STAMBUL.

In order to restore one’s equilibrium after the bewildering scenes

of the bridge it is only necessary to follow one of the many narrow

streets which wind up the hillsides of Stambul. Here there reigns

a profound peace, and you may contemplate at your leisure those

mysterious and evasive aspects of Oriental life of which only flying

glimpses can be obtained on the other bank amid the noise and confusion

of European manners and customs. Here everything is Eastern in its

strictest sense. After walking for fifteen minutes the last sounds

have died away, the crowds entirely disappeared; you are surrounded

on every side by little wooden, brightly-painted houses, whose second

stories extend out over the ground floor, and the third again over

those; in front of the windows are balconies enclosed with glass

and close wooden gratings, which look like little houses thrown out

from the main dwelling, and lend to the city an indescribable air

of secresy and melancholy. In some places the streets are so narrow

that the overhanging parts of opposite houses nearly touch, and you

walk for long distances in the shadow of these human bird-cages and

literally beneath the feet of the Turkish women, who pass the greater

part of the day in them, seeing nothing but a narrow strip of sky.

All the doors are tightly shut, and the windows on the ground floor

protected by gratings. Everything breathes of jealousy and suspicion;

one seems to be traversing a city of convents. Sometimes the stillness

is suddenly broken by a ripple of laughter close at hand, and, looking

quickly up, you may discover at some small opening or loophole the

flash of a bright eye or a shining lock of hair, which, however,

instantly disappears; or, again, you surprise a conversation being

carried on in quick, subdued tones across the street, which breaks off

suddenly at the sound of your footsteps, and you continue your way

wondering what thread of mystery or intrigue you may have broken in

your passage. Seeing no one yourself, you have the consciousness of a

thousand eyes upon you; apparently quite alone, you yet feel yourself

to be surrounded by restless, palpitating life. Wishing, possibly, to

pass unobserved, you tread lightly, walk rapidly, but all the same you

are watched on all sides. So profound is the silence that the mere

opening and shutting of a door or window startles you as though it

were some tremendous noise. One might suppose that the aspect of these

streets would become monotonous and tiresome, but it is not so. A mass

of foliage out of which issues the white point of a minaret, a Turk

dressed in red coming toward you, a black servant standing immovable

before a doorway, a strip of Persian carpet hanging from a window,

suffice to form a picture so full of life and harmony that one could

stand gazing at it by the hour. Of the few persons who do pass by,

none appear to notice you; only occasionally you hear a voice at your

shoulder call out “_Giaour!_” (infidel), and turn just in time to see

a boy’s head disappearing behind a window-shutter. Again, hearing a

door being opened from within, you pause expectantly, fully prepared

to see the favorite beauty of some harem come forth in full costume,

instead of which an European lady in bonnet and train appears and, with

a murmured _Adieu_ or _Au revoir_, walks rapidly away, leaving you

open-mouthed with astonishment.

In another street, entirely Turkish and silent, you are suddenly

startled by the sound of a horn and the stamping of horses’ feet;

turning to see what it means, you find it difficult to believe your

eyes when a large car rolls gayly into sight over some tracks which up

to that moment you had not noticed, filled with Turks and Europeans,

with its officials in uniform and its printed tariff of fares, for all

the world like a _tramway_ in Vienna or Paris. The effect of such an

apparition, seen in one of those streets, is not to be described: it is

like a burlesque or some huge joke, and you laugh aloud as you watch

it disappear, as though you had never seen anything of the kind before.

With the omnibus the life and movement of Europe seem to vanish, and

you find yourself back in Asia, like a change of scene at the theatre.

Issuing from almost any of these silent, deserted streets, you come out

upon small open spaces shaded by one huge plane tree: on one hand there

is a fountain out of which camels are drinking; on the other, a café in

front of which a number of Turks recline on mats, smoking and gazing

into vacancy; beside the door stands a large fig tree, up whose trunk

a vine clambers, extending out over the branches and falling in waving

garlands to the ground, and between whose leaves enchanting glimpses

are caught of the blue waters of the Sea of Marmora dotted all over

with white sails. The flood of light and the death-like stillness give

these places a certain character, half solemn, half melancholy, which

makes an indelible impression upon the mind: one is carried on and on,

drawn, as it were, out of himself by a subtle sense of mystery which

steeps the senses little by little, until he loses all idea of time and

space and seems to float on a vague cloud of dreams.

[Illustration: Fountain in Court of the Mosque of Ahmed.]

From time to time you come upon vast barren tracts devastated by some

recent fire; hillsides with a few houses scattered here and there,

and grassy spaces between them, intersected with goat-paths; tops of

hills from which can be seen hundreds of houses and gardens,

streets and lanes, but not a living creature, a wreath of smoke, an

open door, or the faintest indication of human life, until one almost

begins to think himself alone in the midst of this immense city, and,

thinking so, to become a trifle uncomfortable. But just follow one of

those steep little streets down to the bottom, and in an instant the

whole scene changes. You are now on one of the great thoroughfares of

Stambul, flanked by splendid buildings, whose beauty almost defies your

powers of admiration. On every side rise mosques, kiosks, minarets,

arcades, fountains of marble and lapis lazuli, mausoleums of sultans

glowing with arabesques and inscriptions in gold, their walls covered

with mosaics, their roofs of inlaid cedar-wood, and everywhere that

exuberance of vegetation which, pushing its way through gilded

railings and scaling garden-walls, fills the air with the perfume of

its blossoms. Here are met the equipages of pashas, aides-de-camp in

full uniform, officials, employés, eunuchs belonging to great houses,

and files of servants and parasites coming and going in a continual

succession between the residences of the ministers: one recognizes the

fact that he is in the metropolis of a great empire, and admires it in

all its magnificence of display. The brilliant atmosphere and graceful

architecture, the murmuring of the fountains, the bright sunshine

and delicious coolness of the shade, all affect the senses like

subdued music, and a hundred smiling images crowd through the mind.

Following these thoroughfares, you emerge upon the large open squares,

from which arise the mosques of the various sultans, before whose

stately magnificence you pause in wondering awe. Each one of these

mighty buildings forms the centre, as it were, of a small separate

city, with its colleges, hospitals, stores, libraries, schools, and

baths, whose existence is at first hardly suspected, so overshadowed

are they by the huge dome which they encircle. The architecture, so

simple in appearance when seen from a distance, now presents a mass

of detail attracting the eye in all directions at once. There are

little cupolas overlaid with lead, oddly-shaped roofs rising one above

another, aërial galleries, enormous porticoes, windows broken by little

columns, festooned archways, spiral minarets, lines of terraces with

open-work carving, and capitals supported on stylobates, doorways and

fountains covered with ornament, walls picked out in gold and every

color of the rainbow--a mass of carving and fretwork, light, graceful,

exquisite, across which the shadows chase each other from great oak

and cypress trees and willows, while clouds of birds, issuing from the

overspreading branches, fly in slow circles around the interiors of

the domes, filling every corner of the immense edifice with harmony.

And now, for the first time, you begin to be conscious of a feeling

stronger and more underlying than a mere sense of the beautiful. These

huge structures seem like the marble witnesses of an order of thought

and belief altogether different from that in which you have been

born and reared--the imposing framework of a hostile race and faith,

testifying in a mute but expressive language of lofty heights and

glorious lines to the might of a God who is not your God, and a people

before whom your fathers have trembled, filling you with admiration not

unmixed with awe, which, for a time at least, checks your curiosity and

holds you at a distance.

Within the shady courtyards Turks may be seen at the fountains busied

about their ablutions, peasants crouched at the foot of the great

pillars, veiled women who pass with deliberate steps beneath the lofty

arcades: over all there broods a profound quiet, a tinge of sadness and

voluptuousness, whose source you try in vain to discover, exercising

your mind as upon some enigma. Galata, Pera--how far away they seem! It

is as though you were in another world alone, in a different age. This

is the Stambul of Suleiman the Magnificent or Bayezid II., and you feel

dazed and confused when, on turning away from the square and losing

sight of the stupendous monument of the power of the Osmans, you find

yourself once more confronted by the Constantinople of to-day, of wood,

poverty, and decay, filled with dirt, wretchedness, and misery.

As you go on and on the houses gradually lose their bright coloring,

the vine-trellises disappear, moss creeps over the basins of the

fountains, the mosques become small and mean, with wooden minarets

and cracked, discolored walls, around which brambles and nettles have

sprung up; ruined mausoleums, broken stairways, tortuous lanes choked

with rubbish and reeking with damp; deserted quarters full of gloom,

whose silence is unbroken save for the flapping of birds’ wings or

the guttural cry of a muezzin calling out the word of God from some

distant unseen minaret. On the face of no city in the world is written

in such plain characters the nature of her people’s beliefs. Everything

grand or beautiful comes from God, or the sultan--His representative

upon earth. All the rest, being merely temporary, is not worthy of

consideration and bears the stamp of an utter indifference to mundane

things. This pastoral tribe has become a nation, but the instinctive

love of nature, of a life of contemplation and idleness, is as strong

among its people as ever, and has lent to their metropolis the look of

an encampment. Stambul is not a city; she neither works nor thinks,

nor does she create; civilization knocks at her doors, lays siege to

her streets, and she dozes and dreams in the shadow of her mighty

mosques and pays no heed. It is more like a city let loose, scattered,

disfigured, representing rather the halt of a wandering race than the

stronghold of an established state; a number of cities sketched in

outline, an immense spectacular show, rather than a great metropolis,

of which no just idea can be obtained without traversing every part.

Taking, then, for our starting-point the first hill, we are at that

point of the triangle bathed by the Sea of Marmora. This is, so

to speak, the crown of Stambul, an imposing district crowded with

associations and filled with magnificent buildings. Here is the ancient

Seraglio, occupying the site where arose first, Byzantium, with her

acropolis and temple of Jupiter, and then the palace of the empress

Placidia and the baths of Arcadius; here stand the mosques of St.

Sophia and the Sultan Ahmed; and here is the At-Meidan, covering the

space formerly occupied by the Hippodrome, where once, in the midst

of an Olympus of marble and bronze and urged on by the frantic cries

of a multitude clad in silk and purple, gilded chariots were driven

furiously seven times around the course beneath the impassive gaze of

the pearl-bedecked emperors. Descending the first hill into a shallow

valley, we come upon the western walls of the Seraglio, marking the

confines of ancient Byzantium,[A] and directly before us rises the

Sublime Porte, containing the offices of the prime minister, foreign

minister, and minister of the interior--silent, gloomy regions where

seem gathered all the sombreness and melancholy of the fate of the

empire.

[A] Other authorities place the walls of ancient Byzantium

considerably farther west than this point.--TRANS.

From here we ascend the second hill, where rise the Nûri Osmaniyeh

mosque (Light of Osman) and the Burnt Column of Constantine, formerly

surmounted by a bronze statue of Apollo, whose head was a likeness of

the great emperor himself. This column marked the centre of the forum,

and was surrounded by marble porticoes, triumphal arches, and statues.

On the farther side of this hill opens the Valley of Bazârs, extending

from the Bayezid mosque all the way to that of the Validêh Sultan, and

including a huge labyrinth of covered streets filled with noise and

confusion and crowded with people, from which you issue with your ears

deafened and your head in a whirl.

Upon the summit of the third hill, overlooking both the Sea of Marmora

and the Golden Horn, stands the gigantic rival of St. Sophia, the

mosque of Suleiman--_joy and glory of Stambul_, as it is called by

the Turkish poets--and the marvellous tower of the minister of war,

erected on the ruins of the ancient palace of the Constantines, at one

time occupied by Muhammad the Conqueror, and converted later on into a

seraglio for the old sultanas.

[Illustration: Burnt Column of Constantine.]

Between the third and fourth hills the enormous aqueduct of the emperor

Valens stretches like an aërial bridge composed of two tiers of

delicate arches, around which vines trail and clamber, falling in

graceful festoons as far as the roofs of the houses crowded together in

the valley beneath.

Passing under the aqueduct, we now ascend the fourth hill. Here, on the

ruins of the celebrated church of the Holy Apostles, founded by the

empress Helena and rebuilt by Theodosius, rises the mosque of Muhammad

II., surrounded by schools, hospitals, and khâns. Alongside the mosque

are the slave-bazâr, the baths of Muhammad, and the granite column of

Marcian surmounted by a marble capital, on which is a cippus still

ornamented with the imperial eagles. Near by is the Et-Meidan, where

the famous massacre of the Janissaries took place.

Traversing another valley, likewise closely built up, we mount the

fifth hill, surmounted by the mosque of Selim, near the site of the

ancient cistern of St. Peter, now converted into a garden. Beneath us,

along the shores of the Golden Horn, extends Fanar, the Greek quarter

and seat of the Patriarch, where ancient Byzantium has taken refuge,

the scene of the revolting carnage of 1821.

Descending into a fifth valley and ascending a sixth hill, we find

ourselves upon the territory once occupied by the eight cohorts of

Constantine’s forty thousand Goths, beyond the circuit of the earlier

walls, which only embraced the fourth hill: this is the precise spot

assigned to the seventh cohort, hence the name Hebdomon given to that

quarter.

On the sixth hill may be seen still standing the walls of the palace[B]

of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, where the emperors were formerly

crowned, now called by the Turks Tekfûr Serai--Palace of the Princes.

At the foot of the hill lies Balat, the Ghetto of Constantinople, a

filthy quarter extending along the banks of the Horn as far as the

city-walls: and beyond Balat is the ancient suburb of Blachernæ, where

once arose the mighty palace with its gilded roofs, a favorite resort

of the emperors, and famous for the sacredness of the relics contained

in the church erected by the empress Pulcheria. Now the whole quarter

is filled with decay and ruin and melancholy. At the Blachernæ begin

the turreted walls which extend from the Golden Horn across to the Sea

of Marmora, enclosing the seventh hill, on which stood the Forum of

Arcadius, and where may still be seen the pedestal of the column of

Arcadius--the largest and most eastern of the hills of Stambul, between

which and the other six flows the little river Lycus, which, entering

the city near the Charsiou[C] Gate, empties itself into the Sea of

Marmora near the ancient gate of Theodosius.

[B] Prof. A. Van Millingen places the site of the Hebdomon Palace

on the shore of the Sea of Marmora, outside the walls, near

the village of Makri Keui; other authorities state that there

are unanswerable arguments in favor of this view.--TRANS.

[C] The Lycus enters the city near the Gate of Pusæus and empties

into the Sea of Marmora at Vlanga-Bostan.--TRANS.

From the walls of the Blachernæ we overlook the suburb of Ortajilar,

inclining gently to the water’s edge and crowned with its many gardens;

beyond it lies that of Eyûb, the consecrated soil of the Mussulman,

with its charming mosques and vast cemetery shaded by a forest of

cypresses and white with mausoleums and tombstones; back of Eyûb is the

elevated plain which was formerly used as a military camp, and where

the legions elevated the newly-made emperors upon their shields;[D] and

beyond this, again, other villages are seen, their bright colors set in

a framework of green woods and bathed by the farthermost waters of the

Golden Horn.

[D] This ceremony more probably took place near Makri Keui on the

Sea of Marmora.--TRANS.

Such is Stambul, truly a divine vision. But when it is remembered

that this huge Asiatic village surmounts the ruins of that second

Rome, of that great museum of treasures stripped from all Italy, from

Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, one’s heart sinks within him: the mere

thought of such an accumulation of works of art makes one dizzy. And

where are they now, those great arcades which traversed the city from

wall to sea, those gilded domes and colossal equestrian statues which

surmounted the mighty columns before baths and amphitheatres, those

brazen sphinxes seated upon pedestals of porphyry, those temples and

palaces which once reared their mighty façades of granite in the midst

of an aërial throng of marble deities and silver emperors? All have

disappeared or been changed past recognition. The equestrian statues

of bronze have been recast into guns, the copper coverings of the

obelisks converted into money, the sarcophagi of the emperors turned

into fountains. The church of St. Irene is an armory: the cistern of

Constantine[E] is a workshop; the pedestal of the column of Arcadius

is occupied by a blacksmith; the Hippodrome is a horse-market; the

foundations of the royal palaces are heaps of stones overgrown with

ivy; the pavements of the amphitheatre, grass-grown cemeteries. A few

inscriptions, half obliterated by fire or defaced by the simetars of

the invaders, are all that remain to tell us that on these hills once

stood the marvellous metropolis of the Empire of the East. And over all

this mass of ruin and decay Stambul sits brooding, like some odalisque

above a sepulchre, awaiting her hour.

[E] The Cistern Basilica, ascribed to Constantine the Great, is

still used for its original purpose. The Cistern Philoxenes

is occupied by silk-spinners.--TRANS.