W. H. Bartlett. J. C. Varrall.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The most ancient portion of the walls is necessarily that which enclosed
the ancient Byzantium, now known as the Seraglio Point, where the apex of
the triangle divides the Propontis from the port, and instead of being
peopled by the busy multitude of a city, is silent in the stateliness of
its gilded palace and overhanging groves. Portions of the original walls
are still standing, and separate the seraglio gardens from the adjacent
streets; and even in their ruin they retain traces of the strength and
massiveness which have enabled them to exist from the year 660 A.C.—at
which period they were erected by the hands of the Lacedæmonian colony
who first peopled this magnificent spot—even to the nineteenth century,
as if in scorn of the frail and unstable works of later and less
laborious architects.
The wall which encircles the present city was built nine hundred and
seventy-eight years subsequently, by the Emperor Constantine, and
frequently repaired by Theodosius, and other sovereigns, who have each in
succession left commemorative inscriptions upon the masonry. Thus, on one
spot is graven “Theodosius, King, by the grace of Christ;” on another,
“The illustrious Theodosius, the great King, by the grace of Christ;”
while numberless crosses, and the remains of half-obliterated sentences,
now beyond solution, are to be found in various places.
Perhaps the most picturesque portion of the walls is that which stretches
from the cemetery of Eyoub along the road leading to Balouclé, or the
“Church of Fishes.” A dilapidated palace, known as the “Palace of
Constantine,” (and supposed to have belonged to the first of that name,)
is among the most striking objects in this quarter of the city; it
appears to be coeval with the wall, and to have mouldered under the same
influences. The view which it commands is extensive and magnificent;
and its ruin has a regality about it which speaks of Rome in her best
days of pride and power. The walls are, in this direction, unusually
well preserved, and of great height, and no breach is perceptible
for a considerable distance, as this side of the city offered fewer
facilities to an invading army than many other points, and the defences
have consequently been subjected to no violence beyond that of the
ever-gnawing and corroding tooth of time. A dense coating of ivy clothes
the whole hoary mass of masonry; octagonal towers, draperied with the
same rich parasite, rise at intervals like a succession of feudal
castles; and the moat at their base is rife with vegetation, amid which
the wild fig-tree with its broad fan-like leaf, the acacia with its
peach-like blossoms, and the weeping birch, waving its flexile branches
to the wind like the hair of a young beauty, are the most conspicuous.
Two of these octagonal towers flank the more lofty portion of the
wall, and several breaches are shortly afterwards discernible. Here
the defences are tripled; and a double moat, commencing at the Rodosto
Gate, terminates only at the entrance of the Seven Towers, on the Sea of
Marmora. This triple wall is considerably lower than that which stretches
along from Eyoub; and as it follows the undulations of the hills upon
which the city is built, it necessarily permits a great portion of the
enclosure to be visible from without; and to this circumstance may
possibly be attributed the fact, that it was on this side that Mahomet,
encouraged by a sight of the fair capital which he coveted, was induced
to attempt its capture. The Top-Kapousi, or Gate of the Cannon, remains
as a memorial of his success; and it derives its name from the fact of
its being surmounted by several immense balls of marble, such as are used
by the Turks for the supply of their most ponderous pieces of ordnance,
and which were placed there by the triumphant Moslems to perpetuate the
capture of the devoted Christian city.
[Illustration: TOP-KAPOUSI, OR THE CANNONGATE.
_TOP-KAPOUSI, VU LE CANNONGATE._ _TOP-KAPOUSI ODER DAS KANONEN THOR._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Griffiths.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Immediately in front of the Cannon Gate, but at a short distance from
the moat, rises an artificial mount called by the Turks, Maltèpè, on
whose summit the invading Prophet planted his standard, and whence he
directed the attack. The view from this height is magnificent, as the
eye sweeps the whole of the city, commands a vast extent of country,
and loses itself among the far-stretching waves of the sea of Marmora,
glancing over the islands by which it is studded, and the mountain-belt
which partially hems it in. Here it was, near this stately gate, and
in one of the numerous breaches made in the city wall during this
unequal war, where more than two hundred thousand Turks besieged, both
by sea and land, a town defended only by eight thousand men at arms,
and those depressed by long sufferings, and pent up in this their last
stronghold, without a hope beyond their own arms and hearts, that the
last Greek Emperor, the immortal Constantine Paleologus, proved to the
world the power and pride of individual genius and heroism. Here it was
that he fought, that he struggled—and that, spurning an existence which
would have outlived his cause, he nobly fell, offering himself up as
the last and proudest victim to his religion and his country. The body
of the brave Paleologus was found in a breach near the Top-Kapousi; he
had bought his freedom from Moslem thrall with his heart’s blood, and
with him perished a long line of Grecian Emperors. A dense vegetation
now chokes up the moat; and forest-trees, nourished by the rich soil,
flourish on the very spot; but while one Greek heart beats in a noble
breast, and one Greek hand can wield a worthy pen, the memory of the last
of the Paleologi can need no graven epitaph, nor can the heart of man
devise for him a more fitting mausoleum!
The next point of interest is the fortress known as that of the Seven
Towers. What a spell is in the very name, to all those who are either
interested in, or conversant with, Eastern history! What volumes of human
power and of human suffering does it not involve! Captives have sickened
with despair—ambassadors have sighed at delay within those walls of
darkness and of crime—monarchs have made a jest of foreign vengeance, and
nobles have felt the weight of native displeasure!
This extensive fortress originally consisted, as its name implies, of
seven principal towers, dominating a series of dungeons, courts, and
guard-rooms, whose secrets seldom transpired beyond the walls. A strong
garrison, lofty outworks, and jealously-barred cells, insured the safety
(in so far as escape was concerned) of the captives whom state policy or
private hate consigned to this formidable prison. Hecatombs of heads,
sacrificed to one or the other of these impulses, gave their name to a
small enclosure now called the “Place of Heads,” where they are said to
have been piled upon each other until the mound was of sufficient height
to enable the executioners to command from its summit a wide view of the
sun-lighted Propontis; while a dark vault is shown, upon whose brink
the stranger stands with quailing heart, and looks down upon the “Well
of Blood,” whose ensanguined stream once overflowed its margin, and ran
reeking under the broad daylight over the marble pavement of the court
beyond, to pollute the pure waters of the sea of Marmora. Stone tunnels,
into which the writhing wretches who were doomed to this merciless death
were forced by the sharp scimitars and handjars[31] of their jailors,
and there left to expire of famine; and _oubliettes_, whose gnawing jaws
opened to receive their victims only to deliver them back mutilated
and bleeding to the depths of the ocean-grave, where their sufferings
were destined to end for ever, are to be seen on all sides; while the
promenades provided for the prisoners within the guarded precincts are
overshadowed by the funereal cypress, as though fresher and brighter
foliage would there have been a mockery.
Not the least remarkable object pointed out to the stranger within
the walls of the Seven Towers is a dry well, celebrated as that into
which Mustapha III., on some misunderstanding between the courts of
the Sultan and the Czarina Catherine, very unceremoniously caused her
representative, the Count Obrescoff, to be lowered, and left during
several days, ere he entered upon his more legitimate period of a
captivity which endured three weary years; while racks, and wheels, and
other complicated instruments of torture, are scattered through the
fortress, as if to prove the ingenuity of mankind in inventions of pain
and horror!
Four of the towers to which the stronghold is indebted for its
appellation, are now partially in ruin; and the gloomy walls no longer
give back the stifled echoes of moral suffering. From a state-prison
for attainted Turks, the fortress became the compulsatory abode of
the Moscovite Ambassadors on all outbreakings of discord between
the Autocrats of Russia and Turkey; and still more recently it has
served as a plague-hospital for the Greeks, and thus exchanged its
experience of human torture for one which, although equally bitter, is
Heaven-inflicted, and not born of the malice or the tyranny of man. But,
although the record of blood is now filled up, and the dark volume of
violence sealed—it may be hoped, for ever—the entrance-gate of the Seven
Towers is still an object of dread and terror to the Turks; and it is
difficult even for the traveller to pass it by without a quickening pulse!
THE MOSQUE OF CHAZADE.
“And as the smoke condensed itself into a vapoury outline, and
I saw a giant form rise into the air, I found words, and spoke.
‘In the name of the Prophet,’ I faultered out, ‘what art thou?’
And the shape answered in a shrill whistle, like the east wind
through the storm-stripped branches of the forest, and said,
‘Pass on thy way, and impede me not: I guard the graves of the
mighty.’ And I looked, and lo! the vapour rested on the tombs
of two of earth’s proudest; so I veiled my eyes, and departed
thence in trembling.”—THE GNOME KING.
The Mosque of Chazade (or Choabbas) is beautifully situated near the
Aqueduct of Valens, which spans the valley upon whose edge it stands.
Like all the other religious edifices of Constantinople, it is built in
the form of a Greek cross, and is ornamented throughout its interior with
arabesques, and sculptured marble. The trees which surround its court
are ancient, and of majestic growth; but its principal beauty exists in
the very elegant fountain, and the noble tombs which are attached to
it. These buildings fringe the street in which it stands, and form an
architectural group unequalled for its perfect orientalism throughout
the city. The gilded lattices of the fountain, its domed and graceful
roof, and the shifting crowd ever collected about its marble steps,
contrast finely with the silent stateliness of the mosque itself, upon
whose white and glittering surface no trace of mere perishable ornament
can be detected. A cluster of domes, rising from amid a mass of foliage,
where the broad-leafed and far-stretching maple mingles its fresh bright
greenness with the dark, rigid, and eternal gloom of the cypress, marks
the site of the mosque, and of the four tombs by whose vicinage it is
distinguished; the larger and taller cupola being that of the temple,
which, however, does not so greatly dominate the others as to injure the
harmony of their effect.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN MOSQUE OF CHAZADE.
_FONTAINE ET MOSQUÉE DE CHAZADE._ _DIE FONTAINE UND MOSCHEE._
W. H. Bartlett. R. Sands.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The most richly ornamented Mausoleum is that of the Sultana Chazade—which
name is supposed to be a corruption of Sheherazade, an appellation
bringing at once to memory the fair and wily Princess of tale-telling
notoriety, so dear to our youth; and admitting the possibility that the
Imperial founder of the mosque, and occupant of the mausoleum, were
indeed the namesake of the indefatigable bride of the fable-loving
Sultan, the eye which rests upon her tomb does not disturb the illusion
which old associations have woven about the fancy; for even had its
tenant been the renowned daughter of the Vèzir herself, she could not
have found a fitter resting-place. The elegant tomb-house is hexagonal,
and the fluted dome is supported on eight light and graceful columns,
whose Saracenic capitals form a portion of the sculptured cornice which
surrounds the base of the cupola. The windows are of richly stained
glass; and the sarcophagus rests on a low platform in the centre of the
marble floor, in solitary state.
The other three tombs attached to the Mosque of Chazade, are those of
three Vèzirs; and, in two instances, their wives and sons lie beside
them. A few scattered graves, almost overgrown with the dense vegetation
common to the country, have been niched here and there in the recesses
formed by the angles of the buildings; and clouds of blue doves inhabit
the eaves of the temple, and fill the air with their low monotonous note,
giving a solemnity to the spot congenial to its use. They call to each
other from the roofs of the tombs sadly and soothingly, like sentinels
passing the watchword of peace over the ashes of the dead, and seem, in
their earnest melancholy, to echo the answer of the Gnome King to the
pilgrim Hamet—“Pass on thy way, and impede me not: I guard the graves of
the mighty.”
SULEIMANIÈ.
“——Solyman, the glory of their line.”
BYRON.
The Mosque of Solyman “the Magnificent,” called by the Turks Suleimaniè,
is esteemed the most elegant religious edifice in Constantinople. The
splendid windows of painted glass, which are said to be unequalled
throughout the world, were a spoil from the Persians, from whom they were
wrested by Solyman to decorate the temple of which he was the founder;
and the effect of their elaborately-blended rays on the marble walls of
the mosque is strikingly fine and impressive. The dome is supported by
four slight and well-proportioned pillars, and rests upon their delicate
capitals so lightly, as to give a character to the interior of this
beautiful building quite distinct from that of every other mosque in the
city. But the four columns of porphyry which occupy the angles of the
edifice, are the boast of Suleimaniè. The rare relics of a pagan temple,
they are of the most exquisite symmetry and finish, and are supposed to
have originally served as pedestals to as many antique statues. Hanging
arches of that delicate Arabian architecture so little known in Europe,
and so justly prized by the Turks, relieve the base of the dome; and the
cornice of the platform on which the meuzzin performs his prostrations,
and regulates the devotions of the faithful during the service, is finely
chiselled to represent a wreath of lotus leaves. The pulpit is shaped
like the blossom of the arum, and being composed of fine white marble,
has the effect of a gigantic flower petrified into stone. The great
entrance-gates of the edifice are very costly, being thickly inlaid with
devices of mother-of-pearl; and the marble floor is over-strown with rich
carpets.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ FROM THE SERASKIER’S TOWER.
_MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ VUE DE LA TOUR DU SÉRASKIER._ _DIE MOSCHEE VON
SULEIMANIÈ, VOM SCHLOSS DES SERASKIERS GESEHN._
W. H. Bartlett. H. Adlard.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE SULEIMANIÈ.
_INTERIEUR DE LA MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ._ _DAS INNERE DER MOSCHEE ZU
SULEIMANIÈ._
W. H. Bartlett. W. Radclyffe.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
The entire roof of the building is highly ornamented, and sentences
from the Korān, beautifully written in the oriental character, are
scattered over the walls. The _mihrab_, or niche at the eastern extremity
of the edifice, occupying the position which, when the ground-plan of
the Mahommedan temples was borrowed from St. Sophia, was filled by the
Christian altar, is also inscribed with the names of the Deity and the
Prophets. The immense wax candles that flank the mihrab are lighted every
night during the reading of the Korān by the officiating Kiatib.[32]
Those at the mosque of St. Sophia are eighteen inches in circumference,
and last for twelve months; and the waxen giants of Suleimaniè, although
considerably smaller, are still of enormous size; but as these are merely
supposed to light the holy page of the priest, the body of the building
is illuminated by thousands of small coloured lamps, suspended from the
roof in various devices, by slight rods of iron, and producing to an
European eye, a festal effect strangely incompatible with the sacred uses
of the place.
But Suleimaniè possesses one peculiar feature, to which it is indebted
for an interest beyond all the other mosques of Constantinople, and one
of so high and honourable a character, that it is even more worthy of
record than its pillars of porphyry, or its “cunning work” in glass and
marble; and it is of so distinctive a nature that it must not be passed
over in silence.
A richly-wrought gallery, extending along the whole northern face of the
edifice, is heaped with chests of sundry sizes, and of all descriptions,
from the rude trunk of cypress-wood, painted a dull green, and decorated
with huge groups of flowers, tawdrily and clumsily executed—the
treasure-hoard of the petty trader, or the roving tatar[33]—to the heavy
iron-clamped strong box of the exiled noble, or the wandering merchant:
these are piled one on the other to the very roof of the building, and
each is carefully marked with some hieroglyphic known only to its absent
owner, and to its temporary guardians. Each package, when received by
the authorities at Suleimaniè, is described and registered with the most
scrupulous exactness; and when once it has been deposited within the
holy precincts of the mosque, it remains intact and inviolate, whatever
time may elapse, or whatever changes may ensue ere it is reclaimed by
its proper owner, either in the government, or the institutions of the
Empire. The sacredness of the trust is felt, acknowledged, and respected;
and men of every nation, and professors of every creed, are free to
deposit their property within the walls of Suleimaniè, secure of its
restoration whenever they may see fit to reclaim it.
[Illustration: THE MIHRAB OF THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMANIÈ.
_LE MIHRAB, VU NICHE, DANS LA MOSQUÉE DE SULEIMANIÈ._ _DER MIHRAB DER
MOSCHEE SULEIMANIÈ._
W. H. Bartlett. J. H. Le Keux.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
It is said that the amount of treasure in gold, silver, jewels, and
rich stuffs, thus collected together, is immense; and that many of the
chests have occupied their place in the gallery for a century. But this
fact does not operate against their security—no seal is ever forced at
Suleimaniè; and this great national bank, for such it truly is, remains
untouched and sacred throughout every popular convulsion, and every
intestine change. Here the Turkish government exercises no despotism,
exacts no avaniah,[34] levies no tax; and amid all its reverses, and all
its necessities, preserves an admirable integrity which is less generally
known than it deserves to be.
THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
“Where’er we gaze, around, above, below,
What rainbow-tints, what magic charms are found!
Rock, river, forest, mountain—all abound,
And bluest skies that harmonize the whole.”
BYRON.
There is no better point whence to obtain a view of the Port of
Constantinople than from the great cemetery of the “Infidel Hill” of
Pera. The harbour lies at your feet, crowded with shipping, moored in
treble lines along the shore, and filling every little creek and bay. The
minaretted city cresting the opposite height like a diadem, stretches
along in all the splendour of its mosques and palaces; terminated in
one direction by the Eski-Seraï, glittering among its cypresses and
plane-trees, and enclosed within the picturesque walls, which are
washed by the blue waves of the Bosphorus and the Propontis, to which
the hoary trees that overhang them pay back their tribute of shade and
freshness; and on the other, by the historical suburb of Eyoub; while, in
the distance, the bright sea of Marmora dances in the light, bearing a
thousand gleaming sails upon its bosom, and its scattered islands heave
up their fantastic outline like marine monsters; the Thracian Olympus,
and the mountain-chain of which it is the monarch, form the frame-work of
the picture; while Scutari closes in upon the eye, sweeping gracefully
along the edge of the Propontis, until it grows into majesty as it nears
the Bosphorus, and flings over the waves of “the ocean-stream,” the
stately shadow of Bulgurlhu Daghi.
[Illustration: THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
_PORT DE CONSTANTINOPLE._ _DER HAFEN VON CONSTANTINOPEL._
W. H. Bartlett. G. K. Richardson.
London. Published for the Proprietors, by Geo: Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane,
1839.]
Innumerable caïques dart from shore to shore across the harbour,
freighted with veiled women, and men of many lands; and the shrill
warning cry of the boatmen as they shoot along, cutting through the
water like wild-birds, continually passing and repassing, and yet never
coming in collision—the crowds of sea-fowl sporting among the shipping,
and diving under the oars of every boat—the light bridge, flung like a
fairy-wand across the port—all conspire to render the Golden Horn one
of the most picturesque scenes in the world; while above the bright
landscape and the glittering sea, spreads a sky of such intense and vivid
blue, as invests every object with a tint and a distinctness from which
it derives a new and a peculiar beauty.
The variety of costume, the constant succession of living groups, and
the rapid motion of the arrowy caïques, are altogether beyond the reach
of description; while the pencil of the artist can alone convey any
distinct idea of the numerous objects of interest and beauty which throng
the shores. Close beside the termination of the floating bridge, where
it abuts on the Stamboul side of the harbour, (at a gate-way known as
“the Gate of the Garden,” owing to its vicinity to the grounds of the
ancient palace,) and close under the walls, stands a green pavilion, in
which former Sultans were accustomed to give audience to the European
Ambassadors; while immediately above it, erected on a buttress of the
wall itself, is a light-looking summer saloon, canopied with creeping
plants, called the Kiosque of Pearls, whence the sovereign can overlook
the whole extent of the port and the European shore. Not far from this
pretty kiosque, and level with the water’s edge, is a low iron door,
through which the bodies of those who were executed within the Seraglio
are said to have been cast into the sea at midnight, and committed to
the current that sweeps rapidly round the point; but it bears little
appearance of having latterly been in request, as its massy hinges are
rusted, and immovable.
Stately trees, sweeping downward to the water—lofty minarets, shooting
gracefully towards heaven—crowds of shipping—groups of human beings,
varying alike in feature, language, and costume—lofty mountains,
far-stretching forests, and thickly-peopled hills—the junction of two
seas—an unrivalled landscape, and a cloudless sky, are among the many
distinctive glories of the Golden Horn.
ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA.
“Then by the lightning’s blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shatter’d bark;
Her vain distress-guns hear:
And when a second sheet of light
Flash’d o’er the blackness of the night—
To see no vessel there!”
COLERIDGE.