Cheerful Cemeteries—Burial-ground of Pera—Superiority of the
Turkish Cemeteries—Cypresses—Singular Superstition—The
_Grand Champs_—Greek Grave-yard—Sultan Selim’s
Barrack—Village of St. Demetrius—European
Burial-ground—Grave-stones—The Kiosk—Noble View—Legend of
the Maiden’s Tower—Plague Hospital of the Turks—The
Plague-Caïque—Armenian Cemetery—Curious Inscriptions—Turkish
Burial-place—Distinctive Head-stones—Graves of the
Janissaries—Wild Superstition—Cemetery of Scutari—Splendid
Cypresses—Ancient Prophecy—Extent of Burial-ground—The
Headless Dead—Exclusive Enclosures—Aspect of the Cemetery
from the Summer Palace of Heybetoullah Sultane—Local
Superstition—The Damnèd Souls.
I have alluded elsewhere to the apparent care with which the Turks
select the most lovely spots for burying their dead, and how they have,
by such means, divested death of its most gloomy attributes. Like the
ancient Romans, they form grave-yards by the road-side; and, like them,
they inscribe upon their tombs the most beautiful lessons of resignation
and philosophy.
The Cemetery of Pera offers a singular spectacle; and the rather that
the “Champ des Morts” is the promenade of the whole population, Turk,
Frank, Greek, and Armenian; the lesser burial-place, or _Petit Champs_,
is sacred to the Mussulmauns, and fringes with its dark cypresses the
crest of the hill that dominates the port; it is hemmed in with
houses—overlooked by a hundred casements—grazed by cattle—loud with
greetings and gossipry—and commands an extensive view of the shipping
in the harbour and the opposite shore. There are footpaths among the
funereal trees; sunny glades gleaming out amid the dark shadows;
head-stones clustered against the grassy slopes, and guard-houses, with
their portals thronged with lounging soldiers, mocking the
defencelessness of the dead. Nor must I forget to mention the small
octagonal building, which, seated in the very depth of the valley, and
generally remarkable from the dense volume of smoke exuding from its
tall chimney, marks the spot where the last profane duties are paid to
the dead; where the body is washed, the beard is shorn, the nails are
cut, and the limbs are decently composed, ere what was so lately a True
Believer is laid to rest in the narrow grave, to be aroused only by the
sound of the last trumpet.
The superiority of the Turkish cemeteries over those of Europe may be
accounted for in several ways. Their head-stones are more picturesque
and various—their situation better chosen—and, above all things, the
Mussulmaun never disturbs the ashes of the dead. There is no burying and
re-burying on the same spot, as with us. The remains of the departed
are sacred.
When a body is committed to the earth, the priest plants a cypress at
the head, and another at the foot, of the grave; and hence those
far-spreading forests, those bough o’er-canopied cities of the dead,
which form so remarkable a feature in Turkish scenery. Should only one
tree in six survive, enough still remain to form a dense and solemn
grove; but the Turks have a singular superstition with regard to those
that, instead of lancing their tall heads towards the sky, take a
downward bend, as though they would fain return to the earth from whence
they sprang; they hold that these imply the damnation of the soul whose
mortal remains they overshadow; and as, from the closeness with which
they are planted, and their consequent number, such accidents are by no
means rare, it must be at best a most uncomfortable creed.
But it is to the “Grand Champs” that the stranger should direct his
steps, if he would contemplate a scene to which the world probably can
produce no parallel. Emerging from the all but interminable High Street,
whose projecting upper stories form a canopy above your head for nearly
its whole length, you have on your left hand the plague-hospital for the
Franks, and on your right a stretch of higher land, which is the
burial-ground of the Greeks. Here there is nothing to arrest your steps;
it is ill-kept, and, were it not for the houses that surround it, would
be dreary and desolate from its very disorder. The Greek is the creature
of to-day—yesterday is blotted from his tablets.
Having passed the grave-yard, the road widens into an esplanade, in
front of an extensive block of building, erected by Sultan Selim as a
cavalry barrack. It is painted rose-colour, has a noble entrance, and
possesses a look of order and regularity almost European. It is not
until you descend the gentle declivity that slopes onward to the Grand
Champs des Morts, that you discover the whole extent of the edifice,
which is a quadrangle, having three fronts; its fourth side being
devoted to a range of stabling.
The road to Therapia and the “Sweet Waters” skirts the burial-ground;
and the little Greek village or colony of St. Demetrius covers an
opposite height.
The first plot of ground, after passing the barrack, is the grave-yard
of the Franks; and here you are greeted on all sides with inscriptions
in Latin: injunctions to pray for the souls of the departed; flourishes
of French sentiment; calembourgs graven into the everlasting stone,
treating of roses and reine Marguerites; concise English records of
births, deaths, ages, and diseases; Italian elaborations of regret and
despair; and all the commonplaces of an ordinary burial-ground.
Along the edge of this piece of land, a wide road conducts you to a
steep descent leading to the Sultan’s Palace of Dolma Batché; the crest
of the hill commanding a noble view of the channel; while, on the verge
of the descent, and almost touching the graves, stands a kiosk of wood,
rudely put together, and serving as a coffee room; and immediately in
front of it, a group of cypresses form a pleasant shade, beneath which
parties of Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, seated on low stools, smoke
their eternal chibouks, sip their sugarless coffee, and contemplate one
of the loveliest views over which the eye of a painter ever lingered.
From this height, the hill slopes rapidly downward, clothed with fruit
trees, and bright with vegetation. At its foot flows the blue Bosphorus,
clear and sparkling as the sky, whose tint it rivals. Immediately across
the channel stretches Scutari, the gem of the Asian shore, with its
forest of cypresses, its belt of palaces, its hill-seated kiosks, and
its sky-kissing minarets. Further in the distance are two pigmy islands,
heaving up their dark sides from the bright wave, like aquatic monsters
revelling in the sunshine; beyond is a stretch of sea—the Sea of
Marmora—laughing in the light, as though no storms had ever rent its
bosom—while, above all, on the extreme verge of the horizon, almost
blending with the dark purple clouds that rest upon it, towers Mount
Olympus, the dwelling of the gods, crowned with snows, and flinging its
long shadows over the pleasant town and mulberry groves of Broussa. And
here, a little to the right, (where Scutari, after advancing with a
graceful curve, as though to do homage to her European sister, again
recedes), upon a rock so small that its foundations cover the whole
surface, stands the “Maiden’s Tower;” an object in itself so picturesque
that it would arrest the eye though it possessed no legend to attract
the sympathy—but such is far from being the case.
This Tower, so runs the tale, was erected by a former Sultan, as a
residence for his only daughter, of whom it was foretold by the
astrologers that she would, before the completion of her eighteenth
year, be destroyed by a serpent. Every precaution was taken to overcome
destiny; but it was not to be—an adder, accidentally concealed in a box
of figs, fastened upon the hand of the princess, and she was found dead
on her sofa.
The Maiden’s Tower is now the plague-hospital of the Turks: and his
heart must be atrophised indeed who can look around on the bright and
beautiful scene amid which it stands, and not feel how much the bitter
pang of the plague-smitten must be enhanced by the contrast of all
around them with their own probable fate—for, alas! the long gaze of
the sickening victim is too frequently his last! The dying wretch should
pass to his infected home by a road of gloom and shadow, where no image
of gladness can mock him by its intrusive and harrowing presence—but to
be swiftly borne along that blue sea, with those magnificent shores
stretching away into the distance, far beyond his failing vision—to be
carried to his narrow chamber, probably to die—cut off from his
fellow-men—from all the glory and the majesty around him—surely no
after-pang can be so keen as that which grapples at his heart during his
brief voyage to the Maiden’s Tower!
Rapidly darts forward the slender caïque; it shoots from the shore like
a wild bird—no sound of revelry, no shout of greeting, no pealing
laughter, heralds its departure—the sturdy rowers bend to their oars;
the resisting waters yield before the vigorous stroke—there is no
pause—no interval—the errand is contagion—the freight is death! The
eyes are dim that roll languidly in their sockets: the lips are livid
that quiver with agony in lieu of words: the brow is pale and clammy
that is turned upwards to the cloudless sky—the hands are nerveless
that are flung listlessly across the panting breast—and as men watch
from afar the rapid progress of the laden boat, their own breath comes
thickly, and their pulses throb; and, when they at length turn aside to
pursue their way, they move onward with a slower and a less steady
step—their brows are clouded—they have looked upon the plague!
But the goal is gained, and the caïque has discharged its gloomy
freight. All around is life, and light, and loveliness. The surface of
the channel is crowded with boats, filled with busy human beings,
hurrying onward in pursuit of pleasure or of gain; a thousand sounds are
on the wind. The swift caïques dart like water-fowl past the Maiden’s
Tower, and few within them waste a thought upon the anguish which it
conceals!
A few paces from the spot whence you look down upon this various
scene—a few paces, and from the refuge of the dying you gaze upon the
resting-place of the dead. Where the acacia-trees blossom in their
beauty, and shed their withered flowers upon a plain of graves on the
right hand, immediately in a line with the European cemetery, is the
burial-ground of the Armenians. It is a thickly-peopled spot; and as you
wander beneath the leafy boughs of the scented acacias, and thread your
way among the tombs, you are struck by the peculiarity of their
inscriptions. The noble Armenian character is graven deeply into the
stone; name and date are duly set forth; but that which renders an
Armenian slab (for there is not a head-stone throughout the cemetery)
peculiar and distinctive, is the singular custom that has obtained among
this people of chisselling upon the tomb the emblem of the trade or
profession of the deceased.
Thus the priest is distinguished even beyond the grave by the mitre that
surmounts his name—the diamond merchant by a group of ornaments—the
money-changer by a pair of scales—the florist by a knot of
flowers—besides many more ignoble hieroglyphics, such as the razor of
the barber, the shears of the tailor, and others of this class; and,
where the calling is one that may have been followed by either sex, a
book, placed immediately above the appropriate emblem, distinguishes the
grave of the man.
Nor is this all: the victims of a violent death have also their
distinctive mark—and more than one tomb in this extraordinary
burial-place presents you with the headless trunk of an individual, from
whose severed throat the gushing blood is spirting upwards like a
fountain, while the head itself is pillowed on the clasped hands! Many
of the more ancient among the tombs are very richly and elaborately
wrought, but nearly all the modern ones are perfectly simple; and you
seldom pass the spot without seeing groups of people seated upon the
graves beneath the shadow of the trees, talking, and even smoking. Death
has no gloom for the natives of the East.
The Turkish cemetery stretches along the slope of the hill behind the
barrack, and descends far into the valley. Its thickly-planted cypresses
form a dense shade, beneath which the tall head-stones gleam out white
and ghastly. The grove is intersected by footpaths, and here and there a
green glade lets in the sunshine, to glitter upon many a gilded tomb.
Plunge into the thick darkness of the more covered spots, and for a
moment you will almost think that you stand amid the ruins of some
devastated city. You are surrounded by what appear for an instant to be
the myriad fragments of some mighty whole—but the gloom has deceived
you—you are in the midst of a Nekropolis—a City of the Dead. Those
chisselled blocks of stone that lie prostrate at your feet, or lean
heavily on one side as if about to fall, and which at the first glance
have seemed to you to be the shivered portions of some mighty
column—those turban-crowned shafts which rise on all sides—those gilt
and lettered slabs erected beside them—are memorials of the
departed—the first are of ancient date; the earth has become loosened
at their base, and they have lost their hold—the others tell their own
tale; the bearded Moslem sleeps beside his wife—the turban surmounting
his head-stone, and the rose-branch carved on her’s, define their sex,
while the record of their years and virtues is engraven beneath. Would
you know more? Note the form and folds of the turban, and you will learn
the rank and profession of the deceased—here lies the man of law—and
there rests the Pasha—the soldier slumbers yonder, and close beside you
repose the ashes of the priest—here and there, scattered over the
burial-ground, you may distinguish several head-stones from which the
turbans have been recently struck off—so recently that the severed
stone is not yet weather-stained; they mark the graves of the
Janissaries, desecrated by order of the Sultan after the distinction of
their body; who himself stood by while a portion of the work was going
forward; and the mutilated turbans that are half buried in the long
grass beside these graves are imperishable witnesses to their
disgrace—a disgrace which was extended even beyond the grave, and whose
depth of ignominy can only be understood in a country where the dead are
objects of peculiar veneration.
Those raised terraces enclosed within a railing are family
burial-places; and the miniature column crowned with a _fèz_, painted
in bright scarlet, records the rest of some infant Effendi. At the base
of many of the shafts are stones hollowed out to contain water, which
are carefully filled, during the warm season, by pious individuals, for
the supply of the birds, or any wandering animals.
The Turks have a strange superstition attached to this cemetery. They
believe that on particular anniversaries sparks of fire exude from many
of the graves, and lose themselves among the boughs of the cypresses.
The idea is at least highly poetical.
But Constantinople boasts no burial-place of equal beauty with that of
Scutari, and probably the world cannot produce such another, either as
regards extent or pictorial effect. A forest of the finest cypresses
extending over an immense space, clothing hill and valley, and
overshadowing, like a huge pall, thousands of dead, is seen far off at
sea, and presents an object at once striking and magnificent. Most of
the trees are of gigantic height, and their slender and spiral outline
cutting sharply against the clear sky is graceful beyond expression. The
Turks themselves prefer the great cemetery of Scutari to all others;
for, according to an ancient prophecy in which they have the most
implicit faith, the followers of Mahomet are, ere the termination of the
world, to be expelled from Europe; and, as they are jealous of
committing even their ashes to the keeping of the Giaour, they covet,
above all things, a grave in this Asiatic wilderness of tombs. Thus,
year after year, the cypress forest extends its boundaries, and spreads
further and wider its dense shadows; generation after generation sleeps
in the same thickly-peopled solitude; and the laughing vineyard and the
grassy glade disappear beneath the encroachments of the ever-yawning
sepulchre—the living yield up their space to the dead—the blossoming
fruit trees are swept away, and the funereal and feathering boughs of
the dark grave-tree tower in their stead.
It is not without a sensation of the most solemn awe that you turn aside
from the open plain, and abandon the cheerful sunshine, to plunge into
the deep gloom of the silent forest; scores of narrow pathways intersect
it in all directions; and, should you fail to follow them in your
wanderings, your every step must be upon a grave. Here a group of lofty
and turban-crowned columns, each with a small square slab of stone at
its base, arrests you with a thrill of sickening interest, for that
silent and pigmy slab tells you a tale of terror—each covers the
severed head of a victim to state policy, or state intrigue—Vizirs and
Pashas, Beys and Effendis—the eye that blighted, and the brow that
burned, are mouldering, or have mouldered there—the fever of ambition,
the thirst of power, the wiliness of treason, and the pride of
place—all that frets and fevers the mind of man, is there laid to rest
for ever—and the stately turban towers, as if in mockery, above the
trunkless head which festers in its dishonoured grave!
Those gilded tombs enclosed within their circling barrier are inscribed
with the names and titles of some powerful or wealthy race that has
carried its pride beyond the grave, and not suffered even its dust to
mingle with that of more common men—the prostrate and perished columns
on one hand have yielded reluctantly to time, and now cumber the earth
in recordless ruin; while the stately head-stones on the other, yet
bright with gilding, and elaborate with ornament, point out to you the
resting-places of the newly dead—the pomp of yesterday speaks far less
sadly to the heart than the hoar and letterless remains of by-past
centuries.
Suddenly a bright light flashes through the gloom; the warm sunshine
falls in a flood of radiance, the more startling from the darkness that
surrounds it, upon a limited and treeless space, on which time or the
tempest have done their work; and where withered boughs and shivered
trunks, branchless and gray with moss, are prostrate among sunken tombs
and ruined monuments.
Your spirit is oppressed, your eye is blinded, by that mocking light!
Here and there, upon the borders of the forest, a latticed pavilion of
the brightest green, contrasting strangely with the cold, white,
spectral-looking head-stones which it overtops, causes you to turn aside
almost in wonder; but death is even there—it is the tomb of some
beloved child, and the slab within is strown with flowers—flowers that
have been gathered in anguish, and moistened with tears. Alas! for the
breaking heart and the trembling hand that strewed them there!
I remember nothing more beautiful than the aspect of the burying-ground
of Scutari, from the road which winds in front of the summer palace of
the Princess Haybètoullah. The crest of the hill is one dense mass of
dark foliage, while the slope is only partially clothed with trees, that
advance and recede in the most graceful curves; and the contrast between
the deep dusky green of the cypresses, and the soft bright tint of the
young fresh grass in the open spaces between them, produces an effect
almost magical, and which strikes you as being more the result of art
than accident, until you convince yourself, by looking around you, that
it is to its extent alone that this noble cemetery owes its gloom, for
its site is eminently picturesque and beautiful. On one side, an open
plain separates it from the channel; on the other, it is bounded by a
height clothed with vines and almond trees—the houses of Scutari touch
upon its border, and even mingle with its graves in the rear, while
before it spreads a wide extent of cultivated land dotted with
habitations.
Need I add that the Nekropolis of Scutari, such as I have described it,
has also its local superstition? Surely not; and the idea is so wild,
and withal so imaginative, that I cannot pass it by without record.
Along the channel may be constantly seen clouds of aquatic birds of
dusky plumage, speeding their rapid flight from the Euxine to the
Propontis, or bending their restless course from thence back again to
the Black Sea, never pausing for a moment to rest their weary wing on
the fair green spots of earth that woo them on every side; and it is
only when a storm takes place in the Sea of Marmora, or sweeps over the
bosom of the Bosphorus, that they fly shrieking to the cypress forest of
Scutari for shelter; and these the Turks believe to be the souls of the
damned, who have found sepulchre beneath its boughs, and which are
permitted, during a period of elementary commotion, to revisit the spot
where their mortal bodies moulder; and there mourn together over the
crimes and judgment of their misspent existence upon earth—while,
during the gentler seasons, they are compelled to pass incessantly
within sight of the localities they loved in life, without the privilege
of pausing even for one instant in the charmed flight to which they are
condemned for all eternity!
My mind was full of this legend when I visited the cemetery—and I can
offer no better apology for the wild verses that I strung together as I
sat upon a fallen column in one of the gloomiest nooks of the forest,
and amid the noon-day twilight of the thick branches, while my
companions wandered away among the graves.
THE DAMNÈD SOULS.
Hark! ’tis a night when the storm-god rides
In triumph o’er the deep;
And the howling voice of the tempest chides
The spirits that fain would sleep:
When the clouds, like a sable-bannered host,
Crowd the dense and lurid sky;
And the ship and her crew are in darkness lost
As the blast roars rushing by.
Voices are heard which summon men
To a dark and nameless doom;
And spirits, beyond a mortal’s ken,
Are wandering through the gloom;
While the thunders leap from steep to steep,
And the yellow lightnings flash,
And the rocks reply to the riot on high,
As the wild waves o’er them dash.
And we are here, in this night of fear,
Urged by a potent spell,
Haunting the glade where our bones are laid,
Our tale of crime to tell—
We have hither come, through the midnight gloom,
As the tempest about us rolls,
To spread mid the graves, where the rank grass waves,
The feast of the Damnèd Souls.
Some have flown from the deep sea-caves
Which the storm-won treasures hold;
And these are they who through life were slaves
To the sordid love of gold;
No other light e’er meets their sight,
Save the gleam of the yellow ore;
And loathe they there, in their dark despair,
What they idolized before.
They have swept o’er the rude and rushing tide,
Bestrewn with wreck and spoil,
Where the shrieking seaman writhed and died
’Mid his unavailing toil;
And they rode the wave, without power to save
The wretch as he floated by;
And sighed to think, as they saw him sink,
What a boon it was to die!
Some were cast from the burning womb,
Whence the lava-floods have birth;
From fires which wither, but ne’er consume
The rejected one of earth—
And these are they who were once the prey
Of the thirst that madmen know,
When the world for them is the diadem
That burns into the brow.
They who crouch in the deepest gloom
Where no lightning-flash can dart,
Who, chained in couples, have hither come,
And can never be rent apart;
These are they whose life was a scene of strife,
And who learnt, alas! too late,
That the years flew fast which they each had cast
On the altar of their hate.
But, hark! through the forest there sweeps a wail
More wild than the tempest-blast,
As each commences the darkling tale
Of the stern and shadowy past—
And the spell that has power, in this dread hour,
No pang of our’s controls—
Nor may mortal dare in the watch to share
That is kept by the Damnèd Souls!