, cross- 
 ways and squares, dimly lighted like a thick wood into which no 
 ray of sunlight penetrates ; and filled by a dense throng of peo- 
 ple. Ever}' street is a bazaar, almost all leading out of one 
 main street, with an arched roof of black and white stone, and 
 decorated with arabesques like the nave of a mosque. In this 
 dimly lighted thoroughfare, carriages, horsemen, and camels are
 
 7 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 constantly passing, making a deafening noise. The visitor is 
 apostrophized on all sides with words and signs. The Greek 
 merchants call out in loud voices and use imperious gestures. 
 The Armenian, quite as cunning, but more humble in manner, 
 solicits obsequiously ; the Jew whispers his offers in your ear ; 
 the silent Turk, seated cross-legged upon his carpet at the en- 
 trance of his shop, invites only with his eye, and resigns him- 
 self to destiny. Ten voices at once address you ; Monsieur ! 
 Captain ! Caballero ! Signore ! Eccellenza ! Kyrie ! My Lord ! 
 At every turn, by the side doors, are seen perspectives of arches 
 and pilasters, long corridors, narrow alleys, a long confused 
 perspect of bazaar, and everywhere shops, merchandise piled up 
 or hanging from wall and ceiling, busy merchants, loaded por- 
 ters, groups of veiled women, coming and going, a perpetual 
 noise of people and things enough to make one dizzy. 
 
 The confusion, however, is only apparent. This immense 
 bazaar is ordered like a barrack, and it only needs an hour or 
 two to enable you to know how to find anything you want with- 
 out a guide. Every kind of goods has its own particular quar- 
 ter, its street, its corridor, and its square, or piazetta. There 
 are a hundred little bazaars contained in one great one, and 
 opening one into the other like the rooms of a vast apartment ; 
 and each bazaar is at the same time a museum, a market, and 
 a theatre, where you may look at all without buying anything, 
 take coffee, enjoy the coolness, chatter in ten languages, and 
 make eyes at the prettiest women in the Orient. 
 
 You may linger a whole day in one bazaar, unconscious of 
 the flight of time ; for example, the bazaar of stuffs, and cloth- 
 ing. It is an emporium of beauty and riches enough to ruin
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 77 
 
 your eyes, your brains, and your pocket ; and you must be on 
 your guard, for a caprice might bring upon you the consequence 
 of sending for help by telegraph. You walk in the midst of 
 towering heaps of brocades from Bagdad, carpets from Cara- 
 mania, silks from Broussa, linens from Hindustan, muslins from 
 Bengal, shawls from Madras, cachemeres from India and Per- 
 sia, many tinted tissues from Cairo ; cushions arabesqued in 
 gold, silken veils woven with silver stripes, scarfs of gauze in 
 blue and crimson, so light and transparent that they seem like 
 sunset clouds ; stuffs of every kind and every design, in which 
 red, blue, green, yellow, colors the most rebellious to sym- 
 pathetic combination, are brought together and interwoven, 
 with a happy audacity and harmony, that makes one stand in 
 open-mouthed wonder ; table- covers of all sizes, with red or 
 white grounds embroidered all over with arabesques, flowers, 
 verses from the Koran, and imperial ciphers, worthy of being 
 admired for hours, like the walls of the Alhambra. Here may 
 be found, one by one, each separate part of the Turkish lady's 
 dress; from the mantle green, orange, or purple, that covers 
 the whole person, down to the silken chemise, the gold-embroi- 
 dered kerchief, and the satin girdle, on which no eye of man is 
 permitted to fall, save that of the husband or the eunuch. 
 Here are caftans of crimson velvet, bordered with ermine, and 
 covered with stars ; corsets of yellow satin, trousers of rose- 
 colored silk, under-vests of white damask embroidered with 
 golden flowers, bride- veils sparkling with silver spangles ; green 
 cloth jackets trimmed with swans-down; Greek, Armenian, 
 and Circassian garments, of the oddest shapes, overloaded 
 with ornament, hard and splendid like a cuirass ; and with all
 
 78 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 this, the prosaic stuffs of France and England, of dull colors, 
 reminding one of a tailor's bill among the verses of a poem. 
 No one who loves a lady can pass through this bazaar without 
 cursing fate that has not made him a millionaire, or without 
 feeling his soul on fire with the fury of sack and pillage. 
 
 To get rid of this temptation, one has only to turn into the 
 pipe-bazaar. Here the imagination is led into calmer paths of 
 desire. The eye dwells fondly upon bundles of chibouks, with 
 sticks of cherry, jasmine, maple and rosewood ; mouth-pieces 
 of yellow amber from the Baltic, polished and lustrous as crys- 
 tal, set with rubies and diamonds, and of many shades of 
 color; pipes from Cesaria, their stems bound with threads of 
 silk and gold ; tobacco pouches from the Lebanon, lozenged in 
 various colors, and splendidly embroidered in arabesques ; 
 narghiles from Bohemia, of steel, silver, and crystal, of beauti- 
 ful antique shapes, damascened, carved, encrusted with precious 
 stones, with morocco tubes sparkling with golden rings ; 
 wrapped in cotton, and perpetually watched by two fixed eyes, 
 that at the approach of any curious looker on, dilate like the 
 eyes of an owl, and stifle on the lip the question as to price ; 
 that is of any one who is not at least a vizier, or a pasha who 
 has been governing for a year a province in Asia Minor. Here 
 comes to buy, the messenger from the Sultana, who desires to 
 make a grateful present to the docile Grand-Vizier ; or that 
 high dignitary of the court, lately inducted into a new office, 
 and constrained, for the sake of decorum, to spend fifty thou- 
 sand francs in a rack full of pipes ; or one of the Sultan's am- 
 bassadors, who desires to carry to some European monarch a 
 splendid memorial of Stamboul. The modest Turk gives a
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 79 
 
 glance and passes by, paraphrasing for his consolation the sen- 
 tence of the Prophet; "The fires of hell shall war like the 
 growl of a camel in the belly of him who smokes in a pipe of gold 
 or silver" From this, one falls again into temptation upon en- 
 tering the bazaar of perfumery, which is one of the most com- 
 pletely Oriental, and dear to the Prophet, who said : " Women, 
 children, and perfumes " naming his three most beloved 
 pleasures. Here are found the famous Seraglio pastilles, for 
 perfuming kisses, the capsules of odoriferous gum which the 
 robust girls of Chio make for the reinforcement of the mouths 
 of the soft Turkish ladies ; the exquisite essences of jasmine 
 and bergamot, and that most potent essence of roses, shut in 
 cases of gold-embroidered velvet, and of prices to make your 
 hair stand on end ; here is kohl for the brows and lashes, anti- 
 mony for the eyes, henna for the finger tips, soaps that soften 
 the skin of the lovely Syrians, pills that cause the hair to fall 
 from the faces of Circassian men, citron and orange waters, 
 little bags of musk, oil of sandal wood, grey amber, aloes to 
 perfume pipes and coffee cups, a myriad of powders, waters and 
 pomades ; of fantastic names and mysterious uses, that each 
 represents an amorous caprice, a purpose of seduction, a refine- 
 ment of voluptuousness, and that all together, diffuse an acute 
 and sensual fragrance, which invokes a vision of languid eyes 
 and caressing hands, and a suppressed murmur as of sighs and 
 kisses. 
 
 These fancies all vanish as you enter the jewellers' bazaar, 
 a dark, deserted alley, flanked by mean looking shops, in which 
 no one would dream what fabulous treasures there lie hid. The 
 jewels are shut up in oaken coffers, bound and plated with iron,
 
 SO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 and placed in front of the shops immediately under the. eyes of 
 the merchant : old Turks, or old Jews with long beards, whose 
 piercing eyes seem to penetrate to the very bottom of your 
 purse and pocket. Sometimes one of them stands erect in his 
 doorway, and as you pass before him, he first fixes his eye in- 
 tently upon yours, and then with a rapid gesture holds up be- 
 fore you a diamond from Golconda, or a sapphire from Ormus, 
 or a ruby from Gramschid, and at the slightest negative sign on 
 your part, withdraws it with the same rapidity as he presented 
 it. Others pass by with lingering step, stop you in the middle 
 of the street, and after having cast a suspicious glance around, 
 draw from their breast a dirty rag, and unfolding it, display a 
 fine Brazilian topaz, or a beautiful Macedonian turquoise, look- 
 ing in your eyes the while with a demoniacal glance of tempta- 
 tion. Others give you a scrutinizing glance, and not judging 
 you worthy, do not deign to offer their precious wares. Not 
 one makes a motion to open the coffer, even if you have the 
 face of a saint, or the air of a Caesar. The necklaces of opals, 
 the flowers and stars of emeralds, the crescents and diadems 
 set with pearls of Ophir, the dazzling heaps of aquamarines 
 and chrysopaz ; of agates, garnets, and lapis lazuli, these re- 
 main inexorably hidden from the eyes of the impecunious spec- 
 tator, and more especially from those of an Italian scribbler. 
 The utmost that he may dare is to ask the price of some 
 rosary of amber, coral, or sandal-wood, to run through his 
 finders in Turkish fashion, and cheat the time in the intervals 
 
 t5 
 
 of his labors. 
 
 It is amusing to go into the shops of the Frank merchants 
 where there are things to suit all purses. You have scarcely
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 8 1 
 
 entered before you are surrounded by a circle of people sprung 
 from you cannot tell where. It is not possible to deal with one 
 person alone. What with shopkeepers, and- their partners, mid- 
 dlemen, and all the hangers on of each, there are always half a 
 dozen. If you escape one, you are sure to fall into the claws 
 of the other ; and there is no help for you ; and it is incredible, 
 the artfulness, the patience, the obstinacy, the diabolical as- 
 tuteness which they display in making you buy what they 
 please. They begin by asking an absurd price ; you offer one 
 third ; they drop their arms in sign of profound discouragement, 
 or strike their foreheads with a gesture of despair, and make no 
 reply ; or else they burst into a torrent of passionate words in- 
 tended to touch your heart. You are a cruel man, you want 
 to make them shut up their shop, you want to reduce them to 
 misery, you have no pity on their children, they cannot under- 
 stand what they have done to be treated in such a manner. 
 While one is naming the price of an object, a sensa/e, (middle- 
 man, or touter) from a neighboring shop, whispers in your ear : 
 " Do not buy they are cheating you." You think he is sin- 
 cere, but he is really playing into the hands of your merchant ; 
 he tells you that they are cheating you in the shawl only to 
 gain your confidence, and pick your pocket the next minute by 
 advising you to buy the table-cover or carpet. While you are 
 examining the stuff; they are exchanging signs, winks, and 
 whispers. If you know Greek, they speak Turkish ; if you 
 know that, they speak Armenian ; if you understand Armenian, 
 they speak Spanish ; but in one way or another they are cer- 
 tain to get the better of you. If you are hard to convince, they 
 flatter you ; tell you that you speak their language admirably, 
 4*
 
 82 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 that you have the air of a perfect gentleman, and that they 
 never can forget your handsome face ; they talk of your coun- 
 try, where they have been ; because they have been everywhere ; 
 they give you coffee, and offer to accompany you to the cus- 
 tom-house when you leave, to prevent extortion ; in reality to 
 cheat you, the custom-house, and your travelling companions, 
 if you have any ; they turn the whole shop upside down, and 
 are not at all put out if you buy nothing ; if not that day you 
 will buy some other day ; you are sure to come to the bazaar 
 and their hunting-dogs will find you out ; if you do not fall 
 into their hands, you will fall into those of their associates ; 
 if they do not fleece you as merchants, they will skin you as 
 s ens ale j if they do not settle you in the shop, they will finish 
 you at the custom-house ; in some way they are sure to have 
 you. To what people do these belong? No one knows. By 
 dint of talking in every language they have lost their primitive 
 accent ; by dint of acting comedy all day long, they have 
 changed the physiognomical features of their race ; they are of 
 any country they please for the moment, they follow any trade 
 they choose, interpreters, guides, merchants, usurers; and 
 above all things, artists incomparable in the art of cheating 
 the universe. 
 
 The Mussulman merchants offer a very different field of 
 observation. Among them are still to be found those old 
 Turks, now rare in the streets of Constantinople, who are like 
 personifications of the times of the Mahomets and Bajazets ; 
 the living remains of that old Ottoman edifice that first began 
 to crumble under the reforms of Mahmoud, and that day by 
 day, stone by stone, is falling into ruin and change. Go to the
 
 THE GREA T BAZAAR. 83 
 
 great bazaar and gaze into the dark depths of the little dark 
 shops in the more distant streets, and there you will find the 
 enormous old turbans of Soliman's time, shaped like the 
 cupola of a mosque ; the impassive faces, with glazed eyes, 
 hooked noses, and long white beards ; the antique caftans, 
 orange colored and purple, the great trousers of a thousand 
 pletes, bound round the body with immeasurable sashes; the 
 haughty and grave demeanor of the ancient dominating race, 
 their faces dulled by opium, or glowing with a sentiment of 
 ardent religious faith. They are there at the bottom of their 
 dark shops, with folded arms and crossed legs, motionless and 
 grave as images, awaiting in silence the coming of the predes- 
 tined purchaser. If things go well, they murmur Mashallah ! 
 Praised be God ! if they go ill Oisun / so must it be! 
 and resign themselves to destiny. Some are reading the Koran, 
 others pass between their fingers the beads of their rosaries, 
 listlessly muttering the hundred epithets of Allah ; others, who 
 have completed some good bargain, drink their narghile, as the 
 Turkish expression has it, turning their eyes about slowly with 
 a sleepy, voluptuous look ; and still others sit drooping forward, 
 with half-closed eyes, and corrugated brows, as if in profound 
 thought. What are they thinking of? Perhaps of their sons 
 dead under the walls of Sebastopol, or of their caravans dis- 
 persed, or of their lost pleasures, or of the gardens of eternity 
 promised by the Prophet, where under the shade of palms and 
 pomegranate trees, they shall espouse the stainless dark-eyed 
 houris. 
 
 Every one of them is odd and picturesque in his own way ; 
 every shop door is the frame of a picture full of color and fancy,
 
 84 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 that fills the mind with stories of adventure and romance. 
 That thin, bronzed man with the bold features, is an Arab, who 
 himself drove from his own distant country, his camels laden 
 with gems and alabaster, and has more than once heard the 
 whistle of the bullets of the desert robbers. This other, in the 
 yellow turban, and with a lordly bearing, has crossed on horse- 
 back the solitudes of Syria, bringing silk from Tyre and Sidon. 
 This black statue with his head wrapped in an old Persian 
 shawl, and his forehead seamed with scars, made by the necro- 
 mancers to save him from death, who holds his head high, as 
 if he still beheld the Colossus of Thebes and the tops of the 
 Pyramids, has come from Nubia. That handsome Moor with 
 pallid face and deep black eyes, wrapped in a snow-white man- 
 tle, has brought his carpets from the uttermost western spur of 
 the chain of Atlas. The Turk in the green turban with the 
 attenuated visage has but just returned from the great pilgrim- 
 age, where he has seen his friends die of thirst in the intermi- 
 nable plains of Asia Minor, and arriving at Mecca almost dead, 
 dragged himself seven times around the Kaaba, and fell fainting 
 as he covered the Black Stone with ardent kisses. The giant 
 with a white face, arched eyebrows, and fiery eyes, who looks 
 more like a warrior than a merchant, and whose whole being is 
 full of pride and ambition, has brought his furs from the north- 
 ern regions of the Caucasus, where in his younger days he has 
 struck many a Cossack's head from his shoulders ; and this 
 poor wool merchant, with his flat face, and small oblique eyes, 
 muscular and hard as an athlete, it is not long since he said his 
 prayer under the shadow of the immense dome that surmounts 
 the sepulchre of Timour ; he started from Samarkand, crossed
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 85 
 
 the deserts of Bulgaria, passed through herds of Turkomans, 
 crossed the Dead Sea, escaped the bullets of the Circassians, 
 gave thanks to Allah in the Mosque of Trebizond, and came 
 to seek his fortune at Stamboul, whence he will return, an old 
 man, to his beloved Tartary, which he holds ever in his heart. 
 
 One of the most splendid bazaars is that for shoes, and it is 
 perhaps the one that is most tempting. There is a double row 
 of glittering shops, making the street look like a royal hall, or 
 like one of those gardens of the Arabian tales, where the trees 
 have golden leaves and flowers of pearl. There are enough 
 slippers to cover all the little feet of all the courts of Asia and 
 Europe. The walls are tapestried with slippers, in velvet, in 
 fur, in brocade, in satin, of the most startling colors and the 
 most capricious form, ornamented with filagree, glittering with 
 tinsel spangles, trimmed with swans-down and ravelled silk, em- 
 broidered with flowers in gold and silver, covered with intricate 
 arabesques that hide the material, and sparkling with precious 
 stones. There are shoes for the boatman's wife and for the 
 Sultan's ladies, ranging from five francs to one thousand francs 
 a pair. There is the morocco shoe destined to walk upon the 
 stony ways of Pera, and the slipper that will be shuffled over 
 the carpets of the harem, the patten that will resound upon the 
 marbles of the imperial baths ; and exquisite things in white 
 satin and pearls fit only for the bride of the Grand Seigneur. 
 But where are the feet that can get into them ? There are 
 some that appear to have been designed for houris or fairies j 
 about as long as a lily leaf, small enough to cause the despair 
 of an Andalusian, and pretty enough to dream about ; works 
 of art to keep upon your table ; boxes to keep sugar plums and
 
 86 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 love letters in. This bazaar is one of the most frequented by 
 foreigners. Young men from Europe are to be seen there, 
 having in their hand a bit of paper containing the measure of the 
 length of some dear French or Italian foot of whose smallness 
 they are proud, and who make gestures of annoyance or despair, 
 when they discover how much it surpasses in length some tiny 
 slipper on which they have set their heart; and others, who 
 asking the price, and hearing a shot, fly without a word. Here 
 also come to purchase, the Mussulman ladies, the hanums in 
 great white veils, and now and then one can catch a fragment 
 of their long dialogues with the merchant, some harmonious 
 words of their beautiful language, pronounced in clear, sweet 
 voices that caress the ear like the sound of a musical instru- 
 ment. 
 
 Buni catscia verersia ? How much is this ? Paballi dir. 
 It is too much. Ziade verem^m. I will not pay more. And then 
 a girlish and sonorous laugh that makes one want to pinch their 
 cheeks and chuck them under the chin. 
 
 The richest and most picturesque of all is the Bazaar of 
 Arms. It is a real museum, full of treasures, the sight of which 
 carries the imagination into the regions of legendary story and 
 excites an indescribable sentiment of wonder and dismay. All 
 the strongest, most frightful, and crudest weapons that have 
 ever been brandished in defence of Islam, from Mecca to the 
 Danube, are there, bright and sharp, as if they had but just left 
 the hands of the fierce fanatical soldiery of Mahomet or Selim ; 
 and one can almost see glittering among them the blood-shot, 
 fiery eyes of those formidable Sultans, those ferocious janissa- 
 ries, fearless and pitiless, who scattered blood and fire over
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 87 
 
 Asia Minor and Europe. There are to be found those famous 
 scimetars that could sever a feather in the air, and slice off the 
 ears of an insolent ambassador; those formidable cangiars that 
 at one blow could split a man from head to heart ; those maces 
 that have crushed Servian and Hungarian helmets ; yataghans 
 with handles of carved ivory, incrusted with amethysts and ru- 
 bies, on whose blades can still be seen graven the number of 
 the heads they have served to cut off; daggers with silver, vel- 
 vet, and satin sheaths, and handles of agate and ivory, set with 
 garnets, coral, and turquoises, inscribed with verses from the 
 Koran in letters of gold, and with curved and contorted blades 
 that look as if they were searching for a heart. Who knows 
 but that in this terrible armory there does not lurk the scimetar 
 of Orcano, or the wooden sabre with which the powerful arm 
 of Abd el-Murad, the warrior dervise, sheared off a head at one 
 blow ; or the famous yataghan that Sultan Moussa used when 
 he clove Hassan from his shoulder to his waist; or the enor- 
 mous sabre of that Bulgarian giant who planted the first ladder 
 against the wall of Constantinople; or the mace with which 
 Mahomet the Second struck dead the rapacious soldier under 
 the dome of Saint Sophia ; or the great Damascus blade that 
 served Iskandu Beg when he cut Feronz-Pasha in two below 
 the walls of Stetigrad ? The most slashing blows and the most 
 horrible deaths in all Ottoman, history rise before the imagina- 
 tion, and one seems to see those weapons still dripping with 
 blood, and imagine that the old Turks in the shops have no 
 doubt gathered up arms and corpses upon the very field of the 
 struggle, and now keep the skeletons hidden in some dark cor- 
 ner. Among the arms may be seen also those great saddles of
 
 88 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 blue and crimson velvet, embroidered with stars and crescents 
 in gold and pearls, with plumed frontals, and inlaid silver bits, 
 and bronzings splendid as royal mantles ; things out of the 
 " Arabian Nights " made for the entrance of a king of the genii 
 into a city of dreams. Above these treasures are suspended 
 ancient muskets with flint and wheel, great Albanian pistols, 
 long Arab guns, worked like jewels, antique shields of tortoise 
 shell and hippopotamus hide, Circassian mail, Cossack targes, 
 Mongol helmets, Turcoman bows, creatimers knives, horrid 
 blades of sinister forms, every one of which seems the revelation 
 of a crime, and makes one think of the contortions of the death 
 agony. In the midst of all this threatening and magnificent 
 array sit cross-legged the most unadulterated Turks in all the 
 Great Bazaar, for the most part old, of a dreary aspect, lean as 
 anchorites and haughty as Sultans, figures of a past age, dressed 
 in the fashion of the first Hegira, looking as if they had been 
 resuscitated and called from the sepulchre to reclaim their un- 
 worthy descendants back to the austerity of the antique race. 
 
 Another bazaar to be seen is the old clothes bazaar. Here 
 Rembrandt would have elected his domicile and Goya would 
 have spent his last peceta. Who has not seen an Eastern old- 
 clothes shop can never imagine what extravagance of rags, 
 what pomp of color, what irony of contrast, what a spectacle 
 at once dreary, filthy, and carnivalesque is presented by the 
 bazaar, this common sewer of rags, in which all the refuse of 
 harems, barracks, courts, theatres, come to await the caprice of 
 a painter, or the need of a mender of old clothes to drag them 
 to the light of day. From long poles inserted in the walls dan- 
 gle old Turkish uniforms, swallow-tailed jackets, lordly dol-
 
 THE GREAT BAZAAR. 89 
 
 mans, tunics of dervises, Bedouin cloaks, all in rags and fringes 
 and tatters, looking as if they had been pierced by a thousand 
 poniards, and reminding one of the sinister spoils that are to 
 be seen upon the tables of the assize courts. Among these 
 rags glitter here and there a bit of gold embroidery, and old 
 silken girdles, turbans loosed from their folds, rich shawls in 
 tatters, velvet bodices whence the pearls have been stripped 
 perhaps by the hand of a robber, drawers and veils that may 
 have belonged to some faithless beauty who now sleeps in a 
 sack at the bottom of the Bosphorus, and other women's gar- 
 ments of delicate colors and texture, hung among coarse Cir- 
 cassian caftans, long, black Jewish gowns, and rusty cassocks, 
 that may have once hidden the bandit's gun, or the cut-throat's 
 dagger. Towards evening, in the mysterious light that falls 
 from the holes pierced in the vaulted ceiling, all these pendent 
 garments take on the appearance of bodies of hanged people; 
 and when in the darkness behind, you detect the glittering eyes 
 of some old Jew, scratching his forehead with his crooked fin- 
 gers, you think, there is the hand that tightened the cords, and 
 you give a glance to see if the outer door is open. 
 
 One day is not sufficient if you wish to see all the ins and 
 outs of this strange place. There is the fez bazaar, where are 
 sold fezes from every country, from Morocco to Vienna, orna- 
 mented with inscriptions from the Koran that keep off evil spir- 
 its ; the fez which the beautiful Greek wears upon the top of 
 her head, above the knot of her black tresses braided with coins ; 
 the red skull cap of the Turkish women ; soldiers', generals', 
 Sultans', dandies' fezes of all shades of red and of all shapes, 
 from those of the earliest primitive time up to the large and
 
 90 COXSTANT1XOPLE. 
 
 elegant fez of Sultan Mahmoud, emblem of reforms, and the 
 abomination of all old Mussulmans. There is the fur bazaar, 
 where can be found the sacred skin of the black fox, which once 
 could only be worn by the Sultan and his Grand Vizier ; marten 
 fur, with which the richest caftans are lined ; white bear and 
 black bear, blue fox, astrakan, ermine, and ribelline in which 
 the Sultans used to spend fabulous sums. Then there is the 
 cutlers' bazaar, which should be visited, if only to see and han- 
 dle a pair of those enormous Turkish scissors, whose bronzed 
 and gilded blades, adorned with fantastic designs of birds and 
 flowers, cross each other in the most ferocious manner, leaving 
 a space into which might be thrust the head of a malignant 
 critic. There is the bazaar of the gold-thread makers, that of 
 the embroiderers, and many others, all different in form and gra- 
 dations of light, but all alike in one respect, that no woman is 
 ever seen to be at work in any one of them. The nearest ap- 
 proach to it is perhaps some Greek woman, who, seated for a 
 moment before a tailor's counter, timidly offers you a handker- 
 chief which she has just finished embroidering. Oriental jeal- 
 ousy interdicts shop-keeping to the fair sex, as a school for co- 
 quetry and intrigue. 
 
 But there are still other parts of the Great Bazaar where a 
 stranger can not venture, unaccompanied by a merchant or a 
 sensale ; and these are the interior portions of the small quarters 
 into which this singular city is divided, little islands about 
 which run the crowded streets. If it is difficult not to lose one's- 
 self in the street, it is impossible in these places. From corri- 
 dors but little wider than a man and so low that you can scarce 
 walk upright, you grope your way clown some wooden steps,
 
 THE GREA T BAZAAR. gi 
 
 pass through other courts lighted by lanterns, descend below 
 the surface of the ground, emerge again into daylight, walk with 
 bent head through long winding passages, under damp vaults, 
 between black walls and dirty wooden partitions, which lead to 
 secret doors by which you find yourself unexpectedly at the 
 point whence you started ; and everywhere you see shadows 
 coming and going, motionless spectral figures standing in cor- 
 ners, people moving merchandise or counting money; lights 
 appear and disappear, voices and hurried steps resound from 
 you know not where ; black objects obstruct your path, strange 
 gleams of light, and unknown odors assail your senses, until 
 you feel as if you were wandering in some enchanted cavern, 
 and were doomed to wander there forever. 
 
 In general the sensale take strangers through these places in 
 order to conduct them to those out of the way shops where a 
 little of everything is sold ; a kind of grand bazaar in minia- 
 ture, a sort of superior second-hand shops, very curious to see, 
 but most perilous for the purse, for they contain such rare and 
 curious things that avarice incarnate can not resist them. 
 These merchants in a little of every thing, passed rascals and 
 cheats, be it understood, and polyglot like all their kind, have a 
 certain dramatic way of carrying on their temptations that is 
 most amusing, and rarely fails in its purpose. Their shops are 
 almost all small and dark, and full of presses and cases ; lights 
 are always burning in them, and there is scarcely room enough 
 to stand. After having shown you some small matter in carved 
 ivory and mother-of-pearl, some Chinese cup, or Japanese vase, 
 the merchant says that he has something specially for you, and 
 draws forth a casket whence he turns out upon the table a
 
 92 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 quantity of objects ; a fan of peacocks' feathers, a bracelet of 
 old Turkish coins, a little camels' hair cushion with the Sultan's 
 cipher embroidered in gold, a little Persian mirror painted with 
 scenes from the book of paradise ; a tortoise shell spoon with 
 which the Turks eat preserved cherries ; an old ribbon of the 
 order of the Osmanli. There is nothing here that pleases 
 you? He opens another casket, and this time there is no 
 doubt that it is for you only. There is a broken elephant's 
 tusk, a Trebizond bracelet that looks as if it were made out of 
 a tress of silver hair, a little Japanese idol, a sandal wood comb 
 from Mecca, a large Turkish spoon carved in open work and 
 inlaid, an antique narghile in silver gilt, with an inscription, 
 bits of mosaic from Saint Sophia, a heron's plume that has or- 
 namented the turban of Selim, third of that name, the merchant 
 gives his word of honor for the fact. Is there nothing here 
 that tempts you ? He opens another casket, and pulls out an 
 ostrich egg from Sennahar, a Persian ink-horn, a damascened 
 ring, a Mingrelian bow, with its quiver of elk-skin, a Circassian 
 double-pointed cap, a jasper rosary, a perfume burner of enam- 
 elled gold, a Turkish talisman, a camel driver's knife, a bottle 
 of attar of roses do you find nothing yet, in Heaven's name ? 
 Do you not want to make a present ? Have you no thought 
 for your relations ? No remembrance of your friends ? But 
 perhaps you have a passion for stuffs and carpets, and in these 
 also you can be served in a friendly way. Here, Milord, is a 
 striped mantle from Kurdistan ; here is a lion's skin, here 
 is a carpet from Aleppo with steel nails, here is a car- 
 pet of Casa-blanca, three fingers thick, that will last for 
 four generations, guaranteed ; here, your excellency, are old
 
 THE GREA T BAZAAR. 93 
 
 cushions, old brocaded sashes, and old silken coverlets, a little 
 frayed and moth eaten, but embroidered in a way that can not 
 be done now, not even if you were to pay a fortune for it. You, 
 Cabellero, who have been brought here by a friend, you shall 
 have this sash for five napoleons, and I shall have the means 
 for eating bread and- garlic for a week. 
 
 If you are staunch against this temptation, he will whisper 
 in your ear that he can sell you the very cord with which the 
 terrible mutes of the Seraglio strangled Nassuh Pasha, the 
 Grand Vizier of Mahmoud Third ; if } r ou laugh in his face and 
 say you can not swallow that, he will drop it like a man of 
 spirit, and will make one final attempt upon your purse, by 
 throwing down before you a horse's tail, like those that are car- 
 ried before and behind a pasha ; or a janissary's helmet, carried 
 off by his father, all stained with blood, on the very day of the 
 famous massacre ; or a piece of flag from the Crimea, with the 
 crescent and silver stars ; or an agate wash basin ; or a brazier 
 in carved copper ; or a dromedary's collar hung with shells and 
 bells ; or a eunuch's whip of hippopotamus hide, or a Koran 
 bound in gold, or a scarf from Korassan, or a pair of slippers 
 from Kadina, or a candle-stick made from an eagle's talon, 
 until at last your fancy all on fire, you feel a wild desire to throw 
 down purse, watch, studs, and sleeve buttons, and cry out give, 
 give ! and one must indeed be a father of wisdom to resist. 
 How many artists have come out of this place as bare as Job, and 
 how many rich men have made a hole in their patrimony ! 
 
 But before the great bazaar closes, we must take one more 
 turn about it, and see it in its latest hour. The movement of 
 the crowd is more hurried, the merchants call out more impera-
 
 94 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 lively, Greeks and Armenians run about with shawls and carpets 
 over their arms, crying their wares ; groups form, dissolve, and 
 re-form further on ; horses, carriages, and beasts of burthen 
 pass in a long file towards the entrance doors. In that hour, 
 all the merchants with whom you have bargained without com- 
 ing to an agreement, flit about you in the twilight like bats ; 
 they peep at you from behind columns, and cross your path at 
 every turn, in order to remind you by their presence of that 
 stuff, or that jewel, and renew your fancy for it. Sometimes 
 you have a train behind you ; if you stop, they stop, if you turn, 
 they turn, and if you look back you meet the glance of twenty 
 fixed dilated eyes that seem to devour you alive. But the light 
 wanes, and the crowd is thinning ; under the long vaulted roofs 
 resounds the voice of some invisible muezzin, announcing the 
 close of day ; some Turks spread their carpets and murmur 
 their evening prayer before their shops ; others make their ab- 
 lutions at the fountains. Already the old centenarians of the 
 Bazaar of Arms have closed the great iron doors ; the smaller 
 bazaars are deserted, the corridors are lost in darkness, the 
 openings of streets look like caverns, camels come upon you 
 unheard, the voices of the water-venders die away under the 
 arches, the Turks hasten their steps, strangers depart, the shut- 
 ters are closed, the day is over. 
 
 And now I hear the inquiry on all sides: "But what about 
 Saint Sophia? and the old Seraglio? and the palaces of the 
 Sultan? and the Castle of Seven Towers? and Abdul-Aziz? 
 and the Bosphorus ? " I will describe all in turn and with all 
 my heart ; but first, I must be allowed to wander still freely 
 about Constantinople, changing my argument at every page, as 
 then, I changed my thought at every step.
 
 THE LIGHT. 95 
 
 THE LIGHT. 
 
 AND first of all, the light ! One of my dearest delights at 
 Constantinople was to see the sun rise and set, standing upon 
 the bridge of the Sultana Valide. At dawn, in autumn, the 
 Golden Horn is almost always covered'by'a light fog, behind 
 which the city is seen vaguely, like those gauze curtains that 
 descend upon the stage to conceal the preparations for a scenic 
 spectacle. Scutari is quite hidden ; nothing is to be seen but 
 the dark uncertain outline of her hills. The bridge and the 
 shores are deserted, Constantinople sleeps ; the solitude and 
 silence render the spectacle more solemn. The sky begins to 
 grow golden behind the hills of Scutari. Upon that luminous 
 strip are drawn, one by one, black and clear, the tops of the 
 cypress trees in the vast cemetery, like an army of giants 
 ranged upon the heights; and from one cape of the Golden 
 Horn to the other, there shines a tremulous light, faint as the 
 first murmur of the awakening city. Then behind the cypresses 
 of the Asiatic shore comes forth an eye of fire, and suddenly 
 the white tops of the four minarets of Saint Sophia are tinted 
 with deep rose. In a few minutes, from hill to hill, from 
 mosque to mosque, down to the end of the Golden Horn, all 
 the minarets, one after the other, turn rose color, all the domes, 
 one by one are silvered, the flush descends from terrace to ter- 
 race, the tremulous light spreads, the great veil melts, and all
 
 9$ CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Stamboul appears, rosy and resplendent upon her heights, blue 
 and violet along the shores, fresh and young, as if just risen 
 from the waters. As the sun rises the delicacy of the first tints 
 vanishes in an immense illumination, and everything remains 
 bathed in white light until towards evening. Then the divine 
 spectacle begins again. The air is so limpid that from Galata 
 one can see clearly every distant tree, as far as Kadi-Kioi. 
 The whole of the immense profile of Stamboul stands out 
 against the sky with such a clearness of line and rigor of color, 
 that every minaret, obelisk, and cypress tree can be counted 
 one by one from Seraglio Point to the cemetery of Eyub. The 
 Golden Horn and the Bosphorus assume a wonderful ultrama- 
 rine color; the heavens, the color of amethyst in the East, are 
 on fire behind Stamboul, tinting the horizon with infinite lights 
 of rose and carbuncle that make one think of the first day of 
 the creation ; Stamboul darkens, Galata becomes golden, and 
 Scutari, struck by the last rays of the setting sun, with every 
 pane of glass giving back the glow, looks like a city on fire. 
 And this is the moment to contemplate Constantinople. There 
 is one rapid succession of the softest tints, pallid gold, rose and 
 lilac, which quiver and float over the sides of the hills and the 
 water, every moment giving and taking away the prize of beauty 
 from each part of the city, and revealing a thousand modest 
 graces of the landscape that have not dared to show themselves 
 in the full light. Great melancholy suburbs are lost in the 
 shadow of the valleys; little purple cities smile upon the 
 heights ; villages faint as if about to die ; others die at once 
 like extinguished flames ; others, that seemed already dead, re- 
 vive, and glow, and quiver yet a moment longer under the last
 
 THE LIGHT. 97 
 
 ray of the sun. Then there is nothing left but two resplendent 
 points upon the Asiatic shore ; the summit of Mount Bulgurlu, 
 and the extremity of the cape that guards the entrance to the 
 Propontis j they are at first two golden crowns, then two purple 
 caps, then two rubies ; then all Constantinople is in shadow, 
 and ten thousand voices from ten thousand minarets announce 
 the close of day.
 
 98 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 BIRDS. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE has one grace and gayety peculiar to it- 
 self, that comes from an infinite number of birds of every kind, 
 for which the Turks nourish a warm sentiment of sympathy and 
 regard. Mosques, groves, old walls, gardens, palaces, all re- 
 sound with the song, the whistling and twittering of birds ; 
 everywhere wings are fluttering, and life and harmony abound. 
 The sparrows enter the houses boldly and eat out of women's 
 and children's hands ; swallows nest over the cafe doors, and 
 under the arches of the bazaars ; pigeons in innumerable 
 swarms, maintained by legacies from Sultans and private in- 
 dividuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices 
 of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets ; sea- 
 gulls dart and play over the water, thousands of turtle-doves 
 coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries ; crows 
 croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers ; halcyons come 
 and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Mar- 
 mora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. 
 For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle meaning, or 
 a benignant virtue ; turtle-doves are favorable to lovers, swal- 
 lows keep away fire from the roofs where they build their nests, 
 storks make yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, halcyons carry the 
 souls of the faithful to Paradise. Thus he protects and feeds
 
 BIRDS. 99 
 
 them, through a sentiment of gratitude and piety, and they 
 enliven the house, the sea, and the sepulchre. Every quarter 
 of Stamboul is full of the noise of them, bringing to the city a 
 sense of the pleasures of country life, and continually refreshing 
 the soul with a reminder of nature.
 
 IOO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 IN no other city in Europe do places and legendary or 
 historical monuments excite the fancy as in Stamboul, for, in no 
 other city do they record events so recent and yet so fantastic. 
 Anywhere else, to find the poetry of memory, one must go back 
 some centuries, but at Stamboul a few years will suffice. Le- 
 gend, or that which has the nature and efficacy of legend, is of 
 yesterday. It is but a few years since the fabulous hecatomb 
 of the Janissaries was consumed in the Et-Meidan ; but a few 
 years since the twenty sacks containing Mustafa's beauties 
 were thrown up on the shores of the Sea of Marmora ; since the 
 family of Brancovano were destroyed in the castle of the Seven 
 Towers ; since two capige-basd, held European ambassadors by 
 both arms in the presence of the Grand Seigneur, only the half 
 of whose face was displayed, illuminated by a mysterious light; 
 and since there ceased behind the walls of the Old Seraglio 
 that strange life, so mingled with love, horror, and madness, that 
 it already seems centuries distant. Wandering about Stamboul 
 with these thoughts, one is conscious of a feeling of astonish- 
 ment at seeing the city so tranquil, and smiling with all its col- 
 or and verdure. Ah ! traitress ! you exclaim, what have you 
 done with those mountains of severed heads, and those lakes 
 of blood ? Is it possible that it is all so well hidden, cleansed, 
 washed, that no trace remains? On the Bosphorus, opposite
 
 MEMORIALS. IOI 
 
 the tower of Leander, that rises, a monument of love, from the 
 water, under the walls of the Seraglio gardens, may still be 
 seen the inclined plane by which faithless odalisques were rolled 
 into the sea ; in the Et-Meidan the serpentine column in the 
 midst still bears the mark of the famous sabre-stroke of Ma- 
 homet the Conqueror ; on the bridge of Mahmoud is still shown 
 the spot where the fiery Sultan struck dead the audacious der- 
 vish, who hurled an anathema in his face ; in the cistern of the 
 ancient church of Balukli, still swim the miraculous fish that 
 predicted the fall of the city of the Paleologhi ; under the trees 
 of the Sweet Waters of Asia are pointed out the recesses where a 
 dissolute Sultana bestowed upon the favorites of a moment the 
 love that ended in death. Every door, every tower, every 
 mosque, every square, recalls some prodigy, or some carnage, 
 some love, or mystery, or prowess of a Padishah, or caprice of 
 a Sultana, every place has its legend, and all the surroundings, 
 the distant prospect, the air, and the silence, concur to bear 
 away the imagination from the life of the present, and plunge it 
 into the past, until the idea of going back to one's hotel seems 
 incongruous and strange, that one is tempted to exclaim What ! 
 is there such a thing as a hotel ?
 
 IO2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 RESEMBLANCES. 
 
 IN the first days, fresh as I was from the perusal of Orien- 
 tal literature, I saw everywhere the famous personages of his- 
 tory and legend, and the figures that recalled them resembled 
 sometimes so faithfully those that were fixed in my imagination, 
 that I was constrained to stop and look at them. How many 
 times have I seized my friend by the arm, and pointing to a 
 person passing by, have exclaimed, ' ' It is he, Cospetto ! do 
 you not recognize him ?" In the square of the Sultana Valide, 
 I frequently saw the gigantic Turk who threw down millstones 
 from the walls of Nicaea, on the heads of the soldiers of Bag- 
 lione ; I saw in front of a mosque Umm Dgiemil, that old fury 
 that sowed brambles and nettles before Mahomet's house ; I 
 met in the book bazaar, with a volume under his arm, Digiemal- 
 eddin, the learned man of Broussa, who knew the whole of the 
 Arab dictionary by heart ; I passed quite close to the side of 
 Ayesha, the favorite wife of the Prophet, and she fixed upon my 
 face her eyes, brilliant and humid like the reflection of stars in a 
 well; I have recognized in the Et-Meidan, the famous beauty 
 of that poor Greek woman, killed by a cannon ball at the base 
 of the serpentine column ; I have been face to face in the Fanar, 
 with Kara-Abderrahman,the handsomest young Turk of the time 
 of Orkana ; I have seen Coswa, the she-camel of the Prophet ; 
 I have encountered Kara-bulut, Selim's black steed ; I have met
 
 RESEMBLANCES. IO3 
 
 the poor poet Fignahi, condemned to go about Stamboul tied 
 to an ass, for having pierced with an insolent distich the Grand 
 Vizier of Ibrahim ; I have been in the same cafe with Soliman 
 the Big, the monstrous admiral, whom four robust slaves hardly 
 succeeded in lifting from his divan ; Ali, the Grand Vizier, 
 who could not find in all Arabia a horse that could carry him ; 
 Mahmoud Pasha, the ferocious Hercules that strangled the son 
 of Soliman ; and the stupid Ahmed Second, who continually 
 repeated, Koso ! Koso ! very well, very well crouching be- 
 fore the door of the copyists' bazaar in the square of Bajazet. 
 All the personages of the Thousand and One Nights, the Alad- 
 dins, the Zobeides, the Sindbads, the Gulnares, the old Jewish 
 merchants, possessors of enchanted carpets and wonderful 
 lamps, passed before me like a procession of phantoms.
 
 IO4 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 COSTUME. 
 
 THIS is really the period wherein to see the Mussulman 
 population of Constantinople to the best advantage, because in 
 the last century they were too uniform, and in the next they 
 will probably be the same. Now we catch them in the act of 
 transformation, and thus they present an extraordinary variety. 
 The progress of the reformers, the resistance of the old Turks, 
 and the uncertainty and hesitations of the great mass that undu- 
 lates between the two extremities, all the phases, in short, of 
 the struggle between old and young Turkey, are faithfully rep- 
 resented in the variety of costume. The inflexible old Turk 
 still wears the turban, the caftan, and the traditional slippers of 
 yellow morocco ; and the more obstinate the man, the bigger 
 his turban. The reforming Turk wears a long black frock coat 
 buttoned to the chin, trousers with straps, and nothing Turkish 
 but the fez. The more youthful among them, however, have 
 already thrown aside the black frock, and wear cut-away coats, 
 light pantaloons, elegant cravats, watch chains and seals, and a 
 flower in the button hole. Between these and those, the caftan 
 wearers, and the frock coats, there is an abyss ; there is nothing 
 in common but the name ; they are two entirely different peo- 
 ples. The turbaned Turk firmly believes in the bridge Sirat 
 over the infernal regions, finer than a hair, and sharper than a 
 scimetar ; he makes his ablutions at the proper hours, and goes
 
 COSTUME. 105 
 
 home at sunset. The Turk of the black frock coat laughs at 
 the Prophet, gets himself photographed, speaks French, and 
 passes his evening at the theatre. Between them both there is 
 the waverer, who still wears the turban, but very small, so that 
 he could exchange it for a fez without scandal ; some wear the 
 caftan, but have already inaugurated the fez ; others wear the 
 ancient costume, but without sash, slippers, or brilliant colors ; 
 and little by little they will get rid of the rest. The women 
 only preserve the veil and mantle that hide the form ; but the 
 veil has become transparent, and sometimes shows a plumed 
 hat underneath, and the mantle often covers a gown cut after a 
 Parisian model. Every year sees the fall of thousands of caf- 
 tans, and the rise of thousands of frock coats ; every day dies 
 an old Turk, and a reformed Turk is born. Newspapers suc- 
 ceed to the rosary, cigars to the chibouk, wine takes the place 
 of water ; the coach displaces the araba ; French grammar is 
 studied instead of Arabian grammar ; pianofortes and stone 
 houses succeed to the timbur, and the house of wood. Every- 
 thing is changing, and being transformed. Perhaps in less 
 than a century we must seek for the remains of old Turkey at 
 the bottom of the more distant provinces of Asia Minor, as we 
 now find old Spain only in the most remote villages of Anda- 
 lusia.
 
 1 06 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 THE FUTURE CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THIS thought assailed me often as I contemplated Constan- 
 tinople from the bridge of the Sultana Valide. What will this 
 city have become after one or two centuries, even if the Turks 
 are not driven out of Europe ? The great holocaust of beauty 
 to expediency will have been consummated. I see her, the 
 Constantinople of the future, that London of the East that will 
 sit in sad and threatening majesty upon the ruins of the most 
 lovely and smiling of cities. The hills will be levelled, the 
 groves cut down, the many colored houses cleared away ; the 
 horizon will be cut on every side by the long, rigid lines of pal- 
 aces, factories, and store-houses, in the midst of which will run 
 myriads of straight streets, flanked by tall shops and pyramidal 
 roofs and steeples. Long, wide avenues will divide Stamboul 
 into ten thousand enormous blocks ; telegraph wires will cross 
 each other like an immense spider web, above the roofs of the 
 noisy city ; on the bridge of the Sultana Valide, will flow all day 
 long a black torrent of stove-pipe hats and caps ; the myste- 
 rious hill of the Seraglio will be a zoological garden ; the castle 
 of the Seven Towers a penitentiary, the Ebdomon a museum 
 of natural history ; the whole will be solid, geometrical, useful, 
 grey and ugly, and a great dark cloud will forever veil the skies 
 of Thrace, towards which will rise no more ardent prayers, no 
 more eyes enamored of the songs of poets. When this image
 
 THE FUTURE CONSTANTINOPLE. IO/ 
 
 rises before me, I feel an oppression of the heart ; but then I 
 console myself thinking: who knows but in the twenty-first 
 century, some Italian bride, making her wedding journey here, 
 may not exclaim sometimes : What a pity ! Pity that Con- 
 stantinople is no longer such as it was when described by that 
 old worm-eaten book of the nineteenth century, that I once 
 found in my grandmother's closet !
 
 IOS CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE is an immense dog kennel ; every one 
 makes the remark as soon as he arrives. The dogs constitute 
 
 O 
 
 a second population of the city, less numerous, but not less 
 strange than the first. Everybody knows how the Turks love 
 them and protect them. I do not know if it is because the 
 sentiment of charity toward all creatures is recommended in 
 the Koran, or because, like certain birds, the dogs are believed 
 to be bringers of good fortune, or because the Prophet loved 
 them, or because the sacred books speak of them, or because 
 as some pretend, Mahomet the Victorious brought in his train a 
 numerous staff of dogs, who entered triumphantly with him 
 through the breach in the San Romano gate. The fact is that 
 they are highly esteemed, that many Turks leave sums for their 
 support in their wills, and that when Sultan Abdul Medjid had 
 them all carried to the Island of Marmora, the people mur- 
 mured, and when they were brought back, they were received 
 with rejoicings, and the government not to provoke ill-humor, 
 has left them ever since in peace. Since, however, according 
 to the Koran, the dog is an unclean animal, and every Turk 
 believes that he would contaminate his house by sheltering one 
 under his roof, it follows that not one of the innumerable dogs 
 of Constantinople has a master. They therefore form a great 
 free vagabond republic, collarless, nameless, houseless, and
 
 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1OQ 
 
 lawless. The street is their abode, there they dig little dens, 
 where they sleep, eat, are born, brought up, and die ; and no 
 one, at least at Stamboul, ever thinks of disturbing their occu- 
 pations or their repose. They are masters of the public high- 
 ways. In our cities it is the dog that makes way for the horse- 
 man, or foot passenger. There it is the people, the horses, the 
 camels, the donkeys) that make way for the dogs. In the most 
 frequented parts of Stamboul four or five dogs, curled up asleep 
 in the middle of the road, will cause the entire population of a 
 quarter to turn out of the way for half a day. It is the same 
 in Galata and Pera, but here they are left in peace, not out of 
 respect for them, but because they are so many that it would 
 be a hopeless and endless task, to attempt to drive them away 
 from under the feet of the passenger. 
 
 They are with difficulty disturbed even when in the crowded 
 street a carriage with four horses is seen coming like the wind. 
 Then, and at the very last moment, they rise and transport 
 their lazy bones a foot or two out of the way just enough and 
 no more to save their lives. Laziness is the distinctive trait of 
 the dogs of Constantinople. They lie down in the middle of 
 the road, five, six, ten in a line, or in a ring, curled up so that 
 they look more like tow mats than beasts, and there they sleep 
 the whole day through, among throngs of people, coming and 
 going, with the most deafening noises, and neither cold, nor 
 heat, nor rain nor shine can move them. When it snows they 
 stay under the snow ; when it rains they lie in the mud up to 
 their ears, so that when at length they rise they look like 
 sketches of animals in clay, and there are neither eyes, ears, 
 nor nose to be seen.
 
 HO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 At Pera and Galata, however, they are less indolent, be- 
 cause it is not so easy to find food. At Stamboul they are 
 boarding, but at Pera and Galata they find their own provisions. 
 They are the scavengers, the living brooms of the street, what 
 the swine reject is welcome to them. Except the stones, they 
 eat everything, and having hardly sufficient to keep death at 
 bay, curl up and sleep until the pangs of famine wake them. 
 They sleep almost always in the same spots. 
 
 The canine population of Constantinople is divided into 
 quarters or wards. Every quarter, every street is inhabited or 
 rather possessed by a certain number of dogs who never go 
 away from it, and never allow strangers to reside in it. They 
 exercise a sort of service of police. They have their guards, 
 their advanced posts, their sentinels ; they go the rounds, and 
 make explorations. Woe to any dog of another quarter who, 
 pushed by hunger, shall risk himself within the territory of his 
 neighbors ! A crowd of curs fall upon him at once, and if they 
 catch him, it is all over with him ; if they cannot catch him, 
 they chase him furiously as far as his own domain ; that is, to 
 the confines of it, for the enemy's country is ever feared and 
 respected. No words can give an idea of the fury of the en- 
 gagements that take place about a bone, about a fair one, or 
 about a violation of territory. Every moment may be seen a 
 crowd of dogs, entangled in an intricate and confused mass, 
 disappearing in a cloud of dust, and giving forth such barkings 
 and yelpings as would pierce the ears of a man born deaf; 
 then the crowd disperses and through the dust appear the 
 victims stretched here and there upon the field of battle. Love, 
 jealousy, duels, blood, broken legs and lacerated ears are the
 
 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Ill 
 
 incidents of every hour. Sometimes bands of them assemble 
 and make such a disturbance in front of some shop, that the 
 shopkeeper and his boys are constrained to arm themselves 
 with sticks and benches and make a military sortie to clear the 
 street, and then heads may be heard to crack, and spines to 
 resound, and the air is full of the most unearthly noises. 
 
 At Pera and Galata especially, the poor beasts are so ill- 
 treated, so accustomed to feel a blow whenever they see a stick, 
 that the mere sound of an umbrella, or cane upon the stones 
 sends them flying ; and even when they seem asleep, there is 
 always one ear open, one half closed eye with which they follow 
 for a long distance the movements of a suspicious stick ; and so 
 little accustomed are they to kindly human notice that it is 
 enough to caress one in passing, and ten others will run and 
 jump about you, wagging their tails, whining, with eyes shining 
 with joy and gratitude. 
 
 The condition of a dog at Pera and Galata is acknowledged 
 to be worse than that of a spider in Holland, which all the 
 world knows to be one of the most persecuted creatures in the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 Beholding them, one cannot but believe that they have their 
 recompense after death. Even they, like everything else at 
 Constantinople, called up some historical reminiscence j but it 
 was a bitterly ironical one ; it was the famous hunting pack of 
 Bajazet, that scoured the imperial forests of Olympus, in crim- 
 son housings and jewelled collars ; what a change in social 
 position ! This unhappy fate depends also in part upon their 
 ugliness. They are almost all of the mastiff, or wolf-dog race, 
 and they have a mingled look of wolf and fox ; or rather they
 
 112 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 resemble nothing, but are the horrible product of fortuitous 
 crossings, spotted with strange colors, about the size of the 
 so-called butcher's dog, and so lean that we can count their 
 ribs at twenty paces. 
 
 The greater part of them are reduced by continual battles, 
 into such a condition that if they were not seen to walk, they 
 might be taken for carcasses of dogs, with broken tails, with 
 torn ears, with hairless spines and scarred necks, one-eyed, 
 lame of two legs, covered with sores, and devoured by flies, re- 
 duced to the last condition to which a dog can be reduced and 
 live, they are real relics of war and hunger and disease. As 
 for the tail, it may be said to be an immense luxury, for it is 
 rare for a Constantinople dog to wear his tail entire for more 
 than two months of public life. Poor beasts ! They would 
 inspire a heart of stone with compassion. There are some 
 among them, so lopped and gnawed, and in the strangest ways, 
 they walk with such a languid waddle, with such grotesque 
 letterings, that it is impossible to forbear a smile, and famine, 
 war and sticks, are not their only or their worst enemies. A 
 cruel custom has lately invaded Galata and Pera. 
 
 Often in the night the peaceful citizens are awakened by the 
 most diabolical noises ; and looking from the window they be- 
 hold a crowd of dogs leaping high in the air, whirling round and 
 round, and beating their heads furiously against the walls, and 
 in the morning the ground is strewn with corpses. 
 
 The doctor and apothecary of the quarter, having the habit 
 of studying at night, and wishing to procure a week of quiet, 
 have been distributing a little poison. These and other reasons 
 cause a continual diminution in the number of dogs at Pera and
 
 THE DOGS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 113 
 
 Galata, but to little purpose, since at Stamboul they increase 
 and multiply, until, finding no more aliment in the Turkish city, 
 they emigrate to the other shore and fill with their innumerable 
 progeny, the gaps made in the ranks by battle, famine and 
 poison.
 
 1 14 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE EUNUCHS. 
 
 BUT there are other beings at Constantinople who excite 
 more compassion than the dogs, and they are the eunuchs, who, 
 as they were introduced among the Turks, despite the formal 
 precepts of the Koran, that condemns the infamous degrada^ 
 tion of nature, still subsist, notwithstanding the recent laws 
 which prohibit the traffic, since avidity for gold, and selfishness 
 are stronger than the law. These unfortunates are to be met 
 at every step in the streets, as they are found on 1 every page of 
 history. In the background of every event in the history of 
 Turkey stands one of these sinister figures, with a list of con- 
 spirators in his hand ; covered with gold, and stained with 
 blood, victim, favorite or executioner, openly or secretly formi- 
 dable, upright like a spectre in the shadow of the throne, or 
 dimly seen in the opening of a mysterious door. So now in 
 Constantinople, in the midst of the busy crowd, in the bazaars, 
 among the merry multitude at the Sweet Waters, under the arches 
 of the mosques, beside carriages, in the steamers and caiques, 
 at all feasts, in all crowds, is seen this semblance of a man, this 
 doleful figure, whose presence makes a dark, lugubrious stain 
 upon the smiling aspect of Oriental life. Their political impor- 
 tance has diminished with the omnipotence of the court, and as 
 Oriental jealousy relaxes, their consequence in private houses 
 has also much declined ; it is difficult for them now to find in
 
 THE EUNUCHS. 11$ 
 
 riches and domination, a compensation for their misfortune j 
 no Ghaznefer Aga could now be found to consent to mutilation 
 in order to be made chief of the white eunuchs ; they are all in 
 these days most certainly victims, and victims without hope of 
 redress ; bought or stolen as children in Abyssinia or in Syria, 
 about one in three survives the infamous knife, and he is sold in 
 defiance of the law, with a hypocrisy of secrecy more odious 
 than an open market. They do not need to be pointed out, 
 they are easily recognized. Almost all are tall, fat and flabby, 
 with beardless, withered faces, short bodied, and long in the 
 legs and arms. They wear the scarlet fez, a long dark frock 
 coat and European trousers, and they carry a whip of hippopot- 
 amus hide, which is their insignia of office. They walk with 
 long soft steps like big children. They accompany the ladies 
 on foot or on horseback, either before or behind the carnage, 
 sometimes one, sometimes two together, and keep a vigilant 
 eye about them, which at the least irreverent look or action in 
 the passer by, assumes an expression of ferocious anger. 
 Except in such a case, their faces are absolutely void of expres- 
 sion, or else it is one of infinite weariness and depression. I 
 do not remember ever to have seen one smile. There are some 
 very young ones that look fifty years old, and some old ones 
 that seem youths fallen into decrepitude in a day. 
 
 There are many so round, soft, fat, and shining, that they 
 look like fattened swine : all are dressed in fine cloth, and per- 
 fumed like vain young dandies. There are heartless men who 
 can pass these unfortunate beings with a laugh. Perhaps they 
 think that having been such from childhood they do not com- 
 prehend their own wretchedness. On the contrary, it is known
 
 Il6 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 that they do understand and feel it ; and even if it were not 
 known, how could it be doubted ? They belong to no sex, they 
 are but shows of men ; they live in the midst of men and see 
 themselves separated by an abyss ; they feel life beating about 
 them like a sea and must stand in it, motionless and solitary as 
 a rock ; their thoughts and feelings are strangled by an iron 
 circlet that no human force can break ; they have forever before 
 them an image of felicity, toward which all things tend, around 
 which all things move, by which all things are colored and illu- 
 minated, and they feel themselves immeasurably distant, in 
 darkness, in a great, cold void, like creatures accursed of God. 
 To be, besides custodians of that felicity, barriers which jealous 
 men plant between their pleasures and the world, bolts on the 
 door, rags to hide the treasure ; and to live among perfumes 
 and seductions, youth, beauty, and gladness, with shame upon 
 their foreheads, rage in their souls, despised, sneered at, with- 
 out name, without family, without a record of affection, apart 
 from humanity and nature, ah ! it must be a torment such as 
 the human mind cannot conceive, like living with a dagger 
 fixed in the heart. 
 
 And this infamy is still allowed; these unhappy wretches 
 walk about the streets of a European city, live in the midst of 
 men, and do not howl, or bite, or kill, or spit in the faces of 
 that coward humanity that can look upon them without blush- 
 ing or weeping, and that forms associations for the protection 
 of dogs and cats ! Their lives are one continual torture. 
 When their mistresses do not find them helpful in their in- 
 trigues they hate them as spies and jailors, and torment them 
 with cruel coquetries that drive them mad with fury, like the
 
 THE EUNUCHS. l\J 
 
 poor eunuch in the Lettres Persanes. Everything is sarcasm for 
 them ; they bear the names of flowers and perfumes, in allusion 
 to the ladies whose custodians they are : they are possessors of 
 the hyacinths, guardians of the lilies, custodians of the roses and 
 violets, and sometimes, the miserable wretches fall in love ! be- 
 cause in them the passions are not eradicated ; and the}* are 
 jealous and weep tears of blood ; and often lose their reason 
 altogether and strike. In the time of the Crimean war, a 
 eunuch struck a French officer across the face with his whip, 
 and the latter cut him down with his sabre. Who can say 
 what sufferings are theirs at the sight of smiles, and beauty, or 
 how often their hands grasp the hilt of the dagger. It is no 
 wonder that in the immense void of their hearts there is room 
 for the cold passions of hatred, revenge, and ambition that 
 they grow up acrid, biting, envious, cowardly, ferocious ; that 
 they are either stupidly faithful, or astutely treacherous, and 
 that when they are powerful they seek to avenge upon men 
 the wrong that has been done to them. But however debased 
 they may be, the need of woman's companionship is still pow- 
 erful with them, and since they may not have a wife, they seek 
 her as a friend; they marry ; choosing a woman with child, like 
 Sunbullu, the chief eunuch of Ibrahim First, in order to have a 
 child to love ; they have a harem of virgins, like the chief 
 eunuch of Ahmed Second, in order to have beauty and grace 
 about them, a semblance of affection, an illusion of love ; they 
 adopt a daughter, to have one woman's breast on which to rest 
 their head when old, so as not to die without one caress, and 
 to hear in their last years a kind and loving voice, after having 
 heard throughout their lives nothing but the ironical laugh of
 
 1 1 8 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 contempt; and there are those among them, who having 
 become rich at the court and in the great houses, purchase 
 when they are old, a pretty villa on the Bosphorus, and there 
 try to forget, to deaden the remembrance of their own wretched- 
 ness in the gayety of feasts and guests. Among the many 
 things that were told me of these unhappy beings, one has re- 
 mained vivid in my memory ; and it was a young physician of 
 Pera who related it to me. Confuting the arguments of those 
 who insist that eunuchs do not suffer: "One evening," he 
 said, " I was coining out of a rich Mussulman's house, where I 
 had gone for the third time to visit one of his wives, who had 
 disease of the heart. At my departure, as at my arrival, I was 
 accompanied by a eunuch, calling out in the customary way : 
 'Women, withdraw,' in order to warn ladies and slaves that a 
 stranger is in the harem, and that they must not be seen. In 
 the court-yard the eunuch left me, to find my own way to the 
 gate. Just as I was about to open it, I felt a touch upon my 
 arm, and turning, saw before me in the twilight another eunuch, 
 a young man of eighteen or twenty years of age, who looked 
 fixedly at me, with eyes swimming in tears. I asked him what 
 he wished. He hesitated a moment to reply, and then seizing 
 my hand in both of his, and pressing it convulsively, he said in 
 a trembling voice, full of despairing grief: 'Doctor! you who 
 know the remedy for every ill, do you know of none for mine ? ' 
 I cannot tell you how those simple words affected me ; I tried 
 to answer, but my voice failed me, and hastily opening the 
 door, I took to flight. But all that evening, and for many days 
 after, the figure of the youth stood before me and I heard his 
 words, and my eyes moistened with compassion." O, philan-
 
 THF. EUNUCHS. 1 19 
 
 thropists, public men, ministers, ambassadors, and you, depu- 
 ties to the Parliament of Stamboul, and senators of the Cres- 
 cent, raise your voices in the name of God against this bloody 
 infamy, this horrid blot upon the honor of humanity, that in 
 the twentieth century it may have become, like the slaughter 
 in Bulgaria, only a painful recollection.
 
 120 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE ARMY. 
 
 ALTHOUGH I knew before reaching Constantinople, that I 
 should find there no trace of the splendid army of ancient times, 
 yet I had no sooner arrived, than my most eager curiosity was 
 to see the soldiers, with whom I am always in sympathy. But 
 I found the reality much worse than I had imagined it. In 
 place of the ample, picturesque, and warlike costume of the old 
 time, I found the black ungraceful uniform, the red trousers, the 
 scanty jackets, the stripes of an usher, the sashes of schoolboys, 
 and on every head, from the Sultan to the drummer boy, that 
 deplorable fez, that besides being mean and puerile, especially 
 upon the bare skull of a corpulent Mussulman, is the cause of 
 infinite ophthalmia and hemicrania. The Turkish army has lost 
 the beauty of its ancient time, and has not yet acquired that of 
 an European army ; the soldiers looked sad, careless and dirty ; 
 they may be brave, but they are not attractive. As for their 
 education, this is enough for me ; that I have seen both officers 
 and soldiers in the street using their fingers for a pocket hand- 
 kerchief ; that a soldier on guard on the bridge, where smoking 
 is prohibited, tore the cigar out of a gentleman's mouth, the 
 gentleman being a Vice-consul ; and that in the mosque of the 
 dervishes of Pera, another soldier, in my presence, wishing to 
 make three Europeans understand that they were to take off 
 their hats, struck them all three from their heads with one
 
 THE ARMY. 121 
 
 blow. And I learned, that to raise the voice in deprecation of 
 such treatment, was only to bring about your being seized like 
 a bag of rags and carried off bodily to the guard-house. For 
 which reason, while I was in Constantinople I always behaved 
 to the soldiers with profound respect. I ceased also to wonder 
 at their ways, when I had seen what manner of men they were 
 before putting on the uniform. I saw one day, about a hun- 
 dred recruits, probably from the interior of Asia Minor, passing 
 through the streets of Stamboul, and was filled with pity and 
 disgust. I seemed to be looking at the frightful banditti of 
 Hassan the Mad, that passed through Constantinople in the 
 sixteenth century, on their way to die underAustrian grape-shot 
 in the plain of Pesth. I can still see those sinister faces, those 
 long tresses of tangled hair, those half naked, tattooed bodies, 
 those savage ornaments, and can smell the odor as of a mena- 
 gerie of wild beasts that they left behind them. When the first 
 news of the massacres in Bulgaria arrived, I thought of them at 
 once. It must have been done by my friends of Scutari, said I 
 in my heart. They, however, are the sole picturesque image 
 that remains to me of Mussulman soldiers. Splendid armies 
 of Bajazet, of Soliman, and of Mahomet, that I might see you 
 once, for one instant, ranked upon the plain of Daoud Pashii ! 
 Every time that I passed in front of the triumphal gate of Adri- 
 anople, those armies were before my mind like a luminous vis- 
 ion, and I stopped to look at the gate, as if at any moment the 
 Pasha quarter-master, herald of the Imperial staff, might 
 appear. 
 
 The Pasha quarter-master marched, in fact, at the head of 
 the army, with two horse-tails, insignia of his dignity. Behind 
 6
 
 122 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 him came a great glitter and shine, produced by eight thousand 
 copper spoons, stuck in the turbans of as many janissaries, in 
 the midst of whom the waving heron plumes and glittering ar- 
 mor of the colonels were seen, followed by a crowd of servants 
 loaded with arms and provisions. Behind the janissaries came 
 a small army of volunteers and pages, in silken vests, with iron 
 chain armor, and gleaming helmets, accompanied by a band of 
 music ; after these, the cannoneers, with cannon attached each 
 to each by iron chains, then another small army of agas, pages, 
 chamberlains, and feudatories, mounted upon mailed and plumed 
 steeds. And this was merely the vanguard. Above the ser- 
 ried ranks floated standards of every color, horse-tails waved, 
 lances, bows and other arms glittered, amid which could scarcely 
 be distinguished the faces of warriors bronzed by the sun of Can- 
 dia and of Persia ; and the discordant sounds of drums, flutes, 
 trumpets and timbrels, the voices of the singers who accom- 
 panied the janissaries, the clash of armor, the jingling of chains, 
 the shouts of Allah ! were all confounded in one terrible and 
 warlike noise that resounded from the camp of Daoud Pasha to 
 the opposite shore of the Golden Horn. 
 
 Oh ! painters and poets who have lovingly studied that splen- 
 did Oriental life, now forever vanished, help me to bring out 
 from the walls of Stamboul the fabulous army of Mahomet 
 Third. 
 
 The vanguard has gone by ; another dazzling throng ad- 
 vances. Is it the Sultan ? No, the deity has not yet perhaps 
 issued from the temple. It is the cortege of the favorite vizier. 
 There are forty agas dressed in sables, upon forty horses capar- 
 isoned in velvet and 'with silver reins, behind which comes
 
 THE ARMY. 123 
 
 a crowd of pages and magnificent grooms leading other forty 
 horses covered with gold, and loaded with shields, maces, and 
 scimetars. Another cortege advances. It is not yet the Sultan. 
 It is that of the members of the Council of State, the high dig- 
 nitaries of the Seraglio, and the Grand Treasurer, accompanied 
 by a band of music and a swarm of volunteers in crimson caps 
 ornamented with birds' wings, and dressed in furs, rose-colored 
 silk, leopard-skins, and Hungarian kolpacks, and armed with 
 long lances bound round with silk, and garlanded with flowers. 
 
 Another flood of horsemen sweeps through the gate of 
 Adrianople. It is not yet the Sultan. It is the cortege of the 
 Grand Vizier. First come a crowd of arquebusiers on horse- 
 back, with many distinguished agas worthy in the sight of the 
 Grand Signor, and then come forty agas of the Grand Vizier in 
 the midst of a forest of twelve hundred lances borne by as many 
 pages, and other forty pages dressed in orange color and armed 
 with bows and quivers embroidered with gold, and two hundred 
 young boys divided into six bands of six different colors, among 
 which rode relations of the prime minister, followed by a throng 
 of grooms, armorers, servants, pages, agas in golden vests, and 
 banner-bearers ; and last of all comes the Kiaya, or minister 
 of the interior, surrounded by twelve sciau, or executioners of 
 justice, and followed by the band of the Grand Vizier. 
 
 Another throng issues from the gate. It is not yet the Sultan. 
 It is a crowd of sciau, and holders of various offices, splendidly 
 dressed arid escorting the jurisconsults, mollahs, and others, 
 behind whom comes the grand Huntsman, or grand Falconer, 
 with a train of horsemen carrying before them on their saddles, 
 leopards tamed for the chase, and a procession of falconers,
 
 124 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 esquires, guardians of the ferrets, trumpeters, and packs of capar- 
 isoned and bejewelled dogs. 
 
 Another company appears. The spectators prostrate them- 
 selves j it is the Sultan ! no not yet ; it is not the head, but 
 the heart of the army ; the sacred ark, the fire of courage and 
 pious rage, the Mussulman carroccio^ around which shall rise 
 heaps of corpses and stream torrents of blood, the green stand- 
 ard of the Prophet, the ensign of ensigns, taken from the 
 mosque of Sultan Ahmed, and floating over a ferocious crowd 
 of dervishes, covered with lion and bear skins, encircled by a 
 band of preachers of inspired aspect, wrapped in mantles of 
 camels' hair, between two ranks of emirs, descendants of the 
 Prophet, wearing green turbans ; and all together they raise a 
 threatening and sinister clamor of shouts and prayers and sacred 
 songs. 
 
 Yet another wave of men and horses. It is not yet the 
 Sultan. It is a troop of sciau, brandishing their silver wands 
 to make way for the Judge of Constantinople, and the Grand 
 Judge of Europe and Asia, whose enormous turbans tower 
 above the crowd ; it is the favorite vizier, and the vizier camai- 
 can, in turbans starred and striped with silver and gold ; it is 
 all the viziers of the divan before whom wave horse tails dyed 
 in henna, and borne on lances painted red and blue ; and 
 finally it is the army Judge followed by an interminable tail of 
 servants in leopard-skins and armed with poles, pages, armor- 
 ers and vivandiers. 
 
 Now comes the Grand Vizier himself, dressed in a purple 
 caftan lined with sables, mounted upon a horse covered with 
 steel and gold, followed by a swarm of servants in red velvet,
 
 THE ARMY. 12$ 
 
 and surrounded by a throng of high dignitaries and lieutenant 
 generals of janissaries, among whom the muftis show white like 
 swans, amid a company of peacocks ; and behind these, between 
 two files of lancers in gilded vests, and a double rank of archers 
 with crescent crests, the gaudy grooms of the Seraglio, leading 
 a troop of Arab, Turkoman, Persian, and Caramanian horses, 
 caparisoned in velvet and gold, and bearing bucklers and arms 
 sparkling with precious stones ; last of all, two sacred camels, 
 one of which carries the Koran and the other a fragment of the 
 Kaaba. 
 
 The cortege of the Grand Vizier passed, there is a burst 
 of noisy music from drums and trumpets, the spectators fly, 
 cannon thunder, a troop of running footmen rush through the 
 gate whirling their scimetars round their heads, and behold, in 
 the midst of a clump of lances, a throng of plumes and 
 swords, surrounded by a dazzling glitter of gold and silver hel- 
 mets, behold the Sultan of Sultans, the king of kings, the dis- 
 tributor of crowns to the princes of the world, the shadow of 
 God upon earth, the emperor and sovereign lord of the White 
 Sea and the Black Sea, of Rumelia and Anatolia, of the prov- 
 ince of Sulkadr, of Diarbekir, of Kurdistan, Aderbigian, Agiem, 
 Sciam, Haleb, Egypt, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and all the 
 confines of Arabia and of Yemen, together with all the other 
 provinces conquered by his glorious predecessors and august 
 ancestors, or subjected by his glorious majesty and his own 
 flaming and triumphant sword. The solemn and splendid cor- 
 tege passes slowly by, and now and then a glimpse may be 
 caught of the three jewelled feathers of the turban of the deity, 
 with grave and pallid visage, and breast flaming with diamonds;
 
 126 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 then the circle closes in, the cavalcade passes on, the menacing 
 scimetars are lowered, the spectators lift their foreheads from 
 the ground, the vision has disappeared. 
 
 To the imperial cortege succeeds a throng of officials, of 
 whom one carries on his head the Sultan's stool (sgabello), 
 another his sabre, another his turban, another his mantle, a fifth 
 the silver coffee pot, and a sixth the gold coffee pot ; other 
 groups of pages pass j a troop of white eunuchs, three hundred 
 chamberlains on horseback, dressed in white caftans ; then 
 come the hundred carriages of the harem with silvered wheels, 
 drawn by oxen garlanded with flowers, or by horses with trap- 
 pings of velvet, and flanked by a legion of black eunuchs; pass 
 three hundred mules laden with the baggage and treasure of 
 the court, pass a thousand camels carrying water, pass a thou- 
 sand dromedaries carrying provisions ; passes an army of 
 armorers, miners and workmen, accompanied by a band of 
 buffoons and jesters, and finally passes the bulk of the fighting 
 army : the janissaties, yellow silidars, purple azabs, spa his with 
 red ensigns, foreign horsemen with white standards, cannons 
 that vomit blocks of marble and lead, feudatories from three 
 continents, savage volunteers from the more distant provinces ; 
 clouds of banners, forests of plumes, torrents of turbans, iron 
 phalanxes, that go to overrun Europe like a malediction from 
 God, leaving behind them a desert strewn with smoking ruins 
 and heaps of human bones.
 
 IDLENESS. 127 
 
 IDLENESS. 
 
 ALTHOUGH at some hours of the day Constantinople has an 
 appearance of industry, in reality it is perhaps the laziest city 
 in Europe. Turks and Franks are all alike in this. Every- 
 body gets up as late as possible. Even in summer, at an hour 
 when all our cities are awake, Constantinople is still sleeping. 
 The sun is high before it is possible to find a shop open or to 
 get a cup of coffee. Hotels, offices, bazaars and banks are all 
 snoring merrily together, and even a cannon would not startle 
 them. Then there are the holidays : the Turkish Friday, the 
 Jewish Sabbath, the Christian Sunday, the innumerable Saints' 
 days of the Greek and Armenian calendar, all scrupulously ob- 
 served; and all, although they may be partial, constraining to 
 idleness even that part of the population that is foreign to them ; 
 all this may give an idea of how much work is done in Con- 
 stantinople in the seven days of the week. There are offices 
 that are open only twenty-four hours in eight days. Every day 
 one or the other of the five peoples of the great city goes loung- 
 ing about the streets, in holiday dress, with no other thought 
 than to kill time. The Turks are masters of this art. They 
 are capable of making a two-penny cup of coffee last for half a 
 day, and of stopping five hours motionless under a cypress tree 
 in a cemetery. Their idleness is the real thing, brother to 
 death, like sleep, a profound repose of all the faculties, a sus-
 
 1 2 8 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 pension of all cares, a mode of existence quite unknown to 
 Europeans. They do not wish to have even a suggestion of 
 walking. At Stamboul there are no public promenades, and 
 if there were, Turks would not frequent them, because going to 
 a particular place to move about in it, would seem too much like 
 work. The Turk enters the first cemetery, or the first street 
 that presents itself, and goes wherever his legs carry him, 
 wherever the windings of the way, or the movement of the 
 crowd may take him. Rarely does he go to any place merely 
 to see that place. There are Turks in Stamboul who have 
 never been beyond Kassim-Pasha, and Turkish nobles who 
 have never penetrated beyond the islands of the Princes, where 
 they have friends, or beyond their villa on the Bosphorus. For 
 them the height of beatitude consists in total inertia of mind 
 and body. Therefore they leave to the restless Christians all 
 the great industries that demand care, many steps, and jour- 
 neys; and restrict themselves to small affairs, which maybe 
 transacted seated, and rather more with the eyes than with the 
 mind. Work, which with us dominates and regulates all the 
 other occupations of life, is their subordinate to pleasure and 
 convenience. With us, rest is an interruption of labor ; with 
 them, labor is only an interruption of repose. First of all and 
 at any cost, one must sleep, dream, smoke, so many hours ; and 
 in the time that is left, do something or other to get one's liv- 
 ing. Time, among the Turks, signifies quite another thing 
 from that which it signifies for us. Day, month, and year, have 
 for them only the hundredth part of the value that they have in 
 Europe. The very shortest time that an-official of the Turkish 
 ministry requires to give a response to the simplest demand is
 
 IDLENESS. 129 
 
 two weeks. Diligence in finishing business merely for the 
 pleasure of seeing it finished is unknown to them. Even 
 among the porters outside, not one Turk of them is ever seen 
 in the streets of Stamboul hastening his steps. They all walk 
 in the same measure, as if all took their time from the beat of 
 one drum. For us, life is a rapid torrent, for them it is stag- 
 nant water.
 
 1 30 COA T S TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE is by day the most splendid, and by night 
 the darkest city in Europe. A few lamps at a great distance 
 from each other, scarcely break the obscurity of the principal 
 streets ; the others are as dark as caverns, and no one risks 
 themselves in them without a lantern in his hand. At night- 
 fall, however, the city becomes a desert; a few guards here 
 and there, troops of dogs, some furtive women, some companies 
 of young men bursting noisily out of the subterranean beer shops, 
 and mysterious lanterns, that appear and disappear like ignes- 
 fatui here and there in the cemeteries and alleys, are all that are 
 to be seen. Then it is good to see Stamboul from the heights 
 of Pera and Galata. The innumerable lighted windows, the 
 lights of the ships, their reflections in the water, and the stars 
 form an immense extent of fiery points in which the port, the 
 city and the sky are all confounded in one great firmament. 
 And when the heavens are clouded and the moon shines in one 
 small clear space, above the darkness of Stamboul, above the 
 black masses of groves and gardens, the Imperial mosques 
 shine white, like enormous marble tombs, and the city resembles 
 a metropolis of giants. But it is even more beautiful and sol- 
 emn in the starless and moonless nights at the hour when all 
 lights are extinguished. Then there is one vast black mass from 
 Seraglio Point to Eyub, a measureless outline in which the hills
 
 NIGHT. 131 
 
 seem mountains, and the infinitude of points that crown them 
 take the appearance of fantastic forests, or of armies, ruins, cas- 
 tles, and rocks, that carry the mind into the region of dreams. 
 On such dark nights it is pleasant to contemplate Stanvboul 
 from some high terrace and give oneself up to fancy ; to pen- 
 etrate in thought into the great dark city, to uncover the myr- 
 iads of harems lighted by faint lamps, to see the beauties that 
 triumph, and those that weep neglected, and the trembling 
 eunuchs listening at doors ; to follow nocturnal lovers through the 
 labyrinths of alleys ; to wander in the silent galleries of the 
 Grand Bazaar, and in the vast deserted cemeteries ; to lose 
 oneself in the midst of the innumerable columns of the great 
 underground cisterns ; to imagine oneself shut up alone in the 
 gigantic mosque of Soliman, and making the dark nave re- 
 sound with cries of fear and horror, tearing your hair and 
 invoking the mercy of God ; and then all at once to exclaim : 
 What a joke ! I am on my friend Santoro's terrace, and in the 
 room below awaits me a supper of sybarites, composed of all 
 the most agreeable people in Pera.
 
 132 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 LIFE AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 IN the house of my good friend Santoro, there assembled 
 every evening a number of Italians ; lawyers, artists, doctors, 
 merchants, with whom the time passed delightfully. Those were 
 indeed, conversazione ! If they could have been stenographed, a 
 charming book might have been produced from them ! The 
 physician who had visited a harem, the artist who had been on the 
 Bosphorus'to paint a pasha's portrait, the lawyer who had been 
 defending a cause before a tribunal, each told his story, and 
 every one was a sketch of Oriental manners. There was a new 
 one every minute. " Do you know what happened this morn- 
 ing ? The Sultan threw an inkstand at the head of the minis- 
 ter of finance." "Have you heard the news? The government, 
 after three months delay, has finally paid the salaries of its em- 
 ployees, and all Galata is inundated with copper money." 
 Another tells how a Turkish president of a tribunal, irritated by 
 the weak reasoning of a bad French lawyer in his defence of a 
 bad cause, paid him this pretty compliment in the presence of 
 the audience-^" My dear advocate, it is useless your losing 
 your breath in this way, in striving to make your cause a good 
 one ; " and here he pronounced Cambronne's word with all 
 its letters, " however you may turn it back and forth is always 
 " and he pronounced the word a second time.* 
 
 * The translator follows the author, who leaves Cambronne's word in 
 blank as above.
 
 LIFE AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 133 
 
 The conversation, naturally, spread over fields quite unknown 
 to me. With the same frequency with which occur among us 
 the names of Paris, Vienna, or Genoa, came in the names of 
 persons and things in Tiflis, Trebizond, Teheran, and Damas- 
 cus, and one had a friend there, and another had been there, 
 and a third was going there ; I felt myself in another world, and 
 new horizons opened all around me, and sometimes I thought 
 regretfully of the day in which I must go back into the narrow 
 circle of my ordinary life. How can I, I said to myself, ever 
 adapt myself again to the usual talk on the usual subjects? 
 All Europeans in Constantinople must feel this ; for to those 
 who have seen this life, every other appears uniform and color- 
 less. It is a lighter, easier, younger life than that of any city 
 in Europe. Living as though encamped in a strange land, in 
 the midst of a constant succession of strange and unforeseen 
 events, one acquires a certain sentiment of the futility and in- 
 stability of all things, which resembles very much the fatalistic 
 faith of the Mussulmans, and a kind of serenity of mind without 
 reflection is the result. The nature of that people that lives, as 
 the poet says, in a kind of familiar intimacy with death, consid- 
 ering life as merely a pilgrimage, so short as to leave no time 
 nor need for laying plans of labor and fatigue, enters little by 
 little into the European, and he also begins to live from day to 
 da} T , without descending too much into himself, and filling, in 
 the world, as far as it is possible for him to do so, the simple and 
 easy part of spectator. To have to do with a people so differ- 
 ent, and to think and talk as they do, gives a kind of lightness 
 to the spirit, that makes it soar above many sentiments and 
 ideas which, among us in our own country, are so many neces-
 
 134 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 sities in our conformity with the world about us, and which we 
 strive anxiously and eagerly to obtain. Besides, the presence 
 of the Mussulman population is a constant source of curiosity 
 and observation, and a daily spectacle which diverts the mind 
 from many thoughts and cares. The form of the city also is 
 more pleasing than that of our cities can be, in which the eye 
 and thought are imprisoned in a narrow circle of streets and 
 houses ; while there, at every step, eye and mind dart into the 
 immense and smiling distance. And finally, there is an illim- 
 itable liberty of life, the result of the great variety of customs 
 and manners ; there everything can be done, and no one is as- 
 tonished ; the echoes of the strangest events die as they are 
 born in that immensity of moral anarchy ; Europeans live there 
 as if in a republican confederation ; they enjoy the same freedom 
 that they might enjoy in their own cities at the moment of some 
 great political convulsion ; it is like an interminable masked 
 ball or a perpetual carnival. For this, even more than for its 
 beauty, Constantinople is a city that can not be inhabited for 
 any length of time, without leaving in the mind a remembrance 
 that turns to something very like home-sickness ; and conse- 
 quently Europeans love it ardently, and take root in it j and it 
 is in this sense that the Turks call it, "The enchantress of many 
 lovers," or say in their proverb, that he who has drunk the 
 waters of Top-hane, is in love for life there is no remedy.
 
 ITALIANS. 135 
 
 ITALIANS. 
 
 THE Italian colony is one of the most numerous in Con- 
 stantinople ; but not one of the most prosperous. There are 
 many rich men, but also many very poor ones, especially work- 
 men from Southern Italy who cannot find work; and it is also 
 the worst represented of any of the colonies in point of news- 
 papers, because they are only born to die. When I was there, 
 they were expecting the appearance of the Levantino; and a 
 specimen number had been put forth which announced the 
 academic titles and the special merits of the editor : seventy- 
 seven in all, without counting modesty as one. Taking a walk 
 on a Sunday morning in the street of Pera, one can see all the 
 Italian families going to mass, and hear all the dialects of Italy 
 spoken. Sometimes I was pleased, but not always. Sometimes 
 I felt compassion for so many of my fellow-citizens expatriated, 
 many of whom had no doubt been blown there by who knows 
 what strange or stormy wind of circumstance ; I was pained at 
 the sight of those old people who would never see Italy again ; 
 those children, for whom its name could only produce a con- 
 fused and fleeting image of a dear and distant country ; those 
 young girls, many of whom would marry men of another na- 
 tionality, and found families where nothing of Italian would re- 
 main but the name and the memory of the mother. I saw 
 beautiful Genoese women who might have come that moment
 
 1 36 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 from the gardens of Acquasola, pretty Neapolitan faces, saucy 
 little heads, that seemed as familiar to me as if I had met them 
 a hundred times under the porticoes of the Po, or in the gallery 
 Victor Emmanuel at Milan. I should have liked to tie them 
 all together, two and two, with knots of rose-colored ribbon, 
 and send them oft' to Italy in a ship sailing fifteen knots an 
 hour. As a curiosity I should have liked also to carry back to 
 Italy a specimen of the Italian language as I heard it spoken 
 at Pera, by the Italians of the colony, more especially the third 
 and fourth generation. A della-Cruscan academician hearing 
 them would have taken to his bed with a tertian ague. The 
 tongue that might be made by mixing together the dialect of a 
 Piedmontese porter, a Lombard fruit-seller, and a Romagnol 
 carter would, I think, be less horrible than that which is spoken 
 on the shores of the Golden Horn. It is an already bastard 
 Italian mingled with four or five other tongues bastardized also. 
 And the most curious thing about it is that in the midst of the 
 infinite barbarisms, there shines out now and then some chosen 
 word or cultivated phrase, records of the anthology with which 
 many of our worthy compatriots seek to keep their mouths in 
 the habit of the " Celestial Tuscan speech" But compared to 
 others these may pretend, as Cesari said, to the fame of good 
 speakers. There are some who can scarcely make themselves 
 understood. One day I was accompanied somewhere by a lad 
 of sixteen or seventeen, the son of an Italian, born at Pera. 
 On the way I tried to converse, but he seemed not to wish to 
 talk. He answered in a low voice, with short words, holding 
 down his head, and blushing. 
 "What is the matter? " said I.
 
 ITALIANS. 137 
 
 " I speak so badly ! " he replied, sighing. In fact he did 
 speak the oddest Italian, full of deformed and incomprehensi- 
 ble words, resembling the so-called lingua-franca, which, ac- 
 cording to some French joker, consists of a certain number of 
 words and phrases in Italian, Spanish, French, and Greek, 
 that tumble out rapidly one after the other until one at length 
 appears that may be understood by the person listening. It is 
 not necessary, however, to resort to this at Pera, where almost 
 everybody, Turks included, understands a little Italian. The 
 language most commonly used for writing, however, is the 
 French. Italian literature there is none. I remember only 
 having one day discovered at the bottom of a commercial news- 
 paper in a cafe at Galata, written partly in Italian and partly 
 in French, eight melancholic little verses, which treated of 
 zephyrs, stars, and sighs. Oh, poor poet ! I seemed to see 
 him buried under a pile of merchandise, and exhaling in those 
 verses his last breath.
 
 138 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THEATRES. 
 
 AT Constantinople, any one who has a strong stomach may 
 pass the evening at the theatre, and may have his choice among 
 a crowd of small theatres of every sort, many of which have gar- 
 dens and beer-shops attached to them, and in some may be 
 found the Italian comedy, and a crew of Italian actors who 
 leave much to be desired. The Turks, however, frequent in 
 preference the places in which certain French actresses, painted, 
 half naked, and all brazen, sing their double-meaning songs 
 with the accompaniment of an execrable orchestra. One of 
 these theatres was the Alhambra, in the principal street of 
 Pera ; a long hall, always full, and red with fezes from the stage 
 to the door. What these songs were, and with what unimagin- 
 able gestures, those intrepid ladies made their meaning clear 
 to the delighted Turks, no words can convey. Only those who 
 have been at the Capellanes theatre in Madrid, can say that 
 they have seen or heard anything like it. At ail the most im- 
 pudent gestures, or highly spiced jokes, the big Turks, seated 
 in long rows, burst into loud roars of laughter ; and the habit- 
 ual mask of dignity falling from their faces, the depths of their 
 real nature and the secrets of their grossly sensual lives become 
 visible. 
 
 And yet there is nothing that the Turk hides so carefully as 
 the sensuality of his nature and his life. In the streets, he is
 
 THE A TRES. 1 39 
 
 rarely accompanied by a woman ; rarely looks at one ; still 
 more rarely speaks to one ; he takes it as an offence if any one 
 asks after the health of his wife : to judge only by appearances, 
 they seem the most austere and chastest people in the world. 
 But that same Turk uho blushes to his ears when asked about 
 his wife, will send his children, boys and girls, to witness the 
 filthy obscenities of Caragheus, corrupting their imaginations 
 before their senses are awakened ; and he himself will often 
 forget the delights of his harem in such pleasures as Bajazet the 
 Fiery, and Mahomet the Reformer set the example of, and others, 
 no doubt, since their time. And if there were no other, Carag- 
 heus alone is enough to give an idea and a proof of the pro- 
 found corruption hidden under the veil of Mussulman austerity. 
 He is a grotesque figure representing a caricature of the middle 
 class Turk, a species of ombre-chinoise, that moves his head and 
 lirnbs behind a transparent veil, and is always the principal per- 
 sonage in certain outrageously farcical comedies, of which the 
 subject is most generally an amorous intrigue. He is a sort of 
 ultra-Pulcinella, very much depraved ; foolish, false, and cyni- 
 cal, foul-mouthed as a fish-wife and wanton as a satyr, and he 
 excites yells of laughter and shouts of enthusiasm in his audi- 
 ence, with every sort of extravagance of word or gesture, that 
 are obscene or that conceal obscenity.
 
 1 4O CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 COOKERY. 
 
 WISHING to make a study of the Turkish kitchen, I caused 
 my good friends of Pera to conduct me to an eating-house ad 
 hoc, where we should find Oriental dishes, from the most exqui- 
 site tit-bit of the Seraglio, down to camels' flesh dressed in Arab 
 fashion, and horse-flesh a la Turkoman. My friend Santoro 
 ordered a rigorously Turkish repast, from soup to fruit, and I, 
 encouraging myself with the recollection of all the renowned, 
 men who have died for science, swallowed a little bit of every- 
 thing, without uttering a complaint. About twenty dishes were 
 served. The Turks, like most Eastern people, are something 
 like children, who prefer rather to taste many things than to 
 satisfy themselves on few; a pastoral people but yesterday, they 
 have become citizens, and disdain simplicity in eating, as some- 
 thing that savors of a base condition. I cannot give an exact 
 account of all the dishes, because, of some I only retained a 
 vague and sinister remembrance. I recollect the Rebat which 
 is composed of tiny bits of mutton roasted before a very hot fire, 
 seasoned with pepper and cloves, and sewed between two soft 
 and greasy cakes ; a dish good to give criminals of the lighter 
 order. I can recall also the flavor of the pilau, composed of 
 rice and mutton, which last is the sine qua non of all meals, and 
 may be called the sacramental dish of the Turks, as is macca- 
 roni to the Neapolitans, cassusu to the Arabs, and puchero to the
 
 COOKERY. 141 
 
 Spaniards. I remember, and it is the only thing that I should 
 care to taste again, the RosVab which is sipped with a spoon at 
 the end of dinner ; made of raisins, apples, plums, cherries and 
 other fruits, cooked with a great deal of sugar, and flavored 
 with musk, rose water, and limes. There were besides numerous 
 plates of lamb and mutton, cut into small dice and broiled 
 until they had no taste left ; fish swimming in oil ; balls of 
 rice rolled in vine leaves, squash reduced to a syrup, salads in 
 paste, preserves of various kinds, ragouts seasoned with every 
 sort of aromatic herb, of which one might have been added to 
 every article in the penal code for the benefit of delinquents. 
 Finally, a great dish of pastry, crowning work of some Arab 
 pastry-cook, in which there was a small steamer, a chimerical 
 lion, and a sugar-house with grated windows. 
 
 Altogether it seemed to me that I had swallowed the con- 
 tents of a portable pharmacy, or had eaten one of those repasts 
 that are prepared by children in their play, when the dishes are 
 chiefly composed of powdered brick, pounded grass, and 
 mashed fruit, which make a fine show at a distance. The 
 dishes at a Turkish dinner are served rapidly, three or four at 
 a time, and the Turks help themselves with their fingers, there 
 being no forks in use, only spoons and knives; and there is 
 but one drinking cup for all the company, which a servant keeps 
 constantly filled wilh filtered water. Suqh, however, were not 
 the ways of the Turks who dined near us at our eating-house. 
 They were Turks who loved their ease, for they kept their feet 
 upon the table ; each one had his plate, and bravely used a 
 fork; and they also drank strong drink in the face and beard 
 of Mahomet. I observed that they did not kiss their bread as
 
 I4 2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 good Mussulmans should, before beginning to eat, and that 
 they cast many covetous glances at our bottles, although ac- 
 cording to mufti law, it is a mortal sin to fix the eyes upon a 
 bottle of wine. However, this "father of abominations," one 
 drop of which is enough to cause to fall upon a Mussulman 
 head, " the anathema of all the angels of heaven and earth," is 
 every day gaining converts among the Turks, and it is perhaps 
 only some remaining respect for opinion that prevents them 
 from rendering public homage to it ; and for my own part, I 
 believe, that if some day a thick darkness should descend over 
 Constantinople, and after an hour, the sun should suddenly 
 shine out, fifty thousand Turks would be found with the bottle 
 at their lips. In this as in many olher offences of the Osmanli, 
 the great stone of scandal had been the Sultans; and it is cu- 
 rious that it has been precisely the dynasty reigning over a 
 people for whom it is a sin against God to drink wine, that has 
 given to history the largest number of drunkards: so sweet is 
 forbidden fruit even to the lips of the shadow of God upon 
 earth. It was, they say, Bajazet First who began the series of 
 imperial sots, and as in original sin, the woman here also was 
 the first sinner : it was the wife of this same Bajazet, daughter 
 of a king of Servia, who offered to her husband the first glass 
 of Tokay. Then the second Bajazet got tipsy on Cypress and 
 Schiraz wine. Then Soliman First, who burned in the port of 
 Constantinople all the vessels loaded with wine, and poured 
 melted lead down the throats of drinkers, died drunk, by the 
 arrow of one of his archers. Then came Selim First, surnamed 
 Afessth, or the drunkard, who had orgies of three days in dura- 
 tion, and publicly touched glasses with men of the law, and
 
 COOKER Y. I 43 
 
 men of the church. In vain Mahomet Third thundered 
 against the "abomination of the demon ;" in vain Ahmed First 
 destroyed all the taverns, and all the wine-presses in Stamboul ; 
 in vain Murad Fourth went about the city accompanied by an 
 executioner, and promptly sheared off the heads of those found 
 drunk. He himself, the ferocious hypocrite, staggered about 
 the halls of the Seraglio like a tipsy plebeian ; and after him, 
 the bottle, the small, black, festive spirits, broke into the Se- 
 raglio, hid itself in the shops, peeped from under the soldier's 
 bed, or poked its silvered or purple head from the cushions 
 and divans of the harem, violated the precincts of the mosques, 
 and spouted its sacrilegious foam upon the yellow pages of the 
 Koran itself.
 
 144 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 MAHOMET. 
 
 APROPOS of religion, I could not get this question out of my 
 head, as I walked about Constantinople : if the voice of the 
 muezzin were not heard, how would a Christian know that this 
 people's religion was not the same as his own ? The Byzantine 
 architecture of the mosques makes them appear like Christian 
 churches ; there is no exterior sign of the rites of Islamism ; 
 Turkish soldiers escort the viaticum through the streets ; an ig- 
 norant Christian might live a year at Constantinople without 
 being aware that Mahomet reigns over the greater part of the 
 population, instead of Christ. And this thought always brings 
 me to the very small substantial differences, the blade of grass, 
 as the Abyssinian Christians said to the first followers of Ma- 
 homet, that divides the two religions ; and to the little cause by 
 which it came about that Arabia was converted to Islamism, in- 
 stead of to Christianity, or, if not Christianity, to a religion so 
 closely resembling it, that cities being confounded with it, or 
 remaining itself alone, it would have changed the fate of the 
 whole Oriental world. And that little cause was the volup- 
 tuous nature of a handsome Arab boy, tall and fair, with black 
 eyes, a deep voice, and an ardent soul, who, not having the 
 power to conquer his own senses, instead of cutting down to 
 the root the predominating vice of his people, contented himself 
 with pruning it ; instead of proclaiming conjugal unity as he
 
 MAHOMET. 145 
 
 proclaimed the unity of God, only enclosed in a narrower circle, 
 and consecrated by religion, the dissoluteness and egotism of 
 men. Certainly he would have had to vanquish a very strong 
 resistance ; but it does not seem improbable that he could have 
 done so, since, in order to found the worship of one God among 
 an idolatrous people, he destroyed a monstrous edifice of tra- 
 dition, superstition, privileges and interests of every kind, 
 which had grown and interlaced for centuries, and caused to be 
 accepted among the dogmas of his religion for which millions 
 of believers would now lay down their lives, a paradise, the first 
 announcement of which provoked a storm of indignation and 
 scorn among the people. But the handsome Arab boy made a 
 compact with his senses, and half the world changed its face, 
 for polygamy was in reality the capital vice of his legislation, and 
 the first cause of the decadence of all the peoples that embraced 
 his faith. Without this degradation of one sex in favor of the 
 other, without the sanction of this monstrous injustice, which 
 disturbs the whole order of human duties, corrupting the rich, 
 oppressing the poor, fomenting sloth and effeminacy, enerva- 
 ting the family, generating confusion in the rights of birth of 
 the reigning dynasty, and opposing itself as an insuperable 
 barrier to the union of the Mussulman populations with those 
 of another faith in the Orient ; if, to return to the first argument, 
 the handsome Arab boy had had the misfortune to be born a 
 little less robust, or the courage to live a chaste life, who knows ! 
 perhaps there would be now a regulated and civilized East, and 
 universal civilization would be one century further in advance. 
 7
 
 I4 6 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 RAMAZAN. 
 
 FINDING myself at Constantinople in the month of Ramazan, 
 which is the ninth month of the Turkish year, in which falls the 
 Mussulman season of Lent, I witnessed every evening a comedy 
 which is worth description. During the who'e of Lent it is pro- 
 hibited to the Turks to eat, drink, or smoke, from the rising of 
 the sun to the setting. Almost all, consequently, spend the 
 night in eating and drinking ; but as long as the sun is above 
 the horizon, almost all respect the religious precept, and no one 
 dares to transgress it publicly. One morning my friend and I 
 went to visit an acquaintance, one of the Sultan's aid-de-camps, 
 an unprejudiced young officer, and we found him in a room on 
 the ground floor of the imperial palace, with a cup of coffee in 
 his hand. "What!" exclaimed Yank, "do you dare to take 
 coffee after sunrise ?" The officer shrugged his shoulders and 
 replied that he laughed at Ramazan and fasting ; but just at 
 that moment a door opened suddenly, and he made so rapid a 
 movement to hide his cup that he overturned it, and spilt it on 
 his boot. It may be understood from this how rigorous is the 
 abstinence imposed upon those who are all day long under the 
 eyes of others ; the boatmen, for instance. It is amusing to 
 plant oneself upon the bridge of the Sultan Valide a few min- 
 utes before the sun goes down. About a thousand boatmen 
 may be seen at this point, far and near, going and coming, or 
 
 t
 
 RAMAZAX. 147 
 
 sitting still. They have every one been fasting since dawn, are 
 wild with hunger, and have their little supper ready in the 
 caique, and their eyes continually move from the food to the 
 sun, from the sun to the food, while there is a general agitation 
 and restlessness among them, as in a menagerie when the ani- 
 mals are about to be fed. The disappearance of the sun is an- 
 nounced by a gun. Before that longed-for moment no one puts 
 a crust of bread or a drop of water into his mouth. Sometimes, 
 in a corner of the Golden Horn, we tried to bribe our boatmen 
 to eat before the lawful moment, but they always answered ; 
 lok I lokl lok ! no! no! no! pointing to the sun with A tim- 
 orous gesture. When the sun is half hidden, they begin to take 
 the food in their hands ; when there is nothing but a thin lumi- 
 nous arch, then those who are motionless, and those who are 
 rowing, those who are crossing the Golden Horn and those who 
 are skimming over the Bosphorus, those who are sailing in the 
 Sea of Marmora, and those who are resting in the most solitary 
 bays of the Asiatic shore, all with one accord turn towards the 
 west and stand fixed, with their eyes on the sun, mouths open, 
 bread in hand, and joy in the visage. When nothing is visible 
 but one small fiery point, at last the fiery point vanishes, the 
 cannon thunders, and in that very instant thirty-two thousand 
 teeth bite off enormous morsels from a thousand pieces of bread ; 
 but what am I saying ? A thousand ! In every house, in every 
 cafe, in every tavern the same thing is happening at the same 
 moment ; and for a few minutes the Turkish city is nothing but 
 a monster with a hundred thousand mouths, that eats and 
 drinks.
 
 148 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 BUT what must this city have been in the times of Ottoman 
 glory ! I cannot get that thought out of my head. Then, over 
 the Bosphorus, white with sails, there rose no black smoke to 
 stain the azure of the sky and sea. In the port and harbor of 
 the Sea of Marmora, among the old war-ships, with high sculp- 
 tured poops, silver crescents, crimson standards, and golden 
 lanterns, floated the shattered and blood-stained hulks of Gen- 
 oese, Venetian, and Spanish galleys. There were no bridges 
 over the- Golden Horn : but from one shore to the other per- 
 petually darted back and forth a myriad of splendid boats, 
 amidst which shone the white lances of the Seraglio, with can- 
 opies of scarlet fringed with silver and gold, and rowed by 
 boatmen in silken habits. Scutari was yet a village ; from 
 thence to Galata there were only a few scattered houses ; no 
 great palace yet reared its head upon the hill of Pera; the as- 
 pect of the city was not as grandiose as it is now, but it was 
 more completely Oriental. The law which prescribed colors 
 being still in force, the religion of their inhabitants could be 
 known by the colors of the houses : Stamboul was all yellow 
 and red, except the sacred and public edifices, which were as 
 white as snow ; the Armenian quarters were light grey, the 
 Greek quarters dark grey, the Hebrew, purple. The passion 
 for flowers was universal, as in Holland, and the gardens showed
 
 ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE, 149 
 
 great masses of hyacinths, tulips, and roses. The luxuriant 
 vegetation of the hills not having been yet destroyed by sub- 
 urbs, Constantinople appeared a city hidden in a forest. With- 
 in there were only narrow alleys, but they were pervaded by a 
 crowd in the highest degree picturesque. 
 
 The enormous turban gave a colossal and magnificent as- 
 pect to the male population. All the women, except the mother 
 of the Sultan, went completely veiled, leaving nothing but the 
 eyes visible, forming an anonymous and enigmatic population 
 apart, and giving a gentle air of mystery to the city. A severe 
 law determining the dress of all ranks, offices, grades, ages, 
 they could be distinguished by the form of the turban, or the 
 color of the caftan, as if Constantinople had been one great 
 court. The horse being still "man's only coach," the streets 
 were filled with horsemen, and long files of camels and drom- 
 edaries belonging to the army, traversed the city in all direc- 
 tions and gave it the grand and barbarous aspect of an Asiatic 
 metropolis. Gilded arabas drawn by oxen, crossed the green 
 draped carriages of the ufemas, the red of the Kadi-aschieri, or 
 the light teleka with satin curtains and panels ornamented with 
 fantastic paintings. Slaves of all countries, from Poland to 
 Ethiopia, hurried by, rattling the chains that had been riveted 
 on the field of battle. Groups of soldiers clothed only in glo- 
 rious rags filled the squares, and the courts of the mosques, 
 showing their scars yet great from the battles of Vienna, Bel- 
 grade, Rodi, Damascus. Hundreds of story tellers, with loud 
 voices and inspired gestures, recounted to delighted Mussul- 
 mans the glorious actions of the army that was fighting at three 
 months march from Stamboul. Pashas, Beys, Aghas, Mussel-
 
 ISO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ims, a crowd of dignitaries and great nobles, dressed with 
 theatrical splendor, accompanied by a throng of servants, 
 pushed through the press of people that gave way before 
 them like ripe grain before the wind ; ambassadors from 
 European states passed by, coming to ask peace or conclude 
 alliances ; and caravans bringing gifts from African and Asiatic 
 monarchs went in long procession. Throngs of insolent selidars 
 and spahis rattled their sabres stained with the blood of twenty 
 peoples, and the handsome Greek and Hungarian pages of the 
 Seraglio, dressed like princes, walked haughtily among the 
 obsequious multitude, who respected in them the unnatural 
 caprices of their sovereign. Here and there before a day was 
 seen a trophy of knotted staves : it was the sign of the Janissa- 
 ries, who then filled the office of police in the interior of the 
 city. Hebrews, bearing the bodies of executed criminals to 
 the Bosphorus, were to be seen ; and every morning in the 
 Balik-bazaar, could be found a corpse stretched on the ground, 
 with the severed head under the right arm, the sentence upon 
 the breast, and a stone upon the sentence ; in the streets, the 
 bodies of nobles hung from the first hook or beam that the 
 hurried executioner had found ; in the night the terrified pas- 
 senger came upon some poor wretch thrown into the street 
 from some torture chamber, where his hands and feet had been 
 cut off; and under the noon-day sun, merchants detected in 
 fraud were nailed by one ear to the doors of their shops. There 
 was as yet no law which restricted the liberty of sepulture, and 
 graves were dug and the dead were buried at any hour of the 
 day, in the gardens, in the alleys, in the squares, before the 
 doors of houses. In the courts could be heard the shrieks of
 
 ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE. KI 
 
 lambs and sheep offered in holocaust to Allah upon a birth or 
 a circumcision. From time to time a troop of eunuchs gal- 
 loped by, shouting and threatening, and the streets became de- 
 serted, doors and windows closed, the whole quarter as if it 
 were dead ; for then passed by the train of glittering carriages 
 containing the beauties of the Sultan's harem, filling the air 
 with their laughter and perfumes. Sometimes a personage of 
 the court, making his way through the crowded street, would 
 turn suddenly pale at the sight of six mean looking men enter- 
 ing a shop : those six men were the Sultan, with four officials 
 and an executioner, going from shop to shop to verify weights 
 and measures. In all Constantinople's enormous body there 
 boiled a plethoric and feverish life. The treasure overflowed 
 with jewels, the arsenals with arms, the barracks with soldiers, 
 the caravanserais with travellers ; the slave markets swarmed 
 with beauties, dealers, and great lords ; learned men thronged 
 the places where the archives of the mosque were kept ; long- 
 winded viziers prepared for future generations the interminable 
 annals of the Empire ; poets, pensioners of the Seraglio, sang 
 at the baths the imperial wars and loves ; armies of Bulgarian 
 and Armenian laborers toiled to build mosques with blocks of 
 granite from Egypt or marble from Paros, while by sea were 
 arriving columns from the temples of the Archipelago, and by 
 land the spoils of the churches of Pesth and Ofen ; in the port 
 they made ready the fleet of three hundred sails that was to 
 carry dismay to the shores of the Mediterranean ; between 
 Stamboul and Adrianople spread cavalcades of seven thousand 
 falconers, and seven thousand huntsmen, and in the intervals 
 of military revolts, foreign wars, conflagrations that destroyed
 
 I $2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 twenty thousand houses in one night, they celebrated feasts of 
 thirty days duration before the plenipotentiaries of all the states 
 of Africa, Europe and Asia. Then Mussulman enthusiasm 
 became wild, and turned to madness. In the presence of the 
 Sultan and his court, in the midst of those immeasurable palms, 
 filled with birds, fruits, and looking-glasses, to give passage to 
 which whole houses and walls were thrown down, among trains 
 of lions and sirens in sugar, carried by horses caparisoned in 
 silver damask ; among mountains of royal presents gathered 
 from all parts of the Empire and from all the courts in the 
 world, alternated the mock battles of the Janissaries, the furious 
 dances of the dervishes, the sanguinary murders of Christian 
 prisoners, and the popular feasts of ten thousand dishes of 
 Cascassa; elephants and giraffes danced in the hippodrome; 
 bears and foxes rushed through the crowd with rockets tied to 
 their tails ; to allegorical pantomimes succeeded lascivious 
 dances, grotesque maskings, fantastic processions, races, sym- 
 bolical cars, games, and comedies ; as the sun went down the 
 festival degenerated more and more into a mad tumult, and five 
 hundred mosques sparkling with lights formed over the city an 
 immense aureole of fire that announced to the shepherds in the 
 mountains of Asia, and the sailors of the Propontis, the orgies 
 of the new Babylon. Such was Stamboul, the formidable, 
 voluptuous, and unbridled ; beside which the city of to-day is 
 nothing but an old queen sick of hypochondria.
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 1 53 
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 
 
 OCCUPIED as I was in general with the Turks, I had not the 
 time, as may be supposed, to study much the three nations, 
 Armenian, Greek and Hebrew, that form the rest of the popu- 
 lation ; a study, for the rest, requiring much time and attention, 
 since, though each of these peoples has preserved more or less 
 its own characteristics, the exterior life of all the three has be- 
 come overlaid with a Mussulman color, which is now being 
 merged in its turn into a tint of European civilization ; and con- 
 sequently they all three present that difficulty of observation 
 that might be found in a shifting and dissolving view. 
 
 The Armenians in especial, " Christians in faith and spirit, 
 and Asiatic Mussulmans in birth and blood," are not only diffi- 
 cult to study closely, but also difficult to distinguish at sight 
 from the Turks, because those among them who have not yet 
 adopted European costume, still wear the Turkish dress with 
 very slight modifications ; and the antique felt cap that with 
 certain special colors used to mark the race, is now scarcely 
 ever seen. Nor do they differ much in feature from the Turks. 
 In general they are tall of stature, robust, corpulent, light com- 
 plexioned, grave and dignified in walk and manner, and showing 
 in their faces the two qualities proper to their nature ; an open, 
 quick, industrious, and pertinacious spirit, by which they are 
 wonderfully well adapted to commerce, and that placidity, which
 
 1 54 CONS TANTINOPLE. 
 
 some call pliant servility, with which they succeed in insinuating 
 themselves everywhere, from Hungary to China, and in render- 
 ing themselves acceptable, particularly to the Turk, whose good 
 will they have conquered as docile subjects and obsequious 
 friends. They have neither within nor without any trace of 
 warlike or heroic qualities. Such, perhaps, they were not for- 
 merly in the Asiatic region from which they came, and their 
 brethren who remain there are said to be quite different ; but 
 the transplanted ones are truly a quiet and prudent people, 
 modest in their lives, having no ambition beyond their traffic, 
 and more sincerely religious, it is said, than any other people in 
 Constantinople. The Turks call them the camels of the empire, 
 and the Franks say that every Armenian is born a calculator ; 
 these two sayings are in great part justified by the facts, for 
 thanks to their physical strength, and their quick and acute in- 
 telligence, they not only furnish Constantinople with a large 
 number of architects, engineers, physicians, and ingenious and 
 patient artificers of many kinds, but they form also the larger 
 part of the porters and bankers ; porters that carry marvellous 
 weights, and bankers that amass fabulous treasures. At first 
 sight, however, no one would notice that there was an Arme- 
 nian people at Constantinople, so completely has the plant 
 adapted itself to the strange soil. The women themselves, be- 
 cause of whom the Armenian houses are closed against the 
 stranger as closely as those of the Mussulmans, dress like the 
 Turkish women, and none but an experienced eye can distin- 
 guish them from their Mahometan neighbors. They are for the 
 most part fair and fat, and have the aquiline profile, and the 
 large, long-fringed eyes of the Orientals ; tall in stature, and of
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 155 
 
 matronly form, when crowned with a turban they present a 
 handsome and dignified appearance, and at the same time mod- 
 est, lacking only, if anything, the bright intelligence that shines 
 in the face of the Greek woman. 
 
 It is as easy to recognize a Greek at sight, as it is difficult 
 to distinguish an Armenian, even setting aside the diversities 
 of dress, so different is he in nature and aspect from the other 
 subjects of the Empire, and especially so from the Turk. To 
 become aware of this diversity, or rather of this contrast, it is 
 only necessary to remark a Turk and a Greek seated side by 
 side in a cafe or in a steamboat. They may be of the same age 
 and rank, and both dressed in European fashion, and even alike 
 in feature ; but it is not possible to mistake one for the 
 other. The Turk is motionless, and all his lineaments repose 
 in a kind of quiet without thought, like that of a ruminating 
 animal ; and if his visage does reveal a thought, it appears as 
 though it should be motionless like his body. He looks at 
 no one, and gives no sign of being conscious of the observa- 
 tion of others ; his attitude displays a profound indifference 
 towards everybody and everything around him ; his face ex- 
 presses something of the resigned sadness of a slave, as well as 
 the proud coldness of a despot j something hard, repressed, 
 shut down, to drive to desperation any one who should attempt 
 the impossible task of persuasion, or should try to change a 
 resolution. He has, in short, the aspect of those men all in one 
 piece, with whom one can live only as master, or as slave ; and 
 however long may be the time you live with them, never can 
 become familiar. The Greek on the contrary, is very mobile, 
 and reveals in a thousand changing expressions of life and. eye
 
 1 56 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 everything that is passing through his mind ; he tosses his head 
 with the movement of a spirited horse ; his face expresses a 
 sort of youthful, sometimes almost childish hauteur ; if he is 
 not observed, he puts himself forward ; if he is remarked, he 
 attitudinizes ; he seems to be always seeking or fancying some- 
 thing ; his whole person betrays vanity and ambition ; and yet 
 he is attractive, even if he looks like a worthless fellow, and you 
 would give him your hand, if you were not willing to trust him 
 with your purse. It is only necessary to see these two men, the 
 Turk and the Greek, side by side, in order to comprehend that 
 one must appear to the other simply a barbarian, a proud, bru- 
 tal, overbearing creature ; and on the other side, the latter must 
 judge his neighbor to be a light man, false, malignant, and tur- 
 bulent ; and that they must detest each other reciprocally with 
 all the strength of their souls, and never be able to live amica- 
 bly together. The same differences are to be noted between the 
 Greek women and the other Levantine women. Among the 
 handsome and florid Turkish and Armenian women, who speak 
 to the senses rather than the soul, we recognize with a sort of 
 pleasant wonder, the elegant and pure Greek face, lighted up 
 by eyes full of sentiment, whose every glance inspires or ought 
 to inspire an ode ; and the beautiful figures, at once slight and 
 majestic, which inspire the wish to clasp them in one's arm, but 
 to place upon a pedestal, rather than to shut them in a harem. 
 There are some who still wear their hair in the ancient fashion, 
 falling in long, rich tresses, with one thick braid wound round 
 the head like a diadem ; so beautiful, so noble, so classic, that 
 they might be taken for statues by Praxiteles or Lysippus, or 
 for young immortals found after twenty centuries in some un-
 
 THE ARMENIANS. 157 
 
 known valley of Laconia, or some forgotten island of the 
 Egean. This sovereign beauty is rare however, even among 
 the Greeks, and now-a-days almost the only examples of it are 
 to be found among the old aristocracy of the empire, in the 
 silent and gloomy quarter of the Fanar, where the soul of 
 ancient Byzantium has found refuge. There may now and then 
 still be seen one of these superb women leaning on the balus- 
 trade of a balcony, or looking through the gratings of some high 
 window, with her eyes fixed upon the deserted street, like some 
 captive queen ; and when the lackeys of the descendants of the 
 Paleologhi and the Comneni, do not happen to be lounging at 
 the door, one may contemplate her for a moment, and believe 
 that a vision of a goddess of Olympus has been revealed 
 through the rift of a passing cloud.
 
 1 5 8 CO NS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 THE HEBREWS. 
 
 WITH regard to the Hebrews, I can affirm, after having been 
 in Morocco, that those of Constantinople have no connection 
 with those on the southern coast of Africa, in whom learned ob- 
 servers believe they have discovered in all its purity the first 
 Oriental type of Hebrew beauty. With the hope of discovering 
 this beauty I armed myself with courage, and took many turns 
 through the vast ghetta of Balata, which winds like a disgusting 
 serpent along the shore of the Golden Horn. I pushed on even 
 into the most wretched alleys, in the midst of houses " grommate 
 di muffit, " * like the banks in the Dantesque circle, through 
 cross ways, where I wished for stilts, and stopped my nose ; I 
 looked in windows tapestried with rags, at black and filthy 
 rooms ; I stopped before the entrances of courts, from which 
 issued an odor fetid enough to take away my breath, making 
 way before groups of diseased and ugly children, elbowing hor- 
 rible old men, who looked like resuscitated corpses dead of the 
 plague ; stumbling over wretched dogs, and avoiding hanging 
 clouds of dirty linen ; but my courage was unrewarded. Among 
 the many women whom I encountered, muffled in the national 
 kalpak, a sort of lengthened turban that covers the hair and 
 ears, I did see here and there a face in which I recognized that 
 delicate regularity of feature, and that soft air of resignation, 
 which are considered distinctive traits of the Jews of Constanti- 
 nople ; some vague profile of Rebecca or Rachel, with almond 
 * Encrusted with mould.
 
 THE HEBREWS. 159 
 
 shaped eyes, full of grace and sweetness, some elegant form in 
 Raphaelesque costume standing in a doorway with its hand upon 
 the curly head of a child. But in general I saw nothing but 
 signs of the degradation of the race. What a difference between 
 these stunted figures, and those opulent forms in pompous col- 
 ors, and with fiery eyes, that I admired afterwards in Tangiers 
 and Fez. It was the same with the men, insignificant, sal- 
 low, flabby, whose vitality seemed to be centered in their eyes, 
 trembling with avarice and cunning, restlessly rolling from side 
 to side, as if they heard everywhere the chink of coin. And 
 here I expect from my good critics of Israel, who have already 
 rapped me on the knuckles apropos of my opinion of their co- 
 religionists of Morocco, the same strain as before, when they will 
 ascribe the degradation and decay of the Hebrews of Constan- 
 tinople to the oppressions and injustice of their Turkish rulers. 
 But let them remember that under precisely the same conditions, 
 political and civil, as the Hebrews, are all the other new 
 Mussulman subjects of the Porte ; and that even if this were 
 not so, it would be exceedingly difficult to prove that the shame- 
 less uncleanliness, the precocious marriages, and the abstention 
 from all laborious trades, considered as efficacious causes of 
 this decadence, are a logical consequence of the want of liberty 
 and independence. And if instead they tell me that it is not 
 the political oppression of the Turks, but the small persecutions 
 and contempt of all, which are the causes of this degradation, 
 let them first ask themselves whether the contrary is not the fact ; 
 if the first reason is not rather to be sought in their customs and 
 in their lives ; and if, instead of covering up the sore, it were 
 not better that thev themselves should burn it out with hot irons.
 
 1 60 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 THE BATH. 
 
 AFTER having made the tour of Balata, one may do a worse 
 thing than visit a Turkish bath. The bath houses may be rec- 
 ognized by their exterior ; they are windowless edifices in the 
 form of small mosques, surmounted by a cupola, and some tall 
 conical chimneys, which are always smoking. But before enter- 
 ing, it is well to think twice, and ask oneself quid valeant humeri, 
 because every body cannot well support the usage to which a 
 man is subjected within those sanitary walls. I confess, that 
 after all that I had heard, I entered with some trepidation ; and 
 the reader will see that I was much to be pitied afterwards. As 
 I think of it now, two large drops exude upon my temples, and 
 wait until I shall be in the midst of my description, to run down 
 my cheeks. The following is what happened to my unhappy 
 self. Entering timidly, I found myself in a great hall that 
 might have been either a theatre or a hospital. In the midst 
 bubbled a fountain, crowned with flowers ; and around the 
 walls ran a gallery of wood in which profoundly slept or peace- 
 fully smoked, a number of Turks, stretched upon mattresses, 
 and wrapped from head to foot in white coverings. While I 
 looked about in search of an attendant, two athletic and half- 
 naked mulattoes, sprung from I know not where, suddenly rose 
 before me like two spectres, and both together pronounced in 
 cavernous voices the word: " Hammamun ?" (bath?) " Evvet /" 
 " Yes 1" replied I faintly. They signed to me to follow them,
 
 THE BATH. l6l 
 
 and led me up a wooden stairway into a room full of mats and 
 cushions, where they made me understand that I was to undress. 
 They bound then around my body a piece of blue and white 
 stuff, twisted a muslin scarf about my head, made me slip my 
 feet into a pair of colossal wooden pattens, took me under 
 the arms like a tipsy man, and conducted me, or rather 
 transported me, into another hall, warm and dimly lighted, 
 where they laid me down upon a carpet and waited, with their 
 hands on their hips, until my skin should have become soft. 
 All these preparations, which rather resembled those before an 
 execution, filled me with anxiety, which changed to an even less 
 honorable sentiment when my two jailors, touching me on the 
 forehead, exchanged a significant look, which seemed to mean 
 can he bear it ? and then, as if they had said to the rack ! 
 took me by the arms and transported me as before into another 
 room. Here I experienced a very strange sensation. I felt as 
 if I were in a submarine temple. I saw vaguely, through a 
 white vaporous veil, high marble walls, columns, arches, the 
 vault of a dome with windows through which came beams of 
 red, blue and green light, white phantoms that came and went 
 along the walls, and in the middle of the room, half-naked men 
 extended like corpses on the pavement, over whom stood other 
 men half-naked, bending in the attitude of surgeons engaged in 
 an autopsy. The temperature of this hall is so high that per- 
 spiration breaks out all over me, and I feel that I can only leave 
 the place in the form of a small stream, like the lover of 
 Arethusa. 
 
 The two mulattoes carry my body into the middle of the 
 hall and stretch it out upon a kind of anatomical table, which
 
 1 62 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 is an immense slab of white marble, raised above the pavement 
 under which are the heating arrangements. The slab scorches 
 me and I see stars ; but I am here, and there is no help for me. 
 The two mulattoes begin the vivisection, chanting a funeral 
 song. They pinch my arms and legs, they press my muscles, 
 they crack my joints, they knead me, stretch me, squeeze me ; 
 they turn me on my face and begin again ; they turn me back 
 again, and go on as before ; they treat me like a paste puppet 
 which they are trying to reduce to a certain form they have in 
 their minds, and not succeeding, they get angry ; they take 
 breath for a moment ; and then the pinchings, squeezings, and 
 stretchings are renewed, until I think that my last hour has 
 come. Finally, when my whole body is running with water like 
 a squeezed sponge, when they can see the blood circulating 
 under my skin, when they recognize that I can bear no more, 
 they lift my remains from that bed of torture, and carry them 
 to a corner, where in a small niche there are two copper pipes 
 pouring hot and cold water into a marble basin. But, alas ! 
 here begins another kind of torment, and truly things assume a 
 certain aspect, there is a certain fury of action, that without 
 joking, I ask myself whether I had not better give a kick to the 
 right, and another to the left, and defend myself as best I may. 
 One of my two tormentors puts on a camel's-hair glove and 
 begins to rub my spine, chest, arms, and legs, with the grace 
 and lightness with which he would currycomb a horse, and the 
 currycombing is prolonged for five minutes. This done, they 
 deluge me with a torrent of tepid water, and take breath once 
 more. I also breathe again, and thank heaven that it is over. 
 But it is not over ! The ferocious mulatto takes off his camel's-
 
 THE BATH. 163 
 
 hair gloves and begins again with his naked hand, and I, out 
 of all patience, making signs to him to stop, he shows me his 
 hand and proves, to my great amazement, that I am still in 
 need of being rubbed. This done at last, another deluge of 
 water and another operation. They each take, a great bunch 
 of tow, and with it cover me from head to foot with a lather of 
 soap-suds. After this, another drenching with perfumed water 
 and another rubbing, this time with dry tow. Being thoroughly 
 dried by this last application of tow, they again bind the muslin 
 round my head, put on my apron, wrap me in a sheet, recon- 
 duct me to the second hall, and after a short stoppage there, 
 take me on to the first. Here I find a warm mattress on which 
 I languidly stretch myself, while the two executioners of justice 
 give me a few last pinches in order to equalize the circulation 
 of the blood. This done they place an embroidered cushion 
 under my head, cover me with a white cloth, put a pipe in my 
 mouth, a glass of sherbet beside me, and leave me there fresh, 
 light, and perfumed, with a mind serene, a contented heart, and 
 senses so pure and full of youthful life, that. I feel as if I had 
 just risen, like Venus, from the foam of the sea, and can hear 
 the flutter of the wings of the loves about my head.
 
 164 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE TOWER OF THE SERASKIARAT. 
 
 FEELING oneself thus " pure and disposed to see again the 
 stars," nothing can be better than to climb up to the head of 
 that Titan in stone which is called the Tower of the Seraskiarat. 
 I believe that if Satan should wish again to tempt any one with 
 the offer of all the kingdoms of the earth, he would be sure of 
 success, should he transport his victim to that point. The 
 tower, built in the reign of Mahomet Second, is planted upon 
 the highest of the hills of Stamboul, in the midst of the vast 
 court of the ministry of war, at the point which the Turks call 
 the umbilicus of the city. It is constructed in great part of 
 the white marble of Marmora, upon the plan of a regular poly- 
 gon of sixteen sides, and it darts upwards, bold and slender as 
 a column, surpassing in height the gigantic minarets of the 
 neighboring mosque of Soliman. You mount by a winding 
 staircase, lighted by small square windows, through which you 
 catch glimpses of Galata, Stamboul, and the suburbs of the 
 Golden Horn; and you are but half-way up when looking out, 
 you seem to be in the region of the clouds. 
 
 Sometimes going up, you hear a slight noise above your 
 head, and almost at the same moment a shade passes and dis- 
 appears, seeming more like an object falling than a man 
 descending ; it is one of the watchmen who watch day and 
 night upon the summit of the tower, who has probably seen at
 
 THE TOWER OF THE SERASKIARAT. 165 
 
 some distant point of the horizon a suspicious cloud of smoke, 
 and goes to give warning at the Seraskiarat. The staircase has 
 about two hundred steps, and leads to a kind of circular terrace, 
 roofed, and enclosed with glass, where a watchman is always on 
 duty, and who offers coffee to visitors. At the first entrance into 
 that transparent cage which seems suspended between heaven 
 and earth, at the sight of that great azure vault, and at the 
 sound of the wind, that whistles and rattles at the glass, one is 
 seized with vertigo, and almost tempted to renounce the pano- 
 rama. But one's courage returns in a moment, and the wonder- 
 ful sight draws a cry of amazement from the spectator. All 
 Constantinople lies spread out before you, all the hills and all 
 the valleys of Stamboul, from the castle of the Seven Towers to 
 the cemeteries of Eyub ; all Galata, and all Pera, all Scutari ; 
 three lines of cities, groves, and fleets, that lie in perspective 
 along three enchanted shores, and other endless villages and 
 gardens, winding about towards the interior ; the whole of the 
 Golden Horn, motionless and crystalline, dotted with innumera- 
 ble caiques that look like flies swimming on the water ; the 
 whole of the Bosphorus, that appears closed in here and there 
 by the more advanced hills of the two shores, and presents the 
 image of a succession of lakes, and every lake is encircled by a 
 city, and every city wreathed with gardens ; beyond the Bos- 
 phorus the Black Sea, whose azure melts into that of the sky ; 
 on the other side the Sea of Marmora, the Gulf of Nicomedia, 
 the Islands of the Princes, the European and Asiatic shore, 
 white with villages ; beyond again, the straits of the Darda- 
 nelles, shining like a narrow silver ribbon ; and then a vague, 
 glistening whiteness, which is the Egean Sea, and a dark curve
 
 1 66 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 which is the shore of the Troad ; beyond Scutari, Bythinia and 
 Olympus ; beyond Stamboul the undulating yellow solitudes of 
 Thrace ; two gulfs, two straits, two continents, three seas, 
 twenty cities, a myriad of silver domes and golden pinnacles, a 
 glory of light and color, to make us doubt whether we are in- 
 deed beholding our own planet, or some star more favored of 
 God.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. l6/ 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ON the tower of the Seraskiarat, as on that of Galata, as on 
 the old bridge, as at Scutari, I asked myself over and over again, 
 How could you fall in love with Holland ? and not only that 
 country, but Paris, Madrid, Seville, appeared to me dark and 
 melancholy cities, in which I could not have lived a month. 
 Then I thought of my poor attempts at description, and regret- 
 fully 'I muttered: Ah! unfortunate man! How many times 
 have you misused the words beautiful immense splendid ! 
 And now what have you to say of this spectacle ? But now it 
 seemed to me that I could not write a page about Constantino- 
 ple. And my friend Rossasco said to me : But why not try ? 
 and I answered him But I have nothing to say ! and some- 
 times, who would believe it ? that spectacle, for a few seconds, 
 at certain hours, in certain lights, appeared poor and mean, and 
 I exclaimed, almost with dismay, Oh, where is my Constant!? 
 nople ? At other times I was seized by a feeling of sadness at 
 the thought that while I was there in presence of that immensity 
 of loveliness, my mother was in her little chamber from which 
 she could see nothing but an ugly court and a strip of sky; and 
 it seemed my fault, and I would have given an eye to have the 
 good old lady on my arm, conducting her to Santa Sofia. The 
 days, however, flew by light and joyous as an hour of happi- 
 ness. And on the rare occasions when the black cloud fell
 
 1 68 CONSTANTINOPLE, 
 
 upon me, my friend and I -knew how to dissipate it. We went 
 down to Galata in two two-oared caiques, the brightest colored 
 and most gilded to be found, and calling out Eyub ! we were at 
 once in the middle of the Golden Horn. Our rowers were named 
 Mahmoud, Bajazet, Ibrahim, Murad ; they were each about 
 twenty years old, and had two arms of iron, rowing like mad, 
 and exciting each other with cries and boyish laughter; the sky 
 was serene, and the sea transparent ; we threw our heads back 
 and took long deep draughts of the perfumed air, while we 
 dipped our hands in the water ; the two caiques flew, and on 
 either side fled by kiosks and palaces, gardens and mosques ; 
 we seemed to be flying before the wind through an enchanted 
 region, we felt an inexpressible pleasure in being young, and at 
 Stamboul, Yank sang, I recited Victor Hugo's Oriental Ballads, 
 and saw, now to the right, now to the left, now near, now far 
 off, floating in the air, a beloved face, crowned with silver hair 
 and illuminated by a soft smile, which said : Be happy, my 
 son 1 I follow thee with a benediction I
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 169 
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 
 
 AND now if a poor travelling scribbler may invoke a muse, 
 do I invoke her with joined hands, because my mind wanders 
 "before the noble subject," and the grand lines of the Byzan- 
 tine basilica tremble before me like an image reflected in rip- 
 pling water. May the muse inspire me, Saint Sophia illuminate 
 me, and the Emperor Justinian pardon me ! 
 
 One fine morning in October, accompanied by a Turkish 
 eavass from the Italian consulate, and a Greek dragoman, we 
 finally went to visit the "terrestrial paradise, the second firma- 
 ment, the car of the cherubim, the throne of the glory of God, 
 the marvel of the earth, the largest temple in the world after 
 Saint Peter's." Which last sentence, as my friends of Burgos, 
 Cologne, Milan, Florence, know, is not my own, and I should 
 not dare to claim it ; but I have cited it with the others, be- 
 cause it is one of the many expressions consecrated by the en- 
 thusiasm of the Greeks, that our dragoman kept constantly re- 
 peating. We had chosen, together with a Turkish eavass, an 
 old Greek dragoman, with the hope, not delusive, of hearing in 
 their explanations and in their legends, the two religions, the 
 two histories, the two peoples, speaking together; and that 
 while one would exalt the church, the other would glorify the 
 mosque, so as to show Santa Sofia in the way she should ba 
 seen, with one Turkish and one Christian eye. 
 8
 
 I/O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 My expectation was great and my curiosity intense; yet as 
 I went along, I thought as I think now, that there exists no 
 monument, however famous, or however worthy of its fame, the 
 sight of which moves the soul with so vivid and acute a pleas- 
 ure, as is given by the.anticipation when going to see it. If I 
 were to live over again any hour of those that I have spent in 
 seeing some renowned work of man, I should choose that one 
 between the moment when some one said, " Let us go! " and 
 that when we arrived before it. The happiest hours in travel- 
 ling are those. While on the way, your soul expands in the 
 effort to contain the sentiment of admiration which is about to 
 enter it; you remember your youthful desires that then were 
 only dreams ; you see again your old professor of geography, 
 who after having pointed out Constantinople on the map of 
 Europe, traces in the air, with a pinch of snuff in his fingers, 
 the lines of the great basilica ; you remember the room, and the 
 fire-place, before which, the preceding winter, the monument 
 was described to a wondering and silent circle ; the name of 
 Santa Sofia seems to resound in your ears and in your heart, 
 like that of some living being who expects and calls you in 
 order to reveal to you some great secret ; above your head ap- 
 pear arches and columns of a prodigious edifice that seems to 
 lose itself in the clouds ; and when you are near it, you feel an 
 inexpressible pleasure in delaying for one moment, to lose a 
 little time, to retard for an instant that event in your life for 
 which you have longed for twenty years and which you will re- 
 member forever. So that there remains but very little of the cel- 
 ebrated pleasures of admiration if the sentiments that precede 
 and follow it are taken away. It is almost always an illusion,
 
 SANTA SOFIA. I/I 
 
 followed by an awakening from which we, obstinate as we are, 
 bring forth other delusions. 
 
 The mosque of Saint Sophia stands opposite the principal 
 entrance of the old Seraglio. The first object, however, which 
 attracts the eye upon arriving in the square, is not the mosque, 
 but the famous fountain of Sultan Ahmed Third. 
 
 It is one of the richest and most original of the monuments 
 of Turkish art. But, more than a monument, it is a jewel in 
 marble, that a gallant Sultan placed on the forehead of his 
 Stamboul,in a moment of affection. I believe that none but a 
 woman can describe it. My pen is not fine enough to trace its 
 image. It does not look like a fountain at first. It is in the 
 form of a square temple, with a Chinese roof, extending its un- 
 dulating border far beyond the walls, and giving it a pagoda- 
 like appearance. At each of the four angles there is a small 
 round tower, furnished with little grated windows, or rather four 
 charming kiosks, corresponding to which there are, upon the 
 roof, four slender cupolas, each one surmounted by a graceful 
 pinnacle ; the whole encircling a larger cupola in the midst. 
 On each of the four sides there is an elegant niche with a pointed 
 arch, and in each niche a jet of water falling into a small basin. 
 An inscription runs all round the edifice to the following effect : 
 "This fountain speaks to you in the verses of Sultan Ahmed; 
 turn the key of this pure and tranquil spring and invoke the 
 name of God ; drink of this inexhaustible and limpid water and 
 pray for the Sultan." The little edifice is all of white marble, 
 which is scarcely visible under the multiplicity of ornaments 
 that cover the walls ; there are little arches, little niches, little 
 columns, rosettes, polygons, ribbons, embroidery in marble,
 
 172 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 gilding on blue ground, fringes around the cupolas, carvings 
 under the roof, mosaics of many colors, arabesques of many 
 forms. There is not a space as big as a hand that is not carved, 
 and gilded and embroidered. It is a prodigy of grace, richness 
 and patience, to be kept under a glass shade ; a thing made 
 apparently not only for the eye, but which must have a taste, 
 an odor of its own ; a jewel case, that one would like to open, 
 and discover some pearl of price enshrined within. Time has 
 in part dimmed the gilding, blurred the colors, and rusted the 
 marble. What must this colossal jewel have been when first un- 
 veiled to the eye, a hundred and sixty years ago ? But old and 
 faded as it is, it still holds the first place among all the smaller 
 marvels of Constantinople ; and it is besides a thing so entirely 
 Turkish, that it fixes itself forever in the memory among the 
 crowd of objects that rise before the eye of the mind, at the 
 name of Stamboul. 
 
 From the fountain is seen the mosque of Saint Sophia, filling 
 up one side of the square. 
 
 The external aspect has nothing worthy of note. The only 
 objects that attract the eye, are the four high white minarets 
 that rise at the four corners of the edifice, upon pedestals as big 
 as houses. The famous cupola looks small. It appears impos- 
 sible that it can be the same dome that swells into the blue air, 
 like the head of a Titan, and is seen from Pera, from the Bos- 
 phorus, from the Sea of Marmora, and from the hills of Asia. 
 It is a flattened dome, flanked by two half domes, covered with 
 lead, and perforated with a wreath of windows, supported upon 
 four walls painted in stripes of pink and white, sustained in 
 their turn by enormous bastions, around which rise confusedly
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 1/3 
 
 a number of small mean buildings, baths, schools, mausoleums, 
 hospitals, etc., which hide the architectural forms of the basilica. 
 You see nothing but a heavy, irregular mass, of a faded color, 
 naked as a fortress, and not to all appearance large enough to 
 hold within it the immense nave of Saint Sophia's church. Of 
 the ancient basilica nothing is really visible but the dome, which 
 has lost the silvery splendor that once made it visible, accord- 
 ing to the Greeks, from the summit of Olympus. All the rest 
 is Mussulman. One summit was built by Mahomet the Con- 
 queror, one by Selim II., the other two by Amurath III. Of 
 the same Amurath are the buttresses built at the end of the 
 sixteenth century to support the walls shaken by an earthquake, 
 and the enormous crescent in bronze planted upon the top of 
 the dome, of which the gilding alone cost fifty thousand ducats. 
 The antique atrium has disappeared ; the baptistery was con- 
 verted into a mausoleum for Mustafa and Ibrahim I. ; almost 
 all the smaller edifices annexed to the Greek church were 
 either destroyed, or hidden by new walls, or transformed so as 
 not to be recognizable. 
 
 On every side the mosque overwhelms and masks the 
 church, of which the head only is free, though over that also 
 the four imperial minarets keep watch and ward. On the 
 eastern side there is a door ornamented by six columns of 
 porphyry and marble ; at the southern side another door by 
 which you enter a court, surrounded by low, irregular buildings, 
 in the midst of which bubbles a fountain for ablution, covered 
 by an arched roof with eight columns. Looked at from with- 
 out, Saint Sophia can scarcely be distinguished from the other 
 mosques of Stamboul, unless by its inferior lightness and white-
 
 174 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ness ; much less would it pass for the "greatest temple in the 
 world after St. Peter's." 
 
 Our guides conducted us, by a narrow way that ran along 
 the northern side of the edifice, to a bronze door, through which 
 we entered the vestibule. This_ vestibule, which is a very long 
 and very lofty hall, lined with marble and with some of the an- 
 cient mosaics still glittering here and there, gives access to the 
 nave of the eastern side by nine doors, and x>n the opposite 
 side it formerly opened by five doors on another vestibule, 
 which by thirteen doors communicated with the atrium. As 
 soon as we had crossed the threshold, we showed our entrance 
 firman to a turbaned sacristan, put on the slippers, and at a 
 sign from the guide, advanced to the central door of the east- 
 ern side, that stood open to receive us. The first effect of the 
 nave is really grand and new. The eye embraces an enormous 
 vault, a bold architecture of half-domes that seem suspended in 
 the air, measureless pilasters, gigantic arches, colossal columns, 
 galleries, tribunes, and porticoes, upon all of which a flood of 
 light descends from a thousand great windows ; there is a some- 
 thing rather scenic and princely than sacred ; an ostentation of 
 grandeur and force, an air of mundane elegance, a confusion of 
 classic, barbarous, capricious, presumptuous, and magnificent ; 
 a grand harmony, in which, with the thundering and formidable 
 note of the cyclopean arches and pilasters, there are mingled 
 the gentle and low strain of the Oriental canticle, the clamor- 
 ous music of the feasts of Justinian and Heraclitus, echoes of 
 pagan songs, faint voices of an effeminate and worn-out race, 
 and distant cries of Goth and Vandal ; there is a faded majesty, 
 a sinister nudity, a profound peace ; an idea of the basilica of
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 1/5 
 
 St. Peter contracted and toned down, and of St. Mark's grosser, 
 larger and deserted ; a mixture heretofore unseen of temple, 
 church, and mosque, of severity and puerility, of ancient things 
 and modern, of ill-assorted colors, and odd, bizaare ornaments ; 
 a spectacle, in short, which at once astonishes and displeases, 
 and leaves the mind for a moment uncertain, seeking the right 
 word to express and affirm its thought. 
 
 The edifice is constructed upon an almost equilateral rec- 
 tangle, from the centre of which rises the principal dome, up- 
 held by four great arches supported upon four very lofty pilas- 
 ters, that form, as it were, the skeleton of the building. Upon 
 the two arches, which face you as you enter are placed two 
 large half-domes which cover the whole of the nave, and each 
 of these opens into two other smaller half-domes, which form 
 four small round temples within the great one. Between the 
 two temples opposite the entrance opens the apse, also covered 
 by a vault of one-fourth of a sphere. There are then seven 
 half-domes which surround the principal dome, two beneath it, 
 and five below those two, without any apparent support, so that 
 they present an aspect of extraordinary lightness, and seem in- 
 deed, as a Greek poet has written, to be suspended by seven 
 invisible threads from the vault of heaven. All these domes 
 are lighted by large arched windows of great symmetry. Be- 
 tween the four enormous pilasters which form a square in the 
 middle of the basilica, rise, to the right and left as you enter, 
 eight marvellous columns of green breccia from which spring 
 the most graceful arches, sculptured with foliage, forming an 
 elegant portico on either side of the nave, and sustaining at a 
 great height two vast galleries, which present two more ranges
 
 1/ CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 of columns and sculptured arches. A third gallery which com- 
 municates with the two first, runs along the entire side where 
 the entrance is, and opens upon the nave with three great 
 arches, sustained by twin columns. Other minor galleries, sup- 
 ported by porphyry columns, cross the four temples posted at 
 the extremity of the nave, and sustain other columns bearing 
 tribunes. This is the basilica. The mosque is, as it were, 
 planted in its bosom and attached to its walls. The Mirab, or 
 niche which indicates the direction of Mecca, is cut in one of the 
 pilasters of the apse. To the right of it and high up is hung 
 one of the four carpets which Mahomet used in prayer. Upon 
 the corner of the apse nearest the Mirab, at the top of a very 
 steep little staircase, flanked by two balustrades of marble 
 sculptured with exquisite delicacy, under an odd conical roof, 
 between two triumphal standards of JVfahomet Second, is the pul- 
 pit where the Ratib goes up to read the Koran, with a drawn 
 scimetar in his hand, to indicate that Santa Sofia is a mosque 
 acquired by conquest. Opposite the pulpit is the tribune of 
 the Sultan, closed with a gilded lattice. Other pulpits or plat- 
 forms, furnished with balustrades sculptured in open work, 
 and ornamented with small marble columns and arabesque 
 arches, extend here and there along the walls, or project to- 
 wards the centre of the nave. To the right and left of the en- 
 trance, are two enormous alabaster urns, brought from the ruins 
 of Pergamo, by Amurath Third. Upon the pilasters, at a great 
 height, are suspended immense green disks, with inscriptions 
 from the Koran in letters of gold. Underneath, attached to 
 the walls, are large cartouches of porphyry inscribed with the 
 names of Allah, Mahomet, and the first four Caliphs. In the
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 177 
 
 angles formed by the four arches that sustain the cupola, may 
 still be seen the gigantic wings of four mosaic cherubim, whose 
 faces are concealed by gilded rosettes. From the vaults of the 
 domes depend innumerable thick silken cords, to which are at- 
 tached ostrich eggs, bronze lamps, and globes of crystal. Here 
 and there are seen lecterns, inlaid with mother of pearl and 
 copper, with manuscript Korans upon them. The pavement is 
 covered with carpets and mats. The walls are bare, whitish, 
 yellowish, or dark grey, still ornamented here and there with 
 faded mosaics. The general aspect is gloomy and sad. 
 
 The chief marvel of the mosque is the great dome. Looked 
 at from the nave below, it seems indeed, as Madame de Stael 
 said of the dome of St. Peter's, like an abyss suspended over 
 one's head. It is immensely high, has an enormous circum- 
 ference, and its depth is only one-sixth of its diameter; which 
 makes it appear still larger. At its base a gallery encircles it, 
 and above the gallery there is a row of forty arched windows. 
 In the top is written the sentence pronounced by Mahomet Sec- 
 ond, as he sat on his horse in front of the high altar on the day 
 of the taking of Constantinople : " Allah is the light of heaven, 
 and of earth ; " and some of the letters, which are white upon 
 a black ground, are nine yards long. As every one knows, this 
 aerial prodigy could not be constructed with the usual materi- 
 als ; and it was built of pumice stone that floats on water, and 
 with bricks from the island of Rhodes, five of which scarcely 
 weigh as much as one ordinary brick. In each brick was written 
 the sentence of David : Deus in medio eius non commovebitur. 
 Adiitvabit earn Deus vultu suo. At every twelfth row of bricks, 
 holy relics were built in. While the workmen labored, the 
 8*
 
 1/8 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 priests were chanting; Justinian in a linen tunic was present ; 
 and an immense crowd looked on in admiring wonder. And 
 we need not be astonished when we think that the construction 
 of this second firmament, so marvellous even in our day, was in 
 the sixth century a thing without exaiiple. The vulgar believed 
 that it was upheld by enchantment, and the Turks, for a long 
 time after the conquest, when they were praying in the mosque, 
 had much ado to keep their faces towards the east and not turn 
 them upwards to " the stone sky." 
 
 The dome, in fact, covers almost the half of the nave, so 
 that it dominates and lights the whole edifice, and a segment 
 of it may be seen from every side ; whichever way you may 
 turn, you always find yourself beneath it, and your eye and mind 
 rise and float within its circle with a pleasurable sensation, al- 
 most like that of flying. 
 
 When you have visited the nave and the dome you have 
 only begun to see Saint Sophia. For example, whoever has a 
 shade of historic curiosity may dedicate an hour to the columns. 
 Here are the spoils of all the temples in the world. The col- 
 umns of green breccia which support the two great galleries, 
 were presented to Justinian by the magistrates of Ephesus, and 
 belonged to the temple of Diana that was burned by Erostratus. 
 The eight porphyry columns that stand two and two between 
 the pilasters belonged to the Temple of the Sun built by Aure- 
 lian at Balbek. Other columns are from the Temple of Jove 
 at Cizicum, from the temple of Helios of Palmyra, from the tem- 
 ples of Thebes, Athens, Rome, the Troad, the Ciclades, and 
 from Alexandria ; and they present an infinite variety of sizes 
 and colors. Among the columns, the balustrades, the pedes-
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 179 
 
 tals, and the slabs which remain of the ancient lining of the 
 walls, may be seen marbles from all the mines of the Archipel- 
 ago, from Asia Minor, from Africa and from Gaul. The mar- 
 ble of the Bosphorus, white, spotted with black, contrasts with 
 the black Celtic marble Veined with white ; the green marble 
 of Laconia is reflected in the azure marble of Lybia ; the speck- 
 led porphyry of Egypt, the starred granite of Thessaly, the red 
 and white striped stone of Jassy, mingle their colors with the 
 purple of the Phrygian marble, the rose of that of Synada, 
 the gold of the marble of Mauritania and the snow of the mar- 
 ble of Paros. 
 
 To this variety of colors must be added the indescribable 
 variety of the forms of friezes, cornices, rosettes, balustrades, 
 capitals of an odd Corinthian style, in which animals, leaves, 
 crosses and chimeras are all woven together, and others which 
 belong to no order, fantastic in design and unequal in size, coup- 
 led together by chance ; and shafts of columns and pedestals 
 ornamented with capricious carvings, worn by time and chipped 
 by the scimetar ; which altogether present a strange aspect of 
 magnificence and barbarous disorder, and are the scorn of 
 good taste, although one cannot take one's eyes from them. 
 
 Standing in the nave, however, one cannot comprehend the 
 vastness of the mosque. The nave, in fact, is but a small part 
 of the whole. The two porticoes that sustain the lateral gal- 
 leries are two large edifices by themselves alone, out of which 
 two temples might be made. Each of them is divided into three 
 parts, separated by very high arches. Columns, architraves, 
 pilasters, vaults, all are enormous. Walking under these lofty 
 arcades, the great nave, looking like another basilica, can hardly
 
 I SO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 be seen between the interstices of the columns of the temple of 
 Ephesus. The same effect is observed from the galleries, to 
 which you mount by a spiral staircase of very slight inclination, 
 or rather not a staircase, since there are no steps, but an as- 
 cending way, by which a man on horseback could easily go. 
 The galleries were the gineceo, or the part of the church reserved 
 for women ; the penitents remained in the vestibule, and the 
 common crowd of the faithful in the nave. Each gallery could 
 contain the population of a suburb of Constantinople. You do 
 not feel as if you were in a church, but rather appear to be 
 walking in some Titanic theatre, where at any moment may 
 burst forth a chorus of a hundred thousand voices. To see the 
 mosque, you should approach the balustrade and look over, and 
 then all its grandeur appears. Arches, vaults, pilasters, all are 
 gigantic. The green disks that looked as if you could span 
 them with your arms, would here cover a house. The windows 
 are the portals of palaces ; the wings of the cherubim are sails 
 of ships ; the tribunals are public squares ; the dome makes 
 your head swim. Casting down your eyes, you find another 
 wonder. You did not know you had gone up so high. The 
 floor of the nave is at the bottom of an abyss, and the pulpits, 
 the urns of Pergamo, the mats, the lamps, have all grown sin- 
 gularly little. You see at the same time from this point a curi- 
 ous peculiarity of the mosque of Saint Sophia, and that is, that 
 the nave does not lie precisely in the direction of Mecca, towards 
 which the Mussulman must turn in prayer, and consequently, 
 all the mats and praying carpets are disposed obliquely to the 
 lines of the edifice, and offend the eye like a gross error in per- 
 spective. From above can be embraced at once with the eye
 
 SANTA SOFIA. iSl 
 
 and mind all the life of the mosque. There are to be seen Turks 
 on their knees, with their foreheads touching the pavement ; 
 others erect like statues with their hands before their faces, as 
 if they were studying the lines in their palms /some seated cross- 
 legged at the base of columns, as if they were reposing under 
 the shadow of trees ; a veiled woman on her knees in a solita- 
 ry corner ; old men seated before the lecterns, reading the Ko- 
 ran ; an imaum hearing a group of boys reciting sacred verses ; 
 and here and there, under the distant arcades and in the galleries, 
 imaum, ratib, muezzin, servants of the mosque in strange cos- 
 tumes, coming and going silently as if they did not touch the pave- 
 ment. The vague harmony formed by the low, monotonous voi- 
 ces of those reading or praying, those thousand strange lamps, 
 that clear and equal light, that deserted apse, those vast silent 
 galleries, that immensity, those memories, that peace, leave in 
 the soul an impression of mystery and grandeur which words 
 cannot express, nor time efface. 
 
 But at bottom, as I have said, it is a sad impression, and 
 verifies the great poet who likened the mosque of Saint Sophia 
 to a " colossal sepulchre," because on every side were visible 
 the traces of a horrid devastation, exciting more regret for what 
 has been, than admiration for what is. The first feeling of 
 amazement over, the mind turns irresistibly to the past. And 
 even now, after three years, I cannot recall the image of the 
 great mosque without its representing to me instead, the 
 church. I pull down the Mussulman pulpits, take away the 
 lamps and urns, remove the disks and the porphyry cartouches, 
 re-open the walled up windows and doors, scrape off the white- 
 wash from the walls and ceilings, and behold the basilica new
 
 1 8 2 CON STAN T1NOPLE. 
 
 and entire, as it was thirteen centuries ago, when Justinian ex- 
 claimed : " Glory to God, who has judged me worthy to com- 
 plete this work ! Solomon, I have surpassed thee ! " Every- 
 where that the eye is turned, every thing shines, sparkles, 
 lightens as in the enchanted regions of legends. The great 
 walls, lined with precious marbles, send back reflections of 
 gold, of ivory, of steel, of coral, of mother-of-pearl ; the innu- 
 merable veins and spots upon the marble assume the aspect of 
 crowns and garlands of flowers ; the infinite mosaics of crystal 
 give to the walls, when a ray of sun falls upon them, the appear- 
 ance of being encrusted silver set with diamonds. The capi- 
 tals, the cornices, the doors, the friezes of the arches are all of 
 gilded bronze. The vaults of portico and gallery are painted 
 with colossal figures of saints and angels in a golden field. In 
 front of the pilasters, in the chapels, beside the doors, among 
 the columns, stand statues of marble and of bronze, enormous 
 candelabras of massive gold, gigantic evangelists bending above 
 reading desks resplendent as the chairs of kings, high ivory 
 crosses, vases shining with pearls. At the bottom of the nave 
 there is a confused lustre as of something in flames. It is the 
 balustrade of the choir, in gilded bronze ; it is the pulpit, en- 
 crusted with forty thousand pounds of silver, which cost the 
 sum of one year's tribute from Egypt ; it is the seats of seven 
 priests, the throne of the patriarch, the emperor's throne, sculp- 
 tured, inlaid, set with pearls, so that when the light strikes full 
 upon them, the eyes are dazzled and cannot see them. Beyond 
 this splendor in the apse, there is a yet greater magnificence. 
 It is the altar, of which the table, supported on four golden col- 
 umns, is made of gold, silver, pewter and pearls all melted to-
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 183 
 
 gether ; and the pyx formed of four columns of massive silver, 
 surmounted by a globe and cross of gold weighing two hundred 
 and sixty pounds. Behind the altar rises a gigantic figure of 
 the divine Wisdom that touches the vault of the apse with its 
 head and the floor with its feet. Over all these treasures soar 
 aloft the seven half domes covered with mosaics in gold and 
 crystal, and the great central dome upon which are the immeas- 
 urable forms of apostles and evangelists, the Virgin and the 
 Cross, all glittering with gold and colors like jewels and flowers. 
 And all are mirrored in the pavement of polished marbles. 
 Such was the interior of the basilica. But we must imagine 
 also the great atrium, surrounded by columns, and walls lined 
 with mosaic and ornamented with marble fountains and eques- 
 trian statues ; the tower, from which thirty-two bells made their 
 formidable voices echo to the seven hills ; the hundred doors 
 of bronze decorated with bas-reliefs, and inscriptions in silver ; 
 the halls of the synods, the halls of the emperor, the prisms of 
 the priests, the baptistery, the vast sacristy filled with treasures, 
 and a labyrinth of vestibules, of tricliniums, of corridors, of hid- 
 den staircases that wound about in the thickness of the walls 
 and led to tribunes and secret oratories. Now we may imagine 
 the picture presented by such a basilica on the grand occasions 
 of imperial marriages, councils, coronations ; when from the 
 enormous palaces of the Caesars, through streets lined with col- 
 umns and strewn with myrtle and flowers, perfumed with myrrh 
 and incense, and hung with silk and gold, amid the clamors of 
 heralds and the songs of poets, the emperor advanced, wearing 
 the tiara surmounted by a cross, and bejewelled like an idol, 
 seated upon a golden car drawn by two white mules, and sur-
 
 184 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 rounded by a brilliant court. Then the clergy of the basilica 
 in all their pomp met him in the atrium, and all that glittering 
 crowd burst by twenty-seven doors, into the illuminated church. 
 After having made in silence several tours about the mosque, 
 we allowed our guides to speak, who began by showing us the 
 chapels placed beneath the galleries, and despoiled of every 
 thing, like every other part of the basilica. Some of them serve 
 as treasuries, in which Turks who are starting on a long jour- 
 ney, or who are in fear of robbers, deposit their money and 
 their precious objects, and often leave them there for years, 
 under God's guard ; others, enclosed by a wall, are converted 
 into infirmaries, in which some idiot, or man sick of an incura- 
 ble disease, awaits release by cure or death, and from time to 
 time makes the mosque ring with lamentable cries, or childish 
 laughter. They now re-conduct us into the middle of the nave 
 and the Greek dragoman begins to recount the marvels of the 
 basilica. The design, it is true, was traced by the architects 
 Antemius of Tralles and Isidoro of Miletus ; but an angel in- 
 spired the first conception of it. It was an angel also who sug- 
 gested to Justinian to cause three windows to be opened in the 
 apse, which should represent the three persons of the Trinity. 
 Thus also the hundred and seven columns of the church repre- 
 sent the hundred and seven columns which sustain the house 
 of Wisdom. Seven years were occupied in gathering together 
 the materials for the construction of the edifice. One hundred 
 chief superintendents directed the work, and ten thousand 
 laborers were under them, five thousand on one side, and five 
 thousand on the other. The walls were only a few palms high 
 when already more than four hundred and fifty quintals of gold
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 183 
 
 had been spent. The total cost of the building alone amounted 
 to twenty-five millions of francs. The church was consecrated 
 by the Patriarch, five years, eleven months and ten days after 
 the first stone was laid, and Justinian ordered on that occasion 
 sacrifices, feasts, distributions of money and food, which lasted 
 two weeks. 
 
 Here the Turkish cavass struck in, and pointed out the pi- 
 laster upon which Sultan Mahmoud the Second, when he entered 
 a conqueror into Saint Sophia, left the bloody impress of his 
 right hand as if to seal his victory. Then he showed us, near 
 the Mirab, the so-called cold window, from which a fresh air is 
 always blowing, which inspires the greatest preachers of Islam 
 with the most moving discourses. He pointed out, at another 
 window, the famous resplendent stone, which is a slab of diapho- 
 nous marble, which glows like a piece of crystal when struck by 
 the rays of the sun. On the left of the entrance on the north 
 side is the sweating column: a column covered with bronze, 
 through an aperture in which can be seen the marble always 
 moist. And finally he showed a concave block of marble, 
 brought from Bethlehem, in which, it is said, was laid, as soon 
 as he was born, Sidi Yssa, " the son of Mary, the apostle of 
 God, the spirit that proceeds from Him, and merits honor in 
 this world and the next." But it seemed to me that neither the 
 Turk nor the Greek believed much in this. The dragoman 
 now took up the tale, passing before a walled-up door in the 
 gallery, to relate the celebrated legend of the bishop, and this 
 time he spoke with conviction, which if not genuine, was well 
 put on. At the moment when the Turks broke into the church 
 of Saint Sophia, a Greek bishop was saying mass before the
 
 1 86 CONS TAN TINOPLE. 
 
 high altar. At the sight of the invaders he abandoned the 
 altar, went into the gallery, and disappeared through this little 
 door before the eyes of the pursuing soldiers, who instantly 
 found themselves stopped by a stone wall. They began to 
 pound furiously upon the wall ; but only succeeded in leaving 
 the marks of their weapons upon it ; masons were called ; but 
 after having worked for a whole day with pick and mattock, 
 were obliged to renounce the task ; all the masons in Constan- 
 tinople tried their hands at it, and all failed to open a breach 
 in the miraculous wall. But that wall will open ; it will open 
 on the day when the profaned basilica shall be restored to 
 Christian worship, and then the Greek bishop will issue forth, 
 dressed in his pontifical habit, with the chalice in his hand, with 
 a radiant countenance, and mounting the steps of the high altar, 
 he will resume the mass at the exact point where he left off; 
 and on that day the dawn of new centuries shall shine resplen- 
 dent for Constantinople. 
 
 As we were going out, the Turkish sacristan, who had fol- 
 lowed us about in a dawdling, yawning way, gave me a handful 
 of pieces of mosaic which he had picked out that moment from 
 the wall, and the dragoman, stopping in the doorway, began 
 the recital, which I took down from his lips, of the profanation 
 of the basilica. 
 
 Hardly had the news spread, towards seven in the morning, 
 that the Turks had passed the walls, when an immense crowd 
 fled for refuge to Saint Sophia. There were about a hundred 
 thousand persons ; soldiers, monks, priests, senators, thousands 
 of virgins fleeing from the convents, patrician families with 
 their treasures, great dignitaries of the state, and princes of
 
 SANTA SOFIA. l8/ 
 
 the imperial house, rushing through the galleries and the nave, 
 and hiding themselves in all the recesses of the edifice. Min- 
 gled with them came the refuse of the people ; slaves, malefac- 
 tors vomited from the prisons and the galleys, and the whole 
 church resounded with their shrieks of terror, as when a 
 crowded theatre is invaded by the flames. When the nave, the 
 galleries, and the vestibules were all packed full, the doors were 
 closed and barred, and to the horrible din of the first moments 
 succeeded a frightened silence. Many still believed that the 
 conquerors would not dare to profane the church of Saint 
 Sophia ; others awaited in stupid security the apparition of the 
 angel, announced by the prophets, who should exterminate the 
 Mussulman army before the advance guard should arrive at the 
 pillar of Constantihe ; others, mounted upon the inner gallery 
 of the dome, watched from the windows the advancing danger 
 and made signs to the hundred thousand pallid faces that looked 
 up at them from the church below. They could see from thence 
 an immense white cloud that covered the walls from the Blach- 
 erne to the gilded gate ; and from that point four glittering lines 
 advancing through the streets like four lava torrents, widening 
 and roaring in- the midst of smoke and flame. They were the 
 four assaulting columns of the Turkish army, driving before 
 them in disorder the advance guard of the Greeks, and spread- 
 ing, pillaging, burning, as they came on towards Saint Sophia, 
 the Hippodrome, and the Imperial palace. When the vanguard 
 arrived upon the second hill, the blare of trumpets was sud- 
 denly he^ard, and the terrified crowd in the church fell on their 
 knees. But even in that moment many still believed in the ap- 
 parition of the angel, and others hoped that a sentiment of
 
 1 8 8 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 respect and awe would arrest the invaders before that immense 
 edifice consecrated to God. But this last delusion soon van- 
 ished. The trumpets sounded nearer, a confused noise of arms 
 and shouting burst into the church through its thousand win- 
 dows, and in a moment the first blows of the Mussulman axes 
 were heard upon the bronze doors of the vestibules. Then 
 that great throng felt the chill of death upon them, and recom- 
 mended themselves to God. The doors gave way, a savage 
 horde of janissaries, spahis, timmariots, dervishes, sciaus, black 
 with powder and blood, transfigured by the fury of battle, by 
 rapine, and violence of every kind, appeared in the openings. 
 At the first sight of the great nave and all its splendid treasures, 
 there was a shout of wonder and delight ; and then the dread- 
 ful torrent rolled on its furious course. One part fell upon the 
 women, upon the nobles, precious slaves, who stupid with terror 
 held out their arms for the cord and chain ; the rest rushed for 
 the treasures of the church. The tabernacles were pillaged, the 
 statues overthrown, the ivory crucifixes smashed to atoms ; the 
 mosaics, believed to be gems, dug out by the scimetars, fell in 
 sparkling showers into caftans and cloaks held out to catch 
 them ; the pearls of the sacred vessels, picked out by the points 
 of daggers, rolled about the pavements, pursued like living 
 things, and disputed for with fury ; the high altar was dispersed 
 into a thousand fragments of gold and silver; the seats, the 
 thrones, the pulpits, the balustrades, vanished as if destroyed 
 by an avalanche of stone. And on, in bloody waves, came un- 
 ceasingly the Asiatic hordes ; and soon nothing could-be seen 
 but a whirling throng of drunken robbers, many wrapped in 
 sacerdotal robes and wearing mitres on their heads, waving in
 
 SANTA SOFIA. 189 
 
 the air their spoils of chalices and sacred vessels, dragging 
 along files of slaves bound together with pontifical girdles, and 
 in the midst camels and horses laden with booty, slipping upon 
 the pavement encumbered with broken statues, and scattered 
 relics of saints ; a wild and sacrilegious orgy, accompanied by 
 a horrible sound made up of shouts of triumph, threats, yells 
 of pain, shrieks of women and girls, and the blare of trumpets; 
 until suddenly all is still, and upon the threshold of the great 
 portal appears Mahomet the Second on horseback, surrounded 
 by a group of princes, viziers, and generals, superb and impas- 
 sible as the living image of God's vengeance, and rising in his 
 stirrups, he launches into the devastated basilica, with a re- 
 sounding voice, the first formula of the new religion : " Allah 
 is the light of heaven and of earth ! "
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 
 
 EVERY Friday the Sultan goes to pray in one of the mosques 
 of Constantinople. We saw him one day as he was going to 
 the mosque of Abdul-Medjid, on the European shore of the 
 Bosphorus, near the imperial palace of Dolma Bagtche. 
 
 To go to Dolma Bagtche from Galata, you pass through the 
 populous quarter of Top-hane, between a vast arsenal and a 
 great cannon-foundry ; you thread the Mussulman suburb of 
 Funduche, which occupies the site of the ancient Ai'anteon, and 
 come out upon a spacious square, open towards the sea, beyond 
 which, along the shore of the Bosphorus, rises the famous resi- 
 dence of the Sultans. It is the largest marble mole that is re- 
 flected in the waters of the strait from Seraglio Point to the 
 mouth of the Black Sea, and it is only possible to get a view 
 of the whole of it from a boat. The facade, which is nearly 
 half an Italian mile in length, is turned towards Asia, and can 
 be seen for a great distance, shining white between the blue of 
 the sea, and the dark green of the hill. " It is not properly a 
 palace, because the architecture is not that of one unique con- 
 ception ; the different parts are unconnected, and there is a 
 confusion of styles, the Arabic, Greek, Gothic, Turkish, Roman, 
 and Renaissance, all mingled together ; it presents the majes- 
 tic appearance of the royal palaces of Europe, as well as the 
 almost feminine graces of the Moorish buildings of Seville and
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. IQI 
 
 Granada. Instead of " palace," it might be called " the Impe- 
 rial City," like that of the Emperor of China ; and the more, 
 that by its vastness, and by its form, it seems as if it should be 
 inhabited not by monarch only, but by the royal brothers or 
 friends who passed their time in idleness and pleasure. From 
 the Bosphorus it presents a series of facades of temples or 
 theatres, upon which there is such an indescribable profusion 
 of ornaments, that they seem thrown, as a Turkish poet says, 
 by the hand of a madman ; and they remind one of those fabu- 
 lous pagodas of India, which fatigue the eye at the first glance, 
 and seem the images of the infinite caprices of the licentious 
 princes who dwell within their walls. 
 
 There are rows of Doric and Ionic columns, light as lances ; 
 windows framed in festoons with little fluted columns ; arches 
 made of leaves and flowers, that curve above doors worked in 
 delicate tracery; charming balconies with openwork parapets ; 
 trophies, rosettes, and brackets ; intertwined and knotted gar- 
 lands ; marble caprices playing about the cornices, around the 
 windows, and about the medallions in relief; a network of 
 arabesques extending from the doors to the roofs, a magnificence 
 and perfection of architectural ornament that gives to each of 
 the smaller palaces, of which the great multiform edifice is com- 
 posed, the appearance of having been carved and chased by 
 the engraver's hand. It seems impossible that a quiet Arme- 
 nian architect could have conceived it ; but rather that some 
 enamored Sultan must have dreamed it, and offered it to the 
 most ambitious of his beauties. In front stretches a row of 
 monumental pilasters, united by gilded railings, which repre- 
 sent a delicate interlacing of flowering branches, and which, seen
 
 IQ2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 from a distance, look like curtains of lace that the wind might 
 carry away. Long flights of marble steps descend from the 
 gates to the water, and hide themselves in the sea. Everything 
 is white, fresh, and neat as if the palace had been finished but 
 yesterday. An artistic eye might discern a thousand errors of 
 harmony or taste ; but the whole effect is very rich and splen- 
 did, and the first aspect of that array of snow-white royal 
 buildings, enamelled like jewels, crowded with verdure, 
 reflected in the water, leaves an impression of power, mystery 
 and beauty, that almost effaces the recollection of the Old 
 Seraglio. Those who have had the good fortune to penetrate 
 within those walls, say that the interior corresponds to the ex- 
 terior ; that there are long suites of rooms painted in fresco 
 with fanciful subjects and glowing colors ; doors of cedar and 
 mahogany carved and gilded, which open upon interminable 
 corridors illuminated by a soft light, by which you pass into 
 other rooms lighted by small domes of crimson glass, and bath 
 rooms which seem dug out of a single block of Parian marble ; 
 and from these to airy terraces, that hang above mysterious 
 gardens and groves of cypresses and roses, through which, by 
 long perspectives of Moorish porticoes, can be seen the azure 
 of the sea ; and windows, terraces, balconies, kiosks, all are 
 resplendent with flowers, and everywhere water sparkles and 
 falls in vaporous veils over verdure or marble, and from every 
 side open divine views of the Bosphorus, whose invigorating 
 air spreads through all the recesses of the royal pile $. delicious 
 freshness from the sea. 
 
 On the side towards Funduch6 there is a monumental and 
 highly ornamented gate ; through this gate the Sultan comes to
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 193 
 
 cross the square. There is no other monarch of the earth who 
 has such a square by which to make a solemn progress from his 
 palace. Standing at the foot of the hill, the gate of the palace 
 can be seen on the side, looking like a triumphal arch ; on the 
 other side is the graceful mosque of Abdul-Medjid, flanked by 
 two pretty minarets ; in front the Bosphorus ; beyond, the hills of 
 Asia, green, and dotted with infinite colors of kiosks, palaces, 
 mosques and villas, giving them the aspect of a great city, 
 decked for a festival ; farther on, the smiling majesty of Scutari 
 with her crown of cypresses ; and between the two shores a 
 continual passing and repassing of ships, war vessels with ban- 
 ners flying, small steamers crowded with people, looking as if 
 they were filled with flowers. Asiatic boats of strange and an- 
 tique forms, launched from the Seraglio, private boats, and 
 flocks of birds skimming the water ; a scene of such beauty, and 
 life, and joyousness, that the stranger who stands awaiting the 
 appearance of the Imperial cortege, can only imagine a Sultan 
 as handsome as an angel, and as serene as a boy. 
 
 For half an hour already, there had been stationed in the 
 square, two companies of Zouaves, whose duty it was to keep 
 the way open for the passage of the Sultan, and a thousand or 
 so of curious spectators. Nothing is more odd than the varie- 
 ties of people who assemble on such occasions. Here and there 
 were standing some splendid coaches of Turkish ladies " of the 
 high aristocracy " within, guarded by gigantic eunuchs on horse- 
 back, motionless, on either side ; a few English ladies in hired 
 open carriages ; several groups of travellers, with opera-glasses 
 slung by straps over their shoulders, among whom I recognized 
 the conquering Count of the hotel of Byzantium, come . perhaps- 
 9
 
 194 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 cruel man ! to transfix with one triumphant glance, his potent 
 and unhappy rival. Among the crowd were a few hirsute 
 figures with albums under their arms, who might be artists come 
 to make a furtive sketch of the Imperial countenance. Near 
 the band of music was a handsome French woman, dressed very 
 conspicuously, bold of aspect, and of attitude, and in front of 
 everybody, whom I took to be a cosmopolitan adventuress, come 
 there to catch the Sultan's eye, for I thought I read in her face 
 " the trembling joy of a great purpose." There were a few of 
 those old Turks, suspicious and fanatical subjects, who never 
 miss seeing their Sultan when he comes forth, because they 
 wish to be assured by the evidence of their own senses, that he 
 is alive and well for the glory and prosperity of the universe ; 
 and the Sultan appears punctually every Friday, to give his 
 people ocular proof of his existence, for it might happen as it 
 has happened more than once, that his natural or violent death 
 should be kept secret by some court conspiracy. There were 
 mendicants, Mussulman dandies, eunuchs, and dervishes. 
 Among these last I remarked an old man, tall and spare, with 
 terrible eyes, motionless, who kept his look fixed upon the pal- 
 ace gate with a most sinister expression. I fancied him 
 awaiting the Sultan thus, that he might plant himself in his path, 
 and yell in his face, like the dervish in the Orientale to Pasha All 
 ofTepeleni: " Thou .art nothing but a dog and an accursed 
 one !" But there has been no new example of such sublime au- 
 dacity since the famous sabre stroke of Mahmoud. There were 
 also sundry groups of Turkish women standing apart, looking 
 like masqueraders, and the usual assemblage of theatrical su- 
 pernumeraries that make up a crowd in Constantinople.
 
 DOLMA BAGTCffE. 19$ 
 
 At the time of which I write, the eccentricities of Abdul 
 Aziz were already being spoken of. His insatiable avidity for 
 money was known and discussed. The people said : " Mah- 
 moud the lover of blood, Abdul Medjid the lover of women, 
 Abdul Aziz the lover of gold." All the hopes that had been 
 founded upon him, when as Imperial prince he had struck down 
 an ox with his fist, saying, " Thus will I kill barbarisms," had 
 long since vanished. The tendencies to a simple and severe 
 manner of life, of which he had given proof in the first years of 
 his reign, having, as it was said, but one wife, and inexorably 
 restricting the enormous expenses of the Seraglio, were only 
 memories. Perhaps years upon years had gone by since he 
 had given up those studies of legislation, of military science and 
 European literature, for which he had been so renowned, as if 
 in him reposed every hope for the regeneration of the Empire. 
 For a long time now he had thought only of himself. Every 
 moment rumors crept out of his wrath against the minister of 
 finance, who would not, or could not supply all the money that 
 he wanted. At the first word of expostulation, he would launch 
 the first object that came to his hand at the head of his unfor- 
 tunate Excellency, reciting with what voice remained to him, 
 the antique formula of the imperial oath : " By the God that 
 created the heavens and the earth, by the Prophet Mahomet, 
 by the seven variations of the Koran, by the hundred and 
 twenty-four thousand prophets of God, by the soul of my grand- 
 father and by the soul of my father ; by my sons, and by my 
 sword, bring me money or I will plant your head upon the top 
 of the highest minaret in Stamboul." And by one means or 
 another he arrived at his end, and the money thus extorted he
 
 196 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 sometimes kept and accumulated, guarding it jealously like a 
 common miser, and sometimes squandered it by handfuls in the 
 most puerile caprices. To-day it was a fancy for lions, to-mor- 
 row tigers, and messengers were sent to procure them in India 
 and Africa ; then for a month five hundred parrots made the 
 imperial gardens ring with the same word ; then came a rage 
 for carriages, and pianofortes, which he would have played 
 upon while they were upheld on the backs of four slaves ; then 
 a mania for cock-fights, at which he assisted with enthusiasm, 
 and with his own hands hung a medal round the neck of the 
 conqueror, sending the vanquished into exile beyond the Bos- 
 phorus ; then the passion for play, for kiosks, for pictures ; the 
 court seemed to have gone back to the times of the first Ibra- 
 him but the poor prince found no peace, and only passed from 
 one anxiety and trouble to another; he was sad and gloomy; 
 he seemed to foresee the miserable end that awaited him. 
 Sometimes he got it into his head that he should die of poison 
 and for a time, suspicious of everybody, would eat nothing but 
 boiled eggs ; sometimes, seized with a terror of conflagrations, 
 he would have every wooden thing taken out of his rooms, even 
 to the frames of the mirrors. It was said that, in his dread of 
 fire, he read every night by the light of a candle floating in a 
 basin of water. And despite these follies, the reasons for 
 which it is not necessary to state, he preserved the force of his 
 imperious will, and knew how to make himself obeyed, and to 
 make the boldest quail before him. The only person who had 
 any influence over him was his mother, a woman of a vain and 
 haughty disposition, who in the first years of his reign used to 
 have the streets leading to the mosque where her son went to
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 197 
 
 pray, carpeted with brocade, and the next day gave all these 
 carpets to the slaves whose duty it was to remove them. Amid 
 the disorders of his miserable life, between his greater caprices, 
 Abdul Aziz had also smaller fancies, such as that of wishing to 
 have a certain door painted in fresco with certain fruits and 
 flowers, arranged in a given manner, and having prescribed 
 everything to the painter in the minutest manner, he would 
 stand and watch every stroke of the brush, as if he had no other 
 care in the world. The whole city gossiped about these oddi- 
 ties, greatly exaggerated no doubt by the thousand tongues of 
 the Seraglio, and perhaps the first threads of the web of con- 
 spiracy that pulled him from his throne were then laid down. 
 His fall, as the Mussulmans say, was written, and with it the 
 sentence that was pronounced upon him and upon his reign. 
 The which is not very different from that which might be given 
 upon almost all the Sultans of the later times. Imperial 
 princes, urged towards European civilization by an education, 
 superficial, but various and liberal, and in the fervor of their 
 youth desirous of novelty and glory, they dreamed, before as- 
 cending the thronfe, grand designs of reform and change, and 
 made firm and sincere resolutions of 'dedicating their lives to 
 that end, lives which were to be austere with labor and with 
 struggle. But after a few years of useless effort, surrounded by 
 a thousand obstacles, born of habit and tradition, opposed by 
 men and things, terrified at the unforeseen difficulties of the 
 undertaking, they gave up in despair, to seek in pleasure what 
 glory could not give, and to lose little by little in a life entirely 
 sensual, even the remembrance of their first ambition, and the 
 consciousness of their degradation. Thus it happens that at
 
 198 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the accession of each new Sultan, hopes are born, not without 
 reason, which afterwards die in complete disillusion. 
 
 Abdul Aziz did not make us wait. At the hour named, a 
 trumpet call was heard, the band burst into a warlike march, 
 the soldiers presented arms, a company of lancers issued from 
 the palace gate, and the Sultan appeared, advancing slowly on 
 horseback, followed by his cortege. He passed very near me 
 and I had plenty of time to examine him attentively. My fancy 
 was strangely deluded. The king of kings, the prodigal, violent, 
 capricious, imperious Sultan, who was then about forty-foui 
 years of age, had the air of a good-natured Turk, who seemed 
 to be masquerading as Sultan without being aware of it. He 
 was a stout, thick-set man, with a handsome face, two large 
 eyes of calm expression, and a short thick beard, slightly griz- 
 zled; he had an open and mild countenance, and his bearing 
 was easy and modest ; his look tranquil and slow, in which 
 there appeared not the slightest consciousness of the thousand 
 eyes that were then fixed upon him. He rode a grey horse 
 with gold housings, a beautiful creature, led by two splendidly 
 apparelled grooms. His escort followed him at a distance, and 
 from this alone it was easy to know him for the Sultan. His 
 dress was very plain. He wore a simple fez, a long, dark frock- 
 coat buttoned to the chin, light-colored trousers, and morocco 
 boots. He advanced slowly, looking about him with an expres- 
 sion of benevolence and weariness, as if he were saying to him- 
 self : " Ah ! if they only knew how bored I am ! " The Mus- 
 sulmans bowed themselves profoundly; many Europeans raised 
 their hats ; but he saluted none of them. Passing near us, he 
 gave a glance at a tall officer who saluted with his sabre, an-
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 199 
 
 other at the Bosphorus, and then a longer one at two young 
 English ladies who were gazing at him from a carriage, and 
 who turned as red as strawberries under his eyes. I observed 
 that his hand was white and well-shaped, the same right hand 
 that two years afterwards opened his veins in his bath. Behind 
 him came a throng of Pashas, courtiers, and high personages 
 on horseback ; almost all large men, with big black beards, 
 dressed simply, silent, grave, composed, as if following a funeral 
 corti-ge ; then came a number of grooms leading some mag- 
 nificent horses ; then a crowd of officials on foot with their 
 breasts covered with gold cord ; these passed by, the soldiers 
 grounded their arms, the people broke into groups and scattered 
 about the square, and I remained, with my eyes fixed upon the 
 summit of Mount Bulgurlei, thinking upon the singular condi- 
 tions in which a Sultan of Stamboul now exists. 
 
 He is a Mahometan monarch, I thought, and he reigns over 
 a Christian city, Pera, that towers above his head. He is the 
 absolute sovereign of one of the vastest empires of the world, 
 and there in his metropolis, at but a little distance from him, 
 within great palaces that look down upon his Seraglio, four or five 
 ceremonious foreigners play the master in his house, and when 
 they treat with him, hide under respectful language a perpetual 
 menace at which he trembles. He has in his hands measure- 
 less power, the lives and fortunes of millions of subjects, the 
 means of satisfying his wildest desires, and he cannot change 
 the form of his head covering. He is surrounded by an army 
 of courtiers and guards, who would kiss the print of his foot- 
 step, and he trembles for his own life and that of his children. 
 He possesses a thousand of the most beautiful women in the
 
 200 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 world, and he alone, among all the Mussulmans of his Empire, 
 cannot call a free woman wife, his children must be born of 
 slaves, and he himself is called " Son of a slave " by the 
 same people who call him the "shadow of God." His name 
 resounds with reverence and terror from the uttermost confines 
 of Tartary to the uttermost confines of Maghreb, and in his own 
 metropolis there is an innumerable and still increasing people, 
 over whom he has not a shadow of power, and who laugh at him, 
 his force, and his faith. Over the face of his immense empire, 
 among the most miserable tribes of the more distant provinces, 
 in mosques and solitary convents in savage lands, ardent 
 prayers go up for his life and for his glory ; and he cannot take 
 a step in his own states without finding himself in the midst 
 of enemies, who execrate him and invoke the vengeance of 
 heaven upon his head. For all that part of the world which 
 lies in front of his realm, he is one of the most august and most 
 formidable monarchs of the universe; for that part that lies at 
 his back, he is the weakest, the most pusillanimous, the most 
 wretched man that wears a crown. An enormous current of 
 ideas, of wills, of forces contrary to the nature and to the tradi- 
 tions of his power, flows around him, overturns, transforms, 
 works in spite of him and without his knowledge, at the destruc- 
 tion of laws, customs, manners, usages, beliefs, men, everything. 
 And he is there, between Europe and Asia, in his great palace 
 washed by the sea, as in a ship ready to spread her sails, in the 
 midst of an infinite confusion of ideas and things, surrounded 
 by fabulous splendor and an immensity of misery, already ne due 
 ne uno, no more a true Mussulman, not yet a true European, 
 reigning over a people in a state of mutation, barbarous in
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 2OI 
 
 blood, civilized in aspect, two-fronted like Janus, served like a 
 god, watched like a slave, adored, envied, deceived, and mean- 
 time, ever)' day that passes extinguishes a ray of his aureole 
 and detaches a stone from his pedestal. To me it seemed that 
 were I he, tired of such a condition, sated with pleasure, sick 
 of adulation, worn out with constant suspicion, indignant at that 
 insecure and idle sovereignty over that nameless disorder, some 
 time, at the hour in which the enormous Seraglio is plunged in 
 sleep, I would plunge into the Bosphorus like a fugitive galley- 
 slave, and would go and pass th night at a tavern in Galata in 
 the midst of a crew of mariners, with a glass of beer and a clay 
 pipe, singing the Marseillaise. 
 
 After half an hour the Sultan passed again on his return, 
 this time rapidly, in a closed carriage, followed by a number of 
 officers on foot, and the spectacle was over. That which made 
 the deepest impression upon my memory, was the sight of those 
 officers in full uniform, racing along like a crowd of lackeys, be- 
 hind the imperial carriage. I never saw before such a pros- 
 titution of military dignity. 
 
 This spectacle of the passage of the Sultan has become a 
 very poor affair. The Sultan of an olden time issued forth in 
 great pomp, preceded and followed by a cloud of horsemen, 
 slaves, guards, eunuchs, and chamberlains, that seen from- a 
 distance, say enthusiastic chroniclers, looked like *' a vast bed of 
 tulips." The Sultan of to-day on the contrary seems to take 
 refuge from pomp as from an ostentatious show of lost grand- 
 eur. What would one of those earlier monarchs say if rising 
 for a moment from his sepulchre at Broussa or Stamboul, he 
 should behold one of his descendants of the nineteenth century 
 
 n*
 
 202 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 passing by, wrapped in a long black frock coat, without turban, 
 without scimetar, without a jewel, in the midst of a crowd of in- 
 solent foreigners ? I believe that he would blush with rage and 
 shame, and that in token of his supreme displeasure, he would, 
 as Soliman the First did to Hassan, cut off the beard of his un- 
 worthy representative with one sweep of his sabre, which is the 
 deadliest insult that can be offered to an Osmanli. It is true 
 that between the Sultans of those days and these, there is the 
 same difference as between the Ottoman empire of -to-day and 
 that of the first centuries. Those earlier Sultans did really gather 
 into themselves all the youth, the beauty, and the vigor of their 
 race ; and they were not only a living image of their own peo- 
 ple, a beautiful and visible sign, a precious pearl upon the sword 
 of Islam, but they constituted in themselves alone a. real force, 
 insomuch, that it is impossible not to recognize in their per- 
 sonal qualities one of the most efficient reasons for the marvel- 
 lous increase of the Ottoman power. The finest period is that in 
 the first youth of the dynasty that embraces one hundred and 
 ninety-three years from Osman to Mahomet the Second. 
 
 That was indeed a chain of the most powerful princes, and 
 with one single exception, and due account taken of the times 
 and the condition of the race, they were austere, wise and be- 
 loved by their subjects, often ferocious, but rarely unjust, and 
 sometimes even generous and beneficent towards their enemies ; 
 and it is easy to understand that such princes of such a people 
 must have been handsome and striking in appearance, true lions, 
 as their mothers called them, " whose roar made the earth to 
 tremble." The Abdul Medjids, the Abdul Aziz, the Murads, 
 the Hamids, are mere pale shadows of the Padishah in com-
 
 DOLMA BAGTCffE. 203 
 
 parison with those formidable young men, sons of mothers of 
 fifteen and fathers of eighteen years of age, born in the flower 
 of Tartar blood, and of Greek, Persian, and Caucasian beauty. 
 At fourteen years old they were commanding armies and 
 goverfting provinces, and receiving as prizes from the hands 
 of their mothers, slaves, handsome and ardent as themselves. 
 At sixteen they were fathers and at seventy as well. But love 
 in them did not undermine and weaken soul and body. Their 
 souls were of iron, as the poets sang, and their bodies of steel. 
 They all had certain marked features that have been lost in their 
 degenerate descendants, the high forehead, the eyebrows arched 
 and meeting like those of the Persians, the bluish eyes of the sons 
 of the Steppes, the nose curving above the full red lips "like the 
 beak of a parrot over a cherry," and the full black curling beard, 
 for which the Seraglio poets were ever trying to find beautiful 
 and terrible similes. They had "the glance of the eagle of 
 Mount Taurus and the strength of the king of the desert ;" necks 
 like a bull, broad shoulders, and capacious chests, "that could 
 contain all the warlike fury of their people," long arms, large 
 joints, legs short and bowed, that could make the vigorous Tur- 
 coman horses neigh with pain, and large hairy hands that could 
 wield with ease the maces and enormous bows of their soldiers 
 of bronze. And their surnames were worthy of them : the ath- 
 lete, the champion, the thunderbolt, the bone-crusher, the shed- 
 der of blood. After Allah, war was their first thought, and 
 death their last. They had not the genius of great captains, 
 but they were all endowed with that resolution and promptness 
 of action that often takes the place of genius, and with that 
 ferocious obstinacy that sometimes brings about the same re-
 
 204 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 suits. They flew, like winged furies, over the field of battle, 
 displaying from afar the heron plumage of their white turbans 
 and their ample caftans of gold and purple, and their savage 
 yells drove before them the flying hordes that fell like sheep un- 
 der the Servian and German swords. They dashed on horse- 
 back into the rivers, and swam their horses, waving above their 
 heads their scimetars streaming with blood ; they seized by the 
 throat, and tore from the saddle as they passed, a slothful or 
 cowardly pasha ; they sprang from their horses in the rout, and 
 planted their jewelled poniards in the backs of the flying sol- 
 diers ; and, wounded to death, holding the wound together, 
 they mounted upon a rising ground to show their janissaries 
 their pale but stiil imperious and menacing countenance, be- 
 fore they fell, groaning with rage, but not with pain. They were 
 gentle in the harem, ferocious in the camp, humble in the mosque, 
 superb upon the throne. From thence they spoke a language 
 full of hyperbole and menace, and every sentence was an irre- 
 vocable sentence, that declared a war, or raised one man to the 
 height of fortune, or sent the head of another rolling down the 
 steps of the throne, or unchained a tempest of fire and steel 
 over a rebellious province. Thus raging like a whirlwind from 
 Persia to the Danube and from Arabia to Macedonia, amid 
 battles, triumphs, the chase, love, they passed from the flower 
 of their youth to a manhood still more turbulent and audacious, 
 and then to an old age full of strength and fiery vigor. And 
 not only in age, but in their earlier years, it sometimes hap- 
 pened that, oppressed by the weight of their monstrous power, 
 suddenly enlightened, in the very fury of victory and triumph, 
 by the consciousness of a more than human responsibility, and
 
 DOLMA BAGTCHE. 20$ 
 
 seized by a .species of terror in the solitudes of their own great- 
 ness, they turned their souls to God, and passed days and nights 
 in the dim recesses of their own gardens, composing religious 
 poems, or they went to the sea shore and meditated upon the 
 Koran, or joined the frantic dances of the dervishes, or morti- 
 fied the flesh with fasts and hair-cloth shirts in the cavern of 
 some aged hermit. And as in life so in death they almost all 
 presented to the people a venerable or awful figure, whether 
 they died with the serenity of saints like the head of the dynas- 
 ty, or weighed down with glory and with sadness like Orkau, 
 or by the dagger of a traitor like Murad the First, or in the des- 
 peration of exile like Bajazet, or placidly conversing amid a 
 circle of wise men and poets, like the first Mahomet, or in the 
 pain of defeat like the second Murad ; and it may be said that 
 their threatening phantoms are all that remain of greatest and 
 most poetic upon the blood-colored horizon of Ottoman history
 
 206 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 
 
 IT is a great surprise for those arriving for the first time at 
 Constantinople, after having heard much of the state of slavery 
 in which the women are kept, to see women from all parts, and 
 at all hours of the day, going about as in any European city. 
 It seems ae if all those imprisoned birds had been let loose on 
 that particular day, and that a new era of liberty for the Mus- 
 sulman fair sex was beginning. The first impression is most 
 curious. The stranger wonders whether all those white veiled 
 figures in bright colored wrappers are masqueraders, or nuns, 
 or mad women ; and as not one is ever seen accompanied by a 
 man, they seem to belong to no one, and to be all girls and 
 widows, or members of some great association of the " ill-mar- 
 ried." At first it is difficult to persuade oneself that all those 
 Turks, male and female, that meet and pass without taking the 
 slightest notice of one another, can have associations in com- 
 mon. One is constrained to stop and meditate upon these 
 strange figures and stranger customs. These then, you think, 
 these are really those " conquerors of the heart," those " founts 
 of pleasure," those " little rose leaves," those " early ripening 
 grapes," those " dews of the morning," " auroras," " vivifiers," 
 and " full moons," of which a thousand poets have sung. 
 These are the hanums and the mysterious odalisques that we 
 dreamed of when we were twenty years old, and read Victor 
 Hugo's ballads in the shady garden. These are the lovely op-
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 2O/ 
 
 pressed ones, imprisoned behind gratings, watched by eunuchs, 
 separated from the world, passing by upon the earth like phan- 
 toms, with a cry of pleasure, or a shriek of pain ? Let us see 
 what there is yet of truth in all this poetry. 
 
 First of all, then, the Turkish woman's face is no longer a 
 mystery, and thus a great part of the poetry that surrounded 
 her has vanished. That jealous veil that, according to the 
 Koran, was to be " a sign of her virtue and a guard against the 
 talk of the world," is now only a semblance. Every body 
 knows how the yashmak is fashioned. There are two large 
 white veils, one of which, bound tightly round the head like a 
 bandage, covers the forehead down to the eyebrows, and is tied 
 behind upon the nape of the neck, falling in two long ends 
 down the back as far as the girdle ; the other covers the whole 
 of the lower part of the face up to the eyes, and is knotted in 
 with the first so that the two seem but one. But these veils, 
 that should be of muslin, and drawn in such a manner as to 
 leave only the eyes exposed, are in reality of transparent tulle, 
 and so loosely put on, that not only the face, but the ears, neck 
 and hair, are seen, and very often also a European hat, trimmed 
 with flowers and feathers, worn by the " reformed " ladies. 
 And thus it happens that just the contrary of what once ob- 
 tained is now the custom, for the older women, who were allowed 
 to uncover their faces a little, are now the most closely veiled, 
 while the younger, and more especially the handsome ones, who 
 were always rigorously hidden, are now quite visible. Thus an 
 infinity of charming surprises and lovely mysteries, dear to the 
 poet and romancists, are no longer possible ; and among other 
 fables, is that one that the husband beholds the face of his bride
 
 208 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 for the first time on his marriage night. But beyond the face, 
 every thing else, shoulders, arms and waist, are scrupulously 
 hidden by \\\&feredjc, a kind of long tunic, furnished with a cape 
 and long, wide sleeves, a shapeless garment, falling like a sack 
 from shoulder to feet, made of cloth in winter and silk in sum- 
 mer, and of one generally very brilliant color. Sometimes 
 it is bright red, sometimes orange, sometimes green; and one 
 or the other color predominates from year to year, while the 
 form remains unchanged. But such is the art with which they 
 know how to adjust the yashmak, that the handsome appears 
 still handsomer, and the plain very agreeable. It is impossible 
 to say what they contrive to do with those two veils, with what 
 grace they arrange them in coronets or turbans, with what an 
 amplitude and nobility of folds they twist them about, with what 
 lightness and elegance they let them float and fall, making them 
 serve at once to display, to conceal, to promise, to propose a 
 problem, or to betray some little marvel unexpectedly. Some 
 seem to be wearing around their heads a white, transparent 
 cloud, that would vanish with a puff; others look as if they 
 were crowned with lilies and jasmine flowers ; all have very 
 white skins, and the veil adds a new charm of whiteness and 
 softness and freshness. It is a costume at once austere and 
 sweet, that has something virginal and holy about it ; under 
 which none but gentle thoughts and innocent fancies should 
 have birth. But there is born a little for everything. 
 
 It is difficult to define the beauty of the Turkish woman. 
 I may say that when I think of her, I see a very fine face, two 
 black eyes, a crimson mouth, and an expression of sweetness. 
 Almost all of them, however, are painted. They whiten their
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 209 
 
 faces with almond and jasmine paste, they lengthen and darken 
 their eyebrows with Indian ink, they tint their eyelids, they 
 powder their throats, they put a dark circle round their eyes, 
 they wear patches on their cheeks. But they do it all with taste, 
 not like the beauties of Fez, who paint themselves with a white- 
 wash brush. The greater part of them have fine oval faces, the 
 nose a little arched, full lips and round chins, with dimples; 
 many have dimples also in their cheeks ; a beautiful throat, long 
 and flexible; and small hands, almost always hidden, unfortu- 
 nately, by the long sleeves of their mantles. Almost all are 
 rather fat, and many are above the middle height ; it is rare to 
 see a dumpy or a long, thin woman, as in our country. All have 
 a common defect of walking with a stoop, and a certain waddle 
 like that of a big baby suddenly grown up ; which comes, it is 
 said, from a weakness of limb caused by abuse of the bath, and 
 also somewhat from their awkward, ill-fitting slippers. In fact 
 it is common to see very elegant ladies, who must have small, 
 delicate feet, shod with men's slippers, or long wide boots, 
 wrinkled all over, that a European ragpicker would disdain. 
 But even in this ugly manner of walking there is a kind of girlish 
 air, that when one is used to it, is not displeasing. Of those 
 figures like fashion plates so frequent in European cities, that 
 walk like puppets, and look as if they were hopping on the 
 squares of a chess board, there are none to be seen. They have 
 not yet lost the stately, negligent grace of the Oriental, and if 
 they were to lose it. they might be more dignified, but certainly 
 would be less interesting. There are beautiful figures among 
 them, of a great variety of beauty, according as there is a min- 
 gling of Turkish, Arabic, Circassian, or Persian blood. There
 
 210 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 are matrons of thirty, of opulent forms which \hzferedje fails to 
 conceal, very tall, with great dark eyes, full lips and dilated 
 nostrils hanums to strike terror with a look into the souls of a 
 hundred slaves. 
 
 There are others small and plump, who have everything 
 round face, eyes, nose, and mouth and an air of such gentle- 
 ness, benevolence, and childishness, an appearance of such en- 
 tire and mild resignation to their destiny, and of being nothing 
 but toys and things for recreation, that passing near them one 
 is tempted to pop a sugar plum into their mouths. And there 
 are the slender forms of wives of sixteen, ardent and vivacious, 
 with eyes full of caprice and cunning, who inspire in the be- 
 holder a sentiment of pity for the poor effendi who has to control 
 them, and the unfortunate eunuch who is obliged to watch 
 them. The city makes an admirable frame for their beauty and 
 their costume. These white-veiled, purple-robed figures should 
 be seen seated in a caique in the midst of the blue waters of 
 the Bosphorus ; or reclining on the grass under the green shade 
 of the cemeteries ; or better still, coming down a steep and soli- 
 tary street of Stamboul, shut in at the back by a great plane 
 tree, the wind blowing, and the veil and feredje streaming out, 
 and displaying throat, and foot and ankle; and I assure you 
 that in that moment, if the indulgent decree of Soliman the 
 Magnificent were still in vigor, that mulcted in an aspro every 
 kiss given to the wife or daughter of another man, Harpagon 
 himself would kick avarice aside. And when the wind blows the 
 Mussulman woman does not put herself out to hold down hei 
 feredjt, because her modesty does not extend below her knee, 
 and sometimes stops a good bit above it.
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 211 
 
 One thing that is astonishing, at first, is their way of looking 
 and laughing, which would excuse the boldest advance. It fre- 
 quently happens that a European looking fixedly at a Turkish 
 lady, even one of high rank, is rewarded by a smiling glance, or 
 an open laugh. It is not rare, either, for a handsome hanum 
 in a carriage to give a gracious salute with her hand, behind 
 the eunuch's back, to a Frankish gentleman who has pleased 
 her fancy. Sometimes in a cemetery, or in a retired street, a 
 capricious lady will go so far as to throw a flower as she passes, 
 or to let it fall with the manifest intention that it shall be picked 
 up by the elegant giaour who is behind her. In this way a 
 fatuous traveller may be very much deluded, and there are in- 
 deed some simple beings, who after having passed a month in 
 Constantinople, really imagine in perfect good faith that they 
 have destroyed the peace of a hundred unfortunate women. 
 No doubt there is, in these acts, an ingenuous expression of 
 sympathy, but there is still more of a spirit of rebellion, which 
 all the Turkish women have in their hearts, born of the subjec- 
 tion in which they are held, and which they show, when they 
 can, in these foolish tricks, thus spiting their masters, even in 
 secret. They do it more from childishness than from coquetry, 
 and their coquetry is of a singular kind, resembling much the 
 first experiments of little girls, when they become aware that 
 they are being looked at. It is a broad laugh, or a look up- 
 wards, with mouth open and an expression of astonishment, or 
 a pretending to have a pain in the head or the leg, or a wilful 
 jerking of the embarrassing folds of the feredje, school-girl tricks 
 that seem intended to excite laughter rather than to seduce. 
 Never an affected or artificial attitude. The little art they show
 
 2 1 2 CON STAN T1NOPLE. 
 
 is entirely rudimental. One can see, as Tommaseo says, that 
 they have not many veils to lift; that they are not accustomed 
 to a long wooing, and that when they feel an attraction towards 
 any one, instead of sighing and rolling their eyes in suspense, 
 they will go straight to their point, and if they could express 
 their sentiments, would say: Christian, thou pleasest me! 
 Not being able to do that, they make it frankly visible, showing 
 two rows of shining pearl-like teeth, or laughing out in his face. 
 They are pretty tamed Tartars. 
 
 And they are free ; it is a truth apparent to the stranger 
 almost as soon as he arrives. It is an exaggeration to say, like 
 Lady Montague, that they are more free than Europeans ; but 
 whoever has been at Constantinople can not but laugh when 
 he hears them spoken of as " slaves." Ladies, when they wish 
 to go out, order the eunuchs to prepare the carriage, ask no 
 one's permission, and come back when they please, provided it 
 is before nightfall. Formerly, they could not go without being 
 accompanied by a eunuch, or by a female slave, or friend, and 
 the boldest were at least obliged to take one of their children 
 with them, who served as a sign of respectability. If any 
 woman appeared alone in a retired street or square, 
 some city guard or rigorous old Turk was sure to accost her 
 and demand: "Whither goest thou? Whence comest thou ? 
 Why art thou alone ? Is this the way thou respectest thy 
 effendi ? Return at once to thy abode !" But now they go out 
 alone by hundreds, and are seen at all hours in the Mussulman 
 suburbs, and in the Frank quarters. They go to pay visits to 
 their friends, they pass half the day in the bath houses, they go 
 about in boats ; on Thursdays to the Sweet Waters of Europe,
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 21$ 
 
 on Sundays to those of Asia, on Tuesdays to the cemetery of 
 Scutari, on other days to the islands, to Terapia, to Bujukdere, 
 to Kalender, to lunch with their slave women, in companies of 
 eight or ten. They go to pray at the tombs of the Sultans, to 
 see the dervishes at their convents, to visit the public exhibitions 
 of nuptial trousseaux, and there is not the sign of a man accom- 
 panying or following them, nor would any presume to accost 
 them, even when quite alone. To see a Turk in the streets of 
 Constantinople not with a lady on his arm or at his side, but 
 stopping for one instant to speak with a "veiled woman," even 
 if they bore husband and wife written on their foreheads, would 
 appear to all the strangest of strange things, or rather an un- 
 heard-of piece of impudence, such as it would be in our streets 
 were a man and woman to make love to each other fro bono 
 pnblico. In this way, the Turkish women are really more free 
 than their European sisters, and their delight in their liberty is 
 indescribable, and the wild excitement with which they rush 
 into noise, crowds, light, open air, they who in their own homes 
 never see but one man, and live behind grated windows and in 
 cloistered gardens. They go about the city with the joy of a 
 liberated prisoner. It is amusing to watch one of them from a 
 distance, and following her footsteps afar off, observe how she 
 prolongs and spreads out the pleasure of vagabondizing. She 
 enters a mosque near by to say a prayer, and stays a quarter 
 of an hour under the portico chattering with a friend ; then to 
 the bazaar to look in at a dozen shops and turn two or three 
 upside down in search of some trifle ; then she takes the tram- 
 way, gets out at the fish market, crosses the bridge, stops to 
 contemplate all the braids and wigs in the hair dresser's win-
 
 214 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 dows, in the street of Pera, enters a cemetery and eats a sweet- 
 meat, sitting on a tomb, returns to the city, goes down to the 
 Golden Horn, turning a hundred corners, and glancing at 
 every thing out of the corner of her eye, shop windows, prints, 
 placards, advertisements, people passing, carriages, signs, thea- 
 tre doors, buys a bunch of flowers, drinks a lemonade, gives 
 alms to a poor man, crosses the Golden Horn in a caique, and 
 walks about Stamboul ; there she takes the tramway again, and 
 arriving at her own door, is capable of turning back, to make 
 the tour of a group of small houses ; exactly as children coming 
 out for the first time alone, seek to make the most of their lib- 
 erty, and see a little of everything. Any poor corpulent effendi 
 who should try to follow his wife to spy out her actions, would 
 be left behind before half the journey was accomplished. 
 
 To see the Mussulman fair sex, it is well to go one day to 
 the great festival of the Sweet Waters of Europe, at the end of 
 the Golden Horn, or to those of Asia, near the village of Ana- 
 duli-Hissar ; which are two great public gardens, covered with 
 groves of trees, watered by two small rivers, and sprinkled with 
 cafes and fountains. There over a vast grassy plain, in the 
 shade of nut trees, pines, plane trees and sycamores, forming a 
 succession of green pavilions where no ray of sun penetrates, 
 are to be seen thousands of Turkish women seated in groups 
 and circles, surrounded by their female slaves, eunuchs and 
 children, lunching and frolicking for half the day, in the midst 
 of crowds of people coming and going. They have hardly ar- 
 rived when they seem to fall into a sort of dream. It seems 
 like a festival in the paradise of Islam. Those myriads of 
 white veiled figures, clothed mferedjh of scarlet, yellow, green,
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 21$ 
 
 and grey, those innumerable groups of slaves in many-colored 
 garments, that throng of children in fanciful dresses, the large 
 Smyrna carpets spread on the ground, the gold and silver ves- 
 sels, or what looked like such, passing from hand to hand, the 
 Mussulman coffee-seller in gala-dress, running about carrying 
 fruits and ices, zingari- dancing, Bulgarian shepherds piping, 
 horses trapped with silk and gold fastened to trees, pashas, 
 beys, and young gentlemen galloping by the river side, the 
 movement of the distant crowd like a field of flowers, many- 
 colored caiques, and splendid carriages arriving, to mingle other 
 colors with that sea of color, and the murmur of songs, flutes, 
 and other instruments, the voices of children, in the midst of 
 that loveliness of green shadow, varied here and there with 
 glimpses of the sun-lit landscape beyond ; all present a specta- 
 cle so gay and so new, that one is tempted to clap one's hands 
 and cry out JBravissimo ! as in a theatre. 
 
 Even here, in spite of the confusion, it is extremely rare to 
 catch a Turkish couple in the act of exchanging amorous 
 glances, or smiles and gestures of mutual intelligence. Gal- 
 lantry coram populo does not exist there as in Italy ; there is to 
 be found neither the melancholy sentinel who passes up and 
 down under the window of his lady, nor the panting rear-guard 
 following for three hours on the stretch in the footsteps of his 
 goddess. If it should happen that in some deserted street, a 
 young Turk is surprised looking up at a grated window, from 
 which sparkles a black eye, or a white hand waves for an in- 
 stant, you may be quite certain that the couple are betrothed. 
 To the betrothed alone is permitted the sweet childishness of 
 official love-making, such as speaking from a distance by means
 
 2 1 6 CONS TANT2NOPLE. 
 
 of a flower, or a ribbon, or the color of a dress, or a scarf. And 
 in these matters the Turkish lady is mistress. They have a 
 thousand objects, among flowers, fruits, leaves, feathers, stones, 
 each one of which possesses a specific meaning, being an epithet 
 or a verb or even a complete sentence, so that they can make a 
 letter out of a bunch of flowers, or say a hundred things with a 
 box or purse full of various small objects that seem to have 
 been gathered together casually ; a clove, a strip of paper, a 
 section of a pear, a bit of soap, a match, a little gold thread 
 and a small portion of cinnamon and pepper, express the fol- 
 lowing : " I have loved you long I burn, I languish, I die for 
 love of you. Give me a little hope do not repulse me send 
 me one word of reply." They can say many other things be- 
 sides ; reproof, advice, warning, information, all can be con- 
 veyed in this way; and youthful swains, in their first attack of 
 palpitation, find much occupation in learning the symbolical 
 phrases and composing long letters addressed to lovely sul- 
 tanas seen only in their dreams. There is also the language 
 of gesture, some of which is most graceful ; that, for instance, 
 of the man for example who feigns to tear his breast, signifying : 
 " 1 am torn by the furies of love ; " to which the lady replies by 
 letting both her arms fall at her sides ; which means ; "' I open 
 my arms to thee." But there is not perhaps one European 
 who has ever seen these things ; which, for the rest are now 
 more traditional than customary. The Turkish ladies would 
 blush to speak of them, and only here and there some ingenu- 
 ous hanum might confide them to some Christian friend of her 
 own sex. 
 
 In this way also only can we know how the Turkish woman
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 
 
 is dressed within the walls of the harem, wearing that beautiful, 
 capricious, and pompous costume, of which we all have some 
 idea, and which gives to its wearer a princely dignity, as well 
 as a child-like grace. We shall never see it, unless the fashion 
 is adopted in our own country, for even if some day the feredjt 
 should be thrown aside, the lovely Turks would be found to 
 wear the European dress underneath. What a disappointment 
 for the painters, and what a pity ! Imagine a beautiful woman, 
 " slender as a cypress," and blushing, " with all the colors of the 
 rose," wearing, a little on one side of her head, a small round 
 cap of crimson velvet embroidered with silver ; her black tresses 
 falling over her shoulders ; her vest of white damask worked 
 with gold, with wide, open sleeves, and parting in front to dis- 
 play her full drawers of rose-colored silk, falling in many folds 
 over her small feet clothed in slippers with turned up Chinese 
 points ; a sash of green satin round her waist ; diamonds on her 
 neck, in her hair, at her girdle, on her arms, in her ears, on the 
 border of her cap, on her slippers, buttoning the neck of her 
 chemise, and across her forehead j glittering from head to foot 
 like a Spanish Madonna, and lying in a childish attitude, upon 
 a broad divan, surrounded by her Circassian, Arab, and Per- 
 sian slave women, wrapped like antique statues in their flowing 
 robes ; or imagine a bride, " white as the crest of Olympus," 
 dressed in pale blue satin, and all covered with a veil of woven 
 gold, seated upon a pearl embossed ottoman, in front of which, 
 upon a carpet from Teheran, kneels the bridegroom, making 
 his final prayer before uncovering his treasure. This home 
 dress, however, is subject to the caprice of fashion. The 
 women, having nothing else to do, pass their time in devising 
 10
 
 2 1 8 CONSTANTINOPLE, 
 
 new adornments ; cover themselves with trinkets and fringes, 
 put feathers and ribbons in their hair, tie bands around their 
 foreheads, and strips of fur about their necks and arms ; bor- 
 rowing something from every kind of Oriental costume. And 
 they mingle European fashions with their own as well ; they 
 wear false hair, and dye their own black, blonde, red, making 
 themselves as artificial and ridiculous as the most ambitious 
 of their European sisters ; and doubtless if by the waving of a 
 magic wand at the Sweet Waters, all the feredjes could be made 
 to fall, we should see as great and strange varieties of costume 
 among the women as are to be seen among the men upon the 
 bridge of the Sultana Valide. 
 
 The apartments in which these rich and lovely ladies dwell 
 correspond in some sort with their seductive and bizarre attire. 
 The rooms reserved for the women are generally well situated, 
 commanding marvellous views of country, sea, and city. Below, 
 there is a garden shut in by high walls clothed with ivy and 
 jessamine ; above, a terrace ; on the street side, small pro- 
 jecting rooms enclosed with glass like the miradorestf the Span- 
 ish houses. The rooms are almost always small ; the floors 
 covered with Chinese mats and carpets, the ceilings painted with 
 flowers and fruit, large divans running along the walls, a marble 
 fountain in the middle, vases with flowers in the windows, and 
 that vague, soft light, peculiar to Oriental houses, dim and 
 shaded, like a wood, or like a cloister, or sacred spot, where you 
 are impelled to walk and speak softly, and to use gentle, sweet 
 words, discoursing only of God and love. The decorations of 
 these harems are generally simple and severe, but there are 
 some of great magnificence, with their walls covered with white
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 21Q 
 
 satin embroidered in gold, ceilings of cedar wood, gilded 
 gratings, and very rich furniture. The manner of life may be 
 divined from the furniture. It consists of easy chairs, large 
 and small ottomans, little carpets, stools and foot-benches, 
 cushions of every description, and mattresses covered with 
 shawls, and brocades ; the whole of the softest and most luxu- 
 rious description. Here and there may be seen hand mirrors 
 and large fans of ostrich feathers ; carved chibouks are suspended 
 on the walls ; there are cages full of birds in the windows, per- 
 fume-burners and musical clocks on the tables, toys and small ob- 
 jects of every kind testifying to the puerile caprices of an idle wo- 
 man. Nor is this luxury confined to the things that are seen. 
 There are houses in which the table service is of gold and sil- 
 ver, the napkins are of satin fringed with gold, brilliants and other 
 stones glitter on the forks and spoons, the coffee cups, pipes, wine 
 coolers, and fans ; and there are other houses, in much greater 
 number, of course, in which almost nothing has been changed 
 from the time of the Tartar tent, where everything could be 
 packed upon one mule's back, and be ready for a new pilgrim- 
 age across Asia ; houses of primitive austerity and pure Ma- 
 hometanism, in which, when the hour for departure shall arrive, 
 no sound shall be heard but the wild voice of the master, say- 
 ing : Olsun ! So let it be ! 
 
 The Turkish house is divided, as we know, into two parts : 
 the harem and the selamlik. The selamlik is the part reserved 
 for the man. Here he works, receives his friends, takes his 
 noon-day nap, and generally lives. The wife never enters it. 
 As in the selamlik the man is master, so the woman is mis- 
 tress in the harem. She has full powers of administration there
 
 22O CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 and can do anything she pleases except receive men. When 
 she does not choose to receive her husband, she can decline his 
 visit, and politely request him to come another time. One sin- 
 gle door and a small corridor divide the harem from the selam- 
 lik ; but they are as distinct as two separate houses. The ser- 
 vants of each part belong only to that, and there are two 
 kitchens. Rarely the husband dines with his wife, especially 
 when there is more than one. The wife, however, must be 
 always prepared for her master's visit, dressed and looking her 
 best, ready to vanquish a rival, and to preserve as best she may 
 a predominance that is always in danger ; she must be some- 
 thing of a courtezan, exercising such self-control as shall secure 
 a smiling aspect of things about her lord, and even when her 
 heart is sorrowful, display the radiant visage of a happy and 
 fortunate woman, so that he may not be disgusted and repelled. 
 Thus the husband is rarely acquainted with his wife, whom he 
 never has known either as a girl, sister, or friend ; whom he 
 does not know as a mother. And she allows the nobler part 
 of her nature to perish slowly within her, there being no call for 
 its exercise, no opportunity for its revelation ; resolutely stifling 
 the voices of her heart and conscience, to find in a sort of 
 sleepy animalism, if not felicity, at least peace. She has, it is 
 true, the comfort of children, and her husband plays with them, 
 and caresses them in her presence ; but it is a comfort embit- 
 tered by the thought that perhaps an hour ago he has caressed 
 the children of another ; that an hour thence he may be caress- 
 ing those of a third, and perhaps within the year a fourth. The 
 love of the lover, the affection of the father, friendship, confi- 
 dence, all are divided and subdivided, and each has its hour,
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 221 
 
 its measure, and its appropriate ceremony ; so every thing is 
 cold and insufficient. 
 
 The conditions of conjugal life vary however greatly, accord- 
 ing to the pecuniary means of the husband, even without count- 
 ing the fact that one who is not rich enough to maintain more 
 than one woman, is obliged to have one wife only. The rich 
 noble lives separated in body and mind from his wife, because 
 he is able to keep an apartment or even a house for her sole 
 use, and because wishing to receive friends, clients, flatterers, 
 without his wives being seen or disturbed, he is obliged to have 
 a separate residence. The middle class Turk, for reasons of 
 economy, lives nearer to his wife, sees her more frequently, and 
 is on more familiar terms with her. Lastly, the poor Turk is 
 necessarily obliged to eat, sleep, and pass most of his time in 
 the close company of his wife and children. Riches divides, 
 poverty unites. In the case of the poor man, there is not much 
 difference between the Turkish and the Christian household. 
 The woman who can not have a slave, does her own work, and 
 labor enhances her importance and authority. It is not rare to 
 see her drag her lazy husband from the cafe or the tavern, and 
 drive him home with blows from her slipper. They treat each 
 other as equals, passing the evening together at the door of 
 their house ; in the more distant quarters, they often go together 
 to buy the family supplies; and husband and wife are often 
 seen eating their luncheon together in a cemetery near the tomb 
 of some dead relation, with their children about them, like a 
 family of working people in our own country. 
 
 There are those who say that the women of the East are 
 satisfied with polygamy, and do not understand the injustice of
 
 222 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 it. To believe this one must be ignorant not only of the East, 
 but of the human soul itself. If it were true, that would not 
 happen which does happen ; namely, that there is scarcely any 
 Turkish girl who, accepting the hand of a man, does not make 
 it a condition that he shall not marry again during her life 
 time ; there would not be so many wives returning to their 
 families, because the husbands have failed in this promise ; and 
 the Turkish proverb would not be in existence, which says : a 
 house with four women is like a ship in a tempest. Even if 
 she is adored by her husband, the Eastern woman can but curse 
 polygamy, which obliges her to live with the sword of Damocles 
 above her head, having from day to day a rival, not hidden and 
 remote and always guilty, like the rival of the European wife ; 
 but installed beside her, in her own house, bearing her title, 
 claiming her rights ; condemned perhaps to see her own slave 
 promoted to an equality with herself, and giving birth to sons 
 having the same rights as her own. It is impossible that she 
 should not feel the injustice of such a law. She knows that 
 when her husband introduces a rival into her home, he is but 
 putting in practice the right given to him by the law of the 
 Prophet. But in the bottom of her soul she feels that there 
 is a more ancient and more sacred law which condemns his act 
 as traitorous, and an abuse of power ; that the tie between them 
 is undone ; that her life is ruined, that she has the right of re- 
 bellion. And even if she does not love her husband, she has a 
 hundred reasons to detest the law ; her children's interests are 
 injured, her own self-respect is wounded, and she finds herself 
 in the fatal necessity of complete abandonment, or of living as . 
 a mere chattel for her husband's use. It may be said that the
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 22 3 
 
 Turkish woman knows that the same things happen to her Eu- 
 ropean sister ; true, but she also knows that the latter is under 
 no constraint of civil and religious law to respect and live in 
 amity with her who poisons her life, and that she has at least 
 the consolation of being considered as a victim, having besides 
 many ways of vindicating and alleviating her position, without 
 her husband being able to say, like the Turk : I have the right 
 to love a hundred women, but it is your duty to love me only. 
 
 It is true that the Turkish woman has many legal guaran- 
 tees, and many privileges conceded to her by custom. She is 
 generally treated with certain forms of knightly courtesy. No 
 man would dare to lift his hand against a woman in the public 
 street (as in England). No soldier, even in times of popular 
 tumult and sedition, would run the risk of maltreating the most 
 insolent woman of the people. The husband treats his wife 
 with ceremonious courtesy. The mother is the object of pecu- 
 liar deference. No man would think for a moment of living on 
 his wife's earnings. The husband at his marriage assigns a 
 dowry to his bride ; she brings nothing to his house but her 
 wardrobe and a few female slaves. In case of repudiation or 
 divorce, the man is obliged to give the woman enough to live 
 upon ; and this obligation saves her from maltreatment for 
 which she might seek and obtain a separation. The facility of 
 divorce remedies in part the sad consequences of matrimony 
 blindly contracted under the constitution of Turkish society 
 where the sexes live entirely separated. "Very little cause is 
 needed for a woman to obtain her divorce ; that the husband 
 has ill-treated her once, that he has spoken ill of her to others, 
 that he has been unfaithful for a certain time. She has only to
 
 224 CONS TA N T I NO PL E. 
 
 present her written statement of grievances to the tribunal ; or, 
 she can, when opportunity occurs, go in person before a vizier^ 
 the grand vizier himself, by whom she is received and listened 
 to kindly and without delay. If she cannot agree with the 
 other wives, the husband is bound to give her a separate apart- 
 ment; and even if she does agree, she has a right to a separate 
 apartment. The man cannot marry or take for an odalisque 
 any one of the slave women whom the wife has brought into the 
 house. A woman seduced and abandoned can oblige her se- 
 ducer to marry her if he has not already four wives ; and if he 
 has four, he must receive her as an odalisque and her children 
 must be recognized ; which is the reason why among the Turks 
 there are no bastards. Old bachelors are rare, old maids very 
 rare ; forced marriages less frequent than might be supposed, 
 since the law punishes the father who is guilty of coercion. The 
 State pensions widows without relations and without means, 
 and provides for the orphans ; many female children left with- 
 out protection are taken by rich ladies who educate and marry 
 them ; it is very unusual for a woman to fall into misery. All 
 this is true, and very good ; but it does not prevent us from 
 smiling when the Turks pretend that the social condition of 
 their women is better than that of ours, and that their society 
 enjoys an immunity from the corruption of which European 
 manners are accused. 
 
 From all this one may easily gather what sort of a being the 
 Turkish woman is likely to be. The greater part of them are 
 only pleasing feminine creatures. Many know how to read and 
 write, and practice neither the one nor the other ; and those 
 who have a superficial culture are miraculous beings. The
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 22$ 
 
 men, according to whom women should have " long hair and 
 short intelligence," do not care to have them cultivate their 
 minds, and prefer that they should remain inferior to them- 
 selves. Thus, having no instruction from books, and receiving 
 none from conversation, they are grossly ignorant. From the 
 separation of the two sexes comes the absence of gentle man- 
 ners in the one sex, and of dignity in the other ; the men are 
 coarse, and the women vacant Having no society beyond 
 their own small circle of women, they all retain even in old age 
 something puerile and trifling in their ideas and manners ; a 
 wild curiosity about every thing, a habit of being astonished on 
 the smallest occasion, an immense fussiness over nonsense of 
 any sort, small backbitings, sudden spites and tempers, screams 
 of laughter at the slightest cause, and a fondness for. the most 
 childish games, such as chasing each other from room to room 
 and snatching bonbons from each other's mouth. It is true 
 that they have, to turn the French saying the other way, the 
 good qualities of their defects ; and that their nature is trans- 
 parent and plain, to be seen through at the first glance ; real 
 persons, as Madame de Sevigne says, not masks, nor caricatures, 
 nor monkeys ; open and all of a piece even in their sadness ; 
 and if it be true that it is only necessary for one of them to 
 swear to a thing in order that no one shall believe her, it only 
 shows that they are not artful enough to be deceitful. But it is 
 also true that in that narrow life, deprived of all mental or 
 spiritual recreation, in which the instinctive desire of youth and 
 beauty for praise and admiration remains forever ungratified, 
 their souls become embittered and exasperated ; and having no 
 education to control and guide them, when some ugly passion. 
 10*
 
 226 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 moves them, they rush into excess. Idleness foments in them 
 a thousand senseless caprices, which they pursue obstinately, 
 and will have gratified at any price. Besides, in the sensual 
 atmosphere of the harem, in the constant company of women 
 inferior to themselves in birth and position, with no man to act 
 as a controlling force, they acquire an extraordinary crudity of 
 speech, they know no delicacies of language, they say things 
 without a veil, liking best the word that might raise a blush, the 
 shameless jest, or plebeian equivoque ; and are often most 
 foul-mouthed, indecent and insolent. A European who under- 
 stands the Turkish language may sometimes hear a hanum of 
 distinguished appearance, abusing some indiscreet or careless 
 shopkeeper in language that in his own country could not be 
 heard except among women of the lowest and most abandoned 
 class. 
 
 Many have described the Turkish woman as all sweetness, 
 softness and submission. But there are among them some of a 
 fierce and haughty spirit, not to- say ferocious. Even there in 
 times of popular tumult, the women are to be seen in the front 
 rank ; they arm themselves, crowd together, stop the carriages 
 of the offending viziers, cover them with abuse, throw stones at 
 them, and resist armed force. They are kind and gentle, like 
 most women, when no passion gnaws or excites them. They 
 treat their slaves well enough, if they are not jealous of them ; 
 they show tenderness for their children, although they do not 
 know how, or do not care to educate them ; they contract with 
 one another, especially those who are separated from their hus- 
 bands, or afflicted with a common sorrow, the most tender 
 friendships, full of girlish enthusiasm, and show their reciprocal
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 22/ 
 
 affection by wearing the same color, or the same fashion of gar- 
 ment, and using the same perfumes. And here I might add, 
 what has been written by more than one European lady travel- 
 ler, " that there are among them all the vices of Babylon ;" 
 but I am unwilling in so grave a question, to affirm anything 
 upon the faith of another. 
 
 As is their nature, so are their manners. The greater part of 
 them are like those young girls of good family, but brought up 
 in the country, who, no longer children but not yet women, are 
 constantly committing in company a hundred amiable absurdi- 
 ties, causing their mammas to frown and shake their heads every 
 moment. To hear a European lady relate her experience while 
 paying a visit in a harem, is truly comic. The hamim for 
 instance, who at first will be seated on the sofa in the same dec- 
 orous attitude as her visitor, suddenly throws her arms over her 
 head and emits a loud yawn, or seizes one of her knees between 
 her hands. Accustomed to the liberty or rather license, of the 
 harem, to the attitudes of idleness and ennui, and weakened by 
 much warm bathing, she tires immediately of any upright posi- 
 tion. She throws herself down on her divan, turning and twist- 
 ing about, and getting her long garments into an inextricable 
 entanglement; she leans on her elbows, she takes her feet in 
 her hands, she puts a cushion on her knees and her elbows in 
 the cushion, she stretches out her limbs and draws them up in a 
 heap, she puts up her back like a cat, rolls from the divan upon the 
 carpet, and from the carpet to the marble floor, and sleeps when 
 she is sleepy wherever she finds herself, like a baby. A French 
 traveller has said that she has a good deal of the mollusk in her 
 composition. Their least relaxed position is that of sitting with
 
 228 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 crossed legs, and from this habit probably comes the fact that 
 their legs are slightly bowed. But with what grace they sit ! 
 They sink to the* ground without using their hands to support 
 them, and remain like statues, motionless, (all this may be seen 
 in the gardens and cemeteries) and rise, all of a piece, as if 
 set on springs. The grace of the Turkish woman is in repose, 
 and in the art of displaying the soft lines and curves of the re- 
 clining form, with head thrown back, hair flowing, and helpless 
 arms the art of extracting gold and gems from her husband and 
 of driving her eunuchs wild. 
 
 There are two other kinds of harems besides the pacific and 
 the stormy ; the harem of the young Turk without prejudices, 
 who encourages his wife in her European tendencies, and that 
 of the conservative, either by his own convictions, or dominated 
 by his relations, in general by some inflexible old Mussulman 
 mother, who governs the house as suits herself. In the first 
 there is a pianoforte, and a Christian lady as teacher ; there are 
 work tables, straw chairs, a mahogany bedstead, and a writing 
 desk ; on the wall hangs a fine portrait of the effendi, done by 
 an Italian artist of Pera ; in a corner a book-shelf with a few 
 books, among them a small French and Turkish dictionary, and 
 the illustrated Journal des Modes which the lady receives from 
 the wife of the Spanish Consul. She also paints fruit and flow- 
 ers in water colors with much enthusiasm. She assures her 
 friends that she is never lonely or ennnyee. Between one em- 
 ployment and another she writes her memoirs. At a certain 
 hour she receives her French teacher, (an old, crooked-backed 
 man, of course) with whom she practices conversation. Some- 
 times a German photographer from Galata comes to take her
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 22Q 
 
 portrait. When she is ill, she is visited by a European physi- 
 cian, who may even be a handsome young man, the husband 
 not being stupidly jealous, like his antiquated friends. And 
 once in a while comes a French dressmaker, who takes her 
 measure for a costume modelled on the very last fashion plate, 
 with which madame intends to surprise her husband on Thurs- 
 day evening, the sacred evening in Mussulman houses, when 
 the husband is expected to pay his debts of gallantry towards 
 his "rose leaf." And the effendi, who is a man of high aspira- 
 tions, has promised her that she shall certainly have a glimpse, 
 through some half open door, of the next grand ball that is 
 given by the English Ambassador. In short, the hanum is a 
 European lady of the Mohammedan religion, and she tells her 
 friends complacently that she lives like a cocona like a Chris- 
 tian ; her friends, as far as they can, following her example. 
 But in the other harem all is rigorously Turkish, from the 'attire 
 of the ladies down to the minutest household detail. The 
 Koran is the only book, the " Stamboul " the only journal 
 allowed. If the hanum be ill, one of the numerous Turkish 
 female doctors is called, having a miraculous specific for 
 every known malady. All the openings in the house are 
 well grated and bolted, and nothing European," except the air, 
 can enter ; unless the lady has had the misfortune to learn 
 French in her childhood ; in which case her sister-in-law brings 
 her French romances of the worst type, telling her at the same 
 time : " See, what kind of society this is which you are aping ! 
 What fine doings ! What admirable examples !" 
 
 And yet the life of the Turkish woman is full of accidents, 
 worries, and small gossip and tale-bearing, that at the first
 
 230 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 aspect do not seem possible in a society where the two sexes 
 are so divided. In one harem, for instance, there is the old 
 mother who wishes to drive one of the wives out to make room 
 for a favorite of her own. and tries in every way to influence 
 her son against her and her children. In another it is the wife 
 who is jealous of a rival in her husband's affections, and moves 
 heaven and earth to get a handsome slave woman and put her 
 in his way, in order that in this way she may detach him from 
 the other. Another wife, who has a natural leaning towards match 
 making, racks her brains to bring about a marriage between 
 some male relative of her own and some young girl of her 
 household, thus circumventing her husband who has had his 
 eyes turned in the same direction. Here it is a number of 
 ladies subscribing to a fund wherewith to buy a handsome 
 slave woman, and present her to the Sultan, or the Grand 
 Vizier ; there, another group of ladies, highly placed, are busy 
 pulling a hundred secret wires, whereby some powerful enemy 
 is to be pulled down, some friend saved, some importunate per- 
 son sent into a distant province. And although there is less 
 social communion than among us, there is just as much gossip 
 about other people's affairs. The fame of a woman of high 
 spirit, or of a specially evil tongue, or of ferocious jealousy, is 
 spread far beyond the circle of her acquaintance. There also, 
 pointed speeches and fine play upon words, to which the Turk- 
 ish language readily lends itself, are passed from mouth to 
 mouth and from circle to circle. Births, circumcisions, mar- 
 riages, all the small events that happen in the European colony 
 and in the Seraglio are subjects of endless discussion. " Have 
 you seen the new bonnet of the French ambassadress ? Who
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 
 
 knows about the handsome Georgian slave that the Sultana 
 Valide is going to present to the Sultan on the day of the great 
 Beiram ? Is it true that Ahmed-Pasha's wife was seen yester- 
 day in a pair of European boots trimmed with silk tassels ? 
 Have the costumes for the Bourgeois Gentilhomme at the Serag- 
 lio Theatre yet arrived from Paris ? It is a week since Mah- 
 moud Effendi's wife began to pray for the grace of twins in the 
 mosque of Bajazet. There has been a scandal at the photo- 
 grapher so and so's at Pera, because Ahmed Effendi found his 
 wife's portrait there. Madame Ayesha drinks wine. Madame 
 Fatima has got visiting cards. Madame Hafiten has been seen 
 to go into a Frankish shop at three and come out at four." And 
 so on, ad infinitum. 
 
 It would be singularly diverting if there existed among the 
 Turks, as among us, those living gazettes of the fashionable 
 world who know everybody and everybody's history ; it would 
 be both amusing and instructive to plant oneself on a holiday 
 at the entrance to the European Sweet Waters in company with 
 one of these, and hear his comments upon the notabilities as they 
 pass by. That, he would say, is a lady who has lately broken 
 with her husband and gone to live at Scutari ; Scutari is the refuge 
 for all malcontents and quarrelsome people ; she is staying with 
 a friend, and will remain, until her husband, who really cares for 
 her, comes and makes it up. This effendi now going by is a 
 clerk of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has lately married 
 an Arab slave and she is now learning: Turkish from his sister. 
 
 o 
 
 This pretty woman is a divorced wife, who is only waiting until 
 a certain effendi shall have gotten rid of one of his four, to go 
 and take the place that was promised her. That other dame is
 
 232 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 a lady who has been twice divorced from the same husband, and 
 now wants to marry him a third time, he agreeing to do so ; and 
 so she will be married in a day or two, as the law commands, 
 to another man, from whom she will be divorced the following 
 day, after which the lovely capricious one can celebrate her 
 third nuptials with her first spouse. The brunette with the 
 lively eyes is an Abyssinian slave presented by a great lady of 
 Cairo to a great lady of Stamboul, who died, and left her mis- 
 tress of the house. That effendi of fifty has had ten wives. 
 That little old woman in green can boast of having been the 
 legitimate wife of twelve husbands. Here comes a lady who is 
 making a fortune by buying girls of fourteen, having them 
 taught music, singing and dancing, and the fine manners of 
 noble houses, and then selling them at a profit of five hundred 
 per cent. Here is another, who was first a slave, then an oda- 
 lisque (or concubine), then wife, then divorced, then married 
 again, and now she is a widow and is looking out for a good 
 marriage. That man is a merchant who for business reasons 
 has married four wives who live, one at Constantinople, one at 
 Trebizond, one at Salonica, and one at Alexandria in Egypt, 
 by which arrangement he has four different homes where he may 
 repose from the fatigues of his journeys. That handsome 
 Pasha of twenty-four was only a month ago a poor subaltern 
 officer of the Imperial Guard, and the Sultan made him a Pasha 
 and married him to one of his sisters ; but his Sultana is known 
 to be " as jealous as a nightingale," and perhaps, if we were to 
 search the crowd, we might discover a slave watching to see 
 whom he looks at, and who looks at him. See this child of five 
 years old ! She was this morning betrothed to a small boy of
 
 THE TURKISH IV OMEN. 233 
 
 eight; the gentleman was carried by his parents to pay his 
 bride a visit, found her much to his taste, and went into a fury 
 because a cousin of three feet high dared to kiss her in his 
 presence. Ah ! what have we lost ! A Seraglio carriage has 
 gone by, and the Sultan's third wife was in it ; I recognized it 
 by the rose-colored ribbon on the intendant's neck ; his third 
 wife presented to him by the Pasha of Smyrna ; she has the 
 largest eyes and the smallest mouth in the world ; a face some- 
 thing like that little hanum there with the arched nose, who 
 yesterday had a flirtation with an English. artist of my acquaint- 
 ance. The little wretch ! and to think that when the angels 
 Nekir and Mukir come to judge her soul, she will try to get off 
 with the usual lie ; saying that she had her eyes shut and did 
 not recognize the infidel ! 
 
 But then there are unfaithful Turkish wives ? Without doubt 
 there are such ; and this notwithstanding the jealousy of their 
 lords, and the vigilance of their eunuchs, notwithstanding the 
 hundred blows with a whip with which the Koran threatens the 
 culprit, notwithstanding the species of mutual assurance society 
 formed by Turks among themselves. It may be even affirmed 
 that the " veiled ones " (yclate) of Constantinople commit as 
 many sins as the unveiled ones of other countries. If this were 
 not so, Caraghenz* would not have so often upon his lips the 
 word kerata : which being translated into a classic name, means 
 Menelaus. It must be said, however, that women are no longer 
 thrown into the Bosphorus either with or without a sack, and 
 that punishment and the bastinado are no longer practiced 
 even by the most ferocious kerata. The force of ridicule, as 
 (* The Turkish Punch.)
 
 234 CONSTANTINOPLE, 
 
 well as other European forces, has found its way into Mussul- 
 man society, and even jealousy is afraid of that. And besides, 
 Turkish jealousy being more the effect of self-love than affec- 
 tion, (and certainly it is powerful and vindictive enough,) has 
 not that indefatigable and investigating eye that belongs to the 
 more spiritual passion. The Turkish authorities do their best 
 to prevent certain abuses. It is enough to say that in the 
 orders given to the police of Constantinople on holiday occa- 
 sions, the larger part refer to the women, and directly levelled 
 at them in the form of advice and threats. It is forbidden, for 
 instance, to them to enter the back-shops, or rooms behind the 
 shops ; they must stay where they can be seen from the street. 
 They are not to go in the tramways for amusement : or they 
 are to get out at the terminus and not come back by the same 
 way. They are forbidden to make signs, to stop at this place, 
 to pass by that place, to stay more than a certain time at a cer- 
 tain spot. And then there is that blessed veil, which, originally 
 intended as a safeguard for the woman, is now turned into a 
 mere screen for intrigue and coquetry. 
 
 The bath-houses are the places where the Turkish women 
 meet to plot and gossip. The bath is in a certain way their 
 theatre. They go in couples and groups with their slaves, car- 
 rying cushions, carpets, articles for the toilet, sweetmeats, and 
 often their dinner, so that they may remain all day. There in 
 those dimly lighted halls, among marbles and fountains, there 
 are often gathered together more than two hundred women, 
 naked as nymphs, or only partially clothed, presenting, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of European ladies, a spectacle to make a 
 hundred painters drop their brushes. Here may be seen the
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN. 235 
 
 snow-white hanum beside the ebony black slave ; the matron 
 of opulent charms beloved by the Turk of antique taste ; slender 
 little brides with short, curling, childish locks ; golden-haired 
 Circassians, and Turkish women with their black tresses braided 
 into an infinity of little tails, like an enormous wig ; one with 
 an amulet on her neck, another with a sprig of garlic bound 
 round her head as a charm against the evil eye ; half-savages 
 with tattooed arms, and fashionable dames whose bodies bear 
 the traces of the corset, and their ankles the marks of French 
 boots : and some, whose shoulders show the signs of the 
 eunuch's whip. Some are stretched upon their mats, smoking, 
 some are having their hair combed by their slave women, some 
 are embroidering, others singing, chattering, laughing, and 
 slandering their neighbors in the next group. A European 
 lady among them is the object of immense curiosity and a thou- 
 sand idle questions : " Is it true that you go to balls with your 
 shoulders bare? and what does your effendi think of that? and 
 what do the other men say? and how do you dance? That 
 way! really? well, I would not have believed it if I had not 
 seen it! " 
 
 They are delighted to receive a European lady in their 
 houses, and on such occasions they invite their friends, display 
 all their slaves and their treasures, load the visitor with sweets 
 and fruits, and seldom let her go without making her accept a 
 present. The sentiment that moves them to these demonstra- 
 tions is more curiosity than kindness ; and as soon as they are 
 familiar with their new acquaintance, they examine her costume 
 bit by bit from bonnet to boots, and are not satisfied until they 
 have conducted her to the bath, where they may see how a
 
 236 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 nazarene is made. They have not, however, any more the con- 
 temptuous dislike that they once nourished for their European 
 sisters. On the contrary, they feel humiliated in their presence 
 and seek to imitate in every way their dress and manners. If 
 they study languages, it is in order to introduce a word here 
 and there to show their knowledge, but above all, it is to be 
 able to converse with a Christian, and to be called madame ; 
 they frequent certain Prankish shops on purpose to be addressed 
 by that coveted title ; and Pera attracts them as a light attracts 
 moths. They seek to know Frankish women in order to learn 
 from them something of the splendors and amusements of their 
 world, but it is not only the varied and feverish life of gayety 
 that attracts them ; more often it is the domestic life, the little 
 world of a European family, the circle of friends, the table sur- 
 rounded'with children, the honored and beloved old age; that 
 sanctuary full of memories, of confidence, and tenderness, that 
 can make the union of two persons good even without the pas- 
 sion of love ; to which we turn even after a long life of aberra- 
 tion and faults ; in which, even among the tempests of youth 
 and the pangs of the present, the heart finds refuge and com- 
 fort, as a promise of peace for later years, the beauty of a serene 
 sunset seen from the depths of some dark valley. 
 
 But there is one great thing to be said for the comfort of 
 those who lament the fate of the Turkish woman ; it is that 
 polygamy is declining from day to day. It has always been 
 considered by the Turks themselves rather as a tolerated abuse 
 than as a natural right of man. Mahomet said : That man is 
 to be praised who has but one single wife, although he him- 
 self had several ; and those who wish to set an example of hon-
 
 THE TURKISH WOMEN'. 237 
 
 est and austere manners never in fact marry but one wife. He 
 who has more than one is not openly blamed, but neither is he 
 approved. The Turks are few who sustain polygamy, and still 
 fewer those who approve it in their hearts. All those who are 
 in a social position which imposes a certain respectability" and 
 dignity of life have but one wife. The higher officers of the 
 ministry, those of the army, magistrates, and men of religion all 
 have but one. Four-fifths of the Turks of Constantinople are 
 against polygamy. The fact is here : that the transformation 
 of Turkish society is not possible without the redemption of the 
 woman, that this is not practicable without the fall of polygamy, 
 and that polygamy must fall. It is probable that no voice would 
 be raised if a decree of the Sultan were to suppress it to-morrow. 
 The edifice is rotten and must fall. The new dawn already 
 tinges the terraces of the harem with rose. Hope, O lovely 
 hanums ! The doors of the selamlik will be opened, the grates 
 will fall, the feredje will go to decorate the museum of the Grand 
 Bazaar, the eunuch will become a mere black memory of child- 
 hood, and you shall freely display to the world the graces of your 
 visages and the treasures of your minds ; and then, when " the 
 pearls of the Orient " are spoken of in Europe, to you, O white ha- 
 nums, will be the allusion ! to you, beautiful Mussulmans, gentle, 
 witty and cultured ; not to the useless pearls that encircle your 
 foreheads in the midst of the cold pomp of the harem. Cour- 
 age ! then, for the sun is rising. As for me and this I say for my 
 incredulous friends, I have not yet renounced the hope of giving 
 my arm to the wife of a Pasha in the streets of Turin, and of 
 conducting her for a walk on the banks of the Po, reciting to 
 her meanwhile a chapter from the Promessi Sposi,
 
 238 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 YANGHEN VAR. 
 
 I WAS dreaming about this very walk towards five o'clock in 
 the morning, in my chamber at the Hotel of Byzantium, and 
 between sleeping and waking, beholding from afar the hill of 
 Superga, was beginning to repeat to my travelling hanum : 
 "That branch of the lake of Como which turns towards the 
 south between two uninterrupted chains " when there ap- 
 peared before me, clothed in white, and bearing a candle in his 
 hand, the figure of my friend Yanck, who demanded of me in 
 great amazement: "What is going on in Constantinople to- 
 night?" Listening, I could hear a confused and hollow sound 
 proceeding from the street, a noise of footsteps on the stairs, 
 a murmur, and a hurry, like that which prevails in the day. 
 From my window I could discern a crowd of people hurrying 
 towards the Golden Horn. Going out on the landing, I seized 
 a Greek waiter who was in the act of rushing precipitately 
 down the stairs, and demanded what was happening. He tore 
 himself from my grasp, exclaiming : " Yanghen Var, per Dio t 
 don't you hear the cry ?" and then vanishing he called back, 
 "Look at the top of the Tower of Galata." I returned to my 
 window, and looking towards Galata saw all the upper portion 
 of the Tower illuminated by a vivid crimson light, and a great 
 black cloud rising from the neighboring houses spreading rap- 
 idly over the starry sky, and carrying in its bosom a whirl of 
 sparks.
 
 YANG HEN VAR. 
 
 Suddenly came the thought of the formidable conflagrations 
 of Constantinople, and especially that awful one of four years 
 ago ; and our first sentiment was one of terror and compassion. 
 But immediately after came I blush to confess it one more 
 cruel and egotistical the curiosity of the painter and the de- 
 scriber, and this also I confess we exchanged a smile that 
 Dort might have caught and fixed upon the face of one of his 
 Dantesque demons. 
 
 In furious haste we dressed and descended into the main 
 street of Pera. But our curiosity, unfortunately for us, was de- 
 lusive. We had not reached the tower of Galata when the fire 
 was out. Two small houses were still burning a little ; people 
 were beginning to go home ; the streets were running with 
 water from the engines, and encumbered with furniture and bed- 
 ding, amid which in the grey light of morning, men and women, 
 in shirt and chemise, were coming and going-, shivering with 
 cold, and screaming in discordant voices, and a dozen different 
 languages, their terror at the peril past. Seeing that all was 
 over, we went towards the bridge to console ourselves, for our 
 disappointment, with the sunrise. 
 
 The sky had scarcely begun to grow light beyond the hills 
 of Asia. Stamboul, but a little before alarmed at the first an- 
 nouncement of the fire, had already sunk again into silence and 
 repose. The shores and bridge were deserted ; the Golden 
 Horn slept, covered with a light mist and immersed in profound 
 silence. No boat moved, no bird flew, no tree murmured, no 
 breath disturbed the stillness. The interminable azure city, 
 mute and veiled, seemed painted on the air, and looked as if it 
 would vanish at a word. Constantinople had never appeared
 
 240 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 to us in that airy and mysterious aspect ; never before had so 
 vivid an image been presented to us of the fabulous city of Ori- 
 ental story, which the pilgrim sees rise suddenly before him, and 
 in which he finds a motionless, petrified people in all the infi- 
 nite attitudes of gay and busy life, turned to stone by the ven- 
 geance of the king of the genii. We leaned upon the railing of 
 the bridge, contemplating the marvellous scene, and forgetting 
 the fire, when from beyond the Golden Horn came first a faint 
 confused sound, like the voice of a person in distress, and then 
 a burst of cries, shrill and piercing : Allah ! Allah ! Allah ! 
 which resounded suddenly in the immense and silent void of 
 the roadstead, and at the same moment there appeared upon 
 the opposite shore a crowd of yelling and sinis.ter-looking peo- 
 ple who rushed upon the bridge. 
 
 " Tulumladgi /" Firemen cried one of the watchmen on the 
 bridge. 
 
 We drew on one side. A horde of half-naked savages, with 
 bare heads, and hairy breasts, reeking with sweat, old and young, 
 blacks, dwarfs, and hirsute giants, with such faces as we are 
 wont to assign to assassins and thieves, four of whom bore 
 upon their shoulders a small engine or pump, that looked like a 
 child's bier ; armed with long hooked poles, coils of rope, axes, 
 and picks, they passed before us, shrieking and yelling, with 
 dilated eyes, flying hair, and trailing rags, pressing together, 
 impetuous and grim, and exhaling an odor as of wild beasts, dis- 
 appearing into the street of Galata, whence came to our ears 
 their last faint cry of Allah ! and then the deep silence fell 
 again. 
 
 But only for a moment ; for presently it was again broken,
 
 YAA'GHEV VAR. 24! 
 
 and a similar crowd passed by, and a third, and a fourth, and 
 again and again the prolonged and lamentable cry of " Allah !" 
 floated back from the street of Pera, followed by a mortal 
 silence. Finally, last of all came the madman of Pera, naked 
 from head to heel, shivering in the cold, and uttering piercing 
 yells, followed by a number of Turkish boys who vanished with 
 him and the firemen among the houses of the Prankish shore ; 
 and over the great city, gilded by the first rays of the sun, de- 
 scended and reigned once more that noble silence. In a little 
 while the sun rose, the muezzins were heard from the minarets, 
 caiques darted here and there, the port awoke, people began 
 to pass over the bridge, the low murmur of life arose in the 
 streets of the town, and we returned to Pera. But the image 
 of that great sleeping city, of that faintly irradiated horizon, of 
 that solemn peacefulness, and of those savage hordes, remains 
 so deeply stamped upon my memory, that to this day it rises 
 before me, veiled in a mist of fear and astonishment, like a 
 vision of Stamboul in past centuries, seen in an opium dream. 
 
 So I did not see the spectacle of conflagration at Constan- 
 tinople ; but if I did not see it with my eyes, I knew so many 
 witnesses of that which destroyed Pera in 1870, that I may say 
 I saw it through their eyes, and may describe it almost as if I 
 had been a spectator. 
 
 The first flame broke out in a small house in the street of 
 Feridie in Pera, on the fifth of June, at a time when most of the 
 well to do population are out of town ; at one o'clock in the 
 afternoon, when almost all the inhabitants of the city are tak- 
 ing their siesta. There was no one in the house but an old ser- 
 vant woman, who as soon as she saw the flame rushed out into 
 ii
 
 242 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the street screaming, " Fire ! Fire ! " The people in the 
 neighboring houses ran at once with buckets and small pumps 
 the stupid law prohibiting the extinction of a fire before the 
 arrival of the officials from the Seraskiarat having fallen into 
 disuse and all rushed to the nearest fountain for water. The 
 fountains of Pera, from which the water-carriers at stated hours 
 supply the people of each quarter, were at this hour closed, and 
 the official who has the keys may not use them without permis- 
 sion of the authorities. At that very moment, a Turkish guard 
 of the municipality of Pera had the keys in his pocket, and 
 stood near the fountain, an impressive spectator of the scene. 
 The excited crowd surrounded him and summoned him to 
 open. He refused to do so without the necessary authority. 
 They pressed about him, threatened him, seized him ; he strug- 
 gled and resisted, declaring that they should take the keys only 
 from his dead body. Meantime the flames were spreading and 
 had already attacked the neighboring houses. The news of the 
 conflagration spread from quarter to quarter. From the sum- 
 mit of the Tower of Galata were displayed the crimson ceste* 
 which intimated that a fire was in progress in the city. The 
 city gua-rds ran about the streets, beating their long staves upon 
 the stones and calling out the sinister cry: Yanghen var! 
 Fire is here ! answered by the rapid roll of drums from the bar- 
 racks. The cannon from Top-hane announced the danger by 
 three tremendous explosions. The Seraskiarat, the Seraglio, 
 the Embassies, all Pera and all Galata are upside down ; and 
 in a few minutes, hotly spurring, the minister of war, with a 
 cloud of officers and an army of firemen, arrives in the street 
 * The translator is at a loss for this word. The dictionary gives baskets.
 
 YANGHEN VAR. 243 
 
 of Feridie, and hastily begin their work. But as usual in such 
 cases, the first attempts are futile. The narrow street prevents 
 free movement, the engines are useless, the water too far off 
 and insufficient ; the firemen, ill disciplined, are more intent 
 upon fishing in the troubled waters on their own account, than on 
 doing their duty; and as it happens that an Armenian holiday 
 is going on at Beicos, there are very few porters to transport the 
 goods. Also there were then more wooden houses than there 
 are now, and the stone and brick houses had inflammable roofs. 
 The population of the quarter was almost entirely Christian, 
 and therefore lost their heads at once, whereas the Mussulmans 
 on such occasions being fatalists, if they do not aid, at least stand 
 quietly by and do not impede the efforts of others. An hour 
 had scarcely passed from the first alarm, when the whole street 
 was in flames, and the officials and firemen were everywhere 
 retreating, leaving some dead and wounded on the field. A 
 great wind blew that day and beat down the flames in great 
 horizontal waves, like curtains, enveloping the houses from the 
 roofs downwards. Families secure in the belief that they had 
 ample time to save their property, heard the roof crackle over 
 them, and escaped only with their lives. The fire did not run, 
 but flew, and overwhelmed its prey like a sea. In three hours 
 one-half of Pera was in flames. The streets of the burning 
 quarters were warring furnaces over which the fire made a sort 
 of tent, whilst the glazed balconies of the houses and the 
 wooden minarets of the smaller mosques melted before it and 
 disappeared like unsubstantial things. 
 
 By the still accessible streets, lancers on horseback passed 
 in hot haste, like spectres illuminated by infernal fires, carrying
 
 244 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 orders from the Seraskiarat. Officers from the Seraglio, with 
 uncovered heads and scorched uniforms, riderless horses, troops 
 of porters laden with goods, hordes of howling dogs, weeping 
 people flying before the flames, appeared and disappeared 
 among the smoke and flame like legions of lost spirits. For 
 one instant, at the entrance of a burning street, motionless upon 
 his horse, and pale as a corpse, was seen the Sultan Abdul- 
 Aziz, surrounded by his escort, and with dilated eyes fixed upon 
 the flames as if like Selim First he were muttering to himself 
 " I feel the burning breath of my victims ! It is destroying my 
 city, my Seraglio, and myself! " And still the flames advanced 
 victoriously in spite of every effort to restrain them ; driving be- 
 fore them firemen, soldiers, and citizens. Nor were there want- 
 ing in that horrible confusion, splendid acts of courage and hu- 
 manity. The white veils of the Sisters of Charity were seen 
 every where among the ruins, bending above the wounded and 
 dying ; Turks rushed into the flames, and brought out Christian 
 children ; another Mussulman standing with folded arms in the 
 midst of a group of despairing people, offered calmly large 
 sums of money to any who would save a Christian boy in one 
 of the burning houses; some went about in groups picking up 
 lost children ; others opened their houses to the fugitives ; and 
 more than one gave an example of courage and scorn of worldly 
 goods ; remaining seated on a mat in the street tranquilly smok- 
 ing, while their property blazed before them ; retreating slowly 
 and with supreme indifference as the fire advanced. 
 
 And but a short distance from this hell, the serene majesty 
 of Stamboul and the spring loveliness of the Asiatic shore 
 looked smiling on, while an immense crowd that blackened all
 
 YANGHEN V-AR. 245 
 
 the shore, gazed mute and impassible at the frightful spectacle; 
 the muezzins announced in slow musical chant the close of day ; 
 birds circled round and round the mosques of the seven hills, 
 and old Turks seated under the plane trees on the green heights 
 of Scutari, murmured submissively : " The last day of the city 
 of the Sultans has come ! The sentence of Allah is fulfilled ! 
 Amen ! Amen !" 
 
 The conflagration fortunately was not protracted into the 
 night. At seven o'clock the English Embassy took fire, after 
 which the wind went down, and the flames died out on every 
 side as suddenly as they had mounted. In six hours two-thirds 
 of Pera had been destroyed to their foundations, nine thousand 
 houses reduced to ashes, and two thousand persons killed. 
 
 In former times when a fire broke out at Constantinople, if 
 the Sultan was in his harem at the time, the news of the dan- 
 ger was brought to him by an odalisque all dressed in crimson 
 from head to heel, who had orders to present herself before 
 him wherever he might be. She had only to appear in the 
 door ; the color of her garments conveyed the mute announce- 
 ment of misfortune. Among the many grand and terrible ima- 
 ges which rise before me at the thought of the burning of Con- 
 stantinople, the figure of this odalisque is always the most promi- 
 nent. I shall never cease to entreat all painters to paint the 
 picture as I see it, until I can find one who falls in love with it, 
 and to him I shall be forever grateful. He will represent a 
 room in the Imperial harem, hung with satin, and softly lighted, 
 where upon a large divan, beside a blonde Circassian girl, is 
 seated Selim the First, the great Sultan. Tearing himself from 
 the arms of his love, he fixes his eyes full of wrath and dismay
 
 246 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 upon the crimson odalisque, who, mute, sinister and rigid, upon 
 the threshold, with pallid, statuesque face, filled with dread and 
 veneration, seems to say : " King of kings ! Allah calls thee, 
 and thy desolate people await thee !" and beyond the lifted cur- 
 tains of the door can be seen, in the blue distance, the flaming 
 city.
 
 THE WALLS. 247 
 
 THE WALLS. 
 
 THE circuit of the walls of Stamboul I chose to make alone, 
 and I should advise Italians, and others going to Constantino- 
 ple, to imitate me, because the spectacle of those grand lonely 
 ruins will not leave a profound and enduring impression except 
 upon the mind that is ready to receive it, and freely follows the 
 course of its own meditations in silence. It is a walk of about 
 fifteen Italian miles, through deserted streets or roads, under the 
 rays of the sun. " Perhaps " I said to my friend " the sadness 
 of my solitude may overwhelm me on the way, and I may in- 
 voke you as a Saint ; but any way, I want to go alone." 
 
 I reduced the contents of my pocket to a minimum in case 
 that any suburban thief should take a fancy to examine them, 
 swallowed a morsel of food, and began my journey at eight 
 o'clock in the morning, under a sky washed clear by a shower in 
 the night, proceeding towards the bridge of the Sultana Valide. 
 
 My purpose was to leave Stamboul by the gate of the 
 Blacherne quarter, to follow the line of the walls from the Golden 
 Horn as far as the Castle of the Seven Towers, and to return 
 along the shore of the Sea of Marmora, thus going round the 
 whole great triangle of the Mussulman city. 
 
 Turning to the right after crossing the bridge, I found myself 
 in the vast quarter called Istambul-di-sciare, or external Stam- 
 boul, which is a long strip of city between the wall and the port,
 
 248 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 made up of small houses and stores for oil and wood, which 
 have been more than once destroyed by fire. The walls re- 
 maining on this side of the city are about five times the height 
 of a man, battlemented and flanked at every hundred paces by 
 small quadrangular towers, and falling into ruin ; but this is the 
 noteworthy part of the walls of Stamboul, both from an artistic 
 and historic point of view. Crossing the quarter of the Fanar, 
 and passing by the shore thronged with fruit and pastry venders, 
 sellers of anise and rosolio, and open air kitchens, in the midst 
 of handsome Greek sailors looking like the statues of their an- 
 cient gods, I skirted the vast ghetto of Balata; threaded the 
 silent quarter of the Blacherne, and finally came out of the city 
 by the gate called Egri-Kapj, not far from the shore of the 
 Golden Horn. 
 
 All this is quickly told, but it took me one hour and a half 
 to do, and was accomplished with no other guides than the 
 points of the minarets of the mosque of Selim. At a certain 
 point I saw no more Turkish faces or dresses ; then European 
 houses disappeared, then pavements, then the shop signs, then 
 the names of the streets, and finally all sound of labor. As I 
 went on, the dogs looked at me more and more suspiciously. 
 Turkish boys stared with bolder eyes, women of the people drew 
 their veils closer, and I finally found myself in the midst of Asi- 
 atic barbarism, after a walk of two hours that seemed a journey 
 of two days. 
 
 Turning to the left of Egri-Kapu I came upon a large tract 
 of that famous wall that defends Stamboul on the land side. The 
 line of walls and enormous towers extends as far as the eye can 
 see, rising and descending with the inequalities of the ground :
 
 THE WALLS. 249 
 
 here so low that it seems sinking into the earth, and there so 
 lofty that it appears to crown the summit of a mountain ; varied 
 by infinite forms of ruin, tinted with many deep and sombre 
 
 colors, from black to warm, almost golden yellow, and clothed 
 
 i 
 by a redundant vegetation of dark green, that climbs about the 
 
 wall, falling in garlands from the battlements and loop-holes, 
 rising in rich masses and pyramids of verdure, hanging in dra- 
 peries, rushing in cascades, filling every crack and fissure, and 
 advancing even into the road. There are three ranges of walls 
 forming a gigantic series of ruined steps ; the interior wall, 
 which is the highest, flanked at equal distances with square 
 towers ; the middle wall reinforced by small round towers ; and 
 the external wall without towers, very low, and defended by a 
 wide and deep ditch that was once filled by the waters of the 
 sea, but is now covered with grass and weeds. All three remain 
 much in the same condition that they were in after the taking 
 of Constantinople, for the restorations that were made by 
 Mahomet and Bajazet Second are very unimportant. The 
 breaches made by the enormous guns of Orbano may still be 
 seen, as well as the marks of rams and catapults, mines, and 
 all the indications of the points where the assaults had been 
 most furious and the resistance most desperate. The round 
 towers of the middle wall are almost all ruined to their founda- 
 tions ; those of the interior wall are nearly all standing, but so 
 broken and riddled that they resemble enormous trunks of 
 lightning-struck trees, or great rocks that have been washed by 
 the sea. Immense masses of masonry rolling down upon the 
 middle and outer wall, encumber the platform and the ditch. 
 Footpaths wind here and there among the fragments and the 
 
 11* 
 
 I
 
 250 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 weeds and are lost in the dark shadows of the hanging vegeta- 
 tion. Every bit of bastion framed between two towers is a stu- 
 pendous picture of verdure and ruin, full of majesty and grand- 
 eur. It is all colossal, savage, threatening, and impressed with 
 a mournful beauty that is very imposing. The Constantinople 
 of to-day has vanished, and the city of Constantine is before 
 us ; we breathe the air of the fifth century ; the thoughts cluster 
 round the day of that immense disaster and the present is 
 forgotten. 
 
 The gate by which I came out, called by the Turks Egri- 
 Kapu, was that famous Caligaria gate by which Justinian made 
 his triumphal entry, and Alexis Comnenus came to take posses- 
 sion of the throne. In front of it there is now a Mussulman 
 cemetery. In the first days of the siege the great cannon of 
 Orbano was planted there, around which labored four hundred 
 artillerymen, and which one hundred oxen dragged with diffi- 
 culty. The gate was defended by Theodore di Caristo and 
 Giovanni Greant against the left wing of the Turkish army, that 
 extended as far as the Golden Horn. From this point to the 
 Sea of Marmora there is not a sign of habitation. The road 
 runs straight and solitary between the walls and the open coun- 
 try. I walked for some distance between two cemeteries, Chris- 
 tian on the one hand, Mohammedan on the other. The sun 
 scorched ; the road stretched away before me white and lonely, 
 and gradually ascending cut the limpid sky with a straight line. 
 On one side tower succeeded tower, on the other tomb gave 
 place to tomb. There was no sound but my own regular foot- 
 fall and the murmur of winged insects among the weeds. At 
 length I suddenly found myself before a fine square gate sur-
 
 THE WALLS. 2$ I 
 
 mounted by a lofty arch and flanked by two octagonal towers. 
 It was the gate of Adrianople, the Polyandria of the Greeks; 
 the same which sustained in 625, under Heraclius, the formida- 
 ble attack of the Avari, which was defended against Mahomet 
 Second by the brothers Paul and Antonio Troilo Bochiardi, 
 and which then became the gate for the triumphal exits and en- 
 trances of the Mussulman army. There was no living creature 
 near. Suddenly two Turkish horsemen galloped out, enveloped 
 me in a cloud of dust, and vanished on the road to Adrianople - 
 and profound silence reigned once more. 
 
 Turning my back to the wall at this point, I followed the 
 Adrianople road, and descending into the valley of the Lykus, 
 mounted a rising ground and looked out over the vast and arid 
 plain of Dahud-Pasha, where Mahomet Second had his head- 
 quarters during the siege of Constantinople. 
 
 There once beat the heart of all that enormous army that 
 held in its formidable embrace the great city in its dying throes. 
 From thence sped the orders that moved the arms of a hundred 
 thousand laborers, dragging over land two hundred galleys from 
 the bay of Besci-tass to the bay of Kassim-Pasha ; that sent 
 into the bowels of the earth armies of Armenian miners, and in 
 the time that is taken to count the beads of a rosary, drew three 
 hundred thousand bows and unsheathed as many scimetars. 
 There the pale messengers of Constantine met the Genoese 
 from Galata coming to sell their oil for refreshing the cannon 
 of Orbano, and the Mussulman vedettes set to watch the Sea of 
 Marmora, if perchance they might see against the horizon the 
 European fleet coming to bring succor to Christendom behind 
 the last rampart of the Constantines. There swarmed the rene-
 
 252 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 gade Christians, Asiatic adventurers, aged sheiks, and meagre 
 dervishes that thronged about the tents of the fourteen thousand 
 janissaries, and mingled with the horses and camels, the cata- 
 pults and balistas, fragments of exploded guns and heaps of stone 
 cannon balls, while toil-worn soldiers carried two and two from 
 the walls, the deformed bodies of dead and wounded, amid a per- 
 petual cloud of smoke. In the midst of the encampment of the 
 janissaries rose the many-tinted tents of the court, and above 
 these the flame-colored pavilion of Mahomet Second. Every 
 morning at sunrise he was there at the entrance of his tent, pale 
 with his vigils of the night, in his long blood-colored robe, and 
 his turban plumed with yellow, and fixed his eagle glance upon 
 the doomed city. Beside him was Orbano, the inventor of the 
 monster gun, which in a few days was to explode and blow his 
 bones over the plain of the Hippodrome. There too was the 
 admiral, Balta-Ogli, already pursued by the presentiment of a 
 defeat which was to draw down upon his head the wrath and the 
 golden baton of the Grand Signer ; and all around thronged the 
 flower of that Asiatic multitude, full of youthful force and fero- 
 city, ready to rush like a river of steel and flame upon the de- 
 crepit remnant of the Byzantine Empire ; and all, motionless as 
 statues in the first rosy rays of dawn, gazed at the thousand sil- 
 vered domes of the city promised by the Prophet, where at that 
 hour the prayers and sobs of the coward people were rising in 
 vain to heaven. I saw them all, their attitudes, the folds of 
 their strange garments, and the long shadows they cast over 
 the earth. Suddenly my eyes fell upon a large stone at my feet 
 whereon I read a half effaced inscription, and the fantastic vis- 
 ion vanished, only to give place to another. The plain swarmed
 
 THE WALLS. 253 
 
 with a lively multitude of French soldiers in their red trousers ; 
 I heard the songs of Provence and Normandy ; I saw Marshals 
 St. Arnaud, Canrobert, Espinasse, Pelissier ; I recognized faces 
 and voices dear to my remembrance, and read once more with 
 pleasure and surprise, the poor inscription : "Eugene Saaard, 
 Corporal in the 2 2(i Light Horse, June 16, 1854." 
 
 From thence I returned to the road that skirts the walls, and 
 passing the ancient military gate of Pempti, now walled up, I 
 crossed the river Lykus which enters the city at that point, and 
 arrived finally before the cannon gate, against which Mahomet's 
 army made their final assault. PJere behind the battlements I 
 saw horrible black faces peering down at me with an amazed 
 expression, which faces turned out to belong to a tribe of gyp- 
 sies who had there made a nest among the ruins. The traces 
 of the tremendous struggle are here very marked, colossal frag- 
 ments of the masonry lying here and there like the relics of a 
 fallen mountain. The battle might have been fought yesterday, 
 and the ruins have a more than human voice to tell of the hor- 
 rible slaughter that they witnessed. And all the gates could 
 tell the same tale. The struggle began at dawn of day. The 
 Ottoman army was divided into four columns, and preceded by 
 an advanced guard of a hundred thousand volunteers, predes- 
 tined to death. All this food for cannon this wild, undisci- 
 plined crowd of Tartars, Arabs, Caucasians and negroes, led by 
 sheiks, excited by dervishes, and driven onward by the whips 
 of an army of sciahs, rushed first to the assault, laden with earth 
 and fascines, and forming one unbroken chain from the Sea of 
 Marmora to the Golden Horn. Arrived upon the edge of the 
 ditch or moat, a hail storm of stone and iron arrested and mowed
 
 254 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 them down ; but other hordes succeeded them, driven on by 
 others still behind them ; in a little while the moat was filled 
 with a bloody writhing mass, over which the army rushed in a 
 torrent, beating its wild waves against the walls and towers, 
 until the savage blare of the Ottoman trumpets was heard above 
 the din of battle, and the advanced guard retreated in confusion 
 all along the line. Then Mahomet Second let loose his strength. 
 Three great armies, three human torrents, led by a hundred 
 Pashas, with a deafening noise of trumpets and cymbals, and a 
 shout of La Ilah ilia lah I precipitated themselves against the 
 walls, as the ocean in a storm breaks upon a rocky coast. 
 From time to time, as the battle raged around the gates, in the 
 breaches, in the moat, on the platforms, or when for a moment 
 the hideous tumult relaxed as if to take breath, the purple man- 
 tle of Constantine could be seen waving, or a bright gleam shot 
 from the armor of Justinian, or Francis of Toledo, and the ter- 
 rible figures of the three hundred Genoese archers appeared 
 confusedly through the smoke. 
 
 At last the assailants, thinned and weakened, began to 
 retreat and scatter, and a shout of victory, and a solemn chant 
 of thanksgiving arose from the walls. From the heights before 
 San Romano, Mahomet Second, surrounded by his janissaries, 
 saw and for one instant hesitated. But throwing a glance around 
 at his formidable soldiers, who trembled with impatient ire as 
 they watched his face, he rose in his stirrups, and once more 
 shouted his battle-cry. Then was the vengeance of God un- 
 chained. The janissaries answered with fourteen thousand 
 shouts in one ; the columns moved ; a throng of dervishes 
 spread themselves throughout the camp to re-animate the cour-
 
 THE WALLS. 255 
 
 age of the men, the sciahs stopped the fugitives, the Pashas re- 
 formed their lines, the Sultan himself brandishing his iron mace 
 advanced amid a splendor of scimetars and bows, and a sea of 
 casques and turbans ; Justinian, wounded, vanished from the 
 walls ; the Genoese, disheartened, retreated ; the gigantic jan- 
 issary Hassan d'Olubad was the first to scale the rampart ; 
 Constantine, desperately fighting in the midst of the last of his 
 brave Moreans, is thrown from the battlements, but continues 
 to fight under the gate, to the last moment ; the Empire of the 
 East has fallen. Tradition says that a great tree marks the 
 spot where Constantine's body was found ; but there is no 
 longer any trace of it. There, where the earth was once dyed 
 deep in blood, grew a thick carpet of daisies and wild flowers 
 and a cloud of butterflies hovered. I gathered a blossom for 
 remembrance, under the astonished eyes of the gypsies, and 
 went on my way. 
 
 The walls still extended before me as far as eye could see. 
 At their highest parts they hid the city completely, so that no 
 one could imagine that behind those solitary and silent bastions 
 lay a vast metropolis, inhabited by many people. Where they, 
 were lower, on the contrary, appeared the silvery tops of mina- 
 rets and domes, roofs of Greek churches, and the topmost 
 boughs of trees. Here and there through an opening in the 
 curtain of the wall, a fugitive glimpse of the city with .its houses 
 anfl gardens, or the more distant and fantastic outlines of Stam- 
 boul, seemed as though a door had been suddenly opened and 
 shut again. At this point the walls are in better preservation. 
 There are long portions of the curtain of Theodosius Second 
 almost intact ; beautiful towers of /he Emperor Giro Conslan-
 
 256 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 line, which still bear gloriously upon their invulnerable heads 
 their crowns of fifteen centuries, and seem to defy a new assault. 
 At some places, on the platforms, peasants have built their huts, 
 which in their smallness and fragility give new force to the ma- 
 jestic solidity of the walls, and look like birds' nests on the 
 flanks of a mountain. 
 
 The gate called Yeni-Mewlehane, where I next arrived, is 
 so named from a famous convent of dervishes near it : it is a 
 low gate in which are set four marble columns, and at its sides 
 are two square towers, with an inscription of Giro Constantine 
 447, and one of Justinian Second and Sophia, in which the im- 
 perial names are misspelled ; a curious instance of the barbaric 
 ignorance of the fifth century. There was no living soul either 
 in the gateway, or the wall, or about the convent, or in the 
 cemetery. 
 
 I would give the remembrance of the finest view in Con- 
 stantinople, if I could convey to the reader an idea of the deep 
 and singular emotions that I experienced as I thus walked on 
 between two endless chains of ruins and of sepulchres, in that 
 awful solitude, that brooding peace. Many times in my life, in 
 melancholy mood, I have imagined myself one of a caravan of 
 mute and mysterious beings eternally going onward, through an 
 unknown country, towards an unknown end. This road seemed 
 the reality of my dream. I could have gone on forever. It 
 did not.make me sad, but rather inspired me with serenity and 
 courage. The vigorous colors of the vegetation, the cyclopian 
 masses of the walls, the long waving lines of open country, like 
 a stormy ocean, the solemn memories of emperors and armies, 
 of titanic struggles, scattered peoples, defunct generations, be-
 
 THE WALLS. 
 
 side that enormous city, in that mortal silence, broken only bv 
 the beat of the eagle's wing as he clove the air above me, all 
 conspired to excite my imagination and redouble my sense of 
 life. 
 
 The next gate is the ancient military one of Trite, now closed. 
 Its curtains and towers show traces of heavy artillery, and it is 
 believed that here was one of the three breaches which Mahom- 
 et Second pointed out to his army before the assault, saying: 
 "You can enter Constantinople on horseback by the three 
 breaches which I have opened." Next comes an open gate, 
 flanked by two octagon towers, and recognizable by its small 
 bridge of three arches of a fine gold color as the Selivri gate, 
 from which ran the high road to the city of Selybmria (sit) a 
 name changed by the Turks to Selivri. During the siege this 
 gate was defended by the Genoese captain, Maurice Cattaneo. 
 The road still retains some traces of the pavement laid down by 
 Justinian. In front there is a vast cemetery and the noted 
 monastery of Baluklu. 
 
 In the cemetery I came upon the solitary spot where are 
 buried the head of the famous Pasha of Janina, Ali of Tepelen ; 
 those of his sons, Veli, governor of Tirhala j Muctar, command- 
 ant of Arlonia ; Saalih, commandant of Lepanto ; and that of his 
 nephew Mehemet, son of Veli, commandant of Delvina, There 
 are five small columns surmounted by turbans, all bearing the 
 date of 827, and a simple inscription, written by the poor der- 
 vish Soliman, Ali's friend from childhood, who bought the heads 
 after they had been exposed on the battlements of the Seraglio, 
 and buried them with his own hands. The inscription on the 
 cippus of Ali, runs thus : " Here lies the head of the famous
 
 258 CONST A N TINOPLE. 
 
 AH Pasha of Tepelen, governor of Janina, who for more than 
 fifty years labored for the independence of Albania." Which 
 proves that even on Mussulman tombstones pious falsehoods 
 may be found. I stopped a moment to contemplate the hand- 
 ful of earth that covered that formidable head, and Hamlet's 
 words to Yorick's skull came into my mind. Where are thy 
 Paiikari now, Lion of Epirus ? Where are thy brave arnauts, 
 and thy palaces bristling with cannon, and thy beautiful kiosks 
 reflected in the waters of the lake of Janina, and thy treasures 
 buried in the rock, and the lovely eyes of thy Vasiliki ? And I 
 was thinking of the poor lady wandering through the streets of 
 Constantinople, desolate with a remembrance of her lost happi- 
 ness and fallen greatness, when I heard a slight rustle behind 
 me, and turning beheld a tall angular figure, dressed in a long 
 dark gown, with uncovered head, who was looking at me with a 
 questioning air. From a sign that he made I comprehended 
 that he was a monk of Baluklu who wished to show me the mi- 
 raculous fountain, and I followed him towards his monastery. 
 
 He conducted me across a silent courtyard, opened a small 
 door, lighted a taper, made me descend with him a flight of 
 steps into a damp dark cellar, and there halted before a kind 
 of cistern, where shading the light with his hand, he pointed out 
 to me the red fish darting through the water. As I looked, he 
 mumbled some incomprehensible jargon which I suppose was 
 the story of the famous miracle of the fish. While the Mussul- 
 mans were making their last assault upon the walls of Constan- 
 tinople, a Greek monk in this convent was frying fish. Sud- 
 denly at the door of the kitchen appeared another monk, in a 
 high state of excitement, who called out : " The city is taken ! "
 
 THE WALLS. 2$g 
 
 "Cfo/" replied the one at the frying-pan, "I will believe that 
 when I see my fish jump out of the pan." And immediately 
 the fish jumped out, all alive, half brown and half red because 
 they were only cooked on one side ; and they were religiously 
 replaced in the cistern, as may be supposed, and there they may 
 be seen to this day. His mumbling over, my monk threw a few 
 drops of the sacred water into my face, whence they trickled 
 into his hand in the shape of small coin, and accompanying me 
 to the door, stood for a moment looking after me, with his little 
 sleepy, tired- looking eyes. 
 
 And still on one side walls upon walls and towers upon 
 towers, and on the other shady cemeteries, green fields and 
 vineyards, a closed house or two, and beyond, the desert. The 
 vegetation is here marvellous. Great leafy trees start from 
 the towers as from gigantic vases ; red and yellow blossoms and 
 garlands of ivy and honeysuckle hang from the battlements, and 
 below grows an inextricable tangle of weeds and wild shrubs, 
 from the midst of which spring plane trees and willows shading 
 the moat and the road. Large tracts of wall are completely 
 covered with ivy, holding the stones together like a vast net, 
 and hiding their wounds and fissures. The moat is here and 
 there laid out in kitchen gardens, and on the edges goats and 
 sheep are feeding guarded by Greek boys lying in the shade of 
 the trees ; flocks of birds nest in the walls ; the air is full of the 
 pungent fragrance of wild herbs ; and a sort of spring-like joy- 
 ousness seems to breathe from the ruins, that look as if they 
 were decorated with flowers and garlands for the passage of a 
 Sultana. Suddenly I felt upon my face a puff of salt air, and 
 raising my eyes beheld the Sea of Marmora lying blue before me.
 
 260 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Passing by the ancient gate of Deleutera, and that of 
 Melandesia, I found myself in front of the Castle of the Seven 
 Towers. 
 
 This edifice of evil fame, raised by Mahomet Second upon 
 the antique Cyclobion of the Greeks, to defend the city at the 
 point where the land wall joins the sea wall, was converted into 
 a state prison, as soon as the conquests of the Sultan had as- 
 sured Stamboul against the dangers of a siege. It is now noth- 
 ing but a skeleton of a castle, guarded by a few soldiers ; an 
 accursed ruin, full of painful and horrible memories, that live in 
 sinister legend on the lips of the people of Constantinople, and 
 is seldom seen by travellers except for a moment from the prow 
 of the vessel that carries them to the Golden Horn. The 
 Turks call it Jedi-Kule, and it is for them what the Bastile was 
 to the French, and the Tower of London to the English ; a 
 monument recalling the worst epochs of the tyranny of the 
 Sultans. 
 
 The walls of the city hide it from the eyes of those who look 
 at it from the road, excepting two of the seven great towers that 
 gave it its name, of which there are now only four entire. In 
 the external walls there are still remaining two Corinthian col- 
 umns which belonged to the ancient gilded gate by which Her- 
 aclius and Narsetes made their triumphal entry, and according 
 to a legend common to both Mussulmans and Greeks, it is also 
 the same by which the Christians passed when they re-entered 
 the city of Constantine victorious. The entrance door is in a 
 small square tower, where a slippered sentinel dozes, who gen- 
 erally permits the entrance of a coin into his pocket, and a trav- 
 eller into the tower at one and the same moment.
 
 THE WALLS. 26 1 
 
 Entering, I found myself alone in a large enclosure, having 
 a gloomy look of prison and cemetery that made me stay my 
 steps. All around rose enormous black walls forming a penta- 
 gon, crowned with square and round towers, some high, some 
 low, some dislocated, others entire and covered with conical 
 roofs of lead, and with innumerable ruined stairs that led to bat- 
 tlements and loop-holes. Within the enclosure the vegetation 
 is high -and thick, dominated by a group of cypress and plane 
 trees, and the minarets of a small mosque ; lower down the 
 roofs of a cluster of huts where the soldiers sleep ; in the middle 
 the tomb of a vizier who was strangled in the castle ; here and 
 there the remains of an ancient redoubt ; and among the weeds 
 or along the walls, fragments of bas-reliefs, pieces of columns 
 and capitals sunk in the ground, and half covered with grass and 
 pools of water ; a strange and gloomy disorder, full of mystery 
 and menace, most repugnant to the sight. I advanced with 
 circumspection, as if fearing to put my foot in a pool of blood. 
 The cabins were tenantless, the mosque shur up, everything 
 quiet and solitary, as in an abandoned ruin. On the walls there 
 are still here and there traces of Greek crosses, fragments of 
 monograms of Constantino, the spread wings of the Roman 
 eagles, and the remains of friezes of the antique Byzantine 
 edifice. Upon some stones may be seen Greek sentences 
 rudely cut in minute characters ; almost all inscribed by the 
 soldiers of Constantine, who guarded this fortress under the 
 command of the Florentine Giuliani, on the day before the fall 
 of Constantinople ; poor souls resigned to death, invoking God 
 to save their city from the sack and their families from slavery. 
 
 Of the two towers behind the Gilded Gate, one is that in
 
 262 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 which the ambassadors from states that were at war with the 
 Sultan were shut up, and there are Latin inscriptions on the 
 walls, the most recent one being that of the Venetian Ambassa- 
 dors imprisoned there in the reign of Ahmed Third, when the 
 war in the Morea broke out. The other is the famous tower to 
 which all the most dismal traditions of the castle are referred ; 
 a labyrinth of horrible dungeons, living sepulchres, where vi- 
 ziers and great ones of the court waited, praying in the darkness, 
 for the coming of the executioner, or driven mad by despair, 
 dashed out their brains against the walls. In one of these dun- 
 geons was the great mortar in which the bones and flesh of the 
 ulemas were pounded. On the ground floor is a large round 
 chamber, called the bloody prison, where the condemned were 
 secretly decapitated, and their heads thrown into a well, called 
 the well of blood, the mouth of which may still be seen in the 
 rude pavement, covered by a stone slab. Beneath this was the 
 so-called rocky cavern, lighted by a lantern hanging from the 
 roof, where those condemned to be tortured had their flesh 
 peeled off in strips, where burning pitch was poured into the 
 wounds made by the whip, and feet and hands were struck off, 
 the horrid shrieks of those in agony reaching the ears of the 
 prisoners above, in faint lamenting tones. In one corner of the 
 inner court may still be seen the traces of a smaller enclosure, 
 where the heads of the condemned commonalty were struck off 
 in the night ; and near by, not very long ago, there existed a 
 mass of human bones that rose nearly as high as the castle 
 platform. Near the entrance is the prison of Othman Second, 
 the first imperial victim of the janissaries. In all the other 
 towers, and in the thickness of the walls there is a net-work of
 
 THE WALLS. 263 
 
 dark corridors, secret stairways, and low doors studded with 
 iron, under whose frowning archways how many of the great 
 ones of the earth, in the flower of their youth, and the fullness 
 of their power, have passed never more to return ! One feels a 
 vivid sense of pleasure at the sight of this den of infamy and 
 cruelty now so deformed and ruined. The disarmed and de- 
 crepit monster gapes with the hundred mouths of its loop- 
 holes and low door-ways, reduced to a mere scare-crow, and 
 myriads of toads, rats, and scorpions swarm in its empty dun- 
 geons, or rustle among the insolent vegetation that wreaths and 
 plumes its hideousness as if in mockery. After having looked 
 in at various doors without seeing anything but a precipitous 
 flight of rats and mice, I mounted by an old mossy flight of steps 
 to the top of the western wall. From thence I looked down 
 upon the castle in all its ruin and decay, a disorderly black and 
 dark red mass of stones, set in a ring of vivid green. As I 
 stood there in the deep silence and the brooding light, dream- 
 ing of the horrors that had been perpetrated in that accursed 
 place, the muezzin raised his clear penetrating voice from the 
 minaret of the little mosque. That slow, sweet, solemn voice, 
 calling upon God, at that moment, in that fearful place, spoke 
 to the very depths of my soul ! It seemed to me to be saying 
 in the names of all those who had there been doomed to death, 
 that their suffering had not been in vain, that their last tears 
 had been gathered up, that their tortures had been recompensed, 
 that they forgave as they had been forgiven, that God remains 
 when the world abandons us, and that all is vanity on this 
 earth except this sentiment of infinite love and compassion. I 
 went out of the castle much moved.
 
 264 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Resuming my march towards the sea along the outer wall, 
 I came to the railway station of Adrianople, where various lines 
 meet and cross one another. There were long files of dusty 
 carriages, but no living being that I could see. Had I been a 
 fanatical Turk, now, enemy to all European innovations, I might 
 have set fire to the place and its contents, and have departed 
 unmolested. I walked on expecting every moment to hear the 
 threatening shout of some watchful guardian, but no one accosted 
 me. I had imagined that I could enter Stamboul a little further 
 on where the wall ends, but was deluded. The sea wall and 
 the land wall met, and there was not the ghost of a gate. So I 
 was obliged to return to the gate of the Seven Towers, and tra- 
 verse the whole of Stamboul along the shore of the Sea of Mar- 
 mora. Quite worn out with fatigue, my heart bounded with 
 pleasure, when after a weary walk through the most desolate 
 quarters of the city, I emerged at last upon the square of St. 
 Sophia, and saw my Italian friends standing in a group before 
 a cafe, and advancing to meet me with beaming faces and ex- 
 tended hands.
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 265 
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 
 
 As at Granada before having seen the Alhambra, so at Con- 
 stantinople one feels as if he had seen nothing until he has 
 been within the walls of the Old Seraglio. Twenty times a day, 
 and from all points of the city and the sea, that greenest of hills 
 is seen, full of promises and secrets, attracting the eye, and tor- 
 menting the imagination like an enigma, until one ends by 
 going there before the appointed day, more to get .rid of its 
 haunting presence than in search of a pleasure. 
 
 There is not indeed in all Europe another corner of the 
 earth whose name alone awakens in the mind so strange a con- 
 fusion of beautiful and terrible images ; about which so much 
 has been thought, and written, and divined ; which has given 
 rise to so many vague and contradictory notices ; which is still 
 the object of so much insatiable curiosity, of so many insensate 
 prejudices, and so many marvellous histories. Now-a-days 
 every body can go in, and many come out with their expecta- 
 tions somewhat chilled. But we may be sure that for centu- 
 ries yet to come, when perhaps the Ottoman domination shall 
 be but a reminiscence in Europe, and upon that loveliest of 
 hills, the populous streets of a new city shall cross one another, 
 no traveller will pass that way without seeing in his fancy the 
 image of the Imperial palaces that once stood there, or without 
 envying us of the nineteenth century, who still could find in 
 12
 
 266 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 those places the vivid and speaking memories of the Ottoman 
 reign. 
 
 Who knows how many archaeologists will patiently seek out 
 the traces of a door or a wall in the courts of the new edifices, 
 and how many poets will write verses upon the ruins strewn 
 along the shores of the sea ! Or perhaps, after many centuries, 
 these walls will still be jealously guarded, and the learned, and 
 the literary, and the artistic traveller will visit them, and the 
 picturesque and strange life that existed there for four hundred 
 years will rise again and expand into a myriad of volumes and 
 of pictures over the face of the earth. 
 
 It is not beauty of architecture that attracts to those walls 
 such universal curiosity. The Seraglio is not, like the Alham- 
 bra, a great monument of art. The Court of Lions alone, of the 
 Arab palace, is worth all the kiosks and towers of the Turk. 
 The Seraglio is a great historic monument, which sets forth and 
 illuminates the life of the Ottoman dynasty ; which bears writ- 
 ten upon its stones and on the trunks of its secular trees the 
 secret chronicle of the Turkish empire. Nothing is wanting 
 but the record of the last thirty years, and that of the two cen- 
 turies which preceded the conquest of Constantinople. From 
 Mahomet Second who laid the foundations, to Abdul-Medjid 
 who abandoned it to inhabit the palace of Dolma Bagtche, 
 twenty-five Sultans have lived in it. Here the dynasty planted 
 its foot immediately upon the conquest of its European capital, 
 here it rose to the apex of its fortune, and here began its deca- 
 dence. It was at once a royal palace, a fortress, and a sanc- 
 tuary ; here were the brain and heart of Islamism ; a city within 
 a city, inhabited by a people and guarded by an army, embrac-
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 267 
 
 ing within its walls an infinite variety of edifices, places of 
 pleasure or of horror ; where the Sultans were born, ascended 
 the throne, were deposed, imprisoned, strangled ; where all 
 conspiracies began and the cry of rebellion was first heard ; 
 where for three centuries the eyes of anxious Europe, timid 
 Asia, and frightened Africa were fixed, as on a smoking vol- 
 cano, threatening ruin on all sides. 
 
 This monstrous palace is placed upon the most eastern of 
 the hills of Stamboul, which descends gently towards the sea of 
 Marmora, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn ; 
 on the spot anciently occupied by the acropolis of Byzantium, 
 by a portion of the city, and a wing of the palace of the Empe- 
 rors. It is the most beautiful of the hills and the most favored 
 by nature of all the promontories of the European coast. Con- 
 verging towards it as towards a centre, are two seas and two 
 straits ; here began the great military and commercial high roads 
 of Eastern Europe; the aqueducts of the Byzantine Emperors 
 brought water to it, the hills of Thrace protect it from the north 
 winds; the sea bathes it on three sides; Galata and Scutari 
 look upon it on either side, and the mountains of Bythinia close 
 with their snowy tops the Asiatic horizon. It is a solitary em- 
 inence, strong and beautiful, seemingly created by nature to be 
 the pedestal of the throne of a great monarch, almost God-like 
 in his power. 
 
 The whole hill is encircled at its base by a battlemented 
 wall with towers. Along the sea this wall is also the city wall ; 
 on the land side it was raised by Mahomet Second, and divides 
 the hill of the Seraglio from that of the mosque of Nuri-Os- 
 manie, turns at a right angle towards the Sublime Porte, passes
 
 268 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 in front of Saint Sophia, and joins the wall of Stamboul upon 
 the shore. 
 
 This is the external boundary of the Seraglio. The Se- 
 raglio proper stands on the summit, surrounded in its turn by 
 high walls, forming a sort of central redoubt in the great hill 
 fortress. 
 
 But it would be labor lost to describe the Seraglio as it is at 
 present. The railway passes through the outer walls ; a great 
 fire in 1865 destroyed many buildings; the gardens are in 
 great part devastated ; hospitals, barracks, and military schools 
 have been erected in them ; of the remaining edifices, many 
 have changed their form and usage ; and although the principal 
 walls are there, presenting the semblance of the old Seraglio, 
 the alterations are such, and the neglect of thirty years has 
 made such changes, that it is not possible to describe the place 
 without disappointing the most modest expectation. 
 
 It is better for the writer and the reader to see that famous 
 Seraglio again in the time of Ottoman greatness. Then whoever 
 could embrace the whole hill in one glance, either from the 
 battlements of one of the highest towers, or from a minaret of 
 the mosque of Saint Sophia, enjoyed an unparalleled view. 
 In the midst of the vivid blue of the sea, the Bosphorus, and the 
 port, within the great semicircle of the white sails of the fleet, rose 
 the green forest of the hill, a forest composed of enormous trees, 
 encircled by walls and towers, and crowned with cannon and 
 sentinels. Upon the highest point extended the vast rectangle 
 of the Seraglio buildings,divided into three great courts, or rather 
 into three small cities built around three unequal squares, from 
 which arose a multitude of variously colored roofs, gilded domes
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 269 
 
 and white minarets, half concealed in groves and gardens. It was 
 a little metropolis, brilliant and irregular, light as an encamp- 
 ment of tents, which had something of voluptuous, pastoral, and 
 warlike about it ; at one point full of life and movement, at an- 
 other mute and solitary ; here all gilded and open to the sun ; 
 there inaccessible to every eye and plunged in perpetual shade ; 
 gay with infinite fountains, embellished with a thousand colors 
 and silvery reflections in the marbles of the colonnades, and in 
 the waters of the little lakes. 
 
 Such was the aspect of the Imperial abode as seen from 
 above, not so vast, but so divided and subdivided and so intri- 
 cate within, that servants who had Jived in it for fifty years never 
 knew it thoroughly, and the janissaries who invaded it for the 
 third time, lost themselves in its intricacies. 
 
 The principal entrance was and is still the Bab-Umaium, or 
 " august gate," which opens on the small square where is the 
 fountain of Sultan Ahmed, behind the mosque of Saint Sophia. 
 It is a large door of white and black marble, decorated with 
 rich arabesques, above which rises a lofty construction with 
 eight windows covered by a projecting roof. It belongs to that 
 mixed Arab and Persian style by which almost all the buildings 
 erected by the Turks immediately after the conquest may be 
 recognized, before they began to imitate Byzantine architecture. 
 Above the door may still be read on a marble slab, the inscrip- 
 tion placed there by Mahomet Second : " Allah preserve eter- 
 nally the glory of its possessor," "Allah strengthen the edi- 
 fice, Allah fortify the foundations." It was in front of this 
 door that the people of Stamboul came every morning to see 
 what nobles of the state and court had lost their heads during
 
 2/0 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the night. The heads were suspended from a nail within two 
 niches that are on either side of the door, or were exposed in a 
 silver basin near which were affixed the accusation and the 
 sentence. In the square before this door were thrown the bod- 
 ies of those who had been decapitated ; and then came, waiting 
 the order which should give them entrance into the first enclos- 
 ure of the Seraglio, detachments from the distant armies, bring- 
 ing trophies of victory ; bloody and glittering groups bearing 
 arms, banners, heads of conquered captains, and splendid mili- 
 tary insignia. The door was guarded by a large company of 
 capigi, sons of nobles, pompously arrayed ; who looked on from 
 the windows and over the wall at the continual procession of 
 people coming and going, or kept back.the too curious crowd with 
 their large scimetars. Passing by, the devout Mussulman murr 
 mured a prayer for his sublime Lord ; the poor but ambitious 
 youth dreamed of the day when he too should cross that 
 threshold to receive the horse-tail standard ; (the sign of a 
 Pasha's rank) the pretty, ragged girl fancied herself a splendid 
 odalisque ; the relations of the victims cast down their 
 eyes and trembled ; and a serene silence reigned all over 
 the place, broken three times a day by the voice of the 
 muezzin. 
 
 By the gate Umaium, one entered the so-called court of the 
 janissaries, the first enclosure of the Seraglio. This great court 
 is still in existence, surrounded by irregular buildings, very long, 
 and shaded by groups of large trees, among which is that enor- 
 mous plane tree known as the tree of the janissaries, whose trunk 
 it takes ten men to embrace. On the left is the church of St. 
 Irene, founded by Constantine, and converted by the Turks into
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 2/1 
 
 an armory. Beyond and all around once stood the hospital of 
 the Seraglio, the public Treasury, the imperial stables, the 
 kitchens, the barracks of the cafiigi, the mint, and the houses of 
 high officers of the court. Under the great plane tree there are 
 still two small stone columns on which decapitations took place. 
 By this court passed all those who were going to the Divan, or 
 to have audience of the Sultan. One hundred and fifty bakers 
 and two hundred cooks and scullions worked in the kitchens and 
 prepared food for that monstrous family, <; who ate the bread and 
 salt of the Grand Signor." Long caravans of mules and camels 
 came in bearing provisions for the table, or arms from defeated 
 armies to the church of St. Irene, where near the sabre of Ma- 
 homet, sparkled the scimetar of Scanderbeg, and the armlets 
 of Tamerlane. The tax-gatherers came, followed by slaves 
 laden with gold for the Treasury, where there were riches 
 enough, as the Grand Vizier of Solomon said, to build fleets 
 with silver anchors and silken cordage. Here too passed the 
 nine hundred horses of Murad Fourth, that fed out of silver 
 mangers, led by splendid Bulgarian grooms. From morning 
 till night there was a glitter of magnificent uniforms, amid which 
 shone out the high white turbans of the janissaries, and the tall 
 heron plumes of the solaks, while the silver helmets of the 
 peiks, the Sultan's guards, dressed in golden tunics bound at 
 the waist with jewelled girdles ; the zuliiftu-laltag}, in the ser- 
 vice of the officers of the household, with long woolly tresses 
 pendant from their caps ; the kassek}, with their emblematical 
 staves in hand ; servants of the Grand Vizier with their whips 
 ornamented with silver chains ; and a mingled crowd of arch- 
 ers, lancers, " valiant guards," and " guardie temerarie," black
 
 2/2 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 eunuchs and white eunuchs, and haughty gentlemen belonging 
 to the court, came and went at all hours of the day. 
 
 But the disorder was only in appearance ; for the move- 
 ments of all were regulated with the utmost precision. At dawn 
 the thirty- two muezzins, chosen for their sweet voices, announced 
 the day from the minarets of the Seraglio mosques; meeting as 
 they came in the astronomers and astrologers who had passed 
 the night upon the terraces studying the propitious hours for 
 the Sultan's occupations. Then came the first physician to ask 
 about the health of the Padishah ; the ulema arrived whose 
 duty it was to give religious instruction to his illustrious dis- 
 ciple ; the private secretary, to read to him the petitions re- 
 ceived the evening before ; the professors of arts and sciences 
 passed, going to the third court to give lessons to the imperial 
 pages. Each at a fixed hour, all the personages who held 
 office under the Sultan came to receive orders for the day. 
 The general of the Imperial guard, and governor of the Seraglio 
 and all the Sultan's villas scattered along the shores of the Bos- 
 phorus, came to ask if it pleased the Grand Signor to take an 
 airing on the sea, because if so, it was he whose duty it was to 
 steer while his bostangis had the honor of rowing. The grand 
 master of the hunt, the grand falconer, and others of lesser 
 rank came to know their master's wishes, whether he would fly 
 white falcon or black, vulture or sparrow-hawk; these, with 
 many more, all distinguished by their special costume and 
 color. No confusion was possible in that endless procession. 
 The mufti was in white ; the vizier was recognized by his pale 
 green dress, the chamberlain by his gown of scarlet ; dark blue 
 distinguished the six first legislative officials ; the grand ulema
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 273 
 
 or high priest wore violet ; the sheiks light blue ; dark green 
 was the privilege of the aga of the imperial staff and the bearer 
 of the sacred standard ; the officers of the stables wore light 
 green ; the generals of the army had red boots, the officers of 
 the Porte, yellow, the ulemas blue ; and the depth and humility 
 of the salutations corresponded to the scale of colors. The 
 chief of police and commander of an army of jailors and execu- 
 tioners passed between two ranks of bowed heads ; before the 
 Grand Eunuch, Marshal of the Court, helmets, turbans, and 
 plumes went down as before a mighty wind. All those whose 
 duties brought them near the person of the Sultan received 
 special demonstrations of respect and curiosity. The court 
 preacher, and the grand master of the wardrobe, who threw 
 coins to the people on imperial birthdays, passed amid a respect- 
 ful murmur, and a thousand curious eyes followed the fortunate 
 Mussulman whose duty it was to shave the imperial head once 
 in every ten days. The chief cook received much adulation, 
 and ceremonious smiles greeted the guardian of the parrots and 
 nightingales, whose service brought him into the more secret 
 corners of the palace. Twice a day a hundred scullions issued 
 from the kitchen, bringing enormous pyramids of rice, and 
 sheep roasted whole, which were placed under the shade of the 
 trees and arcades, and a crowd of guards and servants converted 
 the court into a military banqueting hall. Later the scene 
 changed, and foreign ambassadors arrived " between two walls 
 of silk and gold." Then, as Soliman the Great wrote to the 
 Shah of Persia, "the entire universe flowed by." Envoys from 
 Charles the Fifth and Francis the First came side by side with 
 ambassadors from Hungary, Servia, and Poland, and the repub- 
 12*
 
 2/4 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 lies of Genoa and Venice. These and thousands more of every 
 rank and condition passed by, with slow, composed step, silent, 
 or speaking under the breath in correct and circumspect lan- 
 guage proper to the place ; and there was an exchange of grave 
 and scrutinizing looks, a touching with the hand of forehead 
 and breast, a discreet murmur of low words, and a rustle of 
 garments and slippers, which gave something grave and monk- 
 ish to the aspect of that motley crowd, contrasting boldly with 
 the warlike fierceness of their faces, the pomp and splendor 
 of their dress and arms. In all eyes one thought could be 
 read, on all foreheads lay the burden of terror ; terror of one 
 man, before whom great and small alike were but as the dust 
 of the earth. 
 
 From this first court you entered the second by the great 
 Bab-el-selam, or gate of Health, which still stands intact be- 
 tween two towers, and here no one passes even now without a 
 firman. Formerly it was enclosed by two great folding doors 
 in front and other two within, making when they were closed a 
 large dark chamber, where a man could be secretly despatched. 
 Below it were the cells of the executioners, which communicated 
 with the Divan by a dark passage. There high personages 
 who had fallen into disgrace went to receive sentence, which 
 was often followed by instant execution. In those days, gov- 
 ernors and disgraced viziers were called to the Seraglio on 
 some pretext; they passed, unsuspicious, under the gloomy 
 archway, and entered the Divan, where they were received with 
 a benevolent smile, or a mild severity that seemed to threaten 
 only distant castigation. Dismissed, they returned the way 
 they came, and were never more seen alive. If a dying cry
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 2?$ 
 
 was heard in the court, a few people turned that way for a mo- 
 ment and then resumed their avocations. There is still under 
 the archway to the right the little iron door of the prison into 
 which the victim was thrown when he was not to be done to 
 death at once, either to prolong his agony, or to be sent into 
 exile. 
 
 The inner court which is entered by the Bab-el-selam, is a 
 vast irregular space, a measureless hall with the sky for a ceil- 
 ing, surrounded by graceful buildings and gilded domes, dotted 
 with groups of beautiful trees, and crossed by two alleys of gi- 
 gantic cypresses. Around the whole runs a light arcade, sup- 
 ported by slender marble columns, and with a projecting roof 
 covered with lead. To the left on entering was the hall of the 
 Divan, surmounted by a glittering dome ; further on the hall of 
 reception, its six enormous marble columns sustaining a roof 
 with undulating edges; the whole, columns, walls, and roof 
 carved, painted, and gilded with such light and delicate work- 
 manship that it resembled a pavilion of lace set with jewels ; 
 and shaded by a group of superb plane trees. On the other 
 side were various halls and magazines, kitchens and so forth. 
 In these last were prepared the meals for the viziers on the days 
 when a divan was held, and, on the occasions of circumcisions 
 and royal marriages, the famous dishes of sweet pastry, camels 
 and giraffes in sugar, and sheep roasted whole, from which 
 flocks of birds came out, which were borne in great pomp into 
 the square of the Hippodrome. 
 
 Of all the buildings that surround this court, I saw only the 
 hall of the Divan, which is almost exactly as it was when it was 
 used for the sittings of the Council of State. It is a large hall
 
 2/6 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 with a vaulted ceiling, lighted from above by small moresque 
 windows, and lined with marble arabesqued with gold, with no 
 furniture beyond the Divan upon which sat the members of the 
 council. Above the seat of the Grand Vizier there is still the 
 small, gold-latticed window where Soliman the Great and all the 
 Sultans after him, assisted or were supposed to assist, unseen, 
 at the sittings of the council ; a secret passage led from this 
 small hidden chamber to the imperial apartments on the third 
 court. Five times a week the council of ministers sat, the Grand 
 Vizier presiding. He sat opposite the door of entrance ; near 
 him the Capidan-Pasha-grand admiral ; the two judges of Ana- 
 tolia and Rumelia, representing the magistracy of the provinces 
 of Asia and Europe ; on one side the imperial Treasurers ; on 
 the other the Nisciandge, or officers who affixed the Sultan's 
 seal to the decrees ; beyond, to the right and left two rows of 
 ulemas and chamberlains, and at the corners the bearers of 
 orders and executioners of punishment, trained to comprehend 
 every look or sign. 
 
 It was a spectacle before which the boldest trembled, and 
 the most innocent fearfully questioned their conscience. A 
 pale light descending from above fell upon the white turbans, 
 the grave faces, the long beards and rich dresses of the mag- 
 nates. Their voices sounded one after the other, tranquil and 
 monotonous as the murmur of a stream, while the accused, 
 standing in the middle of the hall, knew not which mouth was 
 speaking. Every look was studied, every word weighed, every 
 thought divined ; and sentence of death came forth in quiet, low 
 voiced words, after long consultation in the midst of a sepul- 
 chral silence. But these haughty and impassive judges were
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 277 
 
 startled in their turn, when Murad the Fourth, or the Second 
 Selim shook with furious hand the gilded lattice of the secret 
 chamber! Then, after long silence and hurried consultation by' 
 the eyes, they resumed their sitting with impassible faces and 
 solemn voices, but ice cold hands were trembling under their 
 long sleeves, and they recommended their souls to God. 
 
 At the bottom of the second court, which might be called 
 the diplomatic court of the Seraglio, opened a third great door 
 with marble columns and projecting portico, before which a 
 company of white eunuchs and one of capigi kept guard night 
 and day, armed with sabre and dagger. 
 
 This was the famous Bab-Seadet, or Gate of Felicity, which 
 led to the third court ; the sacred door that remained closed 
 for four centuries to any Christian who did not present himself 
 in the name of a king or a people ; the mysterious portal from 
 which issued and spread themselves about the world so many 
 legends of sorrow and of pleasure, so many images of beauty, 
 so many revelations of secrets of love or blood, and an infinite 
 quantity of voluptuous and terrible poetry; the solemn entrance 
 into the sanctuary of the king of kings, which the people regarded 
 with a secret sense of terror, like the gate of some enchanted 
 place, entering which the profane creature must remain petri- 
 fied, seeing things that human language could not describe. 
 Even now the traveller of the coldest imagination hesitates 
 before this door and sees with amazement the shadow of his 
 cylindrical head-gear thrown upon its half-closed portals. 
 
 And yet upon this very gate the tide of military rebellion 
 rose and beat. It may even be said that this corner of the 
 great court, between the hall of the Divan and the Seadet gate,
 
 278 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 is the point where the fury of the rebels was boldest and most 
 sanguinary. The Grand Signer governed with the sword, and 
 ,the sword dictated the law to him. The despotism which for- 
 bade access to the Seraglio was the same that violated its pen- 
 etralia. Then was seen on what a fragile pedestal the mena- 
 cing colossus stood! Hordes of armed janissaries and spahis 
 bearing torches, beat down in the middle of the night the first 
 and second gates, and burst in, waving on the points of their 
 scimetars the petitions demanding the heads of the obnoxious 
 viziers, and their shouts resounded in the sacred precincts of 
 their sovereign, where all was terror and confusion. In vain 
 were bags of gold and silver coin thrown down among them 
 from the walls ; in vain sheiks, muftis, ulemas, and grandees of 
 the court besought them with courteous and supplicating 
 words ; in vain the pale women within showed themselves with 
 their little children at the grated windows. The thousand- 
 headed monster, unchained and blind with fury, demanded his 
 prey. The Sultan, surrounded by his eunuchs and frightened 
 pages, appeared behind the barricades of the door, and be- 
 sought grace and pardon for the condemned in the name of 
 their mothers, of the Prophet, of the glory of the Empire, of the 
 peace of the world. A yell of insult and of menace and a wild 
 waving of torches and scimetars were the only response. And 
 then, one by one, from the gate of Felicity staggered the vic- 
 tims, the treasurers, the viziers, the eunuchs, the favorites, the 
 generals, and falling among those wild beasts thirsting for their 
 blood, were despatched and trodden under foot. So Murad 
 the Third threw out Mehemet, his favorite falconer, and saw 
 him torn to pieces ; so Mahomet the Third sacrificed the Kis-
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 2?$ 
 
 lar-aga Othman, and the white eunuch Ghaznefer, and was 
 constrained to salute the soldiers in presence of the bloody 
 corpses ; so Muracl the Fourth with sobs drove out Hafiz, his 
 grand vizier, stabbed to death by seventeen poniards ; and 
 so Selim the Third gave over to death the whole of his Divan ; 
 and while the Padishah turned back into his apartment, curs- 
 ing, and torn with rage and grief, the rebels were dragging 
 the corpses in triumph and by torch-light about the streets of 
 Stamboul. 
 
 The first edifice that one encounters on entering the Felicity 
 gate is the hall of the Throne, which it is permitted to visit. 
 It is a small square building, round which runs a beautiful 
 marble gallery, with a rich doorway, flanked by two fountains. 
 The hall is covered by a vaulted ceiling decorated with ara- 
 besque in gold, the walls are decorated by marble and porcelain 
 tiles forming symmetrical figures, and in the middle there is a 
 marble basin for a fountain. Tall windows of stained glass 
 light the hall, and at one end is the throne, in the form of a 
 large bed, covered by a canopy fringed with pearls, and sup- 
 ported by four tall, slender columns of gilded copper. These 
 columns are ornamented with arabesques and set with precious 
 stones, and are surmounted by four golden globes bearing cres- 
 cents, from which depend four horse-tails, emblems of the mil- 
 itary power of the Padishah. 1 thought as I entered, of the 
 nineteen brothers of Mahomet the Third. They had received 
 sentence of death in their prison, as the cannon announced to 
 Europe and Asia the death of their father. The mutes of the 
 Seraglio piled the nineteen corpses in front of the throne. 
 
 They were of all ages, from infancy to maturity, the blonde
 
 280 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 baby head resting upon the breast of the man, grey locks min- 
 gling with gold, red prison .caftans beside cradle wrappings. 
 These bright marbles and glittering arabesques have seen 
 strange sights in their day, here when burst out the formidable 
 anger of Selim the Second, of Ahmed First, of Murad Fourth 
 and Ibrahim, exulting spectacles of despairing agonies ! 
 
 Coming out from the pavilion of the throne, you pass 
 through various gardens and courts surrounded by small build- 
 ings with marble colonades and Moorish arches. Here the 
 imperial pages resided, and the education fitting them to fill 
 high offices of state was carried on by learned and competent 
 men. One of the graceful Saracenic kiosks, with open peri- 
 style which formerly existed here and held the library, still 
 remains. It is chiefly admirable for its fine bronze door, deco- 
 rated with reliefs in jasper and lapis-lazuli, of intricate design 
 and exquisite workmanship. The Imperial treasury stood 
 here, holding the immense riches, composed for the greater part 
 of arms taken from conquered armies, or given or bequeathed 
 by the Sultans themselves. Mahmoud the Second, who was an 
 accomplished penman, and proud of the fact, left his golden 
 inkstand encrusted with diamonds to the treasury. Now the 
 greater part of this treasure has passed into the exchequer in 
 the shape of gold coin. 
 
 Not far from the pavilion of the treasury, in a solitary gar- 
 den, still stands that famous bird cage in which in the time of 
 Mahomet the Fourth and after, those princes of the blood who 
 gave umbrage to the Padishuh, were shut up ; and there 
 remained until a rebellion of janissaries should call them to the 
 throne, or the executioner should bow-string them. It is a
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 28 1 
 
 building in the form of a temple, windowless, with thick walls, 
 lighted from above, and having one small iron door strongly 
 barred, against which a great stone was placed. Here Abdul- 
 Aziz was shut up during the few days that passed between his 
 fall from the throne and his death. Here Ibrahim, the Otto- 
 man Caligula, made his miserable end, and his image is the first 
 that rises before the visitor on the threshold of that necropolis 
 of the living. 
 
 The military agas had pulled him down from his throne 
 and dragged him to prison. Here he was incarcerated with 
 two of his favorite women. After the first fury of despair, he 
 became resigned. " This," he said, " was written upon my 
 forehead; it was God's command." Of all his empire, there 
 remained to him only this prison, two slaves, and the Koran j 
 but he thought himself secure of life, and lived tranquilly, con- 
 soled by a ray of hope that his partisans of the barrack and the 
 tavern would some day rise and come to his aid. But he had 
 forgotten that sentence of the Koran which says : " When 
 there are two califs kill one !" and the muftis remembered 
 it. His last day was passed seated on a mat in a corner of his 
 prison, reading the Koran to his two slaves, who stood with 
 arms crossed on their breasts before him. Dressed in a black 
 caftan, confined at the waist by a ragged shawl, and with a red 
 woollen cap on his head, his face, though pale, was resigned 
 and calm. Suddenly a low sound made him spring to his feet, 
 and at the open door a group of sinister figures confronted him. 
 He understood, and raised his eyes to a latticed gallery that 
 projected high up on the wall, where through the gratings he 
 could see the cold impassible faces of the muftis and viziers
 
 282 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 looking down. Terror took possession of him, and a flood of 
 supplicating words poured from his lips : " Have pity on me ! 
 Have pity on the Padishah ! Give me my life ! If there is 
 one among you who has eaten my bread, let him help me in the 
 name of God ! Thou, mufti Abdul-Zahim, take care what thou 
 doest ! I could have killed thee for a traitor, and I spared 
 thee, and now thou strikest at my life !" The executioner, 
 trembling, raised his eyes to the grated gallery ; but a hard 
 voice issued thence, and said : " Kari-Ali, do thy duty." The 
 officer placed his hand on Ibrahim's shoulder, but Ibrahim, 
 with a cry, fled into a corner and took refuge behind the two 
 women. Then Kari-Ali and the rest fell upon him, casting 
 the slaves aside, and in a moment a small silken cord had 
 launched into eternity the nineteenth Sultan of the dynasty of 
 Osman. 
 
 Other edifices, besides those described and those of the 
 harem, were scattered here and there among the groves and 
 gardens. There were the baths of Selim the Second, compre- 
 hending thirty-two vast halls, resplendent in marble, gold, and 
 colors ; there were kiosks round and octagon, with roofs of 
 every shape, at whose windows of stained glass hung gilded 
 cages full of parrots and nightingales, where the Sultan went to 
 hear the " Thousand and One Nights " read by aged dervishes ; 
 and a host of others for all uses and pleasures. Finally, in the 
 more secret quarters of the harem was the temple of relics, or 
 "chamber of noble garments" imitated from the gilded halls of 
 the Byzantine Emperors and closed by a door of silver; in 
 which was preserved the mantle of the Prophet, solemnly dis- 
 played once a year in the presence of the assembled court,
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 283 
 
 his staff; his bow enclosed in a silver case ; the relics of the 
 Kaaba, and the sacred and venerated holy war standard, wrap- 
 ped in forty silken coverings, the sight of which would strike 
 blind as by lightning the infidel who should dare to fix his eyes 
 upon it. Everything that was most sacred and precious to the 
 race and empire was gathered there in that discreet and shaded 
 spot, towards which, from all parts of the metropolis, seemed to 
 converge a prostrate and adoring crowd of worshippers. 
 
 In one angle of this retired spot, to the left on entering, 
 under the shadow of the most luxuriant trees, amid the murmur 
 of fountains and the song of birds, rose the harem, which was 
 like a separate quarter of the Imperial city, and was composed 
 of many small white buildings with leaden domes, shaded by 
 orange trees and umbrella pines, separated by small gardens 
 with walls covered with ivy and honeysuckle, and paths laid 
 down in a bright mosaic of shells and pebbles ; the whole en- 
 closed, divided and subdivided ; the balconies covered in, the 
 windows grated and further protected by rose- colored blinds, 
 and colored glass, the doors barred with iron, the paths with- 
 out any issue, and on all a freshness and shaded coolness, an 
 air of mystery and peace conducive to revery. Here lived and 
 loved and was continually renewed the great family of the Se- 
 raglio It was like an immense monastery, whose religion was 
 pleasure, and whose God the Sultan. There were the Imperial 
 apartments in which resided the four first wives of the Grand 
 Signer, each one of whom had her kiosk, her own little court, 
 
 O * ' 
 
 her grand officials, her boats lined with satin, her gilded car- 
 riages, her eunuchs, her slaves, and her " slipper money/' which 
 was the revenue of a province. The Sultana mother lived here
 
 284 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 with all her innumerable following, and all the aunts, sisters, 
 sons, and nephews of the Padishah, forming a court within a 
 court, with a host of baby princes. 
 
 What memories among these groves and gardens 1 what 
 visions of the lovely daughters of the Caucasus and the Archi- 
 pelago, the mountains, the desert, and the sea, Mussulman, 
 Nazarene, idolaters, won in battle by the Pashas, presented by 
 princes, stolen by corsairs, pass like shadows under those sil- 
 very domes ! These are the walls which beheld the first Ibra- 
 him, his head crowned with flowers, and his beard sparkling 
 with gems, holding high festival among his slaves ; here dwelt 
 the third Murad, father of a hundred sons ; and here Murad 
 the Fourth sank into infamous decrepitude at thirty years 
 of age. 
 
 Let us try to imagine what life was like in that place on a 
 beautiful April day, under the reign of Soliman the Great The 
 sky is serene, the air full of spring perfumes, the gardens gay 
 with flowers. In the labyrinth of paihs still wet with dew, 
 lounge black eunuchs in splendid attire, and slaves, clothed in 
 striped stuffs of vivid colors, pass and repass carrying baskets 
 and vessels covered with green veils between the kitchens and 
 kiosks. Under the shadow of the trees the Sultan's buffoons, 
 and dwarfs in harlequin habits with turbans of grotesque pro- 
 portions, are romping together. Near by, behind a hedge, a 
 gigantic eunuch, by an imperceptible sign of finger, gives orders 
 to five mutes, executioners of punishment, to go to the Kislar- 
 aga, who requires their services for a secret matter. Youths 
 of an ambiguous style of beauty, and dressed richly in a semi- 
 feminine fashion, are chasing each other about under the plane
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 285 
 
 trees. In another part a group of slave women stop and divide, 
 bowing on either side as the Kiaya, or governess of the harem, 
 passes by, returning their salutation by a sign from her staff of 
 office, a small silver baton with the imperial seal on one end. 
 The door of a neighboring kiosk opens and a cadina (wife of 
 the Sultan) comes forth, dressed in pale blue, and wrapped in 
 a thick white veil, followed by her slave women. She is going, 
 by permission of the governess, to play ball with another cadina 
 in an alley of the garden, and meeting one of the Sultan's sis- 
 ters with her children and slaves, the two ladies exchange a 
 languid salutation. In front of another kiosk, a eunuch 
 awaits the sign which is to permit the entrance of a Jewess 
 who has jewels to sell ; and who after much intriguing has suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining the right of entry into the imperial harem, 
 where she will carry other things besides jewels, in the shape 
 of messages from ambitious Pashas and audacious lovers. At 
 the other extremity of the harem the hanum, whose duty it is 
 to visit the newly arrived slaves, is seeking the governess to 
 inform her that the young Abyssinian just arrived, is in her 
 judgment worthy to be received among the ghcdudh* although 
 she has a small excrescence on her left shoulder. 
 
 Meantime in a green spot surrounded by hedges the twenty 
 nurses of the princes born during the year are gathered with 
 their charges, while a number of female slaves play on guitars 
 and flutes, and a crowd of children dressed in blue and crim- 
 son dance merrily to the music, the Sultana Valide throwing 
 bonbons to them from her window. 
 
 The treasuress of the harem arrives, followed by three 
 
 * The Sultan's favorite women.
 
 286 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 slaves, with some important news written on their faces ; the 
 imperial ships that have been sent to meet the Genoese and 
 Venetian galleys have crossed them twenty miles from the port 
 of Sira and have taken possession of all the silks and velvets 
 of the cargo for the harem of the Padishah. There is a con- 
 tinual opening and shutting of doors, and rising and dropping 
 of curtains by which messengers on all sorts of affairs are com- 
 ing and going, and everywhere curious lookers-on behind the 
 lattices, mute salutations exchanged between terraces and 
 gardens, furtive signs behind the curtains, laughter loud and low, 
 and rapid flight of feminine drapery along the cloistered walls. 
 But it was not only intrigue and puerilities that went on 
 within those temples and gardens. Politics entered there by 
 every door and every grated window, and the power exercised 
 by bright eyes over affairs of state was not less there than in the 
 kingdoms of the west ; the secluded and monotonous life increas- 
 ing the intensity of jealousies and ambitions. Those jewelled 
 heads in their perfumed prison agitated alike court, divan, and 
 the entire Seraglio. The eunuchs served as means of communi- 
 cation with muftis, viziers, and agas of the janissaries. They 
 were aware of everything that went on in the empire and the 
 metropolis, they knew the dangers that threatened them, they 
 learned to know the statesmen whom they had to fear, or in 
 whom they might hope, and they patiently organized mysterious 
 plots that pulled down their enemies, and elevated their protec- 
 tors. All the different parties of the court and empire had a 
 root, many roots there, in the hearts of the Valide Sultanas, the 
 sisters of the Sultan, his wives, and his odalisques. There were 
 questions and discussions without and about the education of
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 28/ 
 
 children, the marriage of daughters, precedence at feasts, the 
 succession of the young princes to the throne, about peace and 
 about war. The caprices of the ladies of the harem sent 
 thirty thousand janissaries and forty thousand spahis to cover 
 with corpses the shores of the Danube, and fleets of a hundred 
 ships to stain with blood the Black Sea and the Archipelago. 
 The princes of Europe sent secret letters to them, to ensure a 
 good result for their negotiations. From their white hands 
 issued the decrees that gave the government of provinces and 
 the high grades of the army. It is the caresses of Roxalana 
 that tighten the bow-string at the necks of the Grand Viziers 
 Ahmed and Ibrahim ; it is the kisses of Saffie, the beautiful 
 Venetian, '''pearl and shell of the Caliphat," which maintain for 
 so many years amicable relations between the Porte and the 
 Venetian republic. The seven wives (cadine) of Murad Third, 
 governed the empire for the last twenty years of the sixteenth 
 century. The beautiful Makpicker, the moon formed, the cadina 
 of the two thousand seven hundred shawls, reigned over the two 
 seas and two worlds from Ahmed First to the Fourth Mahomet. 
 Rebia Gulnuz, the odalisque of the hundred silver carriages, 
 directed the imperial divans in the first ten years of the second 
 half of the seventeenth century, and Scekerbuli, the little bit of 
 sugar, made the sanguinary Ibrahim travel up and down for her 
 pleasure between Stamboul and Adrianople. 
 
 Fearful nights of terror and despair, came also for the little 
 Babylon hidden among the flowers. Rebellion had no more 
 respect for the third enclosure than it had for the first and sec- 
 ond. The soldiery broke in at the Felicity gate, and invaded 
 the harem In vain the eunuchs defended with their daggers
 
 288 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the sacred thresholds. The janissaries climbed upon the roofs, 
 broke through the cupolas, and precipitating themselves into 
 the rooms, tore the princes from their mothers' arms. The 
 Valide Sultanas were dragged by the feet, out of their hiding 
 places, defending themselves with tooth and nail, and being 
 thrown backwards over the knees of the baltagi, were strangled 
 with the curtain cords. The younger, rushing back into their 
 apartments, gave despairing shrieks at the sight of the empty 
 cradles, and the trembling slaves maintained an awful silence, 
 which meant : " Go and seek your children at the foot of the 
 throne." Dismayed eunuchs came to announce to the favorites, 
 weakened by a distant tumult, that their heads were demanded, 
 and that they must prepare to die. The three wives of the 
 Third Selim, condemned to the sack and cord, heard in the 
 night each other's mortal shrieks, and died under the hands of 
 mutes. Horrible jealousies and horrid vengeance made the 
 kiosks resound with groans and cries that spread alarm through- 
 out the harem. The Circassian mother of Mustapha tore 
 Roxalana's face with her nails, the rival favorites slapped Sce- 
 kerbuli, the Sultana Tarchan saw the dagger of Mahomet 
 Fourth flash above the heads of her little ones, the wife of 
 Ahmed First with her own hands choked her rival, and was her- 
 self poniarded in the face, and struck down under the feet of 
 the Padishah ; and who knows how many crimes remain forever 
 unknown ! Their veils smother their cries, flowers hide the 
 blood, two shadows flit through the dark alleys of the garden 
 bearing a dark burden between them ; the sentinels upon the 
 towers hear a splash in the water, and one of the thousand 
 chambers of the smiling and luxurious harem is empty.
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 289 
 
 All these images came to my mind as I wandered through 
 the enclosure and raised my eyes to the grated windows of the 
 desolate kiosks, sad as tombs. And, in the midst of these 
 sinister memories, I was aware of a kind of pleasant trepida- 
 tion, as if at any moment some one of those beautiful and 
 famous women might appear before me, flitting through the 
 garden alley, or glancing from the latticed window. I felt an im- 
 pulse to speak aloud those memorable names, listening for some 
 faint and distant response, or beholding a white veiled form 
 dimly in the deserted grove of trees. I would have given some- 
 thing to know where had been the apartment of the widow of 
 Alexis Comnenus, the loveliest Greek woman of her time, and 
 where the daughter of Erizzo, Governor of Negropont, had been 
 stabbed to death for refusing the caresses of Mahomet the 
 Second, and where Currem, the favorite of Soliman, had stood, 
 when looking from her window at the Sea of Marmora with her 
 wonderful black eyes, veiled by long silken fringes. Here in 
 this path had the lovely Hungarian dancer, who stole from Saffie 
 the heart of Murad Third, left no trace of her light feet? And 
 from this flower bed had Kesem, the beautiful and fierce Greek, 
 with pallid and melancholy visage, never culled a blossom ? 
 The gigantic Armenian woman who drove Ibrahim frantic with 
 love, had she never dipped her great white arm in this fountain ? 
 Was there nothing of them left, not a tress of hair, not a shred 
 of a veil, not a mark upon the wall? My fancies ended in a 
 painful and terrible vision. I saw them pass in interminable 
 procession, far off, among the trees and under the long colon- 
 ades, one behind the other, Sultanas, wives and sisters, cadine, 
 odalisques, slaves, budding girls and blooming matrons, old 
 13
 
 290 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 white-haired women, timid virginal faces, and faces fierce and 
 terrible with jealous rage, Imperial ladies, favorites of an hour, 
 with their strangled infants in their arms or led by the hand ; 
 one with a bowstring at his neck, another with a dagger in his 
 heart, a third dripping from the sea ; splendid with gems, or 
 covered with wounds and blood ; mute and frail phantoms, they 
 passed and were lost in the darkness of the shaded alleys, leaving 
 behind them a trace of trodden flowers and drops of tears and 
 blood ; and my soul was filled with a great compassion. 
 
 Beyond the third enclosure extends a flat piece of ground, 
 covered with a luxuriant vegetation, and dotted with small edi- 
 fices, among which rises the so-called column of Theodosius, in 
 grey granite, surmounted by a handsome Corinthian capital, 
 and with a large pedestal on which can be read the final words 
 of a Latin inscription: "Fortunes reduci ob devictus Gothos." 
 And here ends the high plain on which the great central rec- 
 tangle of the Seraglio buildings stands. From this to Seraglio 
 Point descends a series of luxuriant terraced gardens, full of rare 
 trees and flowering plants of every kind, with flights of marble 
 steps leading to the sea. 
 
 Along the wall opposite to Scutari was the new palace of 
 Sultan Mahmoud, which had one great door of gilded copper 
 opening on the sea. Near Seraglio Point was the summer 
 harem, a vast semicircular building capable of accommodating 
 five hundred women, with vast courts and splendid baths, and 
 gardens where those feasts known as the " Feasts of Tulips " 
 were celebrated. In front of this harem, outside the wall on 
 the shore, was the famous Seraglio battery, composed of twenty 
 cannon of strange forms, and much carved and ornamented,
 
 THE OLD SERAGLIO. 2gi 
 
 taken from the Christian armies in the first European wars. 
 The walls had eight gates, three on the city side, and five to- 
 wards the sea. Great marble terraces projected from the walls 
 over the sea. Subterranean roads led to the sea gates, so that 
 the Sultan could escape secretly in case of assault, and reach 
 Scutari or Top-hane. There were, besides, a host of kiosks 
 and buildings of various sorts on the flanks of the hill and near 
 the external walls. There near the summit harem stood the 
 kiosk of the mirrors, where the treaty of peace of 1784 was 
 signed, by which Turkey ceded the Crimea to Russia. The 
 kiosk of the cannon, from whose windows corpses were cast 
 into the sea, stood near the battery. The kiosk of the sea, where 
 the Sultana Valide of Mahomet Fourth held her secret divans, 
 hung over the mingled currents of the Bosphorus and the Sea 
 of Marmora. At that angle of the wall nearest to Saint Sophia 
 was the kiosk of Alai, from which Mahomet Fourth threw his 
 favorite wife Meleki to the rebellious army, and twenty-nine court 
 officials besides, who were torn to pieces under his eyes. 
 
 The night is half spent ; the sea reflects the sky burning 
 with stars ; the moon silvers the hundred domes of the Seraglio 
 and whitens the tops of cypresses* and plane trees, and the in- 
 numerable lighted windows one by one are darkened. The 
 imperial city sleeps. . 
 
 And so for thirty years it has slept, abandoned on its sol- 
 itary hill ; and the verses of the Persian poet that were on the 
 lips of Mahomet the Conqueror when he first placed his foot 
 within those desecrated halls, might be again repeated: "The 
 unclean spider weaves her web in the halls of kings, and from 
 the proud peaks of Erasciab, the raven croaks his fatal chant."
 
 292 , CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 LAST DAYS. 
 
 AT this point the chain of my minute and lucid reminis- 
 cences is broken, and I can no longer describe at length ; I re- 
 member nothing but a series of hurried expeditions from one shore 
 to the other, after which, in the evening, there passed before 
 my mind as in a dream, the illuminated city, immense throngs 
 of people, groves, fleets, hills, and the thought of my approach- 
 ing departure gave to everything a slight coloring of sadness, 
 as if those visions were already only memories of distant 
 countries. 
 
 And yet some images remain immovable in the midst of 
 the mist of people and things that ever rises before me when I 
 think of those days. 
 
 I recall the lovely morning when I visited the greater part 
 of the imperial mosques, and again I seem to see around me 
 an immensity of silent space. The image of Saint Sophia in 
 no way lessens the wonder excited by the first entrance within 
 those titanic walls. There, as elsewhere, the religion of the 
 conquerors has appropriated the religious art of the conquered. 
 Almost all the mosques are imitated from the Basilica of Jus- 
 tinian ; they have the great dome, the half domes beneath, the 
 courts and porticoes ; some even have the form of a Greek 
 cross. But Islamism has spread over everything its own color 
 and light, so that the mass presents the appearance of a new
 
 LAST DAYS. 293 
 
 edifice, in which are seen the horizons of an unknown world, 
 and the presence cf another God is felt. They are enormous 
 naves of austere and grand simplicity, all white, and with many 
 windows, that diffuse an equal and soft light, in which the eye 
 discerns every object from one extremity to the other, and re- 
 poses, with the thought, in a soft, sleepy tranquillity, like that 
 of a snowy valley covered by a white sky. You hear the sono- 
 rous echo of your own footsteps and know by that alone that 
 you are in an enclosed place. There is nothing to distract the 
 mind, which darts at once across that white space to the object 
 of adoration. There is no argument either for melancholy or 
 terror ; there are neither illusions, nor mysteries, nor obscure 
 corners, in which shine vaguely the images of a complicated 
 hierarchy of superhuman beings that confound the senses; 
 there is nothing but the clear, perfect, and formidable idea of 
 one solitary God, who loves the severe nudity of the desert in- 
 undated with light, and admits no other image of himself than 
 the heavens. All the imperial mosques of Constantinople 
 present the same aspect of naked grandeur and simplicity, so 
 that it is difficult in recalling them to distinguish one from the 
 other. The mosque of Ahmed, enormous, but also light and 
 graceful without as an aerial edifice, has its dome upheld by 
 four measureless round pilasters of white marble, and is the 
 only one in Stamboul that has six minarets. The mosque of 
 Soliman, which is a sacred city more than a temple, in which 
 the stranger loses himself, is formed of three naves, and its 
 dome, higher than that of Saint Sophia, rests on four wonderful 
 columns of rose granite that remind one of the trunks of the 
 famous gigantic trees of California. The mosque of Mahomet
 
 294 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 is another Saint Sophia, white and cheerful ; that of Bajazet is 
 the most elegant in form ; that of Osman is all of marble ; and 
 that of Shah Zada has the most graceful minarets. Each has 
 its own peculiar beauty, or legend, or privilege. Sultan Ahmed 
 has the custody of the Standard of the Prophet : Solimanie 
 boasts the inscription of Kara-hissari ; Valide Sultan has the 
 false golden column that cost the life of the conqueror of Can- 
 dia ; Sultan Mehemet sees " eleven imperial mosques bow their 
 heads around him, as around Joseph's sheaf bowed the sheaves 
 of his brothers." In one are the columns of the Palace of 
 Justinian, and those that bore the statues of Venus, Theodora, 
 and Eudosia ; in others are found the marbles of the ancient 
 churches of Calcedonia, columns from the ruins of Troy, and 
 from Egyptian temples, remains of circus and forum, aqueduct 
 and basilica ; all confused and lost in the immense whiteness 
 of the mosques of Islam. 
 
 Within, the differences are slighter than in the exterior. At 
 the end there is a marble pulpit ; opposite to it the Sultan's 
 balcony, latticed and gilded ; beside the Mihrab two enormous 
 candelabra sustaining torches tall as palm trees ; and all about 
 the nave innumerable lights with glass globes, disposed irregu- 
 larly, and looking more like preparations for a ball, than for 
 religious solemnity. The sacred inscriptions that run round the 
 pilasters, the doors, and the windows of the domes, and a sort 
 of imitation frieze painted to represent marble, are the only 
 ornaments that stand out upon the naked whiteness of those 
 monumental walls. Treasures of marble are in the pavements 
 of the vestibules, porticoes, fountains, and minarets ; but they 
 in no way alter the austere and sober, though graceful charac-
 
 LAST DA YS. 295 
 
 ter of the edifice, white, set in verdure, and crowned by domes 
 glittering against the azure of the sky. The mosque occupies 
 only a part of the enclosure, which embraces a labyrinth of 
 courts and houses. There are auditoriums for the reading of 
 the Koran, places of deposit for the safe keeping of private 
 property, libraries and academies, schools of medicine and 
 schools for children, kitchens for the poor, infirmaries, refuges 
 for travellers, baths ; a small town, hospitable and beneficent, 
 gathered around the lofty mole of the temple, as at the foot of a 
 mountain, and all shaded by great trees. But all these objects 
 are but dim in my memory ; and I see nothing but the small 
 black point made by my own person, lost, like an atom, in those 
 enormous buildings, in the midst of long files of tiny prostrate 
 Turks at their prayers. 
 
 The reminiscences of another day are all dark, and full of 
 mystery and phantasms. I entered the court of a Mussulman 
 house, descended by the light of a torch a steep and damp 
 staircase, and found myself under the vault of Kere-batan 
 Serai, the great cistern-basilica of Constantine, of which the vul- 
 gar believe that the real extent has never been known. The 
 greenish waters lose themselves under the black arches, touched 
 here and there by a livid ray of light that adds to the horror of 
 the darkness. The torch threw a red gleam upon the arches 
 near the door, and revealed dimly the dripping walls and the 
 confused groups of columns everywhere, like trunks of trees in 
 a thick forest. The fancy loses itself among those sepulchral 
 porticoes, hovering above the gloomy waters, while the dragoman 
 in a low voice tells the terrible tale of those who have ventured 
 to explore those subterranean solitudes in a boat, hoping to
 
 296 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 discover the extent of them, and how, after many hours, they 
 return desperately rowing, with hair on end, and faces transfig- 
 ured with horror, while the distant vaults echo with loud 
 laughter and demoniac noises : and of others who never came 
 
 O * 
 
 back, but ended, no one knows how, driven mad perhaps with 
 terror, or dead of hunger, or drawn into some unknown abyss 
 by the mysterious current, far from Stamboul, God alone knows 
 where. This lugubrious vision vanished suddenly in the broad 
 light of the square of the Et-Meidan, and a few minutes after I 
 was again underground among the two hundred pillars of the 
 dry cistern, called Bin-birdirck, where many Greek workmen 
 are weaving silk, lighted by some pallid rays that filter down 
 through the arches, and all singing in shrill voices, a warlike 
 ditty. Above my head I could hear the confused noise of a 
 caravan passing. Then once more the sunshine and the open 
 air, and again a descent into the bowels of the earth, more dark- 
 ness and columns and the faint sound of distant voices, and so 
 on until evening, a mysterious and pensive pilgrimage, after 
 which there remained before the eyes of my imagination a vast 
 subterranean lake, in which had sunk and vanished the metrop- 
 olis of the empire of the Greeks, and where Stamboul, smiling 
 and careless, would one day disappear in her turn. 
 
 The darkness gives place to -the splendid image of Scutari. 
 Scutari delighted me with her sudden changes of aspect as you 
 approach in a steamboat. From the Sea of Marmora she looks 
 like a big village spreading over a hill ; but seen from the 
 Golden Horn, she shows herself a city. As the steamboat 
 rounds the point of the Asiatic shore, Scutari seems to rise and 
 grow before you ; the hills crowned with buildings appear one
 
 LAST DAYS. 297 
 
 behind the other ; suburbs are seen in the valleys, villas smile 
 on the heights ; the enormous city has a theatrical air of pomp 
 and reveals herself as if by the rising of a curtain. Another 
 day we took the tramway, and, seated between two tall black 
 eunuchs who had been detailed for our service, went to see the 
 palace of Ceragan, planted on the shore of the Bosphorus. I 
 remember the indefinable sentiment of curiosity and repulsion 
 that possessed me, as I looked out of the corner of my eye at 
 the eunuch next to me, who towered above me by a whole head, 
 and held his immense hands spread out upon his knees ; exhal- 
 ing all the time a powerful perfume of bergamot from his cour- 
 tier-like apparel. When we stopped, and I put my hand in my 
 pocket to get my .portemonnaie, one of those monstrous hands 
 seized me by the arm like an iron pincers, and his great black 
 eyes looked into mine, as if to say : " Christian, do not affront 
 me, or I will dislocate your bones !" We came to a small 
 arabesqued door, went through a long corridor, where a number 
 of servants in livery came to meet us, and exchanging our boots 
 for slippers, ascended a grand staircase that led to a royal hall. 
 There was no need to evoke the memories of the past, for the 
 air was yet warm with the presence of the court. The broad 
 divans covered with velvet and silk, that ran along the walls, 
 were the same where only a few days before the ladies of the 
 harem had been seated. A vague perfume of that soft and 
 luxurious existence still pervaded the place. We passed 
 through numerous rooms, decorated in a mixed European and 
 Moorish style, and with a certain superb simplicity that made 
 one lower one's voice. The eunuchs muttering some incompre- 
 hensible explanation, pointed out doors and corners, with ges- 
 '3*
 
 298 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 tures which seemed to indicate some mystery. Nothing how- 
 ever of all the splendor remains in my memory except the Sul- 
 tan's baths, made of whitest marble, sculptured with pendent 
 flowers and stalactites, and decorated with fringes and delicate 
 embroideries, that one feared to touch, so fragile did they seem. 
 The disposition of the rooms reminded me vaguely of the 
 Alhambra. Our steps made no sound upon the rich carpets 
 spread everywhere. Now and then, a eunuch pulled a cord, 
 and a green curtain rose and displayed the Bosphorus, Asia, a 
 thousand ships, a great light ; and then all vanished again, as 
 in a flash of lightning. The rooms seemed endless, and as each 
 door appeared we hastened our steps, but a profound silence 
 reigned in every part, and there was no vestige of any living 
 being, nor no rustle of garment, save the sound made by the 
 silken door curtains as they fell behind. At last we were weary 
 of that endless journey from one splendid empty room to 
 another, seeing ourselves reflected in great mirrors, with the 
 black faces of our guides, and the group of silent servants, and 
 were thankful to find ourselves again in the free air, in the 
 midst of the ragged, noisy denizens of Top-hane. 
 
 The necropolis of Eyub is not to be forgotten. We went 
 there one evening at sunset, and it remains in my memory as I 
 then saw it, illuminated by the last rays of the sun. A caique 
 brought us to the end of the Golden Horn and we ascended to 
 the " Holy land " of the Osmanle by a steep path bordered with 
 tombs. At that hour the place was deserted. We went onward 
 with circumspection, looking about us for the severe visage of 
 an imaum or a dervish, because the profane curiosity viz. giaour 
 is not tolerated in that place. But we saw neither conical hat
 
 LAST DA YS. 299 
 
 nor turban. With some trepidation we arrived at that mysteri- 
 ous mosque of Eyub, which we had so often seen from the hills 
 of the opposite shore, with its light and glittering minarets. In 
 the court, shaded by a great plane tree, is the mausoleum of 
 the famous standard-bearer of the Prophet, who died with the 
 first Mussulmans before Byzantium, and his body being found 
 eight centuries after by Mahomet the Conqueror, was by him 
 entombed in this place. The mosque is consecrated to him, and 
 here the Padishah comes to solemnly assume the sword of Oth- 
 man : for this is the most sacred of the mosques of Constanti- 
 nople, and the cemetery that surrounds it is the holiest of all 
 cemeteries. Sultans, viziers, and grandees of all ranks lie here, 
 their monuments surrounded with flowers, and splendid with 
 marbles and arabesques of gold, and pompous inscriptions. A 
 little apart is the mortuary temple of the muftis, surmounted by 
 a great octagon dome under which repose the high priests in 
 enormous black catafalques, with lofty muslin turbans upon them. 
 It is an aristocratic quarter of tombs, lying in proud silence, and 
 shaded by a multitude of branching acacias, oaks, and myrtles. 
 All this disappears, and I find myself walking through long 
 naked chambers, between two ranks of motionless figures, look- 
 ing like corpses nailed to the wall. The only similar impression 
 that I can recall was when I entered the last room of the 
 Tussaud exhibition in London, and saw the effigies of all the 
 most horrible assassins that had ever lived in England. A 
 museum of spectres, or rather an open sepulchre in which lay 
 the mummies of the most famous personages of old Turkey, 
 splendid, extravagant and ferocious, as they exist in the imagi- 
 nations of poets. There are hundreds of great wooden images,
 
 300 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 dressed in ancient costumes, erect, in rigid and haughty atti- 
 tudes, with staring eyes, and hands on their swords, as if they 
 awaited only a sign, to draw and fall on, as in the good old 
 time. First comes the household of the Padishah ; the grand 
 eunuch, the grand vizier, the mufti, chamberlains and grand 
 officials, their heads covered with turbans of every color and 
 form and size, pyramidal, spherical, square and prodigious, with 
 brocaded caftans richly embroidered, with tunics of white and 
 crimson silk, bound at the waist with cashmere shawls, and with 
 their breasts covered with gold and silver, and their girdles full 
 of jewelled weapons ; two long files of strange and splendid scare- 
 crows, admirably revealing the barbaric splendor and sumptu- 
 ousness of the antique Ottoman court. Then come the pages 
 who carry the Grand Signer's fur mantle, his turban, his foot- 
 stool, and his sword. Then guards of different kinds, white and 
 black eunuchs, like idols or magi, glittering and plumed, their 
 heads covered with Persian caps, metal helmets, and every kind 
 of strange head gear shaped like half- moons, cones and in- 
 verted pyramids ; and armed with steel rods, poniards, and 
 whips, a most truculent and ferocious band. Finally, the corps 
 of janissaries, with its holy patron, Emin-baba, worn to a skele- 
 ton, in a white tunic, and officials of all grades in the various 
 offices of the kitchen, and soldiers of every class, with all the 
 emblems and devices of that insolent army that Mahmoud's 
 grape-shot exterminated. The wildest imagination could form 
 no idea of the mad confusion of costumes of king, priest, and 
 brigand that make up a sort of ferocious pantomime (pagli- 
 acciata). The "water bearers," the "preparers of soup," the 
 "superior cooks," the "chiefs of the scullions," and soldiers
 
 LAST DAYS. 3OI 
 
 of different special functions succeed each other in endless file, 
 with brooms and spoons in their turbans, with bells attached to 
 their tunics, with the famous pots that gave the signal for re- 
 volt, with great tall caps of skin, and flowing mantles from neck 
 to heel, with wide girdles of carved metal, and gigantic sabres. 
 Last of all came the mutes of the Seraglio, with the silken bow- 
 string in their hands, and the dwarfs and buffoons in every va- 
 riety of hideous visage and grotesque hat. The great glass 
 cases which shut in all these figures, give to the place a certain 
 look as of an anatomical museum, that adds to their corpse-like 
 appearance. When you have reached the end you feel as if you 
 had passed through a room in the old Seraglio, and had seen 
 the whole court, frozen with terror at a look of menace from the 
 Padishah. To come out into the square of the Et-Meidan and 
 meet the PasMs in their black coats, and the nizams. modestly 
 dressed in zouave costume, is to be struck with the meekness and 
 harmlessness of the Turkey of our day. 
 
 A firman opened for us the mausoleum of Mahmoud the 
 Reformer, standing not far from the Et-Meidan in a garden of 
 roses and jasmine. It is a beautiful white marble temple, of 
 hexagon shape, with a dome sustained by Ionic pillars and 
 lighted by seven windows, each looking into one of the principal 
 streets of Stamboul. The interior walls are ornamented with 
 bas-reliefs and decorated with carpets of brocaded silk. In the 
 middle rises the sarcophagus covered with beautiful Persian 
 shawls ; and upon it is a fez, emblem of reform, with its erect 
 plume sparkling with diamonds. Around the sarcophagus is a 
 graceful balustrade inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which encloses 
 four silver candelabra. The coffins of seven Sultanas stand
 
 302 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 along the walls. Rich mats and carpets of various colors cover 
 the floor. Here and there upon elegant lecterns sparkle pre- 
 cious Korans, written in letters of gold. In a silver casket 
 there is a long roll of muslin covered with minute Arabic char- 
 acters, traced by the hand of Mahmoud, when a prisoner in 
 the old Seraglio, before ascending the throne. He ordained 
 that this record of his youth, (a copy of the Koran) should be 
 preserved near his tomb. 
 
 Among the images of those days come the Dervishes ; and 
 the most famous of the thirty-two orders, the mevlevi, have a 
 notable tekke, in the street of Pera. I went prepared to see the 
 luminous visages of saints, rapt in visions of Paradise. But I 
 was under a great delusion. The famous divine fury of the 
 dance seemed to me only a theatrical representation. They 
 are certainly very curious to behold, as they enter the circular 
 mosque, one behind the other, wrapped in large brown cloaks, 
 their heads bent down, their arms concealed, accompanied by 
 barbaric music, monotonous and sweet, resembling the sound 
 of the wind in the cypresses of the cemeteries. And when they 
 whirl round, and bow themselves two by two before the Mirab, 
 their movement is so languid and majestic that you have a sud- 
 den doubt as to their sex. Also it is fine when they throw off 
 their mantles with a rapid gesture, and appearing in their long 
 white woollen tunics, open their arms and throw back their 
 heads, and one after the other begins to spin as if launched by 
 an invisible hand ; and when they spin all together in the mid- 
 dle of the mosque, white, light, and rapid, with flying garments 
 and half-closed eyes, and when they fall upon the pavement as 
 if all struck down at once by some superhuman apparition,
 
 LAST DAYS. 303 
 
 with a great cry of Allah, and when they begin again, bowing 
 and kissing their hands, and moving round about the mosque 
 in a sort of grave and graceful half walk, half dance. But the 
 ecstasy, the transfigured and rapt faces, that so many travellers 
 see, I did not see. I saw only a number of agile and indefat- 
 igable dancers going through their business with supreme indif- 
 ference. I saw suppressed laughter ; and one young dervish 
 exceedingly well-pleased at being stared at fixedly by an Eng- 
 lish lady ; and I caught several of them in the act of biting 
 when they should have kissed their neighbor's hand, who in his 
 turn retorted with a pinch. Oh ! the hypocrites ! What I did 
 see among those men, and they were of all ages and aspects 
 was a grace and elegance of movement that might well be en- 
 vied by some of our drawing-room dancers ; and which is cer- 
 tainly a natural gift of the Oriental races, due to the structure 
 of their bodies. I observed it still more one day when we 
 were able to penetrate into a cell of the tekke, and see a der- 
 vish in the act of dressing for his functions. He was a tall, 
 slender, beardless youth, with a girlish face. He drew in the 
 girdle of his white petticoat, looking at himself in the glass, 
 and turning to smile at us; he measured his waist with his 
 hands, arranging himself in all haste, but with care and with 
 an artistic eye, and seeing to every part of his dress, like a lady 
 giving the last touches to her costume. Seen from behind, 
 he was not unlike a girl dressing for a ball and he was a 
 monk ! "
 
 304 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE TURKS. 
 
 Now, before going on board of the Austrian steamer that 
 lies in the Golden Horn ready to leave for the Black Sea, it is 
 incumbent upon me to set down modestly, as from a poor trav- 
 eller's point of view, some general observations that will respond 
 to the question : "What did you think of the Turks?" Ob- 
 servations, for the rest, spontaneous, and free from any consider- 
 ations of recent events, gathered up here and there in my rec- 
 ollections of those days. At those words : "What did you 
 think of the Turks ?" the impression produced in me by the first 
 aspect of the male population of Stamboul, revives at once. 
 Taking no count of the physical differences, it is an impression 
 quite different from that produced by the people of any other 
 country in Europe. One seems to be looking at a people I do 
 not know how better to render my idea who are all perpetually 
 thinking of the same thing. The same impression may be pro- 
 duced on the mind of an inhabitant of Southern Europe, at the 
 sight of a people of the north ; but there is a difference. These 
 last have the serious and self-contained expression of persons 
 occupied about their own affairs ; but the Turks have the aspect 
 of people who are thinking about some remote and indeterminate 
 thing. They look like philosophers all bent upon one thesis, 
 or somnambulists, walking about unconscious of the place they 
 are in, or the objects about them. They have a look in their
 
 THE TURKS. 305 
 
 eyes as if they were contemplating a distant horizon ; and a 
 vague sadness hovers round the mouth, like people accustomed 
 to live much alone, and shut up within themselves. All have 
 the same gravity, the same composed manner, the same reserve 
 of language, the same look and gesture. From the Pasha to 
 the shopkeeper, all are endowed with a certain dignified and 
 aristocratic air, so that at first sight, and without the distinc- 
 tions of dress, you would fancy there was no such thing as a 
 plebeian in Constantinople. Their faces are cold, revealing 
 nothing of their mind or thought. It is exceedingly rare to find 
 among them one of those clear, open, expressive, and mobile 
 visages that are so common among us. Every face is an 
 enigma ; their glance questions but makes no response ; their 
 lips betray no movement of the heart. It is impossible to ex- 
 press the deadening weight upon the stranger's soul produced 
 by those mute, cold masks, those statuesque attitudes, those 
 fixed eyes that say nothing. Sometimes you feel an almost irre- 
 sistible impulse to shout out in the midst of them : ' Come, 
 more like other men for once ! tell us who you are, what you are 
 thinking of, and what you see in the air before you, with those 
 glassy eyes !" It is all so strange, that you doubt its being 
 natural, and imagine for a moment that it is the result of some 
 agreement among themselves, or the passing effect of some 
 malady common to the Mussulmans of Stamboul. There is 
 however, a notable difference in the aspect of certain of the 
 population, in spite of the similarity of dress and manner. The 
 original type of the Turkish race, which is robust and hand- 
 some, is now only to be found among the lower orders of the 
 people, who by necessity, or from religious feeling, copy theic
 
 306 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 forefathers in sobriety of life. Among them may still be seen 
 the vigorous body, well formed head, aquiline nose, brilliant 
 eyes, and prominent jaw, and a something strong and bold in 
 the whole person, that once distinguished the race. The Turks 
 of the higher classes however, in whom old corruption, and a 
 mingling of foreign blood have worked, have small heads, low 
 foreheads, dull eyes, pendent lips, and bodies gross and corpu- 
 lent. And to these physical differences may be added the still 
 greater moral ones that exist between the real Turk of the an- 
 tique race, and that ambiguous, colorless, inexpressive being 
 called the reformed Turk. Thus it is difficult to study the 
 Turkish people, since on one side, there is no possibility of 
 mixing with or understanding them, and on the other, where 
 there are facilities of observation and commerce, they represent 
 neither the nature nor the idea of the nation. But even corrup- 
 tion and the new tint of European civilization have not sufficed 
 to take away from the Turks of the upper classes that austere 
 and vague melancholy of demeanor, which is seen among the 
 people, and which produces an undeniably favorable impression. 
 Judging from appearances only, the Turkish inhabitants of Con- 
 stantinople are the most civilized and polite people in Europe. 
 In the most solitary of the streets of Stamboul, the stranger may 
 wander unmolested ; he may visit the mosques, even during 
 prayer time, with much more security of meeting with respect, 
 than a Turk would have in our churches ; in the crowd, one 
 encounters no insolent look or word, nor even one of curiosity; 
 laughter is rare, and noise and disturbance among the people 
 very rare ; there is no public indecency of any kind ; the mar- 
 ket is but a shade less dignified than the mosque ; everywhere
 
 THE TURKS. 3O/ 
 
 a great sobriety of words and gestures ; no songs, no clamorous 
 voices, nothing to disturb the quiet passenger ; faces, hands and 
 feet quite clean, ragged or dirty garments are extremely rare; a 
 universal and reciprocal manifestation of respect among all 
 classes. But fhis is only on the surface. The rottenness is 
 concealed. The corruption is dissimulated by the separation 
 of the two sexes, idleness is hidden under tranquillity, dignity 
 is the mask of pride, the composed gravity of countenance, 
 which resembles thoughtfulness, conceals the mortal inertia of 
 the intellect, and that which seems temperance of life is nothing 
 but an absence of life in its true sense. 
 
 The nature, the philosophy, the entire existence of this peo- 
 ple is signified by a particular condition of the mind and body 
 which is called kief, and which is their supreme happiness. To 
 have eaten sparely, to have drunk a cup of pure water, to have 
 prayed, to feel the flesh in repose and the conscience tranquil, 
 and to be somewhere whence can be seen a vast horizon, under 
 the shade of a tree, following with the eye the flight of doves 
 from a neighboring cemetery, distant sails of vessels, the hum 
 of insects, the clouds of heaven, and the smoke of the narghile, 
 vaguely ruminating upon God, on death, on the vanity of earthly 
 things, and the sweetness of eternal rest ; this is kief. To be a 
 quiet spectator on the great world's theatre ; this is the Turk's 
 highest aspiration. To this he is led by his ancient condition 
 of shepherd, contemplative and slow, by his religion which ties 
 his hands, leaving all things to God, by his traditions as a 
 soldier of Islam, which teach him that there is no greater or 
 more necessary act than that of fighting and conquering for his 
 faith, and the battle over, every d.uty is fulfilled. All is fatal-
 
 308 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 ity for him ; man is only an instrument in the hands of Provi- 
 dence ; it is useless for him to try and direct human affairs, 
 which are already foreordained in heaven ; earth is only a great 
 caravanserai ; God created man to pass through it praying and 
 admiring His works ; leave all things to Him ; let that which is 
 to befall, befall, and that which is to pass, let it pass ; we will 
 not move either to renew, or to preserve. Thus his one 
 supreme desire is tranquillity, and he takes care to shield him- 
 self from all and every commotion that might disturb the placid 
 harmony of his existence. Consequently, there is neither thirst 
 for knowledge, nor fever of gain, nor desire for travel, nor unap- 
 peasable passion of love or ambition. The absence of so many 
 intellectual and physical needs, to satisfy which we labor con- 
 tinually, makes the Turk unable to comprehend our reasons for 
 labor. He considers it as an indication of a morbid aberration 
 of mind in us. The ultimate scope of every fatigue being to 
 him necessarily the attainment of that tranquillity which he 
 seeks as the highest good, he thinks it wiser and better to reach 
 it by the shortest way, and the intellectual and manual labor of 
 the European races are to him only childish puerilities, in no 
 way affecting or increasing his ideal felicity. Not working, he 
 has no sense of the value of time, and therefore he neither 
 understands nor desires those inventions of human genius to 
 shorten time and space. He is capable of asking what is the 
 use of a railway, unless it lead to a city where you can be hap- 
 pier than you are in this one. His fatalism, which considers a 
 thought of the future as a vain thing, makes him prize nothing 
 that does not contribute to his immediate enjoyment. Thus, the 
 European, who forecasts and foresees, who lays the foundations
 
 THE TURKS. 309 
 
 of a building whose completion he can not witness, consuming 
 his strength, and sacrificing his peace, is an idle dreamer, be- 
 longing to a frivolous, mean, presumptuous, and bastard race, 
 who aims at things which he, the Turk, disdains, unless, indeed 
 he is constrained to value them, or go under. And he despises 
 us. This appears to me to be the dominant sentiment which 
 we Europeans inspire in the true Turk, who still constitutes the 
 majority of the nation. 
 
 This feeling of contempt comes from various causes, the 
 first of which is a very significant fact : viz that for more than 
 four centuries, although relatively small in numbers, they have 
 held dominion over a large part of Europe holding a different 
 faith to their own, and that they maintain it, despite of what 
 may happen or has happened.* The smaller half of the nation 
 sees the reason of this in the jealousies and discords of the 
 European states ; the larger part sees it in the superiority of 
 their strength, and in our own debasement. It never enters 
 into the mind of any Turk of the lower orders that Turkey in 
 Europe could ever be subjected to the affront of a Christian 
 conquest from the Dardanelles to the Danube. To our vault 
 of civilization they oppose the fact of domination. Proud by 
 nature, and fortified in their pride by the customs of the Em- 
 pire, accustomed to hear, in the name of God, that they belong 
 to a victorious race, born to the arts of war, and not to those 
 of peace, in the habit also of living upon the labors of the con- 
 quered, they cannot comprehend how a people subject to their 
 sway can have any rights whatever to civil equality. For them, 
 possessed of a blind faith in the reign of a sensible Providence, 
 * Written before 1878.
 
 3 1 CONS TANTINOPLE. 
 
 their conquests in Europe were the fulfilment of God's decree. 
 God himself, in sign of favor, invested them with this terrestrial 
 sovereignty ; and the fact that they preserve it, in the teeth of 
 so many hostile forces, is an incontestible proof of their divine 
 right, and at the same time a luminous argument in favor of the 
 truth of their religion. 
 
 Against this sentiment all arguments of civilization, rights, 
 and equality are useless. Civilization for them is only a hostile 
 force, that would disarm them without fighting, and little by 
 little, would treacherously debase them to an equality with their 
 subject races, and despoil them of their domination. Thus, 
 they not only despise it as a vain thing, but they fear it as an 
 enemy ; and as they may not subdue it by force, they oppose it 
 with the invincible resistance of their inertia. To transform 
 themselves, to be civilized, to raise their subjects to equal 
 rights, is for them to enter into competition with those who 
 labor and study ; to acquire a new superiority ; to make again 
 by force of mind the conquest already made with the sword ; 
 and to this are opposed, not only their material interests as the 
 dominating race, but their religious disdain for the infidel, their 
 pride as soldiers, their indolence becomes a second nature, the 
 character of their genius, which lacks every quality of imitation, 
 and their five traditional ideas, which form the whole intellec- 
 tual patrimony of the nation. Also according to the one ex- 
 ample that they have before them in the reformers of their 
 nation, who wear coats and gloves, and are supposed to accept 
 European ideas, the new Turk is not worth the old Turk. He 
 has adopted our clothes, our conveniences, our vices and our 
 vanities, but he has not assimilated either our sentiments or
 
 THE TURKS. 311 
 
 our ideas ; he has lost, in his partial transformation, what was 
 good in the genuine Ottoman nature, and has acquired nothing 
 to indemnify him from the European. To dress and to live 
 after this fashion, is, according to the conception of the old 
 Turk, to be civilized; and he in fact calls all those actions 
 which not only his conscience as a Mahometan, but his con- 
 science as an honest man condemns, doing, living, and thinking 
 like a Frank. He considers the so called " civilized " ones, 
 not as Mussulmans more advanced than others in the way of 
 amelioration-; but as persons fallen, ruined, something less 
 than apostates, and betrayers of the nation. He distrusts nov- 
 elty and rejects it utterly, if only because it comes to him from 
 that quarter whose fatal teachings he sees every day. Every 
 European innovation is for him an attempt against his char- 
 acter and against his interests. The government is revolu- 
 tionary, the people are conservative ; the seeds of new ideas fall 
 on hard, compact ground that refuses to fertilize them; the 
 hand that holds the sword waves it, but the blade turns in the 
 handle. 
 
 These are the reasons why the attempts at reform which 
 have been going on for fifty years have not yet penetrated the 
 first shell of the nation. The names have been changed but 
 the things remain. The little that has been done was effected 
 by violence, and the people attribute to this the growing auda- 
 city of the infidel, the corruption that is seated in the heart of 
 the empire, and all the national misfortunes. The organism, 
 the life, the traditions of the Turkish people are those of a vic- 
 torious army encamped in Europe ; it exercises the authority, 
 enjoys the privileges and feels the pride of such an army ; and
 
 3 1 2 CONS TA N TINOPLE. 
 
 like it, prefers a discipline of iron, its power over the vanquished 
 conceded, to a milder discipline which would enchain its will 
 as a conqueror. The hope that such a state of things, un- 
 changed for centuries, can change in a few years, is a dream. 
 The light vanguard of civilization may proceed as rapidly as it 
 will, but the bulk of the army, still weighted with its heavy 
 mediaeval armor, either moves not at all, or at a great distance 
 and with very slow steps. It must be remembered what things 
 of yesterday are the blind despotism, the janissaries, the 
 Seraglio garlanded with severed heads, the sentiment of the 
 invincibility of the Osmanli, the Christian raya considered and 
 treated as an inferior creature, the ambassadors of France kept 
 outside of the throne room, and there fed and clothed, in order 
 to symbolize the vile poverty of the infidel in presence of the 
 Grand Signor. But upon this argument, there is not, I think, 
 great disparity of opinion between the Europeans and the Turks 
 themselves. The disparity of judgment, and hence the difficulty 
 for a stranger to come to a proper conclusion, is in the estima- 
 tion of the native individual qualities of the Turk ; since if you 
 question the raya you will hear nothing but the rage of the op- 
 pressed against the oppressor ; and if you appeal to the free 
 European of the colonies, who has no reason either to hate or 
 fear the Turks, but on the contrary is in general content with 
 the actual state of things, you will obtain a possibly conscien- 
 tious but certainly excessively favorable opinion. The most of 
 them agree in pronouncing the Turks to be honest, frank, loyal, 
 and sincerely religious. But with regard to the religious sen- 
 timent, the preservation of which seems to be considered as a 
 great merit, it is to be noted, that their religion does not oppose
 
 THE TURKS. 313 
 
 itself either to their tendencies or to their interests ; it even 
 caresses their sensuality, justifies their laziness, and sanctifies 
 their domination ; they hold to it tenaciously, for they feel that 
 in its dogma lies their nationality, and in its faith their destiny. 
 With regard to their probity, many proofs are cited of individ- 
 ual facts such as might be paralleled among the most corrupt 
 European peoples. 
 
 But it must be considered that ostentation has no small 
 part in the probity which the Turk shows in his commerce with 
 Christians, since he will often do from pride what he would not 
 do from a simple conscientious impulse, and is unwilling to ap- 
 pear in any way less than persons to whom he holds himself 
 superior by race and moral value. So also are born from the 
 same conditions certain qualities, abstractly praiseworthy, such 
 as frankness, pride, dignity, which perhaps might not have been 
 preserved had the Turk been the oppressed instead of the op- 
 pressor. The sentiment of charity, however, can not be denied 
 him, which is the only balm for the infinite woes of a badly 
 ordered society, although it encourages indolence and multiplies 
 misery ; nor other sentiments which belong to a certain nobility 
 of spirit, such as gratitude for small benefits received, the cul- 
 tivation of the memory of the dead, hospitality and courtesy, 
 and kindness to animals. His feeling of the equality of all 
 social classes is also good ; and a certain severe moderation in 
 his character is undeniable, which transpires in the innumerable 
 proverbs full of wisdom and prudence ; a certain patriarchal 
 simplicity, and a vague tendency to solitude and melancholy, 
 which excludes vulgarity, or a baseness of soul. Nevertheless 
 all these qualities float, so to speak, on the surface, in the un-
 
 314 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 disturbed tranquillity of his ordinary life ; and below, sleeping 
 as it were, lie his violent Asiatic nature, his fanaticism, his fury 
 for war, his barbarian ferocity, which being stimulated, break 
 forth, and he becomes another man. There is a saying that 
 the Turk has a mild nature, when he is not cutting off heads. 
 The Tartar is sleeping within him. His native vigor is entire 
 within him, preserved by the very softness of his life, and only 
 used on supreme occasions. In him religious and warlike pas- 
 sion finds a field unspoiled by doubts, or by a rebellious spirit, 
 or by the shock of ideas; an instantaneously inflammable sub- 
 stance ; a blade forever sharpened, upon which is written the 
 names of God and Sultan. Social life has scarcely softened in 
 him the antique man of the steppe and cabin. Spiritually he 
 still lives in the city as he lived among his tribe, solitary with 
 his own thoughts. There is not, however, among them any- 
 thing like a social life. The existence of the two sexes recalls 
 the image of two parallel streams, never confounding their 
 waters, except here and there by subterranean conjunction. 
 The men gather together but have no real intimacy, no exchange 
 of thought; they draw near, but are not bound ; each prefers to 
 any expansion of his own mind, that which a great poet defines 
 as the "dull vegetation of ideas.'' Cur rapid and varied con- 
 versation, jesting, discussing, teaching, renewing, our necessity 
 for exchange of thought and feeling, in which the intelligence 
 is excited and the heart warmed, is scarcely known among 
 them. Their discourse is in general confined to material and 
 necessary things. Love is excluded, literature is the privilege 
 of few, science is a mere atom, politics is reduced to a question 
 of names, business occupies but a very small part of their day.
 
 THE TURKS. 315 
 
 The nature of their intelligence is contrary to abstract discus- 
 sions. They comprehend well only that which they see and 
 can touch ; their language furnishing proof of this, for when 
 they wish to express an abstraction, they must have recourse to 
 Persian or Arabic, or a European language. . . . 
 
 The Turk tolerates the Armenian, despises the Jew, hates 
 the Greek, and distrusts the Frank. He endures them all when 
 necessary, as a big animal endures a myriad of flies upon his 
 back, ready to make way with them as soon as they become 
 unendurable. He looks on while things are changed, ordered, 
 directed about him ; takes from the European what may be use- 
 ful to himself, accepts innovations whose material advantages 
 he recognizes as immediate ; hears without winking the lessons 
 of civilization that are given him ; changes laws and ceremonies, 
 allows himself to be improved, embellished, and made to wear 
 a mask ; but within he is immutably, invincibly the same.
 
 3T6 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. 
 
 WE had hardly gone on board of our vessel when a grey veil 
 seemed to spread itself over Constantinople, and upon it were 
 drawn the mountains of Moravia and Hungary, and the Alps of 
 lower Austria. It is always a rapid change of scene for those 
 who find on board their ship the faces and the accents of the 
 country for which they are bound. We are imprisoned in a 
 circle of German visages which make us feel before our time the 
 cold and tedium of the north. Our friends have left us ; we see 
 only three white handkerchiefs waving from a distant caique, in 
 front of the custom house, among a crowd of black boats. We 
 are at the same point where our Sicilian steamer lay on the clay 
 of our arrival. It is a lovely autumn evening, warm and splen- 
 did. Constantinople has never looked grander or more smiling. 
 For the last time we strive to fix in our memories the outlines 
 of her immense proportions, and the soft enchanting color that 
 surrounds her, making her like a visionary city, and once more 
 we gaze into the perspective of that wondrous Golden Horn, 
 which in a moment will be hidden from us. The vessel moves, 
 and everything changes place. Scutari advances, Stamboul 
 retires, Galata wheels round as if to see us depart. Adieu, O 
 Golden Horn ! A cloud of ships hides from us the suburb of 
 Kassim-Pasha, another cloud obliterates Eyub, another, the 
 sixth hill of Stamboul ; the fifth disappears, the fourth is hid-
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. 3 1/ 
 
 den, the third vanishes, the second is gone ; the hill of the 
 Seraglio alone remains, and thank heaven, \ve shall not lose 
 that for a while. We are steaming rapidly through the very 
 middle of the Bosphorus. The quarter of Top-hane, the 
 quarter of Funduclu are past ; the white carved facade of the 
 palace of Dolma-Bagtche, flies by ; and for the last time Scu- 
 tari extends her amphitheatre of hills, covered with gardens and 
 villas. Adieu, Constantinople ! great and beloved city, dream 
 of my childhood, aspiration of my yoiith, indelible memory of 
 my life ! Adieu, lovely and immortal queen of the East ! May 
 time change thy destiny, taking nothing from thy beauty, and 
 may my sons one day behold thee with the same fervor of 
 youthful enthusiasm with which I see and leave thee ! 
 
 The sadness of farewell, however, endures but for a moment, 
 because another Constantinople, more vast, more beautiful, more 
 gay than that left behind extends before us on the two loveliest 
 shores in the world. 
 
 The first village on the left, or European shore is Bescik-Tass ; 
 a large Turkish village at the foot of a hill, around a small port. 
 Behind opens a pretty valley ; the ancient valley of the Allori 
 di Stefano which runs towards Pera ; among the houses rises 
 a group of plane trees that shade the tomb of the famous cor- 
 sair Barbarossa ; a large cafe, crowded with people, projects out 
 over the water, sustained by a forest of piles ; the port is full 
 of boats and caiques ; the shore thronged with people, the hill 
 covered with vegetation, and the valley full of houses and gar- 
 dens. But it has not the look of a suburb of Constantinople. 
 There is already the air of gayety and grace proper to the villa- 
 ges on the Bosphorus. We have scarcely beheld it, when it is
 
 3 1 8 CON STAN TINOPLE. 
 
 gone, and we are passing the palace of Cheragan, or rather a 
 row of palaces built of white marble, simple and elegant, with 
 long files of pillars, crowned with terraces and balustrades, and 
 bordered by a living fringe of the white birds of the Bosphorus, 
 standing out in bold relief against the dark verdure of the hills. 
 While we try to catch Cheragan as it flits by, on the other side 
 the Asiatic shore is fleeting on unseen, with delicious villages, 
 pretty enough to buy and carry off like jewels. Thus vanishes 
 Kuzgundgiuk, tinted with all the colors of the iris, with its little 
 port, where tradition says that the heifer lo landed after having 
 swam across the Bosphorus to escape the gad-flies of Juno ; 
 Istanros with its beautiful mosque with two minarets passes ; 
 the imperial palace of Beylerbey appears and disappears, with 
 its conical and pyramidal roofs, and its walls of grey and yel- 
 low, looking odd and mysterious, like a convent of princesses ; 
 and then the village of Beylerbey, reflected in the water, with 
 Mount Bulgarlu rising behind ; and all these villages gathered 
 or scattered at the foot of green hills whose luxuriant vegetation 
 seems ready to cover them all over, are connected together by 
 garlands of villas and houses, and long files of trees running 
 along the shore, or coming down in zig-zags from the heights to 
 the sea, through gardens and fields of infinite shades of green. 
 There is nothing for it but to resign ourselves to see every- 
 thing at a glance, turning continually our heads from side to 
 side, with the regularity of automata. A little beyond Chera- 
 gan, is seen on the left, the large village of Orta-Kioi ; above 
 which the mosque of the Sultana Valide shows its shining dome, 
 and the graceful roofs of the palace of Riza-Pasha are seen, 
 with the white walls of the imperial kiosk of la Stella. Orta-
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. 319 
 
 Kioi is inhabited by numerous bankers, Armenian, Frank, and 
 Greek. As we passed, the steamboat from Constantinople was 
 just landing her passengers and taking in more who stood 
 waiting in a crowd upon the steps. There were Turkish and 
 European ladies, officers, monks, eunuchs, dandies, fezes, tur- 
 bans, stove pipe hats, and military kepis, all mingled together ; 
 a spectacle that may be seen at all the twenty landing places on 
 the Bosphorus, especially toward evening. Opposite Orta- 
 Kioi, on the Asiatic shore, stands the village of Cheugel, or the 
 anchor, from an old iron anchor found there by Mahomet the 
 Second ; and above it rises the white kiosk of fatal memory, from 
 which Murad the Fourth, gnawed by savage envy, ordered to 
 instant death the careless people who passed cheerfully singing 
 through the fields. Turning again towards Europe, we see the 
 pretty village and graceful port of Kuru-Chesme, the ancient 
 Anapolis, where Medea, disembarking with Jason, planted the 
 famous laurel ; and on the other side between two smiling vil- 
 lages, an immense parrack, like a palace, mirrored in the water. 
 Behind these buildings is a hill crowned with gardens on which, 
 almost hidden by trees, is the white kiosk where Soliman the 
 Great lived three years in hiding, concealed in a small tower 
 from the spies and executioners of his father Selim. But it is 
 impossible to see them all ; one village blots out another, and 
 while we look, glide by one after the other palaces of Sultans 
 and nobles, houses yellow, blue, and purple, seeming to float 
 upon the water, clothed with ivy and half hidden in shrubs and 
 trees, with latticed balconies suspended over the sea, and mar- 
 ble steps running down to it. It is a species of Grand Canal 
 in an immeasurable rural Venice.
 
 320 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 Looking back towards Constantinople, we still see dimly the 
 Seraglio hill and the enormous dome of Saint Sophia defined 
 upon the limpid golden sky. The scene about us changes. 
 We seem to be in a vast lake. A little bay opens to the right, 
 another to the left. On the European side lies in a semicircle 
 the pretty Greek town of Bebek, shaded by large trees, and with 
 a fine ancient mosque, and an imperial kiosk where the Sultans 
 used to give secret audience to European ambassadors. One 
 portion of the town is quite hidden by trees ; the other is scat- 
 tered about the side of a hill covered with oaks, on the top of 
 which is a grove famous for a very potent echo which answers 
 to the trampling of one horse with the sound of a cavalry squad- 
 ron. It is a sweet and smiling landscape, but the Asiatic shore 
 at this point is a terrestrial paradise. On a broad promontory 
 arching out into the sea stands Kandilli, many colored as a 
 Dutch village, with a white mosque, and a gay cortege of villas. 
 Behind it rises the hill of Igiadie, surmounted by a battlemented 
 tower whence watch is kept for fires along the shore. To the 
 right and left of Kandilli two valleys open to the sea ; the val- 
 leys of the great and small " celestial streams," between which 
 extend the beautiful fields of the Sweet Waters of Asia, shaded 
 with sycamores, oaks and plane trees, and overlooked by the 
 splendid kiosk of the mother of Abdul Medjid, surrounded by 
 rose gardens. Beyond the larger of the "celestial streams," 
 upon a height, stand the slender towers of the castle of Bajazet- 
 Ilderim, confronting the castle of Mahomet Second, on the op- 
 posite shore. All this beautiful part of the Bosphorus was at 
 that moment full of life and color. Hundreds of boats, sailing 
 vessels, and steamers were passing to and fro ; Turkish fisher-
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. $21 
 
 men were casting their nets, from a sort of airy cages, sustained 
 upon the water by crossed beams of wood ; on one side a steam- 
 boat from Constantinople was landing a motley crowd of gayly 
 dressed people, and on the other could be discerned groups of 
 Turkish ladies and children seated under the trees and beside 
 the stream of the Sweet Waters. It looked like a brilliant fes- 
 tival, and had an air of Acadia, that made me long to live and 
 die in the midst of this Mussulman beatitude. 
 
 But again the spectacle changes and all these fancies take 
 to flight. The Bosphorus now extends straight before us and 
 . has a vague resemblance to the Rhine, but always with the 
 rich warm color of the East. To the left a cemetery covered 
 with a forest of pines and cypresses, breaks the line of houses 
 until then unbroken, and on the side of the rocky hill of Her- 
 maion, rise the three great towers of Rumili-Hissar, the Castle 
 of Europe, encircled by battlemented walls and smaller towers, 
 that descend in picturesque ruin to the water side. This is the 
 fortress that was built by Mahomet Second in the year before 
 the conquest of Constantinople, in spite of the remonstrances 
 of Constantine, whose ambassadors were driven back with 
 threats of death. Here the current is most impetuous, (called 
 by the Greeks "great current," and by the Turks, "current of 
 Satan.") And the two shores are not more than five hundred 
 yards apart. It was here that Mendocles of Samos threw his 
 bridge of boats across, over which the seven hundred thousand 
 soldiers of Darius passed, and here also are supposed to have 
 passed the ten thousand returning from Asia. But there is no 
 trace left either of the two columns of Mendocles, or of the 
 throne, cut in the rock from which the Persian monarch watched 
 14*
 
 322 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 the passage of his army. A little Turkish village is shyly 
 perched at the feet of the castle, and the Asiatic shore recedes 
 ever greener and gayer, with a constant succession of gardens, 
 villas, and palaces. The steamer approaches now one now the 
 other shore, and then details of the landscape can be seen more 
 clearly: here the vestibule of the selamlik of some rich Turk's 
 house, opening upon the sea, in which a stout major domo is 
 smoking stretched at ease on a divan ; there a eunuch is assist- 
 ing two veiled ladies to step into their caique from the marble 
 steps of a villa ; further on a small garden surrounded by a 
 hedge, and almost entirely covered by the branches of one great 
 plane tree, at the foot of which sits cross-legged a white-bearded 
 Turk, meditating upon the Koran ; families grouped upon their 
 terraces ; flocks of sheep and goats feeding in the fields above ; 
 horsemen galloping along the shore and camels passing over 
 the hills, with their strange figures outlined against the sky. 
 
 Suddenly the Bosphorus widens, the scene changes, we are 
 again in a vast lake between two bays. To the left lies the 
 Greek town of Istenia ; called Sosthenios from the temple and 
 winged statue erected there by the Argonauts, in honor of the 
 tutelary genius, who had made them victorious in their struggle 
 against Amico, king of Bebrice. Opposite Istenia on the Asi- 
 atic side, the Turkish village of Chibulkii shows itself among 
 the trees, and here was once the renowned convent of the 
 Digili, or -watchers, who prayed and sang without cessation 
 night and day. The shores of the Bosphorus are full of the 
 memory of these cenobites and fanatical anchorites of the fif- 
 teenth century, who wandered about the hills, bending under 
 the weight of chains and crosses, tormented by hair shirts and
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. 323 
 
 iron collars, or sitting for weeks and months motionless upon 
 the top of a column or a tree, while around them came, fasting, 
 praying, and prostrating themselves all ranks of people from 
 princes to beggars, invoking a benediction or a word of coun- 
 sel, as a favor from God. 
 
 ******* 
 
 But all the beauty that has gone before is as nothing when 
 we arrive before the Gulf of Buyukdere. Here is the supreme 
 majesty and crowning glory of the Bosphorus. Here whoever 
 has been weary of its loveliness and has irreverently expressed 
 that feeling, will now uncover his head and ask pardon. We 
 are in the middle of a vast lake surrounded with marvels, that 
 make one wish to spin round like a dervish on the prow of the 
 vessel in order to lose none of them. On the European shore, 
 upon the slopes of a hill covered with greenery and dotted with 
 innumerable villas, lies the city of Buyukdere, vast, and varied 
 in color like a bouquet of flowers. The town extends to the 
 right as far as a small bay, or gulf within a gulf, along the edge 
 of which lies the village of Kefele-Kioi, and behind this opens 
 a wide valley, all green with fields, and white with houses, 
 which leads to the great aqueduct of Mahmoud and the forest 
 of Belgrade. It is the same valley in which, according to tra- 
 dition, the army of the first Crusade encamped; and one of the 
 seven gigantic plane trees for which the place is famous, is 
 called the tree of Godfrey de Bouillon. 
 
 From this to Kefele-Kioi, opens another bay, and beyond 
 that is seen Terapia, lying at the foot of a dark green hill. 
 When the eye turns from this towards Asia, it is with a senti- 
 ment of amazement. There before it is the highest mountain
 
 324 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 of the Bosphorus, the Giant, in the form of an enormous green 
 pyramid, and upon it is the famous sepulchre known in three 
 different legends, as "the bed of Hercules," the "tomb of 
 Amico," and the "grave of Joshua, Judge of the Hebrews." 
 It is now in the custody of two dervishes, and is visited by in- 
 firm Mussulmans, who deposit fragments of their clothing upon 
 it. The mountain pushes its green and flowery slopes down to 
 the very shore, where between two promontories lies the lovely 
 bay of Umuryeri. Before us shines the Black Sea; and if we 
 turn towards Constantinople, we can still discern, beyond Te- 
 rapia, in the dim purple distance, the bay of Kalender, Kieni- 
 Kioi, Sultanie, like phantoms of some unreal world. The sun 
 nears the horizon ; the European shore begins to veil itself in 
 shadows of grey and azure; the shore of Asia is still golden, the 
 waters flash in the level rays; swarms of boats loaded with 
 husbands and lovers returning from Constantinople, approach 
 the shore, crossing other boats filled with ladies and children ; 
 from the cafes of Buyukdere come intermittent sounds of in- 
 strument and song ; eagles circle about the Giant mountain, 
 halcyons skim the water, dolphins dart about our vessel, the 
 fresh breeze from the Black Sea cools our cheeks. This is the 
 last vision. The ship steams out of the Gulf of Buyukdere. 
 We see on the left the village of Saryer surrounded by ceme- 
 teries, and having in front a small bay, formed by the antique 
 promontory of Simas, where stood the temple of Venus Mere- 
 trix, much worshipped by Greek sailors ; then the village of 
 Jeni-Makalle ; then the fort of Teli-Tabia, which confronts an- 
 other fort on the Asiatic side, at the foot of Giant mountain ; 
 then the castle of Rumuli-Cavak, the severe outline of its walls
 
 THE BOSPHORUS. . 325 
 
 drawn upon the rosy twilight sky. Opposite again is another 
 fortress, crowning the promontory, where once stood the tem- 
 ple of the twelve gods, built by the Argive Frygos, near that of 
 Jove, "distributor of propitious winds," founded by the Chalce- 
 donians, and converted by Justinian into a church consecrated to 
 the Archangel Michael. This is the point where the Bosphorus 
 narrows for the last time, between the last buttresses of the 
 mountains of Bythinia, and the extreme point of the chain of 
 the Hemus ; always considered as the first gate of the canal, to 
 be defended against northern invasion, and the theatre, conse- 
 quently, of obstinate struggles between Byzantine and barba- 
 rian, Venetian and Genoese. Two Genoese fortresses facing 
 one another between which an iron chain was thrown closing 
 the entrance, are still to be seen with their ruined walls and 
 towers. 
 
 From this point the Bosphorus goes widening to the sea ; 
 the shores are high and steep, like two enormous bastions, and 
 show only a few groups of mean houses, a solitary tower, the 
 ruins of a monastery, or the remains of some ancient mole. 
 After some time we can still see gleaming on the European side 
 the lights of the village of Buyuk-Liman, and on the other the 
 lantern of a fortress which dominates the promontory of' Ele- 
 phanta ; then, on the left, the great rocky mass of ancient 
 Gipopoli, where once stood the palace of Phineo, infested by 
 the Harpies ; and on the right the fortress of Cape Poiraz, like 
 a vague dark stain upon the greyish sky. Here the shores are 
 far apart ; the canal is already a gulf, the night descends, the 
 sea wind moans among the cordage of our ship, and the gloomy 
 Mar Cimmerium extends before us her livid and restless hori-
 
 326 CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 zon. But the imagination cannot yet detach itself from those 
 shores so full of poetic memories, is not yet satiated with the 
 beauty of nature ; it flies to the feet of the Balkans to seek the 
 tower of the exiled Ovid, and the marvellous wall of Anasta- 
 stius ; and wanders off over a vast volcanic land, across forests 
 invested by wild boars and jackals, and inhabited by a savage 
 and ill-omened race, in search of the fera litori Ponti. Two 
 fiery points like the eyes of two Cyclops break the darkness for 
 the last time ; the Anaduli-Fanar, or Asian light on one side, 
 the Rumili-Fanar, or European light on the other, below which 
 the fabulous Simplegades show vaguely for an instant the 
 tormented peoples. of their rocks. Then the two coasts are 
 only two dark lines, and then, quocumque adspicias, nihil est nisi 
 pontus et aer, as poor Ovid sang. 
 
 My beautiful dream of the Orient is no more. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE. By EDMUNDO DE AMICIS, author of "A Journey 
 through Holland," "Spain and the Spaniards," &c. Translated by 
 CAROLINE TILTON. With introduction by Prof. VINCENZO EOTTA. 
 Octavo, cloth. 
 
 A trustworthy and exceptionally vivid description of the city which, in the present 
 reopening of the Eastern question, is attracting more attention than any other in the 
 world. De Amicis is one of the strongest and most brilliant of the present generation of 
 Italian writers, and this latest work from his pen, as well from the picturesqueness of its 
 descriptions as for its skilful analysis of the traits and characteristics of the medley of 
 races represented in the Turkish capital, possesses an exceptional interest and value. 
 
 THE GREEKS OF TO-DAY. By Hon. CHARLES K. TUCKERMAN, 
 late Minister Resident of the U. S. at Athens. Third Edition. I2mo, 
 cloth $1.50 
 
 This work attracted special attention at the time of its publication, in 1872, as giving 
 a trustworthy and interesting picture of life in Greece, arid of the character and status of 
 the modern Greek. At this time, when public attention is so generally directed towards 
 the scheme of practically re-establishing a Greek empire and Greek supremacy in the 
 East, it is thought that a new edition will prove of interest and service. 
 
 '* The information contained in the volume is ample and various, and it cannot fail 
 to hold a high rank among the authorities on modern Greece." N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 "No one can read this book without having his interest greatly increased in this 
 brave, brilliant, and in every way remarkable people." N. Y. Times. 
 
 " We know of no book which so combines freshness and fullness of information." 
 N. Y. Nation. 
 
 ENGLAND ; POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. By AUGUSTE LAUGEL. 
 
 Translated by J. M. HART. I2mo, cloth $i-5O 
 
 "It is written with a tone of confidence and force of expression which captivate." 
 Buffalo Commercial. 
 
 " Affords a clear, distinct, and comprehensive view of the political institutions of 
 England." N. Y. Nation. 
 
 " Here, in every sense, is a charming book. * * * * So full of thought, that, 
 like the best of Macaulay's Essays, it will bear reading more than once. * * * * 
 We have rarely met with more picture-like descriptions of what seems to have dwelt most 
 upon his mind English landscape scenery and rural life." N. Y. World. 
 
 THE SILVER COUNTRY; or, THE GREAT SOUTHWEST. 
 
 A Review of the Mineral and other Wealth, with the attractions and 
 material development of the former kingdom of New Spain, comprising 
 Mexico and the territory ceded by Mexico to the United States in 1848 
 and 1853. By ALEXANDER D. ANDERSON. 8vo, cloth, with Hypso- 
 metric Map, $i-75 
 
 "Just at the present moment everything which affords reliable information on the 
 question of silver, its uses and production, is of almost paramount interest. " Washington 
 National Republican. 
 
 " A very useful book for those who wish to study the silver question in its funda- 
 mental feature." Chicago Journal. 
 
 " The book will unquestionably become the authority on the subject of which it 
 treats." St. Louis Republican.
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS have in preparation a series of volumes, to be 
 issued under the title of 
 
 CURRENT DISCUSSION, 
 
 A COLLECTION FROM THE CHIEF ENGLISH ESSAYS ON QUESTIONS 
 OF THE TIME. 
 
 The series will be edited by EDWARD L. BURLINGAME, and is designed to 
 bring together, for the convenience of readers and for a lasting place in the 
 library, those important and representative papers from recent English periodi- 
 cals, which may fairly be said to form the best history of the thought and in- 
 vestigation of the last few years. It is characteristic of recent thought and 
 science, that a much larger proportion than ever before of their most important 
 work has appeared in the form of contributions to reviews and magazines ; the 
 thinkers of the day submitting their results at once to the great public, which is 
 easiest reached in this way, and holding their discussions before a large audience, 
 rather than in the old form of monographs reaching the special student only. 
 As a consequence there are subjects of the deepest present and permanent in- 
 terest, almost all of whose literature exists only in the shape of detached papers, 
 individually so famous that their topics and opinions are in everybody's mouth 
 yet collectively only accessible, for re-reading and comparison, to those who 
 have carefully preserved them, or who are painstaking enough to study long 
 files of periodicals. 
 
 In so collecting these separate papers as to give the reader a fair if not 
 complete view of the discussions in which they form a part ; to make them 
 convenient for reference in the future progress of those discussions ; and especi- 
 ally to enable them to be preserved as an important part of the history of 
 modern thought, it is believed that this series will do a sen-ice that will be 
 widely appreciated. 
 
 Such papers naturally include three classes : those which by their originality 
 have recently led discussion into altogether new channels ; those which have 
 attracted deserved attention as powerful special pleas upon one side or the 
 other in great current questions ; and finally, purely critical and analytical dis- 
 sertations. The series will aim to include the best representatives of each of 
 these classes of expression.
 
 It is designed to arrange the essays included in the Series under such gen- 
 eral divisions as the following, to each of which one or more volumes will be 
 devoted : 
 
 INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY, 
 
 QUESTIONS OF BELIEF, 
 
 ECONOMICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, LITERARY TOPICS. 
 
 Among the material selected for the first volume (International Politics), 
 which will be issued immediately, are the following papers : 
 
 ARCHIBALD FORBES'S Essay on "THE RUSSIANS, TURKS, AND BUL- 
 GARIANS;" Vsct. STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE'S "TURKEY;" Mr. GLAD- 
 STONE'S "MONTENEGRO;" Professor GOLDWIN SMITH'S Paper on "THE 
 POLITICAL DESTINY OF CANADA," and his Essay called " THE SLAVEHOLDER 
 AND THE TURK ; " Professor BLACKIE'S " PRUSSIA IN THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
 TURY ;" EDWARD DICEY'S "FUTURE OF EGYPT;" Louis KOSSUTH'S 
 "WHAT is IN STORE FOR EUROPE;" and Professor FREEMAN'S "RELATION 
 OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE TO THE WAR." 
 
 Among the contents of the second volume (Questions of Belief), are : 
 
 The two well-known "MODERN SYMPOSIA;" the Discussion by Professor 
 HUXLEY, Mr. HUTTON, Sir J. F. STEPHEN, Lord SELBORNE, JAMES MARTIN- 
 EAU, FREDERIC HARRISON, the DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S, the DUKE OF ARGYLL, 
 and others, on " THE INFLUENCE UPON MORALITY OF A DECLINE IN A RE- 
 LIGIOUS BELIEF; " and the Discussion byHuxLEY, HUTTON, Lord BLATCHFORD, 
 the Hon. RODEN NOEL, Lord SELBORNE, Canon BARRY, GREG, the Rev. 
 BALDWIN BROWN, FREDERIC HARRISON, and others, on "THE SOUL AND 
 FUTURE LIFE. Also, Professor CALDERWOOD'S "ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE 
 DEVELOPMENT THEORY ;" Mr. G. H. LEWES'S Paper on "THE COURSE OF 
 MODERN THOUGHT;" THOMAS HUGHES on "THE CONDITION AND PROS- 
 SPECTS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND;" W. H. MALLOCK's " Is LlFE 
 WORTH LIVING ? " FREDERIC HARRISON'S " THE SOUL AND FUTURE LIFE ; " 
 and the Rev. R. F. LITTLEDALE'S "THE PANTHEISTIC FACTOR IN CHRISTIAN 
 THOUGHT." 
 
 The volumes will be printed in a handsome crown octavo form, and wil' 
 sell for about $i 50 each. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 182 Fifth Avenue, New York.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 FOR LIBRARIES, TEA CHERS, STUDENTS, AND FA MIL Y USE. 
 
 COMPREHENSIVE, COMPACT AND CONVENIENT 
 
 FOR REFERENCE. 
 
 THE HOME ENCYCLOPAEDIA 
 
 OF BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, LITERATURE, 
 CHRONOLOGY AND ESSENTIAL FACTS. 
 
 COMPRISED IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 Irioe in Cloth, $9 5O ; in naif Morocco, $1-4, 5O. 
 
 SOLD SEPARATELY OR TOGETHER. 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE WORLD'S PROGRESS 
 
 A Dictionary of Dates, being a Chronological and Alphabetical Record 
 of all Essential facts in the Progress of Society, from the beginning of 
 History to August, 1877. With Chronological Tables, Biographical Index, 
 and a Chart of History, 
 
 By G. P. PUTNAM, A.M. 
 
 Revised and continued by F. B. PERKINS. In one handsome octavo volume 
 of 1,000 pages, cloth extra, $4.50 ; half morocco, $7.00. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 ARABIAN. PERSIAN AND TURKISH. 
 
 AMERICAN. 
 HEATHEN DEITIES AND HEROES AND HER 
 
 OINES OF ANTIQUITY. 
 TABULAR VIEWS OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX, GENERAL. 
 
 THE SAME OF ARTISTS. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF PAINTING IN CHRONOLOGICAL 
 
 TABLES. 
 
 THE WORLD'S PROGRESS, 18671877. 
 THE SAME 1851 1867. 
 
 THE SAME FROM THE BEGINNING OF HIS- 
 TORY TO 1851. 
 
 UNITED STATES TREASURY STATISTICS. 
 LITERARY CHRONOLOGY, ARRANGED IN TA- 
 BLES: HEBREW, GREEK, LATIN AND 
 ITALIAN, BRITISH, GERMAN, FRENCH, 
 SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE, DUTCH, 
 SWEDISH, DANISH, POLISH. RUSSIAN, 
 "A more convenient labor-saving machine than this excellent compilation can 
 scarcely be found in any language." N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 " The largest amount of information in the smallest possible compass." Buffalo 
 Courier. 
 
 " The best manual of the kind in the English language." Boston Courier. 
 " Well-nigh indispensable to a very large portion of the community." N.Y. Cour- 
 ier &* Enquirer. 
 
 PA RT I I 
 
 THE CYCLOPAEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY 
 
 A RECORD OF THE LIVES OF EMINENT MEN 
 By PARKE GODWIN. 
 
 New edition, revised and continued to August, 1877. Octavo, containing 
 1200 pages, cloth, $5.00 ; half morocco, $7.50. 
 
 The Publishers claim for this work that it presents an admirable combination of 
 compactness and comprehensiveness. The previous editions have recommended them- 
 selves to the public favor, as well for the fulness of their lists of essential names, as for 
 the accuracy of the material given. The present edition will, it is believed, be found still 
 more satisfactory as to these points, ana possesses for American readers the special 
 advantage over similar English works, in the full proportion of space given to emi- 
 nent American names.
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 Standard Works of Reference, 
 
 PUTNAM (GEORGE PALMER) The World's Progress. A Diction- 
 ary of Dates. Being a Chronological and Alphabetical Record of the 
 essential facts in the progress of Society. With Tabular views of Uni- 
 versal History, Literary Chronology, Biographical Index, etc., etc. 
 From the Creation of the World to August, 1877. By GEORGE P 
 PUTNAM. Revised and continued by FREDERIC BEECHER PERKINS, 
 Octavo, containing about 1, 200 pages, half morocco, $7 oo ; cloth 
 extra, $4 50 
 
 ** The most comprehensive book of its size and price in the language. 
 
 " It is absolutey essential to the desk of every merchant, and the table of every 
 Student and professional man." Christian Inquirer. 
 
 " It is worth ten times its price. * * * It completely supplies my need." 
 S. W. PIEGART, Principal of High School^ Lancaster \ Pa. 
 
 44 A more convenient literary labor-saving machine than this excellent compila- 
 tion can scarcely be found in any language." N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 HAYDN. A Dictionary of Dates, relating t all Ages 
 and Nations, for Universal Reference. By BENJAMIN VIN- 
 CENT. The new (i5th) English edition. With an American Supple- 
 ment, containing about 200 additional pages, including American Topics 
 and a copious Biographical Index, by G. P. PUTNAM, A. M. Large 
 Octavo, 1,000 pages. Cloth $9 oo ; half russia . . . $12 oo 
 
 THE BEST READING. A classified bibliography for easy reference. 
 Edited by FREDERIC B. PERKINS. Fifteenth edition, revised, enlarged 
 and entirely re-written. Continued to August, 1876. Octavo, cloth, 
 
 $1^5; paper . $i 25 
 
 "The best work of the kind we have erer seen." College Courant. 
 
 " We know of no manual that can take its place as a guide to the selection of a 
 
 library." AT. Y. Independent. 
 
 PUTNAM'S LIBRARY COMPANION A quarterly summary, 
 giving priced and classified lists of the English and American publica- 
 tions of the past three months, with the addition of brief analyses or 
 characterizations of the more important works ; being a quarterly con- 
 tinuation of THE BEST READING. Published in April, July, October, 
 
 and January. Price to subscribers, socts., a year. Vol. I., boards, socts. 
 " We welcome the first number ot this little quarterly. It should prove invaluable 
 
 alike to librarians, to students, and to general readers." Boston Traveler. 
 
 JUKES (THE) A STUDY IN CRIME, PAUPERISM, DISEASE, AND 
 HEREDITY. By R. L. DUGDALE. Published for the "Prison As- 
 sociation of New York." Octavo, cloth . . . . $i 25 
 
 44 A work that will command the interest of the philanthropist and the social re- 
 former, aud deserves the attention of every citizen and taxpayer. N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 JERVIS (JOHN B.) Labor and Capital. A complete and compre- 
 hensive treatise by the veteran engineer, whose experience of more than 
 half a century has given him exceptional opportunities for arriving at a 
 practical understanding of the questions now at issue between employers 
 and employed. I2mo, cloth $i : 25 
 
 LINDERMAN (HENRY R., Director of the United States Mint) 
 Money and Legal Tender in the United States. 12 mo, 
 cloth i 25
 
 Just Published: 
 
 VCR REFERENCE, LIBRARIES, AND FAMILY UME, 
 
 THE LIBRARY ATLAS, 
 
 M t ' 
 
 Consisting of 100 Maps of Modern, Historical, and Classical 
 
 Geography, and 4 Astronomical Charts, with descriptive 
 
 Letter-press by Bryce, Collier, and Schmitz,' 
 
 and copious Indices, containing over 
 
 50,000 names. Large 8vo. 
 
 Half morocco, neat 1400 
 
 Half morocco, extra 16 00 
 
 A most exhaustive and comprehensive work of reference. 
 It gives, brought down to the latest date, all the information 
 and statistics to be found in the expensive and unwieldy 
 folio Atlases, while its convenient octavo shape, the beanty 
 and accuracy of its maps, which include Classical and His- 
 torical, as well as Modern Geography, its complete index, 
 which forms a Gazetteer by itself, and its moderate price, 
 rendei it especially adapted for college, school, and student 
 
 OM. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue, New York.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 <jjj$lA 
 
 : mm 
 
 
 
 Un: