WE sailed away from Smyrna Sunday morning, with theAchillemore crowded than when we entered that port. The second-class passengers still further encroached upon the first-class. The Emir of Damascus, with all his rugs and beds, had been pushed farther towards the stern, and more harems occupied temporary pens on our deck, and drew away our attention from the natural scenery.
The venerable, white-bearded, Greek bishop of Smyrna was a passenger, also the tall noble-looking pasha of that city, just relieved and ordered to Constantinople, as pashas are continually, at the whim of the Sultan. We had three pashas on board,—one recalled from Haifa, who had been only twenty days at his post. The pasha of Smyrna was accompanied by his family, described on the register as his wife and “four others,” an indefinite expression to define an indefinite condition. The wife had a room below; the “four others” were penned up in a cushioned area on the saloon deck, and there they squatted all day, veiled and robed in white, poor things, without the least occupation for hand or mind. Near them, other harems of Greeks and Turks, women, babies, slaves, all in an Oriental mess, ate curds and green lettuce.
We coasted along the indented, picturesque shore of Asia, having in view the mountains about ancient Pergamus, the seat of one of the seven churches; and before noon came to Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos, a large island which bears another Mount Olympus, and cast anchor in the bay upon which the city stands.
By the bend of the bay and the opposite coast, the town is charmingly land-locked. The site of Mitylene, like so many of these island cities, is an amphitheatre, and the mountain-slopes, green and blooming with fruit-trees, are dotted with white houses and villages. The scene is Italian rather than Oriental, and gives one the general impression of Castellamare or Sorrento; but the city is prettier to look at than to explore, as its broad and clean streets, its ordinary houses and European-dressed inhabitants, take us out of our ideal voyaging, and into the regions of the commonplace. The shops were closed, and the country people, who in all countries appear to derive an unexplained pleasure in wandering about the streets of a city hand in hand, were seeking this mild recreation. A youthful Jew, to whom the Sunday was naught, under pretence of showing us something antique, led us into the den of a Greek, to whom it was also naught, and whose treasures were bags of defaced copper coins of the Roman period.
Upon the point above the city is a fine mediaeval fortress, now a Turkish fort, where we encountered, in the sentinel at the gate, the only official in the Orient who ever refused backsheesh; I do not know what his idea is. From the walls we looked upon the blue strait, the circling, purple hills of Asia, upon islands, pretty villages, and distant mountains, soft, hazy, serrated, in short, upon a scene of poetry and peace, into which the ancient stone bastion by the harbor, which told of days of peril, and a ruined aqueduct struggling down the hill back of the town,—the remnant of more vigorous days,—brought no disturbance.
In Lesbos we are at the source of lyric poetry, the Æolian spring of Greece; here Alcæus was born. Here we come upon the footsteps of Sappho. We must go back to a period when this and all the islands of these heavenly seas were blooming masses of vegetation, the hills hung with forests, the slopes purple with the vine, the valleys laughing with flowers and fruit, and everywhere the primitive, joyful Greek life. No doubt, manners were somewhat rude, and passions, love, and hate, and revenge, were frankly exhibited; but in all the homely life ran a certain culture, which seems to us beautiful even in the refinement of this shamefaced age. The hardy youth of the islands sailed into far seas, and in exchange for the bounty of their soil brought back foreign fabrics of luxury. We know that Lesbos was no stranger to the Athenian influence, its scholars had heard Plato and Aristotle, and the warriors of Athens respected it both as a foe and an ally. Charakos, a brother of Sappho, went to Egypt with a ship full of wine, and returned with the beautiful slave Doricha, as part at least of the reward of his venture.
After the return of Sappho and her husband from their flight into Sicily, the poet lived for many years at Mitylene; but she is supposed to have been born in Eresso, on the southwestern point of the island, where the ruins of the acropolis and remains of a sea-wall still mark the site of the famous town. At any rate, she lived there, with her husband Kerkylas, a landed proprietor and a person of consequence, like a dame of noble birth and gentle breeding as she was; and in her verse we have a glimpse of her walking upon the sandy shore, with her little daughter, the beautiful child whom she would not give up for the kingdom of Lydia, nor for heavenly Lesbos itself. That Sappho was beautiful as her image on the ancient coins represents her, and that she was consumed by passion for a handsome youth, the world likes to believe. But Maximus of Tyre says that she was small and dark;—graces are not so plenty, even in heaven, that genius and beauty can be lavished upon one person. We are prone to insist that the poet who revels in imagination and sounds the depth of passion is revealing his own heart, and that the tale that seems so real must be a personal experience. The little glimpse we have of Sappho’s life does not warrant us to find in it the passionate tempest of her burning lyrics, nor is it consistent with her social position that she should expose upon the market-place her passion for the handsome Phaon, like a troubadour of the Middle Ages or a Zingara of Bohemia. If that consuming fire was only quenched in the sea at the foot of “Leucadia’s far-projecting rock of woe,” at least our emotion may be tempered by the soothing knowledge that the leap must have been taken when the enamored singer had passed her sixtieth year.
We did not see them at Mitylene, but travellers into the interior speak of the beautiful women, the descendants of kings’ daughters, the rewards of Grecian heroes; near old Eresso the women preserve the type of that indestructible beauty, and in the large brown eyes, voluptuous busts, and elastic gait one may deem that he sees the originals of the antique statues.
Another famous woman flits for a moment before us at Lesbos. It is the celebrated Empress Irene, whose cruelty was hardly needed to preserve a name that her talent could have perpetuated. An Athenian virgin and an orphan, at seventeen she became the wife of Leo IV. (a. d. 780), and at length the ruler of the Eastern Empire. Left the guardian of the empire and her son Constantine VI., she managed both, until the lad in his maturity sent his mother into retirement. The restless woman conspired against him; he fled, was captured and brought to the palace and lodged in the porphyry chamber where he first had seen the light, and where he last saw it; for his eyes were put out by the order of Irene. His very existence was forgotten in the depths of the palace, and for several years the ambitious mother reigned with brilliancy and the respect of distant potentates, until a conspiracy of eunuchs overturned her power, and she was banished to Lesbos. Here history, which delights in these strokes of poetic justice, represents the empress earning her bread by the use of her distaff.
As we came from Mitylene into the open sea, the view was surpassingly lovely, islands green and poetic, a coast ever retreating and advancing, as if in coquetry with the blue waves, purple robing the hills,—a voyage for poets and lotus-eaters. We were coming at night to Tenedos, to which the crafty Greeks withdrew their fleet when they pretended to abandon the siege, and to old Troy, opposite; we should be able to feel their presence in the darkness.
Our steamer, as we have intimated, was a study of nationalities and languages, as well as of manners. We were English, American, Greek, Italian, Turkish, Arab, Russian, French, Armenian, Egyptian, Jew, Georgian, Abyssinian, Nubian, German, Koor-land, Persian, Kurd; one might talk with a person just from Mecca or Medina, from Bagdad, from Calcutta, from every Greek or Turkish island, and from most of the capitals of Europe. A couple of Capuchins, tonsured, in brown serge with hanging crosses, walked up and down amid the throng of Christians, Moslems, and pagans, withdrawn from the world while in it, like beings of a new sex. There was a couple opposite us at table whom we could not make out,—either recently married or recently eloped, the man apparently a Turkish officer, and his companion a tall, showy woman, you might say a Frenchman’s idea of physical beauty, a little like a wax Madonna, but with nothing holy about her; said by some to be a Circassian, by others to be a French grisette on an Eastern tour; but she spoke Italian, and might be one of the Continental countesses.
The square occupied by the emir and his suite—a sort of bazaar of rugs and narghilehs—had music all day long; a soloist, on three notes, singing, in the Arab drawl, an unending improvised ballad, and accompanying himself on the mandolin. When we go to look at and listen to him, the musician betrays neither self-consciousness nor pride, unless you detect the latter in a superior smile that plays about his lips, as he throws back his head and lets his voice break into a falsetto. It probably does not even occur to his Oriental conceit that he does well,—thathis race have taken for granted a thousand years,—and he could not be instructed by the orchestra of Von Bulow, nor be astonished by the Lohengrin of Wagner.
Among the adventurers on board—we all had more or less the appearance of experiments in that odd assembly—I particularly liked the FrenchprestidigitateurCaseneau, for his bold eye, utter self-possession, and that indefinable varnish upon him, which belonged as much to his dress as to his manner, and suggested the gentleman without concealing the adventurer. He had a taste for antiquities, and wore some antique gems, which had I know not what mysterious about them, as if he had inherited them from an Ephesian magician or a Saracenic doctor of the black art. At the table after dinner, surrounded by French and Italians, the conjurer exhibited some tricks at cards. I dare say they were not extraordinary, yet they pleased me just as well as the manifestations of the spiritists. One of them I noted. The trickster was blindfolded. A gentleman counted out a pack of cards, and while doing so mentally fixed upon one of them by number. Caseneau took the pack, still blinded, and threw out the card the gentleman had thought of. The experiment was repeated by sceptics, who suspected a confederate, but the result was always the same.
The Circassian beauty turned out to be a Jewess from Smyrna. I believe the Jewesses of that luxurious city imitate all the kinds of beauty in the world.
In the evening the Italians were grouped around the tables in the saloon, upon which cards were cast about, matched, sorted, and redistributed, and there were little piles of silver at the corners, the occasional chinking of which appeared to add to the interest of the amusement. On deck the English and Americans were singing the hymns of the Protestant faith; and in the lull of the strains of “O mother dear, Jerusalem,” you might hear the twang of strings and the whine of some Arab improvisatore on the forward deck, and the chink of changing silver below. We were making our way through a superb night,—a thousand people packed so closely that you could not move without stepping into a harem or a mass of Greek pilgrims,—singing hymns, gambling, listening to a recital of the deeds of Antar, over silver waves, under a flooding moon, and along the dim shores of Asia. That mysterious continent lay in the obscurity of the past; here and there solitary lights, from some shepherd’s hut in the hills or fortress casemate by the shore, were the rents in the veil through which we saw antiquity.
THEAchille, which has a nose for freight, but none for poetry, did not stop at Tenedos, puffed steadily past the plain of Troy, turned into the broad opening of the Dardanelles, and by daylight was anchored midway between the Two Castles. On such a night, if ever, one might see the evolution of shadowy armies upon the windy plain,—if, indeed, this conspicuous site was anything more than the theatre of Homer’s creations,—the spectators on the walls of Ilium, the Greeks hastily embarking on their ships for Tenedos, the joyful procession that drew the fatal gift into the impregnable walls.
There is a strong current southward through the Dardanelles, which swung the vessel round as we came to anchor. The forts which, with their heavy modern guns, completely command this strait, are something less than a mile and a half apart, and near each is a large and handsome town,—Khilid-bahri on the European shore and Chanak-Kalesi on the Asiatic. The latter name signifies the pottery-castle, and is derived from the chief manufactory of the place; the town of a couple of thousand houses, gayly painted and decorated in lively colors, lies upon a sandy flat and presents a very cheerful appearance. It is a great Asiaticentrepôtfor European products, and consular flags attest its commercial importance.
When I came upon deck its enterprising traders had already boarded the steamer, and encumbered it with their pottery, which found a ready market with the pilgrims, for it is both cheap and ugly. Perhaps we should rather say fantastic than ugly. You see specimens of it all over the East, and in the bazaars of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus it may be offered you as something rare. Whatever the vessel is,—a pitcher, cup, vase, jar, or cream-pot,—its form is either that of some impossible animal, some griffin, or dragon, or dog of the underworld, or its spout is the neck and head of some fantastic monster. The ware is painted in the most startling reds, greens, yellows, and blacks, and sometimes gilt, and then glazed. It is altogether hideous, and fascinating enough to drive the majolica out of favor.
Above these two towns the strait expands into a sort of bay, formed on the north by a promontory jutting out from the Asiatic shore, and upon this promontory it is now agreed stood old Abydos; it is occupied by a fort which grimly regards a corresponding one on the opposite shore, not a mile distant. Here Leander swam to Hero, Byron to aquatic fame, and here Xerxes laid his bridge. All this is plain to be seen; this is the narrowest part of the passage; exactly opposite this sloping site of Abydos is a depression between two high cliffs, the only point where the Persian could have rested the European extremity of his bridge; and it surely requires no stretch of the imagination to see Hero standing upon this projecting point holding the torch for her lover.
The shore is very pretty each side, not bold, but quiet scenery; and yet there is a contrast: on the Asiatic horizon are mountains, rising behind each other, while the narrow peninsula, the Thracian Chersonesus of the ancients, which forms the western bank of the Dardanelles, offers only a range of moderate hills. What a beautiful stream, indeed, is this, and how fond history has been of enacting its spectacles upon it! How the civilizations of the East and West, in a continual flow and reflow, push each other across it! With a sort of periodic regularity it is the scene of a great movement, and from age to age the destinies of the race have seemed to hang upon its possession; and from time to time the attention of the world is concentrated upon this water-street between two continents. Under whatever name, the Oriental civilization has been a misfortune, and the Western a blessing to the border-land; and how narrowly has Europe, more than once, from Xerxes to Chosroes, from Omar to the Osmanlis, seemed to escape the torrent of Eastern slavery. Once the culture of Greece passed these limits, and annexed all Asia Minor and the territory as far as the Euphrates to the empire of intelligence. Who shall say that the day is not at hand when the ancient movement of free thought, if not of Grecian art and arms, is about to be renewed, and Europe is not again to impose its laws and manners upon Little Asia? The conquest, which one sees going on under his eyes, is not indeed with the pomp of armies, but by the more powerful and enduring might of commerce, intercourse, and the weight of a world’s opinion diffused by travel and literature. The Osmanli sits supinely and watches the change; the Greeks, the rajahs of all religions, establish schools, and the new generation is getting ready for the revolution; the Turk does not care for schools. That it may be his fate to abandon European Turkey and even Constantinople, he admits. But it is plain that if he goes thus far he must go farther; and that he must surrender a good part of the Roman Eastern Empire. For any one can see that the Hellespont could not be occupied by two powers, and that it is no more possible to divide the control of the Bosphorus than it is that of the Hudson or the Thames.
The morning was cold, and the temperature as well as the sky admonished us that we were passing out of the warm latitude. Twenty-five miles from the Chang and Eng forts we passed near but did not call at Gallipoli, an ancient city with few antiquities, but of great strategic importance. Whoever holds it has the key to Constantinople and the Black Sea; it was seized by the Moslems in the thirteenth century before they imposed the religion of the Koran upon the city of Constantine, and it was early occupied by the English and French, in 1854, in the war that secured that city to the successor of the Prophet.
Entering upon the Sea of Marmora, the “vexed Propontis,” we had fortunately smooth water but a cold north-wind. The Propontis has enjoyed a nauseous reputation with all mariners, ancient and modern. I don’t know that its form has anything to do with it, but if the reader will take the trouble to consult a map, he will see how nearly this hag of water, with its two ducts, the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, resembles a human stomach. There is nothing to be seen in the voyage from Gallipoli to Constantinople, except the island of Marmora, famous for the quarries which furnish marbles for the palaces of the Bosphorus and for Eyoub and Scutari, the two great cities of the dead. We passed near enough to distinguish clearly its fine perpendicular cliffs.
It was dark before we saw the lights of Stamboul rise out of the water; it is impossible, at night, to enter the Golden Horn through the mazes of shipping, and we cast anchor outside. The mile or two of gas-lights along the promontory of the old city and the gleams upon the coast of ancient Chalcedon were impressive and exciting to the imagination, but, owing to the lateness of our arrival, we lost all the emotions which have, struck other travellers anything but dumb upon coming in sight of the capital of the Moslem Empire.
THE capital which we know as Constantinople, lying in two continents, presents itself as three cities. The long, hornshaped promontory, between the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, is the site of ancient Byzantium, which Constantine baptized with his own name, and which the Turks call Stamboul. The ancient city was on the eastern extremity, now known as Seraglio Point; its important position was always recognized, and it was sharply contended for by the Spartans, the Athenians, the Macedonians, and the Persians. Like the city of Romulus, it occupies seven hills, and its noble heights are conspicuous from afar by sea or land.. In the fourth century it was surrounded by a wall, which followed the water on three sides, and ran across the base of the promontory, over four miles from the Seven Towers on the Propontis to the Cemetery of Eyoub on the Golden Horn. The land-wall, which so many times saved the effeminate city from the barbarians of the north and the Saracens of Arabia, stands yet with its battered towers and score of crumbling gates.
The second city, on a blunt promontory between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, overlooks the ancient Byzantium, and is composed of three districts,—Galata and Tophanna, on the water and climbing up the hill; and Pera, which crowns the summit. Galata was a commercial settlement of the thirteenth century; Pera is altogether modern.
The third city is Scutari, exactly opposite the mouth of the Golden Horn, and a little north of ancient Chalcedon, which was for over a thousand years the camp of successive besieging armies, Georgians, Persians, Saracens, and Turks.
The city of the Crescent, like a veiled beauty of the harem, did not at once disclose to us its charms. It was at six o’clock in the morning on the eleventh day of blooming May, that we landed on the dirty quay of Tophanna. The morning was cloudy, cold, misty, getting its weather from the Black Sea, and during the day rain fell in a very Occidental dreariness. Through the mist loomed the heights of Seraglio Point; and a hundred minaret peaks and domes appeared to float in the air above the veiled city. Along the floating lower bridge, across the Golden Horn, poured an unceasing procession of spectres; caïques were shooting about in every direction, steamers for the Bosphorus, for Scutari, for the Islands, were momently arriving and departing from their stations below the bridge, and the huge bulk of the Turkish ironclads could be discerned at their anchorage before the palace of Beshiktash. The scene was animated, but there was not visible as much shipping as I had expected to see in this great port.
The customs’ official on the quay was of a very inquisitive turn of mind, but we could excuse him on the ground of his age and ignorance, for he was evidently endeavoring to repair the neglected opportunities of his youth. Our large luggage had gone to the custom-house in charge of Abd-el-Atti, who has a genius for free-trade, and only our small parcels and hand-bags were at the mercy of the inspector on the quay. But he insisted upon opening every bag and investigating every article of the toilet and garment of the night; he even ripped open a feather pillow which one of the ladies carried with her, and neither the rain on the open dock nor our respectable appearance saved our effects from his most searching attentions. The discoveries of General di Ces-nola and the interest that Europeans take in antiquities have recently convinced the Turks that these relics must have some value, and an order had been issued to seize and confiscate all curiosities of this sort. I trembled, therefore, when the inspector got his hands upon a baby’s nursing-bottle, which I had brought from Cyprus, where it had been used by some Phoenician baby probably three thousand years ago. The fellow turned it round and regarded it with serious ignorance and doubt.
“What is that?” he asked Achmed.
“O, that’s nothing but a piece of pottery, something for a child without his mother, I think,—it is nothing, not worth two paras.”
The confiscator of antiquities evidently had not the slightest knowledge of his business; he hesitated, but Achmed’s perfect indifference of manner determined him, and he slowly put the precious relic back into the box. The inspector parted from us with regret, but we left him to the enjoyment of a virtue unassailed by the least bribe,—an unusual, and, I imagine, an unwelcome possession in this region.
Donkeys were not to be had, nor carriages, and we climbed on foot the very steep hill to the hotel in Pera; ascending roughly paved, crooked streets, lined with rickety houses, and occasionally mounting stairs for a mile through a quarter that has the shabbiness but not the picturesqueness of the Orient. A squad of porters seized our luggage and bore it before us. The porters are the beasts of burden, and most of them wear heavy saddles, upon which boxes and trunks can be strapped. No drays were visible. Heavy burdens, hogsheads, barrels, and cases of goods were borne between two long stout poles carried by four athletic men; as they move along the street, staggering under the heavy load, everybody is obliged, precipitately, to make way for them, for their impetus is such that they cannot check their career. We see these gigantic fellows at every street-corner, with their long poles, waiting for a job. Sedan-chairs, which were formerly in much request, are gradually disappearing, though there is nothing at present to exactly take the place of these lumbering conveyances. Carriages increase every year, but they are expensive, and they can only ascend the height of Pera by a long circuit. The place of the sedan and the carriage is, however, to some extent supplied by a railway in Galata, the cars of which are drawn up by a stationary engine. And on each side of the Golden Horn is a horse-railway, running wherever the ground is practicable.
To one coming from the West, I suppose that Constantinople would present a very mixed and bizarre appearance, and that he would be impressed by the silence of the busiest streets, in which the noise of wheels and the hum of a Western capital is wanting. But to one coming from the East, Galata and Pera seem a rather vulgarized European town. The Frank dress predominates, although it is relieved by the red fez, which the Turks generally and many Europeans wear. Variety enough there is in costumes, but the Grecian, the Bulgarian, the Albanian, etc., have taken the place of the purely Oriental; and the traveller in the Turkish capital to-day beholds not only the conflux of Asia and Europe, but the transition, in buildings, in apparel, in manners, to modern fashions. Few veiled women are seen, and they wear a white strip of gauze which conceals nothing. The street hawkers, the sellers of sweets, of sponges, and of cakes, are not more peculiar in their cries than those of London and Paris.
When we had climbed the hill, we came into the long main street of Pera, the street of the chief shops, the hotels and foreign embassies, a quarter of the city which has been burned over as often as San Francisco, and is now built up substantially with stone and brick, and contains very little to interest the seeker of novelty. After we had secured rooms, and breakfasted, at the hotel Byzance, we descended the hill again to the water, and crossed the long, floating bridge to Stamboul. This bridge is a very good symbol of the Sultan’s Empire; its wooden upper works are decayed, its whole structure is rickety, the floats that support it are unevenly sunken, so that the bridge is a succession of swells and hollows; it is crowded by opposing streams of the most incongruous people, foot and horse jumbled together; it is encumbered by venders of eatables and auctioneers of cheap Wares, and one has to pay toll to cross it. But it is a microcosm of the world. In an hour one may see pass there every nationality, adventurers from every clime, traders, priests, sailors, soldiers, fortune-hunters of Europe, rude peasants of the provinces, sleek merchants of the Orient, darwishes, furtive-eyed Jews; here is a Circassian beauty seeking a lover through the carriage window; here a Turkish grandee on a prancing, richly caparisoned horse; here moves a squad of black soldiers, and now the bridge shakes under the weight of a train of flying artillery.
The water is alive with the ticklish caïques. The caique is a long narrow boat, on the model of the Indian birch-bark, canoe, and as thin and light on the water; the passenger, if he accomplishes the feat of getting into one without overturning it, sits upon the bottom, careful not to wink and upset it; the oars have a heavy swell near the handle, to counterbalance the weight of the long blade, and the craft skims the water with swiftness and a most agreeable motion. The caïques are as numerous on the water as the yellow, mangy dogs on shore, and the two are the most characteristic things in Constantinople.
We spent a good part of the day in wandering about the bazaars of Stamboul, and we need not repeat what has been heretofore said of these peculiar shops. During our stay in the city we very thoroughly explored them, and visited most of the great khans, where are to be found the silks of Broussa, of Beyrout and Damascus, the rugs of Persia, the carpets of Asia Minor, the arms and the cunning work in gold, silver, and jewels gathered from every region between Ispahan and Darfour. We found the bazaars extensive, well filled and dear, at least the asking price was enormous, and we wanted the time and patience which are needed for the slow siege of reducing the merchants to decent, terms. The bazaars are solidly roofed arcades, at once more cleanly and less picturesque than those of Cairo, and not so Oriental or attractive. Book-stalls, which are infrequent in Cairo, abound here; and the long arcades lined with cases of glittering gems, enormous pearls, sparkling diamonds, emeralds fit for the Pope’s finger, and every gold and silver temptation, exceed anything else in the East in magnificence. And yet they have a certain modern air, and you do not expect to find in them those quaint and fascinating antique patterns of goldsmiths’ work, the inherited skill of the smiths of the Pharaohs, which draw you into the dingy recesses of the Copt artificers in the city of the Nile.
From the Valideh Khan we ascended to the public square, where stands the Seraskier’s Eire-tower; a paved, open place, surrounded by government buildings of considerable architectural pretensions, and dedicated, I should say, to drumming, to the shifting about of squads of soldiers, and the cantering hither and thither of Turkish beys. Near it is the old mosque of Sultan Beyezid II., which, with its magnificent arabesque gates, makes a fine external impression. The outer court is surrounded by a cloister with columns of verd-antique and porphyry, enclosing a fountain and three stately, venerable, trees. The trees and the arcades are alive with doves, and, as we entered, more than a thousand flew towards us in a cloud, with a great rustling and cooing. They are protected as an almost sacred appendage of the mosque, and are said to be bred from a single pair which the Sultan bought of a poor woman and presented to the house he had built, three centuries and a half ago. This mosque has also another claim to the gratitude of animals; for all the dogs of Stamboul, none of whom have any home but the street, nor any other owner than the Prophet, resort here every Friday, as regularly, if not as piously, as the Sultan goes to pray, and receive their weekly bread.
Near this mosque are lines of booths and open-air shops, which had a fascination for me as long as I remained in the city. They extend from the trees in the place of the mosque down through lanes to the bazaars. The keepers of them were typical Orientals, honest Jews, honest Moslems, withered and one-eyed waiters on Providence and a good bargain, suave, gracious, patient, gowned and turbaned, sitting cross-legged behind their trays and showcases. These are the dealers in stones, both precious and common, in old and new ornaments, and the thousand cheap adornments in glass and metal which the humbler classes love. Here are heaps of blood-stones, of carnelians, of agates, of jasper, of onyx, dishes of turquoise, strings of doubtful pearls, barbarous rings and brooches, charms and amulets,—a feast of color for the eye, and a sight to kindle the imagination. For these bawbles came out of the recesses of the Orient, were gathered by wild tribes in remote deserts, and transported by caravan to this common mart. These dealers buy of the Persian merchants, and of adventurous Jew travellers who range all the deserts from Teheran to Upper Nubia in search of these shining stones. Some of the turquoises are rudely set in silver rings, but most of them are merely glued to the end of little sticks; these generally are the refuse of the trade, for the finer stones go to the great jewellers in the bazaar, or to the Western markets. A large and perfect turquoise of good color is very rare, and commands a large price; but the cunning workmen of Persia have a method of at once concealing the defects of a good-sized turquoise which has the true color, and at the same time enhancing its value, by engraving upon it some sentence from the Koran, or some word which is a charm against the evil eye; the skill of the engraver is shown in fitting his letters and flourishes to the flaws in the surface of the stone. To further hide any appearance of imperfection, the engraved lines are often gilded. With a venerable Moslem, who sat day after day under a sycamore-tree, I had great content, and we both enjoyed the pleasure of endless bargaining without cheating each other, for except in some trifles we never came to an exact agreement. He was always promising me the most wonderful things for the next day, which he would procure from a mysterious Jew friend who carried on a clandestine commerce with some Bedawee in Arabia. When I was seated, he would pull from his bosom a knotted silk handkerchief, and, carefully untying it, produce a talisman, presenting it between his thumb and finger, with a lift of the eyebrows and a cluck of the tongue that expressed the rapture I would feel at the sight of it. To be sure, I found it a turquoise set in rude silver, faded to a sickly green, and not worth sixpence; but I handed it back with a sigh that such a jewel was beyond my means, and intimated that something less costly, and of a blue color, would suit me as well. We were neither of us deceived, while we maintained the courtesies of commercial intercourse. Sometimes he would produce from his bosom an emerald of real value or an opal of lovely hues, and occasionally a stone in some peculiar setting which I had admired the day before in the jewelry bazaar; for these trinkets, upon which the eye of the traveller has been seen longingly to rest, are shifted about among this mysterious fraternity to meet him again.
I suppose it was known all over Stamboul that a Prank had been looking for a Persian amulet. As long as I sat with my friend, I never saw him actually sell anything, but he seemed to be the centre of mysterious transactions; furtive traders continually came to him to borrow or return a jewel, or to exchange a handful of trumpery. Delusive old man! I had no confidence in you, but I would go far to pass another day in your tranquil society. How much more agreeable you were than the young Nubian at an opposite stand, who repelled purchasers by his supreme indifference, and met all my feeble advances with the toss of the head and the cluck in the left cheek, which is the peremptory “no” in Nubia.
In this quarter are workers in shell and ivory, the makers of spoons of tortoise-shell with handles of ivory and coral, the fabricators of combs, dealers in books, and a long street of little shops devoted to the engraving of seals. To wander about among these craftsmen is one of the chief pleasures of the traveller. Vast as Stamboul is, if you remove from it the mosques and nests of bazaars, it would not be worth a visit.
HAVING procured a firman, we devoted a day to the old Seraglio and some of the principal mosques of Stamboul. After an occupation of fifteen centuries as a royal residence, the Seraglio has been disused for nearly forty years, and fire, neglect, and decay have done their work on it, so that it is but a melancholy reminiscence of its former splendor. It occupies the ancient site of Byzantium, upon the Point, and is enclosed by a crumbling wall three miles in circuit. No royal seat in the world has a more lovely situation. Upon the summit of the promontory, half concealed in cypresses, is the cluster of buildings, of all ages and degrees of cheapness, in which are the imperial apartments and offices; on the slopes towards the sea are gardens, terraces, kiosks, and fountains.
We climbed up the hill on the side towards Pera, through a shabby field, that had almost the appearance, of a city dumping-ground, and through a neglected grove of cypresses, where some deer were feeding, and came round to the main entrance, a big, ugly pavilion with eight openings over the archedporte,—the gate which is known the world over as the Sublime Porte. Through this we passed into a large court, and thence to the small one into which the Sultan only is permitted to ride on horseback. In the centre of this is a fountain where formerly pashas foreordained to lose their heads lost them. On the right, a low range of buildings covered with domes but no chimneys, are the royal kitchens; there are nine of them,—one for the Sultan, one for the chief sultanas, and so on down to the one devoted to the cooking of the food for the servants. Hundreds of beasts, hecatombs, were slaughtered daily and cooked here to feed the vast household. From this court open the doors into the halls and divans and various apartments; one of them, leading into the interior, is called the Gate of Felicity; in the old times that could only be called a gate of felicity which let a person out of this spider’s parlor. In none of these rooms is there anything specially attractive; cheap magnificence in decay is only melancholy.
We were better pleased in the gardens, where we looked upon Galata and Pera, upon the Golden Horn and the long bridges streaming with their picturesque processions, upon the Bosphorus and its palaces, and thousands of sails, steamers, and caïques, and the shining heights of Scutari. Overhanging the slope is the kiosk or summer palace of Sultan Moorad, a Saracenic octagonal structure, the interior walls lined with Persian tiles, the ceilings painted in red arabesques and gilded in mosaics, the gates of bronze inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a most charming building, said to be in imitation of a kiosk of Bagdad. In it we saw the Sultan’s private library, a hundred or two volumes in a glass case, that had no appearance of having been read either by the Sultan or his wife.
The apartment in the Seraglio which is the object of curiosity and desire is the treasure-room. I suppose it is the richest in the world in gems; it is certainly a most wearisome place, and gave me a contempt for earthly treasure. In the centre stands a Persian throne,—a chair upon a board platform, and both incrusted with rubies, pearls, emeralds, diamonds; there are toilet-tables covered to the feet with diamonds, pipe-stems glistening with huge diamonds, old armor thickly set with precious stones, saddle-cloths and stirrups stiff with diamonds and emeralds, robes embroidered with pearls. Nothing is so cheap as wealth lavished in this manner; at first we were dazzled by the flashing display, but after a time these heaps of gems seemed as common in our eyes as pebbles in the street. I did not even covet an emerald as large as my fist, nor a sword-hilt in which were fifteen diamonds, each as large as the end of my thumb, nor a carpet sown with pearls, some of which were of the size of pigeon’s eggs, nor aigrettes which were blazing with internal fires, nor chairs of state, clocks and vases, the whole surfaces of which were on fire with jewels. I have seen an old oaken table, carved in the fifteenth century, which gave me more pleasure than one of lapis lazuli, which is exhibited as the most costly article in this collection; though it is inlaid with precious stones, and the pillars that support the mirror are set with diamonds, and the legs and claws are a mass of diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, emeralds, topazes, etc., and huge diamond pendants ornament it, and the deep fringe in front is altogether of diamonds. This is but a barbarous, ostentatious, and tasteless use of the beautiful, and I suppose gives one an idea of the inartistic magnificence of the Oriental courts in centuries gone by.
This treasure-house has, I presume, nothing that belonged to the Byzantine emperors before the Moslem conquest, some of whom exceeded in their magnificence any of the Osmanli sultans. Arcadius, the first Eastern emperor after the division of the Roman world, rivalled, in the appointments of his palace (which stood upon this spot) and in his dress, the magnificence of the Persian monarchs; and perhaps the luxurious califs of Bagdad at a later day did not equal his splendor. His robes were of purple, a color reserved exclusively for his sacred person, and of silk, embroidered with gold dragons; his diadem was of gold set with gems of inestimable worth; his throne was massy gold, and when he went abroad he rode in a chariot of solid, pure gold, drawn by two milk-white mules shining in harness and trappings of gold.
No spot on earth has been the scene of such luxury, cruelty, treachery, murder, infidelity of women, and rapacity of men, as this site of the old palace; and the long record of the Christian emperors—the occasionally interrupted anarchy and usurpation of a thousand years—loses nothing in these respects in comparison with the Turkish occupation, although the world shudders at the unrevealed secrets of the Seraglio. At least we may suppose that nobody’s conscience was violated if a pretty woman was occasionally dropped into the Bosphorus, and there was the authority of custom for the strangling of all the children of the sisters of the Sultan, so that the succession might not be embarrassed. In this court is thecage, a room accessible only by a window, where the royal children were shut up to keep them from conspiracy against the throne; and there Sultan Abdul Aziz spent some years of his life.
We went from the treasure-room to the ancient and large Church of St. Irene, which is now the arsenal of the Seraglio, and become, one might say, a church militant. The nave and aisles are stacked with arms, the walls, the holy apse, the pillars, are cased in guns, swords, pistols, and armor, arranged in fanciful patterns, and with an ingenuity I have seen nowhere else. Here are preserved battle-flags and famous trophies, an armlet of Tamerlane, a sword of Scanderbeg, and other pieces of cold, pliant steel that have a reputation for many murders. There is no way so sure to universal celebrity as wholesale murder. Adjoining the arsenal is a museum of Greek and Roman antiquities of the city, all in Turkish disorder; the Cyprus Collections, sent by General di Cesnola, are flung upon shelves or lie in heaps unarranged, and most of the cases containing them had not been opened. Near this is an interesting museum of Turkish costumes for the past five hundred years,—rows on rows of ghastly wax figures clad in the garments of the dead. All of them are ugly, many of them are comical in their exaggeration. The costumes of the Janizaries attract most attention, perhaps from the dislike with which we regard those cruel mercenaries, who deposed and decapitated sultans at their will, and partly because many of the dresses seem more fit for harlequins or eunuchs of the harem than for soldiers.
When the Church of Santa Sophia, the House of Divine Wisdom, was finished, and Justinian entered it, accompanied only by the patriarch, and ran from the porticos to the pulpit with outstretched arms, crying, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee!” it was doubtless the most magnificently decorated temple that had ever stood upon the earth. The exterior was as far removed in simple grandeur as it was in time from the still matchless Doric temples of Athens and of Pæstum, or from the ornate and lordly piles of Ba’albek; but the interior surpassed in splendor almost the conception of man. The pagan temples of antiquity had been despoiled, the quarries of the known world had been ransacked for marbles of various hues and textures to enrich it; and the gold, the silver, the precious stones, employed in its decoration, surpassed in measure the barbaric ostentation of the Temple at Jerusalem. Among its forest of columns, one recognized the starred syenite from the First Cataract of the Nile; the white marble of Phrygia, striped with rose; the green of Laconia, and the blue of Libya; the black Celtic, white-veined, and the white Bosphorus, black-veined; polished shafts which had supported the roof of the Temple of the Delian Apollo, others which had beheld the worship of Diana at Ephesus and of Pallas Athene on the Acropolis, and, yet more ancient, those that had served in the mysterious edifices of Osiris and Isis; while, more conspicuous and beautiful than all, were the eight columns of porphyry, which, transported by Aurelian from the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis to Home, the pious Marina had received as her dowry and dedicated to the most magnificent building ever reared to the worship of the True God, and fitly dominating the shores of Europe and Asia.
One reads of doors of cedar, amber, and ivory; of hundreds of sacred vessels of pure gold, of exquisitely wrought golden candelabra, and crosses of an hundred pounds’ weight each; of a score of books of the Evangelists, the gold covers of which weighed twenty pounds; of golden lilies and golden trumpets; of forty-two thousand chalice-cloths embroidered with pearls and jewels; and of the great altar, for which gold was too cheap a material, a mass of the most precious and costly stones imbedded in gold and silver. We may recall also the arches and the clear spaces of the walls inlaid with marbles and covered with brilliant mosaics. It was Justinian’s wish to pave the floor with plates of gold, but, restrained by the fear of the avarice of his successors, he laid it in variegated marbles, which run in waving lines, imitating the flowing of rivers from the four corners to the vestibules. But the wonder of the edifice was the dome, one hundred and seven feet in span, hanging in the air one hundred and eighty feet above the pavement. The aerial lightness of its position is increased by the two half-domes of equal span and the nine cupolas which surround it.
More than one volume has been exclusively devoted to a description of the Mosque of St. Sophia, and less than a volume would not suffice. But the traveller will not see the ancient glories. If he expects anything approaching the exterior richness and grandeur of the cathedrals of Europe, or the colossal proportions of St. Peter’s at Rome, or the inexhaustible wealth of the interior of St. Mark’s at Venice, he will be disappointed. The area of St. Peter’s exceeds that of the grand Piazza of St. Mark, while St. Sophia is only two hundred and thirty-five feet broad by three hundred and fifty feet long; and while the Church of St. Mark has been accumulating spoils of plunder and of piety for centuries, the Church of the Divine Wisdom has been ransacked by repeated pillages and reduced to the puritan plainness of the Moslem worship.
Exceedingly impressive, however, is the first view of the interior; we stood silent with wonder and delight in the presence of the noble columns, the bold soaring arches, the dome in the sky. The temple is flooded with light, perhaps it is too bright; the old mosaics and paintings must have softened it; and we found very offensive the Arabic inscriptions on the four great arches, written in characters ten yards long. They are the names of companions of the Prophet, but they look like sign-boards. Another disagreeable impression is produced by the position of theMihrab, or prayer-niche; as this must be in the direction of Mecca, it is placed at one side of the apse, and everything in the mosque is forced to conform to it. Thus everything is askew; the pulpits are set at hateful angles, and the stripes of the rugs on the floor all run diagonally across. When one attempts to walk from the entrance, pulled one way by the architectural plan, and the other by the religious diversion of it, he has a sensation of being intoxicated.
Gone from this temple are the sacred relics which edified the believers of former ages, such as the trumpets that blew down Jericho and planks from the Ark of Noah, but the Moslems have prodigies to replace them. The most curious of these is the sweating marble column, which emits a dampness that cures diseases. I inserted my hand in a cavity which has been dug in it, and certainly experienced a clammy sensation. It is said to sweat most early in the morning. I had the curiosity to ascend the gallery to see the seat of the courtesan and Empress Theodora, daughter of the keeper of the bears of the circus,—a public and venal pantomimist, who, after satisfying the immoral curiosity of her contemporaries in many cities, illustrated the throne of the Cæsars by her talents, her intrigues, and her devotion. The fondness of Justinian has preserved her initials in the capitals of the columns, the imperial eagle marks the screen that hid her seat, and the curious traveller may see her name carved on the balustrade where she sat.
To the ancient building the Moslems have added the minarets at the four corners and the enormous crescent on the dome, the gilding of which cost fifty thousand ducats, and the shining of which, a golden moon in the day, is visible at the distance of a hundred miles. The crescent, adopted by the Osmanli upon the conquest of Jerusalem, was the emblem of Byzantium before the Christian era. There is no spot in Constantinople more flooded with historical associations, or more interesting to the student of the history of the Eastern Empire, than the site of St. Sophia. Here arose the church of the same name erected by Constantine; it was twice burned, once by the party of St. John Chrysostom, and once in a tumult of the factions of the Hippodrome. I should like to have seen some of the pageants that took place here. After reposing in their graves for three centuries, the bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy were transported hither. Fifty years after it was honored by a still more illustrious presence; the ashes of the prophet Samuel, deposited in a golden vase covered with a silken veil, left their resting-place in Palestine for the banks of the Bosphorus. The highways from the hills of Judæa to the gates of Constantinople were filled by an uninterrupted procession, who testified their enthusiasm and joy, and the Emperor Arcadius himself, attended by the most illustrious of the clergy and the Senate, advanced to receive his illustrious guest, and conducted the holy remains to this magnificent but insecure place of repose. It was here that Gregory Nazianzen was by force installed upon the Episcopal throne by Theodosius. The city was fanatically Arian. Theodosius proclaimed the Nicene creed, and ordered the primate to deliver the cathedral and all the churches to the orthodox, who were few in number, but strong in the presence of Gregory. This extraordinary man had set up an orthodox pulpit in a private house; he had been mobbed by a motley crowd which issued from the Cathedral of St. Sophia, “common beggars who had forfeited their claim to pity, monks who had the appearance of goats or satyrs, and women more horrible than so many Jezebels”; he had his triumph when Theodosius led him by the hand through the streets—filled with a multitude crowding pavement, roofs, and windows, and venting their rage, grief, astonishment, and despair—into the church, which was held by soldiers, though the prelate confessed that the city had the appearance of a town stormed by barbarians. It was here that Eutropius, the eunuch, when his career of rapacity exceeded even the toleration of Arcadius, sought sanctuary, and was protected by John Chrysostom, archbishop, who owed his ecclesiastical dignity to the late sexless favorite. And it was up this very nave that Mohammed II., the conqueror, spurred his horse through a crowd of fugitives, dismounted at the foot of the altar, cried, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet!” and let loose his soldiery upon the priests, virgins, and promiscuous multitude who had sought shelter here.
I should only weary you with unintelligible details in attempting a description of other mosques which we visited. They are all somewhat alike, though varying in degrees of splendor. There is that of Sultan Ahmed, on the site of the Hippodrome, distinguished as the only one in the empire that has six minarets,—the state mosque of the Sultan, whence the Mecca pilgrimages proceed and where the great festivals are held. From a distance it is one of the most conspicuous and poetically beautiful objects in the city. And there is the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, a copy of St. Sophia and excelling it in harmonious grandeur,—indeed, it is called the finest mosque in the empire. Its forecourt measures a thousand paces, and the enclosure contains, besides the mosque and the tomb of the founder, many foundations of charity and of learning,—three schools for the young, besides one for the reading of the Koran and one of medicine, four academies for the four Moslem sects, a hospital, a kitchen for the poor, a library, a fountain, a resting-place for travellers, and a house of refuge for strangers. From it one enjoys a magnificent view of the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, and the piled-up city opposite. When we entered the mosque hundreds of worshippers were at prayer, bowing their turbans towards Mecca in silent unison. The throng soon broke up into groups of from ten to forty, which seated themselves in circles on the floor for the reading of the Koran. The shoes were heaped in the centre of each circle, the chief reader squatted at a low desk on one side, and all read together in a loud voice, creating an extraordinary vocal tumult. It was like a Sunday school in fancy dress.
Stamboul is a very interesting place to those who have a taste for gorgeous sepulchres, and I do not know any such pleasant residences of the dead as theturbehs, or tombs of the imperial family. Usually attached to the mosques, but sometimes standing apart, they are elegant edifices, such as might be suitable for the living; in their airy, light, and stately chambers the occupants are deprived of no splendor to which they were accustomed in life. One of the most beautiful of theseturbehs, that of Sultan Mahmood II., I mistook for a fountain; it is a domed, circular building of white marble, with Corinthian pilasters, and lighted by seven large windows with gilded grating. Within, in a cheerful, carpeted apartment, are the biers of the sultan, his valideh sultana, and five daughters, covered with cloths of velvet, richly embroidered, upon which are thrown the most superb India shawls; the principal sarcophagi are surrounded by railings of mother-of-pearl; massive silver candlesticks and Koran-stands, upon which are beautiful manuscripts of the Koran, are disposed about the room, and at the head of the Sultan’s bier is a fez with a plume and aigrette of diamonds. In the court of Santa Sophia you may see the beautiful mausoleum of Selim II., who reposes beside the Lady of Light; and not far from it theturbehcontaining the remains of Mohammed III., surrounded by the biers of seventeen brothers whom he murdered. It is pleasant to see brothers united and in peace at last. I found something pathetic in other like apartments where families were gathered together, sultans and sultanas in the midst of little span-long biers of sons and daughters, incipient sultans and sultanas, who were never permitted by state policy, if I may be allowed the expression, to hatch. Strangled in their golden cradles, perhaps, these innocents! Worthless little bodies, mocked by the splendor of their interments. One could not but feel a little respect for what might have been a “Sublime Porte” or a Light of the Seraglio.
The Imperial Palace, the Church of Santa Sophia, the Hippodrome,—these are the triangle of Byzantine history, the trinity of tyranny, religion, and faction. The Circus of Constantinople, like that on the banks of the Tiber, was the arena for the exhibition of games, races, spectacles, and triumphs; like that, it was the arena of a licentious democracy, but the most disorderly mob of Rome never attained the power or equalled the vices of the murderous and incendiary factions of Byzantium. The harmless colors that at first only distinguished the ignoble drivers in the chariot races became the badges of parties, which claimed the protection and enjoyed the favor of emperors and prelates; and theblueand thegreenfactions not only more than once involved the city in conflagration and blood, but carried discord and frenzy into all the provinces. Although they respected no human or divine law, they affected religious zeal for one or another Christian sect or dogma; the “blues” long espoused the orthodox cause, and enjoyed the partiality of Justinian. The dissolute youth of Constantinople, wearing the livery of the factions, possessed the city at night, and abandoned themselves to any deed of violence that fancy or revenge suggested; neither the sanctity of the church, nor the peace of the private house, nor the innocence of youth, nor the chastity of matron or maid, was safe from these assassins and ravishers. It was in one of their seditious outbreaks that the palace and Santa Sophia were delivered to the flames.
The oblong ground of the Hippodrome is still an open place, although a portion of the ground is covered by the Mosque of Ahmed. But the traveller will find there few relics of this historical arena; nothing of the marble seats and galleries that surrounded it. The curious may look at the Egyptian obelisk of syenite, at the crumbling pyramid which was the turning goal of the chariots; and he may find more food for reflection in the bronze spiral column, formed by the twinings of three serpents whose heads have been knocked off. It deserves to be housed and cared for. There is no doubt of its venerable antiquity; it was seen by Thucydides and Herodotus in the Temple of Delphi, where its three branching heads formed a tripod upon which rested the dish of gold which the Greeks captured among the spoils of the battle of Platæa. The column is not more than fifteen feet high; it has stood here since the time of Constantine.
This is the most famous square of Constantinople, yet in its present unromantic aspect it is difficult to reanimate its interest. It is said that its statues of marble and bronze once excelled the living population of the city. In its arena emperors, whose vices have alone saved their names to a conspicuous contempt, sought the popular applause by driving in the chariot races, or stripped themselves for the sports with wild beasts, proud to remind the spectators of the exploits of Caligula and Heliogabalus. Here, in the reign of Anastasius, the “green” faction, entering the place with concealed daggers, interrupted a solemn festival and assassinated three thousand of the “blues.” This place was in the first quarter of this century the exercise and parade ground of the Janizaries, until they were destroyed. Let us do justice to the Turks. In two memorable instances they exhibited a nerve which the Roman emperors lacked, who never had either the firmness or the courage to extirpate the Prætorian Guards. The Janizaries set up, deposed, murdered sultans, as the Guards did Emperors; and the Mamelukes of Egypt imitated their predecessors at Rome. Mahmood II. in Constantinople, and Mohammed Ali in Cairo, had the courage to extinguish these enemies of Turkish sovereignty.
In this neighborhood are several ancient monuments; the Burnt Column, a blackened shaft of porphyry; the column called Historical; and that of Theodosius,—I shall not fatigue you with further mention of them. Not far from the Hippodrome we descended into the reservoir called A Thousand and One Columns; I suppose this number is made up by counting one as three, for each column consists of three superimposed shafts. It is only partially excavated. We found a number of Jews occupying these subterranean colonnades, engaged in twisting silk, the even temperature of the cellar being favorable to this work.
As if we had come out of a day in another age, we walked down through the streets of the artificers of brass and ivory and leather, to the floating bridge, and crossed in a golden sunset, in which the minarets and domes of the mosque of Mohammed II. appeared like some aerial creation in the yellow sky.