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THE WORKS OF
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES

Tarbes Ædition

jf EDITION IS LIMITED TO ONE
THOUSAND COPIES, EACH OF WHICH
IS NUMBERED AND REGISTERED

THE NUMBER OF THIS SET ie AT

Copyrighted 1901, By George D. Sproul

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THE WORKS OF

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

VOLUME TEN

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
PROFESSOR F. CC. pe SUMICHRAST
Department of French, Harvard University

CONSTANTINOPLE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR

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NEW YORK PUBLISHED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY
GEORGE D. SPROUL : ° MCMVIII

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Copyright, 1907, by
GEORGE D. SPROUL

UNIVERSITY PRESS + JOHN WILSON
AND SON * CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

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Contents

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THE TROAD AND THE DARDANELLES . . . . "36
T8 Lirrce FIELD oF THE Dean. ‘THE GOLDEN

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THE WaLLs OF CONSTANTINOPLE , . . +. . RME ©
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THE Wazzs oF CONSTANTINOPLE . . . . . . ‘* 163

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Introduction

HAT a charming travelling-companion
is Théophile Gautier, and how well he
compensates those who are not fortu-
nate enough to imitate him in his wan-

derings and must fain be content to read of foreign
places and cities strange. Spain, Venice, and Con-
stantinople form three volumes of absolute and con-
tinual delight; for surely no one can write more
entertainingly, more charmingly concerning Granada,
Seville, the Queen of the Adfriatic, and the City of
Stamboul. Gautier’s peculiar gift, in some respects
greater even than Hugo’s, of making his readers actu-
ally behold what he describes and live the scenes he
relates, makes of him the rarest of writers of travel.
The impression he makes on the mind is so vivid that
it requires but a slight stretch of the imagination to
believe that one has been present at a bull-fight with

him, watching Montes slay the fierce “ Napoleon ”

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CONSTANTINOPLE

travelled in his company and that of Lanza the cosario
across the mountains to Velez-Malaga ; rambled through
the Alhambra and the Generalife, and watched the
sunset tints slowly fade away on the crests of the
Sierra Nevada. Without stirring from one’s fireside,
one floats on the blue waters of the Lagoon, gazing at
the marvellous prospect of Venice stretching out with
the Campanile, San Marco, and the Palace of the Doges,
every detail of which, suffused in rosy light, is recog-
nised as if one had lived in the place as long as Byron
or Browning. Indeed, it is quite possible that many
readers of Gautier have an infinitely clearer vision of
the City of the Lagoons than many who have trav-
elled through it with the customary haste of tourists
anxious to take in as much of Europe as they can
compass during a brief summer-trip.

So with Constantinople: Stamboul, Pera, Galata,
Scutari emerge from the haze of imagination and
become real, tangible, familiar. The force, the direct-
ness, the accuracy of Gautier’s account fix indelibly in
the mind the features and general aspect of the Otto-
man capital. There is no escaping the spell under
which he lays his reader; no avoiding the actual know-

ledge, intimate and close, which he imparts. The

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INTRODUCTION

brilliancy of the illuminations, the sombre ride round
the walls, the bustling nights of Ramazan, the splen-
dour of the Beiïram, the rush and tumult of the con-
flagration, the swift, sunlit passage down the Bosphorus,
the shimmering, gleaming glories of the Bezestan, the
hideous repulsiveness of the Ghetto, — all are brought
out with unmatched skill; and as long as the reader
listens to the words Gautier speaks, so long is he in
Constantinople, climbing the steep streets of Pera,
wandering by the Sweet Waters of Europe, roaming
through the Cemeteries, watching the pipemakers
drilling pipestems, or casting a sly glance at the
momentarily unveiled face of a beauty of the harem.

There is a distinct method in Gautier’s selection of
the countries and places he chooses to write about at
some length. He has not given us much about
England, Belgium, Holland, or Germany; not that he
failed to be interested in them, but that they lacked
the peculiar charm of exoticism which, for him and
the other Romanticists, attached to Spain, Venice, Flor-
ence, Padua, the East. ‘These were the places he had
dreamed of; there were light of a quality, of a lumi-
nousness unknown in Northern climes; a wealth of

luxury, a gorgeousness of costume, a strangeness of

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manners utterly unlike the North; a going back from
the cold, practical civilisation which, like a dutiful
disciple of Rousseau, he professed to abhor. They
were the countries of romance, the fairylands of his
hot, artistic youth, and for them he had longed, to
them he had looked, nourishing the hope that some
day he might wander through their cities, behold their
mysterious beauties, and revel in their poetry. Africa
and Egypt drew him in turn, and, if he went to Russia,
it was because sent there, and not because the country
had any special attraction. Yet there also the strange-
ness, the picturesqueness, the oddity of costume, man-
ners, dress, buildings, filled him with satisfaction, excited
his artistic instinct, and made him taste anew the joy
he had experienced in other and sunnier lands.
Gautier was intensely in earnest when travelling
and sight-seeing; he was no mere globe-trotter who
cares only to cover the greatest possible amount of
country, to gallop through the finest scenery, to hurry
through historical cities. He wanted to know each
place, and if one, like Venice, like Granada, like
Constantinople, particularly charmed him, there he
would stay, enjoying every hour, every moment, and,

in his brilliant accounts, making the world share the

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INTRODUCTION

delight he himself felt. He became one of the inhabi-
tants for the time being ; he threw off, as far as he could,
the Parisian, and endeavoured to enter into the nature
of the Spaniard, the Venetian, the Turk, or the Russian.
He wore the dress of the natives; he fed as they did;
sought, in a word, to be one of them. But he was
even better than that, for he bore with him everywhere
his deep feeling for beauty, his intense sense of the
picturesque, his magical power of understanding and
reproducing colour, his wonderful encyclopædic know-
ledge; and the Turk or Spaniard, the Russian or Vene-
tian into whom he transformed himself was ever a poet
and a painter.

In an article written for ?’{lustration in March,
1867, he thus sums up his wanderings and his mode
of sight-seeing : —

In May, 1840, I started for Spain. I cannot
describe the spell cast upon me by that wild, poetic
country, which Î dreamed of under the influence of
Alfred de Musset’s ‘ Tales of Spain and Italy, and
Hugo’s ‘ Orientales” Once there I felt I was on my
own ground, and as if [ had found again my native
country. Ever since, my one thought has been to get

a little money together and be off travelling. The

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CONSTANFINOPLE

passion, or the disease, of travel had developed in me.
In 1845, in the hottest month of the year, I visited the
whole of French Africa, accompanying Marshal Bugeaud
on the first campaign in Kabylia against Bel Kasem or
Kase, and it was in the camp of Aÿn el Arba that I
had the pleasure of writing the last letter of Edgar de
Meiïlhen, the character I had charge of in the epistolary
novel called ‘The Berny Cross) written in collabora-
tion with Mme. du Girardin, Méry, and Sandeau. I
pass over brief trips to England, Holland, Germany,
and Switzerland. I travelled through Italy in 1850,
and Î went to Constantinople in 1852. ‘These excur-
sions have been described in my books. More recently
the publishers of an art work, the text of which I had
engaged to write, sent me to Russia in the depth of
winter, and Î was thus enabled to enjoy the delights
of the land of snow and ice. In the early summer I
pushed on to Nijni-Novgorod at the time of the fair.
That is the farthest point from Paris which I have
reached. If I had been wealthy, I should have lived
a wandering life. I have a wonderful facility for adapt-
ing myself easily to the life of different peoples. I am
a Russian in Russia, a Turk in Turkey, a Spaniard in

Spain. To the latter country I returned several times,

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IN PRODUCTION

drawn by my fondness for bull-fights, which caused
the Revue des Deux Mondes to call me ‘a stout, jovial
and sanguinary individual” Ï used to be à great ad-
mirer of cathedrals, thanks to ‘ Notre-Dame de Paris,
but the sight of the Parthenon cured me of the Gothic
disease, which in truth never had a very great hold
upon me.”

This book on Constantinople has a value, apart from
its artistic form and its splendour of phraseology, in
that it is a living picture of a Stamboul that has changed
much since 1852 and is still changing. The innova-
tions introduced by Mahmoud the reformer, many of
which Gautier notes as he goes, have taken root and
multiplied. The latest and best work on Constanti-
nople has no pages to match those of the French
traveller; the city the latter beheld is already a city
of the past. It is but too true, as Hugo laments,
that es vrelles villes s’en vont.” It is sufficient to
compare the description of the Bezestan in Grosvenor’s
work with that in this volume to appreciate the change
which has already taken place. And it will not be
wondered at, either, that Gautier’s book still remains
popular and is still read with fervent delight, for it is

the most vivid representation of that mysterious Con-

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CONSTANTINOPLE

stantinople that has haunted imaginations for centuries
and even yet is enshrined in a halo of romance.

The book, of course, first saw the light in the form
of letters of travel, of newspaper “copy.” It was in
the year 1852, at a time when the grasping policy
of Russia, bent on obtaining a foothold on the Bospho-
rus, was creating alarm throughout Europe, and drawing
Great Britain, France, and Turkey into the alliance
that was marked by the breaking out of the Crimean
war, that Gautier sailed for the East. He was then
on the staff of Zz Presse, and it was in this journal
that his letters were published from October 1, 1852,
to December 3, 1853, under the title, From Paris to
Constantinople — Summer Jaunts’ No sooner had
the last batch of copy appeared than the publication
in book form was announced, first by Eugène Didier,
and next by Michel Lévy, the latter finally bringing
out the volume in 1853, though it is dated 1854.
The title then given it was that it has ever since
borne, — Constantinople.” The book proved very
popular, and many successive editions of it have since

appeared.

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Constantinople

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

SE doth breed a habit in a man,” and

I might say with as much truth, he

who hastravelled will travel again. The

thirst for sight-seeing is excited by grat-

ification instead of being appeased. Here I am in
Constantinople, and I am already thinking of going to
Cairo and Egypt. Spain, Italy, Africa, England, Bel-
gium, Holland, a part of Germany, Switzerland, the
Isles of Greece, and a few ports of the Levant, which
I visited at different times and on different occasions,
have merely increased my love of cosmopolitan vaga-
bondage. It may be that travelling is a dangerous
element to introduce into one’s life, for it excites one
deeply and causes an uneasiness like that of birds of
passage kept prisoners at the time of migration, if any
circumstance or any duty prevents ones starting. You
are aware that you are going to expose yourself to

fatigue, privations, annoyances, and even perils; it is

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CONSTANTINOPLE

dificult to give up pleasant habits of mind and heart,
to leave family, friends, and relatives for the unknown ;
yet you feel it impossible to remain, nor do your friends
attempt to detain you, but press your hand silently as
you step into the carriage.

And ought we not, after all, to explore, in part at least,
the planet upon which we kéep whirling through space
until its mysterious Creator is pleased to transport us
into another world where we may read another page of
His infinite work? Is it not clearly laziness to keep
on spelling the same word without ever turning over
the page? What poet would be satisfied to see a reader
keep to a single one of his stanzas? So every year,
unless Ï am detained by imperious necessity, I study
some one country of the vast universe, which seems to
me less vast as I traverse it and as it emerges from the
vague cosmography of imagination. Without quite
going to the Holy Sepulchre, to Saint Jago de Compos-
tello, or to Mecca, I start on a pious pilgrimage to
those parts of the world where God is more visible
in the beauty of the sites. This time I shall see
Turkey, Greece, and a portion of that Hellenic
Asia in which beauty of form mingles with Oriental

splendour.

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

Sometime to-morrow we shall be in sight of Cape
Matapan, a barbarous name which conceals the har-
mony of the old appellation, just as a coat of lime-wash
spoils a fine carving. Cape Tænarum is the extreme
point of the deeply cut fig-leaf spread out upon the
sea, now called Morea, formerly named Peloponnesus.
Every passenger was on deck, gazing in the direction
indicated, three or four hours before anything could be
made out. ‘The magic name of Greece had started the
most inert of imaginations ; the bourgeois most averse
to artistic ideas were moved. Finally a violet line
showed faint above the waves. It was Greece. A
mountain rose out of the waters like a nymph resting
on the sand after a bath, beautiful, fair, elegant, and
worthy of that land of sculpture. “ What is that moun-
tain ?”” [ asked the captain. “ T'aygetus,” he replied
carelessly, just as he might have said, Montmartre.”
As the name of Taygetus fell upon my ear, a line of
the Georgics ” came back spontaneously to my mind,

“, . . virginibus bacchata Lacænis
T'aygeta ! ””
and fluttered on my lips like a monotonous refrain that
satisfied my thoughts. What better can one address to
a Greek mountain than a line of Vergil? Although it

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CONSTANTINOPLE

was in the middle of June and fairly warm, the
summit of the mountain was silvered with snow,
and Î thought of the rosy feet of the lovely maids
of Laconia who traversed Taygetus as Bacchantes,
and left their charming footprints upon the white
paths.

Cape Matapan stretches out between two deep gulfs
which it divides, the Gulf of Koron and that of Kolo-
kythia. It is an arid, bare point of land, like all the:
coasts of Greece. After passing it you are shown on
the right a mass of tawny rocks cracked by dryness,
calcined by heat, without à trace of verdure or even of
loam. It is Cerigo, or Cythera of old, the island of
myrtles and roses, the place beloved of Venus, whose
name sums up all voluptuousness. What would
Watteau have said, with his € Departure ” for his blue
and rosy Cythera, in the presence of that bare shore of
crumbling rock, its hard contours standing out under a
shadowless sun, and better fitted for a cavern for a
penitent anchorite than for a lovers’ grove? Gérard
de Nerval at least had the pleasure of seeing on the
shores of Cythera a man hanged, wrapped up in oil-
cloth, which proves that justice is careful and comfort-

able in that part of the world.

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

Our vessel was too far away from land to allow the
passengers to enjoy such a graceful detail, even if all
the gibbets in the island had been in use at that mo-
ment. Did the ancients lie? Did they imagine lovely
sites where now exist only a rocky isle and a bare land ?
It is difficult to suppose that their descriptions, the
accuracy of which it was then easy to verify, can have
been utterly fanciful. No doubt this land, worn out
by human activity, has at last been exhausted. It died
with the civilisation it supported, exhausted by master-
pieces, genius, and heroism. What we behold is merely
the skeleton; the skin and the muscles have fallen into
dust. When the soul is withdrawn from a country, it
dies like a body. Else how are we to explain so com-
plete and general a difference ? — for what I have just
said is applicable to almost the whole of Greece. And
yet these shores, desolate though they be, have still fine
lines and pure colours.

By morning we were opposite Syra. Seen from the
roads, Syra greatly resembles Algiers, on a smaller scale,
of course. On a mountainous background of the
warmest tone, sienna or burnt topaz, place a triangle
dazzlingly white, the base of which is laved by the sea,

and the apex of which is a church, and you have an

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CONSTANTINOPELE

exact idea of the city, which but yesterday was a shape-
less heap of hovels and which the transformation into
a coaling port for steamers will soon make the queen
of the Cyclades. Wind-mills with eight or nine sails
break the sharp silhouette. There was not a tree,
not a blade of green grass as far as the eye could see.
À great number of vessels of all forms and all sizes
were crowded along the shore, their slender rigging
showing black against the white houses of the town.
Boats were coming and going with joyous animation ;
earth, sea, and heaven were inundated with light; life
broke out in every direction. Boats were pulling fast
towards our vessel and formed a regatta of which we
were the finish.

Soon the deck was covered with a swarm of bronze-
complexioned fellows with hooked noses, flashing eyes,
fierce moustaches, who offered their services in the
same tone as elsewhere one is called upon for one’s
purse or one’s life. Some wore Greek caps (they had
a perfect right to do so), vast trousers very much like
petticoats, pleated wooilen sashes, and dark-blue cloth
jackets ; others wore kilts, white vests, and cotton caps,
or else small straw hats with a black cord. One of

them was superbly costumed, and seemed to be posing

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SYRA AND SMYRKRNA

for a water-colour sketch in an album. He deserved
the epithet which speakers in Homer addressed to the
hearers whom they desired to flatter, euknemides Achaioi
(well-booted Greeks), for he had the handsomest piqué,
embroidered £remids, ornamented with tufts of red silk,
which it is possible to imagine. His closely pleated
kilt, dazzlingly clean, spread out like a bell; a tightly
drawn sash set off his wasp-like waist; his vest,
braided, trimmed, and adorned with filigree buttons,
gave passage to the sleeves of a fine linen shirt,
and on his shoulders was elegantly thrown a hand-
some red jacket stiff with ornaments and arabesques.
This superb individual was neither more nor less
than à dragoman who acts as guide to travellers on
their trips through Greece, and no doubt he desired
to flatter his clients by this show of local colour, just
as the handsome maïids of Procida and Nisida put
on their velvet and gold costumes for English tourists
only.

Syra presents the peculiarity of being a city in ruins
and à growing city, a rather strange contrast. In the
lower town one comes everywhere upon scaffoldings ;
building stones and débris fill the streets; houses are

visibly growing up; in the upper town, everything is

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CONSTANTINOPLE
falling and going to ruin. Life has left the head and

taken refuge in the feet.

À sort of very steep roadway separates New Syra
from Old Syra. Once the bridge has been crossed,
one has to climb almost vertical streets paved like tor-
rent beds. With two or three comrades I scaled them
between ruinous walls, fallen-in hovels, over loose
stones and pigs that got out of the way with a yelp and
scurried off, rubbing their bluish backs against my legs.
Through half-opened doors I caught sight of haggard
old witches cooking strange dishes on a fire blazing in
the shadow. Men with the looks of melodrama brig-
ands put aside their narghilehs and watched our little
caravan go by with a very ungracious expression of
countenance.

The slope became so steep that we were almost
compelled to go on all-fours, through obscure labyrinths,
vaulted passages, and ruinous stairs. ‘The houses are
built one above another, so that the threshold of the
upper one is on the level of the terraced top of the
lower. Every dwelling looks as if, in order to reach
the top of the mountain, it had set foot on the head of
the one below, on a road intended apparently more

for goats than for men. The peculiar advantage of Old

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

Syra seems to be that it is easily accessible to hawks
and eagles only. Ît is an admirable location for the
eyries of birds of prey, but à most unsuitable one for
human habitations.

Breathless and perspiring, we at last reached the
narrow platform upon which rises the church of Saint
George, — a platform paved with tombstones, under
which rest the aerial dead; and here we were fully
compensated by the magnificent panorama for the fatigue
we had endured. Behind us rose the crest of the
mountain upon which Syra is built ; on the right, look-
ing seaward, fell away an immense ravine broken and
torn in the most wildly romantic fashion; at our feet
sank in successive terraces the white houses of upper
and lower Syra; farther in the distance shone the sea
with its luminous gleam, and the circle of Delos,
Mykone, Tino, and Andro, which the setting sun
bathed in rose and changing tints that, if they were
represented in painting, would be declared impossible.

The next day we were to sail for Smyrna, and
I was for the first time to set foot on the Asian
land, the cradle of the world, the happy place where
rises the sun and which it leaves regretfully to light
the West.

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CONSTANTINOPLE

Ât early dawn we entered the roads of Smyrna,
which form a graceful curve, at the bottom of which
spreads out the town. The first thing that struck my
eyes at that distance was the great screen of cypresses
rising above the houses, mingling their black tops with
the white shafts of the minarets, the whole still bathed
in shadow and surmounted by an old, ruined fortress,
the walls of which stood out against the lighted sky
and formed 2 sort of amphitheatre behind the buildings.
It was no longer the bare and desolate shores of
Greece; the land of Asia appeared, smiling and fresh
in the rosy light of dawn.

It would be a grievous mistake to leave Smyrna
without visiting the Caravan Bridge. ‘This celebrated
bridge, which unfortunately has been disfigured by an
ugly balustrade of cast iron, crosses à small river a few
inches in depth, in which were quietly swimming half
a dozen ducks, as if the divine blind man had not
washed his dusty feet in those waters which three
thousand years have not dried up. The stream is the
Meles, whence Homer was called Melesigenes. It is
true that some scholars deny that this brook is the
Meles, but other scholars, still more learned, maintain

that Homer never lived, which simplifies the question

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

considerably. I, who am but à poet, willingly accept
the lescend which has fixed a thought and a remem-
brance upon a place already charming in itself.

Great plane-trees, under which a café has been
erected, shade one of the banks; on the other superb
cypresses tell of a cemetery. Let not this name awaken
any gloomy thoughts in your mind. Dainty tombs of
white marble, diapered with pretty Turkish letters on
sky-blue or apple-green backgrounds and of a form
entirely different from Christian sepulchres, shine gaily
under the trees as the sunbeams light upon them. At
most they excite in those who are not accustomed to
them a slight melancholy which is not without its

charm.

At the farther end is a sort of custom house and _

guard house, occupied by a few of the Zebecs, whose
appearance is familiar to every one, thanks to Decamps’
paintings of Asiatic scenes. They wear high, conical
turbans, short white linen drawers very full behind,
huge sashes which reach from the loins almost to the
armpits, and which are formidably full of yataghans and
kandjar-hilts ; they have bare legs the colour of Cor-
dova leather, hooked noses, and huge moustaches.

Lying lazily on a bench were three or four scoundrels,

23

Littttttdttetedbbdddedhded dk

ere eve re

CONSTANTINOPEE

very honest fellows, no doubt, but who looked a great
deal more like brigands than customs inspectors.

To rest our animals we had seated ourselves under
the plane-trees, and pipes and mastic had been brought
tous. Mastic is a sort of liquor much drunk in the
Levant, especially in the Greek Islands, and the best
comes from Khio. It is alcohol in which has been
melted a perfumed gum. It is drunk with water, which
it freshens and whitens like eau de cologne. It is the
oriental absinthe. This local drink recalled to me the
small glasses of aguardiente which I used to drink some
twelve years ago on the ride from Granada to Malaga,
as Ï was going to the bull-fight with Lanza the arriero,
wearing my #40 costume that had such a splendid pot
of flowers embroidered on the back, and which is now,
alas ! all moth-eaten.

While we were smoking and sipping our mastic, a
procession of some fifteen camels, preceded by an ass
tinkling its bell, passed across the bridge with that
singular ambling pace characteristic also of the ele-
phant and the giraffe, their backs rounded and their
long ostrich-necks waving. The strange silhouette
of that ugly animal, which seems created for a special

nature, surprises one, and impresses on you the fact

24

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SYRA AND SMYRNA

that you are away from home. When you meet in the
open those curious animals shown at home in menag-
eries, you distinctly feel that you have left Paris. We
also saw two women carefully veiled, accompanied by
a negro with a repulsive face, no doubt a eunuch. The
East was beginning to exhibit itself unmistakably, and
the most paradoxical mind could not have maintained

that we were still in Paris.

25

Rhb fe de de de de de che de hoehe cloche che cb cb che fe of où ado

THE TROAD AND THE
DARDANELLES

REAT was my regret at having to leave
Smyrna so soon, with its Asiatic and volup-
tuous grace. Às I hastened to the boat, my

glance plunged eagerly into the half-opened doors,
through which I could see courts paved with marble,
cooled by fountains, like the Andalusian patios, and
verdant gardens, calm and shady oases embellished by
lovely girls in white and soft coloured wrappers, wear-
ing elegant Greek head-dresses, and grouped as would
love to have them a painter and a poet. My regret
was for the fine streets of this city, the Street of Roses
and the neighbouring ones, for the Jewish quarter
and certain parts of the Turkish quarter are wretchedly
sordid and hideously dilapidated. ‘Truth compels me
not to conceal this reverse of the medal.

In spite of its great antiquity, — it existed already in
the days of Homer, — Smyrna has preserved few re-

mains of its former splendour. For my part, Î saw no

26

Létbttsetstdtdbdbdddkdedchbedcde he
EROAM AND DARDANELLES

other antique ruins than three or four huge Roman
columns rising by the frail modern structures at their
feet. ‘These columns, the remains of a temple of
Jupiter or of Fortune, Ï am not sure which, have a fine
effect, and must have excited the sagacity of scholars.
I merely caught sight of them from the back of an
ass as [ passed by, so that I cannot express any satis-
factory opinion about them.

The Asiatic shore is much less barren than the
European, and I remained on deck as long as the day-
light enabled me to distinguish the outline of the land.

The next morning at dawn we had passed Mitylene,
the antique Lesbos, the country of Sappho. A flat
shore spread out before us on the right. It was the
Troad, —

€ Campos ubi Troja fuit,” —

the very soil of epic poetry, the theatre of immortal
verse, the place twice consecrated by the genius of
Greece and of Rome, by Homer and by Vergil. It is
strange to find one’s self thus in the very centre of poetry
and mythology. Like Æneas relating his story to Dido
from his raised couch, I can say from the quarter-deck,
and with greater truth, —

‘ Est in conspectu Tenedos,”? —

27

Lébbétktktbéddedbedbde dede de dd
CONS TANT ENORME

for there is the island whence glided the serpents that
bound in their folds the unfortunate Laocoôn and his
sons, and furnished a subject for one of the master-
pieces of sculpture; Tenedos, on which reigns the
mighty Phœbus Apollo, the god of the silver bow
invoked by Chryses; and farther on, the shore which
Protesilaus, the first victim of a war that was to destroy
a people, tinged with his biood as with a propitiatory
libation. The mass of vague ruins, faintly seen in the
distance, is the Scæan Gates, through which issued
Hector wearing the helmet with the red aigrette that
terrified little Astyanax, and before which sat down in
the shade the old men who, in Homer, bowed before
Helen’s beauty. ‘The dark mountain clothed with a
mantle of forest, which rises on the horizon, is Ida, the
scene of the judgment of Paris, where the three lovely
goddesses, Hera, with the snowy arms, Pallas Athene
with the sea-green eyes, and Aphrodite with the magic
cestus, posed nude before the fortunate shepherd;
where Anchises enjoyed the intoxication of a celestial
hymen, and made Venus the mother of Æneas. The
fleet of the Greeks was moored along this shore; onit
rested the prows of their black vessels partly drawn up

on the sand. The accuracy of the Homeric description

28

7 Et Cn_.

ne. RS RS CS, ne, D ES ES dd Se

CÉLELELESLLS SIL LL ETS EL...
TROAD AND DARDANELLES

is plainly evident in every detail of the place; a strate-
gist could follow, Iliad in hand, every phase of the
siege.

While thus recalling my classical remembrances, I
gaze upon the T'road, Stalimene, the ancient Lemnos,
which received Hephæstus hurled from heaven, rises
over the sea, and shows behind me its yellowish prom-
ontories. Would I were two-faced like Janus!
Two eyes indeed are but little, and man is greatly
inferior in this respect to the spider, which has eight
thousand according to Leuwenhoeck and Swammerdam.
I turn for one moment to cast a glance at the volcanic
isle where were forged the arms of proof of the heroes
favoured by the gods, and the golden tripods, living
metal slaves that served the Olympians in their celestial
dwellings, and the captain draws me by the sleeve to
point out upon the Trojan shore a rounded hillock, a
conical hill, the regular form of which speaks of man’s
handiwork. The tumulus covers the remains of Anti-
lochus, the son of Nestor and Eurydice, the first Greek
who slew a Trojan at the beginning of the siege, and
who perished himself by Hector’s hands while warding
off a blow aimed at his father by Memnon. Does

Antilochus really rest under that mound? no doubt the

29

bébés dkdtkbibdbbbbbddckbdked dk dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

discursive critics will say. Tradition affirms that he
does, and why should tradition lie ?

As we proceed we discover two other tumuli not far
from à little village called Yeni Scheyr, recognisable by
a row of nine wind-mills like those of Syra. Nearer to
Smyrna, and also nearer to the shore, is the tomb of
Patroclus, brother in arms and inseparable companion
of Achilles. There was raised the gigantic pile watered
with the blood of innumerable victims, on which the
hero, mad with grief, cast four costly horses, two
thorough-bred dogs, and ten young T'rojans slain with
his own hand, and around which the mourning army
celebrated funeral games which lasted many days. The
second, more inland, is the tomb of Achilles himself;
such, at least, is the name given to it. According to
the Homeric tradition, the ashes of Achilles were min-
gled with those of Patroclus in a golden urn and thus
the two great friends, undivided in life, were not sepa-
rated in death. ‘The gods were moved by the hero’s
fate. T'hetis rose from the sea with a plaintive chorus
of Nereids, the Nine Muses wept and sang hymns of
grief around the funeral bed, and the bravest in the
army performed bloodÿy games in honour of the hero.

The tumulus is no doubt that of some other Greek or

30

Litétitéttbedkébbbebdbdbebed dk ek
TROAM AND DARDANELLES

Trojan, that of Hector perhaps. In Alexander’s days,
the place of the tomb of the hero of the Iliad was well
known, for the conqueror of Asia stopped there, saying
that Achilles was very fortunate to have had such a
friend as Patroclus and such a poet as Homer; he had
only Hephæstion and Quintus Curtius ; yet his exploits
surpassed those of the son of Peleus, and for once
history triumphed over mythology.

While I am discoursing on Homeric geography and
the heroes of the Iliad,—a very innocent piece of
pedantry which may well be forgiven in the presence
of Troy, — our steamer continues on its way, somewhat

retarded by a north wind blowing from the Black Sea,

and proceeds towards the Strait of the Dardanelles,

which is defended by two castles, the one on the
Asiatic, the other on the European shore. Their
cross fire bars the entrance to the Strait and renders
access to it, if not impossible, at least very difficult for
a hostile fleet. Before I leave the Troad, let me add
that beyond Yeni Scheyr falls into the Bosphorus a
stream claimed by some to be the Simois and by others
the Granicus.

The Hellespont, or Sea of Helle, is very narrow.

It is more like the mouth of a great river than a sea.

31

bhbétetdékdbbéd dede bee cb deck
CONSTANTINOPLE

Its breadth is not greater than that of the Thames at
Gravesend. As the wind was fair to run into the
Ægean Sea we passed through a fleet of vessels going
in that direction with all sails set.

The European shore, which we kept close aboard, is
formed of steep hills spotted with vegetation. The
general aspect is rather barren and monotonous. The
Asiatic shore is much more smiling, and presents, I
know not why, an appearance of Northern verdure
which would seem more suitable to Europe. At one
time we were so close to the shore that we could make
out five Turkish horsemen riding along a narrow foot-
path stretching along the foot of the cliff like à narrow
yellow ribbon. ‘They formed a scale which gave me
an idea of the height of the shore, which is much
greater than I should have supposed. It is near this
place that Xerxes built the bridge intended for the
crossing of his army, and caused the disrespectful sea,
which had been rude enough to break it, to be beaten
with rods. Judged on the spot, this enterprise, men-
tioned in all books of morals as the very acme of human
pride, seems, on the contrary, quite reasonable. It is
also supposed that Sestos and Abydos, made famous by

the loves of Hero and Leander, were situated about

32

D

ROM ND DARDANELLES

here, where the Hellespont is not much more than

>

eight hundred and seventy-five yards wide. Lord
Byron, as every one knows, repeated, without being
in love, Leander’s swimming exploit, but instead of
Hero on the shore, holding up her torch as a guiding
light, he found fever only. He took an hour and ten
minutes to traverse the distance, and was prouder of
the performance than of having written ‘Childe
Harold” or “ The Corsair.”

I cannot tell you much about the Sea of Marmora
itself, for it was dark when we traversed it, and I was
asleep in my cabin, worn out by fourteen hours’ watch-
ing on deck. Above Gallipoli it broadens considerably
and narrows again at Constantinople. When day
dawned, on the Asiatic side the Bithynian Olympus,
covered with eternal snows, was rising in the rosy
vapours of morning with changing tints and silvery
sheen. The European shore, infinitely less pictur-
esque, was spotted with white houses and clumps of
verdure, above which rose tall brick chimneys, the
obelisks of industry, the ruddy material of which, seen
from a distance, is a very fair imitation of the rose
granite of Egypt. If I did not fear being accused of
indulging in a paradox, I would say that the whole of

3 33

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Lt bb & bb bbbbdbdbbdbdbbabe db
CONSTANTINOPLE

this part recalled to me the appearance of the T'hames
between the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich: the sky,
very milky, very opaline, almost covered with trans-
parent haze, still further increased the illusion.

In the blue distance loomed the Archipelago of the
Princes’ Islands, a great Sunday resort. In a few
minutes more Stamboul would appear to us in all its
splendour. Already, on the left, through the silvery
gauze of the mist, showed up a few minarets; the
Castle of the Seven Towers, where formerly ambassa-
dors were imprisoned, bristled with its massive towers
connected by crenellated walls; its base plunges into
the sea, and it backs up against the hill. It is from
this castle that start the old ramparts that surround the
city as far as Eyoub. The Turks call it Yedi Kouleh,
and the Greeks called it Heptapyrgion. It was built
by the Byzantine emperors, commenced by Zeno and
completed by the Komnenoi. Viewed from the sea,
it appears to be in very bad condition, ready to fall in
ruins. Ît is, however, very effective with its heavy
form, its squat towers, its thick walls, and its look of
a Bastile and a fortress.

Our steamer, slowing down so as not to arrive too

early, shaved Seraglio Point. It is a series of long,

34

:

CO CS I D à NT DOS CESR CRE CCR NS DS ET M US OO CS EE

M octnt

TROAD AND DARDANELLES

whitewashed walls, the crenellations of which stand
out against gardens of terebinth and cypress trees, of
cabinets with trellised windows, kiosks with projecting
roofs and without any symmetry. It is very far from
the magnificence of the “ Thousand and One Nights ”
which the single word “ seraglio ” calls up in the least
excitable imagination; and I must confess that these
wooden boxes with close bars, that contain the beauties
of Georgia, Circassia, and Greece, the houris of that
paradise of Mohammed of which the Padishah has the
key, are uncommonly like hen-coops. We are con-
stantly confounding Arab architecture and Turkish
architecture, which have no relation to each other,
and involuntarily we turn the seraglio into an Alham-
bra, which is far from being the truth. These disap-
pointing remarks do not prevent the old Seraglio from
having an agreeable aspect, with its dazzling whiteness
and its sombre verdure, between the blue sky and the
blue sea, the rapid current of which laves its mysterious
walls.

As we passed, we were shown an inclined plane
jutting out of an opening in the wall and projecting
over the sea. That is the spot, we were told, where

were cast into the Bosphorus faithless odalisques

35

D IS SU. Je Fe

di ee |

Libé db épébdb dde dde
CONSTANTINOPLE

and those who for some reason or another had fallen
into disgrace with the master. They were enclosed in
a sack containing a cat and a serpent.

We have doubled Seraglio Point. The steamer
stops at the entrance to the Golden Horn. A mar-
vellous panorama ïis outspread before me like an
operatic stage-setting in a fairy sky. The Golden
Horn is a gulf of which the Old Seraglio and the
landing at Top Khaneh form the two ends, and
which penetrates the city, built like an amphitheatre
upon its two banks, as far as the Sweet Waters of
Europe and the mouth of the Barbyses, a small stream
which flows into it. The name of Golden Horn
comes, no doubt, from the fact that it represents to
the city a true cornucopeia, owing to the commodity
it offers to shipping, commerce, and naval construc-
tion. On the right, beyond the sea, is a huge white
building, regularly pierced with several rows of win-
dows flanked at its angles with turrets surmounted by
flagstaffs. It is a barracks, the largest but not the
most characteristic of Scutari, the Turkish name of
the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, which extends,
ascending towards the Black Sea, from the site of the

former Chrysopolis, of which no traces remain. À

36

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TROAD AND DARDANELLES

little farther, in the centre of the waters, rises upon a
rocky islet a dazzlingly white lighthouse, which is
called Leander’s Tower, and also the Maiden’s Tower,
although the place has no connection whatever with
the legend of the two lovers celebrated by Musæus.
The tower, of elegant shape and which in the clear
light looks like alabaster, stands out beautifully against
the dark blue of the sea.

At the entrance to the Golden Horn lies Top
Khaneh with its landing place, its arsenal, and its
mosque with bold dome, and slender minarets, built
by Sultan Mahmoud. The palace of the Russian
Embassy raises amid red-tiled roofs and clumps of trees
its proudly dominating façade which compels the glance,
and seems already to seize upon the city; while the
palaces of the other embassies are satisfied with a
more modest appearance. The Tower of Galata, in
the Frankish business quarter, rises from the centre of
the houses, topped by a pointed cap of verdigrised
copper, and overlooks the old Genoese walls falling in
ruins at its feet. Pera, the residence of the Europeans,
outspreads on the top of a hill its cypresses and its stone
houses, that contrast with the T'urkish wooden shanties,
and stretch as far as the Great Field of the Dead.

37

bétdéedkdkdtkhktkkbkdoe dt td de do
CONSTANTINOPLE

The Seraglio Point forms the other extremity, and
on this bank rises the city of Constantinople, properly
so called. Never did a more superbly varied line
meander between heaven and earth. The ground
rises from the shore, and the constructions are

arranged like an amphitheatre. The mosques over-

topping the sea of verdure and many-coloured houses

with their bluish domes and their lofty white minarets
surrounded by balconies and ending in a sharp point
that pierces the clear morning sky, give to the town
an Oriental and fairy-like appearance, augmented by
the silvery light that bathes the vaporous contours.
An officious neighbour names them in order, from
the Seraglio and up the Golden Horn: Saint
Sophia, Saint Irenæus, Sultan Achmet, Nouri Osma-
nieh, Sultan Bayezid, Souleiman, Shahzadeh Djami,
Sedja Djamassi, Sultan Mohammed IT, Sultan Selim.
Amid all these minarets, behind the façade of the
Mosque Bayezid, rises to a prodigious height the
Seraskierat Tower, whence warning is given of fires.

Three bridges of boats connect the two shores of
the Golden Horn and allow of constant communica-
tion between the Turkish city and its suburbs, with

their varied populations. As in London, there are

38

ST D

de ce ce be ee ee de cb deb cheehe sheet cheats fe cle

ve vrS on QYe PS Cle vie

TROAD AND 'DARDANELLES

no quays at Constantinople, and everywhere the city
is laved by the sea. Vessels of all nations draw
near the houses without being kept at a respectful
distance by a granite wall. Near the bridge, in the
centre of the Golden Horn, were anchored flotillas of
English, French, Austrian, and Turkish steamers;
water omnibuses, the watermen of the Bosphorus, the
Thames of Constantinople, on which is concentrated
the movement and bustle of the city. Myriads of boats
and caïques were darting like fishes through the azure
water of the gulf and pulling towards our steamer
anchored a short distance from the Custom House,
which is situated between Galata and Top Khaneh.
As usual, our decks were covered in a moment by
a polyglot crowd. It was an unintelligible babel of
Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Italian, French, and
English. I was feeling rather bothered by these con-
flicting dialects, although before starting I had care-
fully studied Covielle’s Turkish speeches and the
ceremony in the “ Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” when
fortunately appeared in a caïque, like a guardian angel,
the person to whom I had been recommended, and

who speaks as many languages as the famous Mezzo-

fanti. He sent to the devil, each in his own particular

39

me et she

des. 2. ss "7

Vo ore ofe aie cie Ur re uvre

CONSTANTINOPLE

idiom, every one of the rascals that crowded around me,
made me enter his boat, and took me to the Custom
House, where the inspectors were satisfied with casting
a careless glance at my small trunk, which the hzmmal
threw on his back as if it were a feather.

The hammal is a genus peculiar to Constantinople.
It is a two-legged, humpless camel. It lives on cucum-
bers and water, and carries enormous burdens through
impracticable streets, up perpendicular slopes, in over-
whelming heat. Instead of hooks, it carries on its
shoulders a cushion of stuffed leather, on which it
places the burdens under which it is bowed down, its
strength lying in its neck, like that of oxen. Its cos-
tume consists of white linen breeches, a jacket of
coarse yellow stuff, and a fez with a handkerchief
wrapped around it. The torso of the hammal is amaz-
ingly developed, and, curiously enough, the legs are
often very thin. One finds it difficult to understand
how these poor legs, covered with tanned skin and
looking like flutes in a case, can support weights under
which a Hercules would bend.

As I followed the hammal, who was proceeding
towards the lodging reserved for me, Î entered a

labyrinth of streets and narrow lanes, tortuous, ignoble,

40

LhtttéeLkesststsssttst hs ds
TROAD AND DARDANELLES

horribly paved, full of holes and pitfalls, encumbered
with leprous dogs and asses carrying beams or rubbish
The dazzling mirage presented by Constantinople at a
distance was rapidly vanishing, Paradise was turning
into a slough, poetry into prose; and I asked myself,
with a feeling of melancholy, how these ugly hovels
could possibly assume at a distance such a seductive
aspect, such a tender and vaporous colour. Î reached,
walking on the heels of my hammal and clinging to the
arm of my guide, the room which had been secured for
me at the house of a Smyrniote woman, «pa syriska like
that of Vergil, near the High Street of Pera, bordered
with buildings insignificant but in good taste, somewhat

like streets of the third rank in Marseilles or Barcelona.

— — " DE AE

Litetéetéetttedsdd.t dt dk

HE lodging which had been prepared for me
was on the first floor of a house situated at
the end of a street in the Frankish Quarter,
the only one that Europeans are allowed to inhabit.
The street leads from the end of Pera to the Little
Field of the Dead. I do not indicate it more clearly
for the very good reason that in Constantinople
streets have no names, either Turkish or French, posted
at the corners. Besides, the houses are not numbered,
which increases the dificulty. Some streets, however,
have a traditional name derived from a neighbouring
khan or mosque, and the one in which I lived, as I
learned later, was called Dervish Sokak ; but the name
is never written, and consequently is of no use in
guiding you.
The house was built of stones, a point which was
particularly insisted on to me and which is not to be

disdained in a city as combustible as Constantinople.

42

titéiteetéessedkéedkéettédbdpedhd dd

THE LITTLE FIELD OF THE DEAD

For greater security, an iron door and shutters of thick
iron plate were, in case of the neighbourhood taking
fire, to intercept the flames and sparks and to isolate
the house completely. I had 2 sitting-room with white-
washed walls, a wooden ceiling painted gray and orna-
mented with blue lines, furnished with a long divan,
a table and a Venetian mirror in a black and gold
frame; and a bedroom with an iron bedstead and a
chest of drawers. There was nothing particularly
Eastern about it, as you see. On the other hand, my
hostess was a Smyrniote; her niece, though wearing
a rose-coloured wrapper after the European fashion,
owned languorous Asiatic eyes that glowed in her pale
face framed in by mat black hair. A very pretty Greek
maid, with a little kerchief twisted on top of her head,
and 2 sort of lout from the Cyclades, completed the
staff of the house, and gave it a touch of local colour.
The niece knew 2 little French, the aunt à little Italian,
and so we managed to understand each other some-
what. (Constantinople is, for the matter of that, a
genuine Tower of Babel, and it would be easy to sup-
pose it was still the day of the Confusion of T'ongues.
A knowledge of four languages is indispensable for the

ordinary relations of life. Greek, Turkish, Italian, and

43

ZA RE

tiitéetieseseseseststtttddt dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

French are spoken in Pera by polyglot street boys.
The famous Mezzofanti would surprise no one in
Constantinople. We Frenchmen, who know our own
language only, are amazed at such prodigious facility.

The Little Field of the Dead, which, by way of
abbreviation, ot perhaps to avoid the suggestion of a
melancholy thought, is usually called the Little Field,
lies on the reverse of a hill that rises from the Golden
Horn, and on the crest of which is built Pera, the hill-
top marked by a terrace and bordered by high houses
and cafés. It is an old Turkish cemetery where no
one has been buried for some years, either because there
is no more room or because the dead Mahometans
think they are too near the living Giaours.

A brilliant sun rained down burning light upon the
slope bristling with the black foliage and gray trunks of
cypresses, under which rose a host of marble posts
topped by coloured turbans. These posts leaning, some
to the right, some to the left, some forward and some
backward, as the ground had yielded under their weight,
had a vague resemblance to human forms. In several
places these posts, covered with verses of the Koran,
had been borne down by their own weight and, care-

lessly set in friable soil, had fallen or been broken in

44

LIL: D 21. ER RU SO de D nr SE RUE 2 SE EE nan. dns

tititissetitedkttéeddbdd kb
THE LITTLE FIELD OF THE DEAD

pieces. Some of them were decapitated, the turbans
lying at their base like heads cut off. It is said that
these truncated tombs are those of former Janissaries,
pursued beyond the confines of death by Mahmoud’s
rancour, There is no symmetry in this scattered
cemetery, which sends a line of cypresses and
tombs through the houses of Pera as far as the T'ekieh,
or monastery, of the Whirling Dervishes. Two or
three paths built up with the débris of the funeral
monuments, cross it diagonally. Here and there are
small mounds, sometimes surrounded by low walls or
balustrades, which are the reserved burial-places of
some powerful or rich family. They usually contain
a pillar ending in a huge turban, surrounded by
three or four marble leaves rounded on top in the
shape of a spoon handle, and a dozen smaller stones.
They are in memory of a pacha, with his wives,
and his children who have died young; a sort of
funeral harem which keeps him company in the
next world.

In the open spaces workmen are cutting door-jambs
and steps; idlers are sleeping in the shade, or smoking
their pipes upon a tomb; veiled women pass by, drag-

ging their yellow boots with careless feet; children are

45

VAR TT UE UT TE EL, = nd Le (RÉ bem rt ren ME TU

dead ob ob de de ce ele ce fe bobo feet fe cle cb bobo ce cols
CONSTANTINOPLE

playing hide-and-seek behind the tombstones, uttering
little glad cries ; cake sellers offer their light confections
incrusted with almonds; between the interstices of the
fallen monuments, hens are picking up seed, cows are
looking for a few blades of grass, and for lack of it feed
upon old shoes and old hats; dogs have settled them-
selves in the excavations caused by the rotting of the
biers, or rather, of the planks that support the ground
around the bodies, and out of these refuges of death,
enlarged by their ferocity, they have made hideous
kennels for themselves.

In the more travelled spaces the tombs are worn
away under the careless feet of the passers-by, and little
by little disappear in dust and detritus of all kinds.
The broken pillars are scattered on the ground like the
pieces of a game, and are buried like the bodies which
they designate, concealed by the invisible grave-diggers
who remove everything that has been abandoned,
whether a tomb, a temple, or a city. Here it is not
solitude overspreading forgetfulness, but life taking back
the place temporarily granted to death. Some denser
cypress groves have nevertheless preserved a few
corners of this profaned cemetery, and maintain its

melancholy appearance. The doves roost in the dark

46

CRÉES LLLTESSTELLÉ ELLES SE.
THPTIVILE FIELD OP THE DEAD

foliage, and the hawks circling in the azure sky soar
above their sombre tops.

A few wooden houses built of planks, laths, and
trellis-work painted red, which has turned rose-colour
under rain and sun, are grouped among the trees, sunken
out of plumb, and in a state of dilapidation most favour-
able to water-colour painters and English book-
illustrators.

Before descending the slope leading to the Golden
Horn, Î stopped for a moment, and gazed upon the
wondrous spectacle unrolled before my eyes. The
foreground was formed by the Little Field and its
declivities planted with cypresses and tombs; the
second distance, by the brown-tiled roofs and the reddish
houses of the Kassim Pacha Quarter; the middle dis-
tance, by the blue waters of the gulf that stretches
from Serai Burnou to the Sweet Waters of Europe;
and the fourth, by the lines of undulating hills on the
slopes of which Constantinople is built. The bluish
domes of the bazaars, the white minarets of the mosques,
the arches of the old aqueduct of Valens standing out
against the sky like black lace, the clumps of cypresses
and plane-trees, the angles of the roofs, varied that

wonderful sky-line prolonged from the Seven Towers

47

ER SR STARS Ti GOT AT JE

dhébétéetékbkétdhdd.ttt td de dé

CONSTANTIEINOPLE

to the heights of Eyoub; and over all, À silvery white

light in which floated like transparent gauze the smoke
of the steamers on the Bosphorus about to start for
Therapia or Kadikeui, of a lightness of tone which
formed the happiest contrast with the crude, warm
firmness of the foreground.

After a few moments of thoughtful admiration, I
started again, following sometimes a faint track, some-
times treading over the tombs, and I reached a network
of lanes bordered by black houses inhabited by charcoal
burners, blacksmiths, and other workers in iron. I
said houses, but the word is rather large, and I take it
back. Say hovels, dens, stalls, shanties, whatever you
can imagine of smoky, dirty, wretched, but without
those good old :mpasto walls, scratched, leprous, scabby,
ruinous, which Decamps’ trowel builds with such suc-
cess in bis Eastern paintings, and which give such
character to hovels. Poor little asses with flapping
ears and thin, raw backs, laden with charcoal and
iron-work, shaved the walls of the dingy shops. Old
beggar-women, seated on their haunches, their legs
drawn up like those of grass-hoppers, pitifully held out
to me from their ragged férradjehs their hands, that re-

sembled those of mummies after being unwrapped.

48

EN MN TE NN ON Te

db db dede db ak dede db deck

THECELIEFEE FIBLD'OR'THE, DEAD

Their owl-like eyes made two brown spots in the mus-
lin rag, bossed by the arch of the nose like the beak of
a bird of prey, and drawn like a shroud over their
hideous faces. Others, more alert, passed along with
bowed back, their head sunk on their chest, leaning
upon great sticks like Mother Goose in the pantomime
prologues at the Funambules.

It is impossible to imagine to what an astounding de-
gree of ugliness old women attain in the East, when they
have absolutely given up their sex and no longer dis-
guise themselves with the clever artifices of a compli-
cated toilet. Here even the mask adds to the impression.
What is visible is awful, what one imagines is frightful.
It is a pity that the Turks do not possess a sabbath to
which they could send these witches astride a broom-
stick.

À few Arnaut or Bulgarian hammals, bending under
enormous burdens, and, like Dante in hell, not lifting
one foot until they have made sure the other is firmly
planted, were ascending or descending the lane; horses
were travelling noisily, striking, every time they
shied, sheaves of sparks from the uneven, rough
pavement of this quarter, which is more industrious

than fashionable.

ji 49

©

Te Se CE

SE ne

ere ot eve ne eve eve oTe ve 7e eu Ge fe

CONSTANTENOPLE

I thus reached the Golden Horn, debouching near
the white buildings of the Arsenal, which are raised
upon vast sub-structures and crowned by a tower in
the form of a belfry. The Arsenal, constructed in the
civilised taste, has nothing interesting to a European,
although the Turks are very proud of it. I did not,
therefore, stop to contemplate it, but devoted my whole
attention to the movement of the port, filled with ves-
sels of all nations, traversed in every direction by
caïques, and especially to the marvellous panorama of
Constantinople outstretched on the other bank.

The view is so strangely beautiful that it seems
unreal. It is as if there were spread out before one a
stage drop intended for the setting of some Oriental
fairy play, bathed by the painter’s fancy and the glow of
the footlights in the impossible luminousness of apotheo-
sis. The palace of Serai Burnou, with its Chinese
roofs, its white, crenellated walls, its trellised kiosks, its
gardens full of cypresses, umbrella pines, sycamores,
and plane-trees ; the Mosque of Sultan Achmet, with
its cupola showing round among its six minarets like
ivory masts; Saint Sophia raising its Byzantine dome
upon heavy counterforts rayed transversely with white

and rosy courses and flanked by four minarets; the

50

oo)

A DRE NE PET VE TT TT

;
À

EE
Fr

hs. Che ie om.

L ul

à

téitiéetiséetsstttsttdéd ke
THE LITTLE FIELD OF THE DEAD

Bayezid Mosque upon which hover like a cloud flocks
of doves; Yeni Djami; the Seraskierat Tower, a huge
hollow column which bears on its cupola a perpetual
Stylites watching for conflagrations at every point of
the horizon; Souleiman with its Arab elegance, its
dome like a steel helmet, — all these stand out blazing
with light against a background of inconceivably deli-
cate bluish, pearly, opaline tints, and form a picture
that seems to be a mirage of the Fata Morgana rather
than a prosaic reality. These splendours are reflected
in the trembling mirror of the silvery waters of the
Golden Horn, which add to the wondrousness of the
spectacle. Ships at anchor, Turkish vessels furling
their sails, opened like birds’ wings, serve by their vigor-
ous tones and the small black lines of their rigging to
set off the background of vapour through which shows
in dream colours the city of Constantine and of
Mohammed Il.

I am aware, thanks to friends who visited Constan-
tinople before I did, that these marvels, like stage set-
ting, need light and perspective ; as you draw near, the
charm vanishes, the palaces turn out to be only rotten
barracks, the minarets great whitewashed pillars, the

streets narrow, steep, filthy, and characterless ; but no

SI

I OS TT D 2 OS DT NN CU L'ONU NN OP ON NES OU TS NT ON CO ONEN VV CON NN A

déitéetéetedstsdsdttddhbedd dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

matter, if the incoherent collection of houses, mosques,
and trees, coloured by the palette of the sun, produces
an admirable effect between land and sky. The pros-
pect, though it be the result of an illusion, is none the
less absolutely beautiful.

I retraced my way and ascended to the Little Field
of the Dead to reach Pera again. I turned off to the
right, which brought me, by following the old Genoese
walls, — at the foot of which is a dry moat half filled
with filth in which dogs sleep and children play, — to the
Galata Tower, a high building which is seen from afar
off at sea, and which, like the Seraskierat Tower, has
at its top a sentry watching for fires. It is a genuine
Gothic donjon, crowned with battlements and topped
by a pointed roof of copper oxidized by time, which,
instead of a crescent, might well bear the swallow-tailed
vane of a feudal manor. At the foot of the tower is
a mass of low houses or huts which give an idea of its
very great height. It was built by the Genoese.
Those soldier merchants turned their warehouses into
fortresses, and crenellated their quarter like a fortified
city ; their trading-places might have sustained a siege,

and did sustain more than one.

52

diiiéetietisedsidtitsdstdhedck dk

CONSTANTINOPLE
Lhdbddbdebcded tek dk dk
A NIGHT IN RAMAZAN

N Paris the idea of going for a walk between eight
and eleven at night in Père-Lachaise or the
cemetery at Montmartre would strike one as

ultra-singular and cadaverously Romanticist; it would
make the boldest dandies quail, and as for the ladies,
the mere suggestion of such a party of pleasure would
make them faint with terror. At Constantinople no
one thinks twice about it. The fashionable walk of
Pera is situated on the crest of the hill on which lies
the Little Field. A frail railing, broken down in
several places, forms between the Field of Death and
the lively promenade à line of demarcation which is
crossed constantly. À row of chairs and tables, at
which are seated people drinking coffee, sherbet, or
water, runs from one end to the other of the terrace,
that forms an elbow farther on and joins the Great
Field behind Upper Pera. Ugly houses of five, six,
or seven stories in a hideous order of architecture un-

known to Vignola, border the road on one side, and

23

tétéetitsesesetéesédkékkbédeé de
CONSTANTINOPLE

enjoy a prospect of which they are utterly unworthy.
They exhibit the most civilised and modern hideous-
ness, and yet Ï am bound to say that at night, when
they are faintly lighted by the reflection of the lights
and the sparkling of the stars or the violet beams of the
moon which shimmer on their painted façades, they
assume, owing to their very mass, an imposing aspect.

At either end of the terrace there is a café concert,
where one can enjoy with one’s refreshments the pleasure
of hearing an open-air orchestra of gipsies performing
German waltzes, or overtures to Italian operas.

This tomb-bordered promenade is uncommonly
gay. The incessant music — for one orchestra starts
up when another stops — imparts a festive air to the
daily meeting of idlers, whose soft chatter forms a sort
of bass to the brass phrases of Verdi. The smoke of
latakieh and tombek: ascends in perfumed spirals from
the chibouques, the narghilehs and cigarettes, for every-
body, even women, smokes in Constantinople. Lighted
pipes fill the darkness with brilliant dots and look like
swarms of fireflies. ‘The summons “A light!” is
heard in every possible idiom, and the waiters hurry in
answer to these polyglot calls, brandishing a red-hot

coal at the end of a small pair of pincers.

54

EL LELELLS SELS CLIS TEL LE TS
A NIGHT IN RAMAZAN

The families living in Pera advance in numerous
clans along the space left free by the seated customers.
They are dressed in European fashion, save for some
slight modifications in the head-dress and the attire
of the ladiess The East shows in this place only
when some Greek goes by, throwing back the sleeves
of his embroidered jacket and swinging his white
fustanella outspread like a bell, or some Turkish
functionary on horseback, followed by his khavass
and his pipe-bearer, returning from the Great Field
and going back to Constantinople by way of the
Galata Bridge.

Turkish manners have influenced European ones,
and the women in Pera live very much shut up. This
seclusion is entirely voluntary, of course. T'hey scarcely
go out, save to take a turn around the Little Field to
breathe the evening air. There are many, however,
who do not allow themselves this innocent distraction,
and thus the tourist has not the opportunity of review-
ing the feminine types of the country as at the Cascine,
the Prado, Hyde Park, or the Champs-Élysées. Man
alone seems to exist in the East; woman becomes a
sort of myth, and Christians in this respect share the

views of Mussulmans.

55

HE d
ere eve

CONSTANTINOPLE

tébéét etes st tt eh

On that particular evening the Little Field of the
Dead was very animated. Ramazan had begun with
the new moon, the appearance of which above the top
of Bithynian Olympus is watched by pious astrologers
and proclaimed throughout the Empire, for it announces
the return of the great Mohammedan Jubilee. Rama-
Zan, as every one knows, is half Lent, half carnival ;
the day is given up to austerity, the night to pleasure;
penance is accompanied by debauch as a legpitimate
compensation. From sunrise to sunset, the exact
time being marked by a cannon-shot, it is forbidden
by the Koran to take any food, however light. Even
smoking is forbidden, and that is the most painful of
privations for a people whose lips are scarcely ever
taken away from the amber mouthpiece. To quench
the most burning thirst with a drop of water would be
a sin, and would rob fasting of its merit. But from
evening to morning everything is permissible, and the
privations of the day are amply compensated for; the
Turkish city then gives itself up to feasting.

From the promenade of the Little Field I enjoyed a
most marvellous spectacle. On the other side of the

Golden Horn Constantinople sparkled like the carbun-

cle crown of an Eastern emperor. ‘The minarets of the

56

Ltd et bb bbbbtbbbbt de db
A NIGHT IN RAMAZAN

mosques bore upon each of their galleries girdles of
lights, and from one to the other ran, in letters of fire,
verses of the Koran inscribed upon the azure of the
sky as on the pages of a divine book. Saint Sophia,
Sultan Achmet, Yeni Valideh Djami, Souleiman, and
all the temples of Allah which rise from the Serai
Burnou to the hills of Eyoub were dazzling with light,
and proclaimed with a blaze of exclamations the for-
mula of Islam. The crescent moon, accompanied by
a star, seemed to embroider the blazon of the empire
on the celestial standard. The waters of the gulf
multiplied and broke the reflections of the millions
of lights, and their waves. seemed to be formed
of half-melted gems. Fact, it is said, always falls
short of fancy, but here the dream was surpassed
by the reality. The “ Thousand and One Nights”
have nothing more fairylike, and the splendours of
the outpoured treasures of Haroun al Raschid would
pale by the side of this casket which flames along a
whole league.

During Ramazan the most complete freedom is
enjoyed. The carrying of lanterns is not obligatory as
at other seasons. The streets, brilliantly lighted, ren-

der this precaution needless. Giaours may remain in

57

bdd Ltd bdd de dd

eve 70 CFO CE ae eve

CONSTANTINOPLE

Constantinople until the last lights have been extin-
guished, a piece of boldness rather dangerous at any
other time. Î therefore accepted eagerly the proposal
of a young gentleman of Constantinople, to whom I
had a letter of introduction, to go down to the Top
Khaneh landing, hire a caïque, go to see the Sultan
pray at Tcheragan, and finish the evening in the
Turkish city.

As we descended, the crowd increased and became
dense ; the shops, brilliantly lighted, illumined the way,
invaded by Turks crouching on the ground or squatting
upon low stools, smoking with all the voluptuousness
due to a day’s abstinence. People were coming and
going, forming a perpetually animated and most pic-
turesque swarming ; for between these two banks of
motionless smokers flowed a stream of foot-passengers
of every nation, sex, and age. Carried by the stream,
we reached the square at Top Khaneh, traversed the
arcaded court of the mosque which forms the corner
on this side, and found ourselves opposite that charm-
ing fountain which English engravings have made
familiar to every one, and which has been stripped
of its pretty Chinese roof, replaced at present by an

ignoble balustrade of cast iron.

58

bhététttdttkkédbdebdbdeadbcdheb dk de

A NEIGE TIEN RAMAZAN

© A masked ball cannot offer a greater variety of
costumes than Top Khaneh Square on a night in
Ramazan. Bulgarians, in their coarse smocks and
fur-trimmed caps; slender-waisted Circassians, their
broad chests covered with cartridges which make
them resemble organ fronts; Georgians, in short
tunics belted with metal girdles, and Russian caps
of varnished leather; Arnauts, wearing sleeveless,
embroidered jackets over their bare torsos; Jews,
known by their gowns split down the side and their
black caps bound with a black handkerehief ; the Island
Greeks, with their full trousers, their tightly drawn
sashes, and their fez with silk tassel; the Reformed
Turks, in frock coats and red fez; the Old Turks,
wearing huge turbans, and rose-coloured, jonquil, cin-
namon or sky-blue caftans, recalling the fashions of the
days of the Janissaries ; Persians, in tall black astrakhan-
lamb caps; Syrians, easily known by their gold striped
kerchief and their white mach’las, cut like Byzantine
dalmatics ; Turkish women, draped in white yashmaks
and light-coloured ferradjehs; Armenians, less care-
fully veiled, wearing violet and black shoes, — form, in
groups which constantly draw together and fall apart,

the most amazing carnival imaginable.

39

Likbétkdekdbbébtddbedbtded dd dde
CONS AIN DEN OMILE

Open-air stalls for the sale of yaourt (curdled milk),
kaimak (boiled milk), confectioners’ shops, — for the
Turks are very fond of sweets, — water-sellers’ stalls,
the little chimes of bells or capsules of crystals struck
by hydraulic means, drinking-places where one can get
sherbets, granites, or snow water, border the sides of
the square and brighten it with their illumination.
The tobacconists’ shops, brilliantly lighted, are filled
with high personages who watch the festival while
smoking first-class tobacco in cherry or jasmine pipes
with enormous mouthpieces. Within the cafés the tar-
bouka roars, the tambourine clatters, the rebeb shrieks,
and the reed flute miaouls; monotonous nasal songs,
interrupted from timeto time by shrill cries and calls
like the Tyrolese 6dels, rise from the clouds of smoke.
We had the greatest dificulty in reaching, through the
crowd, which would not make way, the landing-place
at Top Khaneh, where we were to get a caïque.

A few strokes of the oars took us well out, and we
could see from the centre of the Bosphorus the illumi-
nations of the mosque of Sultan Mahmoud and of the
cannon foundry near it, which has given its name to
the landing-place : T'op”” in Turkish means cannon;

« Khaneh,” place or storehouse. ‘The minarets of the

60

hibbéteLkt babe ee telle de de

ANNIGET (EN: RAMAZAN

mosque of Sultan Mahmoud are said to be the most
elegant in Constantinople and are cited as classical
types of Turkish architecture. They rose slender in
the blue atmosphere of night, outlined by fire and con-
nected by verses of the Koran, producing the most
graceful of effects. In front of the cannon foundry the
illuminations were in the shape of a giant cannon with its
carriage and wheels, a flaming blazon of Turkish artillery
pretty accurately symbolised by this artless design.

We proceeded down the Bosphorus, keeping close to
the European shore, which was blazing with light and
bordered by the summer palaces of viziers and pachas,
each distinguished by set pieces mounted upon iron
frameworks and representing complicated monograms
after the Oriental fashion, streamers, bouquets, flower-
pots, verses from the Koran; and we came opposite
the palace, Tcheragan Seraï, which is composed of
a main building with a pediment and slender columns,
something like the Hall of the Chamber of Deputies
in Paris, and two wings with trellised windows,
making them look like two great cages. The name
of the Sultan, written in letters of fire, blazed upon
the façade, and through the open door we could see

a large hall, where, amid the dazzling light of the
A SE a

bébé dedd kb ebebebe che db dd

CONSTANTINOPLE

candelabra, moved a number of opaque shadows, a prey
to pious convulsions. It was the Padisha praying,
surrounded by his court officers kneeling on carpets.
À sound of nasal psalm-singing escaped from the hall
along with the yellow reflections of the tapers, and
spread out in the calm, blue night.

After looking on for a few moments, we signed to
the caïdgt to return, and I was enabled to look at the
other shore, the shore of Asia, on which rose Scutari,
the old Chrysopolis, with its illuminated mosques, and
its cypress curtains dropping behind it the folds of
their funereal leaves.

During the trip I had the opportunity of admiring
the skill with which the rowers of these frail craft
steer their way through the riot of boats and currents
which would make travelling on the Bosphorus ex-
tremely dangerous for less skilful watermen. The
caïques have no rudder, and the rowers, unlike the
Venetian gondoliers, who face the prow of the gondola,
turn their backs to the place to which they are bound,
so that with every stroke they look around to see if
some unexpected obstacle is in their way. They have

also conventional calls by which they warn and avoid

each other with uncommon quickness.

62

Lite tstes tte kede des dd
A NIGHT IN RAMAZAN

Seated on 2 pillow at the bottom of the caïque by my
companion’s side, [| enjoyed silently and in the most
absolute immobility this wonderful spectacle. The
least movement is sufficient to capsize the narrow craft,
which is built for Turkish gravity. The night dew
fell in pearls upon our coats and sputtered in the lata-
kieh of our chibouques; for warm as the days are, the
nights are cool on the Bosphorus, which is always
swept by the sea-breeze and the columns of air dis-
placed by the currents.

We entered the Golden Horn, and shaving Seraglio
Point, we landed amid the flotilla of caïques, among
which ours, after having turned around, pushed in like
a wedge near a great kiosk with Chinese roof and walls
hung with green cloth. It was the Sultan’s pleasure-
house, now abandoned and used as a guard-room. It
was pleasant to watch the landing of the long boats,
with gilded prows, of the pachas and high personages
awaited on the quay by handsome Barbary horses
splendidly equipped and held by negroes or khavasses.
The crowd respectfully drew aside to make room for
them.

Usually the streets of Constantinople are not lighted,

and every one is bound to carry a lantern in his hand

63

sééééébetébéetébbtttt td

CONSEANTANOPLE.

as if he were looking for a man; but during the Ram-
azan nothing can be more joyously luminous than the
ordinarily sombre lanes and squares, along which spar-
kles here and there à star in a paper. The shops,
which remain open all night, are ablaze, and cast great
trains of light, brightly reflected by the houses oppo-
site. At every stall there are lamps, tapers, and night-
lights swimming in oil; the eating-houses, in which
mutton cut in small pieces (#abobs) is grilling upon
perpendicular spits, are illumined by the brilliant
reflections of the coals; the ovens, where cook the
baklava cakes, open their red mouths; the open-air
merchants surround themselves with small tapers to
attract attention and to show off their goods; groups
of friends sup together around three-branched lamps,
the flame of which trembles in the air, or else that of
a big lantern striped with many brilliant colours; the
smokers, seated at the doors of the cafés, revive
with each puff the red spark of their chibouque or
of their narghileh, and over the good-tempered crowd
falls the splendour of light, splashing in quaintly
picturesque reflections.

Everybody was eating with an appetite sharpened by

sixteen hours’ fast: some, balls of rice and hashed

64

Léthétedsktbbdbdéedbcdebed dk del
AUNAECET EN RAMAZAN

meat served in vine leaves ; others, kabobs rolled in a sort
of pancake ; others again, ears of boiled or roasted green
corn; still others, huge cucumbers or Smyrna carpous,
with their green skin and their white flesh ; a few, richer
or more sensual, were helped to large shares of baklava
or gorged themselves with sweets with an infantine
avidity laughable in tall fellows bearded like the pard;
others regaled themselves more frugally on white mul-
berries, which were to be seen heaped up in quantities
in the fruiterers” stalls.

My friend made me enter one of the confectioners’
shops to initiate me into the delights of Turkish gor-
mandism, far more refined than people think it in Paris.
The shop deserves a separate description. The shut-
ters, drawn up like fans, like the ports of a ship,
formed a sort of carved awning quadrilled and painted
yellow and blue, above great glass vases filled with red
and white sweets, stalactites of rahat lakhoum, — a sort
of transparent paste made with the best of flour and
sugar and then coloured in various ways, — pots of
preserves of roses, and bowls of pistachios.

We entered the shop, which, though three people
would have found it difficult to move about in it, is one

of the largest in Constantinople. ‘The master, a stout,

5 65

thés tdedébbébbbbebtt dd

CONSTANTINOPLE

dark-complexioned T'urk, with a black beard and a
good-humouredly fierce expression, served us, with an
amiably terrible air, rose and white rahat lakhoum and
all sorts of exotic sweets highly perfumed and very
exquisite, though somewhat too honeyed for a Parisian
palate. A cup of excellent mocha relieved by its salu-
tary bitterness the cloying sweets, of which I had par-
taken too lavishly through love for local colour. At
the back of the shop young boys, with print aprons
around their waists, were moving upon the bright fire
the copper basins in which the almonds and pistachios
were being rolled in sugar, or were dusting sugar upon
rolls of rahat lakhoum, making no mystery of their
preparations. Seated upon low stools, which with
divans form the only seats known to Turks, we watched
the compact, multi-coloured crowd pass down the street,
broken here and there by sherbet sellers, vendors of ice
water and of cakes, and through which a functionary
on horseback, preceded by his khavass and followed by
his pipe-bearer, imperturbably made his way without a
single cry of warning, or else a talika, abominably jolted
by the ruts and the rocks, and led by a coachman on
foot. I could not look long enough on a picture so

new to me, and it was past one o’clock in the morning

66

2e SE ER SRE

deb babe che de de ce ab be dbeaheheahoete het tete fe ch

LE sd re ere 20 ve

A NIGHT IN RAMAZAN

when, guided by my companion, I started for the land-
ing where our boat was waiting for us.

On our way we traversed the Court of Yeni Valideh
Djami, which is surrounded by 2 gallery of antique
columns surmounted by Arab arches in a superb style,
whitened by the moon’s silvery rays and bathed in
bluish shadows. Under the arcades lay, in the perfect
contentment of people who are at home, numerous
groups of rascals rolled up in their rags. Any Mussul-
man who has no home may, without fear of the watch,
stretch himself out on the steps of the mosques, and
sleep there as safely as a Spanish mendicant under a

church porch.

07

ae fe de ee heal dehors aefe eo ae ee

ONSTANTINOPLE

Like dd dd dde de cb de de dede de de

Q

CAFÉS

HE Turkish café on the Boulevard du
Temple has given Parisians a false idea of

the luxury of the Oriental cafés. Constan-

tinople is very far from indulging in such wealth of
horse-shoe arches, slender columns, mirrors, and ostrich-
eggs. Nothing can be plainer than a Turkish café in
Turkey. I shall describe one considered to be one of
the finest, yet in no wise recalling the luxuries of
Oriental fairyland.

Imagine a room about twelve feet square, vaulted and
whitewashed, surrounded with a breast-high wainscotting
and a divan covered with straw matting. In the centre is
the most elegantly Eastern detail, a fountain of white
marble with three basins superimposed one above
another, which throws into the air a jet of water that
falls splashing down. In one corner blazes à brazier
on which coffee is made, cup by cup, in little coffee-
pots of brass, just as consumers call for it. Onthe

walls are shelves laden with razors and hung with

68

Lb£itEettLt td dede ee eee ed des

pretty mother-of-pearl mirrors in the shape of screens,
in which customers look to see if they have been
shaved as they wished, for in Turkey every café is also
a barber’s shop.

People believe, because the Koran forbids it, that the
Turks absolutely proscribe images, and look upon the
products of the plastic arts as idolatrous. That is true in
theory, but the practice is far less rigorous, and the cafés
are adorned with amazing selections of all sorts of engrav-
ings in the most extraordinary taste, which do not appear
to scandalise Moslem orthodoxy in the smallest degree.

It is a real pleasure to drink, in one of these cafés,
one of the small cups of coffee, which a young rascal
with great black eyes brings you on the tips of his
fingers in a big ege cup of silver filigree or brass
open-work, after you have been rambling through the
tiring streets of Constantinople. It is more refreshing
than all iced drinks. With the cup of coffee is brought
a glass of water which Turks drink first and Franks
afterwards. Every one brings his own tobacco in a
pouch; the café furnishes only chibouques, the amber
mouthpiece of which cannot be infected, and narghilehs,
the latter a somewhat complicated apparatus which it

would be difficult to carry around.

69

téttéttéstdbbdbddbed dede dde
CONSTANTINOPLE

Although in Turkey any ragged rascal may sit down
on the divan of a café by the side of the most splendidly
dressed Turk without the latter drawing away to avoid
touching with his gold-embroidered sleeve the greasy,
torn rags, nevertheless, certain classes have their cus-
tomary resorts, and the Marble Fountain Café, situ-
ated between Serai Burnou and the mosque of Yeni
Valideh Djami, in one of the finest quarters of Con-
stantinople, is frequented by the best people in the city.
A charming and absolutely Eastern detail imparts much
poetry to this café so far as Europeans are concerned.
Swallows have built their nests in the ceiling, and as
the café is always open, they enter and go out on their
fleet wings, uttering joyous little cries and bringing
food to their young without being in the least disturbed
by the smoke of the pipes and the presence of cus-
tomers, whose fez or turbans they sometimes touch
with their brown wings. The young swallows, their
heads sticking out of the openings in the nests, quietly
look, with eyes that are just like little black beads, at
the customers coming and going, and fall asleep to the
snoring of the water in the bowls of the narghilehs.

The café of Beschik Basch, on the European shore

of the Bosphorus, is a remarkably picturesque building.

70

dal fe de ee ee street he ee ae es
CAFES

It resembles the cabins supported on piles from which
fishermen watch the passage of schools of fish. Shaded
by clumps of trees and built of trellis on piles, it is
bathed by the rapid current that laves the quay of
Arnaoutkeui, and refreshed by the breezes of the Black
Sea ; looked at from seaward, it produces a graceful
effect with its lights, the reflection of which streams
over the water. À continuous tumult of caïques seek-
ing to land enlivens the approach of this aerial café,
that recalls, though it is more elegant, the cafés bor-
dering the Gulf of Smyrna.

In closing this monograph of the cafés at Constanti-
nople, let me mention another situated near the Yeni
Valideh Djami landing, and frequented by sailors only.
It is lighted in rather original fashion, by glasses filled
with oil in which burns a wick, and that hang from
the ceiling by twisted wires like the springs in toy guns.
The cavadjt (master of the café) from time to time
touches the glasses, which through the tension of the
spring, rise and fall, performing a sort of pyrotechnical
ballet, to the great delight of the customers, who are
dressed in such a way that they need not fear oil stains.
A chandelier formed of a brass body representing a

vessel outlined by a quantity of lights, completes this

71

Lits éeLte tt dt he tete het fe de dede

CONSTANTINOPLE

curious illumination. The delicate allusion is easily
understood by the customers of the café.

On seeing a Frank enter, the cavadji gave in his
honour such a mad impetus to the luminary, that the
glasses began to dance like will-o’-the-wisps, while the
nautical chandelier, pitching and rolling like a ship in a
seaway, scattered a heavy shower of rancid oil.

To depict the physiognomy of the customers of this
place, I should need Raffet’s pencil or Decamps” brush.
There were fellows with formidable moustaches, with
noses spotted with violent tones, with complexions like
Havana cigars or red brick, great Eastern white and
black eyes, temples shaven and blue, who had a most
ferocious look and an extraordinary vigour of features ;
heads never forgotten once seen, and which eclipse the
wildest work of the most truculent masters.

Let me note also a rather remarkable café situated
near the Old Bridge at Oun Capan on the Golden
Horn, and frequented chiefly by Phanariote Greeks.
It is reached by boat, and while smoking your pipe,
you can enjoy the prospect of the shipping going and
coming, and the evolutions of the gulls that skim over
the waters, and the hawks that soar in great circles in

the blue sky.

72

PE

Such are, with a few variations, the types of Turkish
cafés, which are scarcely like the French idea of them.
I was not, however, surprised, for I had been prepared
for them by the Algerian cafés, which are still more

primitive, if that be possible.

73

deco cle oh of de ele de of de de
THE SHOPRS

N Oriental shop is very different from a
À European one. It is a sort of alcove cut out
of the wall, and closed at night with shutters
that are let down like the ports of a ship. The dealer,
sitting cross-legged upon a bit of matting or Smyrna
carpet, idly smokes his chibouque, or counts with care-
less fingers the beads of his chaplet, with an impassible,
indifferent look, preserving the same attitude for hours
at a time, and apparently caring very little whether he
has a customer or not. Purchasers generally stand out-
side in the street and examine the goods heaped up on
the stall without the smallest attempt on the owner’s
part to set these off to advantage. The art of dressing
windows, carried to such a high degree in France, is
wholly unknown or disdained in Turkey.
Smoking is one of the most pressing needs of à
Turk, consequently tobacconists’ shops abound. The
tobacco, which is cut very fine in long, silky, golden

masses, is arranged in heaps upon the stalls according
PR

PA A HE A M Et

Lhttststt tee ok dects
THE SHOPS

to price and quality. There are four principal sorts:
javach (mild), orta (medium), kan akleu (strong), sert
(very strong), and it is sold at from eighteen to twenty
piastres an ocque, according to the brand, an ocque being
equivalent to two and a half pounds. This tobacco,
graded in strength, is smoked in chibouques or rolled in
cigarettes, which are beginning to be common in
Turkey. The most highly prized tobacco comes from
Macedonia.

Tombeki, a tobacco intended for the narghileh exclu-
sively, comes from Persia. Itis not cut, like the other,
but rubbed and broken into small bits. It is darker in
colour, and so strong that it cannot be smoked until it
has been washed two or three times. As it would
scatter easily, it is kept in glass jars like apothecaries’
drugs. Without tombeki one cannot smoke a nar-
ghileh, and it is to be regretted that it is very difficult
to obtain it in France; for nothing is more favourable
to poetic reverie than to puff, while lying on a divan,
this odorous smoke refreshed by the water it has
passed through, and reaching you after travelling
through the tube of red or green morocco that you
wrap around your arm as a snake charmer in Cairo

wraps serpents. Ît is the very sybaritism of smoking

75

bittedtstttttk deb eee eee deck

ere vre re ové eve

CONSTANTIMMPELE

carried to its highest degree of perfection. Art con-
tributes also to this delicate enjoyment. There are
narghilehs of gold, silver, or steel admirably wrought and
damascened, with niello work, engraved in marvellous
fashion and as elegant in shape as the finest antique
vases. They are often adorned with capricious ara-
besques formed of garnets, turquoises, corals, and othet
precious stones. You smoke in masterpieces tobacco
metamorphosed into perfume.

The Constantinople tobacco dealers are called futun-
gs. They are mostly Greeks and Armenians. The
Greeks come from Janina, Larissa, and Salonica; the
Armenians from Samsoun, Trebizond, and Erzeroum.

In modern Byzantium the greatest care, and often
the greatest luxury is lavished on everything that con-
cerns the pipe, the Turks favourite pleasure. The
shops of the dealers in pipe-stems, bowls, and mouth-
pieces, are very handsome and very well-stocked. The
most highly prized stems are made of cherry or
jasmine, and very high prices are paid for them,
according to their size and perfection. A handsome
cherry stem with the bark intact, shining with the
sombre brilliancy of garnet satin, or a jasmine stem,

with uniform callosities and of a pretty blond tint, is

76

THE Pre pr

worth fully five hundred piastres. I used to stand

quite a long time before the shop of à dealer in pipe-

stems in the street which leads down to Top Khaneh,

opposite the walled cemetery through the grated open-
ings of which one catches sight of rich tombs striped
with gold and azure. The dealer was an old fellow
with a scanty gray beard, the skin wrinkled around his
eyes, his nose hooked, looking like a parrot that has
been plucked and forming unconsciously an excellent
Turkish caricature that Cham would have delighted in.
From the sleeve-holes of his vest with its worn buttons
emerged a thin, yellow, lean arm that drove a bow like
a violinist performing on the fourth string a difficult
passage like Paganini. On an iron point spun around
by this bow turned with dazzling rapidity a tube of
cherry wood undergoing the delicate operation of bor-
ing, and which the old dealer tapped from time to time
on the edge of his stall to drive out the dust. Near
the old man worked a young lad, his son no doubt,
who was practising on less costly stems. À family of
kittens played nonchalantly in the sun and rolled
around in the fine sawdust. The unbored and the
finished stems were ranged at the back of the stall,

sunk in shadow, and the whole thing formed a pretty

77

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eve vro eve vre eve ee re ere

CONSTANTINOPLE

Eastern genre picture, which, with a few variations, is
to be seen at every street corner.

The places where /u/ebs (pipe-bowls) are manufac-
tured, are easily known by the reddish dust that covers
them. An infinite number of yellow clay bowls, which
firing will turn to a rosy red, await, ranged in order
upon planks, the moment of being put into the oven.
These bowls, of a very fine, soft clay, upon which the
potter imprints different ornaments by means of a
wheel, do not colour like French pipes, and are sold
very cheap. Incredible quantities of them are used.

As for the amber mouthpieces, they form a special
business which is almost the equal of the jewellery
business as regards the value of the stock and of the
labour. At Constantinople, where amber is very dear,
the Turks prefer the pale, semi-opaque citron shade,
and insist on there being neither spot, flaw, nor veins;
and as this is a rare combination, the price of mouth-
pieces is consequently very high. A pair of mouth-
pieces has brought as much as eight or ten thousand
piastres, and a set of pipes worth one hundred and
fifty thousand francs is by no means rare in the homes
of the high dignitaries and rich men of Stamboul.

These valuable mouthpieces are encircled with rings

78

Lététeketkbkékékddkkededbcdhedscd dde
THE SHOPS

of enamelled gold, sometimes enriched with diamonds,
rubies, and other gems. It is an Oriental way of dis-
playing wealth, just as we use silver plate and Boulle
furniture. All these bits of amber, differing in tone
and transparency, polished, turned, bored with extreme
care, assume in the sunlight warm, golden tints that
would make T'itian jealous and inspire the most fa-
natical opponent of tobacco with a desire to smoke.
In humbler shops are to be found less expensive
mouthpieces that have some imperceptible flaw, but
which fulfil their purpose equally well and are just as
sweet to the tongue. There are also imitations of
amber in coloured Bohemian glass which are sold
largely and which cost very little, but these imita-
tion mouthpieces are used only by the Greeks and the
Arnaouts of the lowest class. Of any Turk who
respects himself may be spoken the line in “Na-
mouna,” slightly modified, —
‘ Happy Trk! He smokes orta in amber.”?

In the street running along the Golden Horn be-
tween the New and the Old Bridge are the marble
yards where are cut the turban-topped posts that bristle,
like white phantoms emerging from their tombs, in the

numerous cemeteries of Constantinople. There is a

79

Litidiidtésssdstdstkkdddbe he

CONSUANITENOEPLE

continual din of mallets and hammers ; a cloud of bril-
liant, micaceous dust covers with unmelting snow the
whole of the roadway ; painters, surrounded by pots of
green, red, and blue, colour the backgrounds on which
are to be inscribed in gilded letters the name of the
dead, accompanied by a verse of the Koran, or orna-
ments such as flowers, vine stems, and grapes, used
more particularly, as emblematic of grace, gentleness,
and fecundity, to adorn the tombs of women. There
also are carved the marble b£sins of fountains intended
to cool courts, apartments, and kiosks, or to serve in
the frequent ablutions called for by the Mussulman
law, which has raised cleanliness to the rank of a vir-
tue, differing in this respect from Catholicism, in which
dirt has been sanctified, so that for a long time in Spain
people who bathed frequently were suspected of being
heretics and considered Moors rather than Christians.
One thing that strikes the stranger in Constantinople
is the absence of women from the shops. Mussulman
jealousy does not allow of the relations which com-
merce involves, so it has carefully kept from business
a sex in which it trusts very little Many of the
smaller household duties which are with us relegated to

women are carried out in Turkey by athletic fellows

80

LEE SHOPS

with mighty biceps, curly beards, and great bull necks,

a practice that, rightly enough, appears ridiculous
to us.

On the other hand, if women do not sell, they buy.
They are to be seen standing in the shops in groups of
two or three, followed by their negresses, who carry an
open bag, and to whom they pass their purchases just
as Judith passed the head of Holofernes to her black
maid. Bargaining appears to delight Turkish women
just as much as Europeans. It is as good à way as
any to pass the time and to talk with a human being
other than the master, and there are few women who
will deny themselves that satisfaction, especially among
those of the middle class; those of the upper have
stuffs and goods brought to their homes.

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Ÿ following the tortuous streets leading to the
Yeni Valideh Djami and the mosque of Sul-
tan Bayezid, the Egyptian, or Drug Bazaar,
is reached; it is a great market traversed from end to
end by a lane intended for the use of purchasers and
dealers. A penetrating odor, composed of the aroma
of innumerable exotic products, catches and intoxi-
cates you as you enter. Here are exposed in heaps or
in open bags henna, sandalwood, antimony, colouring
powders, dates, cinnamon, gum Benjamin, pistachios,
gray amber, mastic, ginger, nutmegs, opium, hashisch,
guarded by cross-legged merchants in attitudes of in-
difference, who seem benumbed by the heaviness of the
atmosphere saturated with perfumes. ‘These moun-
tains of aromatic drugs,” which recall the comparisons
of Sir Hasirim, do not attract one long.
Continuing through the deafening hammering of

coppersmiths and the sickening exhalations of eating-

82

dt de de dede de dde de rc che de de de de che he che che de
BAZAARS

houses that exhibit upon their stalls jars full of Turk-
ish preparations — not very appetising to a Parisian
stomach — you reach the Grand Bazaar, the outer
aspect of which is in no wise imposing, with its high
gray walls ornamented by low, wart-like leaden domes
and a multitude of hovels and stalls occupied by mean
industries.

The Grand Bazaar, to give it the name bestowed
upon it by the Franks, covers a vast space of ground,
and forms, as it were, a city within a city, with streets,
lanes, passages, squares, crossings, and fountains; an
inextricable maze in which it is difficult to find one’s
way even after several visits The vast space is
covered over, and light filters into it through the small
cupolas I have just mentioned that dot the flat roof of
the edifice. The light is soft, faint, and doubtful,
favouring the dealer more than the purchaser. I do
not wish to destroy the idea of Oriental magnificence
suggested by the name Bezestin of Constantinople, but
the Turkish Bazaar is like nothing more than the
Temple at Paris, which it resembles also greatly in its
arrangement.

I entered through an arcade devoid of architectural

pretensions, and found myself in a lane devoted to per-

83

dé de dede dd drddedetetehet dede de db

eve dre cie ee eo tv ve LU ee

CONSTANTINOPLE

fumery. Here are sold essences of bergamot and jas-
mine, flagons of atar gull in cases of spangled velvet, rose
water, cosmetics, seraglio pastilles marked with Turk-
ish characters, sachets of musk, chaplets of jade, amber,
cocoa, ivory, fruit-stones, rose or sandal wood, Persian
mirrors framed in with delicate paintings, square combs
with large teeth,— in a word, the whole arsenal of
Turkish coquetry.

In front of the stalls are numerous groups of women,
whose apple-green, rose-mauve, or sky-blue ferradjehs
opaque and carefully drawn yashmaks, and yellow
morocco boots, over which are worn galoshes of the
same colour, mark them as thorough-paced Mussul-
mans. ‘They often hold by the hand handsome chil-
dren dressed in red or green jackets braided with gold,
full Mameluke drawers of cerise, jonquil, or other bright-
coloured taffeta, that shine like flowers in the cool,
transparent shade. Negresses wrapped in white and
blue checkered Cairo habbarahs stand behind them
and complete the picturesque effect. Sometimes also
a black eunuch, recognisable by his short body, his
long legs, his beardless, fat, flaccid face sunk between
his shoulders, watches with morose look the small

company confided to his care, and waves, to make

84

oo 0

té db db de des

vw eve fe ve

BAZAARS

room for them in the crowd, the courbach of hippopota-
mus leather which is the distinguishing mark of his
authority. ‘The dealer, leaning on his elbow, replies
phlegmatically to the innumerable questions of the
young women, who turn over his goods and upset
his stall, asking all sorts of absurd questions, demand-
ing to know the prices and objecting to them with
little incredulous bursts of laughter.

Behind the stalls there are back shops, reached by
two or three steps, where more precious goods are
locked up in coffers or cupboards opened to genuine
buyers only. There are to be found the beautiful
striped scarfs of Tunis, Persian shawls, the embroidery
on which is a perfect imitation of the palms of Cash-
mere, mirrors of mother-of-pearl, stools incrusted with
open-work and intended to support trays of sherbets,
reading-desks to hold the Koran, perfume burners in
gold or silver filigree, in enamel and engraved copper,
small hands of ivory or shell to scratch the back, nar-
ghileh bells in Khorassan steel, Chinese and Japanese
cups, — in a word, all the curious bric-à-brac of the
East.

The chief street in the Bazaar is surmounted with

arcades in courses alternately black and white, and the

85

É
ie
1e
1e
te
El
Fa
ji
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He

UE ET" bb de dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

vaulting is covered with half-effaced arabesques in gri-
saille in the Turkish rococo taste, which is closer than
might be supposed to the style of ornamentation in
vogue under Louis XV. It ends in an open place in
which rises an ornamented and painted fountain, the
water of which is used for ablutions; for the Turks
never forget their religious duties, and calmly break
off in the middle of a bargain, leaving the purchaser
waiting, to kneel upon their carpets, turn towards
Mecca, and say their prayers with as much devotion
as if they were under the dome of Saint Sophia or
Sultan Achmet.

One of the shops most frequented by strangers is
that of Lodovico, an Armenian merchant who speaks
French and most patiently allows you to turn over his
wares. Many a long stay I have made there, enjoying
excellent Mocha coffee in small china cups placed in
holders of silver filigree in the old Turkish fashion.
Rembrandt would have found here the wherewithal to
enrich his museum of antiquities: old weapons, old
stuffs, quaint goldsmith-work, curious pottery, extraor-
dinary utensils the use of which is unknown. On 2
little low table are spread out kandjars, yataghans,

daggers with sheaths in repoussé silver, scabbards of

86

titéeitiseststdtsttttdd tt
BAZAARS

velvet, shagreen, Yemen leather, wood, brass, and
handles of jade, agate, ivory, studded with garnets,
turquoises, coral, long, narrow, broad, curved, waving ;
— of every shape, of every period, of every country,
from the damask blade of the pacha, engraved with
verses of the Koran, in letters of gold, to the coarse
camel-driver’s knife. How many Zebecs and Arna-
outs, how many beys and effendis, how many omrahs
and rajahs must have stripped their belts to form this
precious and quaint arsenal, that would drive Decamps
crazy with delight.

On the walls hang, below their helmets, with a
scintillation of steel, Circassian coats of mail, gleam-
ing bucklers of tortoise-shell, hippopotamus, or dama-
scened steel, covered with copper bosses; Mongolian
quivers, long guns with »e/lo work, with incrustations,
at once weapons and gems; maces absolutely like those
of mediæval knights and which Turkish illustrations
never fail to put in the hands of Persians as à distin-
guishing mark of ridicule.

In the cupboards Broussa silks shimmer like water
in the moonlight under their silver overlay; Albanian
slippers and tobacco pouches with light golden weft,

coloured designs, and lozenges; chemises of fine, crépé

87

fe cd cb cd ee cd cb

Me Te ©7S OA VERS ue Se re Ge

CONSTANTINOPLE

Létbbbbhébt dd

silk with opaque and transparent stripes ; neckerchiefs
embroidered with spangles ; Indian and Persian cash-
meres, emir-green pelisses lined with zibelline sable;
jackets with braiding more complicated than the ara-
besques of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Alham-
bra; dolmans stiff with gold; brocades sparkling with
dazzling gold embroidery ; Cairo machlas, cut on the
pattern of Byzantine dalmatics, the whole of the
fabulous luxury, the chimerical wealth of these coun-
tries of the sun, of which we get a glimpse like the
mirage of a dream from the depths of our cold
Europe.

Amid the chaplets of amber, ebony, coral, sandal-
wood, with the perfume boxes of enamelled gold, the
writing-stands, the coffers and the precious mirrors,
the paintings on which represent scenes drawn from
the Mahabharata, the fans made of the feathers of
peacocks or argus pheasants, the bowls of hookahs
chased or inlaid with silver, — amid all these delightful
Turkish things are met unexpectedly Sèvres and Dres-
den porcelains, Vincennes ware, Limoges enamels,
which have come heaven knows whence.

Every street in the Bazaar is devoted to some special

trade. Here are the dealers in slippers, sandals, and

88

tititetetktébékébkbbddhd dd
BAZAARS

boots. Most curious are these stalls covered with
extravagant foot-gear, turned up at the ends like
Chinese roofs, with low heels, of leather, morocco,
velvet, brocade, piqué, spangled, braided, and adorned
with tufts of down and of floss, and wholly unfitted to
European feet. Some are curved and turned up at the
ends like Venetian gondolas ; others would drive Rhodope
and Cinderella to despair by their dainty smallness, and
look like jewel-cases rather than possible slippers.
Yellow, red, and green disappear under gold and silver
quilling. Children’s shoes are worked into the most
charmingly capricious shapes and ornaments. For street
wear women put on the yellow morocco boots which
I have already mentioned; for all these lovely marvels,
intended for Indian mattings and Persian carpets, would
soon stick in the mud of the streets of Constantinople,

Next are the dealers in caftans, gandouras, and
dressing-gowns of Broussa silk. The costumes are
not expensive, although the colours are charming and
the tissues extremely soft. ‘These dealers also sell
Broussa stuffs, half silk and half thread, for the making
of dresses, vests, and trousers in the European fashion,
which are very cool, light, and pretty. ‘This is a new
industry, fostered by Abdul Medjid.

89

bee

ere re

CONSTANTINOPLE

of cd vf cd dde ef ed ee ee ob cfnehe che ee of of 8e of of fo of cle ele

Then in a special lane come the gold-wire drawers,
who manufacture the silver and golden threads with
which are embroidered tobacco pouches, slippers, hand-
kerchiefs, vests, dolmans, and jackets. Béhind the
glass of the show-cases sparkle on their bobbins the
brilliant threads which by and by will turn into flowers,
foliage, and arabesques. There also are manufactured
the cords and the graceful bows so coquettishly com-
plicated, which our people are unable to imitate. ‘The
Turks make them by hand, fastening the end of the
thread to the toe of the bare foot.

There are jewellers whose gems are enclosed in
coffers from which they never take their eyes, or in
glass cases placed out of reach of thieves. These
obscure shops, very like cobbler’s stalls, are full of
incredible riches. Vizapoor and Golconda diamonds
brought by caravans; rubies of Giamschid, sapphires
of Ormuz,— to say nothing of garnets, chrysoberyls,
aquamarines, azerodrachs, agates, aventurine, lapis-
lazuli, — are piled up in heaps ; for the Turks make great
use of gems not only for purposes of luxury, but also
as a convenient way of carrying money. À diamond,
easy to conceal and carry, represents a large sum in a

small volume. From the Eastern point of view it is a

go

bébé kdkdbébddebeb ee dede dde

safe investment, although it brings in no interest.
These gems are generally cut ex cabochon, for the
Orientals cut neither the diamond nor the ruby, either
because they are not acquainted with diamond dust, or
because they fear to diminish the number of carats by
cutting away the angles of the stones. The setting is
usually heavy and in Genoese or rococo taste. The
delicate, elegant, pure art of the Arabs has left but
scanty traces among the Turks. The jewellery con-
sists chiefly of necklaces, earrings, ornaments for the
head, stars, flowers, crescents, bracelets, anklets, sword
and dagger hilts; but these are seen in all their splen-
dour only in the depths of the harem, on the heads and
bosoms of the odalisques, under the eye of the master
curled up on a corner of the divan, and all this luxury,
so far as the stranger is concerned, is as if it were not.

Although the splendour of the foregoing sentences,
constellated with the names of gems, may have made
you think of the treasure of Haroun al Raschild and
Abul Kassim’s cave, you are not to imagine anything
dazzling, a mad play of light; for the Turks do not
understand the art of showing off gems like Parisian
jewellers, and the uncut diamonds, thrown in handfuls

into small wooden cups, look like grains of glass. Yet

9I

.

dde de dede de ce deteste dl het db dk

CONSTANTENOPLE

it would be easy to spend a million in these two-
penny shops.

The Arms Bazaar may be considered as the very
heart of Islam. None of the modern ideas have
crossed its threshold. The Old Turkish party reigns
there, gravely seated cross-legged, professing for the
dogs of Christians a contempt as deep as in the days
of Mohammed II. Time has stayed its steps for these
worthy Osmanlis, who, perhaps rightly, regret the
janissaries and former barbarities. Here are to be found
the great swelling turbans, the fur-edged dolmans, the
full Mameluke trousers, the high sashes, and the true
classical costume such as it may be seen in the Elbicei
Attica collection, in the tragedy of “ Bajazet,” and in
the ceremony of the “ Bourgeois Gentilhomme.” Here
are to be seen faces as impassible as fate, serious, fixed
glances, hooked noses over long white beards, brown
cheeks tanned by the abuse of vapour baths, robust
bodies worn by the voluptuousness of the harem and
the ecstasies of opium, —the thorough-bred Turks, in
a word, who are slowly disappearing, and who will soon
have to be sought for in the very depths of Asia.

At noon the Arms Bazaar coolly closes, and the

millionaire merchants withdraw to their kiosks on the

92

bb dd de de ddr cheb che che che che fe he of chefs

eve oùe "ve «fe dre uvre vve vre

BAZAARS

banks of the Bosphorus to watch with angry looks
the passing steamboats, diabolical Frankish inventions.
The riches contained in this bazaar are incalculable,
:lere are preserved the damascened blades engraved
with Arabic letters with which Sultan Saladin cut down
pillows thrown in the air in the presence of Richard
Cœur de Lion, who sliced an anvil with his great two-
handed sword, and which have as many notches on the
back as they have cut off heads, — their bluish steel
cuts through breastplates as if they were sheets of
paper, their handles are caskets of gems, — old wheel-
lock and linstock muskets, marvels of chasing and
niello work; battle-axes which perhaps Timour,
Ghenghis Khan and Scanderberg used to smash hel-
mets and skulls, — in a word, the whole of the fero-
cious and picturesque arsenal of antique Islam. Here
gleam, sparkle, and shine, under a sunbeam fallen from
the high vaulting, saddle-cloths embroidered with silver
and gold, studded with suns of gems, moons of dia-
monds, stars of sapphires; chamfers, bits, and stirrups
in silver gilt; fairy-like caparisons which Oriental
luxury bestows upon the noble steeds of Nedji, worthy
descendants of the Dabhis, the Rabras,the Naamahs, and

other equine celebrities of the old Islam turf.

93

tititesitetetstdtdédbéed dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

It is noteworthy, considering Moslem carelessness,
that this bazaar is considered so precious that smoking
is not permitted within its precincts. No more need
be said, for the fatalist Turk would light his pipe upon
a powder magazine.

By way of contrast to this splendour, let me tell you
something about the Lice Bazaar. It is the morgue,
the charnel house, the abattoir, where end all these
glories after they have gone through the diverse phases
of decadence. The caftan that shone on the shoulders
of a vizier or a pacha ends its career on the back of
a hammal or a calfat; the jacket that moulded the opu-
lent charms of a Georgian beauty of the harem here
envelopes, soiled and faded, the mummified frame of
an old beggar-woman. Ît is an incredible mass of
rags and tatters, in which, where there is not a hole,
there is a stain. ‘They hang flaccidly, lugubriously,
from rusty naïils, with that queer human look peculiar
to clothes that have long been worn; they move as the
vermin travel over them. Formerly plague nestled in
the worn folds of these indescribable garments stained
with sanies, and concealed itself there like a black
spider in its web in some loathsome corner. The

Rastro at Madrid, the Temple at Paris, the former

94

titétéetetitéetkéetédtkdd dk
BAZAARS

Alsatia of London, are nothing compared with this
Tyburn of Eastern second-hand clothing known by
the significant name I have given above. I hope I
may be forgiven this itching description in favour of
the gems, brocades, and vials of essences of the begin-
ning. Besides, a traveller is like a doctor, he may say

anything.

95

Te ove ee ve 7e 7e vre Ve 07e ovo Fe UT QTe ie US oi ose

af cb ob ee eds 8e cbe ee ob ef cf eds eo ae of ee ob eo eo of of of ofe

: | NLIKE other Mohammedans who forbid
Giaours from witnessing the ceremonies of
their worship, and drive them with insults

from their mosques if they attempt to enter them at

the hours of prayer, the Dervishes allow Europeans to
enter their tekiehs, on the sole condition that they
shall leave their shoes at the door and enter barefooted
or in slippers. They sing their litanies and perform
their evolutions without being in the slightest degree
troubled by the presence of dogs of Christians. It
even looks as if they were pleased to have spectators.
The tekieh at Pera is situated on a square covered
with tombs, turban-topped marble posts, and edged with
cypresses, a sort of annex to the Little Field of the

Dead. The hall in which the religious waltzes of the

whirlers are performed is at the back of the court. Its

interior reminds one both of a dancing-hall and of a

theatre. It has a perfectly smooth, carefully waxed

floor surrounded by a circular balustrade breast-high.

96

dede ct ads de de be de deb bebe cdcteee db deb
THE WHIRLING DERVISHES

Slender columns support a gallery of the same form,
with seats for spectators, the Sultan’s box, and the
tribunes intended for women. This part, which is
calied the Seraglio, is protected against profane looks
by a very close trellis like that seen at the windows of
harems. The orchestra is opposite the #7:74hb, which
is adorned with tablets covered with verses of the
Koran and cartouches of sultans and viziers who have
been benefactors of the tekieh. ‘The whole place is
painted white and blue, and is exceedingly clean. It
looks more like a class-room arranged for a dancing-
masters pupils than the praying-place of à fanatical
sect.

After a prolonged wait, the dervishes arrived slowly,
two by two. The sheik of the community sat down
cross-legged upon a carpet covered with gazelle-skins,
in front of the mirâhb, between two acolytes. He was
a little old man with a leaden complexion and a weary
look, his skin all wrinkles, and his chin bristling with a
scanty gray beard. His eyes, which flashed occasion-
ally in his wan face out of great brown circles, alone
imparted a look of life to his spectral appearance.
The dervishes filed past him, bowing in the Oriental

fashion with the marks of the deepest respect, as if he

7 97

Pnau. mm

n DORE

were a sultan or a saint. Ît was at once a courtesy,
a proof of obedience, and a religious evolution. The
movements were slow, rhythmic, hieratic, and the rite
having been accomplished, each dervish placed himself
opposite the mirähb.

The head-dress of these Mussulman monks con-
sists of a cap of inch-thick brown or reddish felt, which
is most like a flower-pot put on upside down. A white
vest and jacket, a great plaited skirt of the same colour,
like the Greek fustanella, and tight white trousers
coming down to the ankle complete the costume,
which has nothing monkish according to our view, but
which does not lack a certain elegance. At first I
could only get a glimpse of it, for the dervishes wore
cloaks or surtouts, blue, purple, cinnamon, or other
shade, not forming a part of their uniform, and which
they throw off when about to begin whirling, and
put on again when they fall breathless, dripping with
perspiration, worn out by ecstasy and fatigue.

When they had chanted a good many verses of the
Koran, wagged their heads sufficiently, and prostrated
themselves enough, the dervishes rose, cast aside their
mantles, and began to march in procession around the

hall. Each couple passed in front of the sheik, who
98

<iti£etdkekdtkbkbébéd td de de
THPWHIRLING DERVISHES

was standing, and after having exchanged salutes, he
blessed them, a sort of consecration performed with a
singular etiquette. ‘The dervish who has last been
blessed takes another from the following couple and
appears to present him to the z"4m, a ceremony which
is repeated from group to group until all have passed.

À remarkable change had already taken place in the
faces of the dervishes thus prepared for ecstasy. When
they entered they looked gloomy, tired, somnolent, their
heads bent under their heavy caps; now their faces
lightened, their eyes shone, they drew themselves up,
they seemed stronger, the heels of their bare feet smote
the floor with nervous trepidation.

To the chanting of the Koran in à nasal, falsetto
tone was now added the accompaniment of flutes and
tarboukas. The tarboukas marked the time and played
the bass; the flutes performed in unison a melody of a
high tonality and of infinite sweetness. Motionless in
the centre of the hall, the dervishes seemed to intoxicate
themselves with the delicately barbaric and melodiously
wild music, the original theme of which goes back
perhaps to the earliest days of the world. Finally one
of them opened his arms, stretched them out horizon-

tally in the attitude of Christ on the cross; then began

99

tn te. “HU — en

bittéeisédtdbbdd dde dd
CONSTANTFTINOPLE

to twist slowly, moving his bare feet noiselessly on
the floor; his skirt, like a bird preparing to fly, began
to lift and flutter, his speed became greater, the soft
tissue, raised by the air, spread out in wheel-shape,
then in bell-shape, like a whirlwind of whiteness of
which the dervish was the centre. To the first was
added a second, then a third, till the whole band had
finally been drawn into the irresistible whirl.

They spun, arms extended, heads bent on shoulders,
eyes half-closed, lips parted, like good swimmers who
allow themselves to be carried away on the stream of
ecstasy ; their movements, regular and undulating, had
extraordinary suppleness ; neither effort nor fatigue was
apparent. ‘The most intrepid German waltzer would
have fallen suffocated, but these men continued to
spin on themselves as if carried on by their own im-
pulse, just as a top that whirls motionless when it is
going round fastest, and seems to sleep to the sound
of its own snoring.

There was a score of them, perhaps more, pirouetting
in the centre of their skirts outspread like the calyxes
of gigantic Javanese flowers, and yet they never
touched, never left the orbit of their whirl, never lost

the time marked by the tarbouka. ‘The imam walked

100

Létéetéetéetéetédddttdbddbe de
THE WHIRLING DERVISHES

about among the groups, sometimes clapping his hands,
either by way of indication to the orchestra to quicken
or slow the rhythm, or to encourage the whirlers and
applaud their pious zeal. His impassible appearance
presented a strong contrast to the illuminated, con-
vulsed faces. The cold, wan old man walked like a
phantom among these frantic whirlers, as if doubt had
struck his withered soul, or as if the intoxication of
prayer and the vertigo of sacred incantations had long
since ceased to affect him, like opium and haschisch
eaters, who are proof against the effects of their drugs,
and are obliged to increase the dose until they poison
themselves.

The whirling stopped for a moment, the dervishes
reformed in couples and two or three times marched in
procession around the room. This evolution, performed
slowly, gives them time to recover their breath and to
recollect themselves. What I had hitherto seen was
in a way the prelude of the symphony, the beginning
of the poem, the introduction to the waltz.

The tarboukas rumbled a quicker step, the sound of
the flutes became livelier, and the dervishes resumed
their dance with increased activity. Sometimes a der-

vish stopped, his fustanella rose and fell for a few

IOI

ES

bikibéetéeteskéedkdddb te de de dde
CONSTANTINOPLE

moments, then, no longer supported by the whirling,
slowly sank, and the unfolded stuff drooped and
resumed its perpendicular folds like those of a Greek
drapery of antiquity. ‘Thereupon the whirler threw
himself on his knees, his face to the ground, and a serv-
ing brother covered him with one of the mantles I have
mentioned, just as a jockey throws a blanket over a
thorough-bred at the end of his race. The imam
approached the dervish, prostrate, sunk in absolute
immobility, murmured a few sacramental words, and
passed on to another. After a time all had fallen,
broken down by ecstasy. Soon they rose again,
marched two and two around the hall, and left it in
the same order as they had entered.

Dazzled by the giddy spectacle, I went to the door
to pick out my shoes from amid the collection of
foot-gear, and until night [ saw whirling outspread
before me great white skirts, and heard in my ears
the implacably suave theme of the little flute sounding

above the drone of the tarboukas.

FTER seeing the Whirling Dervishes at Pera,
pat one must visit the Howling Dervishes at
Scutari.

Their hall is not circular in shape, like that at Pera;
it is a parallelogram devoid of architectural beauty.
On the bare walls are hung some fifteen huge kettle-
drums and a few placards inscribed with verses from
the Koran. On the side of the mirähb above the
carpet on which the imam and his acolytes sit, the
wall is decorated in a ferocious manner that makes one
think of the chamber of à torturer or an inquisitor.
There are darts ending in heart-shaped pieces of lead
from which hang chains, sharp basting instruments,
maces, pincers, nippers, and all kinds of weapons of
troublous, barbaric forms, the use of which is incom-
prehensible but terrifying, and which make you shudder
like the apparatus of a surgeon spread out prelimi-
nary to an operation. Ît is with these atrocious tools

that the Howling Dervishes flagellate themselves when

103

Hd dd bdd echec ets de de de che doeke
CONSTANTINOPLE

they have attained to the highest degree of religious
fury, and when cries no longer suffice to express their
sacred, orgy-like delirium.

The imam was 2 tall, bony, dry old man, his face
deeplÿy marked and wrinkled. He had a very dignified
and majestic look. By his side stood a handsome young
fellow with à white turban bound with a cross-band
of gold and dressed in an emir-green pelisse such as is
worn by the descendants of the Prophet, and by hadjis
who have performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. His
profile, clean, sad, and gentle, was more Arab than
Turkish, and his complexion, of a uniform olive tone,
seemed to confirm that origin.

Opposite were ranged the dervishes in the regulation
attitude, repeating in unison a sort of litany intoned by a
big man with the chest of a Hercules, a bull neck, brazen
lungs, and a stentorian voice. At each verse they nodded
their heads forward and back with the same motion as
Chinese figures, a motion which ends by causing a
sympathetic vertigo when it is watched for any time.

Sometimes one of the Mussulman spectators, fasci-
nated by the irresistible oscillation, staggered out of his
place, joined the dervishes, prostrated himself, and began

to swing his head like a bear in a cage.

104

tééétéesétibéetttdbbe dede

ee 7 où cp eve ocre vie dre ce

ROME ON TEEN GE RNVISHES

The song rose higher and higher, the nodding be-
came faster, the faces began to turn livid and the
breath to come short and quick; the coryphæus ac-
cented the sacred words with increased energy, and I
awaited, full of anxiety and terror, the scene which
was about to take place.

Some dervishes, wrought up to the proper point,
had arisen and continued their leaps at the risk of
smashing their heads against the walls and of straining
the vertebræ of their necks in their furious noddings.
Soon everybody was up. That is the moment when
the kettledrums are usually taken down, but it was not
done on this occasion, the men being excited enough;
besides, on account of the Ramazan fast, it was desired
not to work them up overmuch. The dervishes formed
a chain, placing their hands on each others’ shoulders,
and began to justify their name by uttering from
their chests à hoarse, prolonged howl, Æ/4h bou!”
which seemed to be produced by anything but human
voices.

The whole band, now moving together, stepped back
a pace, then forward, with a simultaneous dash, and
howled in a low, hoarse tone resembling the growling

of a menagerie when lions, tigers, panthers, and
8 9 ? ?

105

._ À L_ D. De ee

CONSTANTINOPLE

hyænas have come to the conclusion that it is past
feeding-time.

Then inspiration gradually grew, eyes began to shine
like those of wild beasts in a cave, epileptic foam
showed at the corners of the lips, faces became decom-
posed, and shone livid under the perspiration. The
whole file bent down and rose up under an invisible
breath like ears of corn under a storm wind; and
every time, with every rise, the terrible Æ//ah hou ! ”
was repeated with increasing energy. Î cannot under-
stand how such howls, kept up for more than an hour,
do not burst the framework of the chest and drive the
blood from broken vessels. One of the dervishes was
swinging his head, flagellated by long, black hair, and
uttering from his skeleton breast roars like a tiger, or
like a lion, or like the wounded wolf bleeding to death
in the snow; cries full of rage and desire, hoarse utter-
ances of unknown voluptuousness, and sometimes sighs
of mortal sadness, protestations of the body broken
under the grindstone of the soul.

Excited by the feverish ardour of this mad devotee,
the whole company, calling up its last remnant of
strength, threw itself back in a body and sprang for-

ward like a line of drunken soldiers, and howled the last

106

tiiiétesisssdttttss ht kb
THE HOWLING DERVISHES

& Allah bou ! ” without any relation to known sounds,
but such as may have been the bellowing of a mammoth
or a mastodon in the colossal reeds of antediluvian
marshes. The floor trembled under the rhythmical
tramping of the howling band, and the walls seemed
ready to fall like the ramparts of Jericho at the sound
of the horrible clamour.

The exaltation was now at its highest pitch, the
howling went on without any break; a noisome odour
like that of à menagerie was given out by the per-
spiring bodies. Through the dust raised by the feet
of those madmen, grimaced convulsively, as through a
reddish mist, convulsed, epileptic faces, illumined with
white eyes and weird smiles.

The imam stood before the mirähb, urging on the
growing frenzy with gesture and voice. A young lad
left the group and drew near the old man; andthen I
saw the purpose of the terrible irons suspended from
the wall. Acolytes took from 2 nail an exceedingly
sharp larding-iron and handed it to the imam, who
drove it through both cheeks of the young devotee
without the lad exhibiting the least sign of pain. The
operation over, the penitent returned to his place and

continued his frantic nodding. Horribly strange looked

107

PE PE I en ”

dd 4 de bdd dE de db
CONSTANTE TMNOPPLOE

the spitted head. It was like a practical joke in a
pantomime, when Harlequin drives his bat through
Pierrot’s body; only, in this case the joke was no joke.

Two other fanatics sprang into the centre of the
room, bare to the belt. ‘They were handed a couple of
the sharp darts ending in leaden hearts and iron chains;
brandishing them in each hand, they began to perform
a sort of disorderly, violent dagger dance, only with
unexpected leaps and galvanic jumps; but instead of
avoiding the points of the darts, they dashed furiously
upon them in order to wound themselves. Soon they
rolled to the ground, exhausted, breathless, covered
with blood, sweat, and foam, like horses spurred to
death and falling near the finish.

A pretty little girl of seven or eight years of age, as
pale as Goethe’s “ Mignon,” who rolled black eyes full
of nostalgia, and who had stood near the door during the
whole ceremony, walked alone towards the imam. The
old man received her in a friendly and paternal manner.
The little maid stretched herself out upon a sheepskin
on the floor, and the imam, supported by two assistants,
his feet in large slippers, stepped on to the small child
and stood upon her for a few moments. Then he

descended from his living pedestal, and the little girl

108

dette de dede db dead echo de ds

eve 7e one

VÉFOTEOWELNNGUDERNISHES

rose quite happy. Women brought children of three
or four years of age, who were, one after another, laid
upon the sheepskin and gently trampled under foot by
the imam. Some stood it very well, others shrieked
like jays plucked alive. I could see their eyes nearly
starting from their heads and their poor little ribs bend-
ing under the pressure, which was frightful for them.
Their mothers, their eyes brilliant with faith, took
them up in their arms and appeased them with caresses.
After the children came young fellows, grown men,
soldiers, and even a general officer, who underwent the
salutary imposition of the feet; for according to the
ideas of Mussulmans, the pressure cures all diseases.
On leaving the tekieh, I saw the lad whose cheeks
had been spitted by the imam. He had withdrawn the
instrument of torture, and two small purple cicatrices,
already closed, alone marked where the steel had

passed through.

109

do not make me feel sad like Christian ceme-
teries. À visit to Père-Lachaise makes me
dismally melancholy for many days, but I have spent

hours at a time in the cemeteries of Pera and Scutari

Ï CANNOT understand why Turkish cemeteries

without falling into aught else than a vague, sweet
reverie. Is this indifference due to the beauty of the
heavens, the brilliancy of the light and the romantic
beauty of the site, or to religious prejudices, which act
upon us unconsciously and make us despise the burial-
places of infidels with whom we are to have nothing to
do in the next world? I have not been able to make
out the reason clearly, although I have often thought
the matter over. Possibly it is due to purely plastic
causes. (Catholicism has shrouded death in a sombre
poetry of terror unknown to paganism and Moham-
medanism. It has covered its tombs with lugubrious,
cadaverous forms intended to cause terror, while the

urns of antiquity are surrounded with joyous bassi-relieui

I1O

bte +kt kb dede dede db eds de dde dos
HEAR CEMETERE" AT''SCUTARI

on which graceful genii play amid leaves, and the
Mussulman tombstones, diapered with azure and gold,
seem, under the shadow of the beautiful trees, to be
kiosks of eternal rest rather than the abodes of dead
bodies.

Many a time I have traversed the Pera cemetery in
the most weird moonlight, at the time when the
white funeral columns rose in the shadows like the
nuns of Saint Rosalie in the third act of “ Robert le
Diable,” without my heart beating faster; a feat which
I should perform in the Montmartre Cemetery only
with ineffable horror, a cold sweat breaking out all
over me, and nervous starts at the least sound, although
Ï have confronted a hundred times in the course of my
travels much more genuine subjects of terror. But in
the East death is so familiarly mingled with life that
one ceases to be afraid of it. The dead on top of
whom one drinks coffee, with whom one smokes a
chibouque, cannot possibly turn into spectres. So on
leaving the menagerie of the Howling Dervishes, I
accepted with pleasure, in order to drive the hideous
spectacle from my mind, a proposal to walk over to
the Scutari cemetery, the best situated, largest, and

most populous in the East.

III

|

de Be «8e ed ce 8e fe cd che of of abc cb ol of ob of of ce of cb o8e

div ee et o7e eve ve re ete ie vie

CONSTANTINOPLE

It consists of à vast cypress wood rising on a hilly
slope, traversed by broad walks and bristling with
funeral stones over an extent of more than three
miles. It is impossible in our Northern countries,
where we know cypresses as thin broomsticks only,
to imagine the degree of beauty and development
reached in warmer latitudes by this tree friendly to
tombs, but which in the East awakens no melancholy
thoughts and is used to adorn gardens as well as
cemeteries.

As the cypress grows old, its trunk becomes divided
into rough ribs like the corrugations of Gothic pillars
in cathedrals; its worn bark turns a silvery gray, its
branches spring out in unexpected fashion, and have
curiously deformed elbows, yet without destroying the
pyramidal outline and the vertical direction of the
foliage, massed sometimes in thick clumps, sometimes
in scattered tufts. ‘The tortuous, bare roots grip the
ground on the edge of the ridges like the talons of a
vulture clutching a prey, and sometimes resemble ser-
pents half disappearing within their holes. The solid,
dark foliage does not lose its colour in the hot rays of
the sun and is always vigorous enough to show sharply

against the intense blue of the sky. There is no tree

112

bd de do de de dede heat hab lee ce

vo 7e Ve VPS eTe VS Ai ere

LHRCENMETERTY AT SCUTARI

at once so majestic, so grave, and so serious. Îts
apparent uniformity is varied by differences appreciated
by the painter, though they in no wise break the gen-
eral lines. The cypress harmonises admirably with
the architecture of Italian villas and its black tops
match wonderfully well the white columns of the mina-
rets. Its brown draperies form, on the summits of
the hills, a background against which stand out the
painted wooden houses of the Turkish villas like shim-
mering vermilion spots.

Already in Spain, in the Generalife and the Alhambra
[ had fallen in love with cypresses; my stay at Con-
stantinople merely increased this passion, while satisfy-
ing it. The silhouette of two cypresses especially is
ineffaceably engraved in my memory, and IÎ cannot
hear the name of Granada without seeing them at once
rise above the red walls of the ancient palace of the
Moorish kings with whom I am certain they are con-
temporary. With what pleasure Î used to perceive
them, “black sheaves of foliage heavenward springing,”?
when Î returned from my excursions in the Alpujarras
in company with Romero the eagle hunter or Lanza
the cosario, riding a mule whose harness was covered

with ornaments and bells. But let me return to the

8 113

CE

pause ” -

_—.

cypresses of Scutari, which are worthy of posing to
Marilhat, Decamps, and Jadin.

A cypress is planted by the side of each tomb.
Every standing tree represents a corpse lying down;
and in this soil saturated with human manure, vegeta-
tion is very active; every day new graves are dug, and
the funeral forest quickly grows in height and extent.
The Turks do not have the system of temporary leases
of ground which makes the cemeteries of Paris resemble
woods cut down at regular times; the economy of
death is not so well understood by these worthy bar-
barians. ‘The dead, poor or rich, once here, stretched
out on his last couch, sleeps until the trumpets of the
Last Judgment shall awaken him, and the hand of man
at least does not disturb him.

By the side of the city of the living the necropolis
extends infinitely, constantly recruited by peaceful
inhabitants who will never emigrate. ‘The inexhaust-
ible quarries of Marmora furnish every one of these
mute citizens with a marble post telling his name and
his dwelling, and although a coffin takes very little
room and the bodies lie very close to each other, the
city of the dead is more extensive than the other. Mil-

lions of bodies have been laid there since the conquest

114

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ERP CEMETERT AT 'SCUTARI

of Byzantium by Mohammed. If time, which destroys
everything, even nothingness, did not throw down the
tumuli stones and strike off their turbans, and if the
dust of years, those invisible grave-diggers, did not
slowly cover the débris of the broken tombs, a patient
statistician might, by adding up the funeral columns,
find out the number of inhabitants of Constantinople
from 1453, the date of the fall of the Greek Empire.
But for the intervention of nature, which everywhere
tends to resume its primitive form, the Turkish Empire
would soon be naught but a vast cemetery whence the
dead would drive the living.

I first followed the main walk bordered by two vast
curtains of sombre green most funereally effective.
Marble cutters, quietly squatting down, were carving
tombs on the roadside; arabas filled with women were
going to Haïdar Pacha; Mussulman courtesans, their
eyebrows joined by 2 line of Indian ink, their reddened
cheeks showing through the thin muslin yashmak, were
idling along, exciting Turkish Johnnies with lascivious
glances and sonorous laughter. I soon quitted the
beaten road and my companions to roam among the
tombs and study the Oriental aspect of death. I have
already stated, in speaking of the Little Field of the

115

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D. = … mé smtt—

tétitéeLtestsdsddttbdtttedbe dde
CONSTANTINOPTE

Dead at Pera, that Turkish tombs consist of a sort of
marble therm ending in a ball, vaguely recalling a human
face, and covered with a turban the folds and form of
which denote the rank of the dead. Nowadays the
turban has been replaced by a coloured fez; stones
adorned with a stalk of lotus, or a vine-stem with leaves
and clusters of grapes carved in relief and painted denote
women. ÂÀt the foot of the stone, which varies only
in being more or less richly gilded and coloured, usually
stretches a slab having in the centre a small basin a few
inches deep in which the friends of the dead place
flowers and pour milk or perfumes.

There comes a time when the flowers fade and are
not renewed; for there is no such thing as eternal
grief, and life would be impossible without forgetful-
ness; rain water replaces the rose water; little birds
come to drink the tears of heaven on the spot where
fell the tears of the heart; the doves dip their wings in
the marble bath, and dry themselves while cooing in
the sun on the neighbouring stone, and the dead,
deceived, thinks he hears the sigh of one faithful to
him. Most fresh, most graceful is the winged life
warbling on tombs. Sometimes a turbeh, with Moorish

arcades, rises in monumental fashion among the hum-

116

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CHE CEMETERT, AT SCUTARI

bler sepultures, and serves as a sepulchral kiosk to
a pacha surrounded by his family.

The Turks, who are grave, slow, and majestic in
every action of life, never hurry save where death is
concerned. The body, as soon as it has undergone
the lustral ablutions, is borne to the grave at a run, laid
so as to point to Mecca, and quickly covered with a few
handfuls of earth. This is due to superstitious ideas.
Mussulmans believe that the body suffers so long as it
is not restored to the earth whence it has come. The
imam questions the dead on the principal articles of
faith of the Koran; its silence is taken for assent ; the
spectators answer < Amen,” and the procession scatters,
leaving the dead alone with eternity.

Then Monkir and Nekir, the two funeral angels whose
turquoise eyes shine in their ebony faces, question him on
his virtuous or wicked life, and in accordance with his
answers assign the place which his soul is to occupy,
either in Hades or Paradise. The Mussulman Hades
is merely a Purgatory, for after having expiated his
faults by more or less lengthened, more or less atro-
cious punishments, a true believer ends by enjoying
the embraces of the houris and the ineffable sight of
Allah.

117

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CONSTANTINOPLE

At the head of the grave is left à sort of hole or
conduit leading to the ear of the body, so that it may
hear the groans, lamentations, and weepings of the
family and friends. This opening, too often enlarged
by dogs and jackals, is the window of the sepulchre,
the wicket through which this world can look into
the other.

Walking about at random, I reached an older portion
of the cemetery, consequently one more abandoned.
The funeral columns, almost all out of plumb, leaned
to the left or the right. Many had fallen, as if weary
of having remained standing so long, and considering
it was useless to mark a grave long effaced and which
no one remembered. The earth, which had sunk
through the falling in of the coffins or by being washed
away by the rains, preserved less carefully the secrets
of the tomb. At almost every step [ struck against a
jaw-bone, a vertebra, a rib, or a thigh-bone. Through
the short, scanty grass shone occasionally, white as
ivory, Spherical and oblong like an ostrich-egg, à
singular protuberance. It was a skull just show-

ing above the ground. In some of the fallen-in

graves, pious hands had set in order similar bones

that had been cast up; other fragments of skele-

118

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RS ES FRET D RTS. Et DR | ST éd

a 7

RE

tétitétststtk bebe dede 4 dk
TEEN CEMETFTERT AT SCUTARI

tons rolled like pebbles on the edge of the deserted
footpaths.

I was seized with a strange and horrible curiosity:
I wanted to look through the holes of which I spoke
just now, to surprise the mystery of the tomb, to see
death in its own home. I bent over the window
opened on nothingness, and easily perceived the
human remains. Î could see the yellow, livid, grimac-
ing skull, with dislocated jaws and hollow orbits, the
lean ribs filled with sand or black humus, on which
carelessly rested the bone of the arm. The rest was
lost in shadow and earth. ‘The sleeper seemed very
quiet, and far from being terrified, as I expected, I was
reassured by the sight. It was really nothing more
than phosphate of lime that lay there, and the soul
having vanished, nature was little by little taking pos-
session of its own elements to form new combinations.

Years ago I thought out The Comedy of Death ”
in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, but I could not
have written a single stanza of it in the Scutari ceme-
tery. Under the shadow of these quiet cypresses a
human skull did not seem to me in any wise different

from a stone, and the peaceful fatalism of the East

seized upon me in spite of my Christian terror of death

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de be cd of ele de ce de dde oo cb nee eo cfe cb ob of cf of ef of cboh
CONSEANTINOPLE

and my Catholic studies of the sepulchre. None of
the dust that I questioned answered ; everywhere silence,
rest, forgetfulness, and the dreamless sleep in the bosom
of Cybele, the holy mother. In vain I listened at
every half-opened door ; I heard no other noise than that
of the worm spinning its web. None of the sleepers
lying on their side had turned over, feeling uncom-
fortable, and I continued on my walk, stepping over
the marble tombstones, walking over human débris,
calm, serene, almost smiling, and thinking with no
great dread of the day when the foot of the passer-by
would strike sonorous upon my own empty skull.

Sunbeams, piercing the black pyramids of the cy-
presses, glittered like will-o’-the-wisps on the white
tombs, the doves were cooïng, and in the blue heavens
the hawks were soaring. À few women, seated on a
small carpet in company with a negress or a child,
were dreaming in melancholy fashion or resting cradled
by the mirage of tender remembrances. The air was
delightfully balmy, and I felt life penetrating me at
every pore amid this dark forest, the soil of which is
made of dust that once was living men.

I had met my friends again, and we were now

traversing an entirely modern portion of the cemetery.

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PAP CEMETERT AFT'SCUTARI

There ÎI saw recent tombs surrounded with railings
and small flower-beds like those in Père-Lachaise, for
death has also its fashions, and in this place were
buried in the latest style well-to-do people only. For
my part, Î prefer the Marmora marble post with carved
turban, and the lines of the Koran in gilded letters.

The road through the cemetery issues into a broad
plain called Haïdar Pacha, à sort of drill-ground which
stretches between Scutari and the vast neighbouring
barracks of Kadikeui. A revetment wall formed of
old broken tombs, ran along either side of the road
and formed a terrace three or four feet high which
offered the gayest of spectacles. It looked like a vast
bed of living flowers. Two or three rows of women
squatting on mats or carpets, exhibited the varying
colour of their ferradjes, — rose, sky-blue, apple-green,
lilac, elegantly draped round their forms. In front of
these groups the red jackets, the yellow trousers, and
brocade vests of the children shimmered in a luminous
maze of spangles and gold embroidery.

The ferradje and yashmak at first produce on the
traveller the same effect as a domino at the Opera
balls. At the outset you can make out nothing; you

feel dazzled by these anonymous shadows which whirl

I21

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mn =

Libé dk ds dde db dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

before you, apparently all alike; you can recognise no
one. But soon the eye becomes accustomed to the
uniformity, notes differences, observes forms under
the satin which veils them. Some ill-concealed grace
betrays youth, old age is marked by some senile symp-
tom, à propitious or unpropitious breeze lifts up the
lace of the mask, the face shows, and the black
phantom becomes a woman.

It is the same way in the East. The ample merino
drapery, which resembles a dressing-gown or a bath-
robe, soon loses its mystery; the yashmak becomes
unexpectedly transparent, and in spite of all the gar-
ments with which Mussulman jealousy clothes her,
a Turkish woman, when you do not absolutely stare
at her, soon becomes as visible as a French woman.
The ferradje which conceals her form may also reveal
it; the folds, purposely drawn tight, will exhibit what
they ought to conceal; by opening it under pretext
of rearranging it, a Turkish coquette — there are
such — sometimes exhibits through the opening of
her gold-embroidered, velvet jacket a superb bosom
scarcely concealed by a gauze chemise, and marble
breasts that owe nothing to the shams of the corset.

T'hose among them who have pretty hands know very

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THEEBEMEFTERY AT: 'SCUTARI

well how to put out their slender fingers tinged with
henna from the mantle in which they are wrapped;
there are certain ways of making the muslin of the
yashmak opaque or transparent by doubling it or
using a single fold. This white mask, importunate
at first, can be placed higher or lower, the space which
separates it from the head-dress may be narrowed or
broadened. Between these two white bands shine like
black diamonds, like jet stars, the most wonderful eyes
in the world, brightened by kohl, and concentrating in
themselves the whole expression of the faintly seen
face.

Walking slowly in the centre of the road, I was able
to review at my leisure this gallery of Turkish beauties,
just as Î might have inspected a row of boxes at the
Opera. My red fez, my buttoned frock-coat, my
dark complexion and my beard enabled me to be easily
confounded amid the crowd ; I did not look too scandal-
ously Parisian.

On the drive at Haïdar Pacha filed gravely by arabas,
talikas, and even coupés and broughams filled with very
richly dressed ladies, whose diamonds, scarcely dead-
ened by the white mist of muslin, sparkled in the

sunshine, like stars behind à light cloud. Khavasses on

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CONSTANTINOPLE

horseback and on foot accompanied some of these car-
riages, in which odalisques of the imperial harem were
idly whiling away the weary hours. Here and there
groups of five or six women rested in the shade,
guarded by a eunuch, close to the araba which had
brought them, and seemed to be posing for a picture by
Decamps or Diaz. The great gray oxen chewed the
cud peacefully and shook, to drive away the flies, tufts
of red wool suspended from the curved sticks planted
in their yoke and tied to their tails by a string. With
their grave looks and their frontlets studded with steel
plates, these splendid animals looked like priests of
Mithra or Zoroaster.

The vendors of snow water, sherbet, grapes, and
cherries passed from one group to another offering
their wares to the Greeks and Armenians, and con-
tributed to the animation of the picture. T'here were
also sellers of Smyrna carpous cut in slices, and of
rosy watermelons. Horsemen riding handsome steeds
performed fantasias at a distance from the carriages,
no doubt in honour of some invisible beauty. The
thorough-breds of Nedji, Hedjaz, and Kourdistan
proudly shook their long, silky manes and shone in

their housings studded with gems, feeling themselves

124

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THBYCEMETERT AT /SCUTARI

admired, and sometimes when a horseman had turned
his back, a lovely head would show at the window of |
a talika.

The sun was setting, and I returned, thoughtful and
a prey to vague desires, towards Scutari, where my caïdji
was patiently waiting for me between a cup of muddy
coffee and a chibouque of latakieh, as he had the right
to do, being a Greek and a Christian, not subject to the

rigours of Ramazan.

125

THE SULTAN AT THE MOSQUE

T is customary for the Padisha to go in state
every Friday to a mosque to pray in public.
Friday, as every one knows, is to Mussulmans

what Sunday is to Christians and Saturday to Jews, a
day particularly devoted to religious practices, although
it does not involve the idea of obligatory rest.

Every week the Commander of the Faithful visits a
different mosque, Saint Sophia, Souleiman, Osmanieh,
Sultan Bayezid, Yeni Valideh Djami, the Tulip Mosque,
or any other, according to an itinerary settled upon and
published beforehand. Besides the fact that prayer in
a mosque is obligatory on that day in accordance with
the precepts of the Koran, and that the Padisha, as
head of the church, cannot avoid it, there is also a
political reason for this official practice of piety. The
object is to make the people see for themselves that
the Sultan is alive; for the whole week he remains
shut up within the mysterious solitudes of the Seraglio

or the summer palaces scattered on the shores of the

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aide sie cie 5e

TAC) SULTAN AT THE’ MOSOUE

Bosphorus. By traversing the town on horseback,
plainly visible to all, he certifies to the people and the
foreign ambassadors that he is alive; a precaution
which is not needless, for it would be easy, for the
sake of palace intrigues to conceal his natural or
violent death. Even serious sickness does not interrupt
the performance, for Mohammed I, son of Mustapha,
died between the two gates of the Seraglio on return-
ing from one of these Friday excursions on which he
had gone although he could scarcely keep in his saddle
and had to be rouged to conceal his pallor.

I learned by the dragoman of the hotel that the
Sultan was to go from the palace of Tcheragan to
Medjidieh, situated close by. Medjidieh is connected
with the palace, the façade of which looks out upon
the Bosphorus, and on that side consists simply of
great walls topped by the chimneys of the kitchens.
These chimneys are painted green, and are in the shape
of columns. The mosque is quite modern, and its
architecture, with Genoese rococo volutes and foliage,
has nothing noticeable, although its dazzling whiteness
makes it stand out well against the dark blue sky.

The door of the mosque was open, and [I had a

glimpse of the various pachas and high officers, wearing

127

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CONSTANTINOPLE

the tarboush, their breasts blazing with gold, their
shoulders set off by big epaulettes. They were per-
forming, in spite of their obesity, the rather compli-
cated pantomimes called for by Oriental prayer. They
knelt and rose heavily, with apparently sincere faith,
for philosophical ideas have progressed much less in
Constantinople than people think. Even Turks brought
up in Europe show themselves, on their return from
London and Paris, none the less attached to the Koran.
It needs but a slight scratching of their varnish of
civilisation to come upon the faithful believer.

Black slaves and syces held horses or walked them
round. These animals, covered with superb housings,
had brought the sultan and his suite. They were very
handsome, robust, and solid-looking, although without
the muscular elegance of the Arab horse; but they are
said to possess remarkable endurance. The light
desert steeds would break down under the weight of
the heavy Turkish horsemen, who are most of them
excessively stout, especially when they have attained to
high rank. These horses are all of a particular Bar-
bary breed. The sultan’s was easily known by the
gems that starred the schabrach, and by the imperial

cipher, embroidered in a complicated arabesque at every

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THR' SULTAN AT THE MOSQUE

corner of the velvet, which almost disappeared under
the ornamentation.

Files of soldiers were drawn up along the walls,
awaiting the coming out of His Highness. ‘They wore
the red tarboush, and their uniform, not unlike the
undress uniform of our troops of the line, consisted of
a round jacket of blue cloth and trousers of coarse
white linen. This costume contrasts curiously with
the characteristic, tanned faces, that a Janissary’s tur-
ban would become a great deal better.

On the floor of the mosque was stretched a rather
narrow band of black cashmere for the Sultan to walk
upon. Ît led from the gate over the steps to a marble
horse-block, like those seen at the entrances of palaces
and near the landing-places of caïques. Ithink, though
J am not certain, that this black carpet is specially
reserved for the Sultan as Grand Khan of T'artary.

Genuflections, prostrations, and psalm-singing went
on within the sanctuary, and the noonday sun, shorten-
ing the shadows, made the paving-stones on the square
shine again, while the white walls reflected the blinding
light, which was the more unpleasant for the three or
four ladies who happened to be there because etiquette

forbids opening a parasol in the presence of the Sultan

9 129

tidiiédibébidibitiiittél
CONSTANTINOPLE

or even in front of the palaces in which he dwells.
In the East the parasol has always been the emblem of
supreme power; the master is in the shade, while the
slaves roast in the sun.

On this point, as on many others, etiquette has been
relaxed, and one would not run any risk nowadays by
breaking the rule, but well-bred strangers always con-
form to it. What is the good of shocking the habits
of the country one visits, — habits which are due to
some good reason and often are not more ridiculous
than our own?

Some commotion was now visible within the
mosque; the officers put on their boots at the door,
the syces brought the Sultan’s horse to the horse-block,
and soon, between two files of viziers, pachas, and
beys, bowing to him in Oriental fashion, a bow which
I greatly prefer for its respectful grace to the European
bow, appeared His Highness, Sultan Abul Medjid,
standing out in the light against the dark background
of the door, the frame of which formed a setting for
him. His dress, which was very simple, consisted of
a sort of sack coat of dark blue cloth, trousers of
white silk, patent-leather boots, and a fez to which

the imperial aigrette of heron’s plumes was fixed by

130

LétieseLséetssttstdst.thede de
THE SULTAN AT THE MOSQUE

a clasp of huge diamonds. Through the opening
of his coat showed gold embroidery. I greatly regret,
for my part, the former Oriental magnificence. I
Jooked for sultans as impassible as idols in reliquaries
of gems, something like peacocks of power, blooming
amid an aureole of suns. In despotic countries the
sovereign cannot segregate himself too much from
humanity by imposing, solemn, and hieratic forms, by
a dazzling, chimerical, and fabulous display of luxury.
As God to Moses, he ought to appear to his people only
in a burning bush of blazing diamonds.

However, in spite of the austere simplicity of his
dress, Abdul Medjid’s rank was plain to every one.
Utter satiety was visible on his pale face ; the assurance
of irresistible power gave to his features, not very
regular, a marmorean tranquillity; his fixed, motionless
eyes, piercing, and lacklustre, seeing everything and
looking at nothing, did not resemble the eyes of men.
À short, somewhat thin brown beard fringed the sad,
imperious, and gentle face.

With a few paces taken extremely slowly and rather
gliding than walking, the steps of a god or a phantom
that does not progress like a man, Abdul Medjid crossed

the steps separating the gate of the mosque from the

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CONSTANTINOPLE
stirrup-block, walking along the band of black stuff on

which no one but he set foot, and rather let himself
slide than got on to the saddle of his horse, which was as
motionless as if carved out of stone. The stout officers
hoisted themselves up with greater difficulty on top of
their respective saddles, and the procession started to
return to the palace amid cries of “Long live the
Sultan !” uttered in Turkish by the soldiers with
genuine enthusiasm.

During the defile, the band played a march arranged
on Turkish motives by the brother of Donizetti, who is
band-master to the Sultan, and with enough kettle-
drums and dervishes’ flutes to satisfy Mohammedan
ears, without, however, shocking Catholic ones. The
march has a good deal of dash, and is rather char-
acteristic.

Then every one entered the palace, through the
open gate of which I could see the great modern court.
The doors were closed, and no one was left in the
street but a few sight-seers scattering in different direc-
tions, Bulgarian peasants with coarse blouses and fur
caps, and old mummified beggar-women squatting in
their rags along the burning hot walls.

The noonday silence fell upon the mysterious

132

EN SEOAEOAETEEEEEEEON A

= # + de die Ve die =
THE, SULTAN AT THE MOSQUE
palace which, behind its trellised windows, contains so
much weariness and languor. I could not help thinking
of all the treasures of loveliness lost to human gaze,
of all the marvellous beauties of Greece, Circassia,
Georgia, India, and Africa that vanish without having
been reproduced by marble or on canvas, without art
having made them immortal and bequeathed them to
the loving admiration of centuries; of the Venuses
who will never have 2 Praxiteles, of the Violantes
deprived of a Titian, of the Fornarinas whom no

Raphael will see,

190

1
{
|

Lititéetssetetketéedtéedstéd de
WOMEN

r HE first question asked of any traveller who
returns from the East is, What about the
women?” However much it may hurt

my self-love, Ï must humbly confess that I have noth-

ing to say in the way of love affairs, and I am forced
to my great regret to omit from my story any account
of amourous and romantic adventures. And yet it
would have been so pleasant to vary my tale of ceme-
teries, tekiehs, mosques, palaces, and kiosks; for noth-
ing better sets off an account of a voyage to the

East than an old woman who, at the corner of a

deserted lane, signs to you to follow and introduces

you by a secret door into an apartment adorned with
all the splendour of Asiatic luxury, where you find
awaiting you, seated upon brocaded carpets, a sultana
covered with gold and gems.

It is true that Turkish women go out freely, repair
to the Sweet Waters of Asia and Europe, drive at

Haïdar Pacha, on Sultan Bayezid Square, sit on the

134

bit + dt bb che cheb ch db fe dd
WOMEN

mounds in the cemeteries at Pera and Scutari, spend
whole days bathing and visiting their friends, go to the
play at Kadikeuï, watch the tricks of the jugglers at
Psammathia, chat under the arcades of the mosques,
stop at the shops in the Bezestan, travel on the Bos-
phorus in caïques or steamboats; but they have always
with them two or three companions, either a negress or
an old woman as a duenna, and if they are rich, a
eunuch, who is often jealous on his own account;
when they are alone, which sometimes happens, a child
serves to maintain respect for them; and if they have
no child, public custom watches over and protects
them, perhaps even more than they desire. The free-
dom which they enjoy is but apparent.

Strangers have believed they have had love ad-
ventures because they have mistaken Armenian for
Turkish women, both wearing the same costume save
the yellow boots, and the Armenians imitating Turkish
manners suffciently well to deceive a stranger; but in
reality Turkish life is hermetically closed, and it is
very difficult to know what goes on behind the closely
trellised windows in which are cut small holes as in the
drop curtain of a theatre, to enable those behind to

iook out.

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om eo de cv

CONSEANEINOPLE

Nor is it any use to ask for information from the
natives themselves. As Alfred de Musset says at the
beginning of Namouna,” —

«The deepest silence in this story reigns.””

To speak to a Turk of his wife is the worst of
manners; not the faintest allusion must ever be made
to the delicate subject. The French minister’s wife,
desiring to give Reschid Pacha some beautiful Lyons
silks for his harem, said to him as she handed them
over : Here are stuffs which you will know best how
to use.” If she had expressed more clearly the inten-
tion of her gift, it would have been a rudeness, even
to Reschid, accustomed to French manners, and the
exquisite tact of the marchioness made her choose a
graciously vague form which could in no wise wound
Oriental susceptibilities.

It will easily be understood, when these are the
ways of the people, that it would be a great mistake to
ask of a Turk information concerning the inner life
of the harem and the character and manners of Mus-
sulman women. Even if one has known him familiarly
in Paris, even if he has drunk two hundred cups of
coffee and smoked as many pipes on the same divan as

yourself, he will merely give an evasive answer, get

136

very angry, and avoid you thereafter. Civilisation, in
this respect, has not made the smallest progress. The
only way to learn anything is to ask some European
lady who has been well recommended and who is
received in a harem, to tell you exactly what she has
seen. À man must give up all hope of knowing any-
thing more of Turkish beauty than the domino shows
or the glimpse he may have caught of it under the
awning of an araba, behind the windows of a telika,
or under the shade of the cypresses in a cemetery, when
heat and solitude suggest that the veil may be slightly
drawn aside. Even then, if one draws too near and
there happens to be a Turk in the neighbourhood, one
is exposed to receive compliments of this sort: “ Dog
of a Christian! Giaour! May the birds of heaven
soil your chin! May the plague dwell in your home |
May your wife be barren !” a Biblical and Mussulman
curse most seriously spoken. And yet the anger is
feigned rather than real, and is principally intended for
the gallery. A woman, even a Turkish woman, is
never sorry to be looked at, and to keep her beauty
secret always annoys her somewhat.

At the Sweet Waters of Asia, by remaining motion-

less against a tree or leaning against the fountain like

Yi

titétitéetsedtéetéeéebétkbéddkhé
CONSTANTINOPLE

one slumbering and dreaming, Î managed to catch a
glimpse of more than one lovely profile scarcely con-
cealed by the finest of gauze, of more than one pure
bosom white as Parian marble, swelling under the
folds of a half-opened ferradje, while the eunuch, reas-
sured by my careless, idle look, was walking about at
some distance, or watching the steamers on the
Bosphorus.

For the matter of that, the Turks are no better of
than the giaours. Even in the houses of their most
intimate friends, they never get beyond the se/zmlik, and
they are acquainted with their own wives only. When
one harem pays à visit to another, the slippers of the
visitors placed on the threshold forbid entrance even
to the master of the house, who is thus turned out
of his own place. An immense feminine population,
anonymous and unknown, transformed into a perpetual
masked ball, moves in the mysterious city, but the
dominoes have not the right to unmask. Fathers and
brothers alone have the right to see uncovered the
faces of their daughters and sisters, which are veiled
in the presence of less close relatives ; so a Turk very
likely has not seen in the course of his life more than

five or six faces of Mussulman women.

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WOMEN

Large harems are owned by viziers, pachas, beys,
and other wealthy persons only, every woman who
becomes a mother having the right to a separate house-
hold and slaves of her own. Most Turks are satisfied
with one legitimate wife, although they may have as
many as four, and also one or two purchased concu-
bines. The remaining members of the sex are to
them as phantoms or chimeras. It is true that they
can make up for it by looking at the Greek and
Armenian women, the Jewesses, the ladies of Pera and
the few lady tourists who visit Constantinople.

Let me give a description of a Turkish interior
taken down from the account of a lady invited to
dinner by the wife of an ex-pacha of Kurdistan.
This lady had been in the seraglio before she married
the pacha. When they have attained the age of thirty,
the Sultan gives their freedom to a number of his
slaves, who usually marry very well on account of the
relations which they maintain with the palace, and the
influence which they are supposed to exert. Besides,
they have been very well brought up: they can read,
write, rime verses, dance, play on various instruments,
and they have the high-bred manners acquired at court.

They also possess in a very high degree a knowledge
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CONSTANTINOPLE

of intrigues and cabals, and often, through their friends
who remain in the harem, learn political secrets, which
their husbands turn to account either to obtain à favour,
or to avoid being disgraced. To marry a lady of the
seraglio is therefore a very wise step on the part of
an ambitious or a prudent man.

The room in which the pacha’s wife received her
guest was elegant and rich, contrasting with the
severe nudity of the selamlik. The three outer walls
were filled with windows to admit as much air and
light as possible. A hothouse gives an accurate idea
of these rooms, themselves intended for the keeping of
precious flowers. À magnificent, soft Smyrna carpet
covered the floor; the walls were decorated with
painted and gilded arabesques and knots; a long blue
and yellow satin divan ran down two sides of the
room; another small and very low divan was placed
between two windows from which there was a view of
the splendid panorama of the Bosphorus. Squares of
blue damask were thrown here and there on the
carpet.

In à corner sparkled a great emerald-coloured Bohe-
mian glass ewer with gold ornaments, placed upon a

tray of the same material; in the other corner was a

140

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Da
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Le
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os
ir
ie
te
LS

tétdtétdk

coffer of goffered, ornamented, piqué and gilded leather
in the most charming taste. Unfortunately this Ori-
ental luxury was marred by a mahogany chest of drawers,
on the marble top of which was placed a clock under a
glass shade between two vases of artificial flowers, also
under glass shades, exactly as on the mantelpiece of a
worthy retired Paris tradesman. These discords, pain-
ful to an artist, are met with in every Turkish house
with any pretensions to good taste. À room less richly
ornamented and opening out of the first was used as a
dining-room and led to the service staircase.

The hostess was sumptuously dressed, as all Turk-
ish ladies are at home, especially when they expect a
visit. Her black hair, divided into an infinite number
of small tresses, fell down her cheeks and over her
shoulders. (On her head sparkled a sort of diamond
helmet formed of the quadruple chains of a rivière of
diamonds and of gems of purest water sewn upon a
small, sky-blue satin cap, which disappeared almost
wholly under the jewels. This splendid head-dress
thoroughly became the noble and severe character of
her beauty, her brilliant black eyes, her thin, aquiline
nose, her red lips, her long oval face; she had the
mien of a haughty and kindly lady of rank.

I41
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bittéetitéettktdddd dede des
CONSFANTINMOPLE

On her somewhat long neck was a necklace of
large pearls, and through the opening in her silk
chemise showed the upper part of lovely, well shaped
breasts which had no support from stays, an instru-
ment of torture unknown in the East. She wore a
gown of dark garnet silk open in front like a man’s
pelisse, and on the sides from the knee down, with a
train behind like a court dress. ‘The gown was edged
with a white ribbon puffed in rosettes at regular
intervals. A Persian shawl fastened round her waist
the full white taffeta drawers, the falling folds of which
covered small slippers of yellow morocco, of which
only the upturned tips could be seen.

She placed the stranger by her on the small
divan with much grace, after having, however, offered
her a chair to sit in European fashion if the Turkish
seat should be inconvenient : and she examined her dress
curiously without any marked affectation, as a well-bred
person may do when she sees something new. (Conver-
sation between people who do not speak the same
language and are reduced to pantomime could not be
very varied. The Turkish lady asked the European if
she had children, and gave her to understand that to her
great grief she herself was deprived of that happiness.

_…

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WOMEN

When the hour for the repast came, they went into
the next room, around which also were divans, and a
polished brass table covered with meats was brought in.
À favourite slave of the £hanoum shared the meal by her
mistress’s side. She was a handsome maid of seven-
teen or eighteen years of age, robust, lovely, splendidly
developed, but greatly inferior in breeding to the ex-
odalisque of the seraglio. She had great black eyes,
broad eyebrows, rich red lips, round cheeks, a some-
what rustic glow of health over her face, white, firm
arms, large breasts, and a wealth of contours which
her loose costume enabled one to perceive freely.
She wore a small Greek cap from which her brown
hair escaped in two heavy plaits, and was dressed in a
jacket of a light pistachio yellow very light and soft in
tone, which French dyers have never managed to
reproduce. This vest, slashed on the sides and back so
as to form basques, had short sleeves from which
emerged silk gauze undersleeves. Great full drawers
of muslin completed the costume, as simple as it was
graceful.

À mulatto woman, the colour of new bronze, with
a bit of white drapery twisted around her head, and

wrapped carelessly in a white habbarah that brought

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CONSTANT INUOUPEE

out splendidly the dark colour of her skin, stood bare-
footed by the door taking the dishes from the hands of
two servants who brought them from the kitchen, situ-
ated on the lower floor.

After dinner the khanoum rose and passed into the
drawing-room, where she went from one divan to
another, gracefully nonchalant. Then she smoked a
cigarette, instead of the traditional narghileh, for cigar-
ettes are now the fashion in the East, and there are as
many papelitos smoked in Constantinople as in Seville.
The Turkish women love to fill up their leisure by
rolling the golden latakieh in the thin paper. The
master of the house came to pay a visit to his wife and
the European lady, but on hearing him coming, the
young slave fled in the greatest haste; belonging to the
khanoum alone and already engaged, she could not
appear with uncovered face before the ex-pacha of
Kurdistan, who, for the matter of that, had but one
wife, like many Turks.

After a few minutes the pacha withdrew to say his
prayers in the next room, and the khanoum called her
slave.

The hour of leave-taking had come. The stranger

rose to go. The hostess signed to her to remain a

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WOMEN

little longer, and whispered a few words to the young
slave, who began to rummage in the drawers very
energetically, until she found a small object enclosed in
a case, which the pacha’s wife handed to her visitor as
a graceful remembrance of the pleasant evening spent
together. The case, which was of lilac cardboard
glazed with silver, contained a small crystal vial on
which was the following label : “ Extract for the hand-
kerchief. Paris. Honey,” and on the other side:
“ Double extract, guaranteed quality of honey. L. TT.
Piver, 103 Rue Saint-Martin, Paris.”

10 145

tééééébététéetétbététééééé
CONSTANTINOPLE

Lktbt tkt kb dde dd dde de eh
THE BREAKING OF MAELFAST

HAVE several times mentioned the caïque, and
one cannot well do otherwise when speaking of
Constantinople ; but I perceive that I have not

described it, though it is worth doing so, for unques-
tionably the caïque is the most graceful craft that ever
furrowed the blue waters of the sea. By its side the
elegant Venetian gondola is but a rough box, and gon-
doliers are wretched louts compared with the caïdjis.
The caïque is a boat fifteen to twenty feet long by
three feet beam, cut in the shape of a skate, and
double-ended so that it can proceed in either direction.
The rail is formed of two long planks carved on the
inner side with a frieze of foliage, flowers, fruits, knots
of ribbon, quivers, and other ornaments of the kind.
Two or three planks, open-worked and forming braces,
divide the boat and strengthen the sides against the pres-
sure of the water. The prow is armed with a bronze
beak. The craft is built of ash polished or varnished,

relieved occasionally with a gold line, and is kept ex-
LAN Le AO RAA EAU A ne SEL NS BR ta
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THE BREAKING OF THE FAST

tremely clean and elegant. The caïdjis, who each pull
a pair of sculls larger at the handle by way of counter-
weight, sit upon small thwarts covered with a sheep-
skin, to prevent slipping as they pull, and their feet rest
against wooden stretchers. The passengers seat them-
selves on the bottom of the boat, at the stern, so as to
bring the prow a little out of the water, which makes the
boat travel very easily. The boatmen often grease the
outside of the boat in order to prevent the water adher-
ing toit. À more or less costly carpet is laid down in
the stern sheets of the caïque, and it is necessary to pre-
serve the most complete immobility, for the least abrupt
movement would upset the craft, or at all events make
the caïdjis hit their hands, for they row overhanded.
The caïque is as sensitive as a pair of scales, and heels
over if the equilibrium is disturbed even for a moment.
The gravity of the Turks, who do not move any more
than idols, is admirably suited to this constraint, painful
at first to the more spirited giaours, though they soon
acquire the habit of it.

À two-sculled caïique can hold four persons seated
opposite to each other. In spite of the heat of the sun
the boats have no awning, for it would cause windage

and would be contrary to Turkish etiquette — awnings

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CONSTANTINOPLE

being reserved for the sultan’s caïques; but a parasol
may be used, provided it be closed when passing near the
imperial residences. ‘These boats can keep up with a
horse trotting on the bank, and often distance it.

Each boat has on the bow a plate with the name of
the landing where it is stationed: Top Khaneh, the
Galata, the Green Kiosk, Yeni Valideh Djami, Be-
schicktasch. ‘The caïdjis, or rowers, are mostly superb
Arnaouts or Anatolians, of great manly beauty and of
herculean strength. Air and sunshine tanning their
skin have given them the colour of the splendid
bronze statues of which they already have the form.
Their dress consists of full linen drawers, dazzlingly
white, a striped gauze shirt with slit sleeves which
leave the arms free, and a red fez with a blue or
black tassel half à foot long, fitting close to their
shaven temples. A woollen girdle, striped red and
yellow, is twisted several times around their loins and
sets off their busts. They wear a moustache only, in
order not to be heated by useless hair. They are
bare-lessed and bare-footed, and their open shirt shows
powerful pectoral muscles tanned to a rich colour. At
every stroke their biceps swell and fall like cannon-

balls on their athletic arms. The obligatory ablutions

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THR BREAKING OF THE FAST

keep these handsome bodies scrupulously clean, and
they are made healthy by exercise, open air, and a
sobriety unknown to Northern people. The caïdjis,
in spite of their hard work, live as a rule on bread,
cucumbers, maize, and fruit, drinking nothing but pure
water and coffee; and those among them who profess
the religion of the prophet will row from morning to
evening without smoking or drinking a drop of water
during the thirty days of the Ramazan fast. I think
I do not exaggerate when I estimate at three or four
thousand the number of caïdjis who serve at the differ-
ent landings of Constantinople and the Bosphorus, as
far as T'herapia or Buyoukdereh. The situation of the
town, separated from its suburbs by the Golden Horn,
the Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmora, renders con-
stant water travel necessary. You have constantly to
take a caïique to go from Top Khaneh to Seraglio
Point, from Beschicktasch to Scutari, from Psammathia
to Kadikeuï, from Kassim Pacha to Phanar, and from
one side to the other of the Golden Horn, if you hap-
pen to be too far from one of the three bridges of boats
that cross the harbour.

It is most amusing, when you reach one of the

landings, to see the caïdjis hasten up and fight for your

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CONSTANTINOPLE

custom as formerly the stage-coach drivers used to do
for travellers, swearing at each other with amazing
volubility, and offering to take you at a reduced price.
The tumult is increased occasionally by the barking of
the frightened dogs which are trampled upon in the
heat of the debate. At last, pushed, shoved, elbowed,
dragged, you remain the prey of one or two gigantic
fellows, who carry you off in triumph towards their boat
through the growling groups of their disappointed
brethren.

To board a caïque without making it turn bottom
up is a rather delicate operation. A good old Turk
with a white beard, his complexion burned by the sun,
steadies the boat with a stick provided with a bent
nail, and you give him a para for his services. It is
not always easy to get clear of the flotilla crowding
around each landing-place, and it takes the incom-
parable skill of the caïdjis to manage it without colli-
sions and without accident. When landing, every
caïque is turned around so as to bring it in stern first,
and this manœuvre might involve dangerous collisions
if the caïdjis had not, like the Venetian gondoliers,
conventional cries of warning. When you land, you
leave the price of the trip at the bottom of the boat on

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titétéetéetéeetédddddd ke
THE BREAKING OF THE FAST

the carpet, in piastres or beschliks, according to the
trip and the price agreed upon.

The business of the Constantinople caïdjis would be
very profitable, but for the competition of the steam-
boats which are now beginning to travel up and down
the Bosphorus as they do on the T'hames. From the
Bridge of Galata, beyond which they cannot go, there
start at every hour of the day numbers of Turkish,
English, and Austrian steamers, the smoke of which
mingles with the silvery mists of the Golden Horn,
and which transport travellers by hundreds to Bebek,
Arnaoutkeui, Anadoli Hissar, Therapia, and Buyouk-
dereh on the European shore ; to Scutari, Kadikeuï and
the Isles of the Princes on the Asiatic shore. For-
merly these trips had to be made in caïques, and cost
much time and money on account of their length,
being also somewhat perilous because of the violent
currents and the wind, which may at any moment
freshen up as it blows from the Black Sea.

The caïdjis seek in vain to rival the speed of the
steamers. Their muscles strive uselessly against the
steel pistons. Soon they will have to be satisfied with
the shorter intermediary trips, and the old retrograde
Turks, who weep at the Elbicei Atika as they behold

151

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LititéeLessesettstttdbtbd dd

evo vre eve

CONSTANTINOELE

the costumes of the vanished janissaries, alone will
make use of them to repair to their summer houses
through hatred of the diabolical inventions of the
glaours.

There are also omnibus caïques, heavy craft carrying
some thirty people and pulled by four or six rowers
who at every stroke rise, ascend a wooden step and
throw themselves back with all their weight to move
the huge sweeps. These automatic motions, repeated
constantly, produce the strangest effect. This econom-
ical and slow method of travelling is employed by sol-
diers, hammals, poor devils, Jews, and old women, and
the steamship companies will put an end to it whenever
they please, by providing third-class seats and reduced
fares.

The patiently expected time of the breaking of the
fast had now come. It is celebrated by public rejoic-
ings. The Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the
basin of the Sea of Marmora then present the liveliest
and gayest of aspects. All the ships in port are dressed
in many-coloured flags, their ensigns, hoisted chock-a-
block, flying out in the wind. The swallow-tailed
Turkish standard exhibits its three silvery crescents on

a green shield placed on a red field; France unfolds its

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THE BREAKING OF THE FAST

tri-colour; Austria hoists its banner, red and white,
bearing a shield; Russia its blue Saint Andrew’s cross
upon a white field ; England her cross of Saint George ;
America her starry sky; Greece her blue cross with
the black and white checker of Bavaria in the centre ;
Morocco its red pennant; Tripoli its half-moons upon
the prophet’s favourite green colour; T'unis its green,
blue, and red, like a silken girdle; and the sun gleams
and blazes brightly upon all these banners, the reflec-
tions of which lengthen and wind over the illuminated
waters. Volleys of artillery salute the Sultan’s caïque,
which passes by splendid in gold and purple, pulled by
thirty vigorous oarsmen, while the sailors on the yards
cheer and the frightened albatrosses whirl about in the
white smoke.

I take a caïque at Top Khaneh and have myself
rowed from vessel to vessel, to examine the shape of
the different ships, stopping by preference at those
which have come from Trebizond, Moudania, Ismick,
Lampsaki. With their lofty, galleried poops, their prows
swelling like the breasts of swans, and their long an-
tennæ, they cannot be very different from the vessels
that composed the fleet of the Greeks in the days of
the War of Troy. The American clippers, so much

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dites tsetetibtéetbéddkdbed kde
CONSTANTINOPLE

talked about, are far from having the same elegance of
form, and it would not take a great deal of imagination
to fancy that the fair Achilles Peleades is seated on one
of these high poops, floating on the sea into which
flows the Simois.

As we roam around, my boat passes close by the
rocky islet on which rises what the Franks call, no one
knows why, Leander’s Tower, and the Turks Kiss
Koulessi, the Virgins Tower. Needless to say,
Leander has nothing whatever to do with this white
tower, since it was the Hellespont and not the Bospho-
rus which he swam to visit Hero, the lovely priestess
of Venus. The truth is that this tower, — or at least,
a similar one, — built by Manuel Comnenus in the time
of the Lower Empire, held the chain which, fastened
to two other points on the European and the Asiatic
shores, barred the entrance of the Golden Horn to hostile
vessels coming from the Black Sea. If one cares to go
farther back, it appears that Damalis, the wife of
Chares, the general sent from Athens to help the in-
habitants of Byzantium, then attacked by the fleet of
Philip of Macedon, died at Chrysopolis and was buried
on this islet under a monument surmounted by a

heifer.

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THE BREAKING OF THE FAST

The day is devoted to prayers and to visits to the
mosques ; in the evening there is a general illumination.
If the view of the harbor, with all the vessels dressed
and the incessant motion of the boats, was a marvellous
spectacie under a superb Oriental sun, what shall I say
of the festival at night. It is now that I feel the
powerlessness of pen and brush. A panorama alone
could give, with its changing beauty, a faint idea of the
magical effect of the light and shade. Salvos of artil-
lery followed each other incessantly, for the Turks
delight in burning powder. They burst out in every
direction, deafening one with their joyous roar; the
minarets of the mosques were lighted up like light-
houses, the lines of the Koran blazed like letters of fire
against the dark blue of the night; and the many-
coloured, dense crowd, divided into human streams,
poured down the sloping streets of Galata and Pera.
Around the fountain at Top Khaneh sparkled like
glow-worms thousands of lights, and the Mosque of
Sultan Mahmoud sprang heavenward ïillumined by
points of fire.

The boat took us into the harbour and on board of
one of the Lloyd’s steamers, whence we could see Con-

stantinople. Top Khaneh, lighted by red and green
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CONSTANTINOPLE

Bengal fires, flamed in an apotheosis atmosphere,
torn from time to time by the flash of the guns, the
crackling of the fireworks, the zigzags of serpents,
the explosions of bombs. The Mahmoudieh mosque
appeared, through the opal-coloured smoke, like one
of the carbuncle edifices created by the imagination of
the Arab story tellers to lodge the Queen of Peris. It
was fairly dazzling. ‘The vessels at anchor had out-
lined their masts, yards, and rails with lines of green,
blue, red, and yellow lanterns, so that they resembled
vessels of gems floating on an ocean of flame, so bril-
lantly were the waters of the Bosphorus lighted by the
reflections of that conflagration of luminous flower-pots,
suns, and illuminated ciphers. Seraglio Point stretched
out like a promontory of topazes, above which rose,
circled with bracelets of fire, the silvern staffs of Saint
Sophia, Sultan Achmet, and Osmanieh. On the Asi-
atic shore Scutari cast myriads of luminous sparks, and
the two banks of the Bosphorus formed, as far as the
eye could reach, a river of spangles constantly stirred
up by the oars of the caiques. Sometimes a distant
vessel, hitherto unperceived, was lighted up with a purple
and blue aureole and then vanished in the darkness

like a dream. These pyrotechnic surprises had the

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Te ee vre o7e uvre

THE BREAKING OF THE FAST

most charming effect. The steamers, adorned with
coloured lamps, came and went, carrying bands, the
music of which spread joyously abroad with the breeze.
Over all, the sky, as if it also intended to celebrate the
feast, was prodigally lavishing its casket of stars upon
a vault of the darkest and richest lapis-lazuli, and all
the blaze upon earth scarcely managed to cast a red
reflection upon its edges. Here and there after a time
the lights began to pale, there were breaks in the lines
of fires, the guns were fired less frequently, huge banks
of smoke the wind could not dissolve curled over the
water like monstrous forms; the cold dew of night
soaked the thickest clothing. I had to think of
returning, an operation not unattended with dificulty
and peril My caïque was waiting for me at the foot
of the gangway. I haïiled my caïdjis and we were off.

The Bosphorus was filled with the most prodigious
swarm imaginable of crafts of all kinds. In spite of
warning cries, oars interlocked constantly, rail struck
rail, sweeps had to be unshipped along the boats like
insects” legs, to avoid being smashed. The sharp
points of the prows swept within two inches of your
face like javelins or the beaks of birds of prey. The

reflection of the dying blaze casting its last gleams,

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CONSTANTINOPLE

blinded the caïdjis and made them mistake their road.
A boat going at full speed nearly ran us down, and we
should surely have suffered that fate if the oarsmen,
with incomparable skill, had not backed water with
superhuman vigour. At last I arrived safe and sound,
at Top Khaneh, through the glitter and sparkle of the
waves, in a riot of boats and cries fit to drive one mad,
and Î returned, stepping carefully over camps of sleep-
ing dogs, to the Hôtel de France on the Little Field
by streets which were gradually becoming more and

more deserted.

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THEIWALRS
OF'CONSTANTINOPLE

HAD resolved to make a grand round of the

outer quarters of Constantinople, seldom visited

by travellers, whose curiosity scarcely leads them
beyond the Bezestan, the Atmeïdan, Sultan Bayezid’s
Square, the Old Seraglio, and the neighbourhood of
Saint Sophia, in which are concentrated the whole
movement of Mussulman life. I therefore started
early, accompanied by a young Frenchman who has
long inhabited Turkey.

We rapidly descended the Galata slope, traversed the
Golden Horn on the bridge of boats, and leaving Yeni
Valideh Djami on one side, plunged into a labyrinth
of Turkish lanes. The farther we went, the greater
was the solitude. The dogs, more savage, looked at
us with fierce glances and followed us growling. The
wooden houses, discoloured and tumble-down, with
hanging trellises, out of plumb, looked like ruined

hen-coops. A broken-down fountain filtered water

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LE: dde dt
NS TANT TNOPLIE
into a mouldy shell; a dismantled ##rbeh covered with
brambles and asphodel, showed in the shadow, through
its gratings covered with cobwebs, a few funeral stones
leaning to right and left, the inscriptions of which were
illegible. Elsewhere a chapel with its dome roughly
plastered with lime and flanked by a minaret, resemb-
ling a candle with an extinguisher behind it. Above
the long walls rose the black tops of the cypresses ;
clumps of sycamores and plane-trees hung over the
street. ‘There were no more mosques with marble
columns and Moorish galleries, no more pacha’s
konacks painted in bright colours and projecting their
graceful, aerial cabinets; but here and there great heaps
of ashes amid which rose a few chimneys of blackened
bricks remaining standing, — and over all the wretch-
edness and loneliness, the pure, white, implacable light
of the East which brings out harshly every mean detail.
From lane to lane, from square to square, we
reached a great mournful, ruinous khan, with high
arches and long stone walls, intended to lodge caravans
of camels. It was the hour of prayer, and on the top
gallery of the minaret of the neighbouring mosque two
phantom-like, white-robed muezzins were walking

around calling out in their strange-toned voices the

160

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THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

sacramental formula of Islam to the mute, blind, deaf
houses that were falling here in silence and solitude.
The words of the Koran, that seemed to drop from
heaven, modulated by the suavely guttural voices,
awoke no other echo than the plaintive moan of a dog
disturbed in his dream, and the beating of the wings of
a frightened dove ; nevertheless the muezzins continued
on their impassible round, casting the name of Allah
and his prophet to the four winds of heaven, like sow-
ers who care not where falls the grain, knowing well
that it will find its own furrow. Perhaps even under
these worm-eaten roofs, within those hovels apparently
abandoned, some of the faithful were spreading out
their poor little worn carpets, turning towards Mecca,
and repeating with deep faith, La Ælab, 11 Allah ! ? or
€ Mohammed rasoul Allah ! ”

À mounted negro passed from time to time; an old
woman, leaning against the wall, held out from a heap
of rags a monkey-claw, begging for alms, profiting by
the unexpected opportunity; two or three street boys,
apparently escaped from a water-colour by Decamps,
tried to stuff pebbles into the spout of a dried fountain ;
a few lizards ran in perfect security over the stones,

and that was all.

11 161

CONSTANTINOPLE

We were looking for something to eat, for if we had
satisfied our eyes, our stomachs had received no food
and every minute increased our sufferings. There were
not to be found in this forlorn quarter any of those
appetising eating houses where kabobs dusted with pep-
per spin around before à fire spitted on a perpendicular
spit, none of the stalls upon which baklava is spread out
in large bars which the confectioner’s hand dusts with a
light snow of sugar, none of the splendid places offering
balls of rice enveloped in leaves, and jars in which slices
of cucumber swim inoil, mixed with pieces of meat.
AI we could find to buy were white mulberries and
black soap, which was pretty poor entertainment.

The quarter we next traversed had an entirely
different aspect ; it no longer was Turkish. The half-
opened doors of the houses allowed the interiors to be
seen; at the untrellised windows showed lovely female
heads wearing rose or blue crépon, and crowned with
great plaits of hair in the form of diadems. Young
girls, seated on the threshold, looked freely into the
street, and we could admire, without putting them to
fight, their delicate, pure features, their great blue eyes
and fair tresses. In front of the cafés men in white

fustanellas, red caps, jackets with long braided sleeves

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were swallowing glasses of rak: and getting drunk like
good Christians. We were in Psammathia, the quar-
ter inhabited by rayots, non-Mussulman subjects of the
Porte, who form a sort of Greek colony in the centre
of the Turkish city. Animation had replaced silence ;
joy, sadness; we felt ourselves among a living race
of beings.

We wished to proceed along the outer side of the
old walls of Byzantium from the seashore to Edirneh
Kapou, and even farther if we were not too tired.
I do not believe there exists anywhere on earth a more
austere and melancholy walk than this road which runs
for more than three miles between ruins on the one
hand and a cemetery upon the other. The ramparts,
composed of two rows of walls flanked by square
towers, have at their foot a broad moat now filled by
gardens, and provided with a stone parapet, so that
there were three lines to be crossed. These are the
old walls of Constantinople, such as they have been
left by assaults, time, and earthquakes. In their brick
and stone courses are still to be seen the breaches
made by catapults, balistas, and rams, and the gigantic
culverin, the mastodon of artillery, served by seven

hundred gunners, which threw marble balls weighing

103

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CONSTANTINOPLE

six hundred pounds. Here and there a huge crack has
split a tower from top to bottom, elsewhere a whole
piece of wall has fallen within the moat; but where
the stones fall, the wind brings dust and grains, a
bush rises in place of the fallen battlements and be-
comes a tree, the innumerable roots of the parasitical
plants keep together the falling bricks. The roots of
the arbutus, after having acted as pincers to separate the
joints of the stones, now turn into bolts to hold them
in, and the wall continues uninterruptedly, showing its
broken silhouette against the sky, spreading out its cur-
tains draped with ivy and striped by time with rich,
severe tones. Here and there rise the old gates, of
Byzantine architecture with excrescences of Turkish
masonry. They are still half recognisable. It is dif-
cult to believe there is a living city behind these dead
ramparts, which nevertheless conceal Constantinople.
It is easy to fancy one’s self near one of those cities of
Arab tales, the population of which has been turned
into stone by a spell. A few minarets alone rise above
the vast line of ruins and testify that Islam has set its
capital there. The conqueror of Constantine XIII, if
he were to return to this world, could well repeat his

melancholy Persian quotation: “The spider spins its

164

tééitidtéeteessketeddste dd
THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

web in the palace of the emperors, and the owl sings
its night song on the towers of Ephrasiab.”

Four hundred years ago those red walls, now over-
grown with the vegetation of ruins, slowly perishing in
solitude, and overrun by lizards, saw crowding at their
feet the hordes of Asia, driven on by the terrible
Mohammed II. The corpses of Janissaries and Tima-
riots rolled, covered with wounds, into the moat
where now grow peaceful vegetables ; cascades of blood
flowed down their sides where now hang the filaments
of the saxifrage and of wall-flowers. One of the most
terrible of human struggles, the combat of a race
against a race, of a religion against a religion, took
place in this desert where now reigns the silence of
death. As usual, lusty barbarism won the day over
decrepit civilisation; and while the Greek priest was
frying fish, unable to believe in an attack of Constanti-
nople, the triumphant Mohammed IT was riding his horse
into Saint Sophia, and putting his bloody hand upon the
wall of the sanctuary ; the cross was falling from the top
of the dome to be replaced by the crescent, and from
under a heap of dead was drawn Emperor Constan-
tine, covered with blood, mutilated, and recognisable only

by the golden eagles that clasped his purple cothurns.
165

BALATA. THE PHANAR.
A TURKTSE BATH

EAR the Andrinople Gate we alighted to
drink a cup of coffee and smoke a chi-

bouque in a café filled with a multicoloured

throng of customers, and then continued on our way,
still along the cemetery, which appeared to be endless.
At last, however, we reached the end of the wall and
re-entered the city, riding our tired horses carefully, as
they stumbled against the marble turbans and broken
tombstones that cover the slippery slopes. In this wise
we reached a curious quarter, the appearance of which
was very peculiar. The dwellings were more ruinous
than ever, filthy and wretched, the sulky-looking, blear-
eyed, haggard façades were cracked, disjointed, dis-
located, and rotting ; the roofs looked scurfy and the
walls leprous ; the scales of the grayish wash came off
like the pellicles of a skin disease. Some bleeding
dogs, reduced to skeletons, a prey to vermin and bitten

all over, were asleep in the black, fetid mud. Villain-

166

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CHLLELELELLLSSLLL TELLE EEE EE
BALATA. THE PHANAR

ous rags hung from the windows, behind which, by
standing in our stirrups, we could get a glimpse of
strange faces, sickly and livid, with complexions the
colour of wax and lemon, heads covered with huge
cushions of white linen, and stuck on little, thin, flat-
chested bodies clothed in stuff shining like the cover
of a wet umbrella; dull, colourless, wan eyes, showing
in the yellow faces like bits of coal in an omelette,
turned slowly upon us and then turned again to their
work. Fearful phantoms passed along the hovels, their
brows bound with black-spotted, white rags, as if a
usurer had been wiping his pen on them all day, their
bodies scarce concealed in loathsome garments. We
were in Balata, the Jewish quarter, the Ghetto of
Constantinople. We beheld the result of four centuries
of oppression and insult; the dunghill under which
that nationality, proscribed everywhere, conceals itself
as do certain insects, to avoid its persecutors. It hopes
to escape through the disgust which it inspires; it lives
in dirt and assumes its colour. It is difficult to
imagine anything more loathsome, more filthy, more
purulent. Plica, scrofula, itch, and leprosy, all the
Biblical impurities which it has never got rid of since

the days of Moses, consume it without the people car-

107

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CONSTANTINOPLE

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ing, So thoroughly are they given up to money-
making. They do not even pay attention to plague if
they can make something by the clothing of the dead.
In this hideous quarter crowd together Aaron and
Isaac, Abraham and Jacob. These wretches, some of
whom are millionaires, feed on fish-heads, cast away
because they are considered poisonous. This repulsive
food to which are due certain peculiar diseases, from
which these people suffer, attracts them because it is
exceedingly low in price.

Opposite, on the other side of the Golden Horn, on
a bare, red, dusty slope, lies the cemetery in which are
buried their unhealthy generations. The sun blazes
down upon the shapeless tombstones, no blade of grass
grows around them, no tree casts its shade upon them;
the Turks would not grant that alleviation to the pro-
scribed corpses, and took particular care to make the
Jewish cemetery look like a gehenna. The Jews are
scarcely permitted to engrave a few mysterious Hebraic
characters upon the cubes that dot this desolate and
accursed hill. !

We at last left this ignoble quarter, and turned into
the Phanar quarter, inhabited by Greeks of rank, a sort
of West End by the side of a Court of Miracles.

168

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The stone houses have a fine architectural look. Sev-
eral of them have balconies supported by brackets
carved in the shape of steps or volutes; some of the
older recall the narrow façades of the small mansions
of the Middle Ages, half fortresses, half dwellings.
The walls are thick enough to stand a siege, the iron
shutters are ball-proof, enormous gratings protect the
windows, which are as narrow as those of barbicans;
the cornices are often cut into the shape of battlements,
and project like look-outs, a needless defensive display
useful only against fire, for the powerless flames in
vain seek to sweep through this stone quarter.

It is here that ancient Byzantium has taken refuge,
that live in obscurity the descendants of the Komnenoi,
the Duka, the Palaiologoi, princes without principalities,
whose ancestors wore the purple and in whose veins
flows imperial blood. ‘Their slaves greet them as
though they were kings, and they console each other
for their decadence by these simulacra of respect.
Great wealth is contained within these solid walls,
very ornate internally, but very simple externally; for
in the East wealth is timid and exhibits itself only
when safe from prying eyes. The Phanariotes have

long been famous for their diplomatic skill. Formerly

169

dhitétitéetetsetttttdbbe hé
CONSTANTINOPLE

they directed all the international affairs of the Porte,
but their credit seems to have greatly diminished since
the Greek revoit.

At the end of the Phanar Quarter one enters again
the streets that line the Golden Horn and where
swarms à busy commercial population. At every step
are met hammals bearing a burden hung between them
from a pole, asses harnessed between two long planks,
of which they each support one end, blocking traffic
and breaking down whatever happens to be in their
way when they are obliged to turn into a cross street.
The poor brutes sometimes remain blocked against the
walls of narrow lanes, unable to go forward or back-
ward; soon there results an agglomeration of horses,
foot-passengers, porters, women, children, dogs, grum-
bling, cursing, crying, and barking in every key, until
the ass-driver pulls the animal by the tail and thus
raises the blockade. The crowd disperses and calm
is re-established, not, however, until a number of
blows have been struck, the asses, the innocent
cause of the trouble, naturally getting the greater
part of them.

The ground rises like an amphitheatre from the sea

to the ramparts along which we had just travelled, and

170

titéetisekettéedttbéede cheb de bee
BALATIMIITHE PHANAR

above the maze of roofs of the Turkish houses is seen
here and there a fragment of crenellated wall, or the
arch of an aqueduct, spurning the wretched modern
buildings ready prepared for conflagration, and that a
match would suffice to set on fire. How many Con-
stantinoples have these old, blackened stones already
seen falling in ashes at their feet! A Turkish house a
hundred years old is rare in Stamboul.

The next day [I was somewhat tired, and I resolved
to take a Turkish bath, for there is nothing so restful;
so [I proceeded towards the Mahmoud Baths situated
near the Bazaar. They are the finest and largest in
Constantinople.

The tradition of the antique thermæ, lost with us,
has been preserved in the East. Christianity, by
preaching contempt of matter, has caused to be aban-
doned, little by little, the care of the perishable body,
as smacking too much of paganism. I forget who was
the Spanish monk that, some time after the conquest
of Granada, preached against the use of the Moorish
baths, and charged those who would not give them up
with sensualism and heresy.

In the East, where personal cleanliness is a religious

obligation, the baths have preserved all the refinement

171

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Littéetéetetéetétdékttbd kb
CONSTANTINOPLE

of Greece and Rome. They are large buildings of
fine architecture, with cupolas, domes, pillars of marble,
alabaster, and coloured breccia, and are filled with an
army of bathers and fe/lacks, recalling the scrubbers,
rubbers, and anointers of Rome and Byzantium.
The customer first enters a great hall opening on the
street, enclosed by a portière of tapestry. Near the
door the bath-master is seated on the ground, between
a box in which he puts the receipts, and a coffer in
which are deposited the money, jewels, and other valu-
ables deposited on entering, and for which he becomes
answerable. Around the room, the temperature of
which is about the same as that outside, run two gal-
leries, one above the other, provided with camp-beds.
In the centre of the constantly wet marble pavement à
fountain throws up its jet of water, which splashes into
a double basin. Around the basin are ranged pots of
basil, mint, and other odoriferous plants, the perfume
of which is particularly grateful to the Turks. Blue,
white, and rose striped cloths are drying on cords, or
hung from the ceiling like the flags and standards from
the vaulting of Westminster and the Invalides. On
the beds are smoking, drinking coffee or sherbet, or else

sleeping covered up to the chin like babies, bathers

172

D Re in

CEE LLLISLELSSLELL SELLE SE
BALATA. FHE PHANAR

who are waiting until they have ceased to perspire,
before they dress.

I was taken up into the second gallery by a narrow
wooden stair, and was shown to a bed When I
stripped off my clothes, two attendants wrapped round
my head a napkin in the shape of a turban, and clothed
me from the loins to the ankles in a piece of stuff
that wrinkled on my hips like the loin-cloth of Egyptian
statues. At the foot of the stair I found a pair of
wooden clogs into which I slipped my feet, and my at-
tendants, supporting me under the arms, passed with me
from the first room to the second, the temperature of
which was higher. I was left in it for a few moments
to accustom my lungs to the burning temperature of
the third hall, which is as high as ninety-five to a
hundred degrees.

These baths are different from our vapour baths.
Under the marble flagging a fire is continually burning,
and the water when poured out turns at once into a
white steam, instead of coming from a boiler in strident
jets. They are dry baths, as it were, and the very
high temperature alone provokes perspiration.

Under a cupola fitted with thick panes of greenish
glass through which filters faint daylight, seven or eight

173

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téétetLisssstt tds et de ble

eve ere

CONSTANTINOPILE

slabs very much like tombs are arranged to receive the
bodies of the bathers, who, stretched out like corpses
upon a dissecting table, undergo the first process of 2
Turkish bath. The muscles are lightly pinched, or
rubbed like soft paste, until a pearly sweat comes out
like that formed around the ice-pails used for cham-
pagne. The result is very quickly attained. When
through the open pores the perspiration ran down my
softened limbs, I was made to sit up, slipped on the
clogs in order to avoid touching the burning pavement
with my bare feet, and was led to one of the niches
around the rotunda. In each of these niches there
was à basin of white marble fitted with taps of hot
and cold water. The attendant made me sit down by
the basin, drew on a camels-hair glove, and rubbed
down first my arms, then my legs, then my torso, so
as to bring the blood to the skin, without, however,
scratching or hurting me in the least in spite of the
apparent rough handling. ‘Then with a brass pail he
drew from the basin hot water, and poured it over my
body. When I had dried somewhat, he caught hold
of me again and polished me with the palm of his bare
hand, poured water over me again, rubbed me softly

with long pieces of tow filled with foamy soap, parted

174

titititéeetesetéetddteté kde
BALATA, VTÉE PHANAR

my hair and cleansed the skin of my head, an operation
which is followed by another cataract of cold water to
avoid the congestion which might be caused by the
high temperature. These different ceremonies over, I
was swathed in dry wraps, and taken back to my bed,
where two young lads massaged me for the last time.
I remained about an hour plunged in a dreamy reverie,
drinking coffee and iced lemonade, and when I went
out Ï was so light, so fresh, so supple, so thoroughly free
from fatigue that it seemed to me ‘the angels of heaven

were walking by my side.”

#79

AMAZAN was over. Without desiring in
R the least to reflect upon the zeal of Mussul-

mans, it may be said that the ending of the
fast is welcomed with general satisfaction, for in spite
of the nightly carnival which accompanies the fast, it
is none the less painful. At this time every Turk
renews his wardrobe, and very pretty it is to see the
streets diapered with new costumes in bright, gay
colours, adorned with embroidery in all the brilliancy
of newness, instead of being filled with picturesquely
sordid rags more pleasant to look at in a picture by
Decamps than in reality. Every Mussulman then
puts on his gayest and richest clothes, — blue, rose,
pistachio green, cinnamon, yellow, scarlet, bloom out
on every hand; the muslin turbans are clean, the
slippers free from mud and dust. The metropolis of
Islam has made ïts toilet from top to toe. If a
traveller coming by steamer should land at that time

and go back the next day, he would carry away a very

176

Su.

Létetéetetetetddekébedbebs dk

THE BEÏRAM

different idea of Constantinople from what he would
have after a prolonged stay. The city of the Turks
would strike him as much more Turkish than it
really is.

Through the streets walk, with flutes and drums,
musicians who have serenaded, during Ramazan, the
houses of the wealthy. When the noise they produce
has lasted long enough to attract the attention of the
dwellers in the house, a grating is opened, a hand issues
and drops a shawl, a piece of stuff, a sash, or something
similar, which is immediately hung at the end of a pole
loaded with presents of the same kind. It is the bak-
shish intended to recompense the trouble taken by the
players, usually dervish novices. They are Mussul-
man pifferari, paid at one time instead of getting every
day a sou or a para.

The Beïram is a ceremony something like the Span-
ish kissing of hands, when all the great dignitaries of
the Empire come to pay their court to the Padisha.
Turkish magnificence then reveals itself in all its
splendour, and it is one of the best opportunities for
a stranger to study and admire the luxury usually con-
cealed behind the mysterious walls of the Seraglio. It

is not, however, easy to obtain admission to this func-

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tééééédéébbitébbétth dd

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CONSTAN'RINOPMLE

tion unless one is fictitiously included in the staff of
some hospitable embassy. The Sardinian legation was
kind enough to do me this favour, and at three o’clock
in the morning one of its khavasses was smiting the
door of my hostelry with the hilt of his sword. I was
already up, dressed, and ready to follow him. I de-
scended the stairs in haste, and we began to traverse
the steep streets of Pera, waking hordes of sleeping
dogs that looked up at the sound of our steps and
weakly tried to bark by way of salve to their con-
sciences. We met lines of loaded camels, shaving the
walls of the houses and leaving scarce room to pass.

A rosy tint bathed the upper portion of the painted
wooden houses that border the streets with their pro-
jecting stories and look-outs which no municipal regu-
lations interfere with, while the lower portions were
still plunged in a transparent, azure shadow. Most
charming indeed is dawn as it plays upon these roofs,
domes, and minarets, colouring them with tints fresher
than I have seen anywhere else. They make one feel
close to the land of the rising sun. The sky in Con-
stantinople is not of a hard blue like Southern skies.
It is very like that of Venice, but rather more luminous

and vaporous. The sun, as it rises, draws aside cur-

178

ue BEÏRAM.

tains of silvery gauze. It is only later that the atmos-
phere takes on an azure tint, and when you walk out at
three in the morning, you thoroughly appreciate the
local accuracy of the epithet roddactulos which Homer
invariably bestows upon dawn.

We were to call for a number of persons on our
way. Wonderful to relate, every one was ready, and
having got our little troop together, we descended to
the landing of Top Khaneh, where the embassy caique
awaited us. In spite of the early hour, the Golden
Horn and the broad basin at its entrance were most
animated. Every vessel was already dressed from
stem to stern with many-coloured flags; an infinite
number of gilded and painted boats furnished with
magnificent carpets and propelled by vigorous oars-
men cut through the pearly, rosy waters; the fotilla
bearing pachas, viziers, and beys arriving from their
summer palaces on the banks of the Bosphorus, was
proceeding towards Seraglio Point. The albatrosses
and gulls, somewhat terrified by this premature tumult,
soared above the boats, uttering little cries, and
seemed to drive away with their wings the last
remains of the mist, blown about by the breeze like

swan’s-down.

179

CONSTANTINOPLE

À great mob of caïques crowded around the landing
of the Green Kiosk in front of the Seraglio quay, and
we had considerable difficulty in reaching the shore,
where syces were leading splendid horses waiting for
their masters.

At last the Seraglio Gates were opened, and we
traversed courts planted with cypresses, sycamores, and
plane-trees of monstrous size, bordered by Chinese-
looking kiosks, buildings with crenellated walls and
projecting turrets, recalling faintly English feudal
architecture, a mingling of garden, palace, and fortress ;
and we reached a court in the corner of which rises
the old church of Saint Irenæus, now used as an
arsenal, and containing a small, tumble-down house
pierced with many windows, reserved for the ambassa-
dors, and whence one can see the procession pass as
from a box at the theatre.

The ceremony begins with a religious function.
The Sultan, accompanied by the great dignitaries of
the Empire, goes to pray at Saint Sophia, the metropo-
lis of the mosques of Constantinople. It was then
about six o’clock. Expectation wrought every one up
to a high pitch of excitement; all bent forward to see

if anything was appearing. Suddenly a mighty uproar

180

Ebébé tte db dd
THE BEÏRAM

broke out. It was a Turkish march arranged by
Donizettÿs brother, who is band-master to the Sultan.
The soldiers sprang to their arms and formed a double
line. These troops, who were part of the Imperial
Guard, wore white trousers and red jackets like
English grenadiers in undress. The fez rather suited
the uniform. The officers and the mouschirs bestrode
the handsome horses the syces had been leading.

The Sultan, coming from his summer palace, was
proceeding towards Saint Sophia. First came the
grand vizier, the seraskier, the capitan-pacha and the
various ministers, wearing straight frock coats of
the reform, but so covered with gold braid that it
really required 2 stretch of the imagination to recognise
a European costume, even though the tarbousch had
not made them look suffciently Eastern. They were
surrounded with staff officers, secretaries, and servants
splendidly embroidered, and mounted like their masters
upon fine horses. Next came the pachas, the beys of
provinces, the aghas, the seliktars, and officers of the
four Odas of the Selamlik, whose strange names would
tell the reader nothing, but whose business it is, the
one to take off the Sultan’s boots, another to hold his

stirrup, à third to hand him the napkin, etc., the

181

—

EL EE ES SE ASS TON
téébéédtektkeekédbbdd bed
CONSTANTINOPLE

tzoudahar, or chief of pages, the icoglans, and a crowd
of followers forming the Padisha’s household,.

Then came à detachment of the body-guard, whose
uniform entirely fulfilled the idea of Eastern luxury.
These guards, selected from among the handsomest
men, wear orange-red velvet tunics richly braided and
frogged with gold, white Broussa silk trousers, and a
sort of red toque very like the headgear of our chief-
justices, surmounted by a huge crest of peacock plumes
two or three feet high, recalling the birds’ wings on
Fingals bhelmet in the Ossianic compositions of
painters in the times of the Empire. For offensive
arms they have a curved sabre fastened to a belt
covered with embroidery, and a great halberd, damas-
cened and gilded, the blade of which is ferociously cut
out like the old Asiatic weapons. Next came half a
dozen superb horses, Arabs or Barbs, led by grooms,
caparisoned with magnificent saddle-cloths embroidered
with gold and constellated with gems, bearing the
imperial cipher, the caligraphic complications and
interlacings of which form an extremely elegant
arabesque. ‘The ornamentation was so close that the
red, blue, or green of the stuff almost disappeared.

Luxurious saddles replace in the East luxurious car-

182

4

tiiittiedttikétddd dde dd de

THE BEIRAM

riages, although many pachas have begun to import
coupés from Vienna and Paris The handsome ani-
mals seemed to be conscious of their beauty. The
light fell in silky shimmers on their polished quarters,
their manes flowed in brilliant tresses with every
motion of their head, powerful muscles swelled on their
steel-like legs. They had the gentle, proud air, the
almost human glance, the elasticity of motion, the
coquettish prancings, the aristocratic port of thorough-
bred horses that explain the idolatry and passion of the
Oriental for those superb creatures, the qualities of
which are lauded in the Koran, which recommends
their care in several places, so as to add religious
sanction to this natural taste.

These animals preceded the Sultan, who was riding a
splendid horse whose saddle-cloth sparkled with rubies,
topazes, pearls, emeralds, and other gems, forming the
flowers of the gold-embroidered foliage.

Behind the Sultan marched the Kislar Agassi and
the Capou Agassi, the chiefs of the black and the
white eunuchs ; then a squat, obese, ferocious-looking
dwarf dressed like a pacha, who occupies a post
analogous to that of court jester at the courts of

mediæval kings. ‘This dwarf, whom Paolo Veronese

183

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|

. _— noms

at

bébé dt de

Lo otre ose uie ar orTe o70 e7v ee re

CONSTANTINOPLE

would have put into one of his great feasts, a parrot on
his fist and wearing à particoloured surcoat, or else
playing with a greyhound, had been hoisted, no doubt
by way of contrast, upon the back of a big horse
which he found it difficult to bestride with his bow
legs. I believe this is the only dwarf of the kind now
existing in Europe. The office of Cuillette, Triboulet,
and l’Angeli has been maintained in Turkey only.

The eunuchs no longer wear the tall white cap
which is their distinguishing mark in comic operas;
their dress consists of a fez and frock coat, yet they
have a peculiar look which makes them easily recog-
nisable. The Kislar Agassi is hideous enough, with
his sallow black face, wrinkled and glazed with grayish
tones, but the Capou Agassi is uglier yet, his hideous-
ness not being masked by à negro complexion. His
pasty, unhealthy-looking fat face, seamed with many
wrinkles and of an ugly livid white, in which wink
two dead eyes under pendulous eyelids, and his droop-
ing, ill-tempered lips make him look like an angry
old woman. These two monsters are powerful per-
sonages; they enjoy the revenues of Mecca and
Medina, they are enormously rich, and dispense weal

or woe in the seraglio, although their influence has

184

ti 19

bébé dt A db ets db doebe ele ee ob fe che fe eds che ok cheb
THE BEÏRAM

been greatly diminished nowadays. It is they who
govern despotically the swarms of houris whom no
human glance ever profanes, and it will be read-
ily understood that around them centre innumerable
intrigues.

A squad of body-guards closed the procession. The
brilliant train, — though less varied than formerly,
when the fullest Asiatic luxury shone on the fantastic
costumes of pashas, capidgi-pachas, bostangis, mabaind-
zes, janissaries, with their turbans, kalpaks, Circassian
helmets, wheel-lock arquebuses, maces, bows and ar-
rows, — disappeared through the arch of the passage
leading from the Seraglio to Saint Sophia. Then, about
an hour later, it returned and filed past in the opposite
direction but in the same order.

During this time my companions and myself had
perched ourselves upon a well, boarded over and
forming a sort of tribune in a vast yard planted with
great trees close to the kiosk at the door of which was
to take place the ceremony of the kissing of the feet.
Opposite to us rose a great building surmounted by a
multitude of pillars painted yellow, the bases and capi-
tals picked out in white. The pillars were chimneys

and the great building was the kitchen, for every day

185

bhéiéetéettsdkds dde ee de dec
CONSTANTINOPLE

fifteen hundred people, according to the Turkish
expression, eat the bread of the Grand Seignior.
While waiting for the return of the procession, let
me describe the spot where takes place the kissing of
the feet. It is a great kiosk, the roof of which, sup-
ported by pillars, projects like an awning around the
building ; the pillars, the bases and capitals of which are
carved in the style of the Alhambra, support arcades
and joists which bear up the eaves of the roof; these
on their under part are curiously wrought into lozenges,
compartments, and interlacings. The door, flanked by
two niches, opens amid a mass of carvings, scrolls,
fleurons, and arabesques, among which twist volutes and
rocaille ornaments, no doubt added later, as is often the
case with Turkish palaces. On the wall, on either side
of the door, are painted two Chinese perspectives such
as are seen in children’s comedies, representing galleries,
the checkered black and white pavement of which is
prolonged indefinitely. These curious frescoes must
have been the work of some Genoese journeyman glazier
taken captive by the Moorish corsairs, and produce a
singular effect on this gem of Mussulman architecture.
The Sultan, followed by a few high dignitaries, entered
the kiosk, where he partook of a light collation while

186 L

tétététetidattt dt Et dt
CHE) BE ILRAM

the final preparations for the reception were being made.
In front of the kiosk, between two pillars of the façade
corresponding to the door, was stretched a carpet of
black cashmere, on which was placed a throne, or
rather, a divan in the shape of a sofa, covered with
plates of gold and silver gilt in the Byzantine style.
A footstool to match was placed in front of the throne,
and the band drew up in a semicircle opposite the
kiosk.

When Abdul Medjid reappeared, the band played,
the troops shouted, “Long live the glorious Sultan!”
and a wave of enthusiasm passed over the crowd.
Every one was stirred, even the non-Mussulman spec-
tators. Abdul Medjid stood for a few moments on
the footstool. In his fez was an aigrette of heron’s
plumes clasped with diamonds the mark of supreme
power. He wore a sort of frock coat of dark blue
cloth fastened with a clasp of brilliants; under it
sparkled the gold embroideries of his uniform; white
satin trousers, varnished boots which reflected the light,
and well-fitting, straw-coloured gloves. His dress,
although simple, eclipsed all the splendours of the sub-
ordinate personages. Then he sat down and the pros-

trations began.

187

T3: ete

bb kb db dde dette deb de dote

CONSTANTINOPLE
PR nn NN Drm À 2 VS

It is only the great dignitaries who have the right to
kiss the foot of the Glorious Sultan. This particular
favour is reserved for the vizier, the ministers, and a few
privileged pachas. The vizier, starting from the cor-
ner of the kiosk corresponding to the right of the Sul-
tan, traversed the semicircle along the line of body
guards and bandsmen; then, having afrived opposite
the throne, he advanced to the footstool after having
made an Oriental salutation, and bending over the
master’s foot, he kissed the sacred boot as reverently as
a fervent Catholic kisses the Pope’s slipper. Having
performed this ceremony, he withdrew backward and
made room for another. Seven or eight of the chief
personages of the empire followed, making the same
bow, the same genuflection, the same prostration, and
retiring backward. While this was going on, the Sul-
tan’s face remained impassive, his fixed eyes seemed to
look without seeing, like the marble eyes of a statue ;
not a muscle moved, not a change came over his face,
there was nothing to lead one to suppose he knew what
was going on. Nor, indeed, could the splendid Padisha
notice, considering the prodigious distance which sepa-

rates him from mankind, the humble worms that

crawled in the dust at his feet; and yet his indifferent

188

15 Ur ue

de de dde he ce ce che dde che 8e be cho ch cb el ed ee ob che eh els os hole
THE BEÏRAM

immobility was in no wise magniloquent or affected.
It was the aristocratic and careless disdain of the great
man receiving honours which are due to him without
paying attention to them, the haughty somnolence of a
god tired out by his devotees, who are only too glad
that he condescends to remember them.

This procession of pachas led me to notice a curious
thing, —the fearful stoutness of personages in high
station. ‘They were of absolutely monstrous propor-
tions, like hippopotami, and found it very difficult to
perform the task called for by etiquette. You cannot
imagine the contortions these stout people, obliged to
prostrate themselves to the ground and then to rise up,
had to indulge in. Some who were broader than they
were tall, and looked like globes one on top of the
other, ran the risk of upsetting themselves and remain-
ing prone at the master’s feet.

Next to the pachas came the Sheik ul Islam, in
white caftan and turban of the same colour, with a
gold band across the forehead. The Sheik ul Islam is
in a way the Mohammedan pope, a very powerful and
venerated personage ; therefore when, after having
made the customary salutation, he prepared to pros-

trate himself like the others, Abdul Medjid emerged
189

Shééttdt Et deb ed ds de dede de ects
CONSTANTINOPLE

from his marmorean calm and, satisfied with this mark
of deference, raised him graciously.

The ulemas next passed by, but instead of kissing
the Sultan’s foot, they had to be satisfied with touching
with their lips the edge of his frock-coat, not being
great enough to merit the former favour. At this
point a slight incident occurred. The former Scherif
of Mecca, a little old, brown-faced man with à gray
beard, who had been dismissed on account of his
fanaticism, threw himself at the feet of the Sultan,
who repelled him quickly and thus avoided his homage
while he imperiously made a sign of refusal. Two tall
young fellows, almost like mulattoes, so tanned were
they, wearing long green pelisses and turbans with gold
bands, and who appeared to be the sons of the old
man, also endeavoured to cast themselves at the
Sultan’s feet, but they were not received any better,
and the three of them were escorted out of the place.

After the ulemas came other officers, military or
civil, of lower grade, who could not expect to kiss
either the foot or the frock-coat. A pacha held out to
them the gold fringe of one end of the Sultan’s sash at
the end of the divan. It was enough for them to

touch something belonging to the master. They

190

RS ee Re

RE Re

a

En

db che be ee dde dde be cd «de ed dde efsche che ee cho cd db bo ebe che che che che
THE BEÏRAM

arrived, one after the other, and going around the
whole circle, put their hand to their heart and their
brow, after having placed it almost on the ground,
touched the scarf, and passed on. The dwarf, stand-
ing behind the throne, looked at them with a sarcastic
air and the grimace of a wicked genie. During this
time the band was playing selections from ‘ Elisire
d’'Amore”” and ‘“Lucrezia Borgia,” the guns were
thundering in the distance, and the terrified pigeons on
the mosque of Sultan Bayezid flew away in mad
whirls and soared above the Seraglio gardens. When
the last functionary had paid homage, the Sultan
re-entered his kiosk amid frantic cheering, and I re-
turned to Pera to a breakfast which I stood greatly

in need of,

2% ce de de db de de che co coche cho sed cf che cb ce of ele clos
FIRES

N a town such as Constantinople, built almost
wholly of wood, and with the carelessness which
is the consequence of Turkish fatalism, fires are

considered as minor affairs. A house sixty years old is
rare. Except the mosques and aqueducts, the walls, the
fountains, a few Greek houses in the Phanar quarter,
and a few Genoese buildings in Galata, everything is
built of wood. The vanished centuries have left no trace,
no witness standing on this site constantly swept by
flames. ‘The appearance of the city is entirely re-
newed every half-century, without, however, varying
greatly. I do not speak of Pera, the Marseilles of the
East, which on the site of every wooden house burned
down immediately builds a solid stone edifice, and
which will soon be a thoroughly European city.

At the top of the Seraskierat Tower, a prodigiously
lofty white lighthouse which rises into the heavens not
far from the domes and minarets of Sultan Bayezid,

walks continually a sentry watching the immense

192

nr ET,

w

LE de de de dede bb db dd
MIHCES

horizon unrolled at his feet for the puff of black
smoke, for the flash of red flame springing from a roof.
The moment the watchman perceives an incipient
conflagration, he hangs from the top of the tower a
basket in the daytime and a lantern at night, with a
certain combination of signals that indicates the quar-
ter of the city. À gong sounds, a lugubrious cry of
€ Stamboul hiangin var!” rises in sinister fashion
through the streets, everybody becomes excited, and
the water-carriers, who are also firemen, start off at a
run in the direction indicated by the watchman. A
similar watch is kept on the Tower of Galata, which,
on the other side of the Golden Horn, stands almost
opposite the Seraskierat Tower. The Sultan, the
vizier and the pachas are bound to go in person to a
fire. If the Sultan is withdrawn within his harem
with some of his women, an odalisque dressed in red,
wearing a scarlet turban, goes to the room, raises the
portière, and remains standing silent and sinister.
The apparition of the blazing phantom tells him that
Constantinople is burning and that he has to perform
his duty as a ruler.

[I was one day seated on a tomb, busy scribbling

some verses in the Little Field of the Dead at Pera,

13 193

bébé tte bbbbbbbé db db

en one 7e eve 5 «ge eve cu 7e

CONSTANTENOPLE

when, through the cypresses, I saw rising a bluish
smoke that turned yellow and then black, and through
which flashed flames dulled by the brilliant light of the
sun. Î rose, sought an open spot, and perceived at
the foot of the cemetery hill Kassim Pacha burning.
Kassim Pacha is a pretty mean quarter inhabited by
poor people, Jews and Armenians, and lies between
the cemetery and the Arsenal. Î went down the main
street, bordered by stalls and hovels, the centre being a
filthy gutter, a sort of dpen sewer spanned by culverts
here and there. The fire was still confined to the
neighbourhood of the mosque, the minaret of which was
uncommonly like a candle with a tin extinguisher. I
was afraid to see the minaret disappear in the flames,
when a change of wind drove them in another direc-
tion, so that those who believed they were safe were
suddenly threatened.

The street was full of negresses carrying mattresses
rolled up, hammals bearing boxes, men saving their pipe-
stems, frightened women dragging a child by one hand
and carrying in the other a bundle of clothes, khavasses
and soldiers armed with long poles and hooks, sakkas
traversing the crowd, their pumps on their shoulders,

horsemen galloping off in search of reinforcements

194

LREPRE ES

tititttetiktkéetédkékddbdd dk de
FIRES

without the least thought of foot-passengers; every-
body bumping, jostling, tumbling, with cries and insults
in every language under the sun. The tumult could
not have been worse. Meanwhile the flames were
marching on, broadening the range of the damage.
Fearing to be thrown down and trampled under foot, I
made my way back to the Pera heights and climbing
upon à Marmora marble stone, I gazed, in company
with Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, at the painful
sight at the foot of the hill.

The burning noonday beams fell vertically upon the
roofs of brown tiles, or tarred planks of Kassim Pacha,
one house after another blazing up like a rocket. First
a small jet of white smoke would show through some
crack, then a thin tongue of scarlet flame followed the
white smoke, the house turned dark, the windows
turned red, and in a few minutes the whole of the
building fell in amid a cloud of smoke. Against the
background of blazing vapour showed on the edges of
the roofs, like black silhouettes, men pouring water on
the boards to prevent their catching fire; others, with
hooks and axes, were pulling down walls to contain the
fire. Firemen, standing upon a cross-beam which had

remained intact, were directing the nozzles of their

195

CL LL EE EE EEE EEE CEE
CONSTANTINOPLE

pumps against the flames. From afar these pipes,
with their flexible leather hose and their bright brass
work, looked like angry adders fighting fire-eating
dragons and hurling silver bolts against them. Some-
times the dragon vomited from its black bowels a
whirlwind of sparks to drive back the adder, but the
latter returned to the charge, hissing and furious, hurl-
ing a lance of water that sparkled like diamonds. After
alternations of diminution and increase, the fire died
out for lack of material. There was nothing to be
seen but smoking ruins.

The next day I visited the place. Two or three
hundred houses had burned down. It was not much,
if one takes into account the extreme combustibility
of the material. The mosque, protected by its stone
walls and cloister, had remained intact. On the site
of the burned hovels rose the brick chimneys that had
resisted the fire. (Curious indeed were these reddish
obelisks, isolated from the buildings which surrounded
them the day before. They looked like huge skittles
set up for the amusement of Typhon and Briareus.

Upon the still hot and smoking ruins of their van-
ished homes the former owners had built temporary

shelters out of reed mattings, old carpets, and sailcloth,

196

titititéetktkekékkdkdtdkdd dd
FIRES

supported on posts, and were smoking their pipes with
the resignation of Oriental fatalists, horses were fas-
tened to posts at the spot where had stood their stable ;
pieces of wall and ends of nailed plank re-constituted
the harem. A cavadji was boiling his coffee on a
stove, the only thing left in his stall, on the former site
of which all his faithful clients were seated in the ashes.
Farther on bakers were taking off with wooden saucers
the outer layer of the heaps of corn, which alone had
been damaged by the flames. Poor wretches were
hunting under the still glowing embers for nails and
bits of iron-work, the remains of their fortune, but did
not appear particularly unhappy. I did not see at
Kassim Pacha those despairing, mourning, wailing
groups which a similar disaster would certainly collect
in France upon the ruins of a village or of a quarter.
In Constantinople it is quite an ordinary affair to see
one’s home burned down.

I followed close to the Golden Horn, as far as the
Arsenal, the track of the fire. The fearful heat was
further increased by the radiation from the calcined
ground, still heated by the scarce extinguished flames.
I walked over hot coals covered with perfidious ashes,

through half-consumed débris, — boards, joints, beams,

197

Ltititietéesetéetsts hdd ed
CONSTANTINOPLE

broken divans, and coffers; sometimes over gray spots,
sometimes over black, sometimes through red smoke,
and amid the reflections of sunbeams hot enough to
bake an egg. Then I returned through a picturesque
Jane along a brook full of old shoes and fragments of
pottery, that afforded, with its two shaky bridges,
pretty subjects for water-colour drawings.

I had seen a fire by day; all I needed now was to
see one by night. Nor had I long to wait. One
evening a crimson light which I cannot compare to
anything better than the aurora borealis, flushed the
heavens on the other side of the Golden Horn. I
happened to be eating an ice on the promenade of the
Little Field, and immediately hastened down to hire a
caïque to cross over to the scene of the conflagration ;
when, as [ was passing by the Galata Tower, one of
my Constantinople friends who accompanied me be-
thought himself of ascending the tower, whence one
can easily see the opposite shore of the harbour. A
gratuity did away with the scruples of the keeper, and
we started climbing in the darkness, feeling the wall
with our hands, trying each step with our feet, up very
steep stairs, the spiral of which was broken by landing-

places and doors. We thus reached the lantern, and

198

téiteteetksbébkbbbdhdbdbké de
FIRES

walking over the copper roof, leaned upon the stone
parapet that crowns the tower.

It was the oil and paint stores which were burning.
These buildings are situated on the shore, and the
water, reflecting the flames, produced the aspect of a
double fire, in the midst of which the houses stood out
like black silhouettes sharply cut out, and with luminous
holes in them. Long lines of fire, broken by the rip-
pling waves, spread out over the Golden Horn, which
at that moment looked like a vast punch-bowl. The
flames rose to a prodigious height, red, blue, yellow,
and green, according to the materials which fed them.
Sometimes a more vivid phosphorescence, a more
incandescent blaze broke out in the general glow.
Innumerable sparks flew into the air like the gold and
silver rain of à firework shell, and in spite of the dis-
tance, we could clearly hear the crackling of the flames.
Above the fire rolled vast masses of smoke, bluish on
the one side and rosy on the other, like clouds at sun-
set. The Tower of the Seraskierat, Yeni Valideh
Djami, Souleiman, the Mosque of Achmet, the Mosque
of Selim, and higher up, on the crest of the hill, the
arcades of the aqueduct of Valens glowed red. The

ships and vessels in the harbour stood out black

199

Le EN LE UT PA NON AP PS EURE
do be ce dde «de che ee che «da ln cb cb of ef cf of cfa cb ho of on af

ere o7e 07e vie 7e ere eve

CONSTANTINOPLE
RP A pe MAN

against the scarlet background. Two or three crafts
took fire, and for a time there was reason to fear
a general conflagration of the fleet of vessels, but the
flames were soon extinguished. In spite of the cold
wind which froze us at this elevation — for my com-
panion and myself were dressed rather lightly — we
could not drag ourselves away from this disastrously
magnificent spectacle, the beauty of which made us
understand and almost excuse Nero watching the burn-
ing of Rome from his tower on the Palatine. It was
a splendid blaze, a pyrotechnical display carried to the
hundredth power, but with effects that pyrotechnics can
never attain; and as we did not feel that we had lighted
it, we were able to enjoy it like artists, while regretting
the great destruction.

Two or three days later Pera took fire in its turn.
The tekieh of the Whirling Dervishes was soon the
prey of the flames, and then I saw a fine example of
Oriental phlegm. The sheik of the dervishes was smok-
ing his pipe on a carpet which was pulled away from time
to time as the fire advanced. The little cemetery that
extends in front of the tekieh was soon filled with all
sorts of articles, utensils, furniture, and merchandise,

from the threatened houses, everything being thrown

200

Listes éeLisitéetdtkedtéedéd ed
FIRES

out of the windows for the sake of haste. The most
grotesque objects were spread over the tombs in a fear-
ful and comical mess. The population of that quarter
— almost all Christians — did not exhibit the same
resignation as Turks do under similar circumstances ;
all the women were crying or weeping, seated upon
their heap of furniture; shouts and yells were heard on
all sides ; disorder and tumult were at their height.
At last the firemen managed to check the fire, but
from the tekieh to the foot of the hill nothing was left
standing but chimney-stalks.

In the worst disasters there are always some comical
incidents. Î saw a man nearly burned alive while
trying to save some stove-piping; and in another
place a poor old man and a poor old woman who
were mourning their son would not let the beloved
body go; it was at last necessary to carry them
away by force. That was the touching side. By
way of picturesqueness, Î noticed the cypresses
in the garden of the dervishes, which dried up,
turned yellow, and took fire like seven-branched
candlesticks.

Three or four nights later, Pera took fire at the other
end, near the Great Field of the Dead. A score of

201

tiitéetesessetéeddbdsbek cheb dd
CONSTANTINOPLE

wooden houses burned up like matches, sending up into
the blue night-sky sheaves of sparks and burning coals,
in spite of the water that was being poured upon them.
The High Street of Pera had a most sinister aspect.
The companies of firemen, their pumps on their shoul-
ders, traversed it at top speed, upsetting everything
and everybody on their way, which they are privileged
to do, for their orders are not to turn aside for any
one; mouschirs on horseback, followed by squads
of grim servants running on foot behind them like
the Turkish Patrol” of Decamps, cast by the light
of the torches strange shadows upon the walls; the
dogs, trampled under foot, fled in pain, uttering
plaintive howls; men and women passed by, bending
under bundles ; syces dragged frightened horses by
the bridle. It was at once terrible and splendid.
Fortunately a few stone houses stopped the progress
of the fire.

That same week Psammathia, the Greek quarter of
Constantinople, became a prey to the flames ; twenty-
five hundred houses were burned down. Then Scutari
took fire in its turn. ‘The heavens were constantly
red in some corner or another, and the Tower of the

Seraskierat kept its basket and its lantern going up and

down. It seemed as though the demon of fire were
shaking his torch over the city. At last everything
went out, and the disasters were forgotten with that
happy carelessness without which mankind could not

possibly go on existing.

203

T would be dangerous for a giaour to enter a

mosque during Ramazan, even if provided with

a firman and protected by khavasses. The preach-

ing of the imams excites increased fervour and fanati-

cism among the faithful; the excitement of fasting

heats empty heads, and the usual toleration due to the

progress of civilisation is apt to be forgotten at such

times; so Î waited until after Ramazan to go on my
round.

One usually begins with Saint Sophia, the most
ancient, most important monument in Constantinople,
which, before it was a mosque, was a Christian church
dedicated, not to a female saint as might easily be sup-
posed from its name, but to Divine Wisdom, Æ#gia
Sophia, personified by the Greeks, and according to
them, mother of the three theological virtues.

Seen from the square which extends before Bab-i-

Humayoun, —the Augustine Gate, — leaning against

204

d

déttiekedkttéesdddttche ee do

ete ocre re

SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

the delicate carvings and the carved inscriptions of the
fountain of Achmet III, Saint Sophia presents an
incoherent mass of shapeless buildings. The original
plan has disappeared under an aggregation of later
erections, which have obliterated the general lines and
prevent their being easily discerned. Between the
counterforts which Amurat III built to support the
walls shaken by earthquakes, have clung, like mush-
rooms in the crevices of an oak, tombs, schools, baths,
shops, and stalls.

Above this riot of buildings rises, between four rather
heavy minarets, the great dome, supported on walls the
courses of which are alternately white and rose, and
surrounded by a tiara of windows with trellised open-
work. The minarets lack the elegant slenderness of
Arab minarets, the dome swells heavily above the
disorderly heap of hovels, and the traveller whose
imagination had involuntarily been stirred by the magic
name of Saint Sophia, which recalls the temple of
Ephesus and the Temple of Solomon, experiences a
disappointment that fortunately ceases once the in-
terior is seen. Ît must be said for the Turks that
most Christian monuments are just as abominably

obstructed, and that many a famous and wonderful

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CONSTANMINOPLE

cathedral has its sides covered with excrescences of
plaster and boards, and its lace-work spires springing
usually from a chaos of loathsome hovels.

To reach the door of the mosque, you follow a sort
of lane, bordered by sycamores and turbehs, the painted
and gilded stones of which shine faintly through the
gratings, and you soon reach, after a few turns, a
bronze gate, one of the leaves of which still preserves
the imprint of the Greek cross. This lateral door
gives access to a vestibule pierced with nine doors.
You exchange your boots for slippers, which you must
take care to have brought by your dragoman, — for to
enter a mosque with boots on would be as great a
breach of decency as to keep your hat on in a Catholic
church, and it might have more serious consequences.

At the very first step I experienced a singular illu-
sion. Ît seemed to me that Î was in Venice, issuing
from the Piazza into the nave of San Marco; only, the
proportions had become immeasurably greater, and
everything was of colossal dimensions. The pillars
rose huge from the pavement covered with matting ;
the arches, the cupola swelled out like the sphere of
heaven; the pendentives, in which the four sacred

rivers pour out their mosaic waves, described giant

206

CELLES ELETEZSTELL TESTS LL ET
SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

curves ; the tribunes had broadened so as to contain a
whole people. San Marco is Saint Sophia in minia-
ture, a reduction of Justinian’s basilica on the scale of
one inch to the foot. This is not surprising, for
Venice, which a narrow sea scarcely separates from
Greece, was always familiar with the East, and its
architects would naturally endeavour to reproduce the
type of the church which had the reputation of being
the finest and richest in Christendom. San Marco
was begun about the tenth century, and the architect
certainly had the opportunity of seeing Saint Sophia in
all its integrity and splendour long before it was
profaned by Mohammed II, an event which took place
in 1453 only.

The present Saint Sophia was built upon the ashes
of a temple dedicated to Divine Wisdom by Constan-
tine the Great, and burned down during the rivalries
between the Green and Blue factions. Antique as it
is, it rests upon a greater antiquity still. Anthemius
of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus drew the plans and
superintended the building. In order to enrich the
new church, the old pagan temples were stripped, and
the Christian cupola was supported by the columns
of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, still blackened by

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CONSTANTINOPLE

the torch of Erostratus, and by the pillars of the
Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, golden with the radi-
ance of their star. From the ruins of Pergamos were
brought two enormous urns of porphyry, the lustral
waters of which changed into baptismal waters, and
later into waters for ablutions. The walls were covered
with mosaics of gold and precious stones, and when
everything was completed, Justinian could truly ex-
claim with delight: Glory be to God, Who con-
sidered me worthy to achieve so great a work! O
Solomon, I have surpassed thee! ”

Although Islam, a foe to plastic art, has stripped
Saint Sophia of a large portion of its ornaments, it is
still a magnificent temple. The mosaics with gold
backgrounds, representing biblical subjects, like those
of San Marco, have disappeared under a layer of white-
wash; the four giant cherubim of the pendentives alone
have been preserved, and their six multi-coloured wings
still shimmer upon the scintillating cubes of gilded
crystal. But the heads which form the centre of the
whirlwinds of feathers have been concealed under large
gold roses; the reproduction of the human face being
abhorrent to Mussulmans. At the very end of the

sanctuary, under the vaulting, the lines of a colossal

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SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

figure which the layer of whitewash could not com-
pletely hide, are vaguely perceived. The figure is that
of the patroness of the church, the image of Divine
Wisdom, or more accurately, of Holy Wisdom, gra
Sophia, which under this semi-transparent veil wit-
nesses with impassibility the ceremonies of a strange
ritual.

The statues have been carried away. The altar,
made of some unknown metal, formed, like Corinthian
brass, of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and melted precious
stones, has been replaced by a slab of red marble
which points in the direction of Mecca. Above it
hangs an old, very much worn carpet, a dusty rag
which has for the Turks the merit of having been one
of the four carpets on which Mahomet knelt to say his
prayers. Huge green discs given by different sultans
hang on the walls; they are inscribed with verses
from the Koran or pious maxims written in huge gold
letters. À porphyry cartouche contains the names of
Allah, Mahomet, and the first four caliphs, Abu Bekr,
Omar, Osman, and Ali. The pulpit (ximbar) in which
the khedib stands to recite the Koran, is placed against
one of the pillars supporting the apse. It is reached

by very steep steps with two open-work balustrades as

14 209

tiitetéesssstssttts thé th
CONSTANTINOPLE

carefully wrought as the finest lace. The khedib

ascends these steps, the Book of the Law in the one
hand and a sword in the other, as in a conquered
mosque.

Cords, from which hang tufts of silk and ostrich-
eggs, descend from the vaulting to about ten or twelve
feet above the ground. They support hoops of iron
wire furnished with lamps, and form chandeliers.
X-shaped desks, like those used to hold collections of
engravings, are placed here and there, and bear manu-
script copies of the Koran. Several of these desks are
adorned with elegant niello work in mother-of-pearl
and copper. Reed mattings in summer and carpets in
winter are placed on the pavement, formed of marble
slabs, the veins of which, skilfully brought together,
seem to flow like three petrified rivers through the
building. There is something very remarkable about
these mattings: they are all placed obliquely and in
contradiction to the architectural lines. ‘They are like
a flooring laid diagonally and not harmonising with the
walls that surround it. This peculiarity is easily ex-
plained. Saint Sophia was not intended to become a
mosque, and consequently is not properly oriented in

the direction of Mecca.

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SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

Mosques, it will be seen, are, so far as the interior
is concerned, not unlike Protestant churches. Art
cannot exhibit in them its pomp and its magnificence.
Pious inscriptions, a pulpit, desks, mats on which to
kneel, are the sole ornamentation allowed. ‘The idea
of God alone must fill His temple, and it is great
enough to do so. However, I confess that the artistic
luxury of Catholicism seems preferable, and the alleged
danger of idolatry is to be feared only in the case of
barbarous peoples incapable of separating the form
from the idea, the image from the thought.

The chief cupola, somewhat heavy in its outline, is,
like that of San Marco in Venice, surrounded by several
smaller cupolas. It is of immense height, and must
have been a resplendent heaven of gold and mo-
saic before Mussulman lime-wash extinguished its
splendours. Even as it is, it produced a deeper im-
pression upon me than the cupola of the dome of Saint
Peter’s. Byzantine architecture is unquestionably the
right form for Catholicism. Gothic architecture itself,
however great its religious value, is not so wholly ap-
propriate to it. În spite of degradations of all kinds,
Saint Sophia is still much superior to all the Christian

churches which I have seen, and I have visited a great

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tiitéedtiteetseststttdk cheb hd
CONSTANTINOPLE

many. Nothing can equal the majesty of these domes,
of these galleries, supported by jasper, porphyry, and
verd-antique pillars, with their capitals in a curious
Corinthian style, in which animals, chimeras, and
crosses mingle with foliage. The great art of Greece
— degenerate, it is true— is still felt here, and one
can understand that when Christ entered that temple
Jupiter had just left it.

From the top of the galleries, which are reached by
easy slopes like those in the interior of the Giralda and
the Campanile, one has a capital general view of the
interior of the mosque. When I was there, a few of
the faithful, crouching upon reed mats, were devoutly
prostrating themselves, two or three women enveloped
in ferradjes stood by a door, and a hammal, his load
resting on the base of a column, was sleeping soundly.
A soft, tender light fell from the high windows, and I
could see in the hemicycle opposite the nimbar the
glitter of the gold trellis-work of the tribune reserved
for the Sultan.

Platforms supported by columns of precious marbles
and protected by open-work railings, project from the
main walls at every point where the naves intersect.

In the side chapels, which are not used in Mussulman

212

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SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

worship, are stored trunks, coffers, and bundles of all
kinds, for mosques in the East serve as store-houses.
People who travel or are afraid of being robbed at
home, place their riches in a mosque under the guard
of God, and there is no instance of a single thing
having been stolen, for theft would then be com-
plicated by sacrilege. The dust falls upon masses
of gold and precious stuffs scarcely covered with a
coarse cloth or a piece of old leather. The spider,
beloved of the Mussulmans because it spun its web at
the entrance of the grotto where Mahomet had taken
refuge, peacefully weaves its threads over locks which
no one touches.

Around the mosque are grouped imarets (hospitals),
medresses (colleges), baths and kitchens for the poor,
for Mussulman life centres around the house of God.
Hammals fall asleep under its arcades, where the police
never disturb them,— they are the guests of Allah;
the faithful pray, the women dream there; the sick are
borne to them to be cured or to die. In the East
practical life is never separated from religion.

I sought in vain in Saint Sophia the imprint of the
bloody hand which Mohammed IT, riding into the
sanctuary, left upon the wall by way of marking his

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CONSTANTINOPLE

taking possession of the place, while the terrified
women and virgins had taken refuge by the altar,
expecting to be saved by a miracle which did not occur.
Is the red mark a historical fact, or merely a legend ?
Talking of legends, let me tell one that is current in
Constantinople. When the doors of Saint Sophia
burst in under the pressure of the barbarous hordes that
besieged the city, a priest was at the altar, saying Mass.
At the sound of the hoofs of the Tartar horses on
the pavement of Justinian, at the howls of the soldiery,
at the cries of the terrified faithful, the priest stopped
the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, took the sacred
vases, and walked towards one of the side naves with
an impassible, solemn step. The soldiers, brandishing
their cimeters, were about to reach him when he dis-
appeared in a wall which opened and closed again. At
first it was supposed that there was some secret issue,
some masked door, but there was not; the wall, on
being tried, proved to be solid, compact, and impene-
trable. The priest had walked through the masonry.
Sometimes, it is said, faint chants are heard issuing
from within the wall. It is the priest, still alive, like
Barbarossa in his cavern at Kiefhausen, who is sleepily

droning his interrupted liturgy. When Saint Sophia

214

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SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

shall be restored to Christian worship, the wall will
open of itself and the priest, emerging from his
retreat, will finish at the altar the Mass begun four
hundred years ago.

On leaving Saint Sophia I visited a few mosques.
That of Sultan Achmet, situated near the Atmeïdan, is
one of the most remarkable. It has the peculiarity of
possessing six minarets, which has given it in Turkish
the name Alti Minareli Djami. [I mention this because
the fact gave rise during the building to à difference
between the Sultan and the scherif at Mecca. The
scherif charged the Sultan with impiety and sacrilegious
pride, for no temple in Islam must equal in splendour
the holy Kaaba, which had the same number of mina-
rets. The work was interrupted, and the mosque ran
the risk of never being finished, when Sultan Achmet,
like a clever man, hit upon an ingenious subterfuge to
silence the fanatical iman : he caused a seventh minaret
to be built at the Kaaba.

The high dome of the mosque of Achmet swells
majestically amid several other smaller domes between
its six square minarets encircled by trellised balconies
wrought like bracelets. Itis approached by a court sur-

rounded by columns with black and white capitals and

215

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bétédttt dk db dede dde de deck

CONS TAN ELEC E

bronze bases, that support arcades forming a quadruple
cloister or portico. In the centre of the court rises an
exceedingly ornate fountain covered with bloom and
complicated arabesques, scrolls, and knots, and covered
with a cage of gilded trellis, no doubt in order to protect
the purity of the water which is intended for ablutions.
The styie of the whole of the building is noble, pure,
and recalls the finest time of Arab art, although the
building is not earlier than the beginning of the seven-
teenth century.

A pair of bronze gates, reached by steps, leads into
the interior of the mosque. ‘The most striking things
seen first are the four huge pillars, or rather, the four
fluted towers that bear the weight of the principal
cupola. These pillars, the capitals of which are carved
in the form of stalactites, are girdled half way up with
a band covered with inscriptions in Turkish letters.
They have a very striking appearance of robust majesty
and indescribable power.

Verses from the Koran run round the cupolas, the
domes, and the cornices. ‘This motive of ornamenta-
tion has been borrowed from the Alhambra, and Arabic
writing, with its characters like the patterns of cash-

mere shawls, lends itself admirably to it. Keystones

216

bébé bb bb babe db dk
SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

alternately black and white border the combings of the
arches. The mirâhb, which indicates the direction of
Mecca and in which rests the Holy Book, is incrusted
with alabaster, agate, and jasper; there is even set in
it, it is said, a fragment of the black stone of the Kaaba,
a relic as precious to Mussulmans as a piece of the True
Cross to Christians. It is in this mosque that is pre-
served the standard of the Prophet, which is displayed,
like the oriflamme under the old French monarchy, on
solemn and supreme occasions only. Mahmoud had
it brought forth when, surrounded by the imams, he
announced to the prostrate people the sentence of death
passed against the Janissaries.

À nimbar with its conical sounding-board, mastaches
or platforms, supported by slender columns from which
the muezzins call the believers to prayer, chandeliers
adorned with crystal balls and ostrich-eggs complete the
ornamentation, which is the same in every mosque.
As in Saint Sophia, under the arches of the side
chapels are heaped up coffers, boxes, and parcels, left
there in deposit under the divine protection by pious
Mussulmans.

Near the mosque is the turbeh or tomb of Achmet

the glorious Padisha, who sleeps in this funeral chapel

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tiitédtéesssstttdtts tbe de
CONSTANTINOPLE

under his painted bier covered with the most precious
stuffs of Persia and India, — at his head his turban,
with an aigrette of gems; at his feet two enormous
candles as big as ship’s masts. Some thirty coffins of
smaller dimensions surround it. They are those of
his children and his favourite wives, who accompany
him in death as in life. Within a cupboard sparkle
and gleam his sabres, kandjars, and weapons studded
with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies.

I need not now speak at any length of the mosque of
Sultan Bayezid, which differs from this one only in some
small architectural details that could be more readily
indicated in a pencil sketch than in a written one. In
the interior there are some fine pillars of jasper and
African porphyry. Above its cloister hover continu-
ally swarms of pigeons as tame as those on the Piazza
San Marco. A good old Turk stands under the
Arcades with bags of vetches or millet. You buy
some from him and scatter it in handfuls. Then from
the domes, minarets, cornices, and capitals swoop down
in many-coloured flocks thousands of doves, which light
at your feet, rest on your shoulders, and slap your face
with their wings. You find yourself all of a sudden

the centre of a feathered waterspout. Presently there

218

titiss ts bbtbdeheke deco he
SAINT SOPHIA AND THE MOSQUES

is not a grain of millet left on the flags, and the birds,
having satisfied their hunger, go back to their aerial
perch, awaiting another piece of good fortune. These
pigeons are the descendants of two wood-pigeons which
Sultan Bayezid once purchased of a poor woman who
begged for alms, and which he presented to the mosque.

As usual with the founders of mosques, Bayezid has
his turbeh near by. There he sleeps, covered with a
gold and silver carpet; under his head, with a humility
worthy of a Christian, a brick made of the dust col-
lected from his clothes and shoes; for in the Koran,
there is a line which runs: “He who has become
covered with dust while travelling in the paths of
Allah need not fear the fires of hell.”

I shall not carry farther this account of mosques,
for, with very slight differences, they all resemble each
other. I shall merely mention that of Souleiman, one
of the most perfect from an architectural point of
view, close by which is the turbeh wherein rest by
the side of Souleiman I the remains of the famous
Roxelana under a bier covered with cashmere. Not
far from this mosque there is a porphyry sarcophagus

said to be that of Constantine.

219

tite tedstttetkdbdedt ee db

lé

THE SERAGLIO

HEN the Sultan inhabits one of his sum-
mer palaces, it is possible, if provided with a

firman, to visit the interior of the Seraglio;

but do not let that name suggest the paradise of
Mahomet. “ Seraglio ” is a generic word which means
palace, quite distinct from the harem, the dwelling of
the women, the mysterious place into which no pro-
fane enters, even when the houris are absent. T'en
or twelve people usually collect for the visit, which
involves frequent bakshish, amounting altogether to
not less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred
francs. A dragoman precedes the company and set-
tles troublesome details with the keepers of the doors.
Undoubtedly he swindles you, but as you do not know
Turkish, you have to submit. One must take care to
bring slippers, for if in France one uncovers on enter-
ing a respectable place, in Turkey you take off your
shoes, which is perhaps more rational, for you must

leave at the threshold the dust of your feet.

220

es mehr 4e

eo he, D or

tititéLteissesetetkétéktkdk dd
EHE'SERAGELTO

The Seraglio, or Seraï, as the Turks call it, fills up
with its irregular buildings the triangular point laved
on the one side by the Sea of Marmora and on the
other by the Golden Horn. It is surrounded by a
crenellated wall which covers a vast space of ground.
À sea wall a few feet wide runs along these two sides.
The current runs with extraordinary rapidity ; the blue
waters surge and boil as if in a furnace, and sparkle
brilliantiy in the sun. They are remarkably trans-
parent, and one can clearly see the bottom of green
rocks or white sand through a maze of reflected rays.
Boats can ascend these rapids only by being towed.

Above the weatherworn walls, in which are many
stones drawn from antique buildings, rise buildings the
windows of which are closed by very fine trellis-work,
kiosks in Chinese or rococo style, clumps of pointed
cypresses and of plane-trees. Over all weighs down
a feeling of solitude and abandonment. It is hard to
believe that behind these gloomy walls lives the glorious
Caliph, the all-powerful Lord of Islam.

The Seraglio is entered by a gate of very simple
architecture, guarded by a few soldiers. Under this
gate, in magnificent mahogany closets provided with

locks, are rows of muskets arranged in perfect order.

21

tiitéetiseitsesstttttdede db
CONSTENTINOPLE

Having passed through the gate, our little band, pre-
ceded by an officer of the palace, a khavass, and the
dragoman, traversed a sort of hilly, uncultivated garden
planted with enormous cypress-trees like à cemetery
without tombstones, and we soon reached the entrance
to the apartments.

At the request of the dragoman, each person put on
slippers, and we ascended a wooden staircase in no
wise monumental. In Northern countries, where Arab
tales have spread an exaggerated idea of Oriental mag-
nificence, the coolest minds cannot help fancying fairy
architecture with pillars of lapis-lazuli, golden capitals,
foliage of emeralds and rubies, fountains of rock-crystal,
in which sparkle waters like quicksilver. The Turk-
ish style is confounded with the Arab style. There
is no relation whatever between the two, and an
Alhambra is imagined when in reality there is nothing
more than well-aired kiosks and very simply orna-
mented rooms.

The first hall we entered is circular in shape and
pierced with numerous trellised windows. À divan runs
all round it, the walls and ceiling are adorned with
gildings and black arabesques. Black curtains and a

valance cut out like a lambrequin and running along

222

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ER S

ET —e —— & pm

de dde eds eds ed de dde ete bn ed eds ee co bo ob of of ob eds ee dd de
CAE SERAGLEO

the cornice complete the decoration. À matting in
very fine esparto, which no doubt in winter is replaced
by soft Smyrna carpets, covers the floor. The second
hall is painted in grisaille distemper in the Italian
manner, The third is decorated with landscapes,
mirrors, blue hangings, and a clock with rayed dial.
On the walls of the fourth are sentences written in
Mabhmoud’s own hand, for he was a skilful caligraph-
ist and, like all Orientals, was proud of this talent; a
pardonable pride, for the writing, complicated by the
curves and ligatures and interlacings, is closely akin
to drawing. After having traversed these halls, a
smaller room is reached.

Two pastels by Michel Bouquet are the sole artistic
works which attract the glance in this hall, marked by
the severe bareness of Islam. The one represents
The Port of Bucharest,” the other “ A View of Con-
stantinople ” taken from the Maiden’s Tower, without
figures of course. A clock with a mechanical picture,
representing Seraglio Point with caïques and vessels,
which the mechanism causes to pitch and roll, excites
the admiration of the debonair Turks and the smiles
of the giaours ; for such a clock would be more in its

place in the dining-room of a retired grocer than in the

223

CONSTANTINOPLE

mysterious abode of the Padisha. By way of compen-
sation the same room contains à closet, the curtains of
which, drawn back, allow to blaze out with gleam
of gold and gems, the real luxury of the Orient. Itis
a treasury in no wise inferior to that of the Tower of
London. It is customary that each sultan should be-
queath to this collection some object which he has used
more particularly. Nearly all have given weapons.
There are kandjars with hilts rough with diamonds and
rubies, damask blades in silver sheaths bossed with reliefs,
bluish blades covered with Arabic inscriptions in golden
letters, maces richly inlaid with niello work, pistols the
butts of which disappear under quantities of pearls,
corals and gems. Sultan Mahmoud, as à poet and a
caligraphist, gave his inkstand, a mass of gold covered
with diamonds. Through a sort of civilised coquetry,
he sought to introduce a thought amid these instru-
ments of brutal force and to show that the brain is as
powerful as the arm. In this cabinet is to be noticed
a curious Turkish chimney, made of honeycomb-work,
like the stalactites that hang from the ceilings of the
Alhambra.

Beyond is a gallery where the odalisques play and

exercise under the care of eunuchs, but so sacred a

224

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TE SERA GEGELSO

place is closed to the profane, even when the birds
have flown. A little farther on rise the cupolas con-
stellated with great crystal panes that cover the baths,
decorated with alabaster columns and marble overlay-
ings, which we had to be satisfied with admiring from
the outside.

We put on our shoes again at the door by which we
had entered, and continued our visit We first pro-
ceeded by a garden filled with flower-beds with wooden
borders, after the old French fashion; then we trav-
ersed courts surrounded by a cloister with Moorish
arcades which contained the lodgings and the class-
rooms of the icoglans or Seraglio pages, and reached
the kiosk, or pavilion, containing the library. We
ascended to it by a sort of stair with a marble balus-
trade of exquisite tracery.

The door of the library is a marvel. Never did
Arab genius trace upon bronze a more prodigious inter-
lacing of lines, angles, stars, mingling and intertwining
in the most complicated fashion in a geometrical maze.
À photograph alone could reproduce this fairy orna-
mentation. À draughtsman desirous of imitating con-
scientiously with his pencil these inextricable meanders

would go crazy after spending a lifetime on the work.

15 225

titébébitétetitéetéeséhé
CONSTANTINOPLE

Within are arranged in cedar cases Arab manuscripts,
the edges turned towards the spectator, a peculiar
arrangement which I had already noticed in the Es-
corial Library, and which the Spaniards no doubt
borrowed from the Moors. Here we were shown on
a great parchment roll a sort of genealogical tree con-
taining in oval miniatures the portraits of all the
Sultans, done in water-colours. These portraits, it is
said, are authentic, which it is hard to believe. They
represent pale, black-bearded faces, of uniform type,
and the costume is that of the Turks of Molière and
Racine, who were more accurate in this respect than is
generally believed.

The library having been visited, we were shown into
a kiosk in the Arab style, reached by marble steps.
Here shone in all its splendour the old Oriental magni-
ficence, of which the apartments we had already trav-
ersed presented no trace. The greater part of the
room is filled with a throne in the shape of a divan, or
bed, with a baldacchino supported by hexagonal pillars
of copper, studded with garnets, topazes, emeralds, and
other stones ex cabochon, for the Turks formerly did not
cut gems. Horse-tails hang at the four corners from

great golden balls surmounted by crescents. This

226

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dééétiteedkteebedétéedtdtd dd
THE SERAGLIO

throne, which is indeed made to be the seat of Caliphs,
is exceedingly rich, elegant, and regal.

Barbarians alone possess the secret of this marvellous
goldsmith-work, and the feeling for ornament seems to
diminish, Î do not know why, the more civilisation
develops. Without indulging in the mania of an
antiquary, it must be confessed that the older the archi-
tecture or the weapon, the more perfect is the taste
and the more exquisite the work. ‘The modern world,
too much taken up with thought, has no longer an
accurate notion of form.

À few gleams of light, falling from a half-opened
window, sparkled and gleamed upon the chasings and
the gems. Tiles of Arab ware were arranged in shim-
mering symmetrical designs on the lower part of the
walls as in the halls of the Alhambra at Granada; the
ceiling was formed of rods of silver-gilt, curiously
chased, making compartments and roses. In the cor-
ner, in the shadow, gleamed a curious Turkish chimney
formed in the shape of a niche, and intended to hold a
brasero ; it has a sort of seven-sided, little conical dome of
copper, cut out and traceried and inlaid with the most
elegant designs of Arab art, for a hood. Some Gothic

reliquaries alone can give an idea of this exquisite work.

227

Litétisststtt.t tt tete de de de
CONSTANTINOPLE

Opposite the divan opens a window, or rather a
loop-hole, fitted with a close gilded grating. It was
outside this sort of wicket that ambassadors formerly
stood, their communications being transmitted by inter-
mediaries to the Padisha, cross-lessed, motionless as an
idol under his dais of silver-gilt and gems, between his
two symbolical turbans. They could scarcely see
through the golden grating the fixed eyes of the mag-
nificent Sultan shining like stars in the shadow; but
that was enough for giaours ; the shadow of God could
not reveal itself more fully to dogs of Christians.

The exterior is no less remarkable. A great pro-
jecting roof covers the building, marble columns sup-
port the arcades with ribbing and roses; a slab of
verd-antique bearing an Arab inscription, forms the
threshold of the door, the lintel of which is very low;
an architectural arrangement intended, it is said, to
compel the vassals and recalcitrant tributaries admitted
to the presence of the Grand Seigneur to bow their
heads, — a rather jesuitical trick of etiquette, which a
Persian envoy funnily eluded by walking in backwards,
as one enters a Venetian gondola.

In the description of the Beïram I spoke at length

of the portico under which takes place the ceremony,

228

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FEB SRRACGLIO

so I shall not return to it, and will continue my walk
somewhat at haphazard, naming things as Î come to
them. It is difficult to give a methodical account of
buildings of different periods and styles, erected without
any preconceived plan, according to the caprices and
needs of the moment, separated by empty spaces shaded
here and there by cypresses, sycamores, and old plane-
trees of monstrous size.

From the centre of a clump of trees rises a fluted
pillar with Corinthian capital, very effective and called
after Theodosius. Î mention it because the number
of Byzantine ruins in Constantinople is very small.
The old city has disappeared, leaving scarcely any
traces. The rich palaces of the Greek dynasty of the
Palaiologoi and the Komnenoi have vanished; their
marble and porphyry columns were utilised in the
building of mosques, and their foundations, covered
by the frail Mussulman shanties, have little by
little been obliterated by conflagrations. Sometimes
there is to be seen inserted in a wall a capital or a
fragment of a broken torso, but nothing which
has preserved its original form. The ground itself
must be explored in order to find any of the bris of

ancient Byzantium.

229

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CONSTANTINOPLE

The interior of Saint Irenæus is filled with muskets,
sabres, and pistols of modern models, arranged with a
military symmetry that our own museum of artillery
would approve; but this brilliant decoration, which
greatly delights the Turks, and of which they are very
proud, does not seem at all wonderful to a European
traveller. À much more interesting collection is that
of the historical weapons preserved in a tribune trans-
formed into a gallery at the end of the apse. There
we were shown the sword of Mohammed II, a straight
blade on which an Arab inscription in gold letters
gleams upon the blue damascening; an armlet inlaid
with gold and constellated with two discs of gems that
belonged to Tamerlane; an iron sword, much dinted,
with a cross-hilt, formerly belonging to Scanderberg
the athletic hero. In glass cases are seen the keys of
conquered cities; symbolical keys just like jewels,
damascened with gold and silver.

In the vestibule are heaped up the kettle-drums and
pans of the Janissaries ; those pans which, when they
were upset, made the Sultan tremble and turn pale
within the depths of his harem. Quantities of old
halberds, of cases of arms, of great cannon, of curiously

shaped culverins, recall Turkish strategy before the

230

CELLTELTES LL LL EE SL SSL SE
THE SERAGLIO

reform of Mahmoud; a useful reform no doubt, but
regrettable from the picturesque point of view.

The stables, at which I cast a glance, have nothing
remarkable, and contained at that time quite ordinary
animals, the Sultan having taken his favourite steeds
with him. For the matter of that, the Turks are
not as fond of horses as the Arabs, although they do
like them and have some very fine animals.

That is about all a stranger can see in the Seraglio.
No profane glance sullies the mysterious places, the
secret kiosks, the inner retreats. The Seraglio, like
every Mussulman’s house, has its selamlik. It is for
the harem that are reserved the refinements of voluptu-
ous luxury, — the cashmere divans, the Persian carpets,
the china vases, the golden perfume-boxes, the lacquered
cabinets, the mother-of-pearl tables, the cedar ceilings
with painted and gilded compartments, the marble
fountains, the jasper columns. The dwelling of the
men is, so to speak, merely the vestibule to the dwelling
of the women, a guard-room interposed between exterior
and interior life.

I greatly regretted that [ could not enter a wonderful
bathroom, the fulfilment of a perfect Oriental dream,

of which my friend Maxime Ducamp has given a

231

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pd que pe

splendid description ; but on this occasion the guardian
showed himself more ungracious, or perhaps stricter
orders had been issued. If the houris take vapor baths
in paradise, it must be in a bathroom like that, which
is a gem of Mussulman architecture,

Fairly wearied by a visit during which I had taken
off and put on my shoes six or eight times, I left the
Seraglio by the Augustine Gate (Bab-i-Humayoun), and
leaving my companions, sat down on the outer bench
of a little café, whence, while eating Scutari grapes, I
gazed upon the monumental gate surmounted by 2
dwelling, with its high Moorish arcade, its four pillars,
its marble cartouche with an inscription in gold letters,
and its two niches in which heads were exposed after
being cut off, among others, that of Ali Tepelin,
Pacha of Janina, figured there on a silver dish.

I also examined closely the charming fountain of
Achmet III, which I glanced at on my way to Saint
Sophia. Bar the fountain at Top Khaneh it is the
most remarkable in Constantinople, which possesses so
many and such beautiful ones. There is nothing
comparable in the way of elegance to its roof, curved
up like the toe of a Turkish shoe, embroidered with

filigree carvings, dotted with capricious finials; with

232

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> ot one ve 07 3e

THE SERAGELIO

the pieces of stone lace, the stalactite niches, the
arabesques that frame in verses composed by the poet-
sultan, the slender pillars, the fantastic capitals, the
roses gracefully starred, the cornices foliated and fluted,
— a charming maze of ornament, a happy mingling

of Arab and Turkish art.

233

thtbéetdisetsttdssts tt tt tt

de she he de de che de che ed cf ete ct cho ot ef ob of fe e$e cle of ob ohe
THE ATMEÏDAN

HE Atmeïdan, which extends behind the
Seraglio, is the ancient Hippodrome. The
Turkish word has exactly the same meaning

as the Greek and means the arena for horses. It is a
vast square, bordered on one side by the mosque of
Sultan Achmet, pierced with grated windows, and on
the other sides by ruins or by incoherent buildings.
On the axis of the square rise the obelisk of Theodo-
sius, the Serpentine Column, and the Walled Pyramid,
— faint vestiges of the splendours which formerly filled
this wondrous place. These ruins are about all that is
left on the surface of the ground of the marvels of
ancient Byzantium. The Augusteon, the Sigma, the
Octagon, the Thermæ of Xeuxippus, of Achilles, of
Honorius, the Golden Mile-stone, the Porticos of the
Forum, — all have vanished under the mantle of dust
and forgetfulness that enshrouds dead cities. The
work of time was hastened by the depredations of the

Barbarians, Latin, French, Turk, and even Greek;

234

4 D cl

thbidkétésétkkébététbékédkéedéédé
THE ATMEIDAN

every successive invasion did more damage. [ncredi-
ble indeed is the blind fury of destruction and the
stupid hatred of stones. It must be essential to
human nature, for the same fact recurs at every epoch.
It seems as though a masterpiece offends the eye of a
barbarian, as light does the eye of an owl. The radi-
ance of thought troubles him without his knowing very
well why, and he puts it out. Religions also willingly
destroy with the one hand while they build with the
other, and many religions have made their home in
Constantinople. Christianity broke down the pagan
monuments, Islam the Christian monuments ; perhaps
the mosques themselves will disappear in their turn
before a new worship.

It must have been a splendid spectacle when the
multitude, dazzling with gold, purple, and gems,
swarmed under the porticos that surround the Hip-
podrome, and became enthusiastic alternately for the
Green and the Blue drivers, whose rivalry agitated
the empire and caused seditions. The golden quad-
rigæ drawn by thorough-bred horses sent flying under
their dazzling wheels the azure and vermilion sand
with which, by a refinement of luxury, the Hippodrome

was covered, and the Emperor bent from the top of

235

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CONSTANTINOPLE

his palace terrace to applaud his favourite colour.
The Blues — if I may say so of Byzantine drivers —
were the Tories; the Greens, Whigs; for politics
entered into these rivalries of the circus. The Greens
even tried to elect an emperor to dethrone Justinian,
and it took Belisarius and an army corps to put down
the revoit.

Within the Hippodrome, as within an opén-air
mosque, were collected the spoils of antiquity; à
population of statues, numerous enough to fill a city,
rose on the attics and the pedestals, — everywhere
marbles and bronzes. The horses of Lysippus, the
statues of the Emperor Augustus and the other emper-
ors, of Diana, Juno, Pallas, Helen, Paris, Hercules,
supreme in majesty, superhuman in beauty, — all the
great art of Greece and Rome seemed to have sought a
final refuge there. The bronze horses of Corinth,
carried away by the Venetians, now prance over the
gates of San Marco; the images of the gods and
goddesses, barbarously melted down, have been scat-
tered in the shape of bullion.

The Obelisk of Theodosius is the best preserved of
the three monuments standing in the Hippodrome. It

is a monolith of rose granite of Syêne, nearly sixty feet

236

Le dede de de dock deche cle deck deck de de dede
EE HE, ATMEIDAN

in height by six in breadth, gradually growing smaller up
to the point. À single perpendicular line of hieroglyphs,
sharply cut in, marks each of the four faces. As I am
not a Champollion, Ï cannot tell you the meaning of
these mysterious emblems, which are no doubt a
dedication to some Pharaoh or other.

Whence came this huge block? From Heliopolis,
say the scholars; but it does not appear to me to
belong to the oldest Egyptian antiquity. Ît may not
be more than three thousand years old, which is very
young for an obelisk; and indeed, its golden, rosy
granite is scarcely darkened by a few gray tints. The
monolith does not rest directly on the pedestal, being
separated from it by four bronze cubes. The marble
pedestal is covered with rather barbarous and worn
bassi-relievi, so that it is difficult to make out the sub-
jects represented, — triumphs or apotheoses of Jus-
tinian and his family. ‘The stiffness of the attitudes,
the bad drawing, and the lack of expression of the
faces, the crowding of the personages without any
composition or perspective, are characteristic of a
period of decadence, The remembrance of neighbour-
ing Greece is already lost in these shapeless attempts.

Other bassi-relievi, half concealed by the filling up of
237

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CONSTANTENOELE

the soil, but known from the descriptions of former
writers, represent the methods employed to erect the
obelisk. Curiously enough, similar bassi-relievi are to
be seen upon the pedestal of the obelisk at Luxor,
erected on the Place de la Concorde by the engineer
Lebas. (Greek and Latin inscriptions show that the
obelisk, lying on the ground, was raised in thirty-two
days by Proclus, Prefect of the Prætoriate, by order of
Theodosius, and they celebrate the virtues of the
magnanimous emperor. The Egyptian block and the
Lower Empire pedestal are in happy harmony and
produce the finest effect; only, the obelisk is as sharp
on the edges as if it had been just carved out of
granite, while the pedestal, thirteen hundred years
younger, is already much worn.

Not far from the obelisk squirms the Serpent Column,
twisted and intertwined, ascending spirally like the flut-
ings of a Salomonic column. The three silver-crested
heads of the serpents which formed the capital have
vanished. One tradition states that Mohammed II,
riding past in the Hippodrome, cut them down with
one blow of his damask blade or mace, in the perform-
ance of one of those feats of strength which Sultans

were fond of. According to other traditions, he cut off

238

Er

tééitéditététetéetttétéhé
THE ATMEIDAN

one only of the three heads; the second and third were
broken for the value of the bronze; this is not sur-
prising when the trouble the Barbarians took to extract
the iron clasps from the blocks of the Coliseum is
recalled. To destroy a palace in order to secure 2 nail
is characteristic of savages. This column, which
rises about nine feet from the ground, but the base of
which has sunk, seems rather slender in the centre of
the vast space. It is said to be of noble origin. Ac-
cording to antiquaries these interlaced serpents sup-
ported in the temple at Delphi the golden tripod
presented by grateful Greece to Phœbus Apollo, the
saving god, after the battle of Platæa won against
Xerxes. (Constantine, it is said, caused the Serpent
Column to be carried from Delphi to his new city.
A tradition less generally received, but much more
probable in my opinion, if the small artistic worth of
the monument is taken into account, maintains that
it is only a talisman manufactured by Apollonius of
Thyane with which to charm serpents. The reader
is free to choose between these two accounts.

As to the Walled Pyramid of Constantine Porphyro-
genetes, which was reckoned the eighth wonder of the

world, — at a time, it is true, when the most hyper-

239

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CONSTANTINOPLE

bolical exaggeration was common, — it is now only a
mass of masonry, a shapeless heap of stones, worn by
rain, burned by sunshine, full of dust and cobwebs, full
of cracks, decaying in every part and absolutely
insignificant in every way from the artistic point of
view. This armature of masonry was formerly over-
laid with great plates of gilded bronze bossed with
bassi-relleut and ornaments which, owing to the weight
and the worth of the metal, were bound to excite the
cupidity of spoilers ; and indeed the Pyramid of Con-
stantine was very soon stripped of its splendid covering,
and nothing was left but a blackened block eighty
feet high. This golden pyramid, which the Paroxysts
compared to the Colossus of Rhodes, must have shone
superbly under the blue sky of Constantinople among
the splendid monuments of antique art, above the
colonnades of the circus filled with spectators in sump-
tuous dresses ; but in order to imagine this, one has in
thought to perform a complete work of restoration.
The Turks formerly used to race their horses and
practise djerrid-throwing on this square, a turf ready
prepared for equestrian diversions. ‘The reform and
the introduction of European tactics have caused the

giving up of this javelin game, which is better suited

240

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THE ATMEÏDAN

to the free horsemen of the desert than to regiments
of regular cavalry taught in accordance with the
methods of the school of Saumur.

At the end of the Atmeïdan is the Etmeïdan (flesh
market). It is a redoubtable and gloomy place, in
spite of the sun which floods it with its brilliant rays.
On looking at the half-ruined mosque and the walls
still scarred by fire, one can easily see the marks of the
cannon-balls. ‘The soil, now so white and powdery,
has been deeply dyed with blood. It was on the
Etmeïdan that took place the massacre of the Janis-
saries, of which Champmartin sent to the Salon so
fiercely Romanticist à painting. ‘The great massacre
had a worthy frame.

Sultan Mahmoud, feeling with the instinct of genius
that the Empire was decadent, thought that he might
save it by providing it with weapons equal to those of
Christian realms, and he desired to have his troops
drilled by Egyptian officers trained to European tactics.
This very simple and wise reform provoked insur-
mountable objections among the Janissaries; their
gray moustaches bristled with indignation; the fanatics
shouted ‘ Profanity |” and called upon Allah and Ma-

homet; the Commander of the Faithful was very

16 241

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CONSTANTINOPLE

nearly charged with being a giaour because of his ob-
stinacy in introducing the diabolical manœuvres which
neither Mohammed IT nor Souleiman I had needed to
conquer and to retain their conquests.

Happily Mahmoud was a resolute man and not
easily intimidated ; he had resolved to conquer or die
in the struggle. The insolence of the Janissaries,
equal to that of the Prætorians and the Strelitzes,
could no longer be borne, and their perpetual seditions
endangered the throne which they pretended to de-
fend. An opportunity soon occurred. An Egyptian
drill-master struck a recalcitrant or purposely careless
Turkish soldier. Immediately the indignant Janissa-
ries espoused their comrade’s cause, overset their pans
in sign of revolt, and threatened to set fire to the four
corners of the city. This was, as is well known, their
fashion of protesting and testifving their discontent.
They crowded before the palace of Kosreu Pasha, their
Aga, calling loudly for the head of the Grand Vizier
and the muphti who had approved the impious reforms
of Mahmoud; but they had not to do this time with
one of those nerveless sultans ready to appease howl-
ing sedition by casting to it a few heads by way of
prey.

242

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THE ATMEÏDAN

On hearing of the insurrection, Sultan Mahmoud
made all speed from Beshicktash, where he then was,
collected the troops that had remained faithful, called
together the ulemas, and took from the Mosque of
Achmet near the Hippodrome the standard of the
Prophet, which is displayed only when the Empire is in
danger. Every true Mussulman is then bound to sup-
port the Commander of the Faithful, for it is a holy war.
The destruction of the Janissaries was settled upon.

The Janissaries had intrenched themselves on the
Etmeïdan close to their barracks. Mahmoud’s regular
troops occupied the adjacent streets with cannon pointed
at the square. The intrepid Sultan rode several times
in front of the insurgents, braving a thousand deaths,
and calling upon them to disperse ; the crisis was being
prolonged, a moment of hesitation might cause a failure.
A devoted officer, Kara Dyehennin, fired his pistol at
the priming of a cannon, which exploded, and the grape
cut a bloody line through the first ranks of the rebels.
The action was begun. The artillery thundered on
all sides, a steady musketry fire scattered bullets like
hail upon the dense masses of the bewildered Janis-
saries, and the battle soon turned into a massacre. Ît

was à perfect butchery, no quarter was given; the bar-

243

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CONSTANTINOPLE

racks where the flying Janissaries had intrenched them-
selves, were set on fire, and those who had escaped the
sword perished in the flames. The number of the
dead is variously estimated : by some it is stated at six
thousand, by others at twenty thousand, by others again
at a still higher figure. The bodies were thrown into
the sea, and for months the fishes, fed on human flesh,
were unfit for human food.

Sultan Mahmoud’s vengeance was not even then
satisfied. On walking through the Field of the Dead
at Pera and at Scutari, there are to be seen many
monuments with their apexes broken off, the marble
turbans lying at their feet, like headless men. These
are the tombs of former Janissaries, whom death itself
could not protect from the imperial wrath.

Was this frightful extermination wise or unwise
from a political point of view? Did not Mahmoud,
by destroying this great body, destroy one of the living
forces of the state, one of the principles of Turkish
nationality ? Will the material progress accomplished
sufficiently replace the old barbaric energy? In the
twilight which marks the decline of empires, is the
light of reason better than the torch of fanaticism ?

No one can yet answer the question.

244

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THE ATMEIDAN

At some distance from the Hippodrome, in the cen-
tre of a space covered with the débris of fires, opens
on the slope of a hillock like a black mouth, the en-
trance to a dried-up Byzantine cistern. It is reached
by a wooden staircase. The Turks call it Ben Bir
Direck, the T'housand and One Columns, although in
reality it has only two hundred and twenty-four. The
white marble columns end in coarse capitals in a bar-
barous Corinthian style blocked out or worn away,
supporting semicircular arches, and their long lines
form several naves. Three or four feet from the base
they swell out. This was the point reached by the
waters, and the swelling formed the apparent base when
the reservoir was full. ‘The remainder of the column
then figured a submerged pile. The ground has been
raised by the dust of centuries, the falling pieces from
the vaulting and detritus of all kinds, for the cistern
must originally have been much deeper. One can
make out faintly upon the capitals mysterious signs,
Byzantine hieroglyphs, the meaning of which is lost.
The epsilon and the phi, often repeated, are translated,
& Euge, Philoxena” In point of fact, the cistern was
for the use of strangers. It was built by Constantine,

whose monogram is imprinted on the great Roman

245

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CONSTANTINOPLE

bricks of the vaulting and of the columns. Now a
silk manufactory has been established in it by Jews and
Armenians. The wheels and reels were creaking un-
der the arcades of Constantine, and the sound of the
looms recalled the rippling of the vanished waters.
The cavern, lighted by a pale half-light struggling with
deep shadows, is icy cold, and it was with a lively feel-
ing of pleasure that I emerged from this abyss into the
warm light of the sun, pitying with all my heart the
poor workmen toiling underground like gnomes or
kobolds.

At a short distance from this cistern, behind Saint
Sophia, there is another called Yeri Batan Serai (the
Underground Palace). This one does not contain a
silk factory like Ben Bir Direck. Even as you enter,
a damp, penetrating vapour, full of influenza, pneu-
monia, and lumbago wraps you in its damp mantle.
À black water, streaked with a few spangles and livid
eddies, laves the mouldy columns and extends under
the dark arcades to a depth which the eye cannot sound
and which the light of the torches itself does not reach.
It is most sinister and terrifying. The Turks pretend
that djinns, ghouls, and afrites held their sabbath in this

lugubrious palace, and still flap their bats’ wings wet

246

tiititiiékeéiéeéétékééhkéesé
THE ATMEIDAN

with the tears of the vaulting. Formerly this sub-
terranean sea was traversed in boats. The trip must
have been like one on the infernal river in Charon’s
bark. Some boats, no doubt carried away by interior
currents towards some abyss, never returned from this
gloomy expedition, which is now forbidden and which,

besides, had it been allowed, I felt in no wise tempted

to try.

247

N the Atmeïdan, opposite the Mosque of
O Achmet, rises near the Mekter Khadi (Tent
Warehouse) a Turkish building of fine
appearance. Ît is the Elbicei Atika, the Museum
of the Janissaries. This museum, recently opened to
the public, is approached by a courtyard filled with
fresh verdure and where ripples the water of a foun-
tain in a marble basin. If there were not at the door
an official whose business it is to charge you for admis-
sion, you might fancy yourself within the palace of à
bey. Most pleasantly calm is this retrospective vestiary
of the old Turkish empire. ‘The shade and silence of
the past fill this peaceful asylum with their soft tints;
on setting foot within the Elbicei Atika one retrogrades
from the present into history.
On the landing-place, as a sign or as a sentinel,
stands a yenitchert kollouk neferi, that is, a Janissary of
the guard. In the days when the Janissaries were

powerful, no one could pass a post of those undisci-

248

hé e db dde
THE ELBICEÏ ATIKA

plined troops without suffering more or less severely
from extortion. One had to pay or be beaten and
bespattered with mud and insults.

A manikin, the head and hands of which are carved
of wood and coloured not unskilfully, wears the old
Janissary costume. This breach of Mussulman custom,
which forbids any reproduction of the human face, is
very remarkable, and proves that religious prejudices
are being weakened by contact with Christian civilisa-
tion. This museum, which holds nearly one hundred
and forty figures, would have been impossible formerly ;
now it shocks no one, and often an old Janissary who
escaped the massacre comes and dreams there before
the garments of his former companions in arms, and
sighs as he thinks of the good old times that have
gone by.

This yenitcheri kollouk neferi looks like a jolly
rascal; a sort of kindly ferociousness animates his
strongly marked features, which are still further accen-
tuated by a heavy moustache. It is plain that he could
joke while committing murder, and there is in his whole
attitude the disdainful nonchalance of a privileged corps
which thinks it may do whatever it pleases. His legs

crossed, he plays on a Zuta, a sort of three-stringed

249

Littetetttéttdhdbhe ee tee de dos
CONSTANTINOPLE

guitar, to while away the hours of sentry duty. He
wears a red tarbousch, around which is rolled in turban
form a piece of common linen; a brown jacket, the
ends of which are fastened by a sash; and full blue
cloth trousers. In his sash, which fulfils the double
duty of an arsenal and a pocket, he has crowded handker-
chief, napkin, and tobacco pouch by the side of bristling
daggers, yataghans, and pistols. This habit of putting
everything into the belt is common to the Spaniards
and the Orientals. I remember seeing at Seville a duel
with knives in which the only victim was a melon worn
in the sash of one of the duellists.

In front of the yenitcheri is a little table covered
with old Turkish coins of the smaller denominations,
aspres, paras, piastres, which have become rare, the
whole representing the tax levied upon the civilians of
Constantinople. Near him some golden ears of corn
are grilling on a fire to form the meal with which
Oriental frugality is satisfied. TI pass him without fear,
for he is a wooden soldier, and I have paid ten piastres
at the outer door.

Opposite this collector Janissary stand some soldiers
of the same corps in very similar costumes. Having

crossed the threshold, Î entered an oblong hall, ill

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THE ELBICEÏ ATIKA

lighted and filled with great glass cases containing
manikins dressed with perfect care and scrupulous accu-
racy. Here are collected, like types of antediluvian
animals in a natural history museum, the individuals
and races suppressed by Mahmoud’s coup d’état. Here
lives again, with a dead, motionless life, the fantastic
and chimerical Turkey of vast trousers, dolmans edged
with cat-skins, high, conical caps, jackets with a
sun embroidered on the back, extravagant barbaric
weapons,—the Turkey of the #4mamouchis, of melo-
dramas and fairy tales. It is only twenty-seven years
since the massacre of the Janissaries took place, yet
it seems as though it were a hundred, so radical is the
change that has been worked. By the violent will of
the reformer, the old national forms have been de-
stroyed, and almost contemporary costumes have
become historical antiquities.

When looking through the glass at these moustached
or bearded faces, with their fixed stare, and their colours
imitating life, lighted by a faint side-light, one feels
a strange sensation, a sort of indefinable uneasiness.
The crude reality, different from that of art, is troub-
lous on account of the very illusion it produces; in

seeking a transition from the statue to the living being,

251

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er eo

CONSTAN TIEINOGPELNT

the cadaver has been hit upon. Those painted faces
in which no muscle moves end by frightening you,
like the rouged dead who are carried along with uncov-
ered face. Î can quite understand the terror masks
inspire in children. These long files of queer beings,
preserving the stiff, constrained attitudes in which they
have been put, resemble the people petrified by the
vengeance of a magician told of in the Eastern tale.
The only one lacking is the tall, white-bearded old
man, the one living being in the dead city, who reads
the Koran on the stone bench at the entrance to the
town. He may be represented, if you like, — in pro-
saic fashion, it is true, — by the man who collects the
entrance fees at the door.

I cannot describe separately the one hundred and
forty figures enclosed in the glass cases on the two
stories. Many have but imperceptible differences in
the cut and colour of their dress, and to describe them
properly I should have to fill my pages with innu-
merable Turkish words of repellent orthography and
difficult to read. Besides, the work has been done
admirably and accurately by George Noguès, the son
of the editor-in-chief of the French newspaper at

Constantinople, and with an amount of care which a

252

tétittiitéetetddédbeddekd eh
THE ELBICEI ATIKA

traveller, who has to see things quickly, cannot bring
to the task. À

The Elbicei Atika is composed chiefly of costumes
of the former household of the Grand Seignior and the
different uniforms of the Janissaries. ‘There are also
some manikins of artisans dressed in the old fashion,
but these are few in number.

The first functionary of a seraglio is naturally the
Chief of the Eunuchs, the Kislar Agassi. The one
enclosed in the glass cases of the Elbicei Atika as a
specimen of his class, is most splendidly dressed in a
state pelisse of brocade with a flowered pattern, worn
over an inner tunic of red silk, and very full trousers
held in at the waist by a cashmere sash. He wears a
red turban with a twisted muslin band, and yellow
morocco boots.

The Grand Vizier, or Sadrazam, has à singularly
shaped turban: the upper portion is conical and the
lower ribbed in four places; below that are rows
of muslin held in and crossed diagonally by a narrow
gold band. Like the Chief of the Eunuchs he wears
a state pelisse (#urkla caftan) of brocade with a red
and green flowered pattern. From his cashmere sash

projects the carved handle of his kandjar, rough with

253

LitéetiLsisetetsitsttdstktd dk
CONSTANTINOPLE

gems. The Sheik ul Islam and the Kapoudan Pacha
are dressed very much in the same way save as regards
the turban, which consists of a fez with a piece of red
stuff wound around it.

The Seliktar Agassi, or Chief of the Sword-bearers,
has a thoroughly sacerdotal and Byzantine look in his
splendidly strange costume. His turban, curiously con-
structed, gives him a vague resemblance to a Pharaoh
wearing the pschent, and may have been copied from
some hieroglyphic panel. His gold brocade robe with
silver flowered patterns, cut in the shape of a dalmatic,
recalls a priest’s chasuble. ‘The Sultan’s sabre, respect-
fully enclosed in a sheath of violet satin, rests on his
shoulder. Next to him is a figure dressed in a black
gown (dubbe), the sleeves split and embroidered in gold,
and wearing a fez. This is the Bach T'chokadar, an
officer whose duty it was to carry the pelisses of the
Grand Seignior when he went forth. Then comes
the Tchaouch Agassi (Chief of the Ushers), in his gold
stuff robe, his cashmere girdle fastened by metallic
plates, and bristling with a whole arsenal. His gold
cap ends in a crescent, one horn in front and one
behind, a fantastic head-dress that recalls the lunar

Isis. This Chief of the Ushers, who would not be

254

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RALE) BEBDUET. ATFTTK A

out of place at the gate of a palace of Thebes or
Memphis, has in his hand an iron rod with bifurcated
handle not unlike the Nilometer, — another Egyptian
resemblance. This rod is the badge of his functions.
An Aga of the Seraglio comes next, in a white silk
robe drawn in by a sash with gold plates. He wears
a cylindrical cap. This other manikin, dressed in the
same way save that his golden head-dress swells out
into four curves at the top like the chapska of a Polish
lancer, is a dilciz or mute, one of the sinister beings
who executed secret justice or vengeance, who passed
around the neck of the rebellious pachas the fatal .
bow-string, and whose silent apparition made the most
intrepid turn pale. |

Now come in a group the Serikdji Bachi, who have
charge of the turbans of the Grand Seignior, the
cooks, the gardeners with red caps like those worn by
Catalans, which fall over like a pocket; the porters,
the curly-headed Baltadgis with Persian caps; the Sou-
laks with apricot-coloured dolmans and red trousers
just like Rubini when he plays Othello; the Peyiks,
with purple gowns and round caps surmounted by a
fan-shaped aigrette. The Baltadgis, Soulaks, and
Peyiks form the body-guard of the Sultan and surround

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CONSTANTINOPLE

him on solemn occasions, at the Beïram, at the Cour-
ban Beïram, and when he goes in state to a mosque.

This series is closed by two fantastically dressed
dwarfs. These little monsters with faces like gnomes
or kobolds are scarcelÿ thirty inches high, and could
well maintain their place by the side of Perkeo, the
dwarf of the Elector Charles Philip; of Bébé, the
King of Poland’s dwarf ; of Mari-Borbola and Nico-
lasico Pertusato, Philip IV’s dwarfs; and Tom Thumb,
the gentleman dwarf. They are grotesquely hideous,
and madness sneers upon their thick lips, for the dwarf
and the jester are often one and the same. Thought
is ill at ease in these deformed heads. Supreme power
has always enjoyed this antithesis of supreme abjection.
À deformed jester, chattering on the steps of the throne
as he shakes his cap and bells, is a contrast which the
kings of the Middle Ages always indulged in. It is
not so in Turkey, where madmen are venerated as
saints, but it is always pleasant, when one is a radiant
sultan, to have near one à sort of human monkey to
set off your own splendour.

The first dwarf is dressed in a yellow robe fastened
by a golden belt, and wears a sort of cap, a caricature

of a crown. The second, much more simply dressed,

256

db be de de de de de de ebechs dde ebe che cb ob eds db de be cho ed
THE ELBICEÏ ATIKA

has huge Mameluke trousers which fall upon his tiny
slippers, and is wrapped up in a benich with dragging
sleeves, looking like a child who, for fun, has put on
his grandfather’s clothes. His dark-coloured turban
has nothing peculiar. The office of dwarf has not
been given up at the Turkish court; it is still hon-
ourably filled. In my description of the Beiram I gave
a sketch of the Sultan Abdul Medjid’s dwarf, a broad,
squat monster disguised in the costume of a pacha of
the Reform.

In the same case is seen a sick aga being dragged by
servants in a sort of two-wheeled bier, which reminded
me of the travelling-chaise of Charles V preserved in
the Armeria at Madrid. Nowadays agas in good
health drive about in coupés and carriages, for Paris
and Vienna send their finest works in this line to
Constantinople, whence will soon disappear the talikas
with painted and gilded bodies, and the characteristic
arabas drawn by great gray oxen. Most true it is that
local colour is vanishing everywhere.

The remaining portion of the museum comprises
the corps of the Janissaries, which is there in its
entirety just as if Sultan Mahmoud had not had them

shot down on Etmeïdan Square. There are specimens

17 257

Lt bdd desk de dk

À
ONSTANTINOMLE

of each kind. But perhaps before Î describe the cos-
tumes of the Janissaries, [| ought to give some idea of
their organisation.

The Yeni tcheri (new troop) were established by
Amurat IV, who proposed to have a picked corps, a
special guard on whose devotion he could unfailingly
reckon. His slaves formed the nucleus of the corps,
which later was augmented by recruits and prisoners
of war. Europeans, unfamiliar with the intonations
of Oriental speech, have corrupted the name Yeni
tcheri into Janissary, which unfortunately suggests a
different root and apparently means keepers of the
gate.

The orta (corps) of the Yeni tcheri was divided into
odas or rooms, and the different officers bore culinary
titles, comical at first sight, yet easily explained ; tchor-
badgi or soup-maker, achasi or cook, karacoulloudji or
scullion, sakka or water-carrier,'strike one as curious
military grades. To accord with this culinary hier-
archy, each oda, besides its standard, had for ensign a
stewpan marked with the regimental number. On
days of revolt these stewpans were overset, and the
sultan paled within his Seraglio; for the Yeni tcheri

were not always satisfied with a few heads, and 2

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bttétetedtéeékébébbedéd dd
PER MLBTOLIS ATK A

revolt sometimes became a revolution. Enjoying high
pay, better fed, backed by privilèges which had been
granted to them or which they had extorted, the Janis-
saries ended by forming a nation within the nation, and
their aga was one of the most important personages in
the empire.

The aga in the Elbiceïi Atika is superbly dressed.
The most precious furs line his pelisse stiff with gold ;
his turban is of fine India muslin ; his cashmere sash
supports a panoply of priceless weapons with damask
blades, gem-incrusted hilts, pistols with silver or gold
butts, studded with garnets, turquoises, and rubies.
Elegant slippers of yellow morocco artistically em-
broidered complete this noble and rich dress, which is
equal to that of the greatest dignitaries.

By the aga’s side [I may place the santon, Bektak
Emin Baba, the patron of the corps. This santon had
blessed the orta of the Yeni tcheri on its formation, and
his memory was greatly venerated. His name was
invoked in battle, in danger, and in critical times.
Bektak Emin Baba does not shine, like the aga, by the
splendour of his costume. His dress, exceedingly
simple, marks his renunciation of earthly vanities. It

consists of a sort of gown of white wool drawn in by a

259

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GONSTANTINOPER

brown sash, and a fez of whitish felt not unlike the cap
worn by the Whirling Dervishes. The fez has no
silk tuft, but a narrow border of dark-coloured plush.
The tight-fitting breeches, coming down to the knee,
show the bony, tanned legs of the holy man. He has
in his hand a little horn with a copper mouthpiece, the
meaning of which attribute I am ignorant of.

Uniform, as we understand it, was not in accordance
with the habits of the times, consequently fancy had
pretty free play in the costumes of the Yeni tcheri.
The various ranks are distinguished by some quaint
sign, but the garments are generally like those worn
by the Turks at that time. It would take a litho-
grapher’s pencil or a painter’s brush rather than the
writer’s pen, to render these varieties of cut and shades
and all the details which are apt to overload a descrip-
tion, for in spite of all efforts it can never be quite
clear to the reader’s eye. Among the numerous artists,
I am surprised that there was not one who cared
to reproduce this precious collection in a series of
water-colour sketches. It would be perfectly easy to
obtain the necessary firman to work in the gallery, and
the sale of the sketches would be certain, especially

now that all eyes are turned towards the East.

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ARS RAM LE RS RER
de ho de dede de ce detecte cette de dec

eve 70 ets re ete 7e os

THB MELBICEL ATIKA

Well, until some one does make drawings, let me

note as I go a few peculiarities, some striking figures :
among others, a bacha karacoulloudji or chief scullion,
whose rank corresponds to that of lieutenant. He
wears on his shoulder, as à badge of his dignity, a
gigantic ladle which might have been taken from the
sideboard of Gargantua or Gamachio. This strange
decoration ends in a spear-head, no doubt to combine
warlike and culinary ideas. A chater or runner, whose
head seems to have been taken by a braid-maker who
wanted to roll around it a long piece of white ribbon,
— the innumerable twists which the stuff makes upon
it form a brim not unlike the brim of a round hat. A
yeni tcheri oustaci, or superior officer, flanked by an
acolyte and wearing the quaintest costume imaginable ;
he is covered with huge, round plates of metal the
size of stew-pan covers, fastened to his belt, which
clang and clash. They are inlaid, chased, and curi-
ously wrought. From the sword-hilt hangs a great
brass bell like that hung in Spain around the neck
of the leading ass in a train. His headgear, rounded
at the top like a helmet, is divided by a copper
bar, like that seen on certain morions to protect the

nose against sword-cuts, and over the back falls a mass

261
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CHE

te
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dd db bb dede bebe che toohe ok chrcts
CONSTANTINOPLE

of gray stuff spreading out behind. Full red trousers
complete this accoutrement, which is as inconvenient
as it is extraordinary. The heralds in ancient tourneys
could not possibly be more ill at ease in their massive
armours than this unfortunate yeni tcheri oustaci in his
full dress. The bacha sakkacci, chief of water-bearers,
is no less strangely costumed. His round, white,
shapeless jacket cut like a tabard or sack coat, is im-
bricated and mottled with copper plates. On his
shoulders a couple of jumping-jacks, also covered with
metal scales, frame in his head in curious fashion, A
leather water-skin is fastened on his back by straps. In
his belt he has a cat-o’-nine-tails. Farther on are two
officers carrying the orta stewpan on a long stick passed
through the handle. On the stewpan itself figures in
relief indicate the regimental number.

À detailed description of the candle-lighter, of the
alms-basin bearer, of the baklava-bearer, and of the
gracioso with his fur cap and his tarboush, would lead
me too far. I will mention merely the figures of the
bombardiers (kombaradji), who formed part of the corps
established by Ahmed Pacha (Count de Bonneval), a
famous renegade whose tomb still exists at the tekieh
of the Whirling Dervishes at Pera, one of the soldiers

262

ee fe ae ee do dde ce dec lechecbcheccceede de

HP RE LBECEL AT IK À
of the Nizam Djedid instituted by the Sultan Selim to
counterbalance the influence of the Janissaries. It is
from the time of this corps, formed from the remains
of the militia of Saint Jean d’Acre, that dates the
introduction of uniform among Ottoman Turks.
The costume of the Nizam Dijedid is very like that
of the zouaves and spabis of our African army. A
few specimens of Greeks, Armenians, and Arnaouts
complete the collection.

When traversing the Elbicei Atika, and passing
before these closets filled with the phantoms of by-
gone days, one cannot help feeling melancholy and
wondering if it was not an impulse of involuntary
prescience that urged the Turks to make this collec-
tion of their ancient national dress, their own national

life being so threatened to-day.

203

NMOUNT BOUGOUREOU
PRINCES ISLANDS

L'THOUGH the Turks have, properly speak-
ing, no art, for the Koran prohibits as

idolatrous the representation of living beings,

they are nevertheless endowed to a very high degree
with a feeling for the picturesque. Wherever there is
a fine view or a pleasant prospect, there is certain to
be a kiosk, a fountain, and a few Osmanlis resting on
their carpets, remaining for hours at a time perfectly
motionless, their gaze wandering dreamily over the
distance, and puffing from time to time clouds of blue
smoke. Mount Bougourlou, which rises behind Kadi-
keui somewhat back of Scutari and from the top of
which there is a superb panorama of the Bosphorus
and the Sea of Marmora, is chiefly frequented by
women, who spend whole days under the trees in
small companies or in harems, chatting, drinking sher-
bet, watching their children playing, and listening to the

quaint music of the perambulating singers.

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tkéiéetéedtdedtststtdds.st ss dd
MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

My talika, drawn by a stout horse led by the driver
on foot, followed at first the seashore, the water often
rippling up to the wheels We passed along the
scattered houses of Kadikeui, crossed the Haïdar
Pacha drill-ground, whence start every year the pil-
grims to Mecca, traversed the vast cypress wood of
the Field of the Dead behind Scutari, and ascended
the steep slopes of Mount Bougourlou by à rutty,
stony, rocky road, often barred by the roots of trees
and narrowed by the projection of houses ; for it must
be confessed that the Turks are, so far as roads go,
utterly careless. Two hundred carriages will in one
day wind around 2 stone in the centre of the road, or
smash against it, without a single driver bethinking
himself of moving the obstacle out of the way. In
my case, in spite of the jolts and the necessarily slow
pace, the drive was very agreeable and very animated.
Carriages were coming and going; arabas drawn by
oxen bore companies of six or eight women; talikas
had four seated opposite each other, cross-legged upon
pieces of Smyrna carpet, all splendidly dressed, their
hair starred with diamonds and gems that sparkled
through the muslin of their veils. Sometimes in a

modern brougham swept by a pacha’s favourite.

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CELL E CE EL 002070700080 VEN SES
CONSTANTINOPLE

There were also many horsemen and pedestrians,
climbing more or less gaily the steep flanks of the
mountain, and Zigzagging up and down.

On a sort of plateau half-way up, beyond which
horses cannot go, there was a large number of car-
riages waiting for their owners, and exhibiting samples
of Turkish carriage-making of various epochs, most
entertaining and forming a picturesque mass which
would have made à pretty subject for a painting. I
had my talika draw up in a place where I could be sure
to find it again, and continued the ascent. Here and
there, on tree-shaded terraces, were Turkish or
Armenian families, recognisable by their black or yel-
low boots and their more or less veiled faces. Of
course, when I speak of a family, Ï mean women only.
Men go by themselves and never accompany the
females.

At the top of the mountain were cavadjis with their
portable stoves, water and sherbet sellers, dealers in
sweets and confectionery, the inevitable accompani-
ment of any Turkish entertainment. Very bright
indeed was the sight of the women dressed in rose,
green, blue, lilac, diapering the sward like flowers and

enjoying the coolness under the shadow of plane-trees

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eve TS evo O7 eme corse eve Te LF9 TS

MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

and sycamores ; for although it was very hot, the ele-
vation and the sea-breeze combined to produce a
delightful temperature.

Young Greek girls, crowned with their diadems of
hair, had linked hands and were swinging round to a
soft, quaint air, looking against the clear background
of the sky like the “ Procession of Hours ” in Guido’s
fresco. The Turks viewed them with considerable
disdain, unable to understand why people should exert
themselves for their own amusement, and least of all,
why people should dance for themselves.

I walked on, climbing until Î reached a group of
seven trees which crowned the mountain like a plume.
From this point the whole length of the Bosphorus is
seen, as well as the Sea of Marmora with the Princes
Islands, forming a marvellously beautiful prospect.
The Bosphorus, shining in places from between its
brown banks, appears like a series of lakes; the curves
of the shore and the promontories which project into the
water seem to narrow it and to close it here and there.
The undulations of the hills bordering this marine river
are incomparably exquisite. T'he serpentine line of
the torso of a beautiful woman lying down, her hip

rising, is neither more voluptuous nor more perfect.

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CONSTANTINOPLE

À silvery, tender, bright light like that of à ceiling
by Paolo Veronese enwraps the vast landscape in its
transparent veils. In the west, on the European shore,
Constantinople, with its fringe of minarets; in the
east, a vast plain traversed by a road leading to the
mysterious depths of Asia; on the north, the mouth of
the Black Sea and the Cimmerian regions ; on the south,
Mount Olympus, Bithynia, the Troad, and in the dis-
tant horizon pierced by thought, Greece and its archi-
pelago. What most attracted my attention was the
vast, desert, bare country, whither in fancy I followed
the caravans, dreaming of strange adventures and start-
ling episodes.

I descended, after half an hour of mute contempla-
tion, to the plateau occupied by the groups of smokers,
women, and children. À great circle had formed
around a band of Hungarian gipsies playing on the
violin and singing ballads in Cali dialect. Their tanned
faces, their long, blue-black hair, their exotic, crazy looks,
their savage and queer grimaces, and their picturesquely
extravagant rags made me think of Lenau’s poem,
«The Bohemians on the Heath,” — four stanzas only,
but which fill you with the nostalgia of the unknown

and the liveliest desire to lead a wandering life.

2608

Léa de dede dede bebe dd

MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

Whence comes that unchanging race, ever the same,
members of which are found in every corner of the
world, among different populations, which it traverses
without ever mingling with them? From, India, no
doubt, and it is probably some pariah tribe that re-
fused to accept fatal abjection. I rarely come across
a gipsy camp without desiring to join them and share
their vagabond existence, —the wild man ever sur-
vives in the skin of the civilised; and it needs but
a slight circumstance to awaken the desire to get rid
of social laws and conventionalities. It is true that
after spending a week sleeping by the side of a waggon
with an open-air kitchen, one would be apt to regret
slippers, a comfortable armchair, a curtained bed, and
especially the steak à la Châteaubriant washed down by
prime claret, that has gone to India and back, or even
the evening edition of the paper. But the feeling
which I expressed is none the less genuine.

Highly developed civilisation weighs down upon the
individual, and deprives him, in a way, of the possession
of himself, in return for the general advantages which
it procures; hence Î have heard many a traveller say
there was no more deligchtful sensation than to gallop

alone in a desert at sunrise with pistols in your belt

269

ST

CONSTAN TINOPLE

and à carbine at your saddlebow; no one watching
over you, but no one troubling you either; liberty fill-
ing the silence and solitude, and God alone above.
I have myself felt something like this when travelling
alone on some of the lonely roads of Spain and Algeria.
I found my talika and its driver where I had left
them, and we began the descent, an unpleasant busi-
ness on account of the steepness of the slope and the
condition of the road, which I cannot better compare
than to a ruined staircase demolished in places. The
syce held the horse’s head. The latter every minute
had to lean back on its hind legs, while the carriage
pressed down upon its quarters ; jolts fit to jerk out the
best fastened heart threw me forward when I least
expected it; and so, though I was rather tired, I deter-
mined to get out and follow the carriage on foot.
Arabas and talikas full of women and children were
also coming down Bougourlou, and at every unexpected
jolt there were bursts of laughter and shouts. A whole
row of women would tumble down on the opposite
row, and rivals embraced each other most involuntarily.
The oxen stiffened themselves as best they could
against the asperities of the way, and the horses went

down with the prudence of animals accustomed to bad

270

MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

roads. The horsemen galloped straight on as if they
were on a level, sure of their Kurdish or Barb steeds.
It was a charming pell-mell, thoroughly Turkish in
aspect. Although a space of but a few minutes sepa-
rates the shore of Asia from that of Europe, local
colour has been much better preserved in the former,
and far fewer Franks are met with.

The road having somewhat improved, [ climbed
back into the carriage, looking out of the window at
the painted houses, the cypresses, and the turbehs which
border the road, forming sometimes a sort of island in
the centre of the street like Saint Mary le Strand. My
driver took me through Scutari, which we had skirted
in going through the Haïdar Pacha drill-ground, and
then along the seashore as far as the landing-place at
Kadikeui where the steamer was getting under way
and sending up clouds of black smoke.

The embarking of the women passengers was the
cause of much tumult and laughter. An almost per-
pendicular board formed the connection between the
wharf and the boat ; it was very difficult to climb; and
in addition, the rail had to be stepped over, which was
the cause of a great many rather funnily modest and

virtuous grimaces. Night was falling when the steamer

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béétédttststtk dde dk dk
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ONSTANTINOPEE

landed its human cargo at Galata, after having shaken
it up and down like a swing.

As I had nearly exhausted the curiosities of Constan-
tinople, I resolved to spend a few days at the Princes’
Islands, a tiny archipelago in the Sea of Marmora at
the entrance to the Bosphorus, which has the reputa-
tion of being a very healthy and pleasant resort. The
Islands are seven in number: Proti, Antigone, Kalki,
Prinkipo, Nikandro, Oxeia, Piati, besides two or three
islets which are not reckoned in. Prinkipo is the
largest and most frequented of these marine flowers,
lighted by the bright Anatolian sun and cooled by the
fresh morning and evening breeze. They are reached by
English or Turkish steamers in about an hour and a half.
The Prinkipo shore shows, on coming from Constan-
tinople, as a high cliff with reddish scarps topped
by a line of housess Wooden stairs or steep paths
forming acute angles lead from the cliff top to the
seashore, which is bordered by wooden bathing-huts.
The explosion of a bomb gives warning that the
steamer is in sight, and immediately à fleet of caïques
and boats leaves the shore to meet the passengers,
for the small depth of water will not allow vessels to
approach close.

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MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

Rooms had been reserved for me beforehand in the
only inn in the island, a clean, bright wooden house
shaded by great trees, from the windows of which
the view extended over the sea to the very confines
of the horizon; opposite was Kalki, with its Turkish
village reflected in the sea and its mountains sur-
mounted by a Greek convent. The water laved the
cliff at the foot of which was perched the inn, and I
could go down in my dressing-gown and slippers and
enjoy a delicious bath on a long, sandy beach.

In the evening the Armenian and Greek women
rival each other in dress and walk on the narrow space
between the houses and the shore. The heaviest
and thickest silks are then exhibited, diamonds sparkle
in the moonbeams, and bare arms are laden with
those enormous gold bracelets with many chains pecu-
liar to Constantinople, and which our jewellers ought
to imitate, for they impart slenderness to the wrist and
set off the hand to great advantage.

Armenian families are as fruitful as English families,
and it is not uncommon to see a stout matron preceded
by four or five girls, each prettier than the others, and
as many very lively boys. As the ladies walk out bare-

headed in low-necked dresses, the promenade looks like

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SO NE ON AN LAS
Littéttttttd de bete de de dde
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an open-air opera audience. À few Parisian bonnets
are to be seen, as on the Prado at Madrid, but they
are not numerous.

In the cafés, which all have terraces on the seaside,
people eat ices made of the snows of Olympus in
Bithynia, or sip tiny cups of coffee with glasses of
water, and smoke tobacco in every possible way, in
chibouques, in nargilehs, and in the form of cigars and
cigarettes.

From time to time a blue glare like that of an elec-
tric light startingly lights up the façade of a house, a
clump of trees, or a group of people, who turn around
and smile. It is a lover, burning Bengal lights in
honour of his sweetheart or his bride. There must be
a great many lovers in Prinkipo, for one light had no
sooner gone out than another flared up. Then, little
by little, every one goes home, and about midnight the
whole island is soundly and virtuously asleep.

Walking and sea-bathing form the attractions of
Prinkipo. In order to improve on them, Î went with
a pleasant young fellow whose acquaintance I had
made at the table d’hôte, on a long excursion on ass’s
back into the interior of the island. We first traversed

the village, the market-place of which was delightful to

274

£ ne CE RS

CHELLES SEZILSLLLE SSL LES E.
MOUNT BOUGOURLOU

the eye with its masses of quaintly shaped cucumbers,
watermelons, Smyrna melons, tomatoes, pimentoes,
grapes, and curious wares. Then we followed the
sea, sometimes close, sometimes at a distance, through
woods and cultivated fields, as far as the house of a
pope, a good liver, who had us served with raki and
ice-water by a very handsome girl. ‘Then, passing
around the end of the island, we reached an old Greek
monastery in rather bad condition and now used as a
lunatic asylum. Three or four poor ragged wretches,
pale and mournful looking, were dragging themselves
with clanking chains along the walls of a yard blaz-
ing with sunshine. We were shown in the chapel
some inferior paintings with gold backgrounds and
brown faces, such as are manufactured at Mount Athos
from Byzantine models for the use of the Greek
Church. The Panagia exhibited as usual its brown
face and hands through a silver or silver-gilt plate cut
out, and the Child Jesus appeared as a little negro boy
with a trefoil nimbus. Saint George, the patron of the
place, was overwhelming the dragon in the regulation
attitude.

The situation of the convent is superb. It is placed

upon the platform of a rocky cliff, and from the terrace

275

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er eve 7e eve eve er oye eve es

CONSTANTINOPLE

the eye can wander through the two limitless azures,
— that of the heavens and that of the sea We re-
turned by another and wilder road, through clumps
of myrtles, of terebinth-trees and pines which grow of
themselves, and which the inhabitants cut down for fire-
wood. We reached the inn at last, to the great satisfac-
tion of our asses, which had had to be beaten and spurred
on vigorously to prevent their going to sleep on the way;
for we had been foolish enough not to take the driver
with us, an indispensable personage in such a caravan,
as Eastern asses have a great contempt for the bourgeois,
and are in no wise troubled by a thrashing from them.

Four or five days later, having become sufficiently
acquainted with the charms of Prinkipo, I started on
an excursion on the Bosphorus from Seraglio Point to

the entrance to the Black Sea.

276

Le HE Bosphorus, from Seraglio Point to the
entrance to the Black Sea, is constantly
traversed by steamers, like the Thames.

The caïdjis who formerly reigned despotically over its

green, swift waters, now watch the steam vessels go by

just as postilions look at railway trains, and consider

Fulton’s invention absolutely diabolical. However,

there are still obstinate Turks and poltroon giaours

who use caïques to ascend the Bosphorus, just as with
us there are people who, in spite of the railways on
the right and left bank, go to Versailles and Saint

Cloud in coaches; but they are becoming rarer every

day, and the Mussulmans get along capitally with the

steamers. [ndeed, steamers interest them greatly, and
there is not a café or a barber’s shop the walls of
which are not adorned by à number of drawings in
which the artless artist has depicted a steamer as well
as he could, the smoke escaping from the funnel and

the paddles churning the foaming waters.

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ONSTANTINOPLE

I went on board at the Galata Bridge on the Golden
Horn, which is the starting-point of the steamers that
lie there in great numbers, sending out their black and
white vapour, condensed into a permanent cloud, into
the light azure of the sky. London Bridge or the
Suspension Bridge does not exhibit more animation, a
more tumultuous crowd than this landing, the approach
to which is very inconvenient; for to reach the boats,
one has to get over the railings of the bridge of boats,
step over logs, and pass over rotting or broken beams,
Nor is it easy to unmoor; nevertheless the sailors
manage it, not without colliding occasionally with the
neighbouring boats; and at last a start is made. Very
shortly the open water is gained, and then you steam
along quietly between a double line of palaces, kiosks,
villages, gardens, upon bright waters of emerald and
sapphire, with a wake of pearls, under the loveliest
heavens in the world, in a bright sunshine which makes
rainbows in the silvery spray of the paddle-wheels.
There is nothing to be compared, to my knowledge,
with this two hours’ sail upon that lovely line of shore
drawn like a boundary between the two parts of the
world, Europe and Asia, which are seen at one and

the same time.

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THE BOSPHORUS

The Maiden’s Tower soon emerges, with its white
silhouette showing so charmingly against the blue
background of the waters; Scutari and Top Khaneh
next appear ; above Top Khaneh the Tower of Galata
raises its verdigrised conical roof, and on the slope of
the hill are the stone houses of the Europeans, the
painted wooden homes of the Turks. Here and there
a white minaret sends up its slender column like the
mast of a vessel; a few clumps of dark green show
in round outlines. The massive buildings of the lega-
tions exhibit their façades, and the Great Field of the
Dead unrolls its cypresses, against which stand out
bright the artillery barracks and the military college.
Scutari, the Golden City, Chrysopolis, has a similar
aspect, the dark foliage of a cemetery forming likewise
a background to its rose-coloured houses and white-
washed mosques. On both sides life has death behind
it, and each city is encircled by suburbs of tombs.
But these thoughts, which would elsewhere be gloomy,
in no wise trouble the serene fatalism of the East.

On the European shore one soon comes upon
T'cheragan, a palace built by Mahmoud in European
style with a classical façade like that of the Chamber

of Deputies, in the centre of which is the monogram

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of the Sultan in letters of gold; it has two Wings sup-
ported by Doric columns. in Greek marbles. I confess
that in the East I prefer Arab or Turkish architecture ;
and yet this grand building, the broad, white stairs of
which descend to the sea, is very effective. In front
of the palace a splendid caïque with gilded and painted
purple awning, bearing on the poop a silver bird, was
awaiting His Highness.

Opposite, beyond Scutari, is a long line of summer
palaces, painted apple-green, shaded with plane-trees,
arbutus and ash trees, most smiling in appearance, and
in spite of their trellised windows, recalling aviaries
rather than prisons. These palaces are built on the
shore close to the waters edge.

Between Dolma Baghtchech and Beshicktash is the
Venetian façade of the new palace built for Sultan
Abdul Medjid. Ifit is not in the very best of taste, it
is at least quaintly rich and capricious. ‘The white
silhouette, carved, wrought, chiselled, and loaded with
infinite ornament, stands out elegantly on the bank.
It is unmistakably the palace of a caliph tired of Arab
and Persian architecture, and who, disdainful of the
five orders, has built for himself a vast marble gem

traceried like filigree.

280

D pe or ee hist HE à TT

re mg

déititisistetsietedddkkdedhdk
THE BOSPHORUS

Dolma Baghtchech was formerly called Jasonion, for
it was here that Jason landed with his Argonauts on
his quest for the Golden Fleece.

The steamer runs close by the European shore, on
which calling-places are more frequent. As we pass
the café of Beschicktash, we can see the smokers
squatting in their trellised cabinets, that overhang the
water. Soon we leave behind Ortakeui and Kourou-
tcheshmeh on the shore, behind which rise in undula-
ting lines hills covered with trees, gardens, houses, and
smiling villages.

From one village to the other runs an uninterrupted
line of palaces and summer residences. The Sultana
Valideh, the Sultan’s sisters, the viziers, the ministers,
the pachas, the great dignitaries have all built here
lovely dwellings with a thorough knowledge of Orien-
tal comfort, which is not like English comfort, but is
just as good.

These palaces are built of wood, except the pillars,
which are usually cut out of a single block of Marmora
marble, or taken from the remains of ancient buildings.
Their fugitive grace is none the less elegant. The
stories project over each other, there are angles and

projections, kiosks with Chinese roofs, pavilions with

281

eee fe ad ce ce cle keekeheshootetenbe te aheohe ab ads

> fe QPS OO or C9 FD ere ere

CONSTANTINOPLE

terraces adorned with vases, and the paint is constantly
renewed. In the cedar-wood gratings of the windows
of the apartments reserved for the women are round
holes like those made in stage curtains, through which
the actors inspect the house and the spectators. It is
there that, seated upon squares of carpet, nonchalant
beauties watch unseen the vessels, the steamers, and
the caïques, while they chew Chios mastic to keep their
teeth white. À narrow granite quay, which forms a
tow-path, separates these pretty places from the sea.
Near Arnaoutkeui the waters of the Bosphorus surge
and boil, owing to a rapid current called mega reuma
(the great current). The blue water flashes like an
arrow past the narrow quay. There, however muscu-
lar may be their sun-tanned arms, the caïdjis feel the
sweeps bend in their hands like the blades of a fan,
and if they were to attempt to contend with this fierce
current, their sweeps would snap like glass rods. The
Bosphorus is full of such currents, which vary in their
direction, and make it seem more à river than an arm
of the sea On reaching this point a rope is hove
from the boat to the land, three or four men hang on
to it like tow-horses, and bending their broad shoulders,

draw the craft along, its cut-water sending up a great

282

RE fac

4
|
|
À

titietietkeseetkéekéeekéékédéhé
THE BOSPHORUS

surge of white foam. The rapid crossed, the sweeps
are shipped and the boat traverses without dificulty the
dead water. At the foot of the houses are often seen
groups of three or four Turkish women seated by the
side of their children playing. On the quay young
Greek girls are walking, holding each other by the
hand and casting inquisitive glances at the European
travellers; horsemen pass by, watermen are hauling a
private caïque into a boat-house, — figures, indeed, are
rarely lacking in the scene.

My readers are now sufficiently familiar with the
architecture of the place to render it unnecessary for
me to describe the houses of Arnaoutkeui. I shall,
however, note as peculiar some old Armenian dwellings
painted black, a colour formerly compulsory, the
brighter tints belonging rightfully to the Turks and the
ox-blood red and rosso antico to the Greeks. Nowadays
a house may be painted in any colour except green, the
colour of Islam, reserved for hadjis and descendants of
the Prophet.

On the Asiatic coast, more wooded and shaded than
that of Europe, villages, palaces, and kiosks succeed
each other less closely, perhaps, but still numerous.

There are Kouskoundjouk, Stavros, Beylerbey, where

283

tétbétdttdtdtbddedd...t gd bb
CONSTANTINORLE

Mahmoud had a summer residence built, Tchengelkeui,
Vanikeui, and opposite re the Sweet Waters of
Asia.

À lovely white-marble fountain, embroidered with
arabesques and covered with inscriptions and gilded
letters, surmounted by a great roof with broad, shelving
eaves and small domes surmounted by crescents, which
is seen from the sea and stands out against the rich
background of verdure, points out to the traveller this
favourite resort of the Osmanlis. The vast extent of
ground, covered with rich sward and enclosed by ash-
trees, plane-trees, and sycamores, is covered on Fridays
with arabas and talikas, and on Smyrna carpets loll the
idle beauties of the harem. The negro eunuchs, slapping
their white trousers with the end of their wands, walk
between the groups, looking for some sly glance, some
sign of intelligence, especially if there happens to be
there a giaour trying to penetrate from afar the mys-
teries concealed by the yashmak and the ferradje.
Sometimes the women fasten shawls to the branches
of the trees and swing their children in these impro-
vised hammocks; others eat rose preserves and drink
snow water; others again smoke the narghileh or

cigarette ; all gossip and slander the Frankish ladies,

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bhtdbétetsetbbkdbddbed dede ds
THE BOSPHORUS

who are so shameless as to expose themselves with
uncovered faces, and walk with men in the streets.

Farther off, Bulgarian peasants wearing the antique
sagum and fur-trimmed cap perform their national
dance in hope of bakshish; cavadjis are preparing
coffee in the open air; Jews, their gowns slit on the
sides, their turbans spotted with black like a cloth on
which pens are wiped, offer various small wares to the
passers-by with the servile, mean look of Eastern
Hebrews, always bowed under the fear of insult.
Caïdjis are smoking, seated on the edge of the quay,
with their legs hanging over, while they watch. their
boats out of the corner of their eye.

It would take too much time to describe, one after
another, all these villages which follow each other and
are like each other, although with some differences. It
is always the same line of painted white houses like
the toy villages of Nuremberg, rising along the quay,
or else directly out of the water when there is no tow-
path, and standing out against the background of rich
verdure, from which spring the chalk-white minarets
of a chapel or a small mosque. Beyond, the hills, with
their soft, easy slopes, rise exquisitely blue in the light

of heaven. At times one might wish for a steeper

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CONSTANTINOPLE

escarpment, for an arid cliff, for a mass of rock break-
ing through the ground; everything is too graceful, too
smiling, too coquettish, too artificial; one feels the
need of strong, violent touches here and there to set
off the general beauty.

At certain points in the stream are perched upon
a scaffolding of piles curious and picturesque erections
like hen-coops, in which fishermen sit watching the
passage of schools of fish in order to give notice of the
right moment for shooting or hauling in the net. Some-
times they fall asleep and plunge head first from their
aerial perch into the water, where they are drowned
without even awaking. These look-outs, very like the
nests of aquatic birds, seem to have been built for the
purpose of providing foregrounds for painters.

At this point the two banks draw very close together.
This is the place where Darius led his army across on
his expedition against the Scythians, over the bridge
built by Mandrocles of Samos. ‘Two hundred thou-
sand men traversed it, a gigantic aggregation of Asiatic
hordes with exotic faces, curious arms, fabulous accou-
trements, their cavalry mingled with elephants and
camels. On two stone pillars erected at the head of

the bridge were engraved the names of all the nations

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LititiLkéetéetetetéstedbd kde
THEBROSPEEORUS

that marched behind Darius. These pillars rose at the
very spot now occupied by the château of Guzeldje Hissar
built by Bayezid Ilderim, Bajazet the God of War.

Mandrocles, Herodotus tells us, painted a picture
of this crossing and hung it in the temple of Juno in
Samos, his native country, with this inscription : Man-
drocles, having built a bridge upon the Bosphorus full
of fish, dedicated this painting to Juno. By carrying
out this project of King Darius, Mandrocles brought
glory to Samos, winning a crown.” The Bosphorus
is four hundred yards wide at this place, and it is here
that crossed the Persians, the Goths, the Latins, and
the Turks. The invaders, whether coming from Asia
or Europe, followed the same route. All these great
inundations of nations flowed along the same bed, and
surged along the road made by Darius.

The Castle of Europe, Roumeli Hissar, also called
Bogas Kecin (cutthroat), shows uncommonly well on
the slope of the hill with its white towers of unequal
height and its crenellated wallss The three large
towers and the smaller by the seashore form in reverse,
according to Turkish writing, the four letters, M, H,
M, D, which are the name of the founder, Mohammed

IT. This architectural rebus, which cannot be guessed,

287

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CONSTANTINOPLE

recalls the plan of the Escorial representing the gridiron
of Saint Lawrence, in honour of whom the monastery
was built. This peculiarity is observable only if one has
been told of it beforehand. The Castle of Europe is
opposite the Castle of Asia, Anadoli Hissar,

Near Roumeli Hissar extends a cemetery, the tall
black trees and white tombstones of which are brightly
reflected in the azure of the sea, and which is so bright,
flowery, and perfumed that one feels a desire to be
buried there. ‘The dead lying in that bright garden,
enlivened by the sun and full of song-birds, surely do
not suffer from ennui.

The steamer, after having passed Balta Liman,
Stenia, Yenikeui, and Kalender, stops at Therapia, a
village the Greek name of which means “ cure,” — an
appellation justified by the salubrious air. It is here
that the French embassy has its summer palace. In
the graceful little neighbouring gulf, —a golden cup
filled with sapphires, — Medea, returning from Colchis
with Jason, landed and opened the box containing her
magic drugs and philters; whence the name of Phar-
maceus formerly given to T'herapia.

Therapia is a delightful spot. The quay is bordered

with cafés ornamented with a luxury rather rare in

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titeiititetetebedtddkkdeédé

PEAR OQSP HE ORUS

Turkey, inns, summer homes, and gardens. In a
passage leading to the landing-place I noticed in the
stones of the wall two marble torsos, the one of a man
wearing an antique cuirass, the other of a woman
veiled in broken draperies, which the barbaric builders
had set amid the other stones like common material.
The palace of the French embassy, which is to be
rebuilt with greater solidity, richness, and taste, is a
large Turkish building of white pisé, without any archi-
tectural merit, but vast, airy, commodious, and cool
even in the greatest summer heats, and situated, be-
sides, on the loveliest site on earth. Behind the
palace rise terraced gardens filled with trees of pro-
digious height, constantly agitated by the breezes of
the Black Sea. From the top one enjoys a marvellous
prospect. On the shores of Asia spread out the cool
shades of the Waters of the Sultan; beyond these the
Giant’s Mount shows blue, and there it is that tradi-
tion places the bed of Hercules. On the European
shore Buyoukdereh curves gracefully, and the Bos-
phorus, beyond Roumeli Kavak and Anadoli Kavak,
bends out to the Cyanean Islands and is lost in the
Black Sea. White sails come and go like sea-birds;

thought is lost in an infinite reverie.

19 289

tittétéitedkéeséetkétstbd tb

CONSTANTINOPLE

Létt£eiLetkesesktkdts bebe de db dk
BUYOUKDEREH

UYOUKDEREÆH, which is seen from the The-
b rapia terrace, is one of the loveliest summer
villages in the world. On the curving shore
the waves curl in gentle ripples; elegant dwellings,
among which is noticed the summer palace of the Rus-
sian Embassy, rise on the seashore against a background
of green gardens at the foot of the lower slopes of the
hills that form the bed of the Bosphorus. Rich Con-
stantinople merchants have here summer homes, to
which they come every evening by steamer and whence
they go back to town the next morning.

On the Buyoukdereh shore walk after sunset beau-
tiful Greek and Armenian ladies in full dress. The
lights of the cafés and the houses mingle on the waters
with the silver trail of the moon and the reflections of
the stars; a breeze saturated with perfumes and cool-
ness blows gently and makes the air like a fan handled
by the invisible hands of night; orchestras of Hun-

garian gipsies play Strauss’ waltzes, and the boulboul

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tidiiitiiéiiéihibhihééééé
BUYOUKDEREH

sings the poem of its loves with the rose, concealed in
clumps of myrtle. After a warm summer’s day this
balmy atmosphere is delightfully comfortable and reviv-
ing, and it is regretfully that one turns into bed.

The hotel recently built in Buyoukdereh, and ren-
dered necessary by the number of travellers who did
not know where to spend the night or did not care to
take advantage of the hospitality of their Constantinople
friends, is very well kept. It has a large garden in which
rises a superb plane-tree in the branches of which has
been built a pavilion in which I breakfasted under the
shelter of the dentellated and silky foliage. As I mar-
velled at the size of the tree, Ï was told that in a
meadow at the end of the High Street of Buyoukdereh
there is a very much larger one, known as Godefroy de
Bouillon’s plane-tree. [ went to see it, and at the first
glance I thought I beheld à forest rather than a tree.
The trunk, formed of seven or eight stems twisted
together, looked like a tower rent in places; enormous
roots like boa-constrictors half concealed within their
holes, anchored it to the ground; the branches that
issued from it looked rather like horizontal trees than
ordinary limbs. In its sides opened black caverns formed

by the rotting wood that had turned to powder under the

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tiététéetéetetetédestttdbd dd
CONSTANTINOREE

bark. Shepherds take shelter there as in grottoes, and
light fires without the vegetable giant minding it any
more than the ants that travel over its rough bark.
Most majestic and picturesque is this monstrous mass
of foliage, over which centuries have passed like rain-
drops, and under the shadow of which rose the tents
of the heroes sung by Tasso in “ Jerusalem Delivered.”
Buf I must not indulge in poetry. Here comes history,
which as usual contradicts tradition. Scholars maintain
that Godefroy de Bouillon never camped under this
plane-tree, and they cite in support of their contention
a passage from Anna Komnenius, a contemporary, which
gives the lie to the legend: “Then Count Godefroy
de Bouillon, having made the passage with the other
counts and an army composed of ten thousand horse-
men and seventy thousand footmen, reached the great
city and drew up his troops in the neighbourhood of the
Propontis from the Cosmidion Bridge to Saint Phocas.”
This is clear and decisive, but as the legend, in spite
of the text quoted by the learned, cannot be wrong,
Count Raoul established his camp at Buyoukdereh with
the other Latin Crusaders until he could cross over
to Asia, and the exact memory of the event having

been lost, the ancient plane-tree was baptised with

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titietietttkékkékébébebddhbedbdk éd
BUYOUKDEREH

the better known name of Godefroy de Bouillon,
which for the people sums up more particularly the
idea of the Crusades. Whatever the truth may be,
the thousand-year-old tree is still standing, full of nests
and sunbeams, watching the years fall at its feet like
leaves, becoming more colossal and more robust
from age to age, whilethe desert wind has long since
scattered on the sand of Palestine the dust of the
Crusaders.

When I visited the plane-tree of Godefroy de
Bouillon an araba was drawn up under the branches;
the oxen, freed from the yoke, had lain down in the
grass and were gravely chewing the cud with an air
of serene beatitude, shaking from time to time the
silvery foam from their black mouths. Their drivers
were cooking their frugal meal in one of the fissures
of the tree, a sort of natural chimney with a hearth
made of two stones. It was a lovely picture, ready
grouped and composed. I had a great mind to go and
fetch Theodore Frère from his studio in Buyoukdereh
to make a coloured sketch of it; but the araba would
have started again, or the sunbeam that so picturesquely
lighted up the scene would have vanished before the

arrival of the artist. Besides, Frère has in his port-

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CONSTANTINOPLE

folios endless similar scenes, which often recur in
Oriental life.

It was 2 lovely day, and I resolved to return the
same evening to Constantinople in a two-pair scull
caïque, pulled by two robust Arnaouts with shaven
temples and cheeks, and long, fair moustaches. Al-
though it was after ten when I started, it was very
bright, and certainly brighter than in London at noon.
It was not night, but rather a bluish day of infinite
sweetness and transparency. Î settled myself very
carefully in the stern, my coat buttoned up to the
neck, for the dew was falling in a fine, silvery mist like
the night tears of the stars, and the bottom of the boat
was quite wet. My Arnaouts had pulled on a jacket
over their striped gauze shirts, and we began the
descent of the Bosphorus.

The caïque, helped by the current and driven by
four vigorous arms, flew almost as fast as the steamer
through the luminous shimmering water sparkling with
innumerable spangles. The hills and projections of
the shore cast great violet shadows that broke the
bright silveriness of the waters, on which the outlines
of the vessels at anchor, with their sails furled and their

delicate rigging, showed as if they were cut out of black

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BUYOUKDEREH

paper. À few lights shone here and there on the ships
or in the windows of the villages. No other sound
was heard than the cadenced breathing of the rowers,
the regular rhythm of the sculls, the rippling of the
water and the distant bark of some wakeful dog.
From time to time a meteor traversed the heavens
and died out like a firework shell; the Milky Way
unrolled its white zone with a brilliancy and a sharp-
ness unknown to our vaporous Northern nights, the
stars shone even within the aureole of the moon. It
was a marvellous, magnificent, quiet, and serenely
splendid scene. As I admired the vault of lapis-
lazuli veined with gold, I asked myself, Why are
the heavens so splendid when the earth is asleep,
and why do the stars waken only when eyes close ?
No one sees this fairy illumination; it is lighted for
the night eyes of owls, bats, and cats alone. Does
the Divine Scene-Painter so despise the public that
He exhibits his finest canvases after the spectators
have gone to bed? That would not be very flat-
tering to our human pride, but earth is merely an
imperceptible point, a grain lost in eternity, and as
Victor Hugo says, “The normal state of the heavens

is night.”

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CONSTANTINOPLE
RE M uv nt ur a os APE PE

It was striking one when I landed at T'op Khaneh.
I lighted my lantern, and climbing the deserted streets,
taking care not to trample on the troops of sleeping
dogs which moaned as I went by, I regained my
lodgings in the Field of the Dead at Pera, worn out
but delighted.

The next day, continuing my tour, I walked to the
Sweet Waters of Europe at the upper end of the
Golden Horn. Crossing the three bridges of boats,
the last of which, recently finished, was constructed at
the expense of a rich Armenian, I passed by the
Naval Arsenal, where under the sheds are the frames
of vessels like skeletons of cachalots or whales. I
passed between Eyoub and Piri Pacha and soon entered
the archipelago, the little, low, flat islands that separate
the mouths of the Cydaris and the Barbyses, which
flow into each other shortly before falling into the sea,
The Turkish names substituted for these two harmoni-
ous appellations are Sou Kiat Hana and Ali Bey Keui.

Herons and storks, their bills resting upon their
breasts, and one foot drawn up under their wings, watch
you with friendly look; gulls sweep by and hawks
soar in circles above. The farther you proceed, the

more the sound of Constantinople dies away, solitude

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BUYOUKDEREH

grows apace, the country replaces the city by insensible
transitions. No one traverses the elegant Chinese
bridges across the Barbyses, which might be taken for
an artificial river in an English park.

The Sweet Waters of Europe are most frequented
in winter, as the Sultan has there a kiosk with artificial
waters and cascades lined with pavilions in charming
Turkish style. This residence was built by Mah-
moud, but as it is scarcely ever inhabited and never
repaired, it is almost falling into ruins, and the canal is
being filled up; the disjointed stones allow the water
to escape, and parasitical plants grow over the carved
arabesques. It is said that Mahmoud, who had built
this lovely nest for an adored odalisque, would never
return to it when premature death took away the
young woman. Since that time a veil of melancholy
seems to have fallen over this deserted palace buried in
masses of elm, ash, walnut, sycamore, and plane trees,
that seem desirous of concealing it from the traveller’s
eyes like the thick forest around the Castle of the Sleep-
ing Beauty; and the leafy tears of the great weeping
willows sadly drop into the waters.

There was no one there that day, but it was none

the less pleasant. After having wandered for some

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CONSTANTINOPLE

time under the solitary shades, [ stopped at à little
café and had some yaæurt with a piece of bread, a
frugal meal greatly called for by my appetite, sharpened
as it was by the bracing sea air.

Instead of going back by caïque, I took one of the
horses standing for hire at every corner and went back
by Piri Pacha, Haaskeuï, and Kassim Pacha as far as
San Dimitri, the Greek village near the Great Field of
the Dead at Pera ; and traversing vast empty spaces, I
reached Okmeïdan, which might be taken from afar
for a cemetery on account of the numbers of small
marble columns which bristle all over it. This is the
place where formerly the Sultans practised djerrid-
throwing, and these little monuments are intended to
perpetuate the memory of extraordinary performances
and to mark the distance the dart was thrown. They
are exceedingly simple, and their sole ornaments are
inscriptions in Turkish letters, with sometimes a gilded
copper star at the top. The djerrid has gone out of
use, and the most recent of these columns is somewhat
old. Ancient customs disappear and will soon be
nothing but remembrances.

Ï had now been seventy-two days wandering about

Constantinople, and I knew every corner of it. No

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BUYOUKDEREH

doubt that is little enough time in which to study the
characteristics and manners of a people, but it is suff-
cient to give an impression of the picturesque physiog-
nomy of a city, and that was the sole object of my
trip. Life is walled in in the East, religious prejudices
and habits are opposed to its being entered, the lan-
guage is impracticable unless one studies it for seven or
eight years; one is therefore compelled to be satisfied
with the exterior panorama. À prolonged stay of
several weeks more would not have taught me anything
additional, — and besides, [ was beginning to hunger
for paintings, statues, and works of art. The ever-
lasting masked ball in the streets was beginning to tell
on my nerves; Î was sick of veils, [ wanted to see
faces. A mystery which at first stirs the imagination
becomes tiring at last, when it is plain that there is no
hope of penetrating it. One soon gives it up, and
merely casts a careless glance at the figures which file
by ; weariness comes the more quickly that the
Frankish society of Pera, composed of merchants,
who are very respectable no doubt, is not particularly
entertaining for a poet.

So I engaged a cabin on board the Austrian steamer

Imperator to go to Athens, the Gulf of Lepanto,

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Patras, Corfu, the Mountains of the Chimera, and to
reach Trieste by way of the Adriatic.

I could see on the rock of the Acropolis the white
colonnade of the Parthenon showing against the sky,
and the minarets of Saint Sophia no longer delighted
me. My mind, turned in another direction, was no
longer impressed by surrounding objects. So I left,
and although I was glad to leave, I cast a last glance
at Constantinople disappearing on the horizon with
that indefinable melancholy which fills the heart on

leaving a city that will probably never be seen again.

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