the Seraglio Hill and the huge dome of St. Sophia rising darkly
against the gold and limpid background of the evening sky; meanwhile,
Arnaût-Keui, Vani, Kulehli, Chengel, Orta have all disappeared, and
our surroundings undergone an entire change. We now seem to be on an
immense lake; to right and left on either shore there opens a little
bay; around that on our left lies in a semicircle the pretty Greek town
of Bebek shaded by lofty trees, among which stand a fine old mosque and
the imperial kiosk of Humayun-Habad, where in former days the sultans
used to grant secret audiences to foreign ambassadors; on one side the
town is buried in the thick foliage of a little valley, on the other it
climbs the steep ascent of a hill covered with oak trees and crowned
by a grove famous for its echo, where the noise of a single horse’s
hoofs resounds like the tramp of a regiment. The view here would throw
a queen into raptures, and yet it is straight-way forgotten when we
turn to look at the opposite shore. There, indeed, it is a veritable
earthly paradise which is spread out before our eyes. Kandili,
variegated as a town of Holland, with its white mosque and train of
villas, describes a wide arc upon a bold promontory; behind it rises
the flowery hill of Igiadié, crowned by a battlemented tower where a
watchman is stationed to keep a lookout for any appearance of fire on
either shore. Two valleys open on the bay to the right of Kandili, and
quite close together, called respectively Big and Little _Blue River_,
and between them are the charming grounds of the Sweet Waters of Asia,
planted with sycamore, oak, and plane trees, above which stands the
magnificent kiosk erected by the mother of Abdul-Mejid in the style
of the Dolmabâghcheh palace, surrounded by its gardens all red with
roses. Beyond the “Large Blue River” may be seen the brilliant colors
of Anadoli Hissar, built upon the side of a hill upon whose summit rise
the graceful towers of the Bayezid Ilderim, which exactly faces the
castle of Muhammad II. on the opposite shore.
At that hour this enchanting part of the Bosphorus is full of life
and movement; hundreds of little boats cover the bays and inlets of
the European shore; steamers and sailing vessels pass, bound for the
harbor of Bebek; Turkish fishermen busy themselves with their nets
suspended over the water from lofty poles and cross-beams; a throng
of passengers disembark from the Constantinople boat upon the stairs
of the European town--Greek gentlemen, Lazarists, students from the
American Protestant college, and family parties laden with shawls and
wraps. On the other side we can see with the aid of the glass parties
of Mussulman ladies walking about beneath the trees of the Sweet Waters
or seated in little groups on the banks of the “Blue Water,” while
numberless käiks and small boats with awnings, filled with Turkish
men or women, come and go along the shore. It is all so festive, so
Arcadian, so irresistibly charming, that I feel as though I must fling
myself overboard, and, swimming to one or the other of the two banks,
plant myself there with the fixed determination, come what may, to
live and die in the midst of that Mussulman paradise. All at once,
with a new change of scene, such ideas take flight: the Bosphorus now
stretches away directly ahead of us, with something of the look of the
Rhine, only it is a modified, softened Rhine, decked with the gorgeous
and varied coloring of the Orient. On the left a cemetery shaded by
groves of cypresses and pines forms the first break in the hitherto
uninterrupted chain of villages, and immediately after it, on the rocky
sides of Mount Hermæon, rise the three large towers of Rumili Hissar,
the Castle of Europe, surrounded by battlemented walls and lesser
towers, covering the incline to the water’s edge with picturesque
ruins. This is the renowned fortress erected by Muhammad II. a year
before the conquest of Constantinople in defiance of the indignant
remonstrances of Constantine, whose envoys, as every one knows, were
sent back threatened with death by way of reply. This is the narrowest
part of the Bosphorus, it being here only eight hundred and ten yards
wide, and the current is consequently so swift that it has obtained the
name of the “Great Current” from the Greeks and the “Devil’s Current”
from the Turks. It was here that Mandrokles of Samos constructed
the bridge of boats across which Darius conducted his seven hundred
thousand soldiers, and, as it is supposed, that the “Ten Thousand”
crossed on their return from Asia; but no trace can now be found either
of the two pillars of Mandrokles nor of the rock-hewn throne of Mount
Hermæon from whence the Persian king watched the passage of his army.
A little Turkish village nestles at the foot of the castle, and the
Asiatic shore stretches away in the distance, ever greener and more
picturesque. There is an unbroken succession of boat-landings, little
houses, gardens, tiny valleys overflowing with vegetation, small inlets
across which the limbs of the gigantic trees which line their banks
nearly meet, while beneath white-sailed fishing-boats pass slowly along
on the placid surface of the water, and charming pleasure-grounds, gay
with flowers, shelve gently down to the shore, or terraced gardens
framed in verdure, while from the summits of the neighboring hills
gleam the white stones of little cemeteries.
[Illustration: Sweet Waters of Europe.]
Next Kaneijeh comes unexpectedly into view, its red houses covering
two rocky promontories on the Asiatic shore, against whose bases
the waves break with a musical sound, while above, the minarets of
its two charming mosques glisten among a dark mass of cypress trees
and umbrella pines. Along here the gardens rise one above the other
like terraces, and the villas recommence, among the latter being the
marvellously beautiful palace of the celebrated Fuad Pâsha, poet and
diplomat, vain, voluptuous, and charming, who has been called the
Ottoman Lamartine. A little farther on we come to the pretty village of
Balta Limân, situated at the opening of a small valley on the European
shore, through which a narrow stream flows, emptying itself into
the harbor. Above rises a hill whose sides are covered with villas,
conspicuous among which is the ancient palace of Reshid Pâsha. Then
comes the bay of Emir Ghian Oghlu Bagche, whose waters look green from
the surrounding cypress trees, among which gleams, white as snow, a
solitary mosque surmounted by a great globe with golden rays. The boat
meanwhile approaches first one shore and then the other, close enough
for us to distinguish clearly all the little details of the landscape.
Now it is the vestibule of the _selamlik_ of a wealthy Turk, opening
on the water, in front of which a big majordomo is stretched upon
a divan smoking; then a eunuch who stands upon the lowest step of a
landing-stair assisting two veiled Turkish ladies into a käik; farther
on an old Turk is seated cross-legged, meditating upon the Koran, at
the foot of an immense plane tree, which shades a garden enclosed
between green hedges; family parties are assembled upon the terraces
of their country-houses; herds of sheep and goats feed upon high
pasture-lands; horsemen gallop along the shore, and strings of camels
pass across the brows of the hills, their strange, unfamiliar shapes
outlined against the clear sky.
All at once the Bosphorus widens out, and the aspect of everything
changes anew. Again we are between two bays, in the centre of a large
lake: that on the left is narrow and deep, and around it lies the
little Greek city of Stenia, formerly called Sosthenius from the temple
and winged statue placed there by the Argonauts in honor of their
tutelary genius, who had awarded them the victory in their encounter
with Amycus, king of Bebryces. Thanks to the inward course of the
steamer at this point, we are able to distinguish quite clearly the
cafés and small, closely-built houses along the shore, the villas
scattered about among their vineyards and olive trees, the valley
opening up from the harbor, the cascade which falls from a neighboring
height, and the celebrated Moorish fountain of pure white marble,
shaded by a group of huge maple trees, from whose branches fish-nets
are suspended above the groups of Greek women who pass back and forth
carrying amphora upon their heads. Opposite Stenia, on the bay in the
Asiatic coast, is the Turkish village of Chibûkli, where the famous
Monastery of the Sleepless once stood, whence prayer and praise
ascended to Heaven without interruption day and night. Both shores
of the Bosphorus from one sea to the other teem with associations
connected with those fanatical monks and anchorites of the fifth
century, who wandered over the hills and valleys laden with crosses
and chains, wore hair-cloth and iron collars, and remained immovable
for weeks and months at a time in the branches of a tree or upon the
summit of a column, while princes, magistrates, soldiers, and churchmen
prostrated themselves at their feet, fasting, praying, beating their
breasts, imploring advice or a blessing as though seeking a favor from
God.
The Bosphorus has, however, one striking characteristic, that of
drawing away the thoughts of the traveller who passes through it for
the first time, from the past to the present. All the associations,
dreams, fancies, memories awakened by familiarity with its history or
legends are put to flight, driven back by the extraordinary richness of
the vegetation, the pomp of color, exuberance of life, and magnificent
abandonment of nature, in which everything appears as though it
were wreathed in smiles and decked for a fête. It is even difficult
to realize that these same waters, these enchanting scenes, were the
witnesses of those furious sea-battles when Bulgarians and Goths,
Byzantines, Russians, and Turks fell upon one another, fought, bled,
and were vanquished or overcame in turn; the very fortresses which
frown from the heights fail to awaken a spark of that romantic horror
which such ruins always inspire when seen at other places; they seem
more like artificial adjuncts to the landscape than the stern and
actual records of a past which has seen them vomit fire and death. Over
all there hangs a veil of languor and quiescence which suggests no
thoughts other than dreams of idleness and an immense longing for peace.
Beyond Stenia the Bosphorus becomes still wider, and in a few moments
we are greeted with the finest of any of the views we have had up
to this time. Looking toward Europe, we see directly before us the
little Greek and Armenian city of Yeni, built upon the side of a
hill covered with vineyards and groves of pine trees, and extending
around in the shape of a bow above a rocky shore against which the
current sweeps with great violence; a little beyond is the beautiful
bay of Kalender, crowded with boats, surrounded by small houses with
gardens; and garlanded with luxuriant vegetation, while overhanging it
are the aërial terraces of an imperial kiosk. Turning to the other
shore, we find it curving in a large semicircle, above which rises
a hill, and in the natural amphitheatre thus formed are a number of
villages and harbors: Injir Keui--the Fig village--set in a circle of
gardens; Sultanieh, half hidden in a forest; and the large village of
Beikos, surrounded by kitchen-gardens and vineyards and shaded by tall
walnut trees, whose buildings are reflected in the waters of the most
beautiful gulf in the whole Bosphorus, the very spot on which the king
of Bebryces was defeated by Pollux, and where the enchanted laurel tree
stood whose branches caused all who touched them to become insane.
Some distance beyond Beikos may be seen Yali, the ancient village of
Amea, looking like a bunch of red and yellow flowers thrown down on a
great green carpet. All of this, however, is but the merest sketch of
that wonderful picture; to which must be added the indescribably soft
lines of those lovely hills, looking as though made to stroke with the
hand; the innumerable little nameless villages, which seem to have
been thrown in here and there as the artist had need of them; that
vegetation belonging to every climate; that architecture representing
every land; those terraced gardens and cascades of water; the dark
shadows, shining mosques, deep blue sea dotted with white sails, and
over all that sky flushed by the setting sun.
At this point, however, I was seized with that sensation of weariness
and satiety which at some part or other of the Bosphorus is pretty
sure to attack the traveller. The endless succession of soft lines and
brilliant colors becomes tiresome, the very monotony of its beauty
dulling one’s sense of enjoyment. You feel at last that it would
be a relief to come upon some huge, rugged, misshapen mass of rock
sticking out from the land, or even a long desert strip of coast,
wild, desolate, strewn with the fragments of a wreck. There is nothing
to do, then, but turn your attention to the water. The Bosphorus is
like an enormous port: we pass close beneath the shining guns of the
Ottoman men-of-war, through fleets of merchantmen from every country in
the world, with sails of all colors, queerly-shaped bows, and crowds
of foreign-looking men upon their decks; we meet and pass outlandish
craft from the Asiatic ports of the Black Sea; beautiful little sloops
belonging to the various embassies; gentlemen’s yachts shoot by like
arrows from the bow, taking part in races which are witnessed from
the shore by crowds of spectators; rowboats of every pattern, filled
with persons of all colors, push off from the shore or draw up at the
thousand landing-stairs of the two continents; käiks dart in and out
among long lines of barges, heavily laden with merchandise, towing
slowly up the stream; navy-launches flying flags from their sterns;
fishermen’s rafts; gilded käiks belonging to wealthy pashas; and
steamboats from Constantinople filled with turbans, fezzes, and veils,
which zigzag back and forth from one continent to the other in order
to touch at every landing. All these sights seem to revolve around
us as the steamer pursues its winding course; the promontories shift
their positions; the hills unexpectedly change their outlines; villages
glide out of sight, to suddenly reappear with an entirely new aspect;
and both in front and back of us the Bosphorus keeps altering its
character: now it is shut in like a big lake; now it opens out into a
long chain of smaller lakes, with hills in the distance; then suddenly
the hills close in again before and behind, and we are encircled by a
green basin from which there is no apparent outlet, but before there
is time to exchange more than half a dozen words with a neighbor the
basin has disappeared in its turn, and once again we find ourselves
surrounded by new heights, new towns, new harbors.
We are now between the two bays of Therapia--formerly Pharmakia,
from Medea’s poisons--and Hunkiar Iskelesi, or Landing-place of the
Sultan, where the famous treaty of 1833 was signed which closed the
Dardanelles to foreign fleets. At this spot the spectacle of the
Bosphorus reaches the penultimate stage of its beauty. Therapia is the
finest of the towns which grace its banks, after Buyukdereh, while the
valley which extends behind Hunkiar Iskelesi is the greenest, most
charming and romantic valley to be found from the Sea of Marmora to
the Black Sea. Therapia is built partly upon a level strip of shore
at the foot of a large hill, and partly around a deep bay, which
forms its harbor and is filled with small boats and shipping. Back of
it opens the narrow valley of Krio-nero, where more of the town is
squeezed in between the green sides of the hills. The shore is dotted
with picturesque-looking cafés extending out over the water, handsome
hotels, gay little houses, and groups of lofty trees which shade open
squares and marble fountains; back of these are the summer residences
of the French, Italian, and English ambassadors, and beyond these,
again, stands an imperial kiosk. All up the hillsides are terrace upon
terrace, garden upon garden, villa upon villa, grove upon grove; people
dressed in vivid colors crowd in and out of the cafés, stream over the
harbor and shore and up the paths leading to the tops of the hills,
just as though some great fête were in progress. The Asiatic shore, on
the contrary, is tranquillity itself. The little village of Hunkiar
Iskelesi, a favorite place of residence among the wealthy Armenians of
Constantinople, sleeps quietly among its plane and cypress trees and
about its diminutive harbor, on the bosom of whose waters a few boats
may be seen gliding peacefully along. High above the village, upon the
summit of a vast incline of terraced gardens, towers the solitary and
magnificent kiosk of Abdul-Aziz, beyond which, again, extends the
favorite valley of the pâdishahs half hidden under dense masses of
tropical vegetation and surrounded by a dreamy mystery.
All of this marvellous beauty, however, fades into nothing a mile
farther on, when, the steamer having arrived off the Bay of Buyukdereh,
we are confronted by the crowning, the supreme glory of the Bosphorus.
Here he who has become weary of its beauty, and possibly allowed
himself to give utterance to some irreverent criticism, is forced to
bow his head and humbly beg for pardon. We are in the centre of a large
lake, so surrounded and hemmed in by marvels of every description that
there seems nothing for it but to begin spinning around in the bow,
like dervishes, so as to see all the shore and all the hills at once.
On the European side, extending around a deep bay where the swift
current dies away in gentle little waves, and below a large hill whose
sides are dotted with innumerable villas, lies the town of Buyukdereh,
large, colored like a huge bed of flowers, and entirely composed of
small palaces, kiosks, and villas planted in the midst of a mass of
vegetation of the most vivid green imaginable, which seems to pour out
over the roofs and walls and overflow into the streets and squares.
To the right the town extends as far as an inlet like a smaller bay
in the large one, surrounded by the village of Kefeli; behind this a
wide valley opens, green with meadows and sprinkled with white houses,
following which one can reach the aqueduct of Mahmûd and the forest of
Belgrâd. Tradition says that the armies of the first Crusaders encamped
in this valley in 1096, and one of the seven gigantic plane trees
for which the spot is famous is called the plane tree of Godfrey de
Bouillon. Beyond Kefeli Keni is still another small bay, colored with
white and green reflections from the neighboring houses and trees, and
beyond this, again, Therapia is visible scattered along the base of her
dark-green hills.
Having allowed our gaze to wander thus far, we turn once more toward
Asia, and find with astonishment that we are opposite the loftiest
hill on the Bosphorus, the Giant’s Mountain, shaped like a huge green
pyramid, on whose summit is the celebrated grave to which three
separate legends have given the names, respectively, of “The Couch
of Hercules,” “The Grave of Amycus,” and “The Tomb of Joshua.” It is
now guarded by a couple of dervishes and visited by sick Mussulmans,
who carry thither the rags of their clothing according to a practice
in vogue among them. The forest-clad and vine-decked sides of the
mountain extend to the very water’s edge, where, between two bright
green promontories, lies the pretty bay of Umur Yeri, all streaked
with the hundred different colored reflections of a Mussulman village
on its shore, from which strings of villas and houses extend like
wings across the adjoining fields or like masses of flowers thrown
about at random. But the entire view is not confined to this body of
water: directly ahead of us glimmers the Black Sea, and looking back
toward Constantinople, we behold on the other side of Therapia, in the
dim purple distance, the bay of Kalender, Yeni Keui, Injir Keui, and
Sultanieh, looking far more like imaginary scenes from some dream-world
than actual towns and villages.
The sun is setting: a delicate veil of pale blue and gray begins to
fall over the European shore, but Asia is still bathed in golden
light; across the sparkling water numbers of boats filled with married
couples and lovers, excursionists from Constantinople, press toward
the European shore, meet and stop one another, and overtake others
filled with parents and children from the neighboring villas. Bursts of
music and song come from the cafés of Buyukdereh; eagles circle above
the summit of Giant’s Mountain, the white lights on the shore fly by,
kingfishers gleam through the water, dolphins swim about the ship, the
fresh wind of the Black Sea blows in our faces. Where are we? whither
are we bound? It is a moment of rapture, of intoxication, in which the
sights of the past two hours, both shores of the Bosphorus, all that we
have felt and seen, melt and blend together in one glowing, rapturous
vision of a single vast city ten times the size of Constantinople,
peopled by all the nations of the earth, visited by every blessing from
the Almighty, and given over to an endless series of feastings and
merrymakings, the contemplation of which fills one with despairing envy.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Black Sea.]
This is our last vision. The steamer issuing rapidly from the bay of
Buyukdereh, we see on our right a small inlet formed by the ancient
promontory of Simas, upon which rose the temple of Venus Meretricia,
for whom Greek sailors had an especial veneration; then comes the
village of Yeni Mahalleh; then the fort of Deli Tabia, facing another
small fort which is stationed on the opposite shore at the foot of
Giant’s Mountain; next is the castle of Rumili Kavak, whose rugged
outlines are clearly defined against the rosy sky tinged by the
setting sun. Opposite Rumili Kavak stands another fort, crowning the
point upon which rose the temple of the Twelve Gods erected by the
Argive Phrygos near to one dedicated to Jupiter, the “distributor of
favorable winds,” by the Chalcedons, and converted by Justinian into
the church of Michael the Archangel. Here the Bosphorus narrows in for
the last time between the outer spur of the Bithynian mountains and the
extreme point of the Hemus chain. This was always considered the first
place of importance in the strait to be defended from the north, and
consequently has been the scene of many hard-fought battles between
Byzantine and barbarian, Venetian, and Genoese fleets. Two ruined
towers can be made out indistinctly marking the sites of the Genoese
castles, which faced each other here, and between which an iron chain
was stretched to stop the passage of unfriendly fleets. From this point
the Bosphorus widens out to the sea, the banks grow high and steep
like two huge ramparts, bare apparently, save for occasional groups of
poor-looking houses, a solitary tower or two, the ruins of a monastery,
or remains of some ancient mole. After proceeding for some distance we
again see the gleaming lights of a village, Beuyük Limân, and opposite
it others shine from the fort which stands upon the promontory of the
Elephant. On our left is the great mass of rock called by the ancients
Gypopolis, upon which rose the palace of Phineas infested by the
Harpies, and on the right Poiras Point shows dim and indistinct against
the gray sky. The two shores are now far apart, and the strait seems
more like a wide gulf. Night is falling, and the sea-breeze whistles
through the rigging, while the broad surface of the melancholy _Mare
Cimmerium_ stretches away before us gray and restless; and still we are
unable to detach our minds from those wonderful scenes through which we
have just passed, so crowded with romantic and historical associations,
especially now, when our senses are no longer overpowered by the sight
of their natural beauties. In fancy we explore that left shore as far
as the foot of the Little Balkans, search for Ovid’s tower of exile
and the marvellous Anastasian Wall; then, crossing to Asia, wander over
a vast volcanic tract of land, through forests infested by wild boars
and jackals, amid the huts of a savage and cruel people, whose sinister
shadows we seem to see as they congregate upon the precipitous bank
invoking disaster for us on the _fera litora Ponti_. The darkness is
broken for the last time by two flaming points looking like the fiery
eyes of two Cyclops set to guard the approach to that enchanted strait;
they are Anadoli Fanar, the lighthouse on the Asiatic side, and Rumili
Fanar, at whose feet the rugged profile of the Symplegades can be dimly
discerned in the shadow of the banks. Then the coasts of Asia and
Europe are merely two black lines, and then, _Quocumque adspicias nihil
est nisi Pontus et aer_, as poor Ovid sang.