opposite the Atmeidan, the Chèïk-Islam mounted the steps of the pulpit,
and planted the Sandjâk Sherif there with holy reverence; and as he did
so, the Sultan pronounced an anathema against all those who refused to
obey an authority so supported.
These circumstances throw a halo around the mosque of the Sultan Achmet
which greatly enhances its actual beauty; and the traveller loiters
willingly amid its dim magnificence, calling up visions of the past which
stamp an extraneous value upon every detail of the edifice.
A curious and valuable collection of antique vases, of the most graceful
designs and beautiful workmanship, many of them inlaid with gems and
mother-of-pearl, are suspended throughout the mosque from transverse
bars of iron; together with the eggs of ostriches, emblems of dependence
on Providence; ears of corn, the symbols of plenty; and similar typical
decorations.
But the glory of Sultan Achmet, as an edifice, is its inner, or
cloistered court, surrounded by graceful Saracenic columns, whose
capitals resemble clusters of stalactites, forming the base of arches
of extraordinary beauty. In the centre of the court, which is paved
throughout with rich marble, a stately fountain, surmounted by a
handsome cupola, gives an aspect of refreshing coolness to the enclosure.
On the left hand of the gate of entrance is situated a balcony, upon
which opens one of the windows of the mosque, whence all firmans of
public interest are read aloud to the people; and, taken altogether,
whether as a public building, as a religious monument, or as the site
of stirring incident, there is no temple in Stamboul more worthy of
attention than the Imperial Mosque of Sultan Achmet.
THE COLUMN OF MARCIAN.
There Rome’s proud eagle, carved in living stone,
Is lifted to the skies, and forms the base
Of a still prouder statue, now unknown—
Which, when first raised to its imperial place,
Had thought to make futurity its own.
MS. POEM.
The Column of Marcian stands near the gate of Adrianople, in the garden
of a Turkish house; and is a fine remain of Roman splendour. The pedestal
of the pillar is ornamented with wreaths of oak-leaves; the shaft is
eighty feet in height; and on the richly carved Corinthian capital rests
a block of marble supporting a second capital, formed by four gigantic
eagles, sustaining upon their extended wings the base of a statue now
entirely destroyed. The name of the column would infer that the missing
effigy was that of the Emperor Marcian; but many of the Greeks cling
to the tradition that it was erected in honour of one of the heathen
divinities, by whose statue it was surmounted: and they ascribe it
indifferently to Apollo, Mercury, and Mars. By the Turks it is called
_Kestachi_, and valued only as a stately feature in the landscape;
although the worthy Moslem in whose garden it stands, is evidently much
gratified by the admiration it elicits from strangers. A venerable
olive-tree, whose rude and knotted trunk is in a state of picturesque
decay, leans against the slender shaft; flowers bloom at its base; a
cluster of dark cypresses, looking, despite their great height, like mere
pigmies beside this lofty monument of human art, are in its immediate
vicinity; while a small mosque, and a modest mausoleum, peep out in the
distance from among the leafy trees of the enclosure.
[Illustration: COLUMN OF MARCIAN.
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
Occasionally, as the tourist meditates beside it, or the artist, seated
near the mouldering wall which separates it from the road, transfers its
noble proportions to his canvass or his sketch-book, the cheerful voices
of women come on his ear from the latticed casement of the dwelling by
which it is immediately overlooked: nor can he fail to feel that he is
himself the subject of their harmless mirth; his foreign and tasteless
garb, his unturbaned head, his beardless chin—even the very nature of
his occupation, is food for laughter and for jest; while the certainty
of a present to old Akif, which is never refused by those who visit his
classic garden, adds, in no inconsiderable degree, to the gratification
of his harem, when the apparition of a wandering giaour comes to relieve
the tedium of their existence.
Old Akif himself is also a worthy subject for the easel of the artist;
he seems to have grown grey with the column, and to have withered with
the olive-tree. The innovations of late years have wrought no reform
in the garb or manner of Akif; he looks like an Asiatic Turk who had
never gazed on the glories of the “Golden City.” His turban is large
and loosely folded; his tchalvar[21] are of the widest dimensions; his
open sleeves of the extremest length; his waist-shawl is freighted with
an ample tobacco-purse; and he leans upon his chibouque with an air of
sturdy and majestic independence finely demonstrative of his proud and
self-centered disposition. He does the honours of the monument like one
who is conscious that he is conferring a favour. He neither murmurs at
the heartless haste, nor at the tedious delay of his visitors; and he
ultimately receives the gratuity of his departing guests with all the
quiet and unmoved composure of a creditor tendering his hand for the
payment of a well-won debt. The venerable Akif is no antiquarian in
spirit; to him stones are stones, and inscriptions which do not treat
of the Korān a mere waste of words; and as the smoke from his chibouque
curls slowly over his long white beard, many a thought probably passes
through his placid brain, not altogether flattering to the earnest Frank
who scrambles about the ruin, seeking for traces of a time and people now
passed away for ever.
SCUTARI.
“——the place of thousand tombs
That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms
And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamp’d with an eternal grief,
Like early unrequited love.”
BYRON.
The first object connected with the city of Constantinople visible to the
voyager who approaches it from the Dardanelles, is the cypress canopy of
the great Cemetery of Scutari. Its dark mass of funereal foliage rests
like a thundercloud “no bigger than a man’s hand” against the clear blue
sky for a time; and then, as the vessel ploughs her way through the
yielding waters, gradually looms out larger and larger upon the horizon,
until the mind begins to take in some idea of its vast extent.
This extraordinary necropolis, perhaps the largest and most picturesque
in the world, stretches its cold and silent shadows over hill and valley,
covering upwards of three miles of country with the sable livery of
death, and shutting out the sun-light from unnumbered graves. The Moslem,
when he breathes his last, may truly be said to have sunk into “the quiet
grave;” for his ashes are never desecrated for the sake of the poor
space which they fill up; no second tenant ever crushes yet more deeply
the remains of the original occupant of each narrow tomb; and thus the
burial-places yearly extend themselves in every direction, and form a
prominent feature in the Turkish landscape.
Nothing can be conceived more solemn than the effect of the deep and
chilling gloom of the Cemetery of Scutari, with its thousand intersecting
paths dimly perceptible in the noonday twilight; and its million
head-stones leaning against each other, as though to dispute every inch
of the thrice-holy earth they occupy.
[Illustration: CEMETERY OF SCUTARI.
W. H. Bartlett. J. T. Willmore.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1838.]
As the Turks have a superstition, in which they place implicit faith,
that ere the end of the world the Mahommedans are to be expelled from
Europe, they universally covet a grave in this Asiatic wilderness of
tombs, in order to preserve their ashes from the contaminating contact
of the giaour; and thus, year after year, the cypress forest encroaches
on the purple vineyard, and the golden cornfield; the blossoming
fruit-trees, and the graceful maize waving its long and flexible leaves
to the breeze, gradually disappear. The scythe of the reaper and the
knife of the vintager are no longer busy; for the harvest now preparing
where the husbandman once toiled, can be gathered in only on the Last Day!
It is the custom at every Turkish burial for the officiating Imaum, or
priest, to plant one cypress at the head and another at the foot of each
grave; and hence, although the greater number necessarily perish for want
of air and space, those which survive still stand sufficiently close to
form a dense and gloomy forest. In a few instances, open spaces have been
left (similar to that selected by the artist) in order to promote the
entrance of the exterior air, and thus prevent the danger of infection
from the exhalations of the graves; but the greater portion of the
cemetery is one unbroken stretch of death-cumbered gloom, where turbaned
head-stones and lettered columns gleam out among the dark boles of the
cypresses like spectres of the past. Many a lesson may be learnt within
the silent precincts of this vast necropolis. The gilded tombs enclosed
within railings, and surmounted either by a rose-branch to designate the
mistress, or a turban to indicate the master of the family, surrounded
by the same emblems more minutely executed, are pompously inscribed with
the names and titles of some powerful and wealthy race, who lie apart,
and moulder unmingled with more common dust; though the depth of their
slumber and the quiet of their rest are enjoyed as fully by the tenants
of the less aristocratic graves on every side. The time-worn tablet,
whose weight has pressed down the crumbling soil beneath it until it has
lost its hold, lies half buried among the rank grass on one hand; while
on the other, gilded and dazzling columns tell their tale of death,
undefaced by the foul weather-stains which have made their predecessors
recordless; and thus the work of years goes on—generation succeeds to
generation even in this city of the dead—there lie the departed of
yesterday and to-day, and there is “ample space and verge enough” for
those who are to follow to-morrow. But a darker consciousness even
than this grows on the wanderer who penetrates the depths of the still
necropolis, as he pauses beside a group of lofty and turban-crested
columns, each rising from a small square slab of stone—they tell of
death, but the minute block of granite or marble at their base does
not indicate a grave, for there is not the space allowed, narrow as
are the limits needed, to lay the limbs of a human being decently and
reverently in the earth. The eye of the stranger has not deceived him;
for each of those small stones covers only the head of a victim to his
own folly, or to the intrigues of others, whose dishonoured trunk found
a fouler resting-place—some baffled politician, or betrayed traitor,
or hated rival, cut off amid his dream of pride and power, and denied
even the grave which would have once more levelled him with his kind.
What a mockery are the elaborate turbans carved above each dissevered
head; minutely tracing forth in their form, and fold, and size, the rank
of the poor victim of whom a mere portion lies beneath, and serving as
a perpetual scoff—the more bitter, that it is wordless! but the graves
of love are there also, flower-strown, and tended by the gentle hand of
regret and tenderness; and it is a relief to turn to these, and to forget
that any hand save That One which holds the breath of a world within its
palm, has helped to people the cypress-canopied Cemetery.
Every Turkish burial-place has its local superstition, but that of
Scutari is the wildest and the most poetical of them all, and must not be
passed over in silence.
The Bosphorus is haunted by clouds of birds, about the size of thrushes,
and of dark plumage save on the breast, where the feathers are of a
pale blue; they are said to be a species of _alcedo_, but as the Turks
will not permit them to be destroyed, and it would be dangerous for
any Frank to fire on them, the ornithologist has had no opportunity of
determining the fact. These singular birds are never seen either to feed
or to alight; nor will they deviate from their course even to admit the
passage of a caïque, when, as occasionally occurs, they are flying very
low; they merely rise a few feet higher in some instances, and in others
suffer the boat to cleave its way through them without appearing to heed
the fact. They fly rapidly, and in perfect stillness, from the Black Sea
to the Propontis, where they instantly turn and wend their way back to
the Euxine; arrived there, they wheel again, and return to the Sea of
Marmora; and thus, from day-dawn till twilight, from day to day, and from
month to month, they come and go along the channel without any apparent
end or aim—without an instant’s repose, without food, and without the
slightest deviation from their course.
No instance of one of these singular birds having been picked up dead
has ever occurred; and so mysterious and unearthly are their habits,
that they have obtained the appellation of the “damned souls,” from a
tradition, partially believed, that they are the condemned spirits of
the unholy ones, whose ashes have found a resting-place in the great
cemetery, but whose spiritual essence is not permitted to mingle with
the purer immortality of their less sinful neighbours. This superstition
is supposed to have arisen from the circumstance, that, during a time
of tempest, when the storm-wind will not permit the migratory flight of
the birds along the channel, they fly skrieking to the cypress forest of
the necropolis for shelter; and as these are the only periods at which
they are known to emit a sound, the credulous in such matters—and in
the East they are not few—have decided that their sharp thrilling cry is
one of agony; and that they are compelled, during the continuance of the
elemental warfare, to narrate to each other the catalogue of crime which
has cut them off from the repose of the grave, and condemned them to
everlasting wandering over the face of the waters!
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN AT SCUTARI.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Wallis.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
But in describing the peculiarities of the great Asiatic Cemetery, the
“Silver City” of Scutari, to which it is so striking an appendage, must
not be passed over without notice. Its gleaming houses crowd the graceful
point of land which forms the termination of the mountain-chain that
shuts in the Asian side of the Bosphorus, and then falls back only to be
bathed at its base by the wider and wilder waves of the Sea of Marmora.
Nothing can be imagined more perfectly beautiful than the position of
the town of Scutari, as it sweeps round this graceful point, and throws
the long shadows of its arrowy minarets far across the ripple of the
Bosphorus towards the European shore; and then, where the rocky coast, at
the base of which it is set like a pearl, recedes before the billows of
the Propontis, is itself overshaded by the majestic Bulgurlhu Daghi, dark
and frowning, and standing out amid the clear blue of heaven in stern
defiance, a mark for the storm and the tempest; while as the sun-light
falls upon the shimmering waters at its foot, towards which the hanging
gardens of the principal dwellings lovingly incline, clothing the rocky
descent with fringes of changeful embroidery, its graceful outlines are
lengthened or widened in fairy circles as the fitful breeze plays over
the surface of the glittering sea. Clusters of houses are framed in by
luxuriant foliage; imperial kiosques, painted in rainbow tints, give an
air of midsummer gladness to its shores; verdure descends in rich masses
to the very lip of the two seas by which it is laved; and not an arrow’s
flight from its quay stands the “Maiden’s Tower,” a small and picturesque
castle, built upon so diminutive a rock that its foundations cover the
whole surface, and give to the edifice the appearance of floating upon
the waves.
This little fortress, with its lofty tower and castellated walls, is also
the subject of a legend; and thus it runs:—A certain Sultan, whose name
is now forgotten, had a most fair daughter, the only child which had been
vouchsafed to him by the Prophet, and on whom his heart was anchored,
as on his best hope. Beautiful as a Houri, graceful as a Peri, and gay
as the summer wind when it sweeps over the rose-garden of Nishapor, the
girl was growing into womanhood, when the anxious father consulted a
celebrated astronomer on her future destiny; who, after having carefully
turned over the party-coloured pages of the mysterious volume of human
fate, uttered the frightful prophecy, that, in her eighteenth year, she
was to become the prey of a serpent.
Horror-stricken at so dreadful a denunciation, the agonized Sultan caused
the erection of the Guz-couli, or Maiden’s Tower, wherein he immured
his lovely daughter; in order, by thus cutting her off from the very
earth until the fateful period should be overpast, to remove even the
possibility of the threatened calamity. “But,” pursues the legend, “who
can war against his _kismet_?[22] Who can control his _felech_?[23]
What is written, is written; and the page of the future had been read.”
Death came to the princess in a case of fresh figs from Smyrna, in which
a small asp had been concealed; and she was found on her eighteenth
birth-day dead upon her sofa, with the fruit beside her; and the reptile,
like that which poisoned the crimson tide in the veins of the imperial
Cleopatra, lying gorged and loathsome upon her bosom!
The tale is a pretty one; but there is another tradition, which
terminates somewhat differently, and which clothes the serpent in the
garb of a young Persian prince, whose curiosity having been aroused by
the marvellous whisperings around him of the matchless beauty of the
imprisoned fair-one, had dared to row his caïque by night beneath the
very walls of the Guz-couli; and had contrived an interview with the
captive, won her heart, and contrived by means of a silken cord and a
strong arm, to carry her off at the very crisis of her fate! The reader
can select his own version of the “eventful historie.”
The Fruit-market of Scutari touches on the shore; and in the midst stands
an ancient fountain, of simple but pleasing architecture. The volume of
water is very great, and its quality almost unrivalled; it descends from
the dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu; and from some superstition, which it
would be difficult to comprehend, the Turks never permit its supply to
be appropriated by the inhabitants of the European shore of the channel,
even on occasions of the greatest drought; and thus, in 1836, when water
was frightfully scarce, and was transported from the villages at the
very mouth of the Black Sea to the thirsting city, at immense cost both
of time and money, the fountain of Scutari was suffered to run to waste,
and to pour the overflow of its tempting and abundant streams into the
Bosphorus.
The view from the market across the Channel is very beautiful; and
the locality in itself eminently characteristic and interesting. The
profuse supply of the most luscious and delicious fruits is amazing to
an European eye, while the prices at which they are sold are equally
astonishing. The grapes and melons of Scutari are renowned throughout
the East; its figs almost rival those of Smyrna; and there is no island
throughout the Archipelago where the pomegranate is richer or more
juicy. Oranges, lemons, peaches, and the delicate golden apple, which
resembles that of the West only in form, also abound; and with a handful
of piastres, the amused Frank, determined on a harmless experiment, may
freight his caïque with an offering which would do no discredit to Pomona
herself.
MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN SWEET WATERS.
We’re coming, we’re coming to gladden the throng,
With laughter and legend, with music and song;
Dark eyes gleaming round us; light tones on the air:
And the greetings of childhood to welcome us there;
A sun in the sky, and a breeze on the sea,
Oh! shew us the minstrels more happy than we!
MS. POEM.
A description has already been given of the Asian Valley of Sweet Waters;
of its majestic plane-trees, its laughing river, and its delicious
greensward; of the young beauties who throng its recesses, the Sultanas
who grace its drives; and the rosy children who make its echoes vocal.
But its musicians are a race apart, and the artist demands for them
“A separate mention and a guarded page.”
and in truth they are well worthy of it!
[Illustration: MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN VALLEY OF SWEET WATERS.
W. H. Bartlett. R. Brandard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Their minstrelsy is none of the sweetest; it requires not the ear of
science to detect their discords, nor the taste of the poet to smile at
their absurdities; and yet, it is impossible not to welcome them with
smiles, for you know that joy and laughter follow in their train: the
calpac of the one, and the turban of the other, alike covers a shrewd
and a busy brain. How much may be told in a song, or hinted in a stanza!
Look at the group around them! The matron is there, wary and watchful,
remembering the years of her own youth, and the evils by which she was
then surrounded; and yet beguiled by the “cunning minstrelsie” of the
wandering bards into temporary forgetfulness of all save the charm of
their ready wit and simple seeming: the young beauty is beside her,
veiled and draped with jealous care, it is true, but with a heart as
warm, and a fancy as buoyant, as though yashmacs and lattices were
unknown in the land of her birth; her pale cheek flushes, and her pulses
quicken as she listens; for to her the songs of the pilgrim-bards tell
a deeper and a dearer tale than to her placid grand-dame; while the
attentive children gather together in groupes, and gaze and hearken
in mute and wondering admiration. Many a wild legend do the minstrels
chaunt, in a slow, drawling, monotonous tone, which can add but little
to the charm of the subject-matter of their song; while an occasional
rasp of the grating tambourine, a rapid rattling of its silver bells, and
the hollow sound emitted by the small Arab drums which are their usual
accompaniment, alone serve to relieve the tedium of recitation. Pleasant,
however, must be the lays which they pour forth; for many of their fair
auditors will remain unweariedly for hours, listening and applauding with
low-breathed “Mashallahs!” and “Ajaibs!”[24] and without a single symptom
of ennui.
Wallachian and Jewish musicians are common; and the extraordinary length
of time during which they will dwell upon a single note, with their heads
thrown back, their mouths open, and their eyes fixed, and then follow
it up with a whole sentence, rapidly and energetically uttered, is most
singular. But these oriental troubadours are not without their rivals
in the admiration of the veiled beauties who surround them; conjurors,
improvvisatori, story-tellers, and Bulgarian dancers, are there also,
to seduce away a portion of their audience; while the interruptions
caused by fruit, sherbet, and water-venders, are incessant. They are,
however, the most popular of all; and a musician, whose talent is known
and acknowledged, seldom fails to pass a very profitable day at the Asian
Sweet Waters on every occasion of festival.
BEGLIER-BEY.
——“The coast
Lay at this period quiet as the sky,
The sands untumbled, the blue waves untoss’d,
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird’s cry,
And dolphin’s leap, and little billow cross’d
By some low rock or shelve that made it fret,
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.”
...
“Mother-of-pearl, and porphyry, and marble,
Vied with each other on this costly spot;
And singing birds without were heard to warble;
And the stain’d glass which lighted this fair grot
Varied each ray.”
BYRON.