Mounting the hill to the west of Piale Pasha, we reached a vast open
plain from which there is a view of Stambul and the entire length of
the Golden Horn from Eyûb to Seraglio Point, four miles of mosque and
garden--a scene so overpoweringly beautiful that one is tempted to
fall upon his knees as before some heavenly vision. On the Ok-Meidan
(Place of Arrows) the sultans used formerly to practise shooting with
the bow and arrow, after the custom of the Persian kings. A number
of small stone obelisks and pillars scattered about irregularly bear
inscriptions each to the effect that upon that spot some imperial arrow
has fallen. The beautiful kiosk is still standing from whose tribune
the sultan was wont to draw his bow; on the right were drawn up a
long line of pashas and beys, living exclamation-points indicative of
the admiration excited by their lord’s dexterity; to the left stood
a group of twelve pages belonging to the imperial family, whose duty
it was to run after and pick up the arrows, marking the spots on
which they fell; hidden behind the surrounding trees and shrubbery
a few venturesome Turks peeped out who had stolen thither to gaze
fearfully upon the sublime countenance of the vicar of God; while in
the tribune, in the attitude of some haughty athlete, stood the sultan
Mahmûd, the mightiest archer of the empire, his flashing eye compelling
the bystanders to avert their gaze, and that famous beard, black as
the raven’s feathers of Mt. Taurus, gleaming afar against the white
tunic all spotted with the blood of the Janissaries. All this has now
changed and become utterly commonplace. The Sultan practises with a
revolver in the courtyard of his palace, while Ok-Meidan is used by the
infantry for target-practice. On one side stands a dervish monastery,
on the other a solitary café, and the whole place is as melancholy and
deserted as a steppe.