But there is no use in attempting to understand a description of the
approach to Constantinople without first having a clear idea of the
plan of the city. Supposing the reader to stand facing the mouth of the
Bosphorus, that arm of the sea which separates Asia from Europe and
connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora, he will have on his
right the continent of Asia, on his left, Europe; here ancient Thrace,
there ancient Anatolia. Following this arm, he will find on his left,
immediately beyond its mouth, a gulf, or rather an extremely narrow
bay, forming with the Bosphorus almost a right angle, and stretching
for some miles into the continent of Europe, in the shape of an ox’s
horn; hence the name Golden Horn, or Horn of Abundance, because, when
the capital of Byzantium was here, the wealth of three continents
flowed through it. On that point of land, bathed on the one hand by
the Sea of Marmora and by the Golden Horn on the other, on the site
of ancient Byzantium, rises, on its seven hills, Stambul, the Turkish
city; across from it, on the other point, washed by the waters of
the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, lie Galata and Pera, the Frankish
cities; while on the Asiatic shore, directly opposite the opening
of the Golden Horn, Skutari rises from the sea. Thus what is called
Constantinople is, in reality, three large cities separated by the
sea--two lying opposite each other, and the third facing them both,
and all so near together that from each of the three it is possible to
distinguish the buildings of the other two nearly as distinctly as one
can see across the widest parts of the Thames or the Seine. The point
of the triangle occupied by Stambul, which curves back toward the Horn,
is the celebrated Cape Seraglio, which conceals up to the very last
moment, from any one approaching from the Sea of Marmora, the two banks
of the Golden Horn; that is to say, the largest and most beautiful part
of Constantinople.
It was the captain at last, with his trained sailor’s eye, who
discovered the first shadowy outline of Stambul.
The two Athenian ladies, the Russian family, the English clergyman,
Yunk, I, and a number of others, all of whom were going to
Constantinople for the first time, had gathered around him in a group,
silent, absorbed, every eye intent on trying to pierce through the fog,
when, suddenly throwing his left arm out toward the European shore, he
exclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, I see the first building!”
It was a white peak, the summit of some very high minaret whose base
remained as yet completely hidden. Immediately every glass was levelled
at it, and every eye began to burrow in that little rent in the haze
as though trying to make it larger. The ship was now steaming rapidly
ahead. In a few minutes an uncertain shape was visible beside the
minaret, then another, then two, then three, then many more, which,
stretching out in an endless line, gradually assumed the appearance of
houses. On the right and ahead of us everything was still concealed by
the fog. That which was now coming into view was the part of Stambul
which extends like the arc of a circle for about three miles, from
Cape Seraglio along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora to the
Castle of the Seven Towers; but the Seraglio hill was still invisible.
Beyond the houses, one after another, the minarets now flashed into
sight, white, lofty, their peaks touched with rose color by the rising
sun. Below the houses we could begin to distinguish the dark line
of the ancient walls, uneven and tortuous, strengthened at regular
intervals by massive towers, their foundations partially washed by
the sea-waves, and encircling the entire city. Before long fully two
miles of the city lay before us in full view, but, to tell the truth,
the sight fell decidedly short of my expectations. It was just here
that Lamartine asked himself, “Can this be Constantinople?” and cried,
“What a disappointment!” The hills being still hidden, nothing
was to be seen but interminable lines of houses along the shore, and
the city was apparently perfectly flat. “Captain,” I too cried, “is
this Constantinople?” The captain seized me by the arm and pointed
ahead. “O man of little faith!” said he, “look there!” I looked,
and an exclamation of amazement escaped me. A shadowy form, vast,
impalpable, towering heavenward from a lofty eminence, rose before us,
its graceful outlines still partially obscured by a filmy cloud of
vapor, and surrounding it four tall and graceful minarets whose peaks
shone like silver as they caught the first rays of the morning sun.
“St. Sophia!” cried a sailor, and one of the Athenian ladies murmured
in an undertone, “Hagia Sofia!” (Holy Wisdom). The Turks in the bow at
once rose to their feet. And now before and around the great basilica
were discernible through the fog other vast domes and minarets crowded
close together like a forest of gigantic branchless palms. “The mosque
of Sultan Ahmed!” cried the captain, pointing; “the Bayezid mosque, the
mosque of Osman, the Laleli mosque, the Suleimaniyeh!”
[Illustration: Mosques of Sultan Ahmed and St. Sophia.]
But no one was listening. The mist was now rapidly melting away, and
in every direction there leaped into view mosques, towers, masses of
green, tier above tier of houses. The farther we advanced, the more the
city unfolded before us her charming outlines, irregular, picturesque,
sparkling, and tinged with every hue of the rainbow, while the
Seraglio hill now emerged completely from the fog and stood out clear
and distinct against the gray mass of cloud behind it. Four miles of
city, all that part of Stambul which overlooks the Sea of Marmora,
lay stretched out before us, her black walls and many-colored houses
reflected in the limpid water as in a mirror.
Suddenly the vessel came to a standstill. Every one crowded around the
captain to know what had happened. He explained that we would have to
wait, before proceeding any farther, until the fog had lifted a little
more. And indeed the mouth of the Bosphorus was still completely hidden
behind a thick veil of mist. In less than a minute, however, this had
begun to disperse, and we were able to move forward, howbeit with
caution.
We were now approaching the hill of the Old Seraglio, and here the
general excitement and curiosity became intense.
“Turn your back,” said the captain, “and don’t look until we are
directly opposite.”
I obediently did as I was told, and tried to fix my attention upon a
camp-stool, which seemed to dance before my eyes.
“Now!” cried the captain, after a few moments, and I spun around.
The boat had again stopped, this time opposite and very close to the
Seraglio.
It is a large hill, clothed from top to bottom with cypress,
terebinth, fir, and huge plane trees, whose branches, reaching out
across the city-walls, throw their shadow on the water below; and
from the midst of this mass of verdure, separately and in groups, as
though dropped at haphazard, rise in a confused, disorderly mass, the
roofs of kiosks and pavilions crowned with gilded domes and galleries,
charming little buildings of unfamiliar shape, with grated windows and
arabesqued doorways, white, small, half hidden, suggesting a labyrinth
of avenues, courtyards, and recesses--an entire city enclosed in a
wood, shut off from the world, full of mystery and sadness. The sun was
now shining full upon it, but above there still hovered a nebulous veil
of haze. No one was to be seen, not the faintest sound could be heard.
All the passengers stood perfectly motionless, their eyes fixed upon
that hill invested with centuries of associations--glory, pleasure,
love, intrigue, bloodshed; the citadel, palace, and tomb of the great
Ottoman monarchy. For a little while no one moved or spoke. Suddenly
the first mate called out, “Gentlemen, Skutari is in sight!”
Every one turned toward the Asiatic shore. Skutari, the Golden City,
barely visible to the naked eye, lay scattered over the summits and
sides of her great hills, the morning mist throwing a delicate veil
over her radiant beauty, smiling and fresh as though just called into
being by the touch of a fairy wand. Who can give any idea of that
sight? The language we employ to describe our own cities is altogether
inadequate to depict that extraordinary variety of color and form,
that marvellous mixture of town and country, at once gay and austere,
Oriental and Western, fantastic, graceful, imposing. Imagine a city
composed of thousands of crimson and yellow villas, thousands of
gardens overflowing with verdure, a hundred snow-white mosques rising
in their midst; above it a forest of enormous cypresses, indicating the
site of the largest cemetery of the East; on the outer edge huge white
barracks, groups of houses and cypresses, villages built on the brows
of little hills; beyond them others, again, half hidden in foliage, and
over all, the peaks of minarets and summits of domes, sparkling points
of light, halfway up the side of a mountain which closes in the horizon
as it were with a curtain. A great metropolis scattered throughout
an enormous garden and overhanging a shore here broken by steep
precipices, there shelving gently down in green gradations to charming
little inlets filled with shade and bloom; and below, the blue mirror
of the Bosphorus reflecting all this splendor and beauty.
As I stood gazing at Skutari my friend touched me on the elbow to
announce the discovery of still another city, and, sure enough,
turning toward the Sea of Marmora, there, on the same Asiatic shore
and a little beyond Skutari, lay a long string of houses, mosques, and
gardens which we had but lately passed in front of, but which, up to
this moment, had been entirely hidden by the fog. With the help of the
glass it was now easy to distinguish cafés, bazârs, European-looking
houses, flights of stairs, the walls of the market-gardens, and
boats scattered along the shore. This was Kadi Keui (Village of the
Judge), erected on the ruins of ancient Chalcedon, the former rival of
Byzantium--that Chalcedon founded six hundred and eighty-four years
before Christ by the Megarians, to whom the Delphic Oracle gave the
surname of The Blind for having selected that rather than the opposite
site, where Stambul is now situated.
“That makes three cities,” said the captain, checking them off on his
fingers as each moment brought a fresh one into view.
The ship was still lying stationary between Skutari and the Seraglio
hill, the fog completely concealing everything on the Bosphorus beyond
Skutari, as well as Galata and Pera, which lay directly before us.
Boats began to pass close by--barges, steam-launches, sailboats--but
no one paid any attention to them. Every eye was glued to that gray
curtain which hung over the Frankish city. I trembled with impatience
and anticipation. Yet a few moments and there would be unfolded before
my eyes that marvellous spectacle which none has here been able to
behold unmoved. My hands shook so violently that it was with difficulty
I could hold the glass to my eyes. The captain, worthy man, watched
my excitement with keen delight, and, presently clapping his hands
together, cried, “There it is! there it is!”
And, true enough, there did at last begin to appear through the mist
first little specks of white, then the vague outlines of a lofty
eminence, then scattered beams of light where some window caught and
reflected the sun’s rays, and finally Galata and Pera stood revealed
before us--a mountain, a myriad of houses, of all colors, heaped one
above another, a lofty city crowned with minarets, domes, and cypress
trees, and towering over all the monumental palaces of the foreign
ambassadors and the great tower of Galata; beneath, the vast arsenal
of Top-Khâneh and a forest of shipping; and still, as the fog lifted,
more and more of the city came into view stretching along the banks of
the Bosphorus; and in bewildering succession there leaped into sight
streets and suburbs extending from the hilltops to the water’s edge,
closely built, interminable, marked here and there with the sparkling
white tips of the mosques--line upon line of buildings, little bays,
palaces built upon the shore, pavilions, kiosks, gardens, groves; and,
dimly outlined through the distant haze, other suburbs still, their
roofs alone distinguishable, all gilded by the sun’s rays--a luxuriance
of color, a profusion of verdure, a succession of vistas, a grandeur, a
grace, a glory sufficient to make any one break forth into transports
of incoherent delight. Every one on board, however, stood speechless,
staring, with mouth and eyes wide open--passengers, seamen, Turks,
Europeans, children. Not a whisper was heard. No one knew in which
direction to look. On one side lay Skutari and Kadi Keui; on the other,
the Seraglio hill; opposite, Galata, Pera, and the Bosphorus. To see
it all one had to keep revolving around in a circle like a teetotum,
and revolve we did, devouring with our eyes first this and then that,
gesticulating, laughing, but speechless with admiration. Heavens above!
what moments in a man’s life!
But yet the most beautiful and imposing sight of all was to come. We
were still lying stationary off Seraglio Point, and until this has been
rounded you cannot see the Golden Horn or get the most wonderful of all
the views of Constantinople.
“Now, gentlemen and ladies, pay attention!” cried the captain before
giving the order to proceed. “This is the _critical moment_; in three
minutes we shall be opposite Constantinople.”
I felt myself grow hot and cold. For a moment all was still. How my
heart beat! How feverishly I waited for that blessed word, “Forward!”
“Forward!” shouted the captain. The ship began to move.
On we go! Kings, princes, potentates, ye great ones of the earth! at
that moment I felt nothing but compassion for you. All your wealth and
power seemed but little in comparison with my place on that boat, and
an empire a poor thing to offer in exchange for one look.
A minute passes, then another. We are gliding by Seraglio Point, and
see opening before us an enormous space flooded with light and a huge
mass of many shapes and colors. The point is passed, and behold! before
us lies Constantinople--Constantinople, boundless, superb, sublime!
The glory of creation and mankind! A triumph of beauty, far surpassing
one’s wildest dreams!
And now; poor wretch, attempt to describe it. Profane with your
commonplace words that divine vision. Who indeed can describe
Constantinople? Chateaubriand? Lamartine? Gautier? What things you have
all stammered and stuttered about it! and yet no one can resist trying.
Words, phrases, comparisons crowd through the brain and drop off the
end of one’s pen. I gaze, talk, write, all at the same time, hopeless
of success, and yet compelled to the attempt by some overmastering
influence.
[Illustration: View of Pera and Galata.]
Let us see, then. The Golden Horn lies directly opposite us like a
wide river; on each bank there extends a ridge; upon them stretch
two parallel lines of the city, embracing eight miles of hill and
valley, bay and promontory, a hundred amphitheatres of buildings and
gardens, an enormous space dotted over with houses, mosques,
bazârs, seraglios, baths, kiosks, of an infinite variety of color
and form, and from their midst the sparkling points of thousands of
minarets reaching heavenward like great pillars of ivory; then groves
of cypresses descending in dark ranks from the hilltops to the water’s
edge, fringing the outskirts, outlining the inlets; and through all
a wealth of vegetation, crowning the heights, pushing up between the
roofs, overhanging the water, flinging itself up in radiant luxuriance
wherever it can obtain a foothold. To the right, Galata, her foreground
a forest of masts and flags; above Galata, Pera, the imposing shapes
of her European palaces outlined against the sky; in front, the bridge
connecting the two banks, across which flow continually two opposite,
many-hued streams of life; to the left, Stambul, scattered over her
seven hills, each crowned with a gigantic mosque with its leaden dome
and gilded pinnacle: St. Sophia, white and rose-tinted; Sultan Ahmed,
flanked by six minarets; Suleiman the Great, crowned by ten domes;
the Validêh Sultan, reflected in the waves; on the fourth hill the
mosque of Muhammad II.; on the fifth, that of Selim; on the sixth, the
seraglio of Tekyr; and, high above everything else, the white tower
of the Seraskerat, which commands the shores of two continents from
the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill of Stambul on
the one hand, and Galata on the other, nothing can be distinguished
save a few vague outlines of buildings, faint indications of towns and
villages, broken up by bays and inlets, fleets of little vessels, and
groups of trees hardly visible through the blue haze, and which appear
more like atmospheric illusions than actual objects.
How can one possibly take in all the details of this marvellous scene?
For a moment the eye rests upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret close
by, but, immediately abandoning it, roams off once more at will into
that boundless space of light and color, or scales the heights of those
two opposite shores with their range upon range of stately buildings,
groves, and gardens, like the terraces of some enchanted city, while
the brain, bewildered, exhausted, overpowered, can with difficulty
follow in its wake.
An inexpressible majestic serenity is diffused throughout this
wonderful spectacle, an indefinable sense of loveliness and youth which
recalls a thousand forgotten tales and dreams of boyhood--something
aërial, mysterious, overpowering, transporting the imagination and
senses far beyond the bounds of the actual.
The sky, in which are blended together the most delicate shades of blue
and silver, throws everything into marvellous relief, while the water,
of a sapphire blue and dotted over with little purple buoys, reflects
the minarets in long trembling lines of white; the cupolas glisten in
the sunlight; all that mass of vegetation sways and palpitates in the
morning air; clouds of pigeons circle about the mosques; thousands of
gayly-painted and gilded pleasure-boats flash over the surface of the
water; the zephyrs from the Black Sea come laden with the perfumes of a
thousand flower-gardens; and when at length, intoxicated by the sights
and sounds and smells of this paradise, and forgetful of all else, one
turns away, it is only to behold with fresh sensations of wonder and
amazement the shores of Asia, with their imposing panorama of beauty;
Skutari and the nebulous heights of the Bithynian Olympus; the Sea of
Marmora dotted over with little islands and white with sails; and the
Bosphorus, covered with shipping, winding away between two interminable
lines of kiosks, palaces, and villas, to disappear at last mysteriously
amid the most smiling and radiant hillsides of the Orient. To deny that
this is the most beautiful sight on earth would be churlish indeed, as
ungrateful toward God as it would be unjust to his creation; and it is
certain that anything more beautiful would surpass mankind’s powers of
enjoyment.
On recovering somewhat from my own first overwhelming sensations I
turned to see how the other passengers had been impressed. Every
countenance was transfixed. The eyes of the two Athenian ladies were
suspiciously moist; the Russian mother had, in that supreme moment,
clasped her little Olga to her breast; even the voice of the icy
English priest was now heard for the first time, murmuring to himself,
“Wonderful! wonderful!”
The vessel having in the mean time dropped anchor not far below the
bridge, we were quickly surrounded by small boats from the shore, which
a moment later discharged a rabble of Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew
porters upon our decks, and these, while anathematizing the aliens
from the other world, at the same time took possession of our property
and our persons. After making some feeble show of resistance, I shook
hands with the captain, gave a kiss to little Olga, and, bidding our
fellow-passengers farewell, went over the side with my friend, where a
four-oared barge rapidly transported us to the custom-house. Thence,
after threading a labyrinth of tortuous streets, we finally reached our
quarters in the Hotel de Byzance on the summit of the hill of Pera.