the vessel round as we came to anchor. The forts which, with their heavy
modern guns, completely command this strait, are something less than
a mile and a half apart, and near each is a large and handsome
town,—Khilid-bahri on the European shore and Chanak-Kalesi on the
Asiatic. The latter name signifies the pottery-castle, and is derived
from the chief manufactory of the place; the town of a couple of
thousand houses, gayly painted and decorated in lively colors, lies
upon a sandy flat and presents a very cheerful appearance. It is a great
Asiatic entrepôt for European products, and consular flags attest its
commercial importance.
When I came upon deck its enterprising traders had already boarded
the steamer, and encumbered it with their pottery, which found a ready
market with the pilgrims, for it is both cheap and ugly. Perhaps we
should rather say fantastic than ugly. You see specimens of it all over
the East, and in the bazaars of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus it may be
offered you as something rare. Whatever the vessel is,—a pitcher, cup,
vase, jar, or cream-pot,—its form is either that of some impossible
animal, some griffin, or dragon, or dog of the underworld, or its spout
is the neck and head of some fantastic monster. The ware is painted
in the most startling reds, greens, yellows, and blacks, and sometimes
gilt, and then glazed. It is altogether hideous, and fascinating enough
to drive the majolica out of favor.
Above these two towns the strait expands into a sort of bay, formed on
the north by a promontory jutting out from the Asiatic shore, and upon
this promontory it is now agreed stood old Abydos; it is occupied by a
fort which grimly regards a corresponding one on the opposite shore, not
a mile distant. Here Leander swam to Hero, Byron to aquatic fame, and
here Xerxes laid his bridge. All this is plain to be seen; this is the
narrowest part of the passage; exactly opposite this sloping site of
Abydos is a depression between two high cliffs, the only point where the
Persian could have rested the European extremity of his bridge; and it
surely requires no stretch of the imagination to see Hero standing upon
this projecting point holding the torch for her lover.
The shore is very pretty each side, not bold, but quiet scenery; and yet
there is a contrast: on the Asiatic horizon are mountains, rising behind
each other, while the narrow peninsula, the Thracian Chersonesus of the
ancients, which forms the western bank of the Dardanelles, offers only
a range of moderate hills. What a beautiful stream, indeed, is this, and
how fond history has been of enacting its spectacles upon it! How the
civilizations of the East and West, in a continual flow and reflow, push
each other across it! With a sort of periodic regularity it is the scene
of a great movement, and from age to age the destinies of the race have
seemed to hang upon its possession; and from time to time the attention
of the world is concentrated upon this water-street between two
continents. Under whatever name, the Oriental civilization has been
a misfortune, and the Western a blessing to the border-land; and how
narrowly has Europe, more than once, from Xerxes to Chosroes, from Omar
to the Osmanlis, seemed to escape the torrent of Eastern slavery. Once
the culture of Greece passed these limits, and annexed all Asia Minor
and the territory as far as the Euphrates to the empire of intelligence.
Who shall say that the day is not at hand when the ancient movement of
free thought, if not of Grecian art and arms, is about to be renewed,
and Europe is not again to impose its laws and manners upon Little Asia?
The conquest, which one sees going on under his eyes, is not indeed
with the pomp of armies, but by the more powerful and enduring might of
commerce, intercourse, and the weight of a world's opinion diffused by
travel and literature. The Osmanli sits supinely and watches the change;
the Greeks, the rajahs of all religions, establish schools, and the new
generation is getting ready for the revolution; the Turk does not care
for schools. That it may be his fate to abandon European Turkey and even
Constantinople, he admits. But it is plain that if he goes thus far he
must go farther; and that he must surrender a good part of the Roman
Eastern Empire. For any one can see that the Hellespont could not be
occupied by two powers, and that it is no more possible to divide the
control of the Bosphorus than it is that of the Hudson or the Thames.
The morning was cold, and the temperature as well as the sky admonished
us that we were passing out of the warm latitude. Twenty-five miles from
the Chang and Eng forts we passed near but did not call at Gallipoli,
an ancient city with few antiquities, but of great strategic importance.
Whoever holds it has the key to Constantinople and the Black Sea; it was
seized by the Moslems in the thirteenth century before they imposed the
religion of the Koran upon the city of Constantine, and it was early
occupied by the English and French, in 1854, in the war that secured
that city to the successor of the Prophet.
Entering upon the Sea of Marmora, the “vexed Propontis,” we had
fortunately smooth water but a cold north-wind. The Propontis has
enjoyed a nauseous reputation with all mariners, ancient and modern. I
don't know that its form has anything to do with it, but if the reader
will take the trouble to consult a map, he will see how nearly this
hag of water, with its two ducts, the Bosphorus and the Hellespont,
resembles a human stomach. There is nothing to be seen in the voyage
from Gallipoli to Constantinople, except the island of Marmora, famous
for the quarries which furnish marbles for the palaces of the Bosphorus
and for Eyoub and Scutari, the two great cities of the dead. We passed
near enough to distinguish clearly its fine perpendicular cliffs.
It was dark before we saw the lights of Stamboul rise out of the water;
it is impossible, at night, to enter the Golden Horn through the mazes
of shipping, and we cast anchor outside. The mile or two of gas-lights
along the promontory of the old city and the gleams upon the coast of
ancient Chalcedon were impressive and exciting to the imagination, but,
owing to the lateness of our arrival, we lost all the emotions which
have, struck other travellers anything but dumb upon coming in sight of
the capital of the Moslem Empire.
XIV.—CONSTANTINOPLE.
THE capital which we know as Constantinople, lying in two continents,
presents itself as three cities. The long, hornshaped promontory,
between the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, is the site of ancient
Byzantium, which Constantine baptized with his own name, and which the
Turks call Stamboul. The ancient city was on the eastern extremity, now
known as Seraglio Point; its important position was always recognized,
and it was sharply contended for by the Spartans, the Athenians, the
Macedonians, and the Persians. Like the city of Romulus, it occupies
seven hills, and its noble heights are conspicuous from afar by sea or
land.. In the fourth century it was surrounded by a wall, which followed
the water on three sides, and ran across the base of the promontory,
over four miles from the Seven Towers on the Propontis to the Cemetery
of Eyoub on the Golden Horn. The land-wall, which so many times saved
the effeminate city from the barbarians of the north and the Saracens
of Arabia, stands yet with its battered towers and score of crumbling
gates.
The second city, on a blunt promontory between the Golden Horn and the
Bosphorus, overlooks the ancient Byzantium, and is composed of three
districts,—Galata and Tophanna, on the water and climbing up the hill;
and Pera, which crowns the summit. Galata was a commercial settlement of
the thirteenth century; Pera is altogether modern.
The third city is Scutari, exactly opposite the mouth of the Golden
Horn, and a little north of ancient Chalcedon, which was for over a
thousand years the camp of successive besieging armies, Georgians,
Persians, Saracens, and Turks.
The city of the Crescent, like a veiled beauty of the harem, did not at
once disclose to us its charms. It was at six o'clock in the morning
on the eleventh day of blooming May, that we landed on the dirty quay of
Tophanna. The morning was cloudy, cold, misty, getting its weather
from the Black Sea, and during the day rain fell in a very Occidental
dreariness. Through the mist loomed the heights of Seraglio Point; and
a hundred minaret peaks and domes appeared to float in the air above the
veiled city. Along the floating lower bridge, across the Golden Horn,
poured an unceasing procession of spectres; caïques were shooting about
in every direction, steamers for the Bosphorus, for Scutari, for the
Islands, were momently arriving and departing from their stations
below the bridge, and the huge bulk of the Turkish ironclads could be
discerned at their anchorage before the palace of Beshiktash. The
scene was animated, but there was not visible as much shipping as I had
expected to see in this great port.
The customs' official on the quay was of a very inquisitive turn of
mind, but we could excuse him on the ground of his age and ignorance,
for he was evidently endeavoring to repair the neglected opportunities
of his youth. Our large luggage had gone to the custom-house in charge
of Abd-el-Atti, who has a genius for free-trade, and only our small
parcels and hand-bags were at the mercy of the inspector on the quay.
But he insisted upon opening every bag and investigating every article
of the toilet and garment of the night; he even ripped open a feather
pillow which one of the ladies carried with her, and neither the rain on
the open dock nor our respectable appearance saved our effects from his
most searching attentions. The discoveries of General di Ces-nola and
the interest that Europeans take in antiquities have recently convinced
the Turks that these relics must have some value, and an order had been
issued to seize and confiscate all curiosities of this sort. I
trembled, therefore, when the inspector got his hands upon a baby's
nursing-bottle, which I had brought from Cyprus, where it had been used
by some Phoenician baby probably three thousand years ago. The fellow
turned it round and regarded it with serious ignorance and doubt.
“What is that?” he asked Achmed.
“O, that's nothing but a piece of pottery, something for a child
without his mother, I think,—it is nothing, not worth two paras.”
The confiscator of antiquities evidently had not the slightest knowledge
of his business; he hesitated, but Achmed's perfect indifference of
manner determined him, and he slowly put the precious relic back into
the box. The inspector parted from us with regret, but we left him to
the enjoyment of a virtue unassailed by the least bribe,—an unusual,
and, I imagine, an unwelcome possession in this region.
Donkeys were not to be had, nor carriages, and we climbed on foot the
very steep hill to the hotel in Pera; ascending roughly paved, crooked
streets, lined with rickety houses, and occasionally mounting stairs
for a mile through a quarter that has the shabbiness but not the
picturesqueness of the Orient. A squad of porters seized our luggage
and bore it before us. The porters are the beasts of burden, and most of
them wear heavy saddles, upon which boxes and trunks can be strapped.
No drays were visible. Heavy burdens, hogsheads, barrels, and cases of
goods were borne between two long stout poles carried by four athletic
men; as they move along the street, staggering under the heavy load,
everybody is obliged, precipitately, to make way for them, for their
impetus is such that they cannot check their career. We see these
gigantic fellows at every street-corner, with their long poles, waiting
for a job. Sedan-chairs, which were formerly in much request, are
gradually disappearing, though there is nothing at present to exactly
take the place of these lumbering conveyances. Carriages increase every
year, but they are expensive, and they can only ascend the height of
Pera by a long circuit. The place of the sedan and the carriage is,
however, to some extent supplied by a railway in Galata, the cars of
which are drawn up by a stationary engine. And on each side of
the Golden Horn is a horse-railway, running wherever the ground is
practicable.
To one coming from the West, I suppose that Constantinople would present
a very mixed and bizarre appearance, and that he would be impressed by
the silence of the busiest streets, in which the noise of wheels and the
hum of a Western capital is wanting. But to one coming from the East,
Galata and Pera seem a rather vulgarized European town. The Frank dress
predominates, although it is relieved by the red fez, which the Turks
generally and many Europeans wear. Variety enough there is in costumes,
but the Grecian, the Bulgarian, the Albanian, etc., have taken the place
of the purely Oriental; and the traveller in the Turkish capital to-day
beholds not only the conflux of Asia and Europe, but the transition, in
buildings, in apparel, in manners, to modern fashions. Few veiled women
are seen, and they wear a white strip of gauze which conceals nothing.
The street hawkers, the sellers of sweets, of sponges, and of cakes, are
not more peculiar in their cries than those of London and Paris.
When we had climbed the hill, we came into the long main street of
Pera, the street of the chief shops, the hotels and foreign embassies,
a quarter of the city which has been burned over as often as San
Francisco, and is now built up substantially with stone and brick, and
contains very little to interest the seeker of novelty. After we had
secured rooms, and breakfasted, at the hotel Byzance, we descended
the hill again to the water, and crossed the long, floating bridge to
Stamboul. This bridge is a very good symbol of the Sultan's Empire;
its wooden upper works are decayed, its whole structure is rickety,
the floats that support it are unevenly sunken, so that the bridge is a
succession of swells and hollows; it is crowded by opposing streams
of the most incongruous people, foot and horse jumbled together; it is
encumbered by venders of eatables and auctioneers of cheap Wares, and
one has to pay toll to cross it. But it is a microcosm of the world. In
an hour one may see pass there every nationality, adventurers from every
clime, traders, priests, sailors, soldiers, fortune-hunters of
Europe, rude peasants of the provinces, sleek merchants of the Orient,
darwishes, furtive-eyed Jews; here is a Circassian beauty seeking a
lover through the carriage window; here a Turkish grandee on a prancing,
richly caparisoned horse; here moves a squad of black soldiers, and now
the bridge shakes under the weight of a train of flying artillery.
The water is alive with the ticklish caïques. The caique is a long
narrow boat, on the model of the Indian birch-bark, canoe, and as thin
and light on the water; the passenger, if he accomplishes the feat of
getting into one without overturning it, sits upon the bottom, careful
not to wink and upset it; the oars have a heavy swell near the handle,
to counterbalance the weight of the long blade, and the craft skims the
water with swiftness and a most agreeable motion. The caïques are as
numerous on the water as the yellow, mangy dogs on shore, and the two
are the most characteristic things in Constantinople.
We spent a good part of the day in wandering about the bazaars of
Stamboul, and we need not repeat what has been heretofore said of these
peculiar shops. During our stay in the city we very thoroughly explored
them, and visited most of the great khans, where are to be found the
silks of Broussa, of Beyrout and Damascus, the rugs of Persia, the
carpets of Asia Minor, the arms and the cunning work in gold, silver,
and jewels gathered from every region between Ispahan and Darfour. We
found the bazaars extensive, well filled and dear, at least the asking
price was enormous, and we wanted the time and patience which are needed
for the slow siege of reducing the merchants to decent, terms. The
bazaars are solidly roofed arcades, at once more cleanly and less
picturesque than those of Cairo, and not so Oriental or attractive.
Book-stalls, which are infrequent in Cairo, abound here; and the long
arcades lined with cases of glittering gems, enormous pearls, sparkling
diamonds, emeralds fit for the Pope's finger, and every gold and
silver temptation, exceed anything else in the East in magnificence.
And yet they have a certain modern air, and you do not expect to find
in them those quaint and fascinating antique patterns of goldsmiths'
work, the inherited skill of the smiths of the Pharaohs, which draw you
into the dingy recesses of the Copt artificers in the city of the Nile.
From the Valideh Khan we ascended to the public square, where stands the
Seraskier's Eire-tower; a paved, open place, surrounded by government
buildings of considerable architectural pretensions, and dedicated, I
should say, to drumming, to the shifting about of squads of soldiers,
and the cantering hither and thither of Turkish beys. Near it is the
old mosque of Sultan Beyezid II., which, with its magnificent arabesque
gates, makes a fine external impression. The outer court is surrounded
by a cloister with columns of verd-antique and porphyry, enclosing a
fountain and three stately, venerable, trees. The trees and the arcades
are alive with doves, and, as we entered, more than a thousand flew
towards us in a cloud, with a great rustling and cooing. They are
protected as an almost sacred appendage of the mosque, and are said to
be bred from a single pair which the Sultan bought of a poor woman and
presented to the house he had built, three centuries and a half ago.
This mosque has also another claim to the gratitude of animals; for all
the dogs of Stamboul, none of whom have any home but the street, nor any
other owner than the Prophet, resort here every Friday, as regularly,
if not as piously, as the Sultan goes to pray, and receive their weekly
bread.
Near this mosque are lines of booths and open-air shops, which had a
fascination for me as long as I remained in the city. They extend from
the trees in the place of the mosque down through lanes to the bazaars.
The keepers of them were typical Orientals, honest Jews, honest Moslems,
withered and one-eyed waiters on Providence and a good bargain, suave,
gracious, patient, gowned and turbaned, sitting cross-legged behind
their trays and showcases. These are the dealers in stones, both
precious and common, in old and new ornaments, and the thousand cheap
adornments in glass and metal which the humbler classes love. Here are
heaps of blood-stones, of carnelians, of agates, of jasper, of onyx,
dishes of turquoise, strings of doubtful pearls, barbarous rings and
brooches, charms and amulets,—a feast of color for the eye, and a
sight to kindle the imagination. For these bawbles came out of the
recesses of the Orient, were gathered by wild tribes in remote deserts,
and transported by caravan to this common mart. These dealers buy of the
Persian merchants, and of adventurous Jew travellers who range all the
deserts from Teheran to Upper Nubia in search of these shining stones.
Some of the turquoises are rudely set in silver rings, but most of them
are merely glued to the end of little sticks; these generally are the
refuse of the trade, for the finer stones go to the great jewellers in
the bazaar, or to the Western markets. A large and perfect turquoise
of good color is very rare, and commands a large price; but the cunning
workmen of Persia have a method of at once concealing the defects of
a good-sized turquoise which has the true color, and at the same time
enhancing its value, by engraving upon it some sentence from the Koran,
or some word which is a charm against the evil eye; the skill of the
engraver is shown in fitting his letters and flourishes to the flaws
in the surface of the stone. To further hide any appearance of
imperfection, the engraved lines are often gilded. With a venerable
Moslem, who sat day after day under a sycamore-tree, I had great
content, and we both enjoyed the pleasure of endless bargaining without
cheating each other, for except in some trifles we never came to an
exact agreement. He was always promising me the most wonderful things
for the next day, which he would procure from a mysterious Jew friend
who carried on a clandestine commerce with some Bedawee in Arabia. When
I was seated, he would pull from his bosom a knotted silk handkerchief,
and, carefully untying it, produce a talisman, presenting it between his
thumb and finger, with a lift of the eyebrows and a cluck of the tongue
that expressed the rapture I would feel at the sight of it. To be sure,
I found it a turquoise set in rude silver, faded to a sickly green, and
not worth sixpence; but I handed it back with a sigh that such a jewel
was beyond my means, and intimated that something less costly, and of a
blue color, would suit me as well. We were neither of us deceived, while
we maintained the courtesies of commercial intercourse. Sometimes he
would produce from his bosom an emerald of real value or an opal of
lovely hues, and occasionally a stone in some peculiar setting which I
had admired the day before in the jewelry bazaar; for these trinkets,
upon which the eye of the traveller has been seen longingly to rest, are
shifted about among this mysterious fraternity to meet him again.
I suppose it was known all over Stamboul that a Prank had been looking
for a Persian amulet. As long as I sat with my friend, I never saw him
actually sell anything, but he seemed to be the centre of mysterious
transactions; furtive traders continually came to him to borrow or
return a jewel, or to exchange a handful of trumpery. Delusive old man!
I had no confidence in you, but I would go far to pass another day in
your tranquil society. How much more agreeable you were than the young
Nubian at an opposite stand, who repelled purchasers by his supreme
indifference, and met all my feeble advances with the toss of the head
and the cluck in the left cheek, which is the peremptory “no” in
Nubia.
In this quarter are workers in shell and ivory, the makers of spoons
of tortoise-shell with handles of ivory and coral, the fabricators of
combs, dealers in books, and a long street of little shops devoted to
the engraving of seals. To wander about among these craftsmen is one of
the chief pleasures of the traveller. Vast as Stamboul is, if you remove
from it the mosques and nests of bazaars, it would not be worth a visit.
XXV.—THE SERAGLIO AND ST. SOPHIA, HIPPODROME, etc.
HAVING procured a firman, we devoted a day to the old Seraglio and some
of the principal mosques of Stamboul. After an occupation of fifteen
centuries as a royal residence, the Seraglio has been disused for nearly
forty years, and fire, neglect, and decay have done their work on it,
so that it is but a melancholy reminiscence of its former splendor. It
occupies the ancient site of Byzantium, upon the Point, and is enclosed
by a crumbling wall three miles in circuit. No royal seat in the world
has a more lovely situation. Upon the summit of the promontory, half
concealed in cypresses, is the cluster of buildings, of all ages and
degrees of cheapness, in which are the imperial apartments and offices;
on the slopes towards the sea are gardens, terraces, kiosks, and
fountains.
We climbed up the hill on the side towards Pera, through a shabby field,
that had almost the appearance, of a city dumping-ground, and through
a neglected grove of cypresses, where some deer were feeding, and came
round to the main entrance, a big, ugly pavilion with eight openings
over the arched porte,—the gate which is known the world over as the
Sublime Porte. Through this we passed into a large court, and thence
to the small one into which the Sultan only is permitted to ride on
horseback. In the centre of this is a fountain where formerly pashas
foreordained to lose their heads lost them. On the right, a low range
of buildings covered with domes but no chimneys, are the royal kitchens;
there are nine of them,—one for the Sultan, one for the chief
sultanas, and so on down to the one devoted to the cooking of the food
for the servants. Hundreds of beasts, hecatombs, were slaughtered daily
and cooked here to feed the vast household. From this court open the
doors into the halls and divans and various apartments; one of them,
leading into the interior, is called the Gate of Felicity; in the old
times that could only be called a gate of felicity which let a person
out of this spider's parlor. In none of these rooms is there anything
specially attractive; cheap magnificence in decay is only melancholy.