Merciful Heavens! what did we reach? Nothing in the world but another
suburb, the Christian settlement of Sudludji, built on a hill
surrounded by woods and cemeteries, the same hill at whose base was
formerly one end of the only bridge which in ancient times connected
the two banks of the Golden Horn. But this suburb, by a merciful
providence, was actually the last, and our excursion had finally come
to an end. Quitting the houses, we cast about us for some spot where
we might seek a little much-needed repose. Back of the village there
rises a bare, steep ascent, up which dragging our weary limbs, we
found before us the largest Jewish cemetery in Constantinople. It is a
vast open space, filled with innumerable flat gravestones, presenting
the desolate appearance of a city destroyed by an earthquake, and
unrelieved by a tree or flower or blade of grass, or even so much as
a footpath--a desert solitude as depressing to look upon as the scene
of some great disaster. Seating ourselves upon one of the tombs, we
turned in the direction of the Golden Horn, and while resting our tired
bodies feasted our eyes upon the superb panorama which lay spread out
before us. At our feet lay Sudludji, Kaliji Oghlu, Haskeui, Piri Pasha,
a chain of picturesque villages set in the midst of green gardens and
cemeteries and blue water; to the left, the solitary Ok-Meidan and the
hundred minarets of Kassim Pasha, and farther on the huge, indistinct
outlines of Stambul; beyond, fading away into the distant sky, the blue
line of the mountains of Asia; directly facing us on the opposite shore
of the Golden Horn lay the mysterious quarter of Eyûb, whose gorgeous
mausoleums, marble mosques, deserted streets, and shady inclines,
dotted with tombstones, could be clearly distinguished from where we
sat, rural-looking solitudes full of a melancholy charm; to the right
of Eyûb lay still other villages covering the hillsides and peeping
at their own reflections in the water; and then the final bend of the
Golden Horn, lost to view between two lofty banks covered with trees
and flowers.
Half asleep, exhausted in mind and body, we sat there, allowing our
eyes to wander at will over the whole exquisite scene; put all we had
done and seen to music, and chanted antiphonally a rigmarole of I don’t
know what nonsense; discussed the history of the dead man upon whose
tomb we were sitting; poked into an ant-hill with bits of straw; talked
of all manner of foolish and irrelevant things; asked ourselves from
time to time if it were really true that we were in Constantinople;
reflected upon the shortness of life and vanity of all human desires,
at the same time drawing in deep breaths of pleasure and delight; but
away down in the bottom of our secret souls we each realized through
it all that nothing on earth, no matter how charming and beautiful it
may be, can quite satisfy a man, provided he does not while enjoying it
feel in his the hand of the woman he loves.