overshadowed by acacia-trees and wild vines, occupy a portion of the
square; and the quiet-loving Moslem smokes his chibouque in luxurious
repose, under the very shade of the fountain whence he draws his cool and
healthful draught. Here the khamals[15] deposit the heavy bale, which
has been slung upon two long poles resting on their shoulders, being
secure at once of rest and refreshment; and recover their failing breath
ere they venture on the steep ascent, whose rugged paving doubles its
difficulty. Here the lounging household servant, a slave only in name,
loiters away an idle half-hour, collecting or retailing the gossip of
the neighbourhood. Here the crouching Jew offers for sale his paltry
mouth-pieces of artificial amber or discoloured ivory; the first of these
being made from the dust of the gum, and the fragments of those which
break under the hands of the workmen—an accident so common with amber, as
considerably to enhance the price of the perfect article. Here, too, the
wayfarer and the idler alike linger willingly; and seated upon low wicker
stools, not raised more than a few inches from the ground, they form
groups of picturesque comfort in admirable keeping with the locality, as
they smoke their chibouques, sip their coffee, and drain deep draughts
of the clear water of the fountain. The houses which surround the square
give a perfect idea of Turkish domestic architecture: the projecting
story above the ground-floor, supported by stout buttresses of timber,
and thickly set with latticed windows, is the harem of the establishment;
while the owner of the dwelling plies his trade or vends his wares below,
squatted on a wooden counter close beside the street, with his slippers
lying near him, his pipe between his lips, and his goods hung all round
his shop.
Among the prettiest of these small trades is that of the sherbet[16]
and mohalibè[17] merchants, whose tinkling fountains of metal, pouring
forth streams of lemonade and other cool drinks, are very inviting to the
passer by; while the large carefully-kept trays of white wood, with the
blancmange covered by a fine cloth moistened with rosewater, are scarcely
less enticing. The shops of the boudaka[18] venders are also very
attractive, as the forms of most of the bowls are extremely elegant, and
the gilding and enamelling of many of the more costly even curious. Near
this fountain is situated the street of the pipe-stick makers, a race of
men who are sure of success in their calling, and who are comparatively
independent in their manner of doing business; and many a bargain is
struck between the itinerant dealer and these worthy perforators of
cherry-sticks and jasmin-wood, under the wild vines and acacias of the
pretty fountain in the square.
VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU.
’Tis hard to quit the East’s inspiring sky,
From citron groves and spicy gales to fly;
To look on Nature in her brightest dress,
Nor heave a sigh for her lost loveliness.
MS.
The scene which is spread out before the wanderer, as he stands upon the
dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu, with the town of Scutari immediately at his
feet, and the city of Constantinople mapped out in the distance in its
frame of clear and pellucid water, is one which throughout his after
life, be it of what duration it may, he can never cease to remember. He
looks down into the mysterious gardens of the Seraï Bournou, far over
the glittering Propontis, along the shores of the Bosphorus, into the
Golden Horn, upon “St. Sophia’s gleaming dome;” on the seven hills of the
imperial city, the gloomy remains of the Seven Towers, the ancient walls
of Byzantium, the modern palaces of the Sultans, the fair islands of the
Sea of Marmora, and the far-off and snow-crested Mount Olympus, lording
it over the fertile plains of Broussa.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
It is well for those who wish to form a correct idea of such a scene as
this, that the pencil of the artist can call it up and place it palpably
before them; for mere words could never succeed in creating so bright a
vision. Hours are necessary to the traveller to enable him to appreciate
all its glory; and it is an additional enjoyment to pitch his tent
among the wild thyme and olive-trees of the mountain, and in the midst
of the camels, which, after gaining the summit of the height, repose
there for a time in some shady spot, as they are on their way into the
interior, laden with merchandise from the bazārs of the capital. As these
animals are never seen on the European side of the channel, they give a
localizing effect to the picture, and the wanderer at once feels that he
is in Asia.
This is, perhaps, the most favourable point for contemplating Stamboul in
all its extent, and fully comprehending its extraordinary magnificence
as a whole; its singular outline, its ocean-girdle, where the blue waves
seem to follow lovingly whithersoever the sinuosities of the shores
invite them; its thousand domes, and its shaft-like minarets beckoning
to the blue heavens, against which they glitter like polished ivory; its
forest-trees overshadowing the party-coloured dwellings; its cypress
groves stretching down to the water’s edge; and all the blended beauties
of the unrivalled locality.
The artist has indeed a rich field for his talent when he gazes around
him from Mount Bulgurlhu; but the traveller, although he may idly heap
expletive on expletive, until his praises swell into hyperbole, must ever
fail in conveying by mere verbal description, a correct impression of so
bright, so varied, and so beautiful a panorama.
TURKISH HOUSES ON THE BOSPHORUS.
“It was indeed a wide extensive building
Which opened on their view, and o’er the front
There seem’d to be besprent a deal of gilding,
And various hues, as in the Turkish wont—
A gaudy taste; for they are little skill’d in
The arts of which these lands were once the font:
Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a screen
New painted, or a pretty opera-scene.”
BYRON.
However the description of the noble poet which heads the present chapter
may apply to many of the country residences on the channel, it cannot be
denied that to others it is entirely inapplicable; for there are only too
great a number which resemble nothing less than
“A screen new painted.”
The shores of the Bosphorus are a study—not only for their beauty, but
because, in the general aspect of the dwellings that fringe them, the
traveller may read a great moral lesson; for Turkey is a country where
the population do not fall back upon the past, where they are almost
careless of the future, and where the present is every thing. The Turk
builds for himself, toils for himself, intrigues for himself, as his
father did before him; and leaves his children to strive and to create in
their turn with the “Inshallah!” of an earnest and unaffected philosophy.
Fortune, even in the West, is a fickle tenure; but in the East, it is
sometimes the mere ephemera of a day; and thus, as the Osmanli rises
in that favour which alone can lend it, he at once erects or purchases
a residence suited to his brightening prospects, gay with temporary
ornament and evanescent decoration, whose freshness may even thus chance
to outlive his prosperity. Should it do otherwise, he gladly renews the
paint and the gilding, and repairs the ravages of the weather, or the
effects of accident; but when, as is frequently the case, it outlasts his
fortunes, he contents himself with the faded and discoloured reliques of
by-gone luxury, and satisfies himself by making the dwelling habitable,
and awaiting a more golden season to renew its vanished glories.
[Illustration: TURKISH COUNTRY HOUSES, ON THE BOSPHORUS.
W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Bentley.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Thus, as the light caïque of the observer skims over the ripple, the
circumstances of almost every householder on the Bosphorus may be
ascertained by the appearance of his dwelling. The residence of the
favourite and the courtier is indeed a “wide extensive building,” over
whose front is “besprent a deal of gilding, and various hues.” The
lattices of the harem are gaily painted, the terraces are bright with
flowers, the marble steps against which the blue ripple chafes in the
sunshine are thronged with attendants, and the caïque that awaits its
owner at their base is like a fairy bark, glittering with gold and
crimson. Arabesques adorn the walls, and pretty kiosques peep from among
the leaves of the tall trees of the extensive gardens; the perfume of
flowers and the sounds of music come blended along the water, and the
very atmosphere breathes prosperity.
The discarded Bey and the disgraced Minister boast dwellings as stately
and as proud, but the trace of change is over all. A heavy hand has
fallen upon the edifice, and the bright colours have faded beneath its
pressure. Grass grows upon the marble terraces; the wind finds its way
into the apartments through shivered glass and shattered lattices; and a
certain parade of decay, which leaves an impression of design upon the
mind, is palpable throughout.
But the empty residence of the exile tells a far sadder tale. There
all is real and unstudied ruin; the grass and weeds are rank in the
fissures of the pavement; the hingeless shutters rattle in the wind;
the mouldering roof no longer excludes the rain, which forms a thousand
discoloured currents through the faded frescoes of the desolate and
echoing apartments; doves build in the galleries, and locusts are loud
among the garden-branches; theirs is the only song that awakens the
deserted groves.
The houses of the Armenians and Greeks (the raïahs, or vassals of the
Porte,) are universally painted a dull red, or lead colour; the gayer
tints in which the Turks delight being prohibited to them, while the Jews
are compelled to confine themselves to black; and among the wealthier
raïahs it is common to paint a residence which is unusually spacious,
in two distinct colours, to produce the effect of its being separate
dwellings.
Nothing can be more irregular, and consequently more picturesque, than
the style of building on the Bosphorus; for the Turks are such sincere
lovers of nature, that they invariably throw out a bay, or contract a
wing, when by so doing they can secure a fine view, or a pretty peep,
not otherwise attainable; and as these present themselves at every turn
of the channel, the Turkish country houses have much the appearance of
buildings that have been put together by fragments.
When it is remembered that these houses are backed by a chain of
fertile and richly-wooded hills, forming a succession of gardens and
pleasure-grounds, and are washed by the rapid current of the Bosphorus,
it will be readily conceded that they present a _coup-d’œil_ probably
unique; while the salubrity of the air, the elasticity of the atmosphere,
the constant movement upon the channel—which may, without affectation, be
denominated the high-way of the capital—and the splendid scenery which
they command on all sides, render them, as summer residences, well worthy
of the universal popularity which they enjoy.
In many instances the buildings are raised along the extreme edge of the
shore, and are unprotected, even by a terrace; and the upper stories
generally projecting beyond the basement, they hang over the water in a
singular manner. Nor do they always enjoy this privilege with impunity,
as the channel is several feet in depth under their very windows; and
it not unfrequently happens, that the wind failing when a vessel is
beating on a “tack,” and the current impelling it onward with a force
which it is unable to resist, portions of the rigging become entangled
with the houses, bowsprits enter the windows of the saloons and carry
away the roof, and the most ridiculous accidents are the result. But
the inhabitants will not sacrifice a positive enjoyment to a probable
evil; and thus they build their water-palaces as daringly as though no
intrusive bark ever parted with its gleaming prow the bright waves over
which they fling their long dark shadows.
Not the least beauty of these singular residences consists in their
hanging terraces, frequently latticed in for the convenience of the
harem, which make the Bosphorus fragrant with the breath of flowers; and
the little canals terminating in arched entrances for the caïques of the
establishment, which are thus admitted to a large basin in the centre
of the court-yard, where the fair inhabitants may embark and disembark
at their pleasure, without being subjected to the profaning gaze of the
passers-by.
The interior of these interesting dwellings is generally fitted up
with much taste, and always with a careful regard to cheerfulness. The
walls are painted in frescoes, with landscapes, fruits, or flowers; and
the ceilings are always beautifully ornamented. In short, they are as
fanciful, and almost as frail, as fairy-palaces.
MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ, FROM THE PORT.
“Look on this picture, and on this;
A miniature resemblance.”
SHAKSPEARE.
The handsome court of the Mosque of Yeni Djami has been already
described, but the whole effect of the edifice from the water is too
striking to be neglected by the artist.
The white and dazzling marble of which it is built, its slender and
highly-ornamented minarets, its stately portal, and solemn stillness,
are brought out in such fine relief against the dark and dingy
buildings which cumber the port, and which are loud with industry
and contention—that while the mere traveller involuntarily wishes to
transport the gleaming temple to a more consistent locality, the painter
forgets the turmoil, the filth, and the uproar amid which he gazes on it,
in his anxiety to transfer to the pages of his sketch-book so beautiful
an object.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ. (From the Port.)
W. H. Bartlett. W. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The Mosque of the Sultana Validè stands almost on the edge of the port,
from which its court is only separated by the Balook, or Fish Bazār; and
this point being the ferry between Galata and Stamboul, is constantly
thronged with boats. And here it is that almost every Frank first lands
in the “City of the Faithful.” The scene is a singular one to the western
traveller; and the noise and bustle of the busy crowd are totally at
variance with all his preconceived ideas of the grave and turbaned
easterns. The sharp shrill voice of the irritable and loquacious Greek,
the expostulatory vehemence of the angry Armenian, the solemn intonations
of the stately Turk, the hurried greetings of the merchants passing to
and from the bazārs, and the vociferous appeals of the rival boatmen to
the impatient passengers, swell on the air together; while the confusion
on the water emulates that on land.
Sharp and high-prowed Arab barks, taking in their lading, and exposing
their carved and gilded ornaments to the contact of the swift caïques
that shoot along among them, and the heavy clumsy-looking European
boats constantly plying between the shore and the vessels to which they
belong; local functionaries darting past on their errands of hidden
import; the caïque of the idler, with its crimson carpet, its comfortable
cushions, and its drowsy caïquejhes, awaiting, half asleep, the return
of their lounging employer; the ferry-boat, with its dingy gilding, and
eager owner; the well-kept and graceful caïque of the princely harem,
glittering with ornament and bright with beauty, bearing the veiled
favourite and her muffled slaves to the other shore; the barge of the
Minister, shooting over the water with the speed of a wild bird, and
flinging the silver spray right and left like a shower of diamonds, as
the sturdy rowers bend to their toil;—or, perchance, in the distance,
even the passing bark of the Padishah[19] himself, on his way to the
shady retreats of Kyat-Khana, moving along beneath the sunshine, one
bright mass of glittering gold. And high above all this movement, and
hurry, and human coil, towers the snowy temple of the unhappy Sultana
Validè: near it sleeps in peace its imperial founder in her splendid
mausoleum; and day by day the busy scene is renewed, the picturesque
groupes are variously repeated, and the deep blue Heaven smiles down
on all alike; while the clear surface of the port reflects at once the
solemn Mosque, the quiet tomb, and the flitting shadows of each chance
caïque and its busy freight.
THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET.
“The house of prayer profaned by words of strife—
The shrine of peace loud with unholy war—
The silent courts made vocal with the voice
Of human passion——”
The Mosque of Sultan Achmet, although less spacious than that of St.
Sophia, and less elegant in its details than Suleimaniè, is superior to
both in exterior effect. Its position is admirable; for the noble and
well-shaded space in which it stands occupies a side of the Atmeidan, or
Place of Horses, one of the most elevated portions of the city, and is
only separated from the ancient race-course of the Romans by a handsome
wall of white marble, intersected with gilt railing.
[Illustration: THE ATMEIDAN, OR HIPPODROME.
_L’ATMÉIDAN OU HIPPODROME._ _DIE REITBAHN ATMEIDAN._
W. H. Bartlett. C. K. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
A singular feature in this mosque, and one by which its beauty is
much enhanced, is the circumstance of its being the only temple in
Constantinople having six minarets; and the peculiarity is stated to have
grown out of the desire of its Imperial founder to possess a mosque in
his capital rivalling that at Mecca in this particular. The permission
of the Mufti having been with difficulty obtained, and the number of
minarets at Mecca being increased to seven, in consequence of its not
being deemed expedient that any other mosque should emulate that which is
sanctified by the tomb of the Prophet, the temple built by Sultan Achmet
at once exceeded in beauty every other in Stamboul. The arrangement of
the minarets is effected in the most graceful manner; two of them only
being attached to the principal building, while the remainder cut sharply
and irregularly through the dense mass of foliage amid which the mosque
is buried. Their galleries of Saracenic architecture look like fringes of
lace, and their slender spires are touched with gold, and glitter in the
sunshine; while the extreme beauty of the ancient trees, which are coeval
with the building, throw out the dazzling whiteness of the whole pile,
and their own sober depth of shadow relieves the eye with its refreshing
coolness.
At the upper end of the Atmeidan stands the monument of Constantine, a
square pillar, ninety feet in height, and indebted only to tradition
for its name. And tradition has been but a sorry godmother, for, in the
nineteenth century, she is unable to decide to which of the fourteen
Emperors so called, it was really dedicated. It may have been the founder
of the Empire—the first and almost the greatest of the whole; and then,
indeed, it were worthy to exist for ever as the memorial of a strong
arm and a brave spirit; but to him succeeded twelve other Constantines,
supine and imbecile; mere cumberers of the earth, to whom it could
but serve as a finger pointing to heaven to beckon thence the scorn
of the angry gods upon his degenerate and dishonouring successors. It
should have been—but, alas! it cannot—a record of the last, who washed
away the reproach of the whole world upon his line, in the blood of a
heroic heart—of that Constantine Paleologus, who offered himself up on
the ruins of an expiring dynasty; the Imperial victim, who fell in the
breach he had no longer strength to defend, and left a glorious name and
a crumbling city to the victorious arms of the Infidels; the last and
greatest of the Constantines, of whom no memorial now exists, save in the
pages of the historian, and the strains of the poet. Had the column been
indeed erected to his honour, the hand by which it was denuded might
well have withered at its work; for the brazen covering by which the
imperfect masonry was originally concealed has been torn away, and with
it every vestige of its ancient splendour and appropriation. The stones,
now laid bare to the unsparing touch of time, have every appearance of
being carelessly and inartificially piled together; and traces of the
huge brazen nails that formerly secured the outer surface, still remain
to attest the Vandalism which no regret can now repair. To a casual
observer, it appears incredible that so slight and imperfect a pile, so
small in circumference and so great in height, should thus long have
maintained its equilibrium.
Near this column, and about midway of the Atmeidan, are seen the
remains of the Delphic Tripod—a relic rendered principally interesting
by a tradition in which the Turks have firm faith, and which affirms,
that when by any accident it shall be either destroyed or displaced,
Constantinople will become once more a Christian capital. They
furthermore assert that the first brazen head of the three serpents whose
evolved bodies form the column, was lost in the transfer of the trophy to
Stamboul; that the second was stricken off by Sultan Achmet, at a single
blow of his scimetar, to prove the strength of his arm to his assembled
troops; and that the third disappeared, no one knew how nor whither. It
is certain that the fragment which now remains is headless, and, were it
not for this national legend, almost unworthy of notice.
At the extremity of the square stands a handsome Obelisk of red Egyptian
granite, raised upon a pedestal of white marble, coarsely embellished
with the victories of Theodosius, which blend but badly with the
elaborate hieroglyphics inscribed with such minute care immediately
above them. The Obelisk is sixty feet in height, and is in itself very
beautiful; but its charm is considerably weakened from its juxta-position
with the architecture of another age and country.
But the Atmeidan has become in itself famous during the reign of the
present Sultan by its historical associations—associations which are far
more interesting than even the antiquarian treasures that it contains;
for it was here that, during the destruction of the Janissaries in 1823,
that fated body made a vigorous though ineffectual stand against the
troops of their Imperial master. Thousands are said to have fallen in
this square alone by the weapons of the soldiery of the Nizam Attick,[20]
and the musketry to which they were exposed from the windows of the
neighbouring houses. Here, too, several of the ringleaders were captured,
and hanged by order of the Sultan, on a large plane-tree near the gate
leading into the outer court of the mosque, which has since been called
by the Turks, “the Tree of Groans.”
[Illustration: COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET.
W. H. Bartlett. S. Fisher.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The interior of Sultan Achmet is chiefly remarkable, architecturally,
for the immense size of the four columns which support the dome; for its
spacious and elegant galleries, roofed with mosaic; and for its lofty
marble pulpit. Its paramount claim to interest exists, however, in the
fact, that it was within these walls that the Sandjâk Sherif, or Sacred
Standard of Mahomet was exposed, after the refusal of the Janissaries to
submit themselves to the will of the Sultan.
The Sandjâk Sherif had not been publicly exhibited in the capital
for half a century; and the idea was a most politic one, as all the
enthusiasm and fanaticism of the empire was sure to be enlisted under its
folds. This standard, so revered by all good Musselmauns, is believed to
have been the nether garment of Mahomet, and is the most solemn relic
possessed by his disciples; and its appearance rallied at once every
devout Moslem in the ranks of the sovereign.
A procession was formed from the Imperial Treasury to the mosque of
Sultan Achmet; the Sultan, attended by all his court and household, was
preceded by the Ulema and Softas of the city, rehearsing verses from
the Korān. Public criers announced the exhibition of the holy standard
throughout the capital, and the excitement was beyond all precedent.