[Illustration: View of Stamboul. Mosque of Validêh and Bridge.]
And first of all I must speak of the light. One of my chief pleasures
at Constantinople was to watch the sun rise and set from the bridge of
the Validéh Sultan. At daybreak in the autumn there is almost always
a light fog hanging over the Golden Horn, through which the city can
only be seen indistinctly, as though one were looking through those
thin gauze curtains which are lowered across the stage of a theatre in
order to hide the details of some grand spectacular effect. Skutari
is quite invisible; only her hills, a vague outline, can be faintly
traced against the eastern sky. The bridge, as well as both banks, is
deserted. Constantinople is buried in slumber, and the profound silence
and solitude lend solemnity and impressiveness to the scene. Presently
behind the Skutari hills the sky begins to show streaks of gold, and,
one by one, against that luminous background, the inky points of the
cypress trees stand out clear and defined, like a company of giants
drawn up in battle-array on the heights of her vast cemetery. Now a
single ray of light flashes from one end to the other of the Golden
Horn, like the first faint sigh of returning consciousness, as the
great city stirs and slowly awakens once more to life. Then, behind
the cypresses on the Asiatic shore, a fiery eye shines forth, and
immediately upon the white summits of St. Sophia’s four minarets an
answering blush is seen. In rapid succession from hill to hill, from
mosque to mosque, to the farthest end of the Golden Horn, every minaret
turns to rose, every dome to silver. The crimson flush creeps down
from one terrace to another; the light increases, the veil is lifted,
and all of Stambul lies revealed, rosy and resplendent on the heights,
tinged with blue and violet shadows on the water’s edge, but everywhere
fresh and sparkling as though just risen from the waves. In proportion
as the sun rises higher and higher the delicacy of the first coloring
disappears, swallowed up in the flood of dazzling light, which becomes
so white and blinding as in turn to slightly obscure everything, until
toward evening, when the glorious spectacle recommences. So clear does
the atmosphere then become that from Galata you can easily distinguish
each separate tree on the farthermost point of Kadi-keui. The huge
profile of Stambul is thrown out against the sky with such distinctness
and accuracy of detail that it would be quite possible to note one
by one every minaret, every spire and cypress tree, that crowns her
heights from Seraglio Point to the cemetery of Eyûb. The waters of
the Bosphorus and Golden Horn turn to a marvellous ultramarine; the
sky, of the color of amethysts in the east, grows fiery as it reaches
Stambul, lighting up the horizon with a hundred tints of crimson and
gold, making one think of the first day of creation. Stambul grows
dim, Galata golden, while Skutari, receiving the full blaze of the
setting sun upon her thousand casements, looks like a city devoured
by flames. And this is the most perfect moment in all the twenty-four
hours in which to see Constantinople. It is a rapid succession of the
most exquisite tints--pale gold, rose, and lilac--mingling and blending
one with another on the hillsides and water’s surface, lending to
first one part of the city and then to another the finishing touch
to its perfect beauty, and revealing a thousand modest charms of
hill- and country-side, which were too shy to thrust themselves into
notice beneath the blaze of the noonday sun. It is then that you see
the great melancholy suburbs losing themselves amid the shadows of
the valleys--little purple-tinted hamlets smiling on the hilltops;
towns and villages which languish and droop as though their life were
ebbing away; others disappear from view, as you look at them, like
fires which have been suddenly extinguished; others, again, apparently
quite dead, come unexpectedly to life again, all aglow, and sparkle
joyously for still some moments longer in the last rays of the sun.
Finally, however, nothing remains but two shining summits on the
Asiatic shore--Mt. Bûlgurlù and the point of the cape which guards the
entrance to the Propontis. At first they are two golden coronets, then
two little crimson caps, then two rubies; and then Constantinople is
plunged in shadow, while ten thousand voices from ten thousand minarets
announce that the sun has set.