Mr. Churchill.--Commodore Porter.--Castle of the Seven Towers.--The
Sultan's Naval Architect.--Launch of the Great Ship.--Sultan
Mahmoud.--Jubilate.--A National Grievance.--Visit to a
Mosque.--The Burial-grounds.
THERE is a good chance for an enterprising Connecticut man to set up a
hotel in Constantinople. The reader will see that I have travelled with
my eyes open, and I trust this shrewd observation on entering the city
of the Caesars will be considered characteristic and American. Paul was
at home in Pera, and conducted us to the Hotel d'Italia, which was so
full that we could not get admission, and so vile a place that we were
not sorry for it. We then went to Madame Josephine's, a sort of private
boarding-house, but excellent of its kind. We found there a collection
of travellers, English, French, German, and Russian, and the dinner was
particularly social; but Dr. N. was so disgusted with the clatter of
foreign tongues, that he left the table with the first course, and swore
he would not stay there another day. We tried to persuade him. I
reminded him that there was an Englishman among them, but this only made
him worse; he hated an Englishman, and wondered how I, as an American,
could talk with one as I had with him. In short, he was resolved, and
had Paul running about every street in Pera looking for rooms.
Notwithstanding his impracticabilities as a traveller, I liked the
doctor, and determined to follow him, and before breakfast the next
morning we were installed in a suite of rooms in the third story of a
house opposite the old palace of the British ambassador.
For two or three days I was _hors du combat_, and put myself under the
hands of Dr. Zohrab, an Armenian, educated at Edinburgh, whom I
cordially recommend both for his kindness and medical skill. On going
out, one of my first visits was to my banker, Mr. Churchill, a gentleman
whose name has since rung throughout Europe, and who at one time seemed
likely to be the cause of plunging the whole civilized world into a war.
He was then living in Sedikuey, on the site of the ancient Chalcedon, in
Asia; and I have seldom been more shocked than by reading in a
newspaper, while in the lazaretto at Malta, that, having accidentally
shot a Turkish boy with a fowling-piece, he had been seized by the
Turks, and, in defiance of treaties, _bastinadoed_ till he was almost
dead. I had seen the infliction of that horrible punishment; and,
besides the physical pain, there was a sense of the indignity that
roused every feeling. I could well imagine the ferocious spirit with
which the Turks would stand around and see a Christian scourged. The
civilized world owes a deep debt of gratitude to the English government
for the uncompromising stand taken in this matter with the sultan, and
the firmness with which it insisted on, and obtained, the most ample
redress for Mr. Churchill, and atonement for the insult offered to all
Christendom in his person.
My companions and myself had received several invitations from Commodore
Porter, and, accompanied by Mr. Dwight, one of our American
missionaries, to whom I am under particular obligations for his
kindness, early in the morning we took a caique with three athletic
Turks, and, after a beautiful row, part of it from the seraglio point to
the Seven Towers, a distance of five miles, being close under the walls
of the city, in two hours reached the commodore's residence at St.
Stephano, twelve miles from Constantinople, on the borders of the Sea of
Marmora. The situation is beautiful, abounding in fruit-trees, among
which are some fig trees of the largest size; and the commodore was then
engaged in building a large addition to his house. It will be remembered
that Commodore Porter was the first envoy ever sent by the United
States' government to the Sublime Porte. He had formerly lived at
Buyukdere, on the Bosphorus, with the other members of the diplomatic
corps; but his salary as charge being inadequate to sustain a becoming
style, he had withdrawn to this place. I had never seen Commodore Porter
before. I afterward passed a month with him in the lazaretto at Malta,
and I trust he will not consider me presuming when I say that our
acquaintance ripened into friendship. He is entirely different from the
idea I had formed of him; small, dark, weather-beaten, much broken in
health, and remarkably mild and quiet in his manners. His eye is his
best feature, though even that does not indicate the desperate hardihood
of character which he has exhibited on so many occasions. Perhaps I
ought not to say so, but he seemed ill at ease in his position, and I
could not but think that he ought still to be standing in the front rank
of that service he so highly honoured. He spoke with great bitterness of
the Foxardo affair, and gave me an account of an interesting interview
between General Jackson and himself on his recall from South America.
General Jackson wished him to resume his rank in the navy, but he
answered that he would never accept service with men who had suspended
him for doing what, they said in their sentence of condemnation, was
done "to sustain the honour of the American flag."
At the primitive hour of one we sat down to a regular family dinner. We
were all Americans. The commodore's sister, who was living with him,
presided, and we looked out on the Sea of Marmora and talked of home. I
cannot describe the satisfaction of these meetings of Americans so far
from their own country. I have often experienced it most powerfully in
the houses of the missionaries in the East. Besides having, in many
instances, the same acquaintances, we had all the same habits and ways
of thinking; their articles of furniture were familiar to me, and there
was scarcely a house in which I did not find an article unknown except
among Americans, a Boston rocking-chair.
We talked over the subject of our difficulties with France, then under
discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, and I remember that Commodore
Porter was strong in the opinion that the bill paying the debt would
pass. Before rising from table, the commodore's janisary came down from
Constantinople, with papers and letters just arrived by the courier from
Paris. He told me that I should have the honour of breaking the seals,
and I took out the paper so well known all over Europe, "Galignani's
Messenger," and had the satisfaction of reading aloud, in confirmation
of the commodore's opinion, that the bill for paying the American claims
had passed the Chamber of Deputies by a large majority.
[Illustration: Castle of the Seven Towers.]
About four o'clock we embarked in our caique to return to Constantinople.
In an hour Mr. D. and I landed at the foot of the Seven Towers, and few
things in this ancient city interested me more than my walk around its
walls. We followed them the whole extent on the land side, from the Sea
of Marmora to the Golden Horn. They consist of a triple range, with five
gates, the principal of which is the Cannon Gate, through which Mohammed
II. made his triumphal entry into the Christian city. They have not been
repaired since the city fell into the hands of the Turks, and are the
same walls which procured for it the proud name of the "well-defended
city;" to a great extent, they are the same walls which the first
Constantine built and the last Constantine died in defending. Time has
laid his ruining hand upon them, and they are everywhere weak and
decaying, and would fall at once before the thunder of modern war. The
moat and fosse have alike lost their warlike character, and bloom and
blossom with the vine and fig tree. Beyond, hardly less interesting than
the venerable walls, and extending as far as the eye can reach, is one
continued burying-ground, with thousands and tens of thousands of
turbaned headstones, shaded by thick groves of the mourning cypress.
Opposite the Damascus Gate is an elevated enclosure, disconnected from
all around, containing five headstones in a row, over the bodies of Ali
Pacha, the rebel chief of Yanina, and his four sons. The fatal mark of
death by the bowstring is conspicuous on the tombs, as a warning to
rebels that they cannot escape the sure vengeance of the Porte. It was
toward the sunset of a beautiful evening, and all Stamboul was out among
the tombs. At dark we reached the Golden Horn, crossed over in a caique,
and in a few minutes were in Pera.
The next day I took a caique at Tophana, and went up to the shipyards at
the head of the Golden Horn to visit Mr. Rhodes, to whom I had a letter
from a friend in Smyrna. Mr. Rhodes is a native of Long Island, but from
his boyhood a resident of this city, and I take great pleasure in saying
that he is an honour to our state and country. The reader will remember
that, some years ago, Mr. Eckford, one of our most prominent citizens,
under a pressure of public and domestic calamities, left his native
city. He sailed from New-York in a beautiful corvette, its destination
unknown, and came to anchor under the walls of the seraglio in the
harbour of Constantinople. The sultan saw her, admired her, and bought
her; and I saw her "riding like a thing of life" on the waters of the
Golden Horn, a model of beauty.
The fame of his skill, and the beautiful specimen he carried out with
him, recommended Mr. Eckford to the sultan as a fit instrument to build
up the character of the Ottoman navy; and afterward, when his full value
became known, the sultan remarked of him that America must be a great
nation if she could spare from her service such a man. Had he lived,
even in the decline of life he would have made for himself a reputation
in that distant quarter of the globe equal to that he had left behind
him, and doubtless would have reaped the attendant pecuniary reward. Mr.
Rhodes went out as Mr. Eckford's foreman, and on his death the task of
completing his employer's work devolved on him. It could not have
fallen upon a better man. From a journeyman shipbuilder, all at once Mr.
Rhodes found himself brought into close relations with the seraskier
pacha, the reis effendi, the grand vizier, and the sultan himself; but
his good sense never deserted him. He was then preparing for the launch
of the great ship; the longest, as he said, and he knew the dimensions
of every ship that floated, in the world. I accompanied him over the
ship and through the yards, and it was with no small degree of interest
that I viewed a townsman, an entire stranger in the country, by his
skill alone standing at the head of the great naval establishment of the
sultan. He was dressed in a blue roundabout jacket, without whiskers or
mustache, and, except that he wore the tarbouch, was thorough American
in his appearance and manners, while his dragoman was constantly by his
side, communicating his orders to hundreds of mustached Turks, and in
the same breath he was talking with me of shipbuilders in New-York, and
people and things most familiar in our native city. Mr. Rhodes knows and
cares but little for things that do not immediately concern him; his
whole thoughts are of his business, and in that he possesses an ambition
and industry worthy of all praise. As an instance of his discretion,
particularly proper in the service of that suspicious and despotic
government, I may mention that, while standing near the ship and
remarking a piece of cloth stretched across her stern, I asked him her
name, and he told me he did not know; that it was painted on her stern,
and his dragoman knew, but he had never looked under, that he might not
be able to answer when asked. I have seldom met a countryman abroad with
whom I was more pleased, and at parting he put himself on a pinnacle in
my estimation by telling me that, if I came to the yard the next day at
one, I would see the sultan! There was no man living whom I had a
greater curiosity to see. At twelve o'clock I was at the yard, but the
sultan did not come. I went again, and his highness had come two hours
before the time; had accompanied Mr. Rhodes over the ship, and left the
yard less than five minutes before my arrival; his caique was still
lying at the little dock, his attendants were carrying trays of
refreshments to a shooting-ground in the rear, and two black eunuchs
belonging to the seraglio, handsomely dressed in long black cloaks of
fine pelisse cloth, with gold-headed canes and rings on their fingers,
were still lingering about the ship, their effeminate faces and musical
voices at once betraying their neutral character.
The next was the day of the launch; and early in the morning, in the
suite of Commodore Porter, I went on board an old steamer provided by
the sultan expressly for the use of Mr. Rhodes's American friends. The
waters of the Golden Horn were already covered; thousands of caiques,
with their high sharp points, were cutting through it, or resting like
gulls upon its surface; and there were ships with the still proud banner
of the crescent, and strangers with the flags of every nation in
Christendom, and sailboats, longboats, and rowboats, ambassadors'
barges, and caiques of effendis, beys, and pachas, with red silk flags
streaming in the wind, while countless thousands were assembled on the
banks to behold the extraordinary spectacle of an American ship, the
largest in the world, launched in the harbour of old Stamboul. The
sultan was then living at his beautiful palace at Sweet Waters, and was
obliged to pass by our boat; he had made a great affair of the launch;
had invited all the diplomatic corps, and, through the reis effendi,
particularly requested the presence of Commodore Porter; had stationed
his harem on the opposite side of the river; and as I saw prepared for
himself near the ship a tent of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, I
expected to see him appear in all the pomp and splendour of the greatest
potentate on earth. I had already seen enough to convince me that the
days of Eastern magnificence had gone by, or that the gorgeous scenes
which my imagination had always connected with the East had never
existed; but still I could not divest myself of the lingering idea of
the power and splendour of the sultan. His commanding style to his own
subjects: "I command you, ----, my slave, that you bring the head of ----,
my slave, and lay it at my feet;" and then his lofty tone with foreign
powers: "I, who am, by the infinite grace of the great, just, and
all-powerful Creator, and the abundance of the miracles of the chief of
his prophets, emperor of powerful emperors; refuge of sovereigns;
distributor of crowns to the kings of the earth; keeper of the two very
holy cities (Mecca and Medina); governor of the holy city of Jerusalem;
master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered with our victorious sword
and our terrible lance; lord of two seas (Black and White); of Damascus,
the odour of Paradise; of Bagdad, the seat of the califs; of the
fortresses of Belgrade, Agra, and a multitude of countries, isles,
straits, people, generations, and of so many victorious armies who
repose under the shade of our Sublime Porte; I, in short, who am the
shadow of God upon earth;" I was rolling these things through my mind
when a murmur, "the sultan is coming," turned me to the side of the
boat, and one view dispelled all my gorgeous fancies. There was no
style, no state, a citizen king, a republican president, or a
democratic governor, could not have made a more unpretending appearance
than did this "shadow of God upon earth." He was seated in the bottom of
a large caique, dressed in the military frockcoat and red tarbouch, with
his long black beard, the only mark of a Turk about him, and he moved
slowly along the vacant space cleared for his passage, boats with the
flags of every nation, and thousands of caiques falling back, and the
eyes of the immense multitude earnestly fixed upon him, but without any
shouts or acclamations; and when he landed at the little dock, and his
great officers bowed to the dust before him, he looked the plainest,
mildest, kindest man among them. I had wished to see him as a wholesale
murderer, who had more blood upon his hands than any man living; who had
slaughtered the janisaries, drenched the plains of Greece, to say
nothing of bastinadoes, impalements, cutting off heads, and tying up in
sacks, which are taking place every moment; but I will not believe that
Sultan Mahmoud finds any pleasure in shedding blood. Dire necessity, or,
as he himself would say, fate, has ever been driving him on. I look upon
him as one of the most interesting characters upon earth; as the
creature of circumstances, made bloody and cruel by the necessities of
his position. I look at his past life and at that which is yet in store
for him, through all the stormy scenes he is to pass until he completes
his unhappy destiny, the last of a powerful and once-dreaded race,
bearded by those who once crouched at the footstool of his ancestors,
goaded by rebellious vassals, conscious that he is going a downward
road, and yet unable to resist the impulse that drives him on. Like the
strong man encompassed with a net, he finds no avenue of escape, and
cannot break through it.
The seraskier pacha and other principal officers escorted him to his
tent, and now all the interest which I had taken in the sultan was
transferred to Mr. Rhodes. He had great anxiety about the launch, and
many difficulties to contend with: first, in the Turks' jealousy of a
stranger, which obliged him to keep constantly on the watch lest some of
his ropes should be cut or fastenings knocked away; and he had another
Turkish prejudice to struggle against: the day had been fixed twice
before, but the astronomers found an unfortunate conjunction of the
stars, and it was postponed, and even then the stars were unpropitious;
but Mr. Rhodes had insisted that the work had gone so far that it could
not be stopped. And, besides these, he had another great difficulty in
his ignorance of their language. With more than a thousand men under
him, all his orders had to pass through interpreters, and often, too,
the most prompt action was necessary, and the least mistake might prove
fatal. Fortunately, he was protected from treachery by the kindness of
Mr. Churchill and Dr. Zohrab, one of whom stood on the bow and the other
in the stern of the ship, and through whom every order was transmitted
in Turkish. Probably none there felt the same interest that we did; for
the flags of the barbarian and every nation in Christendom were waving
around us, and at that distance from home the enterprise of a single
citizen enlisted the warmest feelings of every American. We watched the
ship with as keen an interest as if our own honour and success in life
depended upon her movements. For a long time she remained perfectly
quiet. At length she moved, slowly and almost imperceptibly; and then,
as if conscious that the eyes of an immense multitude were on her, and
that the honour of a distant nation was in some measure at stake, she
marched proudly to the water, plunged in with a force that almost buried
her, and, rising like a huge leviathan, parted the foaming waves with
her bow, and rode triumphantly upon them. Even Mussulman indifference
was disturbed; all petty jealousies were hushed; the whole immense mass
was roused into admiration; loud and long-continued shouts of applause
rose with one accord from Turks and Christians, and the sultan was so
transported that he jumped up and clapped his hands like a schoolboy.
Mr. Rhodes's triumph was complete; the sultan called him to his tent,
and with his own hands fixed on the lappel of his coat a gold medal set
in diamonds, representing the launching of a ship. Mr. Rhodes has
attained among strangers the mark of every honourable man's ambition,
the head of his profession. He has put upon the water what Commodore
Porter calls the finest ship that ever floated, and has a right to be
proud of his position and prospects under the "shade of the Sublime
Porte." The sultan wishes to confer upon him the title of chief naval
constructor, and to furnish him with a house and a caique with four
oars. In compliment to his highness, who detests a hat, Mr. Rhodes wears
the tarbouch; but he declines all offices and honours, and anything that
may tend to fix him as a Turkish subject, and looks to return and enjoy
in his own country and among his own people the fruits of his honourable
labours. If the good wishes of a friend can avail him, he will soon
return to our city rich with the profits of untiring industry, and an
honourable testimony to his countrymen of the success of American skill
and enterprise abroad.
To go back a moment. All day the great ship lay in the middle of the
Golden Horn, while perhaps more than a hundred thousand Turks shot
round her in their little caiques, looking up from the surface of the
water to her lofty deck: and in Pera, wherever I went, perhaps because I
was an American, the only thing I heard of was the American ship. Proud
of the admiration excited so far from home by this noble specimen of the
skill of an American citizen, I unburden myself of a long-smothered
subject of complaint against my country. I cry out with a loud voice for
_reform_, not in the hackneyed sense of petty politicians, but by a
liberal and enlarged expenditure of public money; by increasing the
outfits and salaries of our foreign ambassadors and ministers. We claim
to be rich, free from debt, and abundant in resources, and yet every
American abroad is struck with a feeling of mortification at the
inability of his representative to take that position in social life to
which the character of his country entitles him. We may talk of
republican simplicity as we will, but there are certain usages of
society and certain appendages of rank which, though they may be
unmeaning and worthless, are sanctioned, if not by the wisdom, at least
by the practice of all civilized countries. We have committed a fatal
error since the time when Franklin appeared at the court of France in a
plain citizen's dress; everywhere our representative conforms to the
etiquette of the court to which he is accredited, and it is too late to
go back and begin anew; and now, unless our representative is rich and
willing to expend his own fortune for the honour of the nation, he is
obliged to withdraw from the circles and position in which he has a
right and ought to move, or to move in them on an inferior footing,
under an acknowledgment of inability to appear as an equal.
And again: our whole consular system is radically wrong, disreputable,
and injurious to our character and interests. While other nations
consider the support of their consuls a part of the expenses of their
government, we suffer ourselves to be represented by merchants, whose
pecuniary interests are mixed up with all the local and political
questions that affect the place and who are under a strong inducement to
make their office subservient to their commercial relations. I make no
imputations against any of them. I could not if I would, for I do not
know an American merchant holding the office who is not a respectable
man; but the representative of our country ought to be the
representative of our country only; removed from any distracting or
conflicting interests, standing like a watchman to protect the honour of
his nation and the rights of her citizens. And more than this, all over
the Mediterranean there are ports where commerce presents no inducements
to the American merchant, and there the office falls into the hands of
the natives; and at this day the American arms are blazoned on the
doors, and the American flag is waving over the houses, of Greeks,
Italians, Jews, and Arabs, and all the mongrel population of that inland
sea; and in the ports under the dominion of Turkey particularly, the
office is coveted as a means of protecting the holder against the
liabilities to his own government, and of revenue by selling that
protection to others. I will not mention them by name, for I bear them
no ill will personally, and I have received kindness from most of the
petty vagabonds who live under the folds of the American flag; but the
consuls at Gendoa and Algiers are a disgrace to the American name.
Congress has lately turned its attention to this subject, and will,
before long, I hope, effect a complete change in the character of our
consular department, and give it the respectability which it wants; the
only remedy is by following the example of other nations, in fixing
salaries to the office, and forbidding the holders to engage in trade.
Besides the leading inducements to this change, there is a secondary
consideration, which, in my eyes, is not without its value, in that it
would furnish a valuable school of instruction for our young men. The
offices would be sought by such. A thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a
year would maintain them respectably, in most of the ports of the
Mediterranean, and young men resident in those places, living upon
salaries, and not obliged to engage in commerce, would employ their
leisure hours in acquiring the language of the country, in communicating
with the interior, and among them would return upon us an accumulation
of knowledge far more than repaying us for all the expense of supporting
them abroad.
Doubtless the reader expects other things in Constantinople; but all
things are changing. The day has gone by when the Christian could not
cross the threshold of a mosque and live. Even the sacred mosque of St.
Sophia, the ancient Christian church, so long closed against the
Christians' feet, now, upon great occasions, again opens its doors to
the descendants of its Christian builders. One of these great occasions
happened while I was there. The sultan gave a firman to the French
ambassador, under which all the European residents and travellers
visited it. Unfortunately, I was unwell, and could not go out that day,
and was obliged afterward to content myself with walking around its
walls, with uplifted eyes and a heavy heart, admiring the glittering
crescent and thinking of the prostrate cross.
But no traveller can leave Constantinople without having seen the
interior of a mosque; and accordingly, under the guidance of Mustapha,
the janisary of the British consul, I visited the mosque of Sultan
Suliman, next in point of beauty to that of St. Sophia, though far
inferior in historical interest. At an early hour we crossed the Golden
Horn to old Stamboul; threaded our way through its narrow and intricate
streets to an eminence near the seraskier pacha's tower; entered by a
fine gateway into a large courtyard, more than a thousand feet square,
handsomely paved and ornamented with noble trees, and enclosed by a high
wall; passed a marble fountain of clear and abundant water, where, one
after another, the faithful stopped to make their ablutions; entered a
large colonnade, consisting of granite and marble pillars of every form
and style, the plunder of ancient temples, worked in without much regard
to architectural fitness, yet, on the whole, producing a fine effect;
pulled off our shoes at the door, and, with naked feet and noiseless
step, crossed the sacred threshold of the mosque. Silently we moved
among the kneeling figures of the faithful scattered about in different
parts of the mosque and engaged in prayer; paused for a moment under the
beautiful dome sustained by four columns from the Temple of Diana at
Ephesus; leaned against a marble pillar which may have supported, two
thousand years ago, the praying figure of a worshipper of the great
goddess; gazed at the thousand small lamps suspended from the lofty
ceiling, each by a separate cord, and with a devout feeling left the
mosque.
[Illustration: Mosque of Sultan Suliman.]
In the rear, almost concealed from view by a thick grove of trees,
shrubs, and flowers, is a circular building about forty feet in
diameter, containing the tomb of Suliman, the founder of the mosque, his
brother, his favourite wife Roxala, and two other wives. The monuments
are in the form of sarcophagi, with pyramidal tops, covered with rich
Cashmere shawls, having each at the head a large white turban, and
enclosed by a railing covered with mother-of-pearl. The great beauty of
the sepulchral chamber is its dome, which is highly ornamented, and
sparkles with brilliants. In one corner is a plan of Mecca, the holy
temple, and tomb of the Prophet.
In the afternoon I went for the last time to the Armenian burying-ground.
In the East the graveyards are the general promenades, the places of
rendezvous, and the lounging-places; and in Constantinople the Armenian
burying-ground is the most beautiful, and the favourite. Situated in the
suburbs of Pera, overlooking the Bosphorus, shaded by noble palm-trees,
almost regularly toward evening I found myself sitting upon the same
tombstone, looking upon the silvery water at my feet, studded with
palaces, flashing and glittering with caiques from the golden palace of
the sultan to the seraglio point, and then turned to the animated groups
thronging the burying-ground; the Armenian in his flowing robes, the
dashing Greek, the stiff and out-of-place-looking Frank; Turks in their
gay and bright costume, glittering arms, and solemn beards, enjoying the
superlative of existence in dozing over their pipe; and women in long
white veils, apart under some delightful shade, in little picnic
parties, eating ices and confectionary. Here and there, toward the
outskirts, was the araba, the only wheeled carriage known among the
Turks, with a long low body, highly carved and gilded, drawn by oxen
fancifully trimmed with ribands, and filled with soft cushions, on which
the Turkish and Armenian ladies almost buried themselves. Instead of the
cypress, the burying-ground is shaded by noble plane-trees; and the
tombstones, instead of being upright, are all flat, having at the head a
couple of little niches scooped out to hold water, with the beautiful
idea to induce birds to come there and drink and sing among the trees.
Their tombstones, too, have another mark, which, in a country where men
are apt to forget who their fathers were, would exclude them even from
that place where all mortal distinctions are laid low, viz., a mark
indicating the profession or occupation of the deceased; as, a pair of
shears to mark the grave of a tailor; a razor that of a barber; and on
many of them was another mark indicating the manner of death, the
bowstring, or some other mark, showing that the stone covered a victim
of Turkish cruelty. But all these things are well known; nothing has
escaped the prying eyes of curious travellers; and I merely state, for
my own credit's sake, that I followed the steps of those who had gone
before me, visited the Sweet Waters, Scutary, and Belgrade, the
reservoirs, aqueducts, and ruins of the palace of Constantine, and saw
the dancing dervishes; rowed up the Bosphorus to Buyukdere, lunched
under the tree where Godfrey encamped with his gallant crusaders, and
looked out upon the Black Sea from the top of the Giant's Mountain.