Figurative Gratitude of the Seraskier Pasha—Eastern
Hyperbole—Reminiscences of Past Years—A Vision
Realized—Strong Contrasts—The Marriage Fêtes—Popular
Excitement—Crowded Streets—The Auspicious Day—Extravagant
Expectations—The Great Cemetery—Dolma Batchè—The Grand
Armoury—Turkish Women—Tents of the Pashas—The
Bosphorus—Preparations—Invocation—The Illuminated
Bosphorus—A Stretch of Fancy—A Painful Recollection—Natural
Beauties of the Bosphorus—The Grave-Yard—Evening
Amusements—Well Conducted Population.
In a letter of thanks recently addressed by the Seraskier Pasha to the
Sultan, in acknowledgment of some honour conferred upon him by his
Imperial Master, he exclaims in an affected burst of enthusiastic
gratitude:—“Your Sublime favour has been as a southern sun piercing
even to the remote corner of my insignificance. Had I all the forest
boughs of the Universe for pens, and the condensed stars of Heaven for a
page whereon to inscribe your bounties, I should still lack both space
and means to record them!”
Even in this style should he or she who undertakes to become their
chronicler, shape the periods in which are detailed the marriage
festivities of the Princess Mihirmàh. The pen should be tipped with
diamond-dust, and the paper powdered with seed-pearl. All the hyperboles
of the Arabian story-tellers should be heaped together, as the colours
of the rainbow are piled upon the clouds which pillow the setting sun;
and, as the gorgeous tail of the peacock serves to withdraw the eye from
its coarse and ungainly feet, so should the glowing sentences that
dilate on the glories of the show, veil from the vision of the reader
the paltry details that would tend to dissolve the enchantment.
How often have I hung entranced over the sparkling pages of the “Hundred
and One Nights.” How little did I ever expect to see them brought into
action. When a mere girl, I remember once to have laid the volume on my
knees; and, with my head pillowed on my hand, and my eyes closed, to
have attempted to bring clearly before my mental vision the Caravan of
the Merchand Abdullah, when he departed in search of the Valley of
Diamonds.
Years have since passed over me, and that gorgeous description is no
longer a mere dream. I have looked upon its realization—I have seen the
flashing of the jewels in the sunshine—the prancing of the steeds
impatient of a rider—the rolling of the fifty chariots—the gathering
of the throng of princes—the eunuchs and the horsemen—winding their
way over hill and through valley, under a sky of turquoise, along the
bank of a clear stream; and within sight of a sea whose shore was
studded with palaces, and upon whose blue bosom a fleet of stately ships
were riding at anchor within an arrow’s flight of land.
But I have also seen more than this. I have seen not only the machinery
at work, but the wheels that worked it; not only the brilliant effect,
but the combination of paltry means used to produce it—the blending of
the magnificent and the _mesquin_—a thousand minute details,
unimportant in themselves, and yet operating so powerfully on the
imagination, that they clipped the wings of Fancy, and wrung the wand
from the grasp of the Enchanter.
There is no consistency, no keeping, in Oriental splendour. The Pasha,
with the diamond on his breast, is generally attended by a running
footman who is slip-shod; and the Sultana, whose araba is veiled by a
covering of crimson and gold, not infrequently figures in pantaloons of
furniture chintz, and an antery of printed cotton. The same startling
contrasts meet you at every step: and tourists and historians pass them
over, because they destroy the continuity of their narrations, and the
rounding of their periods; and yet they are as characteristic of the
people as the chibouk or the turban, and therefore equally worthy of
record.
The Fêtes were to continue for eight days—the diamond was to be
shivered into fragments, and thus divided into many portions without
sacrificing its lustre. All the population of Constantinople was in a
ferment—the charshees had yielded up their glittering store of gold and
silver stuffs—the diamond-merchants had exhausted themselves in elegant
conceits—the confectioners had realized the fabled garden of
enchantment visited by Aladdin in his search for the magic lamp, and the
candied fruits peeped from amid their sugary cases, like masses of
precious ore, and clusters of jewels—the silk-bazar of Broussa was a
waste—the environs of Pera resembled a scattered camp—the heights
around the valley of Dolma Batchè were guarded by mounted
troops—provisions of every description trebled their price: and one
vessel, laden with a hundred and fifty thousand fowls for the market of
Constantinople, which arrived from the Archipelago, was secured for the
exclusive use of the Sultan’s kitchen.
Pashas were daily pouring in from the provinces—tribute was flung into
the yawning coffers of the state—audiences of congratulation kept the
Imperial Palace in a constant whirl—and the streets of the city were
thronged with a motley crowd, either invited thither by the
authorities, or attracted by the hope of profit. Bulgarians, in parties
of three or four, impeded the progress of every respectable passenger
who would fain have threaded his way among them unmolested; and by dint
of stunning him with their discordant instruments, and intruding
themselves upon his path to exhibit their coarse and ungainly dances,
wrung from him by their sturdy perseverance a donation whose impulse was
certainly not one of charity. Bohemian gipsies, some of them so lovely
that they seemed formed to command the prosperity which they subtly
promised to others, were bestowing palaces and power on every side at
the slender price of a few paras. Arabian tumblers, turned loose for the
first time in the streets of a great capital, and appearing scarcely
able to keep their feet upon the solid earth, jostled you at every
corner. Persian rope-dancers stalked gravely and solemnly along, with
large white turbans, and flowing robes. Bedouin jugglers were grouped in
coffee-shops and smoking-booths, awaiting the moment when their services
would be required; and bewildering the sober brains of the surrounding
Turks with loud vauntings of the feats with which they proposed to
delight his Sublime Highness, and to astonish his people. Altogether,
Constantinople resembled a human kaleidoscope, whose forms and features
varied at every turn; and even those who, like myself, had no immediate
interest in the festival, caught a portion of the popular excitement,
and became anxious for the period of its celebration.
At length, the auspicious morning dawned which the Court Astrologer had
declared to herald happiness to the Princess; and all Stamboul had
crossed the Bosphorus with the rising sun to share in the Imperial
festivities.
Long before mid-day Pera also was a desert: the stream of life had
flowed in one sole direction, and every avenue leading to Dolma Batchè
was thronged with human beings, anxious and excited, and yet scarcely
knowing what they anticipated. The marriage festival had been the one
engrossing subject of discourse and speculation for so many months—such
extravagant suggestions had been hazarded, and such wild assertions had
been made, that the imagination of the crowd had run riot; and, had the
fountains poured forth liquid ore, and the heavens themselves rained
diamond-dust, I am not sure that such events would have caused any
extraordinary manifestation of astonishment, from the mass of spectators
who had clustered themselves like bees in the neighbourhood of the
palace.
The Great Cemetery looked as though every grave had given up its dead;
there was scarcely space to pass among the crowd which thronged it.
Dancing, smoking, and gambling for sugarplums, (the only stake that a
Turk ever hazards on a game of chance) divided the attention of the
loiterers, with swings, round-abouts, and mohalibè merchants. Pillauf
and kibaubs were preparing in every direction for the refreshment of the
hungry; and tinted and perfumed sherbets, carefully guarded from the
sun, were whiling in their turn the weary and the warm to pause on their
onward path, and indulge in their tempting freshness.
The tents were flaunting their bright colours in the sunshine; the
smoking booths were filled with guests; the little wooden kiosk on the
edge of the height was unapproachable; the long line of wall surrounding
the Artillery Barrack was, as usual on all festive occasions, covered
with Turkish women; and the whole space beneath was instinct with life
and motion.
From the point of the hill above the sea the land shoots sharply down
into the valley of Dolma Batchè, clothed with fruit trees, whose
perfumed blossoms, then in the height of their beauty, were emptying
their tinted chalices, on the air. The road leading to the Palace is cut
along the side of the declivity, forming on its upper edge a lofty ridge
which was fringed throughout its whole length with tents; in the
distance rose the Military College, spanning the crest of the hill like
a diadem; with the gilded and glittering crescent that crowns the dome
of its mosque flashing in the sunshine. On the right hand the view was
bounded by the dense forest of cypresses rising above the tombs of the
Turkish cemetery, which swept darkly downwards to the Bosphorus that was
laughing in its loveliness, and reflecting on its waveless bosom the
lovely height of Scutari which hemmed in the landscape. And as the eye
wandered onward along the channel, it took in the dusky shore of Asia,
with its kiosk-crowned and forest-clad mountains; until the line was
lost in the gradually failing purple, that blent itself at last with the
horizon.
Immediately beneath the hill, and close upon the shore, stands the
Palace of Dolma Batchè, with its walls of many tints, and its fantastic
irregularity of outline; while behind its spacious gardens, sloping
gently upward, and clothed with turf, rises a stretch of land which was
now crowded with Turkish women. Nothing could be more picturesque than
their appearance: the nature of the ground having enabled them to
arrange themselves amphitheatrically, and from thence to command an
uninterrupted view of the esplanade in front of the Grand Armoury, which
is enclosed on its opposite side by a raised terrace, along whose edge
were pitched the tents of the Pashas. There must have been at least five
hundred women clustered together on that one small stretch of land; and
in the distance it presented precisely the appearance of a meadow
covered with daisies, with here and there a corn-poppy flaunting in the
midst; the white yashmacs and red umbrellas lending themselves readily
to the illusion.
The tents of the Pashas were many of them very magnificent: the Grand
Vèzir’s was hung with crimson velvet, richly embroidered; while that of
Achmet Pasha was lined with green satin, and fringed with gold; and the
whole were richly carpeted, and surrounded by handsome sofas. The
reception-marquee, in which the Sultan was to entertain a party of
guests daily, was situated in the rear of those that I have just
described: and the kitchen, ingeniously fitted up with stoves, dressers,
and tables, hewn in the hill-side, was tenanted by five hundred cooks.
The Bosphorus was crowded with caïques, almost as countless as its
ripple; and immediately in front of the Palace, and nearly in the centre
of the stream, were anchored two rafts, supporting small fortified
castles, whence the fireworks were to be displayed.
A survey of these different preparations proved to be the principal
amusement of the day, as the rope-dancing on the Esplanade of the
Armoury was not sufficiently attractive to detain any individual less
indolent than a Turkish woman; and consequently, after having completed
our tour of observation, we returned to Pera in order to repose
ourselves, and to prepare for the magnificent spectacle that awaited us
in the evening.
And now, ye Spirits of Fire, who guard the subterranean flames which are
only suffered to flash forth at intervals from the crater of some fierce
volcano—Ye, whose brows are girt with rays of many-coloured radiance,
whose loins are cinctured by the lightning, and whose garments are of
the tint which hangs like a drapery over the cineritious remnants of a
conflagrated city—Ye, who must have left your vapoury palaces, and
bowed your flame-crowned heads upon your gleaming wings, in blighted
pride to see your lordliest pageants overmatched—lend me a pen of fire,
drawn from the pinion of your bravest sprite, and fashioned with an
unwrought diamond; for thus only can I record the glorious scene that
burst upon me, as, at the close of day, I stood upon a height above the
channel, when a festive people had recorded their participation in the
gladness of their Monarch, in characters of fire.
The moon rode high in Heaven, but her beam looked pale and sickly, as it
faded before the brighter light with which men had made night glorious;
while the stars seemed but fading sparks, that had been emitted by the
stupendous line of fire girdling the Bosphorus—It was a spectacle of
enchantment!
Not an outline could be traced of any of the lordly piles which fringe
the coast. The summit of the Asian shore was dimly perceptible, as it
cut sharply against the clear deep blue of the horizon; but there was no
intrusive object of mortal creation for the every day necessities of
life, to recall the wandering fancy back to earth. Nothing can be
conceived more beautiful than the whole scene. A range of palaces of the
most fantastic forms, wrought in fire, and seeming to be poized upon the
waves, along which they threw their gleaming shadows, stretched far as
the eye could reach. Portals of variegated light—terraces of burnished
gold, or of beaten silver—groves of forest trees, whose leaves were
emeralds—fruits, heaped in stately vases, each one a priceless
gem—altars, upon which burnt flames of liquid metal—pavilions of
crystal—and halls, lined with columns of sapphire, and lighted by domes
of carbuncles, were among the objects that appeared to have sprung up
from the depths of the ocean, and to be now riding upon its bosom.
The sensation which this gorgeous scene produced upon me, for the first
few moments, was almost painful. I deemed myself thralled—I doubted my
own identity—I almost expected the earth to fail beneath my feet, for
earth had no share in the spectacle on which I looked—I saw boats
passing and repassing over a lake of molten silver—I saw palaces of
fire based upon its surface, and heaving with its undulations—a marine
monster, whose eyes were dazzling, and whose nostrils vomited forth
flames that shot high into the air, wound its slow way among the gliding
barks, and none heeded its vicinity—I beheld huge dark masses covered
with stars of light, which were reflected in the stream beneath, looking
like rocky craters that would shortly burst, and cast forth the
imprisoned fires—carriages and horses, guided by spectral hands,
followed over the same cold clear surface—and suddenly, with a hissing
sound which startled me from my reverie, and a burst of light almost
blinding, up sprang a cluster of fiery serpents into the pure ether,
mocking the pale moon with their transient brilliancy, and then falling
back in starry showers.
The dream of fancy was dispelled at once:—A handful of rockets sufficed
to arouse me from one of the wildest visions in which I ever remember to
have indulged—for I no sooner saw them run shimmering along the sky,
than I sickened at the memory of the frightful catastrophe which
attended their preparation; when eighty-four miserable human beings fell
victims to the explosion of the powder-room of the manufactory. My
enthusiasm was at an end: but my admiration of the magnificent scene,
amid which I stood, continued unabated; the channel of the Bosphorus,
beautiful under all circumstances, and at all times, offered facilities,
and enhanced effects, in an exhibition like that on which I looked, that
cannot probably be exceeded in the world; and I felt at once that, even
had man done less, nature would still have made the pageant peerless.
We at length turned reluctantly away from the City of Fire on which we
had been so long looking; and, threading among the tents that occupied
the crest of the hill, we passed out through the fair of the Great
Cemetery. Every booth was thronged. In one, a set of Fantoccini were
performing their miniature drama; in another, an Improvvisatore was
regaling a circle of listeners with a gesticulation and volubility which
appeared to excite great admiration in his auditors; while in a third, a
trio of Bohemian minstrels, squatted upon a mat, were accompanying their
wild recitative by a few chords struck almost at random upon their
mandolins.
In the distance, a wreath of lamps defined the outline of the Military
College; while lower in the valley gleamed out the costly chandeliers
which lit up the tents of the Pashas. The hills were sprinkled over with
lights; the terrace at the extremity of the palace was a wall of fire;
and the scene was all life and gladness. Crowds thronged the narrow
road; but not a sound of discord, not a word uttered in menace or in
defiance, escaped from the lips of a single individual; all were
tranquil, orderly, and well conducted; the sole aim of each was
amusement; and this great eastern mob, amounting to between forty and
fifty thousand persons, collected together from all the surrounding
country, from the heart of a great city, and from the shores of two
different quarters of the earth, appeared to act from one common
impulse, and to have one common interest.
It is questionable whether such a fact as this could be recorded of any
other country.