Continuing along the shore of the Golden Horn, we descended into
another suburb, vast, populous, wearing an entirely different aspect
from the last, and where we saw quite plainly, after taking half a
dozen steps, that we were no longer among Mussulmans. On all sides
dirty children covered with sores were rolling about on the ground;
bent, ragged old crones sat working with their skinny fingers in the
doorways, through which glimpses could be caught of dusky interiors
cluttered up with heaps of old iron and rags; men clad in long, dirty
cloaks, with tattered handkerchiefs wound around their heads, skulked
along close to the wall, glancing furtively about them; thin, meagre
faces peered out of the windows as we went by; old clothes dangled from
cords suspended between the houses; mud and litter everywhere. It was
Haskeui, the Jewish quarter, the Ghetto of the northern shore of the
Golden Horn, facing that on the other shore, with which, at the time
of the Crimean War, it was connected by a wooden bridge, all traces of
which have since disappeared. From here stretches another long chain
of arsenals, military schools, barracks, and drill-grounds, extending
nearly all the way to the end of the Golden Horn. But of these we
saw nothing, our heads and our legs having given out equally. Of all
that we had seen, there only remained a confused jumble of places and
people; it seemed as though we had been travelling for a week, and we
thought of far-away Pera with a slight sensation of home-sickness. At
this point we should certainly have turned back had not our solemn
compact made upon the bridge come into our minds, and Yunk, according
to his helpful custom, revived my drooping spirits by chanting the
grand march from _Aida_.