The beauties of the Bosphorus

CONTENTS.

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. — LIST OF PLATES.

THE BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS.

Every enjoyment of life has three distinct stages—anticipation—reality—and reminiscence; and it is more difficult than it at first appears to be, to decide on the comparative extent and value of each. Hope is the most extravagant and imaginative; action, the most engrossing and tangible; and memory, the most calm, and durable, and sober.

I feel this truth forcibly at a moment like the present, when, after having laid aside the pen with which, upon the glorious shores of the Bosphorus, I recorded the observations growing out of passing circumstances, and glowing with reality and action, I am once more called upon mentally to retrace my steps. For months before I visited the picturesque capital of Turkey, I had nourished visions as bright and as impalpable as the rainbow. I anticipated I knew not what—adventures as numerous and as romantic as those of the “Thousand and One Nights;” and I dreamt dreams impossible of accomplishment; not caring to inquire too curiously of my reason whether such things would be; but content to inhabit my cloud-land castle, and to look down from the unstable edifice in all the luxury growing out of my self-created images.

When I was subsequently dwelling in the “City of the Sultan,” and that reality had succeeded to anticipation, much of the mist of romance, indeed, rolled away; but the fair face of the landscape suffered little from its absence, for Constantinople needs no aid from the imagination to make it one of the brightest gems in the diadem of nature: its clear calm sky, its glittering sea, its amphitheatre of thickly-peopled hills, its geographical position, its political importance, and, above all, its surpassing novelty, tend to make every day and every hour in that gorgeous scene, and under that sunny sky, a season of intense enjoyment; while the varying character of the native population, constituted as it is of such anomalous materials—the truthful Turk, the wily Greek, the stately Armenian, and the timid Jew—coupled with the blended air of mystery and of magnificence which pervades the whole locality, suffice to render the Turkish metropolis a sojourn of unwearied and exciting delight: and when, favoured by circumstances which seemed to shape themselves to my wishes in a manner to make me doubt whether the spells of fairy-land were indeed all broken, I was enabled to penetrate to the very centre of Turkish society, and to domesticate myself both with princes and peasants, I found that the fallacies which had evaporated, would have been but a sorry exchange for the reality that remained; and I gave the advantage to the fact over the anticipation.

And now, once more, when the heat and the hurry of the expedition are over, when the pride and the pageantry have passed away, and that I am preparing to live over again that brief period of delight—conjured back, as by magic, in gazing on the extraordinarily faithful and admirable sketches which lie upon my table in “merrie England,” from the pencil of Mr. Bartlett,—I am tempted to believe that my hour of real enjoyment has arrived; an hour which I may prolong or multiply at my pleasure, by memories of scenes well known, and individuals vividly remembered—of beauty and of luxury, of legend and of song. I look back upon my residence at Constantinople and its environs as upon a bright vision, which I am glad to have an opportunity of calling up once more, and investing with tangibility: and thus I feel that I am now, perhaps, enjoying the true and enduring privilege of the traveller, as I turn from one graphic sketch to another, and recall the circumstances and incidents which have tended to impress each spot upon my memory; while I am compelled to doubt if the romance of anticipation, or the fatigue and risk of positive residence, indeed outweighed the quiet memories which throng about me to-day, and people my cheerful apartment with by-gone brilliant shapes, and scenes never to be forgotten.

The great charm of Constantinople to an European eye exists in the extreme novelty, which is in itself a spell; for not only the whole locality, but all its accessories, are so unlike what the traveller has left behind him in the West, that every group is a study, and every incident a lesson; and he feels at once the necessity of flinging from him a thousand factitious wants and narrow conventional prejudices, and of looking calmly and dispassionately upon men and scenes wholly dissimilar to those with which he had previously been acquainted.

Nor is even this all; for the march of expediency has been so rapid, and the mania for reform so active during the reign of the present Sultan, that the most extraordinary changes are constantly taking place, not only in the habits and feelings of the people, but in the very aspect of their city. The beautiful remains of Moorish architecture, so essentially Oriental in their character, are giving place to European innovation; the heavy, drooping, convoluted roofs of the fountains are disappearing, to make room for light iron railings; and the bright frescoes and painted screens of the wooden palaces are superseded by columns of sculptured marble; an anomaly sufficiently startling to convince the traveller that it is only a first step towards the total extinction of that peculiar and fairy-like species of architecture which renders the vicinity of the Bosphorus so unlike every other locality, that it appears to be rather the embodyment of a “Midsummer night’s dream,” than a mere earthly landscape.

If it be indeed desirable to

it can be no less so to preserve a record of the past. There is a fine moral in the representation of things that have passed away, if it be read aright. We gaze on the pictured glories of Tyre and Sidon, of Nineveh and Carthage, and the lesson is a salutary one. In after-years, in like manner, when the Constantinople of to-day shall have become changed, (as it surely will,) into a mere city of European palaces, and marts, and manufactories, it will be a reposing place for the spirit to dwell upon the semblance of that which it once was, while Turkey was yet (ostensibly at least,) an independent Empire, with a distinct faith, and feeling, and principle of existence; ere the progress of events, political as well as moral, swept away, with the unsparing besom of reform, the web which the spider of antiquity had woven about “the palaces of the Caliphs.”

THE VALLEY OF THE SWEET WATERS.

Kyat-Khana, called by the Franks the “Valley of the Sweet Waters,” is a lovely glen, nestled at the base of a chain of hills, and situated between Eyoub and Hassa Kuï, the quarter of the Jews. It is entirely shut in on all sides; and looks from the heights above, which are bleak and arid, like a huge emerald. Through the thick grass of the valley, and under the shadow of its magnificent trees, flows the Barbyses; a limpid, but inconsiderable stream, upon whose banks rise two of the most fairy-like edifices that ever sheltered prince or peasant! The larger building is a summer-palace, where the favourite wives of the Sultan lounge away many of the long sunshiny days of the warm season in comparative freedom; and exchange the closely-latticed apartments of the Imperial harem for the shady groves and grassy paths of the palace gardens; dreaming through the hot hours in gilded kiosques⁠[1] on the river bank; or driving amid the tall plane-trees in arabas,⁠[2] bright with gilding, and drawn by cream-coloured oxen.

It must not be supposed, however, that, in addition to these enjoyments, the fair Sultanas are even here permitted to look upon a world from which they are elsewhere so jealously shut out; I have already enumerated all the privileges of their summer residence. When the harem is about to remove to Kyat-Khana, a military cordon is established along the whole range of the heights overlooking the valley, and the public are entirely shut out from that portion of it which immediately surrounds the palace. Occasional glimpses of the pretty prisoners may, nevertheless, be obtained, as they glide along the Barbyses, in their magnificent caïques,⁠[3] closely veiled, and followed by other boats, filled with a portion of the negro guard of the household.

The locality owes its name of Kyat-Khana, (literally signifying the House of Paper,) to the fact that a paper manufactory was formed in the valley by a renegade, named Ibrahim, in the year 1727, during the reign of Achmed III. It was, however, abandoned, as well as a printing establishment instituted by the same individual, in consequence of a refusal from the Ulema to permit the printing of the Korān, which they declared to be too holy to be submitted to so infidel a process; and the machinery and buildings were in a state of almost equal dilapidation, when Sultan Selim, the uncle and predecessor of the present sovereign, anxious to revive so useful an art among his people, gave up the palace as a manufactory, and munificently encouraged the re-establishment of the fabric; but he was fated to see this attempt fail, like many others which he made to ameliorate the condition of his subjects, and which he ultimately expiated with his life. All traces of the undertaking have now vanished from the valley, and the palace has become once more an Imperial residence.

The smaller edifice to which allusion has been made, is a kiosque, also appertaining to the Sultan, and occasionally occupied by the high officers of the household: it stands on the very edge of the Barbyses, and the caïques glide under the windows, or shoot along beneath the thick branches of the trees on the opposite bank, with a velocity which, to the eye of a stranger, is perfectly surprising; while the inmates of the kiosque smoke their chibouques in luxurious indolence, fanned by the air of the river, and amused by the passing groupes.

The valley itself is delicious; the greensward is bright and rich, to a degree unknown in any other environ of the city. In spring it is the grazing-ground of the Imperial stud; and the beautiful Arabians are installed with great pomp, picketted after the Eastern fashion, and superintended by parties of Bulgarians, whose tents are pitched in the valley, and who never quit it under any pretence until they are released from their charge. In summer it is the resort of all ranks; who, on every Friday (the Turkish Sabbath,) resort thither, to enjoy what none know better how to appreciate than the Orientals—a bright sky, a running stream, flowers, leaves, and sunshine. Bullock-carriages, covered with gay-coloured awnings of silken shag, fringed with gold; gilded arabas, drawn by swift horses; and caïques, the number of whose elegantly-clad rowers denotes the rank or wealth of their owners, pour forth their tenants every moment; while the thick branches of the noble trees protect from the glare of the sun parties of white-veiled women, who, squatted on their mats or carpets, and attended by their slaves, sit for hours listening to the Wallachian and Bulgarian musicians, who collect paras⁠[4] and praises at a very trifling expense of melody; purchasing the prettily and significantly arranged bouquets of the dark-eyed Bohemian flower-girls; or watching the ungainly dances of the Sclavonians, who, with their discordant bagpipes under their arms, perform evolutions which resemble the saltatory attempts of half-educated bears. Here and there, a little apart from the crowd, may be seen a party of Greeks, engaged in their graceful romaïka; while groups of lovely children, and water-venders, and sweetmeat merchants, wander up and down the greensward, and are greeted with smiles and welcome on all sides. It is, in short, a spirit-stirring scene; and the poorer classes who are unable to command a carriage, or a caïque, will cheerfully toil on foot from the city, under a scorching sun, in order to secure their portion of the festival.

A great deal of public business is occasionally transacted at Kyat-Khana; and then the sparkling Barbyses is alive with the gilded barges of the Pashas and Beys, shooting over the ripple like meteors; the grandee himself being carefully shielded from the sun by a red umbrella, held over him as he reclines on his cushions at the bottom of the boat, quietly smoking his chibouque, by an attendant, who is squatted on the raised stern of the arrow-like bark, immediately behind him.

The valley of Kyat-Khana is a very favourite resort of the present Sultan, who has expended considerable sums in beautifying the palace, and in ornamenting the fountains and kiosques which appertain to it; but only a short time since it was entirely abandoned for two years, owing to the death of a favourite Odalisque, who expired suddenly, in the very zenith of her youth and beauty, during a visit which she made here with her Imperial master; whose grief at her loss was so intense, that he could not bear to inhabit the valley until time had blunted his regret. A handsome head-stone, erected to her memory, lettered with gold, and overshadowed by a weeping willow, stands upon a square platform, beneath the windows of the saloon occupied by the Sultan; and the breeze, as it sweeps through the flexile branches of the tree, almost carries them into the apartment. Sultan Mahmoud, who is esteemed a very respectable poet for an Emperor, is said, during his season of despair, to have written a pathetic ballad in her honour; but, be that as it may, it is certain that she has been long forgotten among the bevy of beauties who now tread the gilded chambers of the palace of Kyat-Khana.

EYOUB.

Eyoub, beautifully situated at the eastern extremity of the walls of Constantinople, and stretching down to the very lip of the harbour, is the “holy of holies” of the Turks. Its magnificent mosque and its picturesque cemetery are equally historical; while its position, overlooking the whole extent of the Golden Horn, and commanding a noble view far up the Bosphorus, is possibly unrivalled. Smoothly-rounded hills, feathered with trees varying in character, but all rich in beauty, form a background eminently scenic; the lofty maple and the leafy plane-tree, the fan-like acacia and the rigid cypress, flourish side by side, and overshadow a wilderness of graves; while the suburb itself, unusually well-built and regular, circles a portion of the harbour with stately and pleasant dwellings.

The mosque, built of the purest white marble, with a court gloriously shaded by gigantic trees, and paved with the same material of which the edifice is composed, is the most sacred of all the Constantinopolitan temples; for on this spot tradition says that Abu Eyoub, the companion-in-arms of the Prophet, was slain, during the siege of the Saracens in 668, a fact which was revealed in a vision to Mahomet II. about 800 years afterwards; who, in commemoration of the event, laid the foundation of the present mosque, which is one of the most elegant in the capital; and is rendered still more holy in the eyes of the Turks, from the circumstance that it is within these walls that every Sultan, on his accession, is invested with the sword of sovereignty. No infidel foot is permitted, under whatever pretence, to desecrate the mosque of Eyoub; and Christians are rarely, and always reluctantly, admitted even to the court.

At Eyoub, on the very verge of the water, stands one of the summer palaces built by the unfortunate Sultan Selim, and overlooking the lovely glen through which the Barbyses flows calmly onward, to lose itself in the harbour. It is now the property of the Sultana Asmè, the elder sister of the present Sultan.

“The decorations throughout are heavy, but of the greatest richness, and perfectly oriental in their character. What was formerly the reception-room of the ill-fated sovereign is entirely lined with gilding; the walls being niched and overhung with stalactited cornices similar to those which decorate many of our old cathedral tombs; and the weight of this elaborate ornament is relieved by a ceiling of faint blue, sprinkled with silver stars.”⁠[5]⁠

The exterior of the building is in the Moorish taste, with a convoluted and projecting roof; and the façade is of considerable extent.

Near this palace stands the great Fèz manufactory, where all the caps for the court and the army are now made. It is a modern building, erected on the site of one of the dilapidated kiosques of the Sultan, and is a very important and ornamental feature in the landscape.

There is an anecdote connected with this establishment, which is sufficiently characteristic and amusing to merit transcription; and it may be inserted here for the benefit of the many, to whom it will be entirely novel. “The manufactory was suggested and founded by Omer Lufti Effendi, in consequence of the extremely high price paid by the Sultan to the Tunisians, with whom this fabric originated, for the head-dress of his troops. Having induced a party of Arabian workmen from Tunis to accompany him to Constantinople, he established them in the old palace, which has since been replaced by the present noble building; and under their direction the knitting and shaping of the caps acquired some degree of perfection.

“But the dye was a secret beyond their art; and the Turkish government, anxious to second the views of the energetic Omer Effendi, made a second importation of Tunisians with no better success, although they were chosen from among the most efficient workmen of their country. The caps, while they were equal both in form and texture to those of Tunis, were dingy and ill-coloured; and the Arabs declared that the failure of the dye was owing to the water in and about Constantinople, which was unfavourable to the drugs employed.

“As a last hope, a trial was made at Smit, but with the same result; and the attempt to localise the manufacture was about to be abandoned, when Omer Effendi, suspecting the good faith of the Arabian workmen, disguised a clever Angorian Armenian, named Avanis Aga, as a Turk, whom he placed as a labourer in the dye-room. Being a good chemist and a shrewd observer, Avanis Aga, affecting a simplicity that removed all suspicion, soon made himself master of the secret which it so much imported his anxious patron to learn; and, abandoning the ignoble besom that he had wielded, as the attendant of the Tunisian dyers, immediately that he discovered the fraud, which, either in obedience to the secret orders of their Regent, or from an excess of patriotism, they had been practising ever since their arrival, he set himself to work in secret; and, with the water of Smit, dyed two caps, which, having dried, he presented to Omer Effendi, who was unable to distinguish them from those of Tunis.

“Delighted at the successful issue of his experiment, Omer Effendi summoned the Arabs to his presence, and showed them the Fèz; when, instantly suspecting the masquerade that had betrayed them, they simultaneously turned towards the Armenian; and throwing their turbans on the ground, and tearing their hair, they cried out, ‘Yaccoup! Yaccoup!’ (Jacob! Jacob!)

“The superintendent having dismissed them, after causing them to be liberally remunerated for the time which they had spent at Constantinople, sent them back to Tunis; while Avanis Aga, elected Head Dyer of the Imperial Manufactory of Eyoub, now enjoys the high honour of deciding on the exact tint to be worn by Mahmoud the Powerful, the ‘Light of the Sun,’ and ‘Shadow of the Universe.’”⁠[6]⁠

By far the most interesting feature of Eyoub is, however, its beautifully-situated cemetery, occupying the slope of a thickly-wooded hill. After the necropolis of Scutari, that of Eyoub is the most venerated by the Turks; and to the stranger it is rendered peculiarly interesting by the fact, that it contains the tombs of the “Tiger-Pasha,” Ali of Tepeleni, whose life, revolt, and death, form a wild and thrilling romance; and those of his three sons, and his grandson; who, in accordance with Eastern ideas of expediency, shared his punishment; and whose trunkless heads now lie in the burial-ground of Eyoub, beside his own. On a parapet wall directly facing the Selyvria gate, five oblong blocks of marble of unequal height, and crowned with turbans, are ranged side by side in a conspicuous situation. That which covers the head of the traitor himself is thus inscribed:—“Here lies the head of the once celebrated Tepedelenly Ali Pasha, Governor of the Sangiac of Yanina; who for more than fifty years pretended to independence in Albania.” The others simply record the name and rank of the respective victims, and terminate the inscription very naïvely with the words, “who has been put to death by the cutting off of his head;” without attempting to perpetuate any accusation of crime or misdemeanour; their unlucky relationship to the rebel Pasha being accounted a sufficient treason.

When on a visit at the Fanar, or Greek quarter of the city, I had once a momentary glimpse of the widow of this celebrated rebel. She was the daughter of a Greek papas, or priest, of Yanina, of great beauty and some erudition, to whom the Pasha was reported to have been passionately attached; though she is accused (it is doubtful with what justice) of having stipulated to receive her “thirty pieces of silver” for betraying him to the Government. Be this as it may, it is certain that she possessed great influence over his mind; and that it was entirely by her arguments and entreaties that he was dissuaded from the desperate intention of blowing her, himself, and his treasures, up with gunpowder, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Sultan; and that it was she who negotiated the affair between Ali and Hourchid Pasha; while it is equally a fact, that let her have made what compact she might, she received neither money nor land from the Turkish Government after the execution of her husband, but was turned over in a state of positive destitution to the custody of the Patriarch, where she literally owed her daily comforts to the charity of the benevolent. She was a voluntary prisoner in her apartment, from which she seldom emerged save to attend some ceremony in the Patriarchal Church; and her time was said to be generally passed in prayer.

The view from the cemetery is strikingly fine; on the one hand the city, throned on its seven hills, with a thousand stately domes gleaming in the sunshine, and a thousand taper minarets glancing towards heaven, stretches along the edge of the harbour, until the line is lost at the abrupt and palace-cumbered point of the ancient Byzantium; beyond which may be descried the termination of the Bosphorus, and the mountain-chain of Bulgurlhu, on the Thracian shore of the channel.

On the other side of the land-locked harbour the gently-flowing Barbyses glides, like a silver thread, through the valley of Kyat-Khana, to pay its tribute to the wealth-freighted waters of the Golden Horn; and on the verge of a small hamlet not above two furlongs from this calm stream, stands a small mosque, half buried in trees, insignificant in appearance, and seldom remarked by strangers; which is, however, too historically interesting to be passed over. It is called the “Mosque of Blood,” and is painted a dull red from the base of its walls to the summit of its single minaret. It is a desecrated temple, having been forced during the last siege by a party of combatants, some of whom expired beneath its roof, and thus brought the presence of death where, on religious principles, it is never suffered to intrude; while in its immediate vicinity rises a bleak, treeless, and desolate-looking eminence, occupied by the bones of all the True Believers who perished during that memorable struggle, to the amount of some thousands: their remains have been respected, but there is neither monument nor inscription to perpetuate the memory of their good services.

Beyond this mosque, the out-buildings of the Imperial arsenal, the dry-dock for the construction of shipping, the galleys, (which are under the immediate control and authority of the High Admiral,) the powder magazines, and the ruined palace of a former Capudan Pasha, occupy the shore as high as the suburb of Kassim Pasha, where stands the Marine Barrack, a huge pile, chiefly remarkable for the wretched taste of its tawdry fresco-painting, and its air of chilling desolation; and near to it the new Tershana, or Admiralty, a bright, many-coloured, highly-ornamented edifice, in the Russian taste; occupying the side of a small creek, and overlooking a wooden pier. A wet-dock, handsomely enclosed within solid and well-made walls, and entered through a noble pair of iron gates, below Kassim Pasha, is succeeded by a height covered with cypresses, which leans downward to the water, where it terminates in a steep flight of steps, partly artificial and partly hewn in the rock, and designated the Meit-iskelli, or Ladder of the Dead. This gloomy forest is the “Little Cemetery,” or lesser burial-ground of Pera, the faubourg inhabited by the Franks; and the jetty at the foot of the stair which has just been described, is principally used for the embarkation of the bodies of deceased Turks, whom their friends are conveying for burial to the Asian necropolis of Scutari.

Immediately beyond this jetty, a floating bridge, stretching from the pier of Galata (the quarter of the Frank merchants, dominated by the hill on which Pera is built,) to the “Gate of the Garden,” near the Kiosque of Pearls, and immediately under the walls of the Seraglio, shuts in the harbour; while the line of shore in the distance, fringed with the houses and public buildings of Top-hannè, gently recedes, until it disappears under the stately shadow of Bulgurlhu.

TURKISH BATHS.

There is, perhaps, no luxury throughout the luxurious East more perfect, or more complete, than the Baths. Those of the great and the wealthy in Constantinople embody the idea of a scene in the “Thousand and One Nights”—they are so bright and fairy-like in their magnificence—so light and gay with painted glass, white marble, brocade, and embroidery.

Every bath, however small may be its dimensions, consists of three apartments; the outer hall, in which the bathing-dress is arranged; the cooling-room, a well-cushioned and comfortable space, moderately heated, and intended for the temporary reception of the bathers before they venture to encounter the pure free air of the exterior apartment; and the bath itself, where the atmosphere is so laden with sulphuric vapour, that, for some seconds, the breath is impeded, and the suffocating sensation which ensues is positively painful.

The Imperial Bath at the summer-palace of Beglier-Bey, is one of the most elegant and costly in the city or its environs: and as it can only be seen by the express permission of the Sultan himself, is well worthy of description. Passing a crimson door, surmounted by a crescent-shaped cornice of rich gilding, the visitor enters a small hall, in which stands a basin of fine white marble, occupied by two swans, wrought in the same material, and appearing to sport in the limpid water; which, escaping from this charming fountain, falls through concealed pipes into the basins destined to supply the bathers. The cooling-room, opening from this dim apartment, (where the light only penetrates after struggling through stars and crescents of painted glass, inlaid in the marble roof like clusters of jewels,) is hung with draperies of silk, richly embroidered; and the large mirror which occupies the wall at the lower end of the divan, is set in a frame-work of gold and enamel, surmounted by the Ottoman arms, skilfully executed; while the divan itself, formed of gay-coloured satin, is wrought in silks until it resembles a flower-bed; and the cushions which are scattered over it are of the same beautiful and costly description. The bath is a vast hall, of the most elegant proportions, lined, and roofed, and paved with marble. It is lighted like the cooling-room, and surmounted by exquisitely-imagined fountains; and gives back a long and subdued echo at every footfall which disturbs its deep and dreamy silence.

This description will serve to convey an idea of the baths of the great, and will give no exaggerated impression of their magnificence; the establishments of the Pashas and Beys being all precisely similar in their arrangement, and only varying in splendour with the resources of their owners. Here the fair Zibas and Heyminès of the different palaces pass whole hours, folded in long scarfs of muslin, worked and fringed with gold, their dark hair streaming over their ivory shoulders; inhaling the sulphuric atmosphere, and enjoying the luxurious languor which it creates; sipping sherbets made of the most delicate conserves, or the finest fruits; and, not unfrequently, enjoying a slumber which is nowhere deeper than amid the dense vapours of the bath-room.

But the public Hammām is altogether a different scene. No dreamy silence, no thoughtful abstraction can be indulged in the far-stretching hall, where hundreds congregate, and where the echoes of the many-domed roof heighten and prolong every harsh sound into tenfold discordance. These establishments are numerous in Constantinople, and fortunes, really colossal for that country, are said to be made by them, although they pay a heavy tax to the government. From eight in the morning they are open until sunset, men and women frequenting them on alternate days; and the ladies seldom fail to avail themselves of the whole of the time allowed, by spending it almost entirely in the Hammām.

The bath is the very paradise of Eastern women. Here they assemble to discuss every subject of interest and amusement, whether politics, scandal, or news; to arrange marriages, and to prevent them; to ask and to offer advice; to display their domestic supremacy, and to impart their domestic grievances; but, above all, to enjoy the noise, the hurry, and the excitement, which form so great a contrast to the calm and monotony of the harem.

On leaving the outer hall, the bather is supplied with a pair of wooden pattens, raised several inches from the floor, which is so much heated in the inner apartments, that, until the vapour has had time to operate upon the frame, it is impossible to touch it with the naked foot. Thus provided—and among the higher classes these pattens are objects of great cost and luxury, the band by which they are secured across the instep being frequently inlaid with jewels—the bather passes into the cooling-room, where a number of little channels, filled with warm water, traverse the floor in every direction; which, while they add to the heat, serve to diminish the oppression of the vapour that escapes at each opening of the door of the bath itself; an extensive octagon hall, containing eight fountains, and surrounded by small cabinets for those who do not choose to avail themselves of the more public apartment.

We cannot, perhaps, do better than take a description of the extraordinary scene presented by this locality from the pages of an eye-witness.

“For the first few moments I was bewildered; the heavy, dense, sulphureous vapour that filled the place, and almost suffocated me—the wild shrill cries of the slaves pealing through the reverberating domes of the bathing-halls, enough to awaken the very marble with which they were lined—the subdued laughter and whispered conversations of their mistresses, murmuring along in an under-current of sound—the sight of nearly three hundred women, only partially dressed, and that in fine linen so perfectly saturated with vapour that it revealed the whole outline of the figure—the busy slaves passing and repassing, naked from the waist upwards, and with their arms folded upon their bosoms, balancing on their heads piles of fringed or embroidered napkins—groups of lovely girls, laughing, chatting, and refreshing themselves with sweetmeats, sherbet, and lemonade—parties of playful children, apparently quite indifferent to the dense atmosphere which made me struggle for breath—and, to crown all, the sudden bursting forth of a chorus of voices into one of the wildest and shrillest of Turkish melodies, that was caught up and flung back by the echoes of the vast hall, making a din worthy of a saturnalia of demons, all combined to form a picture like the illusory semblance of a phantasmagoria, almost leaving me in doubt whether that on which I looked were indeed reality, or the mere creation of a distempered brain.”⁠[7]⁠

In this hall, amid the noise and hurry here described, those who frequent it collect round the fountains, which are plentifully supplied with both hot and cold water, each lady attended by one or more slaves; her hair is then combed and saturated with water, poured over it from a basin of metal; and her limbs are gently rubbed by a hand covered with a small glove, or rather bag, woven of camel’s hair; after which, she changes her dripping garments for others that await her near the door of the hall, and passes into the cooling-room. Here, reclining on mats and carpets, the bathers sometimes lie for hours, with their hair concealed beneath heavy napkins, and their whole persons wrapped closely in long white scarfs, like winding-sheets. Were it not that they are flushed by the action of the vapour, and for the ceaseless conversation which they maintain, they would look like a party of corses prepared for burial.

When at length they venture into the outer hall, they at once spring upon their sofas, where the attentive slaves fold them in warm cloths, and pour essence upon their hair, which they twist loosely without attempting to dislodge the wet, and then cover with handsome head-kerchiefs of embroidered muslin; perfumed water is scattered over the face and hands, and the exhausted bather sinks into a luxurious slumber beneath a coverlet of satin or of eider-down.

The centre of the floor, meanwhile, is like a fair; sweetmeat, sherbet, and fruit-merchants, (old crones, who frequently have as many billet-doux as bowls of yahourt⁠[8] in their baskets,) parade up and down, hawking their wares. Negresses pass to and fro with the dinners, or chibouques,⁠[9] of their several mistresses; secrets are whispered—confidences are made; and, altogether, the scene is so strange, so new, and withal so attractive, that no European can fail to be both interested and amused by a visit to a Turkish Hammām.

PALACE OF BESHIK-TASH.

The new palace of Beshik-Tash, erected by the present Sultan, commands a noble view of the Propontis; sweeps the Bosphorus through nearly its whole length; looks towards Scutari, (the Asian jewel seated at the foot of the dark mountain-chain of Bulgurlhu-Dagi;) affords a glimpse of the ancient Chalcedon; and includes within the range of its magnificent prospect the snow-crowned summit of Mount Olympus, flashing out in the distance through the clear blue of the horizon like a huge pearl set in sapphires; the Seraï Bournou, whose imperial walls enclose what was once a city; and the “Seven Hills” of glorious Stamboul. The world can probably produce no similar panorama; and as the traveller stands on the height above the palace gardens, and looks down upon the heavy inelegant wooden edifice, protected on the seaward side by a stately colonnade of white marble, he may well be pardoned should he indulge a regret that this imperial residence should be so unworthy of its admirable and unequalled site.

During the youth of Sultan Mahmoud, he was induced to consult a celebrated astrologer, who, among other predictions, foretold, that while he continued to build palaces, he should be successful in all his undertakings. And it would appear that he put the most perfect faith in the prophecy, for every pretty bay in the Bosphorus has its kiosque; and the number of his residences in the immediate vicinity of the capital, amounts to fifty-seven. The palace of Beshik-Tash is the last and most extensive of the whole, but decidedly the least picturesque and elegant. Its Armenian architect was not, however, selected without due consideration on the part of the Sultan, who was won to decide on the present plan by the assurance that it was thoroughly European; a fact which could not be disputed, were the glittering and well-proportioned columns that support the open peristyle swept away, when this huge pile, which has cost upwards of a million sterling, would present precisely the appearance of a manufactory.

There is an anecdote connected with the palace which is extremely characteristic of its regal builder, and which may appropriately be introduced here. While yet undecided unto whom he should confide the great work of its erection, an architect (also an Armenian) was introduced to the Sultan by one of his favourites, and was desired to be upon the spot destined for its site at a particular hour, in order to judge of its capabilities, and to explain them to his imperial master. Ere they entered upon the actual subject of their meeting, Mahmoud stretched forth his arm towards the Seraï Bournou,⁠[10] of which nothing could be seen above the surrounding walls but the gleaming roofs, with here and there a tall white minaret, or a stately dome, standing out from amid a forest of cypress and maple-trees; and drily inquired what the stranger thought of the palace of Amurath? The Armenian cautiously replied, that never having been enabled to examine the nature of the building, he was totally inadequate to form any judgment. “Let him have the opportunity;” said the Sultan to the Bey by whom he had been introduced, “and to-morrow I will hear the result.”

The astonished raïah,⁠[11] consequently, found himself in a few moments darting over the ripple in the caïque of his patron; and, ere long, actually passing the sacred threshold which it had hitherto been death to any infidel to tread. Bewildered and, perhaps, misled by his astonishment, and dazzled by the gilding and glitter of the celebrated Seraï—or, it may be, fearful of undervaluing by a word an edifice which had so long been a world’s wonder—or, again, tutored by his friend, the courtier—he declared, when he next stood in the presence of the Sultan, that, in as far as his poor judgment served, earth held nothing to compare with the palace of Amurath.

“Would you tell me that Europe boasts not its equal?” asked the Sultan calmly.

“I have visited many of the cities of the west;” said the obsequious raïah, “and I have seen nothing from the rising of the sun to its going down, so perfect as the Seraï Bournou.”

“Chok chay—that is much!” smiled the Sultan; “then the Franks are liars when they send me things like these, and tell me that they represent the palaces of their Padishahs;”⁠[12] and as he spoke he drew out a roll of paper which he held in his hand, and displayed to the discomfited Armenian views of the different imperial and royal edifices of Europe. “Have you ever seen any of these Seraïs? and do they really not resemble the drawings now before me?”

“They do, may it please your highness; I have looked on many of them.”

“Then,” said the Sultan, “you are unsuited to the undertaking which I contemplate; for none, save a rogue or a fool, could class that place, fitted only for deeds of blood and mystery”—and he pointed once more towards the Seraï Bournou; “that place, hidden beneath high walls, and amid dark trees, as though it could not brave the light of day; with these light, laughing palaces, open to the free air, and the pure sunshine of heaven. Such would I have my own; and such it shall be:—we have therefore met for the last time.”

And the Armenian, having prostrated himself before the “Lord of the Three Seas,” withdrew from the presence of his master to comfort himself as he might under his disappointment and disgrace.

The ground upon which the palace stands was formerly occupied by an elegant kiosque, built by Sultan Selim—a glittering gaily-tinted pavilion, looking like a huge tulip amid the cluster of cypresses in the centre of which it rose; and a Tekiè or chapel of Turning Dervishes; whose community, undaunted by the displeasure of the Sultan, persisted in the occupation of their dwelling, although the walls of the new palace grew higher from day to day, until they fairly overtopped the more modest roof of the holy building. To the frequent orders which they received to vacate their Tekiè, they replied only that they were not free to depart, as they guarded the ashes of a saint; whose tomb, surrounded by a lattice-work of bright green, about half way up the height above the channel, was indeed a conspicuous object from their windows. In this dilemma, the Sultan applied to the Chèïk-Islam, or High Priest, to enforce their removal; but he was again met by a steady refusal, the Chèïk-Islam pleading the danger of such a precedent, and declining all interference. Sultan Mahmoud heard him in silence, and did not again agitate the question until the chapel was fairly built in, when he simply informed the chief Dervish of the precise day on which he was to vacate the premises; or, in default of his so doing, the roof would be pulled about the ears of his community. The holy man stood aghast, but there was no alternative; and the brotherhood in a few hours took quiet possession of a handsome house on the edge of the water, which had been made over to them by the Sultan, on the death of the court jester, to whom it had previously belonged.

The magnificent Turkish line-of-battle ships, when in harbour, are anchored about mid-stream, in the immediate vicinity of Beshik-Tash; and nothing can be finer than the effect of their stupendous brass guns when firing a salute. The peal rattles along the hills, flung back at intervals by the walls of the Seraglio, until it finally dies away in the distance, throwing a long musical sound, like the hollow rumbling of a coming storm along the billows of the Black Sea.

The gardens of the palace are extensive, but will require time to make them worthy of description; at present, a great portion of the hill-side behind the building is left in its original state, boasting for all ornament sweeps of fine cypresses, and here and there a tuft of almond trees, a group of acacias, or a majestic maple; while the white tents of the Bulgarian workmen employed upon the walls, give to the scene the picturesque and cheerful appearance of a summer encampment.

THE CASTLES OF EUROPE AND ASIA.

These fortresses stand on either shore of the Bosphorus, about half way up; where the channel is unusually narrow, and was once traversed by the celebrated bridge of Darius. The Anadoli Hissari, or Castle of Asia, was, during the reign of the Janissaries, the prison of the Bostangis, or body-guard of the Sultan, who were here immured or executed as the nature of their crimes dictated. It rises on the lip of a pleasant rivulet which empties itself into the Bosphorus, and washes the tree-fringed valley of the Asian Sweet Waters, called by the natives Guiuk-Suy, or Chest-water, from the extreme purity of the spring.

The Roumeli Hissari, or Castle of Europe, on the opposite shore, is of very singular construction, the ground-plan forming the characters of the Prophet’s name; by whom, tradition says that it was built in six days, by permission of the Greek emperor, who, with more courtesy than policy, acceded to the desire of Mahomet to possess a pied-à-terre on the European edge of the channel. This fortress was the celebrated prison of the Janissaries; and the large gun yet fills its embrasure on the lower rampart, which was fired on the execution of every criminal, to announce to the Sultan that the guilty one had expiated his crime. The strength of the Castle is much greater than its appearance from the sea would indicate; and it is well supplied with water, and the means of storing provisions. The Traitor’s Gate is the only seaward entrance to the fortress; and through its low wide arch the bodies of the strangled Janissaries were dragged by the heels, and flung into the Bosphorus. There are four principal towers, one of which occasionally served as a state-prison for persons of distinction; that immediately above it, is called the Tower of Blood, where the Agas, or chiefs of the Janissaries, were put to death privately, and their bodies conveyed to the Bosphorus through a tunnel excavated beneath the foundations of the fortress; it being considered unsafe and impolitic to dishonour their remains in the eyes of that formidable body, in the public manner in which the corses of their less distinguished comrades were mutilated and insulted.

The Janissaries’ Tower is built upon the highest point of land within the walls, and commands one of the finest views in the world; having on one hand the whole stretch of the channel to the opening of the island-studded Propontis; and on the other, the entrance of the Black Sea, with the “blue symplegades” in the dim distance, looking as if they were indeed fulfilling the ancient superstition, and wandering over the waters of the “storm-vexed Euxine.”

The instrument to which the fatal cord used in strangling the Janissaries was attached, is an old Roman bow of extraordinary strength; and the place of execution was a portion of the covered way that connects the towers throughout the fortress; and it is painful to look from this place of death upon the brightness and the beauty of nature, and to remember how many have so looked for the last time! The blue, sun-lighted sky—the sparkling water—the fantastic and changeful shadows cast by the broad leaves of the wild fig-trees upon the earth—the song of the wild-birds from the underwood beneath the ramparts—all seem to conspire in investing the world with a dearer charm, and in lending to life a value which must enchance tenfold the bitterness of death.

The few houses built within the walls of the fortress are in good repair, and are surrounded by pleasant gardens. Their tenants marry and intermarry continually, not being permitted to form any alliance with families unconnected with the Castle; and, altogether, the celebrated Roumeli Hissari, (a sealed book, save in one recent instance, to all European travellers,) possesses a great moral interest, as well as extreme picturesque beauty.

FOUNTAIN OF THE ASIAN SWEET WATERS.

The Valley of Guiuk-Suy, charmingly situated about midway of the Bosphorus, and called by Europeans the Asian Sweet Waters, owes its charm and its popularity (like the glen of Kyat-Khana, already described,) to the circumstance of its being intersected by a pretty stream of fresh water, which, after flowing along under the shadows of tall and leafy trees, finally mingles its pigmy ripples with the swifter waves of the channel. The Anadoli Hissari, or Castle of Asia, stands upon its margin, and painfully recalls the mind to the darker and sterner realities of life; or the visitor to Guiuk-Suy might fancy himself in Arcadia, so lovely is the locality.

On Fridays, (the Mahommedan Sabbath,) the valley is thronged with holiday-keeping idlers; and here the Frank traveller may see more of the habits and morale of the Turkish women than he can hope to do elsewhere; for here, being on Asiatic ground, they appear to feel more at home, and less trammelled by the restrictions of their creed than in any other environ of the capital; their yashmacs are less scrupulously arranged, they are more accessible to strangers, and they do the honours of their lovely valley with a gentle courtesy extremely pleasing.

All ranks alike frequent this sweet and balmy spot. The Sultanas move along in quiet stateliness over the greensward in their gilded arabas, drawn by oxen glittering with foil, and covered with awnings of velvet, heavy with gold embroidery and fringes; the light carriages of the Pashas’ harems roll rapidly past, decorated with flashing draperies, the horses gaily caparisoned, and the young beauties within pillowed on satins and velvets, and frequently screened by shawls of immense value; while the wives of many of the Beys, the Effendis, and the Emirs, leave their arabas, and seated on Persian carpets under the leafy canopy of the superb maple-trees which abound in the valley, amuse themselves for hours, the elder ladies with their pipes, and the younger ones with their hand-mirrors; greetings innumerable take place on all sides; and the itinerant confectioners and water-venders reap a rich harvest.

The Fountain of Guiuk-Suy stands in the midst of a double avenue of trees, which fringe the border of the Bosphorus. It is built of delicate white marble, is extremely elegant in design, and elaborately ornamented with arabesques. The spot which it adorns is a point of reunion for the fair idlers of the valley, when the evening breeze upon the channel renders this portion of the glen more cool and delicious than that in which they pass the earlier hours of the day; and is only separated from it by the stream already named, which is traversed by a heavy wooden bridge.

The whole coup-d’œil is charming; slaves hurry hither and thither, carrying water from the fountain to their respective mistresses, in covered crystal goblets, or vases of wrought silver. Fruit-merchants pass and repass with amber-coloured grapes and golden melons; Sclavonian musicians collect a crowd about them, which disperses the next moment to throng round a gang of Bedouin tumblers; serudjhes gallop over the soft grass in pursuit of their employers; carriages come and go noiselessly along the turf at the beck of their fair occupants; a fleet of caïques dance upon the ripple, ready to convey a portion of the revellers to their homes on the European shore; and the beams of the bright sun fall full on the turretted towers of the Castle of Europe, on the opposite side of the channel, touching them with gold, and contrasting yet more powerfully their long and graceful shadows upon the water.

AQUEDUCT NEAR PYRGO.

This fine remain of by-gone industry and taste is indifferently ascribed to the Emperor Valens, and to Justinian; no positive record of its date or founder being now in existence. It spans a lovely hill-embosomed valley near Pyrgo, and is one of several aqueducts still in existence between the city of Constantinople, and the beautiful, romantic, and Frank-peopled hamlet of Belgrade, on the Black Sea.

The necessity of an ample supply of water to a population of nearly eight hundred thousand souls, and the frequency of drought in the capital, have led to great care and some ingenuity in its conveyance to the cisterns and reservoirs of the city from the numerous streams that fall from the mountains which fence the Euxine, and the rivulets that irrigate the valleys among them. Every rill, however apparently trifling, is arrested in its progress, when it descends from a height into the lower lands; by which means the valleys become inundated, and form deep and extensive lakes, whence the water is conveyed in tile pipes along the mountains, to pour its volume into the aqueducts which span the valleys, and give a noble character to the wild landscape. These artificial reservoirs are called bendts, and were originally formed by the Greeks; and the dams by which they are shut in are mounds, faced with marble, sculptured in oriental devices and characters, which are extremely imposing, and even magnificent. The Turks are, however, suffering the aqueducts of their predecessors to fall slowly to decay; and have supplied their places by detached square hydraulic pillars, sufficiently ingenious in their construction to merit description. A small reservoir is on the summit of each; and tubes, similar to those laid along the heights, pour the water into this tank on one side, and discharge it on the other. Each pillar is six inches lower than that which preceded it; and thus a gradual descent is produced along the tops of these suy-terrasi, or columns, from the mountains to Stamboul; and as they are spread in considerable numbers over the country, the supply is generally abundant, though it sometimes fails when the season is unusually dry, as in the years 1822 and 1836.

At such periods, the terror of a people like the Osmanlis, who not only connect ideas of comfort and convenience with the pure element, but to whom it is essential in the offices of their religion, may be readily conceived; and not the least affecting of its demonstrations is the appearance of a Dervish on the crest of the Jouchi-Daghi, or Giant’s Mountain, whose duty it is to watch for, and to announce to the thirsting city, the anxiously-awaited appearance of a small, lowering, heavy cloud, hovering above the waves of Marmora, or the Euxine—a certain indication of coming rain, which causes the Christian sojourner in the East to revert at once to the Sacred Volume, whose holy truths are constantly recalled to his memory in the land of the Infidel.

The artist seized a happy moment in which to transfer to his sketch-book the Aqueduct of Pyrgo. The sunshine rested lovingly on the old grey stones of the stupendous pile at one extremity, while the cool shadows of the mountain, with its flowery mantle of cistus, caper-plants, and wild vines, were flung in soft contrast over the other. A party of travellers, with their serudjhes,⁠[13] sumpter mules, and araba drawn by buffaloes, were about to halt for their mid-day meal; and the sounds of human life and human laughter joyously awoke the echoes of the arch-spanned valley.

Nature and art, the present and the past, were before him; and the result has been not only a faithful, but a strikingly characteristic sketch.

THE MAUSOLEUM OF SOLYMAN “THE MAGNIFICENT.”

A beautiful covered way, leading from the outer court of Solimaniè, and richly trellised with those luxuriant and leafy parasites so common in the East, leads to the splendid tomb of Solyman; a light and elegant sexangular building of white marble, overshadowed by one of those enormous plane-trees which defy all calculation of their age, and seem each a mimic forest in themselves. Clusters of the rare and beautiful purple lily, grow, as it were, out of the foundation of the edifice, and intrude their imperial blossoms within the sculptured screen that protects the arched colonnade by which it is surrounded. The whole exterior of the tomb is graceful and attractive; and it looks rather like a temple dedicated to cheerfulness, than a shrine for the ashes of the dead. The sunshine struggles through the fresh green leaves of the giant-tree, and falls flickeringly upon the marble steps, painting them with a thousand fantastic figures; and the blue doves which nestle amid its branches fill the air with their soft cooings, destroying the deep silence of the sacred spot. Altogether, the Mausoleum of the magnificent Solyman conveys no idea of death and the grave, nor is it forced upon you even when you step across the threshold on to the richly carpeted floor, and see before you the sarcophagi of the imperial founder of the building, of his successor, of Sultan Akhmet, and of the two daughters of Solyman. Those of the Sultan’s are surmounted by lofty and curiously folded turbans of white muslin, decorated with aigrettes; while those of the princesses are simply covered with shawls of green cashmere, much dilapidated by time. On a stand near the entrance, rests an admirable model of the Mosque at Mecca, and the Prophet’s tomb, with parties of pilgrims on their way to and from the holy city; it is well executed, and bears an appearance of great accuracy.

A few paces from the resting-place of Solyman is that of his favourite wife, the far-famed and tiger-hearted Roxalana, who, in the feelings of the mother, suffered those of the woman to be extinguished, and turned the holiest of virtues into crime. She also rests under a dome of marble, and her sarcophagus is overlaid with costly shawls. The same plane-tree darkens over the two tombs, but the vermilion patches flung by the painted windows on the bier of the inexorable Roxalana, seem like records of the innocent blood shed to feed her ambition. Not satisfied with the proud distinction of having given birth to the Sultan’s eldest son, and of seeing the bitter tears wept over his grave by Solyman, who, to mark his grief for the untimely death of the ill-fated Mahomet, released a number of slaves on the day of his burial, that they might ever look back with veneration to his memory; the renegade Sultana, false alike to her God and to her sex, excited the infatuated sovereign to murder Mustapha, another of his sons by a rival beauty. Heavy accusations, laid by a reckless enemy, who possessed the ear and perverted the judgment of Solyman, were all-sufficient to secure the ruin of the young and high-hearted Mustapha; who, moreover, when summoned to the presence of his imperial father, entertained no suspicion of the treachery to which he was about to fall a victim.

To render the tragedy more complete, Mustapha, when he received the summons of the Sultan, was not alone; Zeangir, the son of Roxalana, to whom he was tenderly attached, was beside him; who, when the message was communicated to the prince, immediately determined on accompanying him to the camp of their common parent. On their arrival at the imperial tent, Mustapha was disarmed; and then first suspecting treachery, he advanced in silence beyond the line of guards who were posted over the person of the Sultan, and had scarcely done so, when four mutes sprang upon him, armed with the fatal bowstring; but life was young and strong in the betrayed prince, and he burst from their hold, and flung them from him with indignant pride, as he turned to alarm the troops, by whom he was greatly beloved, and in whom he felt, even at that awful moment, that he might depend. But no time was allowed him for the effort, for as he sought to escape, Solyman himself appeared at the entrance of the tent; and one look of rage, one gesture of vengeance, recalled the scattered senses of the mutes, who once more seizing their victim, strangled him under the eyes of his infuriated father, and then flung his quivering body on the carpet at his feet. It was the work of a moment; and the paralyzed Zeangir beheld the brother whom he fondly loved, and who had stood beside him in health and pride but a moment back, a livid and distorted corpse, like an unnatural barrier suddenly raised by crime between him and his father. From his wolf-hearted mother he had long shrank, for his gentle nature quailed before the dark workings of her iron spirit; and now two holy links were wrenched asunder which could never again be united—he had no longer a parent; and his brave brother, the idol of the troops and of the people, he was gone! Without a word, without a tear, the young prince cast himself upon the corse of the murdered Mustapha; and when the officious pity of some court parasite would have separated him from his dead brother, he was unconscious of the attempt: he was not born for blood, and his heart had burst upon the body of the victim! Once again Roxalana stood beside a dead son; but there was no compunction in her eyes, as they rested on the pale face of him whom her cruelty had murdered: there was no shadow over them, as when the grief of earth seems to throw a veil over the decrees of Heaven. They were bright with intense light—vivid with fearful brilliancy—they told a tale of vengeance!

The arrow was shot by a sure hand! Solyman, enslaved by the personal beauty, and cowed by the resistless passions of his wife, became the puppet of her will; and the moon had not yet grown old, when Roxalana once more held a death-warrant signed by the misguided Sultan. Mustapha had left behind him a son, a fair boy who had scarcely numbered ten summers—brave, and beautiful, and, until now, beloved. This was the new victim; but the implacable Sultana, fierce as she was, knew all the intensity and watchfulness of a mother’s love, and she felt that the vigilance of the new-made widow must be eluded. The boy was, therefore, on some fair pretence dispatched to a kiosque near Broussa, attended by a proper guard, and accompanied by his mother in a covered litter. In the plain beyond Moudania, the litter broke down; and the eunuch who was entrusted with the death-warrant, proposed to the little prince that they should together gallop forward to the city, and send back assistance. The gallant boy complied; and as he sprang from his horse at the door of the kiosque, the executioner stopped him on the threshold, and extending towards him the bowstring, intimated to him that such was the will of the Sultan.

“God is great!” said the brave boy, “and the Sultan is his shadow upon earth—I am ready.” And when she reached Broussa, the widow of Mustapha found that she was childless!

YENI DJAMI.

The beautiful mosque of Yeni Djami, known also as that of Sultana Validè, was built by the mother of Mahomet IV., and is esteemed one of the most magnificent in the capital. The minarets are peculiarly elegant, each being encircled by no less than three galleries, of the most minute and thickly-perforated sculpture, in the Saracenic taste. The portal is of ponderous size, and the brazen gates are thickly studded with mother-of-pearl; three lofty arches enclose an open peristyle, terraced in, and sufficiently spacious to contain more than a hundred persons. The double range of exterior galleries, running along the façade of the temple, are of fine and delicate workmanship, and the arches by which they are formed, are chastely and beautifully designed. The principal dome springs majestically from the centre of the spacious roof, and rests upon four lesser ones, which appear to lift it to the clouds; while the tomb of the illustrious founder nestles beneath the more lofty edifice, comparatively minute in size, but equally elegant in construction.

The mosque stands near the edge of the harbour, and its court stretches down almost to the water. It is overshadowed by two of the most majestic maple-trees in the city, whose gnarled and knotted trunks and fantastically twisted branches bespeak them of a date coeval with that of the gleaming temple which they so greatly embellish. Beneath their long cool shadows congregate groups of idlers, attracted thither by the calm stillness and refreshing breezes; and there they loiter for hours, erecting in the court their awnings of striped cotton, and spreading their mats for the mid-day siesta; while the melon and sherbet-venders ply their fragrant trade, and the perfumed vapour of the Salonica tobacco exhales from many a chibouque.

The court of Yeni Djami generally presents the characteristic scene which I have here described; and of the mosque itself, the Turks have a popular tradition, that it was built from the produce of one of the Sultana-mother’s diamond-studded slippers, piously disposed of for the purpose of its erection; a legend which doubtlessly owes its origin to the probable fact of the expenses having been defrayed from the bishmalik (or slipper-money) of the imperial lady—a national grant to the female members of the reigning family, bearing some analogy to the “privy purse” in England.

THE TCHARTCHI, OR BAZĀRS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

The Bazārs of Constantinople have ever been to home-staying Europeans as a vision of the “Arabian Nights;” travellers have lost themselves in hyperbole in their descriptions of them; and the antique glories of the Atmeidan, and even the solemn grandeur of St. Sophia, do not subject the returned pilgrim to half the questioning curiosity which is elicited by the great exchange of the City of the Three Seas.

In by-past years, ere “the schoolmaster was abroad,” the chubby urchins of half the remote villages in England believed that the dust of London was gold-dust, and its pavements silver; and even now, in like manner, there are many individuals to be found, who almost persist in believing that the Bazārs of Stamboul are as sparkling and gorgeous as the enchanted garden of Aladdin; and yet nothing can be further from the fact. The interest of the Tcharchi exists in its great extent, its peculiar arrangement, and the picturesque effects constantly produced by the shifting groups who people it, and whose diversity of costume, countenance, and national character, tends to arouse the admiration and curiosity of every visitor. It must not be imagined that the bazārs of the East are vast apartments filled with rows of trim counters, overstrewn with toys and trinkets, and all the gaud and glitter which are the charm of such lounging-places in London. There is no prettiness in the great commercial mart of the Moslems; their Tcharchi is composed of a cluster of streets, of such extent and number as to resemble a small covered town, the roof being supported by arches of solid masonry. A narrow gallery, slightly fenced by a wooden rail, occasionally connects these arches: and it is extraordinary to look down from one of them upon the changeful and motley crowd below; nor is it, perhaps, less singular to the stranger, when he has gained this giddy elevation, to find himself surrounded by numbers of doves, whom his vicinity fails to disturb, and who appear to be so habituated to human contact and human turmoil, and to have suffered both so long with impunity, as to have become regardless alike of the one and the other.

Every avenue of the bazār is appropriated to a particular branch of commerce; thus, in the street known as the Bezenstein, the two ranges of counters are occupied by jewellers, and are placed on a raised wooden platform, where the merchants spread their carpets, and make their calculations on strips of a strong yellowish paper, resembling parchment, that they rest against their knee; while, without withdrawing the chibouque from their lips, they dip their reed pen into an ink-bottle, nestled amid the folds of the shawl about their waist, and thus gravely await their customers. Beyond the platform is a strong-room, of which the door is made fast; for many of them contain some of the most costly gems in the world, particularly pearls, turquoises, and brilliants; although the dingy and ill-supplied glass-cases on the counters would lead a stranger to imagine that nothing rare or curious was to be met with in the Bezenstein: but let the keen and quick-sighted dealers (who are almost entirely Armenians) see a prospect of securing a good customer, and the door of the inner apartment once thrown back, the eye must be steady indeed that is not dazzled by the mass of jewels which surround it. The

are there in abundance; drinking-cups, lipped with gems; tusbees, or rosaries, where every bead is a jewel; clusters of diamonds in fanciful devices, for the turbans of the young beauties of the harem; aigrettes for the caps of the nobles; housings for the Arab steeds of the Pashas, stiff with pearls and gold rings, chains, and stars;—it were idle, in short, to attempt a recapitulation of the treasures of the Bezenstein.

The avenue of the money-changers is gloomy and uninviting, save to those who can feel a pleasure in listening to the ring of the precious metals, which goes on hour after hour, as the solemn-looking bankers pass heaps of coin, or bars of unwrought gold, from scale to scale, to test their weight and quality. This branch of commerce, also, is almost entirely monopolised by Armenians, many of the principal men of that nation resident at Constantinople being sarafs, or bankers to the different Pashas, and remarkable for their high principle and honesty. There are few Turkish money-changers,—as the Osmanlis are not naturally speculative in their commercial undertakings, and prefer a less uncertain and anxious occupation,—and still fewer Greeks; I believe, simply from the difficulty they find in obtaining clients. The great mass of Constantinopolitan bankers are, consequently, Armenians and Jews, and many of the latter are highly respectable and trustworthy; the interests of their employers being further ensured from the known extent of their wealth, and the constant vigilance which is exercised by the Turkish government over that degraded and oppressed people.

One of the most interesting portions of the Tcharchi, is that known as the Armoury Bazār, where, in five minutes, a person may, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, be—

in the garb and with the weapons of almost every period and nation. The walls on either side are lined with pieces of armour;—antique shields, from that of the paladin to the more modern buckler of the crescent; horse-gear, embossed and studded with shining metals; warlike ornaments, so ponderous that they could, apparently, only have been wrought for giants; helmets of all forms and sizes, many of them surmounted with devices which recall the best days of chivalry; spears, as light as fairy-wands, and almost as glittering; suits of mail, dimmed by the rust of centuries; the English musket, the American rifle, and the Indian bow, hang side by side; while Damascus swords, Egyptian scymitars, and Turkish handjars, are heaped together in picturesque confusion. Leopard skins, saddle-worn and venerable, are there also; and resting against them may frequently be seen the heavy match-lock, crusted with embossed silver in those beautiful arabesques peculiar to the East.

The anxiety of the vendors to secure a Frank customer is quite ludicrous. He is beckoned from one to the other with a gesticulation and earnestness against which it is almost impossible to contend; a score of articles is exhibited in succession, with a rapidity which prevents their being thoroughly examined; and the plain dark steel of Khorassan gives place to the heavy and elaborate Albanian pistol, and that in its turn to the Korān-inscribed Damascus sabre, before the quality of either can be ascertained. Then, suddenly, as though he doubted the taste of his customer for warlike weapons, the dealer thrusts them all aside, and spreads before him a tempting display of delicate amber mouth-pieces for the chibouque; under-coats from the costly looms of Persia; hangings of Tyrian tapestry; and all his hoard of fanciful and expensive luxuries. Others, too impatient to await their chance of wiling the wealthy infidel from the stalls of their neighbours, employ one of their slaves to perambulate the bazār, and to pass and repass before the Frank, carrying some especially attractive object—such as a jewel-hilted pistol, or a buff coat embroidered with gold with a skill and intricacy which cannot fail to attract his eye.

All nations alike trade in this fascinating commerce; the Armenian spreads his carpet beside that of the Turk; and the sallow Jew elbows the keen-eyed and cunning Greek; here and there a Persian may be seen sitting restlessly in the midst of his wares, his flexible and mobile features partially overshadowed by his large white turban; while throngs of idlers block up the entrance of the avenue, shoving, laughing, and vociferating, and waking a perpetual thunder amid the echoes of the long building.

The Shoe bazār presents a most gay and novel appearance, from the circumstance of its being customary—and, indeed, a law—in Constantinople for each nation to be shod with its own particular colour. Thus the Turk wears a boot and slipper of bright yellow morocco, the Armenian crimson, the Jew purple, and the Greek black; and this fact, coupled with the utter disregard of the Orientals to every thing like a fit, which enables the dealer to manufacture large quantities with the certainty of a speedy sale, makes the street of the shoe-makers like a bed of tulips. But the most beautiful feature of their trade is the velvet, gold-embroidered, jewel-sprinkled slipper of the harem, worn by the fair Turks on all occasions of festivity, and, indeed, by the higher classes on all occasions within their dwellings; an article of expenditure so serious in a great Osmanli family, as to have suggested the application of the term bishmalik, or slipper-money, (to which I have already had occasion to allude,) to the grant of a considerable annual income to the ladies of the imperial family.

Mingled among these slippers may also be seen a number of circular analies, or hand-mirrors, with short handles, mounted in gold or silver embroidery, and frequently enriched with seed pearls. These pretty toys are indispensable to the Turkish ladies, as they are the companions, not only of their toilets but of their voyages up and down the Bosphorus, where, reclining on their cushions, they repair, as the swift caïque shoots along, the disarray which the sharp sea-breezes create in the folds of their snowy veils and ample mantles.

But decidedly the most glittering street in the Tcharchi, is that appropriated to the embroiderers; where silks, stiff with the most elaborate needle-work, wrought in gold and silver threads; almost impalpable muslin, gay with clusters of bright-coloured silken flowers; tobacco bags of cachemire, which appear to have cost the maker years of labour; and costly scarfs from Persia, with golden borders formed of verses from the Korān, or love-ballads from Hafiz, are to be seen on all sides. All the embroidery wrought in Constantinople, with very few exceptions, is the work of the Armenian women, who, secluded even more strictly than the fair Turks within the recesses of the harem, emulate their thrifty and pains-taking husbands in their untiring industry; but much of the most costly, particularly that which is worked on cachemire, is imported from Persia.

The Fruit Bazār stands close to the water’s edge, and abounds with dried fruits of every description—figs and dates from Smyrna; raisins, plums, the small sweet currant of Corinth, and every other variety capable of preservation; the only inconsistency being the sale of cheese, and Russian butter, packed in calf-skins, and most unpleasant in appearance, among the more attractive articles already enumerated.

The Broussa silks occupy a very considerable street, as the produce of the celebrated looms of that city is greatly esteemed by the Turks, both for pattern and texture. The staple trade of the ancient capital of Bithynia being raw silk, two-thirds of the houses are colonized by the “spinning-worm;” and the silk is consequently used by the weavers with a profusion which renders the quality of the manufacture so solid, that many individuals have been deluded into the belief that it was mixed with cotton—a material which is to them much more expensive and difficult of access. The colours are seldom bright; for the waters about Broussa are so highly mineralized, as to dull the silk very materially in the process of spinning; but it probably derives from the same circumstance its unusual strength and durability. The workmen of the city are extremely expert in interweaving gold and silver threads in the warp; and the silks so woven are greatly esteemed in the harems. The plainer patterns are used by both sexes indiscriminately; and nearly the whole costume of every respectable Turk or Armenian is composed of Broussa silk. The demand is hence very great, and the supply commensurate with it; and there are few busier localities in the Tcharchi than this. A few Genoa velvets and European satins may be found in the bales of the merchants; but as they are comparatively unsaleable, the Frank lady who seeks them has no opportunity of being fastidious in her selection.

The Confectionary Bazār is also extremely well worthy of a visit, for the Orientals excel in all the delicate preparations of sugar and perfume which can be produced. Preserved rose-leaves—a feast for the fairies—look as bright, as soft, and almost as sweet, as though they had just been shaken to the earth by a truant zephyr wandering in the gardens of Nishapor; gums, mixed with sugar, perfumes, and the juices of fruits, are moulded into a hundred pretty shapes, and may be purchased of as many different flavours; cakes of sherbet-paste, casks of chalva, (a composition of flour, honey, and oil,) delicate sweetmeats from Smyrna and Scio, and strings of sausages, hung in festoons, and filled with the inspissated juice of grapes, mixed with walnuts or almonds, are among the most popular articles of the sekeljhes,⁠[14] if we except, indeed, the kaïmac, or clotted cream, which is also sold in this bazār. The name kaïmac, signifying in the Turkish language the excess of excellence, will give some idea of the estimation in which this dainty is held by the natives; and, truly, it deserves the appellation it has obtained, for there are few edibles in the luxurious East more delicate than the kaïmac. The rush of customers to the counter on which it is freshly set forth, is most amusing, and very unfavourable to the vendors of mahalabè, another preparation of milk, forming a species of blancmange, which is eaten with rosewater, and sugar, or honey. In the immediate neighbourhood of this confectionary colony, the water-venders ply a busy trade, and constantly thread among the crowd with their classically-formed vases, or jars of red clay, upon their shoulders, and a wooden case strapped before them, containing large crystal goblets, scrupulously clean and cool: their cry is harmonious and melancholy, but they are brisk, civil, and industrious; and for about a farthing and a half the pedestrian can always secure a refreshing draught.

The lapidaries have also their distinct locality, where curious antique gems may occasionally be purchased, but always at an exorbitant price, the merchants having discovered the partiality of the Franks for that species of ornament; they cut and engrave well, but the expense is greater than in Europe.

The Tobacco Bazār is a very important feature in the Tcharchi; the quantity consumed yearly in the city being immense, and the qualities numerous. Those most esteemed, however, are from Salonica and Latakia; the former by the women, from its mildness and perfume, and by the more luxurious among the men; and the latter by the lower classes, on account of its great strength. Other varieties from the Crimea, Ormus, and many parts of the East, and also from Hungary, are in abundance; and when it is remembered that in Constantinople a visit is never paid, a bargain is never negociated, an hour is never passed, without the eternal chibouque, there will be no necessity for the assurance that this is the most bustling of all the bazārs. The narghilè, or water-pipe, which is seldom used until after the mid-day meal, and which greatly resembles the hookāh of Hindostan, is always filled with Shiraz tobacco, sprinkled with rosewater, and frequently rendered still more odoriferous by having a scented pastile placed on its summit, while the water through which the vapour passes is impregnated with the perfume of some flower or spice.

The Spice Bazār is perhaps, however, the most perfectly oriental department of the Tcharchi; for it is laden and groaning with all the costly condiments of the Levant, in enormous quantities. There are pyramids of cloves, hillocks of ginger, piles of cinnamon, bags of mace, and a combination of sweetness which wafts the sense at once to the “spiced groves of Araby the Blest.”

The Porcelain Bazār is very beautiful; for within it are congregated every species of ancient and modern China, from the pure, well-finished, fresh-looking cup of Worcestershire manufacture, to the elegantly-formed but time-worn vase, dug from some Athenian ruin. The mimic flowers of Dresden are beside the productions of Sèvres; and the combinations of colour are extremely pretty. Jars of artificial flowers, and or-molu, buhl, and alabaster clocks from Paris and Geneva, abound; for the Turks are very partial to these ornaments, and scatter them over every room in their houses; and, altogether, the Porcelain Bazār is a very agreeable lounge.

In order to avoid the imputation of tediousness, we will conclude the chapter with a description of the Shawl Bazār—a mart of luxury and expense which is the terror of many an Eastern husband. The goods exposed are rather gaudy than valuable, and consist principally of Scotch and French manufactures, both of which are eagerly purchased by the middle and lower classes; these are hung against the walls, or spread over the carpets of the dealers, in juxta-position with Greek coiffures of gold-spotted muslin, scarfs of lama-gauze, and embroidered bathing wrappers. But in the private store behind the merchant lie the most precious shawls of Lahore and Thibet, gold stuffs from Bagdat, and all the more costly articles of an oriental toilette. Many of the traders in this bazār are Persians; and wo betide the unsuspecting Frank who falls into their clutches! They have all the cunning of the Greek, the pertinacity of the Armenian, and the roguery of the Jew, to which is superadded their own national fearlessness of a lie, and proficiency in dissimulation. Does the worthy merchant show a shawl for which he is aware that he would be well paid by a thousand piastres, he will begin by demanding two, or even three thousand; and so long as he believes that there is the slightest probability of effecting his purpose, he will swear by the beard of his father, and the grave of his mother, that he is selling it far beneath its value, because he sees something fortunate in the aspect of his customer—or because he has dreamt a dream—or for some other equally probable and rational reason; when, no sooner does he become convinced of the impracticability of the cheat, than he unblushingly decreases his demand by two or three hundred piastres at a time, until he has reduced it to a fair amount.

The mania of the Greek ladies for cachemires is a national characteristic; and as all the oriental females are both extravagant and fastidious on the subject of shawls, this branch of commerce is very weighty; while the bazār is also visited by the slaves, whose business it is in every great household to superintend the wardrobes of the harem; and who barter, chaffer, and exchange, with a knowledge of the comparative value of the articles quite equal to that of the merchants themselves; and who bring hither all the cachemires requiring repair, to a number of grave old Moslems, who are squatted upon their carpets—spectacle on nose, and needle in hand—at the lower end of the street; and who perform their task most skilfully, weaving in every thread of a corresponding colour to the pattern of the shawl, and perplexing the eye to discover the fracture.

Such is the Tcharchi of Constantinople, where a week may be wholly and not unprofitably spent, without ennui or weariness.

FOUNTAIN IN GALATA.

The fountains of Constantinople and its environs are all more or less elegant; and among the most beautiful, both as regards architecture and ornament, may be classed the subject of the present sketch, which occupies the centre of a small square, at the foot of the steep ascent leading up from the merchant-suburb of Galata to the “Infidel Hill” of Pera.

Its form is singularly graceful and well-proportioned; and as the hand of innovation has not yet touched its massive and deeply-projecting cornice, it is perhaps as correct a specimen of the pure Moorish style as any now existing in the city. Four small domes compose the roof; and they are circled by a net-work of dentated sculpture, which gives them a light and pretty appearance, and relieves the eye as it glances upward from the face of the fountain, which is beautifully and profusely painted in arabesques, as well as the wide and undulating cornice at the base of the domes.

Five slender pillars of white marble divide the bayed front of the building into four equal compartments, which are screened to about midway of its height by a gilded lattice-work, behind whose protecting shadow stands a range of brass vessels, occupying the lip of a reservoir containing a constant supply of cool water for the use of the thirsty passenger; while on either side of this, the principal face of the fountain, stretch two receding wings, where exterior basins, fed with a flow of water which rarely fails in its volume, offer a constant and abundant mean of comfort and cleanliness to the immediate neighbourhood.

Coffee-kiosques, sheltered from the summer heats by rude wooden terraces, overshadowed by acacia-trees and wild vines, occupy a portion of the square; and the quiet-loving Moslem smokes his chibouque in luxurious repose, under the very shade of the fountain whence he draws his cool and healthful draught. Here the khamals⁠[15] deposit the heavy bale, which has been slung upon two long poles resting on their shoulders, being secure at once of rest and refreshment; and recover their failing breath ere they venture on the steep ascent, whose rugged paving doubles its difficulty. Here the lounging household servant, a slave only in name, loiters away an idle half-hour, collecting or retailing the gossip of the neighbourhood. Here the crouching Jew offers for sale his paltry mouth-pieces of artificial amber or discoloured ivory; the first of these being made from the dust of the gum, and the fragments of those which break under the hands of the workmen—an accident so common with amber, as considerably to enhance the price of the perfect article. Here, too, the wayfarer and the idler alike linger willingly; and seated upon low wicker stools, not raised more than a few inches from the ground, they form groups of picturesque comfort in admirable keeping with the locality, as they smoke their chibouques, sip their coffee, and drain deep draughts of the clear water of the fountain. The houses which surround the square give a perfect idea of Turkish domestic architecture: the projecting story above the ground-floor, supported by stout buttresses of timber, and thickly set with latticed windows, is the harem of the establishment; while the owner of the dwelling plies his trade or vends his wares below, squatted on a wooden counter close beside the street, with his slippers lying near him, his pipe between his lips, and his goods hung all round his shop.

Among the prettiest of these small trades is that of the sherbet⁠[16] and mohalibè⁠[17] merchants, whose tinkling fountains of metal, pouring forth streams of lemonade and other cool drinks, are very inviting to the passer by; while the large carefully-kept trays of white wood, with the blancmange covered by a fine cloth moistened with rosewater, are scarcely less enticing. The shops of the boudaka⁠[18] venders are also very attractive, as the forms of most of the bowls are extremely elegant, and the gilding and enamelling of many of the more costly even curious. Near this fountain is situated the street of the pipe-stick makers, a race of men who are sure of success in their calling, and who are comparatively independent in their manner of doing business; and many a bargain is struck between the itinerant dealer and these worthy perforators of cherry-sticks and jasmin-wood, under the wild vines and acacias of the pretty fountain in the square.

VIEW FROM MOUNT BULGURLHU.

The scene which is spread out before the wanderer, as he stands upon the dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu, with the town of Scutari immediately at his feet, and the city of Constantinople mapped out in the distance in its frame of clear and pellucid water, is one which throughout his after life, be it of what duration it may, he can never cease to remember. He looks down into the mysterious gardens of the Seraï Bournou, far over the glittering Propontis, along the shores of the Bosphorus, into the Golden Horn, upon “St. Sophia’s gleaming dome;” on the seven hills of the imperial city, the gloomy remains of the Seven Towers, the ancient walls of Byzantium, the modern palaces of the Sultans, the fair islands of the Sea of Marmora, and the far-off and snow-crested Mount Olympus, lording it over the fertile plains of Broussa.

It is well for those who wish to form a correct idea of such a scene as this, that the pencil of the artist can call it up and place it palpably before them; for mere words could never succeed in creating so bright a vision. Hours are necessary to the traveller to enable him to appreciate all its glory; and it is an additional enjoyment to pitch his tent among the wild thyme and olive-trees of the mountain, and in the midst of the camels, which, after gaining the summit of the height, repose there for a time in some shady spot, as they are on their way into the interior, laden with merchandise from the bazārs of the capital. As these animals are never seen on the European side of the channel, they give a localizing effect to the picture, and the wanderer at once feels that he is in Asia.

This is, perhaps, the most favourable point for contemplating Stamboul in all its extent, and fully comprehending its extraordinary magnificence as a whole; its singular outline, its ocean-girdle, where the blue waves seem to follow lovingly whithersoever the sinuosities of the shores invite them; its thousand domes, and its shaft-like minarets beckoning to the blue heavens, against which they glitter like polished ivory; its forest-trees overshadowing the party-coloured dwellings; its cypress groves stretching down to the water’s edge; and all the blended beauties of the unrivalled locality.

The artist has indeed a rich field for his talent when he gazes around him from Mount Bulgurlhu; but the traveller, although he may idly heap expletive on expletive, until his praises swell into hyperbole, must ever fail in conveying by mere verbal description, a correct impression of so bright, so varied, and so beautiful a panorama.

TURKISH HOUSES ON THE BOSPHORUS.

However the description of the noble poet which heads the present chapter may apply to many of the country residences on the channel, it cannot be denied that to others it is entirely inapplicable; for there are only too great a number which resemble nothing less than

The shores of the Bosphorus are a study—not only for their beauty, but because, in the general aspect of the dwellings that fringe them, the traveller may read a great moral lesson; for Turkey is a country where the population do not fall back upon the past, where they are almost careless of the future, and where the present is every thing. The Turk builds for himself, toils for himself, intrigues for himself, as his father did before him; and leaves his children to strive and to create in their turn with the “Inshallah!” of an earnest and unaffected philosophy. Fortune, even in the West, is a fickle tenure; but in the East, it is sometimes the mere ephemera of a day; and thus, as the Osmanli rises in that favour which alone can lend it, he at once erects or purchases a residence suited to his brightening prospects, gay with temporary ornament and evanescent decoration, whose freshness may even thus chance to outlive his prosperity. Should it do otherwise, he gladly renews the paint and the gilding, and repairs the ravages of the weather, or the effects of accident; but when, as is frequently the case, it outlasts his fortunes, he contents himself with the faded and discoloured reliques of by-gone luxury, and satisfies himself by making the dwelling habitable, and awaiting a more golden season to renew its vanished glories.

Thus, as the light caïque of the observer skims over the ripple, the circumstances of almost every householder on the Bosphorus may be ascertained by the appearance of his dwelling. The residence of the favourite and the courtier is indeed a “wide extensive building,” over whose front is “besprent a deal of gilding, and various hues.” The lattices of the harem are gaily painted, the terraces are bright with flowers, the marble steps against which the blue ripple chafes in the sunshine are thronged with attendants, and the caïque that awaits its owner at their base is like a fairy bark, glittering with gold and crimson. Arabesques adorn the walls, and pretty kiosques peep from among the leaves of the tall trees of the extensive gardens; the perfume of flowers and the sounds of music come blended along the water, and the very atmosphere breathes prosperity.

The discarded Bey and the disgraced Minister boast dwellings as stately and as proud, but the trace of change is over all. A heavy hand has fallen upon the edifice, and the bright colours have faded beneath its pressure. Grass grows upon the marble terraces; the wind finds its way into the apartments through shivered glass and shattered lattices; and a certain parade of decay, which leaves an impression of design upon the mind, is palpable throughout.

But the empty residence of the exile tells a far sadder tale. There all is real and unstudied ruin; the grass and weeds are rank in the fissures of the pavement; the hingeless shutters rattle in the wind; the mouldering roof no longer excludes the rain, which forms a thousand discoloured currents through the faded frescoes of the desolate and echoing apartments; doves build in the galleries, and locusts are loud among the garden-branches; theirs is the only song that awakens the deserted groves.

The houses of the Armenians and Greeks (the raïahs, or vassals of the Porte,) are universally painted a dull red, or lead colour; the gayer tints in which the Turks delight being prohibited to them, while the Jews are compelled to confine themselves to black; and among the wealthier raïahs it is common to paint a residence which is unusually spacious, in two distinct colours, to produce the effect of its being separate dwellings.

Nothing can be more irregular, and consequently more picturesque, than the style of building on the Bosphorus; for the Turks are such sincere lovers of nature, that they invariably throw out a bay, or contract a wing, when by so doing they can secure a fine view, or a pretty peep, not otherwise attainable; and as these present themselves at every turn of the channel, the Turkish country houses have much the appearance of buildings that have been put together by fragments.

When it is remembered that these houses are backed by a chain of fertile and richly-wooded hills, forming a succession of gardens and pleasure-grounds, and are washed by the rapid current of the Bosphorus, it will be readily conceded that they present a coup-d’œil probably unique; while the salubrity of the air, the elasticity of the atmosphere, the constant movement upon the channel—which may, without affectation, be denominated the high-way of the capital—and the splendid scenery which they command on all sides, render them, as summer residences, well worthy of the universal popularity which they enjoy.

In many instances the buildings are raised along the extreme edge of the shore, and are unprotected, even by a terrace; and the upper stories generally projecting beyond the basement, they hang over the water in a singular manner. Nor do they always enjoy this privilege with impunity, as the channel is several feet in depth under their very windows; and it not unfrequently happens, that the wind failing when a vessel is beating on a “tack,” and the current impelling it onward with a force which it is unable to resist, portions of the rigging become entangled with the houses, bowsprits enter the windows of the saloons and carry away the roof, and the most ridiculous accidents are the result. But the inhabitants will not sacrifice a positive enjoyment to a probable evil; and thus they build their water-palaces as daringly as though no intrusive bark ever parted with its gleaming prow the bright waves over which they fling their long dark shadows.

Not the least beauty of these singular residences consists in their hanging terraces, frequently latticed in for the convenience of the harem, which make the Bosphorus fragrant with the breath of flowers; and the little canals terminating in arched entrances for the caïques of the establishment, which are thus admitted to a large basin in the centre of the court-yard, where the fair inhabitants may embark and disembark at their pleasure, without being subjected to the profaning gaze of the passers-by.

The interior of these interesting dwellings is generally fitted up with much taste, and always with a careful regard to cheerfulness. The walls are painted in frescoes, with landscapes, fruits, or flowers; and the ceilings are always beautifully ornamented. In short, they are as fanciful, and almost as frail, as fairy-palaces.

MOSQUE OF SULTANA VALIDÈ, FROM THE PORT.

The handsome court of the Mosque of Yeni Djami has been already described, but the whole effect of the edifice from the water is too striking to be neglected by the artist.

The white and dazzling marble of which it is built, its slender and highly-ornamented minarets, its stately portal, and solemn stillness, are brought out in such fine relief against the dark and dingy buildings which cumber the port, and which are loud with industry and contention—that while the mere traveller involuntarily wishes to transport the gleaming temple to a more consistent locality, the painter forgets the turmoil, the filth, and the uproar amid which he gazes on it, in his anxiety to transfer to the pages of his sketch-book so beautiful an object.

The Mosque of the Sultana Validè stands almost on the edge of the port, from which its court is only separated by the Balook, or Fish Bazār; and this point being the ferry between Galata and Stamboul, is constantly thronged with boats. And here it is that almost every Frank first lands in the “City of the Faithful.” The scene is a singular one to the western traveller; and the noise and bustle of the busy crowd are totally at variance with all his preconceived ideas of the grave and turbaned easterns. The sharp shrill voice of the irritable and loquacious Greek, the expostulatory vehemence of the angry Armenian, the solemn intonations of the stately Turk, the hurried greetings of the merchants passing to and from the bazārs, and the vociferous appeals of the rival boatmen to the impatient passengers, swell on the air together; while the confusion on the water emulates that on land.

Sharp and high-prowed Arab barks, taking in their lading, and exposing their carved and gilded ornaments to the contact of the swift caïques that shoot along among them, and the heavy clumsy-looking European boats constantly plying between the shore and the vessels to which they belong; local functionaries darting past on their errands of hidden import; the caïque of the idler, with its crimson carpet, its comfortable cushions, and its drowsy caïquejhes, awaiting, half asleep, the return of their lounging employer; the ferry-boat, with its dingy gilding, and eager owner; the well-kept and graceful caïque of the princely harem, glittering with ornament and bright with beauty, bearing the veiled favourite and her muffled slaves to the other shore; the barge of the Minister, shooting over the water with the speed of a wild bird, and flinging the silver spray right and left like a shower of diamonds, as the sturdy rowers bend to their toil;—or, perchance, in the distance, even the passing bark of the Padishah⁠[19] himself, on his way to the shady retreats of Kyat-Khana, moving along beneath the sunshine, one bright mass of glittering gold. And high above all this movement, and hurry, and human coil, towers the snowy temple of the unhappy Sultana Validè: near it sleeps in peace its imperial founder in her splendid mausoleum; and day by day the busy scene is renewed, the picturesque groupes are variously repeated, and the deep blue Heaven smiles down on all alike; while the clear surface of the port reflects at once the solemn Mosque, the quiet tomb, and the flitting shadows of each chance caïque and its busy freight.

THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN ACHMET.

The Mosque of Sultan Achmet, although less spacious than that of St. Sophia, and less elegant in its details than Suleimaniè, is superior to both in exterior effect. Its position is admirable; for the noble and well-shaded space in which it stands occupies a side of the Atmeidan, or Place of Horses, one of the most elevated portions of the city, and is only separated from the ancient race-course of the Romans by a handsome wall of white marble, intersected with gilt railing.

A singular feature in this mosque, and one by which its beauty is much enhanced, is the circumstance of its being the only temple in Constantinople having six minarets; and the peculiarity is stated to have grown out of the desire of its Imperial founder to possess a mosque in his capital rivalling that at Mecca in this particular. The permission of the Mufti having been with difficulty obtained, and the number of minarets at Mecca being increased to seven, in consequence of its not being deemed expedient that any other mosque should emulate that which is sanctified by the tomb of the Prophet, the temple built by Sultan Achmet at once exceeded in beauty every other in Stamboul. The arrangement of the minarets is effected in the most graceful manner; two of them only being attached to the principal building, while the remainder cut sharply and irregularly through the dense mass of foliage amid which the mosque is buried. Their galleries of Saracenic architecture look like fringes of lace, and their slender spires are touched with gold, and glitter in the sunshine; while the extreme beauty of the ancient trees, which are coeval with the building, throw out the dazzling whiteness of the whole pile, and their own sober depth of shadow relieves the eye with its refreshing coolness.

At the upper end of the Atmeidan stands the monument of Constantine, a square pillar, ninety feet in height, and indebted only to tradition for its name. And tradition has been but a sorry godmother, for, in the nineteenth century, she is unable to decide to which of the fourteen Emperors so called, it was really dedicated. It may have been the founder of the Empire—the first and almost the greatest of the whole; and then, indeed, it were worthy to exist for ever as the memorial of a strong arm and a brave spirit; but to him succeeded twelve other Constantines, supine and imbecile; mere cumberers of the earth, to whom it could but serve as a finger pointing to heaven to beckon thence the scorn of the angry gods upon his degenerate and dishonouring successors. It should have been—but, alas! it cannot—a record of the last, who washed away the reproach of the whole world upon his line, in the blood of a heroic heart—of that Constantine Paleologus, who offered himself up on the ruins of an expiring dynasty; the Imperial victim, who fell in the breach he had no longer strength to defend, and left a glorious name and a crumbling city to the victorious arms of the Infidels; the last and greatest of the Constantines, of whom no memorial now exists, save in the pages of the historian, and the strains of the poet. Had the column been indeed erected to his honour, the hand by which it was denuded might well have withered at its work; for the brazen covering by which the imperfect masonry was originally concealed has been torn away, and with it every vestige of its ancient splendour and appropriation. The stones, now laid bare to the unsparing touch of time, have every appearance of being carelessly and inartificially piled together; and traces of the huge brazen nails that formerly secured the outer surface, still remain to attest the Vandalism which no regret can now repair. To a casual observer, it appears incredible that so slight and imperfect a pile, so small in circumference and so great in height, should thus long have maintained its equilibrium.

Near this column, and about midway of the Atmeidan, are seen the remains of the Delphic Tripod—a relic rendered principally interesting by a tradition in which the Turks have firm faith, and which affirms, that when by any accident it shall be either destroyed or displaced, Constantinople will become once more a Christian capital. They furthermore assert that the first brazen head of the three serpents whose evolved bodies form the column, was lost in the transfer of the trophy to Stamboul; that the second was stricken off by Sultan Achmet, at a single blow of his scimetar, to prove the strength of his arm to his assembled troops; and that the third disappeared, no one knew how nor whither. It is certain that the fragment which now remains is headless, and, were it not for this national legend, almost unworthy of notice.

At the extremity of the square stands a handsome Obelisk of red Egyptian granite, raised upon a pedestal of white marble, coarsely embellished with the victories of Theodosius, which blend but badly with the elaborate hieroglyphics inscribed with such minute care immediately above them. The Obelisk is sixty feet in height, and is in itself very beautiful; but its charm is considerably weakened from its juxta-position with the architecture of another age and country.

But the Atmeidan has become in itself famous during the reign of the present Sultan by its historical associations—associations which are far more interesting than even the antiquarian treasures that it contains; for it was here that, during the destruction of the Janissaries in 1823, that fated body made a vigorous though ineffectual stand against the troops of their Imperial master. Thousands are said to have fallen in this square alone by the weapons of the soldiery of the Nizam Attick,⁠[20] and the musketry to which they were exposed from the windows of the neighbouring houses. Here, too, several of the ringleaders were captured, and hanged by order of the Sultan, on a large plane-tree near the gate leading into the outer court of the mosque, which has since been called by the Turks, “the Tree of Groans.”

The interior of Sultan Achmet is chiefly remarkable, architecturally, for the immense size of the four columns which support the dome; for its spacious and elegant galleries, roofed with mosaic; and for its lofty marble pulpit. Its paramount claim to interest exists, however, in the fact, that it was within these walls that the Sandjâk Sherif, or Sacred Standard of Mahomet was exposed, after the refusal of the Janissaries to submit themselves to the will of the Sultan.

The Sandjâk Sherif had not been publicly exhibited in the capital for half a century; and the idea was a most politic one, as all the enthusiasm and fanaticism of the empire was sure to be enlisted under its folds. This standard, so revered by all good Musselmauns, is believed to have been the nether garment of Mahomet, and is the most solemn relic possessed by his disciples; and its appearance rallied at once every devout Moslem in the ranks of the sovereign.

A procession was formed from the Imperial Treasury to the mosque of Sultan Achmet; the Sultan, attended by all his court and household, was preceded by the Ulema and Softas of the city, rehearsing verses from the Korān. Public criers announced the exhibition of the holy standard throughout the capital, and the excitement was beyond all precedent.

When the cortège reached the mosque, which they entered by the great gate opposite the Atmeidan, the Chèïk-Islam mounted the steps of the pulpit, and planted the Sandjâk Sherif there with holy reverence; and as he did so, the Sultan pronounced an anathema against all those who refused to obey an authority so supported.

These circumstances throw a halo around the mosque of the Sultan Achmet which greatly enhances its actual beauty; and the traveller loiters willingly amid its dim magnificence, calling up visions of the past which stamp an extraneous value upon every detail of the edifice.

A curious and valuable collection of antique vases, of the most graceful designs and beautiful workmanship, many of them inlaid with gems and mother-of-pearl, are suspended throughout the mosque from transverse bars of iron; together with the eggs of ostriches, emblems of dependence on Providence; ears of corn, the symbols of plenty; and similar typical decorations.

But the glory of Sultan Achmet, as an edifice, is its inner, or cloistered court, surrounded by graceful Saracenic columns, whose capitals resemble clusters of stalactites, forming the base of arches of extraordinary beauty. In the centre of the court, which is paved throughout with rich marble, a stately fountain, surmounted by a handsome cupola, gives an aspect of refreshing coolness to the enclosure. On the left hand of the gate of entrance is situated a balcony, upon which opens one of the windows of the mosque, whence all firmans of public interest are read aloud to the people; and, taken altogether, whether as a public building, as a religious monument, or as the site of stirring incident, there is no temple in Stamboul more worthy of attention than the Imperial Mosque of Sultan Achmet.

THE COLUMN OF MARCIAN.

The Column of Marcian stands near the gate of Adrianople, in the garden of a Turkish house; and is a fine remain of Roman splendour. The pedestal of the pillar is ornamented with wreaths of oak-leaves; the shaft is eighty feet in height; and on the richly carved Corinthian capital rests a block of marble supporting a second capital, formed by four gigantic eagles, sustaining upon their extended wings the base of a statue now entirely destroyed. The name of the column would infer that the missing effigy was that of the Emperor Marcian; but many of the Greeks cling to the tradition that it was erected in honour of one of the heathen divinities, by whose statue it was surmounted: and they ascribe it indifferently to Apollo, Mercury, and Mars. By the Turks it is called Kestachi, and valued only as a stately feature in the landscape; although the worthy Moslem in whose garden it stands, is evidently much gratified by the admiration it elicits from strangers. A venerable olive-tree, whose rude and knotted trunk is in a state of picturesque decay, leans against the slender shaft; flowers bloom at its base; a cluster of dark cypresses, looking, despite their great height, like mere pigmies beside this lofty monument of human art, are in its immediate vicinity; while a small mosque, and a modest mausoleum, peep out in the distance from among the leafy trees of the enclosure.

Occasionally, as the tourist meditates beside it, or the artist, seated near the mouldering wall which separates it from the road, transfers its noble proportions to his canvass or his sketch-book, the cheerful voices of women come on his ear from the latticed casement of the dwelling by which it is immediately overlooked: nor can he fail to feel that he is himself the subject of their harmless mirth; his foreign and tasteless garb, his unturbaned head, his beardless chin—even the very nature of his occupation, is food for laughter and for jest; while the certainty of a present to old Akif, which is never refused by those who visit his classic garden, adds, in no inconsiderable degree, to the gratification of his harem, when the apparition of a wandering giaour comes to relieve the tedium of their existence.

Old Akif himself is also a worthy subject for the easel of the artist; he seems to have grown grey with the column, and to have withered with the olive-tree. The innovations of late years have wrought no reform in the garb or manner of Akif; he looks like an Asiatic Turk who had never gazed on the glories of the “Golden City.” His turban is large and loosely folded; his tchalvar⁠[21] are of the widest dimensions; his open sleeves of the extremest length; his waist-shawl is freighted with an ample tobacco-purse; and he leans upon his chibouque with an air of sturdy and majestic independence finely demonstrative of his proud and self-centered disposition. He does the honours of the monument like one who is conscious that he is conferring a favour. He neither murmurs at the heartless haste, nor at the tedious delay of his visitors; and he ultimately receives the gratuity of his departing guests with all the quiet and unmoved composure of a creditor tendering his hand for the payment of a well-won debt. The venerable Akif is no antiquarian in spirit; to him stones are stones, and inscriptions which do not treat of the Korān a mere waste of words; and as the smoke from his chibouque curls slowly over his long white beard, many a thought probably passes through his placid brain, not altogether flattering to the earnest Frank who scrambles about the ruin, seeking for traces of a time and people now passed away for ever.

SCUTARI.

The first object connected with the city of Constantinople visible to the voyager who approaches it from the Dardanelles, is the cypress canopy of the great Cemetery of Scutari. Its dark mass of funereal foliage rests like a thundercloud “no bigger than a man’s hand” against the clear blue sky for a time; and then, as the vessel ploughs her way through the yielding waters, gradually looms out larger and larger upon the horizon, until the mind begins to take in some idea of its vast extent.

This extraordinary necropolis, perhaps the largest and most picturesque in the world, stretches its cold and silent shadows over hill and valley, covering upwards of three miles of country with the sable livery of death, and shutting out the sun-light from unnumbered graves. The Moslem, when he breathes his last, may truly be said to have sunk into “the quiet grave;” for his ashes are never desecrated for the sake of the poor space which they fill up; no second tenant ever crushes yet more deeply the remains of the original occupant of each narrow tomb; and thus the burial-places yearly extend themselves in every direction, and form a prominent feature in the Turkish landscape.

Nothing can be conceived more solemn than the effect of the deep and chilling gloom of the Cemetery of Scutari, with its thousand intersecting paths dimly perceptible in the noonday twilight; and its million head-stones leaning against each other, as though to dispute every inch of the thrice-holy earth they occupy.

As the Turks have a superstition, in which they place implicit faith, that ere the end of the world the Mahommedans are to be expelled from Europe, they universally covet a grave in this Asiatic wilderness of tombs, in order to preserve their ashes from the contaminating contact of the giaour; and thus, year after year, the cypress forest encroaches on the purple vineyard, and the golden cornfield; the blossoming fruit-trees, and the graceful maize waving its long and flexible leaves to the breeze, gradually disappear. The scythe of the reaper and the knife of the vintager are no longer busy; for the harvest now preparing where the husbandman once toiled, can be gathered in only on the Last Day!

It is the custom at every Turkish burial for the officiating Imaum, or priest, to plant one cypress at the head and another at the foot of each grave; and hence, although the greater number necessarily perish for want of air and space, those which survive still stand sufficiently close to form a dense and gloomy forest. In a few instances, open spaces have been left (similar to that selected by the artist) in order to promote the entrance of the exterior air, and thus prevent the danger of infection from the exhalations of the graves; but the greater portion of the cemetery is one unbroken stretch of death-cumbered gloom, where turbaned head-stones and lettered columns gleam out among the dark boles of the cypresses like spectres of the past. Many a lesson may be learnt within the silent precincts of this vast necropolis. The gilded tombs enclosed within railings, and surmounted either by a rose-branch to designate the mistress, or a turban to indicate the master of the family, surrounded by the same emblems more minutely executed, are pompously inscribed with the names and titles of some powerful and wealthy race, who lie apart, and moulder unmingled with more common dust; though the depth of their slumber and the quiet of their rest are enjoyed as fully by the tenants of the less aristocratic graves on every side. The time-worn tablet, whose weight has pressed down the crumbling soil beneath it until it has lost its hold, lies half buried among the rank grass on one hand; while on the other, gilded and dazzling columns tell their tale of death, undefaced by the foul weather-stains which have made their predecessors recordless; and thus the work of years goes on—generation succeeds to generation even in this city of the dead—there lie the departed of yesterday and to-day, and there is “ample space and verge enough” for those who are to follow to-morrow. But a darker consciousness even than this grows on the wanderer who penetrates the depths of the still necropolis, as he pauses beside a group of lofty and turban-crested columns, each rising from a small square slab of stone—they tell of death, but the minute block of granite or marble at their base does not indicate a grave, for there is not the space allowed, narrow as are the limits needed, to lay the limbs of a human being decently and reverently in the earth. The eye of the stranger has not deceived him; for each of those small stones covers only the head of a victim to his own folly, or to the intrigues of others, whose dishonoured trunk found a fouler resting-place—some baffled politician, or betrayed traitor, or hated rival, cut off amid his dream of pride and power, and denied even the grave which would have once more levelled him with his kind. What a mockery are the elaborate turbans carved above each dissevered head; minutely tracing forth in their form, and fold, and size, the rank of the poor victim of whom a mere portion lies beneath, and serving as a perpetual scoff—the more bitter, that it is wordless! but the graves of love are there also, flower-strown, and tended by the gentle hand of regret and tenderness; and it is a relief to turn to these, and to forget that any hand save That One which holds the breath of a world within its palm, has helped to people the cypress-canopied Cemetery.

Every Turkish burial-place has its local superstition, but that of Scutari is the wildest and the most poetical of them all, and must not be passed over in silence.

The Bosphorus is haunted by clouds of birds, about the size of thrushes, and of dark plumage save on the breast, where the feathers are of a pale blue; they are said to be a species of alcedo, but as the Turks will not permit them to be destroyed, and it would be dangerous for any Frank to fire on them, the ornithologist has had no opportunity of determining the fact. These singular birds are never seen either to feed or to alight; nor will they deviate from their course even to admit the passage of a caïque, when, as occasionally occurs, they are flying very low; they merely rise a few feet higher in some instances, and in others suffer the boat to cleave its way through them without appearing to heed the fact. They fly rapidly, and in perfect stillness, from the Black Sea to the Propontis, where they instantly turn and wend their way back to the Euxine; arrived there, they wheel again, and return to the Sea of Marmora; and thus, from day-dawn till twilight, from day to day, and from month to month, they come and go along the channel without any apparent end or aim—without an instant’s repose, without food, and without the slightest deviation from their course.

No instance of one of these singular birds having been picked up dead has ever occurred; and so mysterious and unearthly are their habits, that they have obtained the appellation of the “damned souls,” from a tradition, partially believed, that they are the condemned spirits of the unholy ones, whose ashes have found a resting-place in the great cemetery, but whose spiritual essence is not permitted to mingle with the purer immortality of their less sinful neighbours. This superstition is supposed to have arisen from the circumstance, that, during a time of tempest, when the storm-wind will not permit the migratory flight of the birds along the channel, they fly skrieking to the cypress forest of the necropolis for shelter; and as these are the only periods at which they are known to emit a sound, the credulous in such matters—and in the East they are not few—have decided that their sharp thrilling cry is one of agony; and that they are compelled, during the continuance of the elemental warfare, to narrate to each other the catalogue of crime which has cut them off from the repose of the grave, and condemned them to everlasting wandering over the face of the waters!

But in describing the peculiarities of the great Asiatic Cemetery, the “Silver City” of Scutari, to which it is so striking an appendage, must not be passed over without notice. Its gleaming houses crowd the graceful point of land which forms the termination of the mountain-chain that shuts in the Asian side of the Bosphorus, and then falls back only to be bathed at its base by the wider and wilder waves of the Sea of Marmora. Nothing can be imagined more perfectly beautiful than the position of the town of Scutari, as it sweeps round this graceful point, and throws the long shadows of its arrowy minarets far across the ripple of the Bosphorus towards the European shore; and then, where the rocky coast, at the base of which it is set like a pearl, recedes before the billows of the Propontis, is itself overshaded by the majestic Bulgurlhu Daghi, dark and frowning, and standing out amid the clear blue of heaven in stern defiance, a mark for the storm and the tempest; while as the sun-light falls upon the shimmering waters at its foot, towards which the hanging gardens of the principal dwellings lovingly incline, clothing the rocky descent with fringes of changeful embroidery, its graceful outlines are lengthened or widened in fairy circles as the fitful breeze plays over the surface of the glittering sea. Clusters of houses are framed in by luxuriant foliage; imperial kiosques, painted in rainbow tints, give an air of midsummer gladness to its shores; verdure descends in rich masses to the very lip of the two seas by which it is laved; and not an arrow’s flight from its quay stands the “Maiden’s Tower,” a small and picturesque castle, built upon so diminutive a rock that its foundations cover the whole surface, and give to the edifice the appearance of floating upon the waves.

This little fortress, with its lofty tower and castellated walls, is also the subject of a legend; and thus it runs:—A certain Sultan, whose name is now forgotten, had a most fair daughter, the only child which had been vouchsafed to him by the Prophet, and on whom his heart was anchored, as on his best hope. Beautiful as a Houri, graceful as a Peri, and gay as the summer wind when it sweeps over the rose-garden of Nishapor, the girl was growing into womanhood, when the anxious father consulted a celebrated astronomer on her future destiny; who, after having carefully turned over the party-coloured pages of the mysterious volume of human fate, uttered the frightful prophecy, that, in her eighteenth year, she was to become the prey of a serpent.

Horror-stricken at so dreadful a denunciation, the agonized Sultan caused the erection of the Guz-couli, or Maiden’s Tower, wherein he immured his lovely daughter; in order, by thus cutting her off from the very earth until the fateful period should be overpast, to remove even the possibility of the threatened calamity. “But,” pursues the legend, “who can war against his kismet?⁠[22] Who can control his felech?⁠[23] What is written, is written; and the page of the future had been read.” Death came to the princess in a case of fresh figs from Smyrna, in which a small asp had been concealed; and she was found on her eighteenth birth-day dead upon her sofa, with the fruit beside her; and the reptile, like that which poisoned the crimson tide in the veins of the imperial Cleopatra, lying gorged and loathsome upon her bosom!

The tale is a pretty one; but there is another tradition, which terminates somewhat differently, and which clothes the serpent in the garb of a young Persian prince, whose curiosity having been aroused by the marvellous whisperings around him of the matchless beauty of the imprisoned fair-one, had dared to row his caïque by night beneath the very walls of the Guz-couli; and had contrived an interview with the captive, won her heart, and contrived by means of a silken cord and a strong arm, to carry her off at the very crisis of her fate! The reader can select his own version of the “eventful historie.”

The Fruit-market of Scutari touches on the shore; and in the midst stands an ancient fountain, of simple but pleasing architecture. The volume of water is very great, and its quality almost unrivalled; it descends from the dusky mountain of Bulgurlhu; and from some superstition, which it would be difficult to comprehend, the Turks never permit its supply to be appropriated by the inhabitants of the European shore of the channel, even on occasions of the greatest drought; and thus, in 1836, when water was frightfully scarce, and was transported from the villages at the very mouth of the Black Sea to the thirsting city, at immense cost both of time and money, the fountain of Scutari was suffered to run to waste, and to pour the overflow of its tempting and abundant streams into the Bosphorus.

The view from the market across the Channel is very beautiful; and the locality in itself eminently characteristic and interesting. The profuse supply of the most luscious and delicious fruits is amazing to an European eye, while the prices at which they are sold are equally astonishing. The grapes and melons of Scutari are renowned throughout the East; its figs almost rival those of Smyrna; and there is no island throughout the Archipelago where the pomegranate is richer or more juicy. Oranges, lemons, peaches, and the delicate golden apple, which resembles that of the West only in form, also abound; and with a handful of piastres, the amused Frank, determined on a harmless experiment, may freight his caïque with an offering which would do no discredit to Pomona herself.

MUSICIANS AT THE ASIAN SWEET WATERS.

A description has already been given of the Asian Valley of Sweet Waters; of its majestic plane-trees, its laughing river, and its delicious greensward; of the young beauties who throng its recesses, the Sultanas who grace its drives; and the rosy children who make its echoes vocal. But its musicians are a race apart, and the artist demands for them

and in truth they are well worthy of it!

Their minstrelsy is none of the sweetest; it requires not the ear of science to detect their discords, nor the taste of the poet to smile at their absurdities; and yet, it is impossible not to welcome them with smiles, for you know that joy and laughter follow in their train: the calpac of the one, and the turban of the other, alike covers a shrewd and a busy brain. How much may be told in a song, or hinted in a stanza! Look at the group around them! The matron is there, wary and watchful, remembering the years of her own youth, and the evils by which she was then surrounded; and yet beguiled by the “cunning minstrelsie” of the wandering bards into temporary forgetfulness of all save the charm of their ready wit and simple seeming: the young beauty is beside her, veiled and draped with jealous care, it is true, but with a heart as warm, and a fancy as buoyant, as though yashmacs and lattices were unknown in the land of her birth; her pale cheek flushes, and her pulses quicken as she listens; for to her the songs of the pilgrim-bards tell a deeper and a dearer tale than to her placid grand-dame; while the attentive children gather together in groupes, and gaze and hearken in mute and wondering admiration. Many a wild legend do the minstrels chaunt, in a slow, drawling, monotonous tone, which can add but little to the charm of the subject-matter of their song; while an occasional rasp of the grating tambourine, a rapid rattling of its silver bells, and the hollow sound emitted by the small Arab drums which are their usual accompaniment, alone serve to relieve the tedium of recitation. Pleasant, however, must be the lays which they pour forth; for many of their fair auditors will remain unweariedly for hours, listening and applauding with low-breathed “Mashallahs!” and “Ajaibs!”⁠[24] and without a single symptom of ennui.

Wallachian and Jewish musicians are common; and the extraordinary length of time during which they will dwell upon a single note, with their heads thrown back, their mouths open, and their eyes fixed, and then follow it up with a whole sentence, rapidly and energetically uttered, is most singular. But these oriental troubadours are not without their rivals in the admiration of the veiled beauties who surround them; conjurors, improvvisatori, story-tellers, and Bulgarian dancers, are there also, to seduce away a portion of their audience; while the interruptions caused by fruit, sherbet, and water-venders, are incessant. They are, however, the most popular of all; and a musician, whose talent is known and acknowledged, seldom fails to pass a very profitable day at the Asian Sweet Waters on every occasion of festival.

BEGLIER-BEY.

The Sultan’s summer-palace of Beglier-Bey, on the Asiatic shore, is the most elegant object on the Bosphorus. It is an irregularly fronted and extensive edifice, stretching along the lip of the channel, whose waves wash its long and stately terraces of glittering marble, and sometimes penetrate into their latticed and mysterious recesses. The building is of wood; and the harem presents a line of gables perforated with long ranges of windows secured by most minute screens of gilded wood: the Salemliek, containing the State apartments, the private saloons of the Sultan, and the rooms occupied by the Imperial household, is an octagonal pile, of which the pointed roof is surmounted by a crescent supporting a star, whose richly gilded points flash in the sunshine like lambent fire. The entire building is painted in white and pale gold; and it has rather the appearance of a fairy-palace, called into existence by enchantment, than the mere every-day work of human hands.

A marble gate, terminating the terrace in the direction of the city, admits the visitor into a garden bright with flowers, and redolent of perfume; where fountains for ever fling their delicate jets of water against the sky, with a soft and soothing music well suited to the spot; and where birds of gorgeous plumage wander at will, as rainbow-tinted as the blossoms amid which they sport. A line of gilt lattices veils the seaward boundary of this delicious retreat; and, passing beside these, an inlaid door of stately proportions gives admittance to the Hall of Entrance.

“The first glance of the interior is not imposing. The double staircase, sweeping crescent-wise through the centre of the entrance, contracts its extent so much as to give it the appearance of being insignificant in its proportions; an effect which is, moreover, considerably heightened by the elaborated ornaments of the carved and gilded balustrades and pillars. But such is far from being the case in reality; as, from this outer apartment, with its flooring of curious woods, arabesqued ceiling, and numerous casements, open no less than eight spacious saloons, appropriated to the Imperial household.

“Above this suite are situated the State Apartments, which are gorgeous with gilding, and richly furnished with every luxury peculiar alike to the East and to the West. The Turkish divans of brocade and embroidered velvet are relieved by sofas and lounges of European fashion—bijouterie from Geneva—porcelain from Sèvres—marbles from Italy—gems from Pompeii—Persian carpets—English hangings; and, in the principal saloons, six of the most magnificent, if not actually the six most magnificent pier-glasses in the world: a present to the Sultan from the Emperor of Russia, after the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. Enclosed within a deep frame of silver gilt, bearing the united arms of the two Empires, these costly glasses reflect in every direction the ornaments of the apartment, and produce an effect almost magical; while the highly-ornamented ceiling, richly wrought with delicate wreaths of flowers, and the bright-coloured carpets covering the floor, combine to fling over the saloon an atmosphere of light and gladness, which is increased by the dazzling glories of the parterre spread out beneath the windows, with its flashing fountains, golden orangery, and long line of gleaming lattices.

“The Reception-room is small, and remarkable only for the comfortably-cushioned divan on which the Sultan receives his visitors; and the noble view that it commands of the channel, from the Seraglio point to the Castle of Mahomet.

“The Banquetting Hall is entirely lined with inlaid woods of rare and beautiful kinds, finely mosaiced; the ceiling and the floor being alike enriched with a deep garland of grapes and vine leaves, flung over groups of pine-apples of exquisite workmanship.

“Hence, a long gallery conducts to the private apartments of the Sultan; and on every side are graceful fountains of white marble, whose flashing waters fall with a musical monotony into their sculptured basins. In one, the stream trickles from a plume of feathers, so delicately worked in alabaster that they almost appear to bend beneath the weight of the sparkling drops that gem them: in another, the water gushes forth, overflowing a lotus-flower, upon whose lip sports a group of Cupids. The private apartments, which separate the harem from the state wing of the palace, are the very embodiment of comfort: two of them are lined with wicker-work, painted cream-colour—the prettiest possible idea, executed in the best possible style.

“The harem is, of course, a sealed book; for, as the ladies of the Sultan’s household have never been allowed to indulge their curiosity by a survey of that portion of the palace appropriated to Mahmoud himself, it can scarcely be expected that any intruder should be admitted beyond the jealously-barred door forming their own boundary.”⁠[25]⁠

The Bath of this imperial residence has already been described in an earlier portion of our work; and we have now only to notice the extensive and princely gardens, which rise, terrace above terrace, to the very summit of the mountain which overhangs the palace. Each terrace is under the charge of a foreign gardener, and arranged according to the fashion of his own land; but the finest portion of the grounds contains a noble sheet of water, called the Lake of the Swans, whose entire surface is frequently thickly covered with these graceful birds, of which the Sultan is so fond, that he sometimes passes hours in contemplating them as they glide over the Stillwater; and, in the words of Wordsworth,

Boats, gaily gilded and painted, are moored under the shadows of the magnolias, willows, and other beautiful trees which form the frame-work of the lake; and about fifty yards from the bank stands a pretty, fanciful edifice, called the Air Bath,—an elegant retreat from the oppressive heats of summer; whose roof, and walls, and floor, are alike formed of marble, wrought in marine devices; and whose fountains, trickling down the walls, pour their waters over a succession of ocean-shells, marine divinities, sea-weeds, and coral reefs; and keep up a constant current of cool air, and murmur of sweet sound, perfectly charming. Inferior apartments branch off on either side from this beautiful saloon, and altogether it is as pretty a toy as ever exhausted fancy in its invention.

A gilded kiosque glitters amid the group of cypresses and plane-trees by which the last height is crowned; and the artist has ably portrayed the magic beauty of the scene which is mapped out beneath him as he stands beside the boundary-wall of the palace garden. The undulating shores, belted with houses, and sheltered by richly-wooded hills,—the castle-crowned rocks,—the gleaming sails of the passing vessels upon the channel,—and, far away, the “storm-tossed Euxine,” lashing its billows as if in scorn against the fortress-barriers that bristle its shores—all combine to form a picture well calculated to arrest the eye of the painter and the admiration of the tourist.

SAINT SOPHIA.

The great object of every lion-hunting traveller in Turkey is to obtain ingress to the mosques; and as this privilege is only accorded to great personages, and to each European Ambassador once during his residence in Constantinople, many are necessarily fated to disappointment. No golden key will unlock the mysterious gates, nor lift aside the veil of the temple; and it is with a disgust and a reluctance which they scarcely care to conceal, that the officiating priests condescend to do the honours of the shrine, even when the Imperial firman leaves them no alternative.

The court of St. Sophia, like that of every other mosque in the city, is paved with marble, and shaded by magnificent plane-trees, whose far-spreading branches and luxuriant foliage chequer the vast space with alternate patches of light and shadow, which produce a fine effect; and collect in the vicinity of the holy edifice groups of quiet-looking Moslems, who spread their carpets, and seat themselves to smoke their chibouques, and watch the pious who pass into the temple from sunrise to sunset.

An elegant fountain, with a projecting octagonal roof, whose marble basin is screened by a covering of iron net-work from the pollution of the birds which swarm upon the roof and amid the intricacies of the building, affords to the Faithful the necessary opportunity of performing their preliminary ablutions ere they enter the mosque; while in its immediate vicinity, amulet and scent merchants, generally hadjis or pilgrims, with their green turbans and flowing beards, spread their mats, and expose for sale all descriptions of chaplets, perfumes, relics from Mecca, charms against the Evil Eye, amber and ivory mouth-pieces for the chibouque, and dyes and toys for the harem.

As these pilgrim-merchants are generally gifted with a quiet facetiousness of manner which never fails to amuse a Turk, they collect about them numbers of idlers, whose picturesque costume and graceful attitudes form at every moment studies for the painter: the tall Effendi, with his turban of cachemire and his furred pelisse, stands beside the red-capped and blue-coated soldier; while, squatted at their feet, pipe in hand, and passing the beads of his tusbee⁠[26] listlessly through his fingers as he intently follows the discourse which is going on around him, may be seen the Emir in his green robe, proud of his descent from the Prophet; and near him the Dervish, with his conical hat of grey felt; the Santon, or saint, all filth and holiness; and occasionally a closely-muffled female, her dark eyes flashing out between the folds of her snowy veil, her feet covered with boots and slippers of yellow morocco, and her form shrouded in a heavy cloak of dark-coloured cloth.

If a stranger approach to examine the wares of the hadji, it is curious to witness the interest which every individual takes in the success of his trade. The lookers-on will seize a chaplet of Arabian wood, rub it rapidly in their hands, and hold it towards him, that he may inhale its perfume, expatiating all the time on its extreme sweetness; while exclamations of “Guzel! peh guzel!—good! very good!” form a perfect chorus: or they will smear their beards with dye to convince him of its efficacy, if by these means they can induce the sale of any of the scattered articles about them. Nor are they fastidious in their commercial notions, for they stand quietly and encouragingly by, while the wily hadji cheats the unclean giaour, without evincing any inclination to rescue the victim; and as he bears away some treasure, for which he has probably paid about five times its value, the worthy Moslems see him depart with an ejaculation of “Allah buyûk der—God is great!” and then calmly resume the chibouque and the narration where each had been interrupted.

From the court, a stately covered peristyle, similar to that of St. Peter’s at Rome, whose ponderous granite columns are imbedded in the walls, conducts to the body of the mosque; and here the visitor casts off his shoes, and puts on the slippers of yellow morocco, which are alone permitted to press the floor of the temple. This done, the great gates (which close upon a block of porphyry) are thrown back, the curtain of tapestry is drawn aside, and in a moment the eye is bewildered amid the space which is suddenly spread out before it.

The richly mosaiced floor of jasper, porphyry, verd-antique, and marble, is covered with bright-coloured carpets; thousands of stained glass lamps are suspended in complicated designs from transverse rods of iron which traverse the body of the building in every direction; the Imperial closet, facing the pulpit, is of finely and intricately-wrought marble, with a cornice that looks like petrified point-lace; but it is the vastness of St. Sophia which for a time fills the imagination and satisfies the fancy of the traveller; and it requires time to divest him of the feeling of involuntary awe by which he is at first overwhelmed, ere he can compel himself to any analysis of the detail around him. Gigantic pillars encircle the dome, which is of a magnitude strikingly majestic; and a host of antique treasures are collected together, each a gem in itself; but they are forced into most incongruous contact. Columns of various proportions and architectural orders,—some of Egyptian granite, others of porphyry, or scagliola, or precious and rare marbles,—are to be seen on all sides; but the mind is confused by their extraordinary juxta-position; and they lose half their beauty from their want of arrangement. Eight majestic porphyry pillars from the Temple of Heliopolis are contrasted with columns of verd-antique from that of Ephesus; the walls are incrusted with marble, jasper, porphyry, and verd-antique, to about mid-height, where a gallery, entirely surrounding the mosque, supported by plain pillars, and floored with marble, affords accommodation for several hundred persons; but the dome, which was formerly adorned with minute mosaics, was whitewashed when the conquering Mahommedans converted the Christian church of St. Sophia into a temple of Islamism; and the original richness of the design is now only to be distinguished in spots where the plaister has fallen away; while, as if to render the ruin more complete, the inferior Imaums attached to the mosque make a trade of the fragments of mosaic, which they tear away and dispose of to travellers, who thus thoughtlessly contribute towards the destruction of a noble work of industry and art.

St. Sophia also boasts of two miraculous objects, which must not be passed over in silence—the “Sweating Stone,” and the “Bishop’s Door.” The first is a column, partially cased with iron, and having a deep cavity worn away beneath the metal in one particular spot, where the visitor is directed to insert his finger, and to test the humidity of the marble, which is said thus to have resisted the contact of any merely human touch since the hand of the Prophet rested upon it. It is, however, certain that the miracle sometimes fails.

The “Bishop’s Door” is situated on the northern side of the gallery, and is veiled by a mass of masonry, on which are many traces of violence, the cement being of so powerful a nature as to have resisted all attempts at its destruction. The door-frame is of fine white marble, and quite perfect; and the legend runs, that the united efforts of all the masons in Stamboul, are insufficient to force a passage to the apartment, in which, protected by a powerful talisman, a Greek Bishop, who was officiating at the altar when the Turks poured into the city after the defeat of Constantine, sits in his full canonicals, perusing an open volume of so holy a nature that Moslem eye must never look upon it; and this same Bishop will, as both the Turks and Greeks firmly believe, on the day when St. Sophia becomes again a Christian shrine, walk forth from his walled-up chamber, and chaunt a solemn high mass at the great altar!

From this gallery the best view of the whole interior of the edifice is obtained; as that which encircles the dome is at such an immense height from the ground, that it reduces the dimensions of the building almost to insignificance, while the eye takes in the vast proportions of the dome itself, and the mind is absorbed by that single contemplation.⁠[27] Clouds of blue doves occasionally wing their way across the body of the mosque; and it is a singular and beautiful fact, that they are the unmolested descendants of the birds which were found there by the Turks when they first became the masters of St. Sophia; and so holy are they in their eyes, that the destruction of one of them would be attended with great danger to the aggressor.

From the lower gallery the whole extent of the mosque may be contemplated in its silent and solemn grandeur. In the centre of the wide and uncumbered space, the mighty dome rests on the capitals of a circle of gigantic and rudely-fashioned columns; immediately beneath you are the pillars that support the far-stretching gallery in which you stand; on one hand rises the marble pulpit, with its noble flight of steps shut in by an elaborately sculptured door; and on the other, the Imperial closet, with its delicate tracery and gilded lattices. Two huge wax candles flank the mihrab, or arched recess at the eastern end of the building, which are lighted every night, and last exactly twelve months; they are about eighteen inches in circumference, and throw their light over the Korān of the Chèïk-Islam, or High Priest, who occupies the mihrab during the hours of worship. No private shrines, as in the Catholic churches—no stalls or pews, as in our own places of worship—contract and cumber the body of the building; and the effect of its extent is, consequently, much heightened. Altogether, St. Sophia, despite all its incongruities, is decidedly an architectural wonder, and well worthy of the admiration which has been lavished upon it for centuries.

THE OCMEIDAN.

The Ocmeidan, or Place of Arrows, is an extensive plain, situated behind the village of Tatavola, called by the Greeks who inhabit it the hamlet of St. Demetrius; and stretching along above the deep valley of this little Christian colony, and beside the cemeteries of Pera.

The view which it commands, where it touches upon the harbour, is most magnificent; the “Seven Hills” are all before it, with their galaxy of mosques and palaces: two of them linked together by the hoary aqueduct of Valens, and all gleaming in white marble, and overtopped by the dusky mountains of Asia Minor. Beneath it spreads the Golden Horn, crowded with shipping, and traversed by a light floating bridge, seeming to the eye as frail and unstable as that of El Sirat; but which is crossed by the Faithful from the Golden City only to arrive at the infidel dwellings of the Franks, instead of the houri-tenanted valleys of Paradise; forming, meanwhile, an extremely pretty feature in the landscape.

A fringe of forest-trees descends to the very edge of the plain, which is full of gentle undulations, and is rendered remarkable by being studded over at irregular distances by columns of stone or marble, bearing inscriptions, and not unfrequently lettered with gold. These columns, which have much the appearance of funereal monuments, are simply records of the skill of the Imperial Toxopholite who now sways the sceptre of the Ottoman empire, and whose dexterity in the use of the “cloth-yard shaft” is presumed to be unequalled throughout his dominions. Archery is a sport to which Sultan Mahmoud is much attached; and he is said to boast that, during the last forty years of his life, he has never suffered a week to pass in which he has not practised his well-worn bow. His proficiency in the science may therefore be inferred: though it is certain that none, save an Imperial arm, could ever have

to such a distance, as some of the columnar records, to which allusion has just been made, appear to testify.

Three hundred yards is, in one instance, cited as the space cleared by the feathered messenger of the Caliph: the ground was measured, and the pillar was raised, and the Sultan departed from the Ocmeidan, satisfied that no subject throughout his empire could outdo “the shooting of that day;” nor was it probable that any bowman could be found to controvert his opinion; and none, it is said, knew this better than the page who had picked up the marvellous arrow, and received two purses⁠[28] when he restored it to his imperial master.

There is much etiquette observed in the archery parties of the Sultan. First flies the arrow of Mahmoud himself, as he stands on the right of a line of Pashas and Beys, who have been formally invited to partake of the sport; and immediately off start half a dozen of the pages of the household to recover the missive, and to mark the spot where it falls. These functionaries, who endeavour to out-speed each other, and to secure the prize which, on the occasion of a longer shot than usual, they are sure to receive from their sovereign, run with their heads close to the earth, and generally contrive to pick up the arrow without checking their speed, and to carry it on for some distance before they affect to find it, when they proclaim their success with a shrill cry; and the measurement of the ground takes place at once, where the shot is considered sufficiently remarkable to warrant the ceremony.

The very “long bow,” which we have cited to have been drawn by the Sultan on the happy occasion when the space over which his arrow had travelled was declared to be three hundred yards, is said to have been the frolic of a sportive and daring page, who, having gathered it up at a reasonable distance, ran on until he had a vision of detection, when he stopped, unquestioned if not unsuspected, and at once established the fame of his Imperial master as the first Toxopholite in Europe.

When the Sultan has ascertained his success, each of his courtly companions shoots in turn; but it is almost needless to remark, that their arrows always fall short of the mark: while, despite the diplomatic frauds of time-serving dependants, it is equally certain that there are few archers either so skilful or so graceful as the Emperor of Turkey.

THE SERAÏ BOURNOU.

The celebrated Seraï Bournou, occupying the obtuse point of the triangle on which Constantinople is built, boasts, as perhaps its greatest peculiarity, that it was once in itself a city. The ancient Byzantium was founded in the year A.C. 660, by a Lacedæmonian colony; and a portion of the original walls are actually standing at this day, and still serve to separate the palace gardens from the public street. The mouldering but solid masonry which now girdles the Imperial residence of the Caliphs, once belted a city; and the groves and alleys that are to-day scantily traversed by slaves, eunuchs, and women, were in times of old thickly peopled with an active, busy, and enterprising population.

Byzantium, enriched by the first Constantine, and made the key-stone of a new Empire, and the capital of a second Rome—Byzantium, where a hundred of his august race feasted and governed in their turn, and which was ultimately lost to Christendom by the last and bravest of the line—is now a mere Moslem palace, where the echoes of the war-trumpet, and the neighing of the war-steed, have been replaced by the twanging of the lute, and the voices of women; even its ancient name is never heard, and its broad sun-lighted honours have been exchanged for silence and mystery.

It is asserted by historians that the capital of Byzantium was formerly enriched with columns and statues, and that monuments, now no longer in existence, were profusely collected within its walls: be that as it may, the only remnant of classic antiquity now remaining is a stately column of marble, formed of huge blocks piled upon each other to the height of ninety feet, and standing upon a raised square platform, or terrace, planted with trees, in an outer court of the palace; and known as the Column of Theodosius; though it is evident, in comparing this pillar with the descriptions of antiquaries, that it cannot be the original monument called by that name; nor, it is presumed, can its present position be that which it originally occupied in the city. A venerable cypress, many feet higher than the column, screens it on the seaward side, but the statue which once surmounted the capital is gone; and one deep rent, almost separating the shaft throughout its whole thickness, and evidently produced by the shock of one of those earthquakes to which Constantinople was formerly so subject, attests its ancient origin; while its graceful proportions, and the elaborately-defined acanthus of its capital, render it one of the most interesting monuments now existing in the capital.

The most striking feature of the Seraï Bournou in the present day is its surpassing orientalism. Fountains, palaces, streets, and market-places—all the public rendezvous of Stamboul have suffered change, save the mysterious dwelling of the Caliphs. European innovations have crept with spirit-steps across the land: tapestry hangings and jewelled toys are scattered over the summer-palace of Asia; gaudy chintzes from the looms of Britain shut out the sun-light from the gilt-latticed casements of the imperial kiosques; silks from the warehouses of Genoa and Lyons cover the sofas of the regal pile at Beshik-Tash; but in the hidden recesses of the palace of Amurath all is unchanged, as though the genius of mutability had never waved his wand over the children of the Prophet.

Its effect from the sea of Marmora is as singular as it is beautiful. The wall by which it is enclosed is separated from the water only by a narrow wharf or terrace, pierced at intervals by a close lattice-work, through which the fair tenants can look out upon the sun-lighted waves, and on to the fantastic islands of the Propontis; in some places overgrown with the most luxurious parasites, among which are conspicuous the rich dark leaves of the ivy, and the clustering verdure of the gorgeous caper-plant, with its galaxy of blossoms; and in others, surmounted by a light and graceful kiosque, now, however, tarnished by the weather, and mouldering into disuse; for since the present Sultan girded himself with the sword of sovereignty, and eschewed the mysterious exclusiveness of his predecessors, the Seraï Bournou has ceased to be a chosen residence for the Ottoman court. And even as the victorious Mahomet II. feelingly apostrophized the denuded and desecrated palace of the last Constantine, when he entered as a conqueror the august abode of his vanquished enemy, only to find it ravaged by his own soldiery, may the silent Seraï be addressed to-day in the celebrated words of a Persian poet:—“The spider has woven his web in the halls of the Cæsars, and the owl has kept her unstartled watch on the towers of Afrasiab.”

Nothing can be seen from the water save a line of gilded kiosques, gracefully clustered together on the extreme point of the land; the roofs and domes of a few scattered buildings; and here and there a slender minaret pointing heavenward from the midst of a dense forest of rich and stately trees, of which numbers overhang the boundary walls, and throw their long cool shadows over the current of the Propontis; whose depth is so great, even to the edge of the terrace, that vessels of burthen pass close beside the Golden Gate, or seaward entrance to the palace—a stately portal of marble, so richly overlaid with arabesques of burnished gold, that it is scarcely possible to look upon it beneath a mid-day sun.

Gliding round the point into the harbour, the voyager next comes upon a pavilion nestled beneath the walls of the Seraï, and known as the waiting-room of the Franks, where, in the previous reigns, the European Ambassadors were detained on days of audience until it was the pleasure of the Sultan to admit them within the sacred boundaries of the palace-grounds; and a few roods beyond this pavilion is a low door, of which the bars are now thickly overgrown with rust, and the bolts immovable from disuse, known as the Pasha’s Gate, through whose ill-omened opening, tradition tells, that recreant or suspected nobles who suffered the bowstring, were formerly cast into the deep waters of the harbour; while romance, greedy of her own legend, asserts that hence were also burled the degenerate beauties who chanced either to offend, to weary, or to disgust the Sardanapalus of the hour, to the mercy of the

The one assertion is, however, probably as apocryphal as the other; for the sluggish waters of the port must have been assuredly less inviting to the ministers of death than the hurried current of Marmora, where, scarcely an arrow’s flight from the Seraglio walls, it rushes towards the gulph of Nicodemia. Be that as it may, however, the walls of the Seraï, terminating a short space beyond this gate, where the court of Yeni Djami descends to the harbour, take an upward direction, and are flanked at their extreme point as they traverse the city, by a gaily-gilded kiosque, poised, as if by magic, upon one of the buttresses, and entirely surrounded by lattice-work, which, while it conceals the interior of the building, permits its tenants to command every object beneath them.

Directly opposite to this glittering pavilion, called the Kiosque of Justice, is situated the magnificent portal which gives its name to the Turkish government—the “Sublime Porte”—a stately and imposing gate of entrance to the great public offices of the Empire. This noble and finely-proportioned structure, perhaps one of the most striking in the world, is flanked by two deep niches, containing slabs of marble, whereon are exposed the heads of such criminals below the rank of Pashas, or enemies taken in battle or captured by stratagem, as it is the pleasure of the monarch to reveal to the eyes of the people; and the gilded kiosque, to which allusion has been made, owes its appellation to the circumstance, that it is from thence that the Sultan ascertains the effect of the exhibition upon the populace, and the fact that his orders have been executed by the proper functionaries.

The principal and highest entrance to the Seraï Bournou occupies one side of a square, of which the Mosque of St. Sophia encloses a second; while the remainder is formed by lines of mean-looking houses and coffee-shops. A very beautiful fountain, now fast falling to decay, stands in the centre of the space; whence the water gushes forth in an ample volume, dancing and glittering in the sun-light. It is a fine specimen of the ancient Moorish architecture, and is surmounted by five domes—one occupying the centre of the pile, and richly perforated with transparent chiselling; while four minor lateral cupolas form the extremities of the roof, which is terminated by a deep overhanging cornice, highly ornamented with a heavy cornice and a series of minute arabesques. Two broad and steep steps of white marble lead to the building, which is, with the exception of the Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini at Top-hannè, the finest structure of the kind in the capital; and a group of sentinels and eunuchs loitering under the lofty portal of the Seraglio gate, give a last touch of orientalism to the picture.

The first court of this celebrated Palace cannot fail to disappoint the highly-wrought anticipations of the visitor, who imagines, when he has once succeeded in passing the magic threshold so rarely trodden by any foot save those of the monarch and his immediate court, that all the wonders of Eastern mystery and magnificence are to burst on him at once; and his astonishment may be conceived, when he finds himself standing in a spacious oblong enclosure, which is rather an excrescence than an appendage to the palace; in which the only striking object is one of the most enormous and beautiful maple-trees in the world, looking like a forest growing from a single trunk, chequering an immense space with light and shadow, and affording shelter to a perfect colony of beautiful blue doves. On the right hand of the court are situated the infirmaries, the wood-stores, and the bakehouses; on the left, the once elegant Greek church of St. Irene, now converted into an arsenal; and on a line with this desecrated edifice, the Mint, a handsome range of building, to which are attached the dwellings of the Chekir-Encine, or Superintendent of the Public Works; and the Tarafhannè, or Inspector of the same department.

Passing along beside a high wall, the visitor finds himself at the Orta Kapousi, or Middle Gate, a place of death and doom, where rivers of blood are declared to have been shed. This gate is flanked by two towers, forming a saillie; and near it is the Djillāt Odossi, or executioner’s apartment, the temporary prison of condemned Vèzirs, who, on their entrance to the Seraï, when they had fallen under the suspicion and displeasure of the Sultan, were arrested on this spot without previous warning; and hence the Turkish expression, “arrested between the two doors.” In case of exile, their sentence was read to them on this spot, and its fulfilment enforced by the officers of the Seraï; in that of death, it was at once carried into effect by the tenant of the tower. Above the gate-way is a range of iron spikes, on which the forfeited heads were exposed to blacken in the sunshine; while on the wall immediately beneath, a yafta, or proclamation of the crime which had drawn down the destruction of the culprit, was affixed to the wall. These yaftas were written in large characters, on a scroll shaped like a cone, and remained exposed so long as the weather spared them, unless the bostanji of the guard could be bribed by the friends of the victim, when they generally disappeared.

It was at the Orta Kapousi that the celebrated mortar of the Ulema is said to have been formerly deposited, but no trace of it now remains; and a hope may be indulged that this revolting instrument of torture never really had existence. Indeed, every vision of death and suffering is swept from the mind as the threshold of the Orta Kapousi is passed, and the pilgrim stands at the entrance of the third court. The gate, fraught with images of doom as it is approached from without, is all gaiety, gilding, and glitter, within. No sound of wail, no voice of weeping is permitted to penetrate deeper into the dwelling of the Light of the World, and Brother of the Sun! In the thickness of the wall is situated a guard-room, where the eunuchs of the palace vary their monotonous and imprisoned existence by bandying vapid pleasantries with the lounging and listless soldiery; weapons both for use and ornament are hung upon the walls, and a range of low sofas afford the means of rest and enjoyment to the guard. The other face of the gate is screened by a rich projecting roof, all paint and gilding, which advances at least five feet beyond the façade of the building, and is supported by two lofty columns of white marble, whose shafts are wrought into the semblance of palm-trees, and whose heavily carved capitals are surmounted by square pillars overlaid with mosaic and gilded arabesques. The roof itself is pointed, and crowned by a flashing crescent of gold; while underneath it is divided into a lattice-work of gilt bars, traversing a ground of the brightest blue, and looking like a sheet of turquoise.

The elaborately tesselated pavement beneath, apparently intended to represent the reflection of the roof, is composed of curious stones, cemented together with some preparation, which, in its present state, appears as though liquid gold had been used to connect the different portions; and the effect of the whole is so extraordinary, so sumptuous, and so totally unlike any thing that can be seen in Europe, that it is presumed that any apology for this somewhat prolix description will be deemed unnecessary; and the rather, that very few Franks have yet penetrated into the mysteries of this stronghold of the Mahommedan Emperors. The court into which this magnificent gate gives entrance, contains the Throne-room and the Library. The former is the State Reception-room in which Abdul Hamet Khan, the father of the present Sultan, received the European ministers, and the Great Officers of the Empire on all occasions of ceremony. It is a handsome building, surmounted by a dome, and approached by a double flight of steps, having a fountain in the centre, and forming a terrace, protected by an awning of crimson silk. The interior is simple in its arrangement, and perfect in its proportions. The ceiling is heavy with arabesques, and rich with gilding; and the shadows of the mighty maples and thickly-planted cypresses which overhang it, tend to increase its beauty.

The Imperial Library occupies a range of kiosques in the Saracenic taste, with open peristyles, whose columns support a row of arches of the most graceful dimensions, and is said to possess treasures in manuscripts of untold value; but the hour is not yet arrived when those treasures will be laid bare to the research of the student, and the antiquary, the philosopher, and the man of science. Meanwhile, the coup-d’œil is charming; and it is almost with regret that the visitor finds himself hurried on to the fourth court, containing the beautiful edifice sometimes called the Kiosque of Bagdat. Here it is asserted that the jewels of the Constantines, and the treasures of all the preadamite Sultans are secured; that the towers are vaulted, and that each is a mine of wealth. Here also, it is said, that rebellious beauties have pined away a joyless existence, when they have been bold enough to oppose the power of their personal attractions to the despotic pleasure of a sensual master, who would not destroy his own hope while there remained a prospect of subjecting their distaste to his arbitrary will.

Beyond the fourth court is situated the “Garden of Delight,” in which stand the gilded kiosques appropriated to the harem, and the young princes of the Imperial house. Here, all is a confusion of glare and glitter; parterres, only less gorgeous than the buildings which rise among them; and pavilions, besprent with paint and gilding, looking as bright as the flowers which blossom on every side. Clusters of roses, blooming in baskets of gilded wicker-work; fountains, murmuring sweet music under the deep shadows of overhanging boughs: and in every direction, the carefully-latticed and jealously-guarded casements of the harem, which no infidel foot may tread with impunity.

None of the ladies belonging to the household of the present Sultan inhabit the Seraï Bournou, save when he is himself an inmate of the palace; and the extensive harem is now solely occupied by half a dozen octogenarian wives of the Sultan Selim, whose age preserved them from the fate of the younger and more beautiful portion of his establishment; who, in accordance with Eastern ideas of expediency, were put to death on the accession of the present Sultan, lest they should dishonour themselves by an alliance with a subject, after having formed part of the household of the sovereign: but notwithstanding this fact, the harem is sacred, and no prying eye nor intrusive foot is permitted to disturb the peaceful repose of the worthy relicts of the unfortunate, misguided, and martyred Selim.

TOP-HANNÈ.

Had the noble bard from whom the lines which head the chapter are derived, written them as a guide to the traveller who first seeks to look on the suburb of Top-hannè, situated between Galata and the valley of Dolma-Batchè, they could not have been more judiciously framed; for, as the caïque heaves, unpropelled for an instant by the oars of the rowers, midway between the rocky shore of Asia and the pier of Top-hannè, the eye of taste is greeted by a scene of surpassing beauty.

The Mosque of Sultan Mahmoud, with its slender minarets, dipped in gold for a third of their height, and cinctured with galleries as light as petrified cobwebs—its gilded gates, and noble flight of marble steps—is seen to the rear of the Arsenal, where a long line of brass guns (whence salutes are fired on all occasions of public rejoicing) are ranged along the head of the channel. The cannon-foundry, which gives its name to the locality, terminates the battery at one extremity; and above it, on the side of the hill, stand the remains of the Galata Seraï, which having been grievously injured during the great fire of Pera, from an Imperial palace, has now degenerated into a college for the pages of the household. A handsome barrack bounds the suburb on the side next the harbour, and the Top-hannè pier is the great landing-place for caïques plying from Scutari, and the villages on the Bosphorus. But the especial boast of this pretty spot is the fountain in the fruit-market, the celebrated Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini, or Fountain of the Mosque of Ali Pasha, a French renegade, who built the temple bearing his name, which stands on the western side of the square.

Rich as Constantinople avowedly is in fountains of various architecture, the whole city cannot boast another of equal beauty and workmanship; its elaborate arabesques are beyond praise, and when the sun-light touches them, almost look like jewels. Its proportions are perfect; and it stands in the centre of an unencumbered space, pouring out its dense volume of water into a capacious basin of glittering marble, and producing an effect highly scenic. On one side rises the mosque to which it belongs—a heavy pile, with thick and stunted minarets—a memorial of the days when a Christian, after denying his God and forswearing his faith, might still enjoy the confidence, and earn the honours of the Moslem; days now gone for ever, and looked back upon with surprise by the Osmanli themselves, who have learnt to feel that services based upon apostasy, and zeal whose germ was falsehood, are alike hollow, worthless, and untenable. On the other hand is situated the elegant Kiosque of Halil Pasha, with its lordly portal and gold-latticed casements—an embodiment of the fairy-palaces of the Arabian Tales; and all around and about are piled the luscious fruits of Europe and of Asia. As this is the great market for the growers of Scutari, the islands of Marmora, and all the Asiatic villages on the channel, the display may be imagined; piles of perfumed melons are heaped beside pyramids of grapes, which look as though they were carved in amber; delicate pasteks, green and glittering as emeralds, are contrasted by golden pomegranates; pistachio-nuts, lemons, quinces, oranges, and apples, are scattered in all directions; while the downy peach, and the plum, blushing through its own bloom, tempt the touch of the wanderer at every step. The Moslem merchant is there, gravely squatted upon his mat, with his yellow slippers lying beside him, and his chibouque, charged with the potent tobacco of Latakia between his lips, quietly awaiting a customer; while the restless Greek is near him, now trilling a romaïka—now cursing, in the name of his saints, the tardiness of the buyers—now mumbling a prayer to the Panagia,⁠[29] as his fitful humour serves; while, here and there among the merchants, wanders a bowed and bearded Jew, with shabby beniche⁠[30] and cringing gait, vending spurious opium, second-hand finery, and stale sweetmeats.

Altogether, the scene is singularly attractive; and the Frank traveller must pay many visits to the Fruit-market of Top-hannè, and the beautiful Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini, ere he wearies of so novel and so exciting a spectacle.

THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

The walls of Constantinople are fraught with interesting memories. To the historian they tell of the varying fortunes of a mighty empire; to the antiquary, of the noblest days of Roman art; and to the soldier, of the bold and heroic deeds of a race long gone, but living still in the page of tradition; while, to the traveller and the man of taste, they offer scenes of picturesque beauty, varying at every point of his pilgrimage; and presenting a succession of landscape-views which defy alike the description of the tourist, and the pencil of the painter.

The city of Constantinople occupies a triangular promontory above the Propontis, and it has been strongly fortified on all sides, as well those which are washed by the sea, as on that which is the base of the triangle, and connects it with the main land. The walls extend twelve miles, sweeping from sea to sea, running along the whole length of the harbour, restraining the billows of the sea of Marmora, and terminating in the celebrated fortress of the Seven Towers. They are every where ruinous, and in several places so utterly dilapidated as to be wholly useless for the purposes of defence; their reparation being a herculean project at present unmeditated by the Turks, and probably never to be accomplished. At some points the foundation of the walls is formed by huge masses of rock, a species of architecture still to be traced in a few of the most ancient Grecian structures, and formerly termed Cyclopæan; and fabulously asserted to be the work of giants, owing to the enormous size and weight of the stones employed. In other spots, particularly on the side of Marmora, the masonry commences regularly from the very edge of the water; and where the action of the waves has displaced the original material, piles of broken shafts of the most beautiful proportions, hewn into fragments, have, in endless instances, been substituted to prevent the ingress of the water to the gardens and kiosques by which the shore is fringed. The antiquarian treasures thus recklessly lavished where baser material would have sufficed, are said to be beyond price; and many a sculptured capital and graven stone may be detected as the caïques slowly glide along over the glittering ripple, which render the traveller willing to believe and to mourn over the fact. Permission has in several instances been sought by strangers to remove some of these tempting reliques, but it has always been coldly and resolutely denied.

The most ancient portion of the walls is necessarily that which enclosed the ancient Byzantium, now known as the Seraglio Point, where the apex of the triangle divides the Propontis from the port, and instead of being peopled by the busy multitude of a city, is silent in the stateliness of its gilded palace and overhanging groves. Portions of the original walls are still standing, and separate the seraglio gardens from the adjacent streets; and even in their ruin they retain traces of the strength and massiveness which have enabled them to exist from the year 660 A.C.—at which period they were erected by the hands of the Lacedæmonian colony who first peopled this magnificent spot—even to the nineteenth century, as if in scorn of the frail and unstable works of later and less laborious architects.

The wall which encircles the present city was built nine hundred and seventy-eight years subsequently, by the Emperor Constantine, and frequently repaired by Theodosius, and other sovereigns, who have each in succession left commemorative inscriptions upon the masonry. Thus, on one spot is graven “Theodosius, King, by the grace of Christ;” on another, “The illustrious Theodosius, the great King, by the grace of Christ;” while numberless crosses, and the remains of half-obliterated sentences, now beyond solution, are to be found in various places.

Perhaps the most picturesque portion of the walls is that which stretches from the cemetery of Eyoub along the road leading to Balouclé, or the “Church of Fishes.” A dilapidated palace, known as the “Palace of Constantine,” (and supposed to have belonged to the first of that name,) is among the most striking objects in this quarter of the city; it appears to be coeval with the wall, and to have mouldered under the same influences. The view which it commands is extensive and magnificent; and its ruin has a regality about it which speaks of Rome in her best days of pride and power. The walls are, in this direction, unusually well preserved, and of great height, and no breach is perceptible for a considerable distance, as this side of the city offered fewer facilities to an invading army than many other points, and the defences have consequently been subjected to no violence beyond that of the ever-gnawing and corroding tooth of time. A dense coating of ivy clothes the whole hoary mass of masonry; octagonal towers, draperied with the same rich parasite, rise at intervals like a succession of feudal castles; and the moat at their base is rife with vegetation, amid which the wild fig-tree with its broad fan-like leaf, the acacia with its peach-like blossoms, and the weeping birch, waving its flexile branches to the wind like the hair of a young beauty, are the most conspicuous.

Two of these octagonal towers flank the more lofty portion of the wall, and several breaches are shortly afterwards discernible. Here the defences are tripled; and a double moat, commencing at the Rodosto Gate, terminates only at the entrance of the Seven Towers, on the Sea of Marmora. This triple wall is considerably lower than that which stretches along from Eyoub; and as it follows the undulations of the hills upon which the city is built, it necessarily permits a great portion of the enclosure to be visible from without; and to this circumstance may possibly be attributed the fact, that it was on this side that Mahomet, encouraged by a sight of the fair capital which he coveted, was induced to attempt its capture. The Top-Kapousi, or Gate of the Cannon, remains as a memorial of his success; and it derives its name from the fact of its being surmounted by several immense balls of marble, such as are used by the Turks for the supply of their most ponderous pieces of ordnance, and which were placed there by the triumphant Moslems to perpetuate the capture of the devoted Christian city.

Immediately in front of the Cannon Gate, but at a short distance from the moat, rises an artificial mount called by the Turks, Maltèpè, on whose summit the invading Prophet planted his standard, and whence he directed the attack. The view from this height is magnificent, as the eye sweeps the whole of the city, commands a vast extent of country, and loses itself among the far-stretching waves of the sea of Marmora, glancing over the islands by which it is studded, and the mountain-belt which partially hems it in. Here it was, near this stately gate, and in one of the numerous breaches made in the city wall during this unequal war, where more than two hundred thousand Turks besieged, both by sea and land, a town defended only by eight thousand men at arms, and those depressed by long sufferings, and pent up in this their last stronghold, without a hope beyond their own arms and hearts, that the last Greek Emperor, the immortal Constantine Paleologus, proved to the world the power and pride of individual genius and heroism. Here it was that he fought, that he struggled—and that, spurning an existence which would have outlived his cause, he nobly fell, offering himself up as the last and proudest victim to his religion and his country. The body of the brave Paleologus was found in a breach near the Top-Kapousi; he had bought his freedom from Moslem thrall with his heart’s blood, and with him perished a long line of Grecian Emperors. A dense vegetation now chokes up the moat; and forest-trees, nourished by the rich soil, flourish on the very spot; but while one Greek heart beats in a noble breast, and one Greek hand can wield a worthy pen, the memory of the last of the Paleologi can need no graven epitaph, nor can the heart of man devise for him a more fitting mausoleum!

The next point of interest is the fortress known as that of the Seven Towers. What a spell is in the very name, to all those who are either interested in, or conversant with, Eastern history! What volumes of human power and of human suffering does it not involve! Captives have sickened with despair—ambassadors have sighed at delay within those walls of darkness and of crime—monarchs have made a jest of foreign vengeance, and nobles have felt the weight of native displeasure!

This extensive fortress originally consisted, as its name implies, of seven principal towers, dominating a series of dungeons, courts, and guard-rooms, whose secrets seldom transpired beyond the walls. A strong garrison, lofty outworks, and jealously-barred cells, insured the safety (in so far as escape was concerned) of the captives whom state policy or private hate consigned to this formidable prison. Hecatombs of heads, sacrificed to one or the other of these impulses, gave their name to a small enclosure now called the “Place of Heads,” where they are said to have been piled upon each other until the mound was of sufficient height to enable the executioners to command from its summit a wide view of the sun-lighted Propontis; while a dark vault is shown, upon whose brink the stranger stands with quailing heart, and looks down upon the “Well of Blood,” whose ensanguined stream once overflowed its margin, and ran reeking under the broad daylight over the marble pavement of the court beyond, to pollute the pure waters of the sea of Marmora. Stone tunnels, into which the writhing wretches who were doomed to this merciless death were forced by the sharp scimitars and handjars⁠[31] of their jailors, and there left to expire of famine; and oubliettes, whose gnawing jaws opened to receive their victims only to deliver them back mutilated and bleeding to the depths of the ocean-grave, where their sufferings were destined to end for ever, are to be seen on all sides; while the promenades provided for the prisoners within the guarded precincts are overshadowed by the funereal cypress, as though fresher and brighter foliage would there have been a mockery.

Not the least remarkable object pointed out to the stranger within the walls of the Seven Towers is a dry well, celebrated as that into which Mustapha III., on some misunderstanding between the courts of the Sultan and the Czarina Catherine, very unceremoniously caused her representative, the Count Obrescoff, to be lowered, and left during several days, ere he entered upon his more legitimate period of a captivity which endured three weary years; while racks, and wheels, and other complicated instruments of torture, are scattered through the fortress, as if to prove the ingenuity of mankind in inventions of pain and horror!

Four of the towers to which the stronghold is indebted for its appellation, are now partially in ruin; and the gloomy walls no longer give back the stifled echoes of moral suffering. From a state-prison for attainted Turks, the fortress became the compulsatory abode of the Moscovite Ambassadors on all outbreakings of discord between the Autocrats of Russia and Turkey; and still more recently it has served as a plague-hospital for the Greeks, and thus exchanged its experience of human torture for one which, although equally bitter, is Heaven-inflicted, and not born of the malice or the tyranny of man. But, although the record of blood is now filled up, and the dark volume of violence sealed—it may be hoped, for ever—the entrance-gate of the Seven Towers is still an object of dread and terror to the Turks; and it is difficult even for the traveller to pass it by without a quickening pulse!

THE MOSQUE OF CHAZADE.

The Mosque of Chazade (or Choabbas) is beautifully situated near the Aqueduct of Valens, which spans the valley upon whose edge it stands. Like all the other religious edifices of Constantinople, it is built in the form of a Greek cross, and is ornamented throughout its interior with arabesques, and sculptured marble. The trees which surround its court are ancient, and of majestic growth; but its principal beauty exists in the very elegant fountain, and the noble tombs which are attached to it. These buildings fringe the street in which it stands, and form an architectural group unequalled for its perfect orientalism throughout the city. The gilded lattices of the fountain, its domed and graceful roof, and the shifting crowd ever collected about its marble steps, contrast finely with the silent stateliness of the mosque itself, upon whose white and glittering surface no trace of mere perishable ornament can be detected. A cluster of domes, rising from amid a mass of foliage, where the broad-leafed and far-stretching maple mingles its fresh bright greenness with the dark, rigid, and eternal gloom of the cypress, marks the site of the mosque, and of the four tombs by whose vicinage it is distinguished; the larger and taller cupola being that of the temple, which, however, does not so greatly dominate the others as to injure the harmony of their effect.

The most richly ornamented Mausoleum is that of the Sultana Chazade—which name is supposed to be a corruption of Sheherazade, an appellation bringing at once to memory the fair and wily Princess of tale-telling notoriety, so dear to our youth; and admitting the possibility that the Imperial founder of the mosque, and occupant of the mausoleum, were indeed the namesake of the indefatigable bride of the fable-loving Sultan, the eye which rests upon her tomb does not disturb the illusion which old associations have woven about the fancy; for even had its tenant been the renowned daughter of the Vèzir herself, she could not have found a fitter resting-place. The elegant tomb-house is hexagonal, and the fluted dome is supported on eight light and graceful columns, whose Saracenic capitals form a portion of the sculptured cornice which surrounds the base of the cupola. The windows are of richly stained glass; and the sarcophagus rests on a low platform in the centre of the marble floor, in solitary state.

The other three tombs attached to the Mosque of Chazade, are those of three Vèzirs; and, in two instances, their wives and sons lie beside them. A few scattered graves, almost overgrown with the dense vegetation common to the country, have been niched here and there in the recesses formed by the angles of the buildings; and clouds of blue doves inhabit the eaves of the temple, and fill the air with their low monotonous note, giving a solemnity to the spot congenial to its use. They call to each other from the roofs of the tombs sadly and soothingly, like sentinels passing the watchword of peace over the ashes of the dead, and seem, in their earnest melancholy, to echo the answer of the Gnome King to the pilgrim Hamet—“Pass on thy way, and impede me not: I guard the graves of the mighty.”

SULEIMANIÈ.

The Mosque of Solyman “the Magnificent,” called by the Turks Suleimaniè, is esteemed the most elegant religious edifice in Constantinople. The splendid windows of painted glass, which are said to be unequalled throughout the world, were a spoil from the Persians, from whom they were wrested by Solyman to decorate the temple of which he was the founder; and the effect of their elaborately-blended rays on the marble walls of the mosque is strikingly fine and impressive. The dome is supported by four slight and well-proportioned pillars, and rests upon their delicate capitals so lightly, as to give a character to the interior of this beautiful building quite distinct from that of every other mosque in the city. But the four columns of porphyry which occupy the angles of the edifice, are the boast of Suleimaniè. The rare relics of a pagan temple, they are of the most exquisite symmetry and finish, and are supposed to have originally served as pedestals to as many antique statues. Hanging arches of that delicate Arabian architecture so little known in Europe, and so justly prized by the Turks, relieve the base of the dome; and the cornice of the platform on which the meuzzin performs his prostrations, and regulates the devotions of the faithful during the service, is finely chiselled to represent a wreath of lotus leaves. The pulpit is shaped like the blossom of the arum, and being composed of fine white marble, has the effect of a gigantic flower petrified into stone. The great entrance-gates of the edifice are very costly, being thickly inlaid with devices of mother-of-pearl; and the marble floor is over-strown with rich carpets.

The entire roof of the building is highly ornamented, and sentences from the Korān, beautifully written in the oriental character, are scattered over the walls. The mihrab, or niche at the eastern extremity of the edifice, occupying the position which, when the ground-plan of the Mahommedan temples was borrowed from St. Sophia, was filled by the Christian altar, is also inscribed with the names of the Deity and the Prophets. The immense wax candles that flank the mihrab are lighted every night during the reading of the Korān by the officiating Kiatib.⁠[32] Those at the mosque of St. Sophia are eighteen inches in circumference, and last for twelve months; and the waxen giants of Suleimaniè, although considerably smaller, are still of enormous size; but as these are merely supposed to light the holy page of the priest, the body of the building is illuminated by thousands of small coloured lamps, suspended from the roof in various devices, by slight rods of iron, and producing to an European eye, a festal effect strangely incompatible with the sacred uses of the place.

But Suleimaniè possesses one peculiar feature, to which it is indebted for an interest beyond all the other mosques of Constantinople, and one of so high and honourable a character, that it is even more worthy of record than its pillars of porphyry, or its “cunning work” in glass and marble; and it is of so distinctive a nature that it must not be passed over in silence.

A richly-wrought gallery, extending along the whole northern face of the edifice, is heaped with chests of sundry sizes, and of all descriptions, from the rude trunk of cypress-wood, painted a dull green, and decorated with huge groups of flowers, tawdrily and clumsily executed—the treasure-hoard of the petty trader, or the roving tatar⁠[33]⁠—to the heavy iron-clamped strong box of the exiled noble, or the wandering merchant: these are piled one on the other to the very roof of the building, and each is carefully marked with some hieroglyphic known only to its absent owner, and to its temporary guardians. Each package, when received by the authorities at Suleimaniè, is described and registered with the most scrupulous exactness; and when once it has been deposited within the holy precincts of the mosque, it remains intact and inviolate, whatever time may elapse, or whatever changes may ensue ere it is reclaimed by its proper owner, either in the government, or the institutions of the Empire. The sacredness of the trust is felt, acknowledged, and respected; and men of every nation, and professors of every creed, are free to deposit their property within the walls of Suleimaniè, secure of its restoration whenever they may see fit to reclaim it.

It is said that the amount of treasure in gold, silver, jewels, and rich stuffs, thus collected together, is immense; and that many of the chests have occupied their place in the gallery for a century. But this fact does not operate against their security—no seal is ever forced at Suleimaniè; and this great national bank, for such it truly is, remains untouched and sacred throughout every popular convulsion, and every intestine change. Here the Turkish government exercises no despotism, exacts no avaniah,⁠[34] levies no tax; and amid all its reverses, and all its necessities, preserves an admirable integrity which is less generally known than it deserves to be.

THE PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

There is no better point whence to obtain a view of the Port of Constantinople than from the great cemetery of the “Infidel Hill” of Pera. The harbour lies at your feet, crowded with shipping, moored in treble lines along the shore, and filling every little creek and bay. The minaretted city cresting the opposite height like a diadem, stretches along in all the splendour of its mosques and palaces; terminated in one direction by the Eski-Seraï, glittering among its cypresses and plane-trees, and enclosed within the picturesque walls, which are washed by the blue waves of the Bosphorus and the Propontis, to which the hoary trees that overhang them pay back their tribute of shade and freshness; and on the other, by the historical suburb of Eyoub; while, in the distance, the bright sea of Marmora dances in the light, bearing a thousand gleaming sails upon its bosom, and its scattered islands heave up their fantastic outline like marine monsters; the Thracian Olympus, and the mountain-chain of which it is the monarch, form the frame-work of the picture; while Scutari closes in upon the eye, sweeping gracefully along the edge of the Propontis, until it grows into majesty as it nears the Bosphorus, and flings over the waves of “the ocean-stream,” the stately shadow of Bulgurlhu Daghi.

Innumerable caïques dart from shore to shore across the harbour, freighted with veiled women, and men of many lands; and the shrill warning cry of the boatmen as they shoot along, cutting through the water like wild-birds, continually passing and repassing, and yet never coming in collision—the crowds of sea-fowl sporting among the shipping, and diving under the oars of every boat—the light bridge, flung like a fairy-wand across the port—all conspire to render the Golden Horn one of the most picturesque scenes in the world; while above the bright landscape and the glittering sea, spreads a sky of such intense and vivid blue, as invests every object with a tint and a distinctness from which it derives a new and a peculiar beauty.

The variety of costume, the constant succession of living groups, and the rapid motion of the arrowy caïques, are altogether beyond the reach of description; while the pencil of the artist can alone convey any distinct idea of the numerous objects of interest and beauty which throng the shores. Close beside the termination of the floating bridge, where it abuts on the Stamboul side of the harbour, (at a gate-way known as “the Gate of the Garden,” owing to its vicinity to the grounds of the ancient palace,) and close under the walls, stands a green pavilion, in which former Sultans were accustomed to give audience to the European Ambassadors; while immediately above it, erected on a buttress of the wall itself, is a light-looking summer saloon, canopied with creeping plants, called the Kiosque of Pearls, whence the sovereign can overlook the whole extent of the port and the European shore. Not far from this pretty kiosque, and level with the water’s edge, is a low iron door, through which the bodies of those who were executed within the Seraglio are said to have been cast into the sea at midnight, and committed to the current that sweeps rapidly round the point; but it bears little appearance of having latterly been in request, as its massy hinges are rusted, and immovable.

Stately trees, sweeping downward to the water—lofty minarets, shooting gracefully towards heaven—crowds of shipping—groups of human beings, varying alike in feature, language, and costume—lofty mountains, far-stretching forests, and thickly-peopled hills—the junction of two seas—an unrivalled landscape, and a cloudless sky, are among the many distinctive glories of the Golden Horn.

ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA.

The entrance to the Black Sea, as seen from the summit of the Jouchi-Daghi, or Giant’s Mountain, (the spot selected by the artist,) is the grandest coup-d’œil on the Bosphorus. As the line of shore terminates on either hand, the picturesque and jagged rocks suddenly yield to a low and sandy stretch of coast; and beyond are visible the “Blue Symplegades,” heaving up their dark and irregular masses from the encircling waters of the Sea of Storms, which, stretching far away on all sides, is ultimately blent with the horizon.

The ruins of two Genoese Castles crown the abrupt peaks of a portion of the mountain-chain of which the Jouchi-Daghi is the monarch. One of them, whose mouldering walls descend nearly to the lip of the channel, has its beautiful legend of womanly high-heartedness; for a tale is there recorded of a young fair girl, scarcely yet arrived at the first years of womanhood, the daughter of the Governor, who defended the fortress for three entire days after the death of her father, who fell mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow, as he was gallantly meeting the enemy; and with a diminished and despairing garrison, boldly held the castle until she was herself killed in its defence. Fable has now peopled the gray old pile with supernatural visitants; but if the spirit of that high and heroic girl still presides within the walls, their contact can scarcely be dreaded.

It is impossible to write of the Bosphorus without enthusiasm, for both its historical and fabulous associations serve to deepen its actual beauty; while the endless variety of its perspective keeps the eye and the mind continually on the stretch, never cheating either the one or the other of the anticipated feast. Could it be contemplated in its entire length, and swept from sea to sea by one long gaze, much of its charm would necessarily be lost with its novelty; but as it winds in graceful curves between its enchanting shores, it is like a chain of cunningly wrought gold, of which, as it uncoils, every link appears more beautiful than the last. The caïque of the traveller is one moment overshadowed by the tall trees of the “Hill of the Thousand Nightingales,” and in the next instant it is darting past a brightly-painted palace; now it is with some difficulty urged forward against the eddying Sheitan Akindissi, or Devil’s Current, where the mad waves leap to its high and pointed prow; and now, as by some sudden spell, it is again gliding over a surface blue, and clear, and almost rippleless. Valleys, gay in their eternal greenery, are succeeded by steep and wooded hills; villages fringe the little bays, and villas crown the picturesque and fantastic heights; a double line of fortresses stud the shores from the castle of Mahomet to the entrance of the Black Sea; cemeteries, contrasting their white head-stones with the dark foliage of the cypresses by which they are overshadowed, lean on the hill-side, and stretch to the very edge of the channel; and between and among these objects, pass, in perpetual movement, the gilded galleys of the Sultan, the splendid barges of the ministers, the graceful caïques of the veiled beauties of the city, ships of war, Arab barks, quaint in their form and covering, merchant-brigs, and every description of small craft; now seeming, in the distance, to be plying among the trees by which the channel is overhung, and anon shaking out their white sails to meet the shifting wind, and bounding into the centre of the stream.

From the European side of the strait, immediately opposite the old Genoese Castle, the coup-d’œil is, perhaps, even more beautiful than on that of Asia, for the traveller commands from thence a scene of unparalleled variety, as he looks towards Constantinople. Far away, on the extreme right, cluster the domes and minarets of the hill-seated city, while the distant line is continued by the shores of Asia Minor, dominated by Mount Olympus, and sweeping the horizon until the eye is unable to follow them. At their base lies the sea of Marmora, looking calm and sunny like some inland lake; while the foreground of the picture is formed by the undulating banks and glorious channel of the Bosphorus—castled rocks, laughing valleys, bays, where the busy caïques come and go like aquatic birds over the ripple—and gay green woods, which change both in form and in colour as the fresh breeze sweeps through their leafy depths. Nor is it the least curious feature of the scene, that, as the boat of the wanderer dances upon the channel-wave, his ear catches the gay sounds of laughter, or the voices of his fellow-men, from both sides of the stream—alike from the shores of Europe and of Asia—and he feels himself to be, for the moment, a connecting link between two distinct portions of the earth!

From the time-worn ruins of the old Genoese Castle, the opposite shore is full of scenic interest. A succession of small fortresses, niched into the débouches of several of the low valleys at the base of the rocky chain, gleam out gay and white against the dark background of the mountains, and pretty villages, and overhanging groves, are mirrored in the blue waters of the channel.

Therapia and Buyukdèrè, (or the Great Bay,) however, deserve more especial mention, being the favourite summer residences of the European Ambassadors, and, consequently, the occasional focus of the Frank aristocracy. Both are beautifully situated: Buyukdèrè stands boldly near the very junction of the two seas, while Therapia is less exposed to the tempest-blasts of the “storm-vexed Euxine,” by occupying a station higher up the channel. It is backed by a richly-wooded hill, on which the houses of the upper town have, however, considerably and very picturesquely encroached. And here the English and French embassies, since the great fire of Pera, when the ambassadorial residences were destroyed, have entirely established themselves, only occasionally visiting the city; and hence the commerce of the place has become very respectable, and the appearance of its inhabitants acquired no slight tinge of the restlessness and business-like manner of their Frank visitors.

The lower town occupies the edge of a small bay, the point of land by which it is terminated standing out abruptly into the channel, as if for the mere purpose of effect, and a long terrace stretching away from its opposite face. On this terrace stand the two ambassadorial residences; the “Palace” of the English Legation being a small, half-ruinous, irregularly-gabled wooden building, without “mark or likelihood,” and that of France, by comparison, a handsome and spacious edifice, with a noble garden.

At Therapia the Sultan has both a summer-palace and a kiosque, each touching upon the channel. The former is a plain unpretending pile, looking extremely like a manufactory, scantily furnished, and but rarely visited by its Imperial owner; but the grounds attached to it are most magnificent, and extend over three leagues of land, the whole of which is enclosed by high walls. The ornamental timber is of the rarest and finest description, and the entire face of the height behind the palace is thickly and richly wooded, while fountains, kiosques, and terraces, abound. These gardens are generally visited on horseback, in consequence of their great extent; and nothing can be more delicious on a sultry day, when the mountain-tops are steaming under the hot sunshine, than to loiter among the groves, or along the majestic avenues of these lordly grounds, with the leaves quivering above your head, and the long shadows lying dark and cool upon your path. The kiosque is an octagonal, brightly-painted, many-windowed retreat, commanding views on all sides of the Bosphorus and its shores, and overshadowed by a couple of very fine maple-trees. Buyukdèrè is altogether on a grander scale; backed by a noble meadow, gay and green, at whose extremity is seen the stately aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, it extends gracefully along the lip of the shore at the base of a sloping ridge, (the terminus of one of the branches of Mount Hæmus,) rich with vineyards and gardens. Its houses are light and handsome, fringing the channel for a considerable distance, and only parted from it by a stately terrace of immense length and breadth, the favourite promenade of the inhabitants.

Nothing can be more beautiful than the view from Buyukdèrè on a summer night, when the intense blue of the sky is reflected by the waves of the “ocean-stream,” which take a fringe of pearl as they heave themselves gently against the terrace, and then break away in light; while the moon, clear, and polished like a silver shield, floods earth and sea with lustre, and the stars tremble brightly about her, as though they were too glad for rest.

But the sublimity of a tempest from the same spot, as it rolls onward from the Euxine to the Bosphorus, mocks at description. Fold upon fold, shade upon shade, the dense vapour rolls along, wrapping itself about the hills, and draping them in darkness; the distance becomes blotted out—space is no longer a feature of the scene—and as the awe-inspiring storm-cloud spreads itself over every object, the hoarse voice of the blast sweeps onward with it, deepening its terrors; while, through the impenetrable gloom, in every lapse of the wind, the ear is deafened by the wild dash of the angry billows, as they chafe against the rocky barriers of the coast!

The nerves must be strong indeed which would not be shaken in such an hour, when standing on the Jouchi-Daghi, amid three storm-tossed seas, and under a sky freighted with terrors; a sail, perchance, labouring in the distance, tempest-shattered, but toiling on for life, revealed only at intervals as the fierce but transient lightning cuts like a fiery scymetar through the thick vapour, and lost at last, none can tell how nor where, amid the shrill requiem of the sea-birds.

Nor must the Giant’s Mountain itself be passed over in silence, claiming, as it does, the notice of the traveller, not more by its stateliness of outline, than by its romantic legend; both the one and the other being occasionally so enveloped in clouds, that it is difficult to determine the exact features of either.

This noble height is, during the summer months, a favourite resort of the Franks, who, fanned by the cool breezes from the Black Sea, and regaled by one of the finest views in nature, give pic-nic parties and dances under the shade of the trees, or in the neat wooden tenement appropriated to visitors, near the Tekiè, or Convent, which occupies its summit. The Dervishes who inhabit this mountain-hermitage derive no inconsiderable portion of their revenue from the presents tendered by their guests, and willingly show to the stranger their small but well-kept chapel, and the grave of their gigantic hero, who has given his name to the spot; and with the most devout and solemn simplicity, the narrow oblong enclosure, thickly planted with rose and jasmine-trees, called the “Giant’s Grave,” is then pointed out by the simple recluses. It is about fifty feet in length, guarded with the most religious care, lighted by a lamp which is constantly kept burning in one of the alcoves, and rich in propitiatory offerings of strips of cloth, and rags of every tint and texture.

The Musselmauns affirm that the “illustrious dead” was a Dervish, whose sanctity equalled his stature; a belief which does him infinite honour, as he is said to have seated himself on the summit of the mountain, while he bathed his feet in the cool waters of Buyukdèrè. His mode of interment must, consequently, have been similar to the planting of a flag-staff, as the grave is not too long to admit the breadth of his shoulders; and this perpendicular burial can alone account for its comparatively pigmy dimensions—unless, indeed, the mountain is hallowed only by containing a mere fragment of his remains. His history, and the epoch in which he flourished, are alike unknown; but as his sanctity is undoubted, they are minor facts, unworthy of analysis.

Such is the Mahommedan tradition; that of the Christians, if quite as apocryphal, is at least much more poetical.

Their legend saith, that the grave of the Jouchi-Daghi contains the bones of a huge and ferocious giant, to whom the Symplegades were thralled vassals; and who, from his station on the mountain-crest, watched the approach of every vessel that ventured to brave the billows of the Euxine. It was at his beck that the subject-islands wandered over the waters, and crushed between their rocky sides all those unwary barks which, tempted by the vision of a new El Dorado beyond the channel, sought to force the passage of the Bosphorus. It was he also, who, fearful lest any daring vessel might escape through the rocky barrier during his transient and infrequent slumber, created that swift and dangerous reaction of the tide midway of the channel, well known as the “Devil’s Current;” while he is likewise accused of devouring drowning mariners, conjuring up tempests, and of having tinged the waters of the Black Sea by performing his ablutions in its polluted bosom!

Such is the legend of the Jouchi-Daghi, and such the glorious scene spread out beneath it.

THE PALACE OF BELISARIUS.

The ruin known by the name of the Palace of Belisarius, is situated at an angle of the city walls; and, according to the authority of the learned Constantius, Archbishop of Senaï, and Ex-Patriarch of Constantinople, (still in exile for his work on the Antiquities of Byzantium,) it was one of the Imperial residences of the first Constantine; and he asserts, that it owes its present designation to the fact of its being placed in a quarter of the city called Balata, a corruption of Balati, or the Gate of the Palace, which has gradually grown, from the hasty and undigested impressions of Frank travellers, into the Palace of Belisarius. There are the remains of a lofty and handsome gate-way, and the disposition of the masonry is highly extolled by architects; but to the mere tourist, the ruined Palace of Constantine, reft of its old-world associations, is possessed of little interest; and that little is absolutely negatived by the price which he is compelled to pay for a visit to its neighbourhood. To all oriental travellers it will be sufficient to state that the building has been given up to the Jews as a pauper-hospital, for them to understand at once that it is almost unapproachable, being the head-quarters of filth, and the hotbed of pestilence, where every sense is pained by scents and sights calculated to inspire dread and disgust.

Masses of the fallen masonry cumber the foundations of the ruin, and every niche is alive with its noisome tenant; here it is a sallow and fleshless crone, whose lean and shrivelled hands can with difficulty disengage themselves from the filthy rags which are wrapped about her, in order to stretch themselves supplicatingly towards the stranger; while her cracked voice screams out in doggrel Spanish a petition for relief, as servile as it is eager; there it is a reckless child, with the marked features of its race, rolling naked under the hot sunshine, and gambolling with the wretched and half-starved dogs of the miserable colony. On one side the visitor is jostled by disease, and on the other persecuted by importunity; while a number of wretched houses have grown up about the ruin, whose dilapidated roofs, shattered lattices, and windows stuffed with rags and grass to exclude the weather, are in melancholy keeping with their inhabitants.

Under these circumstances it will readily be believed that a visit to the desecrated palace of Constantine requires a painful effort on the part of an European traveller, whose eyes are taxed with the contemplation and contact of the most nauseous objects; and whose sympathies cannot fail to be excited by a congregated misery which he must feel his utter incapacity to relieve. Nor can the most determined antiquary hope to discover any relic of old to repay him for even an hour’s sojourn within the ruin, when he remembers that it is thickly tenanted by a horde of necessitous and keen-witted Hebrews, who are familiar with every recess of the dilapidated edifice.

From afar off the crumbling pile is a noble and majestic object, but, like many and more familiar things, it will not bear a nearer contact without losing all its best attributes. Close beside it the common sewers of the city empty themselves into the port; and, altogether, it may well be said, in the words of Shakspeare—

THE SERAGLIO POINT.

The Seraglio Point has been so often described in this volume, that it is merely necessary to introduce the present beautiful sketch, by explaining that it is taken from a height, and, consequently, compresses and embraces a greater number of objects than have yet been introduced into one view of this celebrated spot. The Seraï Bournou is more fully revealed, with its clustering domes and kiosques; St. Sophia lords it more majestically over the Seven Hills; and the glimpse of the harbour is shut in by a portion of one of the quaintly-fashioned houses so peculiar to the locality. In the distance rises Mount Olympus, pale with its eternal snows; with one fantastic rock looming out of the blue waters immediately beneath it, like a huge marine monster sleeping under the still sunshine. To the left, still stretching along the same line of coast, cluster the nest of islets, once known as the “Demon Islands,” and said to have been haunted by a foul spirit; who, however, it may be presumed—

as three holy houses have been erected within their limits, and a royal lady sheltered there safely for many days to elude a hated and infidel suitor; whence these pleasant retreats have since been more invitingly christened the “Princess’ Islands;” and they are now a place of great resort with the holiday-loving Greeks, during the summer months. On the extreme left lies Scutari, with its noble and palace-like barrack and mosque, over which the rock-seated Guz-couli, rising up amid the waters, seems to be standing sentinel; while the narrow stretch of land, running in a direct line into the sea, is occupied by the poor dingy little Greek town of Cadi Küi, which is built upon the site of the ancient Chalcedon—called, in derision, the “City of the Blind,” in contempt for the wretched taste and narrow policy of the Greeks, who founded it several years before they took possession of the superior position occupied by the present capital.

Add to these several and enduring features of the scene, the constant passage of hundreds of swift and arrow-like caïques, of fleets of merchantmen of all lands, of the high-prowed and classical Arabian barks, and, occasionally, the stately ships of war, with their blood-red flag glittering with a silver crescent, gracefully making their way to their moorings off the palace of Beshik-Tash—and the artist will readily be forgiven, though he should have multiplied his memories of so glorious a spectacle.

YENIKEUIJ.

There are few prettier villages on the Bosphorus than Yenikeuij, which is situated on the European shore, within two miles of Therapia. The houses, in numerous instances, overhang the sea; and the beating of the waves against the narrow terraces, as the rapid current forces them onward, keeps up a constant murmur, which, in the hot months, is extremely refreshing. The heights above the hamlet are profusely wooded; and many wealthy Armenian Sarafs and Greek merchants have their maisons de plaisance among them.

The largest mansion in the village was built by the celebrated and unfortunate Dooz Oglou, the great banker and diplomatist, and one of the most talented, as well as the wealthiest Armenian in Turkey. When high in favour with the Sultan, he purchased a small kiosque at Yenikeuï, and formed so great an attachment to the locality, that he determined on erecting there a residence worthy of his princely fortunes. This spacious palace—for, although, as is common in the country, the building is almost entirely composed of wood, it cannot be consistently called by any other name—presents a comparatively insignificant façade to the water; but occupies the whole line from thence to the foot of the height, and traverses the public street of the village by a covered bridge, which is occupied by a wide gallery leading to the dining saloon.

To obtain sufficient space for the erection of this noble dwelling, and the formation of the grounds about it, Dooz Oglou purchased no less than five and thirty houses, for which he paid, in every instance, several hundred piastres beyond the demand of their owner; and once established, he filled his spacious apartments with costly furniture, and all the luxuries which unbounded wealth and a fine taste could command. Alas! he was but gilding his own ruin, and lavishing his resources upon a pile which was not even destined to be his monument. This outlay awoke the cupidity of the Ottoman court, which was at that period much more venal than it is at present, and his ostentation alarmed its vanity; he was accused of usury, or treason, or both—for the nature of his crime was never very clearly defined—his property was confiscated, and he was hanged upon his own threshold, from a staple driven into the wood-work of the gate opening upon the seaward terrace. The mansion at Yenikeuï was subsequently presented by the Sultan to Nicholas Aristarchi, the present Logotheti,⁠[35] by whom it is inhabited during the summer.

Yenikeuï is also remarkable as being one of the three hamlets in which the Greek “Festival of Fire,” instituted in commemoration of the second capture of Constantinople by the Cæsars, is still permitted to be held. This singular ceremony was formerly common in all the Greek villages, and even in that quarter of the capital itself in which that nation reside; but the privilege of promiscuous illumination has been withdrawn, owing to the great risk of conflagration to which it subjected the city; and the festival is now held only at Yenikeuï, Therapia, and Buyukdèrè.

Artificial islands, formed of hurdles, and heaped with inflammable matter, are formed in the bay—caïques, saturated with bitumen, are moored off the shore—and lines of bonfires are raised along the coast, linking the three hamlets together—all of which are simultaneously ignited at a given signal, and the effect is awfully grand and impressive. The dim outline of the Asian hills is suddenly revealed, as by the touch of an enchanter’s wand, and seems to be traced in gold; the ripple of the channel dances along like sparks of fire; while around, and on every side, are to be seen groups of people in their holiday-dresses, seated upon mats and carpets, enjoying the extraordinary spectacle.

But, perhaps, the most novel feature of the entertainment is presented by a crowd of men, partially clad in white cotton, their shaven heads bare, and their arms tossing wildly in the air; who, with shrieks and yells, which are sullenly thrown back by the rocky heights above them, at one time feed the fires that are floating in the bay, above their waists in water; and at others, joining hands, dance in a fantastic circle round their flaming islands. Meanwhile, servants are flitting here and there, holding paper lanterns, and guiding the different parties of revellers to the houses of their respective friends; while the channel is alive with caïques, each with a light at its prow, and freighted with mirth and music.

These wild sports continue for hours, until the fuel and the energies of the assistants are alike exhausted, when the fires gradually die away; though the pale light of morning not unfrequently breaks above many a homeward-bound caïque, ere it is safely moored beside the terrace of its owner.

DOLMA-BATCHÈ, FROM THE GRAND CHAMPS DES MORTS.

Dolma-Batchè, or the Valley of the Gourds, is a fair and fertile spot, situated between Top-hannè and Beshik-Tash, and partially occupied by an Imperial residence, seated on the lip of the channel, along which its gilded terraces stretch for a considerable distance, and are succeeded by the Palace itself, gay with paint and bright with gold, which, in turn, yields its place to groves and kiosques overhanging the water; while its spacious gardens and pleasure-grounds, jealously walled in for the use of the ladies of the Imperial Harem, fill a large portion of the valley. Beyond these guarded precincts the ground gradually rises, rich with vegetation; while clusters of fruit-trees overshadow the gourds for which the spot is famous, and the bright patches of Indian corn that are scattered on all sides.

The spot chosen by the artist to give a glimpse of this lovely valley, is one which is much frequented by the Turks: it is a height at the extremity of the beautiful Necropolis of Pera, whence the land suddenly takes a downward slope, and descends to the edge of the Bosphorus, covered with foliage; the almond-tree mingling its bright sunny green with the dense hues of the cypress, and the apple-blossom laughing out in its pure beauty beside the overshadowing and majestic maple. The cemetery itself is very picturesque, occupying a portion of this same slope, where it descends less abruptly to the sea; and then stretching away like a dark fringe along the edge of the height for a considerable distance, in the direction of Pera.

The Turks have a singular tradition attached to this burial-place, of which mention must not be omitted. They believe that, on particular anniversaries, sparks of fire exude from the graves, and lose themselves among the boughs of the cypresses by which they are overshadowed; an idea so eminently poetical, that it induces a disinclination to canvass its rationality.

A wooden kiosque occupies the crest of the hill immediately above the valley, and is a favourite resort with all classes of people who can afford to enjoy an hour’s leisure in the balmy season, and to indulge themselves in the contemplation of one of the loveliest spots on the Bosphorus. The Cafejhi, by whom it is tenanted, not only provides the everlasting coffee, and the eternal chibouque, but also adds a low wicker stool for the accommodation of his visitor, which enables him to select his own favourite spot beneath the sheltering branches of the trees planted about the kiosque; and to feast his vision with the fair scene, whose blended beauties can gain no single charm from mere verbal description with which they have not already been embued by the pencil of Mr. Bartlett.

A BENDT IN THE FOREST OF BELGRADE.

The village of Belgrade, formerly called Beil-Gorod, (a word signifying, in the Sclavonian language, White Fortress,) is situated at the termination of the Great Bendt, or Reservoir, which forms the subject of the accompanying sketch. Nothing can exceed in beauty the situation of this mountain-hamlet, nestled in a green valley bright with turf and flowers, and traversed by a sparkling stream, which, after winding gracefully for two or three miles through the plain, finally empties itself into the Bendt.

The heights by which the valley is encompassed are a portion of the chain of the Lower Balcan, and are, in this immediate neighbourhood, richly clothed with stately forests of chestnut, maple, oak, and other noble timber; while the glen itself is studded with groups of beech-trees, whose soft and fantastic outlines cut gracefully against the sunny sky, and whose flexile and leafy branches throw their long and refreshing shadows across the grass, and the dancing ripple of the pigmy river.

But Belgrade, beautiful as it undoubtedly is, is nevertheless much changed since the year 1717, when the talented Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, courting its shades in the sultry month of June, thus wrote to the immortal bard of Twickenham.

“The heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields. I am in the middle of a wood, consisting chiefly of fruit-trees, watered by a vast number of fountains famous for the excellency of their water, and divided into many shady walks, upon short grass, that seems to me artificial, but, I am assured, is the pure work of nature, and within view of the Black Sea, from whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes, that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The village is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain, forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters.”⁠[36]⁠

When the fair and gifted Ambassadress sketched this beautiful picture of the spot, she must have been, as she herself expresses it, “in the middle of a wood;” for, until the summer of 1823, the Valley of Belgrade was rich in chestnut, beech, oak, walnut, lime-trees, plantains, and every description of forest timber; but, unfortunately for the lover of “the gay green wood,” the recesses of Belgrade became at that period the retreat of parties of the scattered Janissaries, who had escaped during the massacre; and who, carrying along with them all the surviving rabble of the city who had espoused their cause, and sided with them during the carnage, divided themselves between the forest of Belgrade and the heights of Moudania; the more active passing over into Asia Minor, and infesting the mountains as far as Broussa; and the less far-seeing, concealing themselves in the dense woods bordering the Black Sea. Here the wretched men subsisted for a time on fruits and herbs; but, despairing of brighter fortune, they soon became desperate, and sallying forth upon every chance traveller, in parties of eight or ten, as they had associated themselves, they constantly robbed, and occasionally murdered, until the roads were considered to be impassable. Various, and even strenuous efforts were made by the government to capture or disperse them, but as they amounted to some hundreds, they set at defiance both the soldiery and the police; and although an occasional straggler was captured by the troops, summarily strangled, and his body flung by the wayside for the purpose of terrifying his comrades into submission, no effect was produced; until the Sultan, irritated and wearied by their prolonged enormities, decided on setting fire to the forest, and thus destroying their stronghold. This expedient was accordingly adopted; the woods were ignited in several directions, and a military cordon established on the heights, with strict orders to fire upon every individual who attempted to escape. Could the mind have been freed from the consciousness that the fierce flames were serving as the ministers of a painful and relentless death, the scene would have been surpassingly magnificent!

The primeval forest which had stood tall and dark upon the earth in solemn grandeur for centuries, challenging the antiquity of the hoary heights beyond, and excluding from its mysterious depths the brightness of the stars; defying the glorious day-beam which failed to penetrate its wild recesses, and concealing amid its trackless wilderness a thousand things of life, became suddenly girdled with fire—the tall trees shivered, crackled, swayed, leant towards each other as the tongues of flame bound them in one apparently solid mass—stood out for an instant, charred and leafless against the sky, as the scared ocean-wind struggled for a brief interval with its rival element—and then fell with a crash that woke the caverned echoes of Asia, while the leaping waves that chafed against the bleak Symplegades, caught, the deep tint, and turned the sea to gold; and the majestic aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, above the valley, lost for a time its snowy tint, and seemed to be formed of sculptured ore.

The ruin wrought bravely. Belgrade was girt with fire; the flames extended for several square miles, and ere many hours elapsed, all was desolation; while, (meet accompaniment for such a scene!) the constant report of musquetry was blent with the shrieks of human agony, and the deep groan of human suffering filled up the horrid diapason. Of all who had been sheltered by the forest of Belgrade, it was believed that not one escaped with life. Most of the fugitives fell beneath the bullets of the soldiery; while a few, strong and stern even in extremity, disdained to fly merely to exchange a death of suffering for a prompter end at the hands of their exulting victors; and thus they perished in their silent fortitude, with the forest-trees amid which they had been so long hidden.

The Bendts, or Tanks, are of classic origin, having been formed by the Greek Emperors when Byzantium became a second Rome, and the necessities of an increasing population rendered it imperative on their rulers to secure to the growing city a sure and sufficient supply of water. They were constructed with considerable ingenuity, extreme care, and great cost; and their preservation was anxiously insured by repeated edicts, several of which are still in the Imperial Library of the Eski-Seraï, insisting strongly upon their immense utility, regulating the planting of the trees by which they were to be surrounded, and prohibiting, under pain of the Imperial displeasure, and a heavy fine, the abstraction of water by any individual whomsoever; every such offender being compelled, upon detection, to pay a pound of gold for each ounce weight of water!

All the rills which trickle through the valley have been directed to one point, and now unite in a stream of considerable volume, which flows between two hills, and finally empties itself into the Great Bendt; while, in every instance where a similar arrangement is feasible in this region of springs and moisture, another of these mountain-reservoirs, smaller in size, but equally perfect in construction, will repay the search of the traveller.

The Suy-Terrasi, by whose means the water is now conveyed on a summit level, were described earlier in the work; and their effect, scattered for miles over the face of the country, from the Black Sea to Pera, is extremely singular, setting all the conjectures of the uninitiated at defiance. These were invented at a later period by the Turks themselves, in order to avoid the enormous outlay necessary to the erection of Aqueducts; but they were not allowed, nevertheless, to supersede them altogether—a fact which must gratify every lover of the picturesque, as he gazes on the majestic Aqueduct of Validè, which is flung across the fair valley of Buyukdèrè, terminating the vista as seen from the Bosphorus, and linking the heights with a range of snowy arches.

Another, of more vast, but, perhaps, less graceful proportions, and certainly less happily situated, is that of Solyman, near Pyrgo, of which a sketch has been already given. It dominates a valley one thousand six hundred feet in width, is formed by a double range of fifty arches, and is of very imposing appearance, and constructed with great solidity.

The Aqueduct of Valens is one of the most striking objects that meets the eye of the stranger, as he gazes enraptured on the far-famed city of the Bosphorus. Dark, and hoar, and massy, it links two of the seven hills, and spans the peopled valley with a giant grasp; in strong contrast to the gaiety and glitter of the marble mosques, and party-coloured houses. Festoons of the graceful wild-vine, and the scented honeysuckle, drapery its mouldering masonry; masses of the caper-plant, with its beautiful blossoms, conceal the ravages of time; lichens trail among its arches; and a variety of stone plants, fed by the moisture which is continually oozing through the interstices of the building, flourish in picturesque luxuriance, and lend a glory to its decay. Historians allude to several other Aqueducts, which they assert to have had existence in Constantinople, but no trace now remains within the walls of the city of any, save this; and its origin is thus curiously accounted for by a modern traveller.

“The Emperor, incensed at the conduct of the people of Chalcedon, who had favoured the party of Procopius, ordered their walls to be pulled down. Among the stones was found one with an oracular inscription, implying that ‘the walls of Chalcedon would bring a great supply of water to the city;’ and, to complete the prophecy, Valens erected his Aqueduct with the materials.”⁠[37]⁠

It is impossible to calculate how often this venerable ruin must have overlooked a scene of flame and terror; in 1836, the streets by which it is surrounded were levelled by an extensive conflagration, that lit up the sky of midnight with a wild and lurid gleam, and turned the ripple of the channel into liquid metal. Every object within the harbour was as visible as at noonday, but wore a spectral brightness never to be forgotten by those who witnessed the grand and imposing spectacle; the dark hulls of the shipping seemed to float upon a sea of molten lead, while the delicate tracery of the cordage appeared to be hanging in links of gold from mast to mast. The dome of St. Sophia glowed like a huge carbuncle; and the slender minarets stood out like silver wands from an atmosphere of brass; while the rigid cypresses, whose dense foliage flung back the unnatural brightness as if in mockery, loomed darkly on the eye like the presiding forms of destroying demons overlooking their work of devastation.

Amid all this ruin, the Aqueduct of Valens remained unscathed. Some portions of its leafy coronal, parched by the intense heat, hung on the morrow, scorched and blighted; but the hoary remnant of by-gone centuries still soared proudly above the prostrate city at its feet, and received as incense the smoke of its destruction.

No single inscription can now be traced on any portion of the work; not a lettered stone has ever repaid the search of the curious, or rewarded the labour of the antiquary; and the tradition cited by Dr. Walsh is said to be the only record of its date, or of its founder. To the picturesque traveller, the Aqueduct of Valens will, however, require no historical interest to lend it value; as of all the antiquities of Constantinople, none form so prominent a feature in the landscape, or tend so greatly to contrast their classic and graceful shadowing with the broad lights and vivid colouring of the remainder of the picture.

Many others exist without the city, but all more or less in a state of decay; the Turks, by an unaccountable fatality, neglecting their aqueducts and cisterns, while they are rigorously strict on the subject of the Bendts; planting the embankments; and condemning to severe penalties, not only the “drawers of water,” but also the “hewers of wood,” who may be rash enough to exercise their vocation within the guarded precincts.

The cisterns of the city are, in many instances, merely immense tanks, or wells, excavated beneath the houses, and intended to act as reservoirs for rainwater; but these are far from being the most important; four vast subterraneans being yet in existence, which were the work of the Greek Emperors, and which were formerly supplied by aqueducts from the waters of the Bendts. One of them, called by the Turks Ben-Veber-Direg, is supported by three hundred and thirty-six pillars of rough marble; and is known as the “Thousand and One,” because the separate blocks employed in forming the columns are said to amount to that mystic number; but in the time of the Romans this cistern enjoyed the appellation of the “Stranger’s Friend,” being a public reservoir, of which every comer might claim his share. The tank was computed to contain one million two hundred and thirty-seven thousand, nine hundred and thirty-nine cubic feet of water, and to suffice for the consumption of the whole city more than fifty days. It is now, however, perfectly dry, and filled with earth to one-third the height of the columns; and is the damp and unwholesome resort of a score or two of silk-twisters, who ply their rapid wheels beneath its hoary and time-tinted arches. Tradition says that the water-courses were diverted from this reservoir by order of the Emperor, who, when digging the foundations of Saint Sophia, caused all the soil to be flung into the cistern, rather than submit to the delay necessary to its transport beyond the walls of the city. The channel worn in the stone by the water that once flowed into it, is distinguishable on three different sides of the reservoir, which is lighted by narrow grated windows, level with the street; and the loud clamours of the silk-twisters, as they besiege the visitor for backschish, (Anglicè money,) prolonged by the dull and distant echoes of the vaulted recesses, die away with a sound so hollow and supernatural as to induce a momentary belief that no human being could have given them utterance.

A second and smaller tank, known only as the Boudroum, or Subterranean, is situated in the same quarter of the city, not ten minutes’ walk from Bin-Veber-Direg; and, although of lesser dimensions, is infinitely handsomer; the columns being at least three times the circumference of those in the other cisterns, uncovered to their base, and composed of a single block. Two only of the pillars are imperfect, and the coup-d’œil from midway of the stone stair which leads into the vault is most imposing. Here, not a sound breaks the deep and dreary silence; for, although this reservoir is tenanted during the day like the other, the squalid and miserable objects who frequent it, and who earn a scanty and painful subsistence by spinning cotton, are too much enervated by the clammy and unwholesome atmosphere of the place to have any strength to lavish upon supplication; nor, indeed, to the humane traveller who may chance to visit their gloomy work-room would supplication be necessary, for one glance at their pallid and livid faces, and their bent and attenuated bodies, must be more effective than any words, whatever were the tale of wretchedness those words might tell.

But there yet remains one subterranean beneath the city streets which has not been entirely diverted from its original purpose; the most vast and impressive, the most dim and mysterious of all; and one which has defied alike the power of time, and the curiosity of a newer and less glorious generation—the far-spreading and extraordinary Hall of Waters, known by the Turks as the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï, or Swallowed-up Palace. The roof of this immense cistern is supported, like that of Bin-Veber-Direg, by marble columns, distant about ten feet from each other, each formed from a single block, with elaborately wrought capitals, and, in some instances, entirely covered throughout the whole length of the shaft with sculptured ornaments in high relief to the level of the water, which varies in depth according to the season, from five to fifteen feet.

The spot whence the traveller looks through the gloomy arches of the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï, is not a regularly constructed entrance to the vault, (nor is it known if such an one really exists,) but an opening, formed by the failure of several of the pillars, which, yielding to the superincumbent weight, have caused the roof to fall in, and thus revealed the watery waste beneath. Nor does any boat now offer the means of penetrating the wilderness of columns: so many accidents having occurred through the rashness of strangers who could not be prevailed upon to forego the gratification of their perilous curiosity, and their desire of ascertaining the size of the subterranean—a fact hitherto undetermined—that the little bark was removed; and the traveller is, consequently, fain to rest satisfied with the view of this extraordinary structure which he commands from the ruined aperture.

The artist has embodied in his drawing a melancholy incident, which took place only a few years back, in this singular spot. He has shadowed forth the adventure of a young, spirited, high-hearted Englishman, who, on his visit to the vault, was so excited by the wild mystery of the place—its undefined limits, its deep silence, its dim majesty, and the desire of being the first to discover its extent, that he resolved to put forth alone in a small boat, which at that period was moored beside one of the columns.

Vain were all the expostulations of the worthy old Effendi, in the garden of whose house the accidental revelation of the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï had taken place; vain were the examples of previous failure repeated to the reckless adventurer by his anxious dragoman;⁠[38] equally vain the threats of foul air, imaginary Afrits, and visionary dangers, marshalled in long array before him;—when did an Englishman ever yield to such arguments? He laughed at the terrors of his companions, and declared his determination to explore the subterranean. What was it but a cistern—the work of men’s hands? and would they weakly endeavour to persuade him that he could not achieve his purpose? Opposition did but render him the more resolved; and such was the power of his excited eloquence, that he almost persuaded his hearers of the certainty of his success; he did all, indeed, save engage them to become his partners in the attempt: and when they had furnished him with the torches of bitumen which were to light him on his way, and that he had gaily pushed off his little bark, laughing at the pusillanimity of those who stood to witness his departure, until the echoes of his reckless mirth rang through the dim arches, and died away in hollow mutterings deep in the distance; they flung themselves down upon the earth on their soft mats, and prepared their chibouques, with a strong faith in the success of his hardy adventure.

Gradually a crowd, to whom the bold attempt of the young Frank had been whispered, stole one by one into the garden of the Effendi, and clustered about the cistern. At times they fancied that they distinguished strange sounds sweeping through the subterranean, and mingling with the fall of the large drops which gathered on the vaulted roofs, grew into size and weight, and then plashed heavily on the broad sheet of water beneath; at others, some one among them, deceived by a sun-glint shimmering through the leaves of the noble trees of the garden, and reflected in the still basin, proclaimed the return of the boat, and the flashing of the torch; but the boat came not. Hours passed away, and the watchers wearied at their post; expectation became weakened; hope waxed fainter and fainter; the brief twilight softened for a short interval the face of nature; and then down fell the darkness, glooming athwart the net-work of the silvery stars that were woven over the deep blue of the tranquil heavens.

A low whisper grew audible among the awe-struck group: their watch had endured long; it was now almost unavailing—the reckless Infidel had met his fate! Each went to his home, and told the tale in his harem; and many a fair cheek paled, and many a bright eye grew dim with tears that night, in the city of the Moslem.

Morning came—bright, rosy, laughing morning—and all was fair, and gay, and sunny, in that happy clime; and as the watchers resumed their station upon the brink of the subterranean, each turned a long searching gaze into its depths: but they looked in vain—the boat and its doomed freight never appeared again!

The brain grows dizzy as it attempts to follow in idea the mysterious progress of the fated wanderer over those mysterious waters! Rapid was the splash of his oar as the little bark bounded away; the torch-light flashed broadly upon the gleaming columns of the vault, and were cast back from the marble far over the rippleless sheet beneath; his reckless laughter made wild music until it was lost in the distance, and that he could no longer distinguish the anxious group whom he had left behind; and then—then—all was still, and dark, and solitary about him! Above, dome succeeded dome; around, column rose beside column; beneath, far as the eye could penetrate the gloom, the still, waveless water spread itself out, to the right and to the left, before and behind—the same wild, stern, chilling monotony reigned throughout the subterranean!

For a time, perchance, he rowed on in a straight line—his watery path could thus be easily retraced—and still the vista lengthened as he went. Hours crept slowly by, and his vigorous arm relaxed somewhat of its strength; and the atmosphere grew dense, and engendered strange vapours, which pressed upon his brain, and induced a languor that caused him to draw in his oars, and ruminate for a while upon the scene around him. The torch had grown more feeble in its effects, and the shadowy darkness of the vaulted aisles by which he was encompassed on all sides pressed more closely upon him, and he strained his eye-balls to look deeper into their black depths! His breathing, too, became impeded; and the hand was less firm than its wont, which loosened the kerchief about his neck: while in the act of doing so, he suffered the little boat to swing round, and at once became conscious that he no longer recognised the avenue by which he had entered the vault.

As the frightful truth flashed upon him, he again seized the oars with the impulse of despair, and laboured until big drops of moisture rolled down his clammy brow, and every nerve quivered; but what availed his toil? He knew not in what direction he was advancing—whether he were indeed returning to his friends, and to that world which he had so rashly abandoned; or only plunging further into the mysterious subterranean.

Meanwhile, who can doubt that the fœtid and unwholesome atmosphere was slowly and surely doing its work, and that the high heart sank gradually, sickening beneath the horrors of this living death—the victim sitting motionless for a time to ascertain whether the slightest under-current from some hidden spring might not give a faint impetus to the boat, and thus afford a hope of escape; and learning, as the still caïque lay like a log upon the water, that there was no hope! And then the doomed one laughed—laughed long and loudly, until the echoes of that unnatural mirth were cast back in mockery upon the idiot who had given it voice; and ten thousand gibbering fiends seemed to be coining it into foul and bitter words, and bandying them to and fro with fierce and wanton industry! Then came clouds of dusky and unnatural forms, woven out of the darkness, pressing upon each other to board the little boat, and to overset it—and then he shrieked as the icy waters rose to his chin, and he gasped for breath—when suddenly he was saved, he knew not how; and he lay on the fresh greensward of a sweet meadow near his old ancestral home, with his head on his mother’s lap, and a fair girl bending over him, and singing in a low soft voice, to which his ear had been long familiar, a simple ballad, which he had loved from his boyhood; and he listened long, until at length he dropped asleep to that fond familiar music.

He awoke once more—awoke to madness and despair! He remembered all—all! and his brain failed beneath the horrors of the retrospect! He was again a maniac; and in his first fierce paroxysm, he dashed the still burning torch into the hissing waters, and the darkness fell upon him—crushed him—pressed upon his heart, and upon his throat—and who shall say how that wild tragedy was terminated?

Other, but more prudent attempts have since been made, but, as yet, no determined limits have been assigned to the Yèrè-Batan-Seraï; in three other directions the roof has failed, but these have occurred in such distant quarters of the city, that far from resolving to the curious the question of its extent, they have only been enabled to arrive at the fact, that it stretches under a great portion of Constantinople, and even beyond its walls; and that the same apparently endless avenues of arches, multiplied, ad infinitum, on the right and left, stretch in dim, mysterious, monotonous, and chilling silence beneath the crowded streets of a busy capital—canopied by darkness, while all is light above—and yawning like a vast sepulchre to receive the load of human life and human treasure, which time must ultimately hurl in one huge ruin into its greedy depths!

The Yèrè-Batan-Seraï is, without any exception, the noblest remain of Roman intellect and industry in Constantinople.

MOSQUE OF SULTAN BAJAZET.

The Mosque of Sultan Bajazet is situated in the angle of a large open area, known as the “Square of the Seraskier,” from the circumstance that his palace, or rather its extensive court, forms another side of the enclosure; its large and lofty projecting gate, elaborately wrought and fretted with gold, and surmounted by a dome crowned with an immense gilded star, being, perhaps, the most oriental feature of the scene.

The Mosque of Bajazet is built in the immediate neighbourhood of the great Tcharchi, or Bazār, and hence the square is constantly thronged with merchants, traders, and strangers, passing to and from this vast commercial mart; while groups of khamals, or street-porters, lounge on every side with their baskets, waiting to be hired by such visitors to the Tcharchi as chance to make purchases. Numbers of Greek and Armenian mahalibè⁠[39] and yahourt⁠[40] merchants are also perpetually to be seen; the first with their dainty fare temptingly set forth upon fine linen cloths, and protected from the sun by huge white umbrellas, looking like gigantic mushrooms; and the others, wandering from side to side, balancing the large wooden scales on which the small basins of red clay, containing the yahourt, are arranged with extreme care and cleanliness; while, at intervals, the water-venders cross the path, with their classically-moulded earthen pitchers on their shoulders, and their capacious goblets of crystal, carried on a narrow tray attached to the leathern girdle about their waists; giving out, as they move along, the low, plaintive, and by no means unmusical cry peculiar to their calling; and exerting a very successful rivalry with the sherbetjhes, who plant their portable fountains under the cool shadows of some lofty wall, and invite customers by the fairy chime of the metal bells which the flow of the beverage keeps in perpetual play.

Occasionally, a detachment of the Seraskier’s guard pass into the square, and after having demurely walked their horses from beneath the august kapousi, or gate, suddenly break into a brisker pace as they speed on their errand, scattering the lounging populace to the right and left, as their eager horses bound from the stroke of the iron stirrup. And well may they hasten on their way, for those errands frequently involve a question of life and death; all criminals taken in flagrante delicto within the precincts of the city being first committed to the prisons of the Seraskier, whence the tidings of their crime and capture are transmitted to the Porte.

The portal of the Mosque is very beautiful, being elaborately wrought in the Saracenic taste, with those receding dentated arches which look as though they were formed by stalactites; and the battans of the gate itself being skilfully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in arabesques. Its exterior galleries are also very gracefully designed, and the form and fashion of its two slender minarets singularly pleasing.

The court of the Mosque is a favourite rendezvous with the merchants trading in the Tcharchi, who frequently retire for a time from their shops to smoke a chibouque beside the fountain, under the shadow of the maple-trees; or to complete there a bargain more legitimately commenced in the great mart itself; all commercial transactions of any extent being uniformly concluded over a pipe, or broken off with the same ceremony. Nor may it be uninteresting to remark, that, whenever a Turkish trader decides on retiring for an hour’s relaxation from the labours of his calling, he does not trouble himself to place his merchandise under lock and key, even in this extensive thoroughfare; but simply letting fall a tapestry curtain above the platform on which he is accustomed to sit and to display his wares, as a signal that he is away, he goes quietly to the coffee-kiosque without one misgiving as to the safety of his property, which is sacred during his absence; a trust in the public integrity which was never in any instance known to be violated.

But the most remarkable object in the vicinity, is decidedly the Yanguen Kiosque, or Fire-Tower, which occupies a portion of the palace court. It is of immense height, of a circular form, and entirely surrounded almost at its summit by windows, which command a view of every quarter of the city; the apartment from which they open being the head-quarters of the fire-guard, six of whom are constantly on duty day and night, relieving each other every second hour like military sentinels. At sunset, in order to counteract the feeling of weariness which grows upon the watchers as the darkness gathers about them, the individual on duty wears a pair of wooden slippers, with double heels, the lower of which beats against the floor by a spring at every step of the wearer, keeping up a perpetual noise quite sufficient to assist his efforts against sleep, although, when he resigns his watch, he throws himself down upon his mat, and slumbers in happy heedlessness of the dissonance.

On the first appearance of a fire, the sentinel gives the alarm to a second division of the guard, occupying the lower portion of the Tower; and having indicated the quarter of the city in which the conflagration has burst forth, he returns to his post, and leaves them to do their duty. This consists in summoning the firemen, who are a bold and hardy band (less judiciously trained, perhaps, than those of England, but yielding nothing to them in courage and perseverance)—in informing the authorities of the misfortune, when every Pasha within reach is compelled to repair to the spot, and to assist, by his counsels and exertions, in repairing or subduing the evil—and in warning the inhabitants of the city and suburbs of the impending catastrophe. This latter ceremony is performed by traversing the streets, armed with a long staff shod with iron, which is perpetually and violently struck against the rude pavement by the fireman, who having thus “murdered sleep,” next shouts at the pitch of his voice, “Yanguen var—There is a fire!” adding, an instant afterwards, “Scutari-a—Galata-a—Stamboul-da”—as the case may be; thus indicating to his anxious listeners the scene of terror, in order to enable those who have friends or property in that neighbourhood to speed to their rescue.

In a city of wood like Constantinople, where, save only the Mosques, the Khans, and the Tcharchi, there are very few buildings of stone, conflagrations are of frequent and almost continual occurrence, and scarcely a night passes in which the trembling Frank is not awakened by the hoarse cry of Yanguen var beneath his window; casements are hastily flung up; heads are anxiously protruded; and then there is a hurried tramp along the streets, as with swift step and labouring breath those hurry by who fear to be involved in the catastrophe; while others quietly return to court a renewal of the rest which has been so rudely broken, thanking Allah, or the Panagia,⁠[41] according to their several creeds, that their turn is not yet come!

Such is the use of the Fire-Tower, which, moreover, affords to the lover of nature an enjoyment probably unrivalled in the world, as from its immense height it commands a series of views, so varied and so magnificent, as almost to defy competition. Immediately beneath it lies the court of the Palace, with the noble dwelling of the Seraskier, the long range of grated prisons, and the green tents of the guard, forming a pigmy encampment; the dome and minarets of the Mosque of Bajazet appear beyond the walls, beside the clustering and far-reaching roofs of the Tcharchi; and this is, perhaps, the only point from which the traveller can form a just estimate of the immense extent of the far-famed Bazārs of Constantinople. But it is the distance—the stretch of sea and shore, of isle and mountain, of lake and forest, of light and shadow—the infinite variety, the surpassing majesty of nature in her brightest and most beautiful of garbs, which make the pulses bound, and the brow burn, as the traveller looks down and around him; awe-struck, spell-bound, and silent, drinking in deep draughts of loveliness, and seeming to revel in a new existence!

On one side, the city of Constantinople is spread out beneath him like a map; and he gazes on its thousand domes, and its five thousand minarets; its majestic maples dwindled into bushes; and its dark cypresses seeming like finger-posts indicating the scattered resting-places of the dead—upon its busy khans, its crowded Tcharchi, its luxurious palaces, and its gloomy prisons. The hand and mind of man are visible throughout, and human pride swells high during the contemplation of human power; but let the gazer move a few paces onward—only to the next window—and he will be instantly rebuked. There stretches away the sea of Marmora—the sunny Propontis—with its rocky islets, and its glittering waves, dancing beneath the bright blue sky; Mount Olympus, stately with its crown of snow and its mantle of vapour, perceptible on the verge of the horizon; and the glorious Bosphorus, winding between its rich and peopled shores, guiding his vision onward to the Sea of Storms. Another move, and the Golden Horn is before him; a thousand barks safely moored within its land-locked limits, pouring forth the riches of other lands, or lading with the treasures of this; the flag of many nations flying proudly at their masts, and the voices of many lands swelling upon the breeze. When his eye is sated, and his mind is satisfied with this spirit-stirring scene, a few feet onward he will find a spot whence he may repose his excited vision on the dark and arid rocks which enclose the lovely “Valley of the Sweet Waters;” the most delicious spot of earth that ever was cinctured by a mountain-girdle; and lose himself in fancy amid its woods and waters, the golden-latticed chambers of its summer-palace, and the veiled beauties who inhabit them.

Such is a faint outline of the majestic and varied scenes to be enjoyed at the expense of the fatigue attendant on mounting the three hundred and thirty steps of the Yanguen Kiosque—a physical exertion which is forgotten at the first glance from its dizzy height upon the fairy wonders of the surrounding objects; the busy breathing city—the sweet still valley—the ocean-channel, linking two quarters of the globe as with a silver string—and the wide sea, the unfathomable, trackless, mysterious sea, bounding the vision, where it blends in one deep, rich, purple tint, with the far horizon.

THE RIVEN TOWER, (NEAR THE TOP-KAPOUSI.)

This very remarkable object overhangs the fosse, or ditch, surrounding the city, and is one of the two hundred and eighteen towers surmounting the walls. It is a singular monument of the last siege, when it was stricken by one of the marble balls used by the Turks in their heavy pieces of ordnance; which it is supposed must have been partially spent ere it fell upon the tower, as although its weight rove it to the very earth, cleaving through the solid masonry, and forcing the two portions asunder, it failed to overthrow either; and there, after the lapse of centuries, still stands, or rather leans, the ruin, nodding over the moat like the remnant of some feudal castle, amid the wild fig-trees and luxuriant foliage which now choak up the ditch, fill every rift and chasm of the mouldering walls, and contend with the dense coating of ivy, lichens, and other creeping plants by which they are clothed. This striking monument of the fall of the Greek Empire stands near the Top-Kapousi, or “Gate of the Cannon,” and, consequently, not far from the spot where fell the last and bravest of the Paleologi; and beside it grows a splendid specimen of the Pistacia Terebinthus, of unusual size, whose bright leaves and scarlet berries are perfectly magnificent during the season.

Association is thus blent with natural beauty in wreathing about the Riven Tower a distinct and powerful interest for the imagination; while the extraordinary duration of the pile in so apparently insecure and threatening a state, when, to the eye, it seems as though the next gust of wind heaving its ivied drapery must inevitably prostrate it to the earth, cannot fail to attract the notice of the curious in gravitation, from whose law it appears to be so singularly exempt.

ISTENIA.

The beautiful little village of Istenia, called by the Greeks Mirgheun, and principally inhabited by that nation, is situated in one of the prettiest spots on the Bosphorus; although the opposite shore is rocky, sterile, and fantastically flung together; the edge of the water at the base of the dusky chain of hills, being, however, fringed with houses, and gay with trees.

The Moorish fountain, which forms the subject of the accompanying sketch, is of an extremely graceful character, and built of a marble whose whiteness is almost dazzling. It occupies the termination of the main street of the village, where it touches upon the channel; and is entirely overshadowed by the far-stretching branches of a glorious maple-tree, which after spreading its gay green canopy over the dome and richly-wrought roof of the fountain, finally mingles its leafy honours with those of two other trees of the same description, beneath whose shelter the cool wooden terraces of a couple of coffee-kiosques have been erected.

Crowds of caïques dance on the heaving current within twenty paces of the fountain; the transparent nets of the fishermen hang in festoons from the branches; veiled women come and go with their earthen vessels in quest of the pure water of the village spring; the gay sounds of the zebec ring out from the coffee-kiosques; the channel-wind, as it sweeps along the ripple, awakens the mysterious music of the leaves which overhang it; the white sails of the passing vessels glimmer in the sun-light—the fruit-merchants heap up their luscious stores in tempting profusion, ready to be conveyed in boats to the markets of the city—and the whole scene is so cool, so shady, and so still, that it is not wonderful that the nature-loving Orientals should have selected it as a village site, even in a land abounding with pleasant glens, and nooks teeming with loveliness.

The broad street, opening from the shore, climbs the hill behind it; its irregularly-gabled and many-coloured houses finally terminating in vineyards and olive-groves; while a mountain-stream, feeding the wheels of a mill, goes dancing in the light, now fully visible, and now buried beneath the dense vegetation upon its banks, until it throws itself into the Bosphorus. A very pretty, well-kept, and rather extensive garden, belonging to Achmet Pasha, occupies a portion of the height behind the village; and is succeeded by a small forest, where groups of Turkish and Greek ladies are constantly to be seen during the summer months, enjoying the dolce far niente so congenial to the climate; forming gipsy-parties under the trees, or sauntering slowly along beneath the dense shadows of the boughs, collecting the beautiful wild-flowers which abound in that pleasant place.

Many of the Greek merchants have their summer residences at Mirgheun; and there is, consequently, an air of cheerfulness imparted to the village by the freshly-painted houses of these gentlemen, which adds much to its attraction; while, in its immediate neighbourhood, the traveller will look upon the castle-fortress of Mahomet, with the peaceful little cemetery of Isari sleeping at its foot.

THE ARSENAL, (FROM PERA.)

The spot whence the artist has obtained his view of the Turkish Arsenal at Pieri Pasha, commands the harbour about midway, and, consequently, presents it to the eye under an essentially different character from that of any of his preceding sketches. The building itself terminates the long line of docks, warehouses, rope-walks, and workshops, appertaining to the Imperial establishment, which extends from Galata for a mile and a half along the lip of the water; and which, in whatever point of view it is considered, must be admitted to be highly creditable to the government. The wet docks are very ably constructed, and are enclosed within high walls of stone, whence a pair of noble gates open upon the harbour. The dry docks are also on a very magnificent scale, one of them (constructed by a French engineer) being nearly three hundred and fifty feet in length. The Tershana, or Admiralty, independently of its position, standing as it does upon a point of land projecting into the harbour, is in itself a very pleasing object; it is in the Russian taste, gaily and carefully painted, and has a noble entrance. It commands from its different casements the whole extent of the Golden Horn, which it sweeps from the village of Eyoub to the entrance of the sea of Marmora and the Bosphorus; and an upper suite of apartments have been richly fitted up for the occasional occupation of the Sultan, who frequently amuses himself by watching the progress of the magnificent ships built for his navy, and the business-like bustle of the workmen.

The vessels which are constructed at Pieri Pasha are worthy of the Arsenal from which they emanate, being finely built, and perfectly equipped. The superintendent of the establishment is an American, in high favour with the Sultan; who, in order to preserve the brigs and ships of the line, only suffers them to cruise during the summer, and at the fall of each year causes them to be anchored in the Bosphorus, where they produce a beautiful effect from the shore.

Above the Admiralty stand the ruins of what was once the palace of the Capudan Pasha, looking more like the remains of an aqueduct than of a dwelling; and forming a long line of arches extremely picturesque in their effect. Before it spreads the harbour, bounded by the seven hills of the Golden City, and the wide and historical plain of Daoud Pasha; and beside it stands the barrack of Kassim Pasha, whence the cemetery of Pera stretches away, built in by houses, and covering every height and hollow, until it is bounded by the streets of the infidel faubourg.

The little nook which lay at the artist’s feet, as he looked upon the scene that I have endeavoured to describe, gives an admirable idea of this singular necropolis. Every house, whose upper stories overhang the graves, is filled with tenants, wholly unsaddened by their constant companionship with death; the head-stones are closely clustered together, each group denoting the resting-place of a family, and situated as near to the habitation of the surviving relatives as circumstances will permit; while rigid cypresses deepen the gloom of the death-glen, and parasitical plants trail along the walls, and wave their feathery branches over the mouldering sods.

It was in this very corner of the far-spreading cemetery, that, in the year 1836, a Frank lady, residing in Pera, was one day attracted by a line of graves, flung up on the border of a narrow pathway through the hollow; they had evidently all been filled since sunrise, for there was that fresh, humid, clammy look about the mould which it loses after four-and-twenty hours’ exposure to the atmosphere; and the work was still going on as she reached the spot. The idea of plague was instantly suggested; for, as her eye rapidly ran over the nineteen graves already completed, and then fell upon the four others which were in process of preparation, it was evident that some unusual cause must have produced so fatal an effect, this obscure nook being so very minute a portion of the burial-ground, as to receive seldom more than one new tenant weekly. It had been one of her favourite haunts; for she loved its stillness, its long deep shadows, and its almost unbroken solitude, coupled with the feeling that she was within sight and hearing of her fellow-beings, although apparently alone; and she was painfully startled by so unexpected an invasion of the hallowed spot.

Plague was indeed naturally the first thought, and she shuddered sickeningly as she uttered the inquiry: it was a relief to be negatively answered, though the tale of the grave-digger was sad enough. He was consigning to the earth the wretched fever-stricken victims who had been rescued from a life of slavery by an Austrian brig, then anchored in the Golden Horn. They had been taken by pirates in the Archipelago—youths, women, old men, and children! The ocean-robber, grown daring and haughty by success, had attacked the Austrian, and had been taken; but retribution came too late to the pirate to avail his wretched prisoners. They had all perished miserably within a few hours of each other, just as the minarets of Constantinople, cutting against the horizon, gave them a blessed glimpse of home; and this dark, silent glen had been selected as their resting-place—they could not have found one more fitting!

THE TOWER OF GALATA.

The suburb of Galata occupies a portion of the base of the hill upon which Pera is built, and is the focus of European commerce in Constantinople. Many of its streets are of considerable width; and some of its houses, inhabited by the principal Frank merchants, of even princely dimensions. A magnificent Armenian schismatic church is conspicuous among its religious edifices, while the constant traffic kept up with the shipping in the harbour fills its stores with men of many nations, and its thoroughfares with the clamour of many tongues.

The name of the suburb is stated to be a corruption of γάλα, or milk, Galata having originally been the milk-market of the Lower Empire. It subsequently became the site of a Genoese town, that people having, during the period of the Crusades, established themselves on this eligible spot for forwarding their commercial undertakings; its situation between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn being eminently calculated for every species of maritime traffic. Here they continued for some time, effecting an immense trade with every commercial nation, until at length their increased and increasing prosperity excited the jealousy of the Venetians, who, after engaging them in a quarrel, profited by their own superior strength, and prostrated nearly the whole suburb. The Genoese, beaten and unhoused, fled to Constantinople for shelter and protection; where they were favourably received by Cantacuzene the Emperor, who supplied them with means to rebuild their desolated dwellings, and even allowed them to surround their town with a wall, protected by a wide ditch.

It is on this line of wall, now rapidly crumbling away into picturesque ruin, and wholly worthless as a mean of defence, that the Tower of Galata is situated. It was originally built to commemorate the fall of some of the principal Genoese settlers, who died upon this spot in the defence of their lives and properties; but having in process of time partially perished, and become not only useless, but dangerous, the Turks renewed, or rather reconstructed it with great solidity, to serve as a second Fire-Tower; for which service it is admirably calculated, as it commands the shipping in the harbour, and all the European suburbs of the city. A handsome gallery surrounds the “look-out house,” near its summit; and as an object from the Marmora, on approaching the Golden Horn, it is extremely striking.

Notwithstanding the dilapidated state of the walls, the gates which separate Galata from Pera are still closed every night by the Turks, though a kind word and a small coin to the guard will always suffice to open them for any tardy passenger.

The coffee-kiosques are constantly crowded with Maltese, Genoese, Greek, Ragusan, and Italian seamen, who are in want of ships, and who are hired by merchant-vessels to supply the casualties in their own crews; and these lounging and unregulated idlers are, perhaps, with the exception of the bazār near the water’s edge, which is always dirty, unsavory, and thronged with the rabble from the ferries—the most intolerable nuisances to the stranger that he has to encounter in his wanderings about the city.

A novel feature in the Golden Horn, is the Floating-bridge by which it is spanned, and which has been constructed within the last three years. It is flung across the harbour from the ferry of Galata, and is a great and commodious mean of communication with the opposite shore. Two rather lofty arches admit the passage of small craft beneath the bridge, which is singularly elegant in its design; and a small toll is exacted from each passenger, horse, or carriage, by which it is traversed. Many are the individuals who still, however, prefer the more uncertain and expensive mode of reaching the city through the medium of the caïques which ply between the two shores; and these are principally to be found among the women, who have a superstitious horror of all innovation, and who cling to their old habits and their old associations with a perseverance worthy of a better cause.

The Teskari, or Custom-House, is also situated at Galata, where passengers and merchandise are landed from the different vessels which are constantly arriving in the harbour; and the extreme urbanity and politeness of the officers of the establishment to travellers, has been a constant theme of admiration and acknowledgment with all sojourners in the East.

When a group of strangers approach the Teskari, the only inquiry made, is, whether they have brought out any merchandise for the purposes of traffic; and a simple negative from the parties addressed suffices for the unimpeded passage of the travellers to their resting-place.

Few are the weary and the wayworn who, at that moment, would wish themselves at the Custom-house of London, or at one of the still more irritating Douanes of France!

THE TCHERNBERLÈ TASCH.

The Tchernberlè Tasch, or Burnt Pillar, is a striking Roman remain, within a short walk of the Seraskier’s Tower. It is a relic of the Temple of Apollo at Rome, whence it was transported to Stamboul by Constantine, and placed upon an hexagonal pedestal. It was surmounted by a fine statue of the god, from the immortal chisel of Phidias, which the conqueror appropriated with more ambition than modesty, and beneath which he caused to be inscribed, “The Justice of the Sun to the Illustrious Constantine.” The destruction of this noble statue is variously described by different writers. Genaro Esquilichi asserts that it was overthrown by a thunderbolt; while the sententious Anna de Comnena mentions its prostration by a strong southerly wind, during the reign of her kinsman Alexius; and moreover declares that several persons were killed by its fall. Other authors speak more vaguely, naming the storm-shock as a cause of its partial destruction, and alluding to the second accident as having also tended to its final demolition. The shaft of the pillar measures ninety feet in height; it is circular, and girdled at regular distances with garlands of laurel and oak-leaves; but its beauty is entirely gone, as it has suffered so severely from the repeated conflagrations in its immediate vicinity, that it is cracked in every direction, and merely kept together by a strong wirework, which has been carefully woven about it.

The pedestal upon which it stands measures thirty feet at its base, and is rendered interesting by the fact, that several portions of the Holy Cross were built up within it, and that the space amid which it stood consequently became a popular place of prayer, every mounted passenger reverently alighting from his horse as he passed before it; but the Moslem, not recognising the divinity of the relics enshrined within its solid masonry, nor the sanctity of the spot thus hallowed, have surrounded the pillar on every side with mean and unsightly houses; and it is only in one solitary direction that the anxious antiquary can obtain a satisfactory view of this singular monument. The pedestal bears a Greek inscription, now nearly obliterated, which has been translated thus:—

“O Christ, Master and Protector of the World, I dedicate to Thee this City, subject to Thee; and the Sceptre and the Empire of Rome. Guard the City, and protect it from all evil!”

THE FERRY AT SCUTARI.

Scutari, the Chrysopolis of the Greeks, occupying the promontory opposite Constantinople, won its ancient name from the circumstance that here, during their European wanderings, the Persians deposited their treasures, and paid their tribute. The Turks now call it Iskuidar, and entertain vast reverence for its wide necropolis; while the handsome Kislas, or barrack, which dominates the town, is an object of no less admiration to the Frank traveller.

Its main street, leading from the ferry to this military establishment, is much wider than any in Stamboul; lessening, however, from the plain upon which the barracks are built, where it degenerates into a narrow, and somewhat difficult road, continuing to the summit of the Bulgurlhu Daghi, a link of the Bithynian chain, dominating the Euxine. At its base stretches away the vast and sombre cemetery, of which mention has already been made; and beside it extends a wide plain, known as the “Pilgrim’s Plain,” from its being the starting point of the caravans assembling for Mecca. Here, on particular occasions, tens of thousands of the pious congregate, clothing the plain with tents and banners; and hence they start for the tomb of their Prophet;—the Ihrām, or holy dress, is assumed;—and from that moment they are no longer free to deprive any thing of life; indeed, to so extreme a pitch is this observance carried, that the very vermin upon their persons remain unmolested: a fact which accounts for the filthy and loathsome state of the santons and hadjis who infest the city, and whom to touch is almost infection. The dignity of hadji, however, is only conceded to those who have performed their pilgrimage; and such have hitherto been objects of marked respect, though recent innovations have greatly tended to diminish their consequence. Considerable inconvenience is at times experienced from these “chartered libertines,” who, under the guise of religion, drive a lucrative trade by making pilgrimages for more wealthy individuals, who are glad, by paying a liberal sum to these itinerant pietists to exempt themselves from an arduous, fatiguing, and hazardous journey; and as the accommodating creed of the Korān permits this deputy-devotion, there are swarms of vagabond-devotees ever ready to perform it for their more wealthy compatriots; and on their return to Constantinople, when they have received the wages of their venture, they infest the public thoroughfares with filth, to parade their holiness; and at night occupy the most squalid khans, or the ruined tombs, both of which are too often desecrated by their debaucheries.

Let it not be inferred, however, that all the hadjis are of this description: many of them leave their homes and their families full of pious ardour, and genuine enthusiasm, looking towards Mecca as the Jew looks towards Jerusalem, or the Christian towards eternity—full of hope, of faith, of long-suffering, and of charity; ready to help and to uphold their fainting brother on the way, and content to lay down their lives when the goal is won.

The start of a caravan is eminently picturesque and oriental; and as the writer of these sketches never had the advantage of being witness to one of these interesting ceremonies, it has been deemed desirable to give its description in the words of a distinguished traveller.

“In the spring of the year the pilgrims from Constantinople and the vicinity assemble on the large plain of Scutari; and, as it was a sight worth contemplating, I crossed the Bosphorus with some friends to see it. The whole of this extensive space seemed to be covered with a vast multitude, as if all the inhabitants of the city were about to proceed on their pilgrimage. After some time the wave of the multitude subsided, and they assumed a regular order. First appeared the Emir Hadji, or Leader of the Pilgrims, carried in a litter, or tartaravan, between stately mules, and accompanied by several others. Then the crowd arranged themselves according to their several companies, or corporations, each preceded by a banner, with some device to mark it, and attended by a train of camels bearing cradles or litters, to accommodate and carry on the sick who might faint by the way. They were accompanied by the Imaum, or officiating minister, to perform the functions of his office to all that needed, and crowds of antics, or jesters, who threw themselves into ridiculous postures to amuse them. Some were of another cast. They seemed like maniacs—they cried, and howled, and foamed at the mouth, and were supposed to be under the influence of a demon, to be expelled only by this pilgrimage. Then followed troops of armed horsemen, and, finally, droves of camels loaded with provisions and furniture, and among them torches to enlighten their march when they proceeded in the night.

“But the most remarkable object was the camel that bore the Mahmel, or covering of the Prophet’s Tomb. This seems to be essential to all tombs of his descendants, as those of the Sultans in their mausoleums at Constantinople are covered with them. This for Mecca consisted of bales of velvet, embossed with characters in gold, and containing sundry sentences from the Korān. The camel which bore it was white, and was considered so sacred as never to be employed for any other purpose, but exempt from all labour. He was adorned with plumes of red feathers, had bells suspended from him, and was caparisoned with rich housings. The people pressed eagerly to touch the holy animal, and those who could not come near unbound their turbans, and cast one end of it towards him, if haply any part of their dress might be sanctified by such contact. Even the air through which he passed had valuable qualities communicated to it. The multitude seemed to grasp it by handfuls, and thrust it into their bosoms, or placed it on their bare heads under their turbans. I found it was the general belief that this was the actual camel that bore Mahomet in his hegeira, or flight; and so it was not without reason they attributed extraordinary properties to the animal on whom Allah had conferred such a miraculous longevity.”⁠[42]⁠

The Imperial kiosque at Scutari is a lovely little edifice, built on the very edge of the rock overhanging the Propontis, and commanding a glorious view of Constantinople, the harbour, the European shore, and the sunny sea of Marmora, frequently crowded with shipping, awaiting a favourable wind to cast anchor in the Golden Horn. Its walls are painted in pale green; and its snow-white jalousies give to it a cheerful holiday look, which the plain but beautiful arrangements of its interior tend greatly to heighten. It is indeed as pretty a toy as even Imperial caprice could engender, and holds its place worthily among the fifty-seven residences of its illustrious owner.

The barrack of Scutari, which is occupied by the Imperial Guard, is remarkable even in Turkey, where these establishments are always princely both in their extent and construction: it is a quadrangle, flanked with square towers, built in three sections, gradually lessening, and each crested by a slight spire. The gate of entrance is lofty, and elaborately wrought in iron, giving ingress to a noble square or court, where twelve thousand men may be commodiously exercised; and surrounded on three sides by an open gallery, screening the long ranges of apartments above the basement of the building. The ground-floor is occupied by workshops; the whole of the clothing, cartridges, and other equipments, excepting arms, being manufactured within the precincts of the barrack, and very creditably produced. The kitchens are vast, cleanly, and convenient, and elaborately fitted with apparatus for steam, and the vessels used in cooking scrupulously kept; while the vegetable store, where piles of every description of herb and root necessary to the cooks are carefully housed, are floored, lined, and roofed with marble; and copious basins of the same material, are supplied with the purest and coolest water, from the fountain of the magnificent mosque of Selim III., which stands immediately opposite to the principal gate of the barrack.

The armouries, clothing-stores, and regimental schools, are all in the highest order; and no disrule awakens the ready echoes of the extensive building. Indeed, it would be difficult to find throughout the whole of Europe, a nobler military establishment than that of the Turkish Imperial Guard at Scutari.

Hence, a somewhat steep descent sweeps downward to the ferry, which is generally crowded with bales of merchandise, piles of fruit, laden donkeys, lounging hadjis, and busy boatmen, clamorous for passengers; while the magnificent views of Stamboul and its environs, which are commanded from the hanging gardens of the principal residences overlooking the Sea of Marmora, are almost beyond description.

Immediately before them runs the glittering current, sweeping the sunshiny waves onward from the Bosphorus into the far-reaching Propontis; girdling with liquid light the rocky foundations of the isle-seated Guz-Couli; and, finally, mingling with the world of waters mapped out before it; while beyond rises the long castellated wall of the ancient city of the Constantines, lost to the view at one point amid a cluster of Imperial kiosques, and at the other, beneath the gloomy shadows of the Yēaidhe—the mysterious prison of the Seven Towers—which link the land and seaward sides of the external wall, forming an angle eminently picturesque, from its startling contrast to every surrounding object. The original design of the fortress, as has been elsewhere stated, can no longer be traced beyond the walls, only four of the towers now remaining, the other three having been prostrated by earthquakes, and suffered to moulder away unrenewed.

At intervals along the wall appear the latticed kiosques of the Imperial Seraï, whence the incarcerated beauties of the harem look forth upon the bright scene without; while above and about them rise the shadowy plane-trees, the leafy beeches, lofty cypresses, feathery acacias, and other magnificent trees of the palace gardens. Away, amid the heaving waves, lies the archipelago of islands formerly called Demonesia, or the Demon Islands (since modified into the Princess’ Islands,) lying about nine miles from Constantinople, within a short row of the Asian coast. Of these, four are extremely fertile, and partially inhabited; the nearest to Stamboul is Proté, so called from its situation, it being the first approached from the Bosphorus. It is about three miles in extent; and is a favourite resort with the Greeks of the Fanar, many of whom spend the summer months in its pleasant valley, situated between two rather abrupt acclivities. A small village is built on the east side of the island; and on one of the heights stands a monastery, looming out cold and bare against the horizon, without a tree to soften down its rigid outline,—a mark alike for the hot sunshine and the laden storm-cloud.

The second of the group is known as “Platé,” from its being a dead flat; though many of the Franks, disregarding the ancient Greek name, call it “Gull Island,” from the immense number of those birds which are to be found there, feeding on the clustering marine plants by which it is covered, and rearing their young, undisturbed by the vicinity of a busy and crowded city.

The next island, Oxea, is the highest of the whole, and is surrounded by steep and rugged precipices, which render it extremely picturesque from the water; particularly on the eastern side, where the bend of the shore forms a fine bay, beautifully framed in by tall and jagged rocks. On this island still exist some very interesting and curious remains of the reservoirs which formerly supplied the whole archipelago with water; fresh springs being rare on any of the other islands. Two of them yet remain almost perfect, and the water which they contain is clear and pure. The ruins of various edifices are also apparent in many of the precipitous portions of the islands: walls of bricks made flat, and cemented together with lime and powdered tiles, are to be found on all sides, and small water-cisterns are numerous in every direction. The most remarkable vegetable production of the island is the giant fennel, which here grows commonly twelve feet in height, and almost assumes the importance of a forest tree, as it spreads abroad the deep shadows of its feathery umbels.

The next island is that of Pitya. It is small, and boasts but slight remnants of the abundance of pine wood with which it is stated to have been once covered; possessing, moreover, no single object of interest to compensate for the loss; while Antigone, the ancient Panormus, about a mile beyond, boasts its vineyards and its villages, its monastery crowning an eminence which dominates the whole island; and the presence of the learned and illustrious exile, Constantius, Archbishop of Mount Sinai, and ex-Patriarch of Constantinople—a prelate renowned alike for his virtues and his erudition, who was deposed and banished by the Turks for his literary productions; not the least obnoxious among them being a Statistical Account of the past and present State of Constantinople, printed at Venice in 1824, in modern Greek, for the use of his countrymen—a work during whose compilation he had incurred considerable personal risk, disguising himself as a dervish, in order to penetrate into their sanctuaries; and which had cost him not only his liberty, but even great pecuniary embarrassment, his income in exile being barely sufficient to secure to him the common comforts of life.

From Antigone the traveller proceeds to Chalki, perhaps the most interesting islet of the group, from the fact that it abounds with spars, and that the remains of mines are still perceptible, as well as piles of the waste flung from the shafts centuries ago. At Chalki stands the monastery of the Trinity, probably so named from the fact that it occupies one of the three headlands for which the island is remarkable. It was once very extensive, but was nearly destroyed by fire; the wing containing the chapel is, however, still perfect, and its porch is an object of great curiosity to travellers, from the fact of its containing an extraordinary and somewhat grotesque representation of the Last Day. On a second height stands another convent, dedicated to the Virgin; and approached by a very fine road, commanding glorious views of the surrounding landscape, and fringed with arbutus, cistus, myrtle, and pine trees, among which the convent is embosomed.

The first resident British Ambassador at the Ottoman Court retired to this island in order to recruit his health, which had suffered from the climate, and ultimately died here. His tomb is now destroyed, and the inscription-stone is inserted sideways in the wall above the entrance-gate of the monastery, whence it cannot be removed without an Imperial firman.

Four noble lines of cypress trees, sweeping downward to the shore, lead to a splendid palace, formerly belonging to Prince Mavroyeni, who after serving in the Turkish army against Russia, was decapitated by the Grand Vèzir for some alleged offence; which proved, however, so inadequate in the eyes of the Sultan, that he struck off the heads of the Vèzir and his son, and bestowed the palace and gardens of the unhappy victim upon the family of Affendooli, whose representative was executed at the commencement of the Greek revolution. The house was sacked by the Turks, and then became for a time the summer residence of the Austrian minister, Baron Ottenfels; but it is now a favourite resort of the Sultan, who has caused it to be fitted up in the most costly manner; and who occasionally, during his sojourn on the island, gives sumptuous balls in the European style to the respectable Greek inhabitants and visitors.

Next comes Prinkipo, celebrated for the cruelties and subsequent exile of Irene, the widow of Flavius Leo, who gave its name to the island, which is the largest and most populous of the group. The town, seated on its eastern shore, contains upwards of three hundred inhabitants; its circumference is about eight miles, and the remains of a convent still exist, which was formerly tenanted by a sisterhood of fifty nuns. A monastery in a state of dilapidation, dedicated to the Transfiguration, and now occupied by a solitary monk, gray with age, stands on the summit of one of the heights; while another, crowning the loftiest hill on the island, and inscribed to St. George, is celebrated for its sanctity, and much frequented by the Greeks.

The two remaining islands of Neandros and Antirovithi are mere rocks, wholly uninhabited, and only occasionally visited for the purposes of sport, as they abound with sea-fowl and rabbits.

On the verge of the horizon rises Mount Olympus, with its crown of snow, and mantle of vapour; while far away stretches the rocky coast of Asia, hemming in one of the noblest scenes of earth and water under the wide canopy of heaven.

A TURKISH APARTMENT.

Nothing can exceed the beautiful cleanliness of a Turkish harem, save its order: not a grain of dust, nor a footmark, sullies the surface of the Indian matting that covers the large halls whence the several apartments branch off in every direction; while the furniture of the rooms themselves is always fresh, and scrupulously arranged. The ceilings are elaborately ornamented; and in the houses of the rich, where the apartments are of great size, a curtain of tapestry is frequently used as a mean of reducing their extent. The windows are always closely set together, and very numerous; and where the room chances to be situated in an angle of the building, the three unconnected sides have very much the appearance of a lantern.

The interior chosen by the artist as the subject of his sketch is a fair specimen of the higher order of domestic architecture, and belongs to a house once inhabited by one of the Greek princes, which will account for the ample hearth,—an accessory never found in an apartment originally designed by a Turk; in every other respect it is precisely the description of room common to every handsome harem.

At the lower end of each apartment are large closets for the reception of the bedding (for none are appropriated exclusively as sleeping chambers), and the slaves of the household no sooner ascertain that the visitor has risen, than half a dozen of them commence removing every vestige of the couch, and depositing within the closet the mattrasses of embroidered satin, the sheet of gauze, or worked muslin, the half dozen pillows of brocaded silk, and the wadded coverlets, rich with silver fringe, and gay with party-coloured needle-work, which have formed the bed. A low sofa or divan runs round the other three sides of the apartment, luxuriously supplied with cushions, and richly covered with cut velvet or embroidered satin; and the floor is invariably spread with soft and handsome carpets.

It is an amusing fact, that an idea of impropriety is attached by Europeans who have never visited the East, to the very name of a harem; while it is not less laughable, that they can never give a reason for the prejudice! How little foundation exists for so unaccountable a fancy must be evident at once, when it is stated that the harem, or women’s apartments, are held so sacred by the Turks themselves, that they remain inviolate even in cases of popular disturbance, or individual delinquency; the mob never suffering their violence to betray them into an intrusion on the wives of their victims; and the search after a fugitive ceasing the moment that the door of the harem separates him from his pursuers.

It is also a fact, that although a Turk has an undoubted right to enter the apartments of his wives at all hours, it is a privilege of which he rarely, if ever, avails himself. One room in the harem is appropriated to the master of the house, and therein he awaits the appearance of the individual with whom he wishes to converse, and who is summoned to his presence by a slave. Should he, on passing to this apartment, see slippers at the foot of the stairs (a token that a female visitor is in the harem), he cannot, under any pretence whatever, intrude himself into her presence; it is a liberty which every woman in the empire would resent; and when guests are on a visit of some days, he sends a slave forward to announce his approach, and thus gives them time and opportunity to withdraw.

Every good harem has a commodious bath, and a garden gay with flowers and fountains attached to it, where the women may wander at will among the leaves and birds, or dream away the sultry hours in their pretty kiosques overhanging the Bosphorus; where from behind the shade of their latticed casements they can breathe the cool air from the water, and mark the arrowy speed of the graceful caïques, as they fly along the channel.

The amusements of the harem are few and simple;—the bath is its greatest luxury, the remainder of the day being spent in lounging on the divan, listening to the music of the zebec, played by one of the slaves, and accompanied by the voices of others; in the arrangement of the jewels worn upon the turban; in playing with the birds whose gilded cages glitter upon the walls; in spoiling all the children within reach; in eating sweetmeats, and drinking water; or amid the cool shadows of the garden, hearkening to the fall of the fountains and the whisperings of the leaves, or listening to the wondrous tales of the Massaldjhe,⁠[43] ever a welcome guest in the harem, where her marvellous narrations are received with a deep attention and a perfect faith eminently inspiring. Then there is the namaz, or prayer, five times a day, never neglected by Turkish women; when deeply veiled, as unworthy to appear before Allah with a bare brow, they spread their prayer-carpet, and turning their faces Mecca-ward, they humbly and earnestly perform their devotions. These are their home-occupations; but it is a great fallacy to imagine that Turkish females are like birds in a cage, or captives in a cell;—far from it; there is not a public festival, be it Turk, Frank, Armenian, or Greek, where they are not to be seen in numbers, sitting upon their carpets, or in their carriages, surrounded by slaves and attendants, eager and delighted spectators of the revel. Then they have their gilded and glittering caïques on the Bosphorus, where, protected by their veils, their ample mantles, and their negro guard, they spend long hours in passing from house to house, visiting their acquaintance, and gathering and dispensing the gossip of the city.

All this may, and indeed must appear startling, to persons who have accustomed themselves to believe that Turkish wives were morally manacled slaves. There are, probably, no women so little trammelled in the world; so free to come and to go unquestioned, provided that they are suitably attended; while it is equally certain that they enjoy this privilege like innocent and happy children, making their pleasures of the flowers and the sunshine; and revelling like the birds and bees amid the summer brightness, profiting by the enjoyment of the passing hour, and reckless or thoughtless of the future.

THE SLAVE-MARKET.

The fables which have been both written and painted on the subject of the Yesèr Bazār, or Slave-Market of Constantinople, with a tenacity of error perfectly extraordinary, have tended to excite in Europe a feeling of horror and disgust, totally uncalled for by the aspect of the place itself. This is no arena for controversy; nor has the writer of these sketches either wish or intention to defend a traffic utterly revolting to every principle of our nature; but justice to the Turkish nation calls for a contradiction of those absurd and indelicate episodes with which the active and wonder-creating imaginations of certain writers and artists have laboured to render the name of the Yesèr Bazār odious, not only inferentially, but actually. A sentimental chapter is easily woven of the tears and terror of a fair and fainting girl, torn from her home and her kindred, and exposed to the gaze of a coarse and ribald crowd; a pretty picture may be readily produced when the formal quadrangle of the market is relieved by groups of beautiful Georgians or Circassians, habited in flowing draperies of white muslin, and unveiled by the coarse hands of the dealer to gratify the whim of every lounging passenger; but surely if the creators of these flimsy prettinesses were to reflect for a moment that they are not only violating good taste in their own persons, but moreover libelling a whole people, and distorting truth at the same time, they would consent to sacrifice a sentence, or to dispense with an effect, in order to be at once more decent, more veracious, and more just.

It is only those who look superficially at the East,—the travellers against time, who make deduction serve for experience, and inference for fact,—who fall into such gross errors as these; and Turkey is not a country to be described on inference and deduction. Not one of those who have spread the fallacy which we are now deprecating, ever witnessed the revolting spectacle born of their own fancy. How does Dr. Walsh speak of the Yesèr Bazār? And we quote him, not only because he was resident in Constantinople many years, looking deeply and earnestly into its institutions, but because the whole tone and tendency of his work must at once acquit him of any leaning to the Turkish people:—

“Here decorum is no further violated than in the act of sale. It consists of a quadrangular building, with an open court in the middle. Round this are raised platforms, on which black slaves sit; behind are latticed windows, lighting apartments where the white and more costly women are shut up till they are sold; and there is a certain decency and propriety observed in the purchase.”⁠[44]⁠

The wanton exposure, therefore, which has been represented as a concomitant of the sale of slaves in the Yesèr Bazār, did not originate with the Turks; to whom Dr. Walsh (certainly not their most lenient historian) thus concedes the merit of “decency and propriety.”

We have been somewhat prolix on this point, because it is one which has been deeply and painfully felt by many individuals of the calumniated nation; and also because it is an useless and cruel misrepresentation of facts, of which common justice demands the refutation. There is always a painful and a revolting association connected with the idea of slavery, and an insurmountable disgust excited by the spectacle of money given in exchange for human beings; but, beyond this, (and assuredly this is enough!) there is nothing either to distress or to disgust in the slave-market of Constantinople. No wanton cruelty, no idle insult is permitted: the slaves, in many instances, select their own purchaser from among the bidders; and they know that when once received into a Turkish family, they become members of it in every sense of the word, and are almost universally sure to rise in the world if they conduct themselves worthily. The Circassians and Georgians are generally brought there by their parents at their own request; preferring a youth of ease, and a future of probable luxury, to labour in the fields, and the life of household drudgery, which must be their lot if they continued in their own mountain-homes. These voluntary slaves occupy the closed apartments, and are only seen by such individuals as are likely to purchase them; care being taken to protect them against gratuitous annoyance, and the gaze of the idlers who throng the court. The utmost order, decency, and quiet prevail; and a military guard is stationed at the entrance to enforce them, should the necessity for interference occur, which is, however, very rarely the case.

The Negro slaves squat in groups upon their mats all over the court; some laughing, jesting, and devouring huge slices of pastek,⁠[45] or clusters of purple grapes; others sleeping; and some again looking anxious, or sulky, or sad, according to their mood; but nothing takes place around them which can embitter their position: the Turks never make either a sport or a jest of human suffering, or human degradation; they have not yet discovered that it is witty to do so; and accordingly they drive their odious bargain seriously and quietly, and lead away the slaves whom they purchase without one act of wanton cruelty or tyrannical assumption.

The Yesèr Bazār is situated in the immediate vicinity of the Tchernberlè Tasch, or Burnt Pillar; and commands a view of the mosque of Osmaniè, or “the Light of Osman;” a splendid temple of pure white marble, beautifully covered with carpets of bright and rich colours, and having the Mihrab, or niche at its eastern extremity, guarded by a gilded railing. Like almost every mosque in the city, it is embosomed in fine maple-trees, which, springing from amid the marble pavement of the court, spread their leafy branches far and wide, and afford a sweet and refreshing resting-place for the eye, which has been pained by immediate contact with the interior of the Slave-Market.

PETIT CHAMPS DES MORTS, PERA.

There is certainly nothing which more impresses the mind or fills the imagination of the traveller in Turkey, than the appearance and situation of the burial-places. The sunniest spots, where all is gaiety and gladness, yet find room for a grave, without being saddened by the partial occupancy of death. The gardens of the great are open to the remains of those who have been dear to them in life, and the lovely Acacia Gul-ibrasim, or “silk rose,” is often gathered from the tomb of a dead beauty to adorn the hair of a living one; nor does the soft wind which sighs through the branches of the pensile willow by which it is overshadowed seem more sad, nor its cool shade less welcome to the survivor, because they are the accessories to a grave.

In the grounds of the Sultan’s “Palace of the Sweet Waters” there is a tomb of fair white marble, erected immediately beneath the windows of his own private apartments, to the memory of one whom he had loved and lost—a beautiful Odalisque, who died in the first bloom of her youth and favour—whom the Imperial Poet immortalized in song—whom the man wept in the solitude of his chamber—and whose head was laid low where he could at least see the fresh turf spring about her tomb.

The Reis Effendi, an old gray man, in whom it might have been thought that the weight of years and the cares of office must have worn out the sensibilities which lead us to yearn after the departed, and to cling morbidly to the poor remnant which is shrouded in the grave;—even he, surrounded by state intrigues, each of which might have cost him both place and power; hastening to the termination of his earthly pilgrimage, and accustomed to the sight of death for long and weary years;—even he, when in the winter of his days he lost one whom he deeply loved, suffered not the body to be borne away from him, but raised the tomb in his garden, where, beneath the long shadows of the over-arching trees, he could sit on the cold marble of the gilded sepulchre, and weep. And yet it was but upon the grave of a young child that he shed these bitter and frequent tears—the little son of a dead daughter, who had not yet seen seven summers: but the boy had clung to him, had never learnt to bow before his greatness, but had sat upon his knee, and made a plaything of his gray beard, as he prattled to him in the language of the heart in which there is no guile: and the hoary statesman loved the child—and lost him; and he felt bitterly that he had not time enough left on earth to learn so to love another!

And there stood the little tomb in that shady garden, with its gilded turban, and its fond record, where the grandsire could look upon it unobserved.

Is there a narrow nook at the corner of a street in the most crowded thoroughfares of the city,—there you will find a head-stone and a grave. Like the ancient Romans, from whom they probably imbibed the custom, the Turks form burial-places by the way side; and, like them, they also inscribe upon their tombs the most beautiful lessons of resignation and philosophy.

The Petit Champs, or lesser Necropolis of Pera, offers a singular spectacle: it is entirely sacred to the Musselmauns, (who never suffer the ashes of their dead to mingle with Infidel clay,) and fringes with its dark cypresses the crest and a portion of the declivity of the hill which dominates the post: it is hemmed in with houses, overlooked by a hundred casements, grazed by cattle, loud with greetings and gossipry; and commands from its higher points extensive and noble views of the harbour and the opposite shore. The ground is very undulating, forming deep dells where the sunshine never penetrates, and then suddenly and abruptly rising, as though to fling its funereal grove in contact with the blue sky above it. There are footpaths among the trees, sunny glades gleaming out from among the dark shadows, head-stones clustered against the grassy slopes, and guard-houses with their portals thronged with lounging soldiers, arousing the echoes of the death-forest by the clash of steel.

In the bottom of the valley, in the very midst of the cemetery, stands a small octagonal building, from whose solitary chimney a dense white cloud of smoke may generally be seen to emerge, wreathe itself for an instant about the nearest cypresses, and finally lose itself in the atmosphere. This is the dead-house, to which the body of every deceased Moslem destined for interment in this burial-place is brought, in order that the last worldly duties may be performed—the corse carefully washed, the beard shorn, the nails cut, and the limbs decently composed; and this is a ceremony never omitted, ere what was so lately a True Believer is laid to rest in the narrow grave.

On the verge of the cemetery, where it touches on the faubourg of Pera, the rocky ground rises precipitately, forming a natural division between the habitations of the dead and the living; but not a hand’s space has been left waste by either. A narrow road along the side of the descent alone separates the houses of the Perotes from the graves of the Moslem, which lean against the base of the ridge. These houses have many of them terraces overlooking the cemetery,—gay with flowers, loud with laughter, and bright with smiles: trees have been planted before them; cafés, where the young and the idle congregate during the summer evenings to enjoy their ices and cigars, awaken with their light revelry the echoes of the death-place; and many a fond couple wander away amid the graves, and sit hand in hand upon some lettered stone, to exchange their vows, and to lay plans for the future on the very threshold of the past!

Some of the Turkish tombs are very elaborate and beautiful, particularly in the solemn Necropolis of Scutari: there are none of the prettinesses of Père-la-Chaise to be found amid its wide solitudes; and it is equally free from colossal statues of statesmen, looking as though they had been transplanted from a council-chamber or a cathedral, and appalling representations of grinning skeletons and eyeless sculls; no fanciful calembourgs on roses and reine-marguerites are graven into the eternal stone, which had been better enshrined in some gilded volume:—all is stern, and still, and solemn: the fatuities of life have no place in that city of the dead; its very atmosphere is unlike that which is breathed elsewhere, for the clustering together of the cypresses diffuses a strong aroma of resin, purifying the air, and counteracting the pernicious effects of such a mass of perishing mortality as that which lies below; while its deep shadows, and its occasional gleams of light falling upon the myriad head-stones scattered around, are like glimpses of an unknown world.

Those head-stones themselves form a striking and peculiar feature of the scene; they are extremely picturesque and various in design; and as the Musselmauns never disturb the ashes of the dead, and never bury and re-bury on the same spot, as is too commonly the case in the more narrow and confined grave-yards of Europe, the time-worn, weather-stained, and leaning column, beneath which the clammy human soil has failed, is seen in juxta-position with the brightly-gilded, fresh-lettered pillar of yesterday, against which time has yet had no power, and over which no storm-cloud has yet burst, standing turban-crowned and erect, telling its tale of recent bereavement. At the base of many of these columns a small reservoir for water is hollowed in the stone that marks the dimensions of the grave, to slake the thirst of the wandering dogs and birds which may chance to pass through the cemetery; while the sex of the dead may be at once distinguished by the turban (varying in form according to the rank of the deceased, and faithfully serving as the index to his social position) which marks the grave of the man, and the sculptured rose-branch that indicates the resting-place of the female.

Nothing can be more marked than the contrast between the Turkish and the Christian burial-grounds. The Greek cemetery at Pera is slovenly and ill kept; the slabs covering the bodies are mutilated and defaced by wanton violence; the trees, scantily distributed among them, are hacked and ragged; and were it not that it is on three of its sides overlooked by houses, it would present the very embodyment of desolation.

The Frank grave-yard is as obnoxious to good taste as that of the Greeks to good feeling. There are Latin inscriptions, signifying nothing which can awaken either sympathy or devotion; flourishes of French sentiment in prose and rhyme; injunctions to pray for the souls of the departed, coupled with Italian elaborations of eulogy and despair; concise English records of births, ages, deaths, and diseases; and all the common-places of an ordinary grave-yard, without a single object which can tend to deepen a solemn or a pious thought.

But the Armenian necropolis is well worthy the attention of the stranger. It is a thickly-peopled spot, where the acacia-trees blossom in their scented beauty, and shed their withered flowers, like a sweet pall dropped by the hand of nature on the quiet graves. The Armenian tombs are peculiarly inscribed, giving you a lesson, and reading you a homily as you wander among them. The noble Armenian character is graven deeply into the stone; name and date are duly set forth; but that which renders these slabs (for there is not an upright head-stone in any Eastern cemetery, save those of the Turks and Jews) peculiarly distinctive, is the singular custom observed by this people, of graving upon the tomb an emblem of the profession or trade of the deceased.

Thus the priest is distinguished even beyond the grave by the mitre that surmounts his name; the diamond-merchant by a group of ornaments; the money-changer by a pair of scales; the florist by a knot of flowers: besides many more ignoble hieroglyphics, such as the razor and basin of the barber, the shears of the tailor, and so on; and when the calling is one which may have been followed by either sex, a book, placed immediately above the appropriate emblem, distinguishes the grave of the man.

Nor is this all; for the victims of a violent death have also their distinctive mark; and more than one tomb in this extraordinary burial-place presents the rude representation of a headless trunk, from whose severed throat the gushing blood is spirting upwards like a fountain, while the head itself is pillowed on the clasped hands!

Many of the more ancient of the tombs are very richly and intricately wrought; and the shapes of several of these sarcophagi are eminently classical; but nearly all the modern ones are mere oblong slabs, mounted in some cases upon circular pedestals three or four inches in height, and perfectly simple in design. The situation of the Armenian burial-place is superb; and it is generally occupied by groups of people of that nation, seated upon the grave-stones, beneath the cool shadows of the acacia-trees, talking and smoking, as though no symbol of the dead were near.

Death has no gloom for the philosophical Orientals!

THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN’S TOWER.

The popular and poetical traditions attached to this sea-girdled edifice have already been given, and its peculiar position has rendered it a very striking object in several of the sketches of Mr. Bartlett; it is, indeed, so essentially one of the “Beauties of the Bosphorus,” that it could not fail to create its own interest, even were it without its peculiar record; but such is far from being the case. The massaldjhes love to tell the tale of the fair and high-born girl, who died, Cleopatra-like, from the bite of an adder, within its walls; the poets love to sing the adventures of the Persian Prince who delivered the imprisoned beauty on a night of storm, when there was no tell-tale moon to reveal the enterprise to jealous guards and watchful eunuchs; and when the wild waves of the Propontis were lashing themselves to foam against the rocky shores of Asia, while the hoarse gusts which swept down from the Black Sea, driving the current of the Bosphorus madly before them, swelled the midnight diapason, and was sweeter than the voice of the bûlbûl of Nishapor in the ears of the lovers.

But neither has the sober historian passed it by; and pretty and fanciful as may be the fables which we have quoted, we are bound in our turn to treat the subject more gravely; and to admit that the island-fortress owed its erection to a more rational impulse than obedience to a wild dream, or the desire to counteract a still wilder prophecy.

The Square Tower, now known as the Guz-Couli, was, it is stated, originally built by the Emperor Manuel, for the purpose of communicating with the point of coast occupied by the Seraï Bournou by means of an iron chain, which, on the approach of an hostile fleet, was drawn across the whole mouth of the strait, protecting both the harbour and the channel from the occupancy of the intruders. No other trace of this ingenious expedient now remains, however, and the historian is consequently as traditional as the poet; nor do the Turks appear to be at all aware that the Guz-Couli was ever appropriated to such an use—to them it is now a plague-hospital, and nothing more; while many European travellers, full of old associations, combine the peculiar situation of the castle with memories of Hero, Leander, and the Hellespont, and, confirmed in their error by its modern appellation of Guz-Couli, without hesitation christen it “Leander’s Tower.”

By whatever name it may be called, it is a very pleasing object from both shores, and stands amid the waves like the guardian of the strait.

BEBEC, ON THE BOSPHORUS.

This very pretty village, situated about midway of the Bosphorus, and stretching for a considerable distance along the European shore, is chiefly remarkable from the channel for its beautifully-shaded square, overarched by forest-trees, of gigantic growth, and an Imperial Kiosque, formerly an object of much mystery and dread, but which has now lost in romance as much as it has gained in beauty; for having become a favourite retreat of the Sultan, it has lately been gaily, and, indeed, tastefully painted.

The Kiosque of Bebec possesses an historical interest from the fact that it was at one time the appointed rendezvous of those European ambassadors with whom the Sultan wished to confer without the cognisance of the other Frank ministers, or of the members of his own government. At that period it was suffered to remain in a state of partial disrepair, in order that it might not attract attention; and thither the envoy whose presence was desired quietly proceeded in his barge, without state or ceremony of any description; and, having landed, entered the building, and awaited the arrival of the Moslem monarch; there, with closed jalousies, through which they could themselves see every thing which passed along the channel without being visible to any one, sat the Sultan and the minister weaving the intricate web of diplomacy; and thence, when the conference was ended, they departed with the same mystery and caution. Of the present Sultan, however, it may truly be said that il a changé tout cela—he no longer gives audiences stealthily; and the Kiosque of Bebec has, consequently, become a mere Imperial pied-à-terre for an hour of relaxation.

Nor was this the only remarkable feature in the history of this summer-pavilion; for it was once the chosen lounge of the famous, or rather celebrated Ali Pasha of Tepeleni, whose tiger heart and bitter expiation have alike been the theme of story and of song. In this Kiosque he is affirmed to have spent some hours each day when he was Camaican to the Vèzir, ere he was removed to his command at Yanina; and to have amused his idleness by studying the “human face divine” as keenly, and far more cruelly, than Lavater; as he ever carried his deductions to a pitch fatal to those on whom he speculated; for he had no sooner suffered his eye to rest for a moment on some physiognomy which displeased him, than a motion of his hand arrested the progress of the passing boat; the obnoxious countenance was brought into immediate contact with that of the ruthless dignitary, and the unhappy individual by whom it was owned was sternly greeted with an assurance that he must be a rogue, and the son of rogues, or that Allah the All-merciful! would never have cursed him with so ill-looking a face, whereon were written characters of evil, which the Pasha could read as though they had been inscribed by the pen of a khoja⁠[46] upon a skin of parchment; a man wearing such a countenance must necessarily be a karadhan⁠[47] of the vilest class, and all unfit to walk at large among the chosen people of Mahomet; and such being the case, the miserable victim of ugliness was forthwith consigned to the gallies to expiate his inferred crimes! Expostulation was vain, for the Camaican was a sophist; and with cat-like cruelty he was ever ready to sport a moment with the agonies of his victim, in order to congratulate the trembling wretch who quailed before him, gasping out assurances of his innocence of all offence, either against his faith or his neighbour, that the opportunity was taken from him of perpetrating all the misdeeds which were registered in his face, and from whose dark effects the Pasha had so fortunately rescued the public: for there they were; and if yet to do, the greater the blessing which had been vouchsafed to him in an interference that might prevent them altogether. And upon these premises, or rather to satisfy this caprice, it is seriously asserted that so many miserable and guiltless wretches were sent to suffer and to die amid the filth, and squalor, and toil of the public bagnio, that the Sultan found it necessary to interfere with the pursuit of his minister, and to compel a discontinuance of the pastime.

It was possibly from a consciousness of his own great personal beauty that Ali indulged in so inhuman a hatred towards those who were less physically gifted; and that his taste for bringing his victim into immediate contact with himself, grew out of the savage vanity of forcing upon him a sense of his own ugliness. Be that as it may, he is described by those who knew him as one of the mildest and most benevolent looking of men.

On the page of the poet the same record is inscribed; for thus “the Childe” bears witness to the fidelity of the description at a later period of the Pasha’s life:—

On the crest of the hill behind Bebec, there is an oak wood, in whose depths is a small space covered with short fresh turf, without a single tree, where the human voice awakens a multiplied echo so singular as to have become a source of much amusement to its visitors. A horse, gallopped rapidly round the enclosure, produces precisely the effect upon the ear of a distant charge of cavalry; and a peal of laughter is so extraordinarily prolonged, as almost to turn wonder into pain.

The village of Bebec is principally inhabited by Greeks.

A PUBLIC KHAN.

The Khans, or Caravanseraïs of the East, are as purely oriental in their character as the Mosques in whose immediate neighbourhood they are generally situated, or the Bazārs which they supply with merchandise.

The Caravanseraï, or lodging of the caravan, is a large quadrangular court, surrounded by stone buildings, solidly massed, and presenting much the appearance of the inner cloisters of a monastery. The apartments on the basement serve as counting-houses for the merchants, one only being reserved as a coffee-kiosque, for the accommodation of the tenants of the Khan, which always has a fine fountain in the centre of its paved court, and is closed two hours before midnight by a pair of massive gates; beside one of which is the little hut of the Khanjhi, who is answerable for all comers and goers after that time, until day-break; a precaution rendered highly necessary by the immense value of the merchandise which is frequently contained in these establishments.

The upper story of the building is faced by an open gallery, supported on arches, which stretches round the entire square, and is reached by exterior flights of stone steps, situated at two of its angles; and from this gallery open the store-rooms of the merchants, which are generally filled with bags of raw silk, European cottons, bales of rich stuffs, tobaccos, spices, arms—and, in short, all the most precious articles of Eastern traffic.

It must not, however, be imagined that the articles here described are to be found promiscuously in every Khan; on the contrary, the silk-merchants have their own peculiar rendezvous; the hyperbolical Persians pile their gold and silver stuffs apart; and the gebeli-dealers sort their various tobaccos in a caravanseraï of their own; while the mere traveller, pilgrim, and dervish, take up their abode in common in very inferior Khans, where heat, vermin, and filth are their certain companions; and where the acquaintanceless European, driven to this resource in towns where no hotels exist, is initiated into a thousand personal miseries, of which he could previously have formed no idea.

The Khan of the silk-merchants at Broussa in Asia Minor is a very beautiful establishment, with a noble gate-way, opening from the bazār of the city, finely set in a frame-work of mosaiced porcelain; while its Caravanseraï for pilgrims is wretched in the extreme. And the same distinction is visible in those of Constantinople itself, where dervishes, santons, and other wayfarers, who can afford to pay for their scanty lodging, and yet more scanty fare, leave behind them traces of disorder and want of cleanliness, which are, indeed, almost enough to challenge the skill of all the khanjhis of the city to obliterate.

Dr. Walsh, in the first volume of his “Residence in Constantinople,” gives an account of his arrival in a Turkish hamlet, situated in a magnificent valley, surrounded by the distant branches of Mount Rhodope, when on his way overland to Stamboul from the Dardanelles—which, as it not only gives an admirable picture of one of the inferior village Caravanseraïs of the East, but also illustrates a virtue universally practised in Turkey, we shall extract entire:—

“The villages scattered about these mountains are inhabited by Turks, Greeks, or Armenians; if by the former, a traveller is never admitted into a house, but must lie in the stable with his horse, at a place called a Khan. This is generally a very large edifice, like one of the great cow-houses in England, filled with cattle of all kinds. At one end is a little enclosure, separated by a low partition, just sufficiently high to prevent the cattle from walking over him, but in other respects a continuation of the stable. That in which I now found myself had the luxury of a bit of rugged straw mat, just large enough for me to sit on; and I found myself lodged with about fifty buffaloes and camels. A traveller gets nothing to eat but what he brings with him, and my stock of provisions consisted of a grain of coffee in a paper in one waistcoat pocket, and a little zacchari, or brown sugar, in the other. Hasan had a bag of tobacco. I had eaten nothing from the first light in the morning, and I was as hungry as tired, after a long day’s ride; but there I sat solitary, between three mud walls, on a bit of dirty straw mat, with the more fortunate cattle crunching their provender about me. Occasionally, a camel, or a buffalo, would put his neck across the partition, and having looked at me with considerable curiosity, would then begin to move his jaws just close to my face, as if to mock my hunger. Meantime, Hasan sat cross-legged before me, smoking his pipe with the most imperturbable gravity, quite reconciled to the state of inanity in which we were doomed to pass the night. I several times gave him an imploring look, and put my finger in my mouth, closing my teeth on it, that even a Turk might comprehend what I wanted. Hasan slowly moved his head, and said, ‘Yoke,’ the first word I had heard him utter. I hoped that yoke might have something to say to eggs, but I was mistaken; yoke, I found, was Turkish for ‘nothing.’ I now made myself about a thimbleful of coffee, in a little tin measure, which I found among some embers in an earthen pot in the corner, and stretching myself out for the night, I took Hasan’s pipe, and smoked myself into a doze.

“I know not how long I remained in this state, but when I opened my eyes, I found by the light of a lamp stuck in the wall, the place crowded with Turks, sitting round me cross-legged, three or four deep, all smoking and silently gazing on me, waiting, apparently, until I should awake. I asked for Hasan, whom I could not see; and one of them, rather a truculent-looking man, drew his hand across his throat, and with a solemn countenance, motioned me to hold my peace. ‘Here then,’ said I to myself, ‘I am about to suffer the penalty of travelling with a false firman;⁠[48] my janissary has been punished in the summary way of a Turk, and I must submit to whatever they please to do to myself; the Elchi Bey⁠[49] can’t protect a British subject in this remote place.’ While engaged in these pleasant reflections, a joint-stool was brought in and set before me, and a large metal tray laid on it, with a number of broad horn spoons, like shovels. I had some vague notions of barbarian nations feeding people before they kill them; and here was my last meal.

“The first course was a basin, the size of a cauldron, of pease-porridge, which was soon dispatched by the company; the next was a seasoned substance, like macaroni; and the last was a bowl of an acidulated liquor, the most grateful I ever tasted. During the whole of the entertainment, not a sound was uttered, nor was I ever asked to eat. But a man in a green turban, to mark his being a descendant of Mahomet, and who seemed the master of the feast, had his eye on me. When he saw me relaxing with my spoon, he said not a word; but he nudged the man next him with his elbow, and he his neighbour, till it came round to me; and in this way I was pressed to eat more. A large bunch of grapes was fished up from the bottom of the last bowl, and held for a moment by the Turk in the green turban; it was then passed on to me, without any one helping himself, and laid on the tray before me; and it seemed a part of the ceremonial of the entertainment. When every thing was removed, I was presented with a cup of coffee, and a pipe; but having declined them, one of the company laid the side of his head on his hand, intimating that I should go to sleep; I drew my cloak over me as I was bid, and when I awoke in the morning, I found the company still sitting round me, smoking as before I fell asleep. The horses were now brought to the door, and my hosts departed as silently as they entered, without asking remuneration, or seeming to expect even thanks. I afterwards found that my friendly Turks were the voivode and principal men of the village, who, being informed that I was a stranger and a Frank with a firman, had given me an entertainment; and the man who drew his hand across his throat, had intimated that Hasan had gone to get himself shaved and dressed for dinner. There was something singular in their taciturn hospitality, but the kindness of a Turk is divested of all pretension; it is rude, but cordial, whenever it is offered.”

At the town of Rodosto, the same writer says:—

“The Khans for travellers here are of a most enormous size, some of them, apparently, as large as Westminster Hall, and resembling it in appearance; an open edifice, with a high roof, supported on naked walls, unbroken by any object. Some of them contain two or three hundred horses, or camels, which appear like mice ranged round the floor below.”

But the khanjhis, or keepers of the Khan, must not themselves be passed over without a word of mention. They are usually keen-witted, crafty, intelligent men—the very focus of all the news and gossip of the city; chartered rascals, moreover, who will cheat every one to his face who has any thing to lose, and against whom every one is consequently on his guard; but who are at the same time so true to the trust reposed in them, that the goods of the merchants, however valuable, are never violated when once placed in the charge of the khanjhi, who will die at his post rather than suffer even a suspicious eye to rest upon them.

There is a certain foppery about the khanjhi of a first-rate Caravanseraï; he wears his turban with an air, carries his chibouque between the second and third fingers of his right hand, and flourishes a tusbee in his left, as though it had never any other employment than that of coquetting with the beads of the chaplet; although his well-worn slippers, and the weather-stained folds of his dress, tell a tale of more active and useful occupations.

The khanjhis are universally patient and good-humoured, and from living constantly among strangers, are much less prejudiced in favour of their own habits and manners than most of their countrymen; though they evidently consider the mere visitors to the establishment as decided intruders, interfering with the comfort and seclusion of their tenants, and trammelling them in their business; and consequently receive the parting backschish⁠[50] of the stranger with a grim satisfaction wondrously amusing.

Altogether, could the wandering European make the acquaintance of a khanjhi in every Eastern city that he visits, without being compelled to make that of the Khan itself, he would enjoy a novel and interesting phase of society, totally distinct from all that he had left behind him in the far west.

FORT BEIL-GOROD, ON THE BOSPHORUS.

The fortress of Beil-Gorod, which forms the subject of the accompanying sketch, is situated immediately opposite to the Jouchi Dajhi, or Giant’s Grave. It is in the most efficient state of any of the double line of forts bristling the shores of the Bosphorus; and is frequently visited by Sultan Mahmoud, who, during the summer months, occasionally spends whole days at Beil-Gorod, whither he repairs in his gilded barge, attended by a train of Pashas and Beys in their graceful caïques, sweeping along the channel like a flight of swans.

It is a singular and beautiful sight to watch the action of the rowers in the larger boats, or galleys, pulling six or eight pairs of oars, as, clad in a uniform dress composed of white silk shirts with loose open sleeves, cotton drawers of extreme width, and small red caps scarcely covering the crown of their shaven heads, they bend to the long sweep of the pliant oars with an action as symmetrical as though it were produced by machinery, and increase their speed to the utmost stretch, when two rival boats are striving for the lead,—while on every occasional rencontre with each other on the same course, the foremost boat makes it a point of honour not to lose its place; the rowers voluntarily exerting their strength and skill in mimic regattas of perpetual recurrence. The caïques themselves are beautiful; long and narrow, with high prows glittering with gilding, and raised sterns, where the attendants sit behind their employers, who occupy the bottom of the boat, which is always luxuriously carpetted and cushioned, the build of the caïque not admitting of transverse seats, even did the habits of the Osmanli favour them: and thus they skim along upon the ripple like wild-birds; or bound over the “Devil’s current” with the assistance of the yelik, or towing-rope, which is flung on board by persons who gain a subsistence in assisting the labouring boats through the whirling eddies, where the oars of the boatmen cannot avail. A small silver coin, its amount depending on the liberality of the traveller, repays this service; and the Sheitan Akindessi once passed, the oars are resumed, the yelik cast off, and the freed caïque again shoots forward like an arrow.

There is probably no boat in the world so thoroughly elegant—the canoe of the Indian, the gondola of the Venetian, even the antique classical-looking bark of the Arab, beautiful as it is, must yield the palm to the fairy boats of the Bosphorus.

The situation of Beil-Gorod is very fine, as it commands the entrance of the Bosphorus from the Euxine; and every vessel bound from the “Sea of Storms” to the Golden City necessarily passes before it, producing a constantly varied panorama full of movement and interest. The Jouchi-Daghi frames in the picture on one side, sobering its tints, and recalling the tradition of its former occupant, who, if he did not actually “sit upon a rock, and bob for whales,” was, according to the legend, quite able to have done so, had he wished it; while in the other direction the “ocean-stream,” winding between its romantic shores, stretches away far as the eye can reach, now lost behind some wooded height, now seen again beyond it, until earth and water, bay and mountain, become blent in one pure glittering purple, and are lost amid the horizon.

THE AQUEDUCT OF BAGHTCHÈ-KEUÏ.

Allusion has already been made to this fine old aqueduct, which spans the beautiful meadow above Buyukdèrè with its lofty arches. The view from it is singularly lovely, and very extensive; valley and mountain, land and water, waste and forest, are spread out on all sides in noble combination; while the deep stillness of the spot gives a sublimity to the landscape which must be felt to be understood.

There is a season called by the Turks Patlinjam Melktem, a time in autumn remarkable for producing a particular species of gourd, when a north-east wind invariably sets in, and the Black Sea, violently driven against the western shore, sends forth a low and solemn moaning like the continuous voice of human agony. The effect of this awful diapason from the aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï is thrilling,—one long wail of woe fills the air—while the wild waves, hurled against the rocks at the mouth of the Bosphorus, carry upon their crests the foaming banner of destruction, warning from their vicinage the daring bark which would essay the entrance of the Boghaz. At this period dense banks of fog are packed against the rocks, and the whole line of coast presents one mass of heavy uniform obscurity; rendering a passage, at all times sufficiently perilous, almost impossible: the entrance is flanked by two bold and abrupt promontories, crowned with light-houses, and known as the Phanaraki Points. A small village is situated near each of these beacon-towers: and at no great distance stand two of the channel-fortresses, strikingly defined against the dark green rocks on which they are built.

Between the two promontories, but considerably on the European side of the Boghaz, stands one of the Symplegades; the other is at a considerable distance, quite within the Euxine, and very close to the shore. Dr. Walsh, who visited this latter, gives the following very graphic and interesting account of it:—

“We landed with some difficulty, the great swell rising nearly half way up the rock, and threatening to throw our light skiff on the ledge of some precipice. It stands about half a mile from the light-house point of the European shore, just within the Black Sea. It consists of a rocky eminence, twenty or thirty yards in height, and two or three hundred in circumference. On the summit is a very beautiful circular pedestal of pure white marble and fine sculpture. It is four feet three inches in height, and two feet seven inches in diameter; round it is a rich festoon of flowers, supported on bulls’ heads, with stars between the folds. It is of superior workmanship, and seems to have been sculptured at an era when the arts were cultivated; but of its origin, date, or name, there is nothing certain; even its shape is not agreed on. The Byzantine historian, Dionysius, says the Romans erected a fane on this rock, and hence it is called ‘the Altar.’ Whatever might have been its original destination, it was latterly appropriated to another use; this is the opinion of Gillius, who saw it in 1545. There stood upon it a Corinthian column, and the monument obtained the name of ‘Pompey’s Pillar,’ by which it is sometimes known. There was a vague tradition that he had erected it after his victory over Mithridates, whose kingdom of Pontus was close beside, on the coast of Asia. He named a city on the coast, built by that monarch, ‘Pompeiopolis;’⁠[51] but there is no historical record of erecting a column; and Pompey has lost the reputation of this pillar, as well as of that at Alexandria, which it now appears was raised to Dioclesian. When Tournefort visited the rock in 1700, he saw the pillar, twelve feet in length, but it has now disappeared. On the summit of the pedestal which remains, are four square apertures sunk into it, and they seem to have been intended to fasten on the top some other object. There is now no inscription, or trace of it, except some modern scribbling of travellers who have visited the spot; the earliest I could find was dated 1623. This beautiful piece of sculpture, on the summit of so remote and solitary a rock, is a very striking object, and strongly contrasted with the rude wildness of every thing about it.

“The substance of which the rock is formed seems an extraordinary composition. It is a kind of breccia, of various coloured lava, trap, basalt, and limestone, intersected by veins of agate, or chalcedony, of considerable extent. It seems, in fact, an agglomeration of heterogeneous substances, fused together by the action of intense fire. But the colour most predominant is blue or dark green, arising from the presence of some metallic oxide. This has conferred upon the rocks their comparatively modern name: when they were no longer an object of terror, and ceased to crush ships between them, they lost their first appellation, and were called from their hue, Cyanean, a property which remains to this day.”⁠[52]⁠

In a season of storm, such as we have endeavoured to describe, the ear of the wanderer lingering at Baghtchè-Keuï is more thralled than the eye; for it is only when the lightning shimmers for an instant on the foam-crested waves by which the rocks are girdled, that the sublimity of the scene can be discerned,—when the “vexed Symplegades” are battling with the billows, and the dark coast casts back the watery charge with a moan of thunder, as though it mourned over the devastation which might be borne onward upon the wild and reckless storm-waves. The aqueduct should be visited at a more genial season, for its wide sweep of prospect to be fully enjoyed.

The valley of Buyukdèrè is the largest glen on the European shore of the channel, extending for five or six miles, and boasting its historical interest as well as its picturesque beauty; for here it was, in a flower-laden meadow of about a mile in width, that the doughty Godfrey de Bouillon encamped his Crusaders in the year 1097, when they were on their way to the siege of Micæa,—a reminiscence which is often renewed by the sight of Turkish tents on the same spot; the meadow of Buyukdèrè being a favourite resort of the Sultan, who in the summer months repairs thither to witness wrestling matches, the exercise of the jereed, and other athletic games performed in the open air.

Near the centre of the valley stands a platanus of enormous size, which is considered to be probably the largest in the world. It measures forty-seven yards in circumference near the root, and it is asserted that its branches overshadow a circular extent of upwards of four hundred feet. The enormous trunk is divided into fourteen stems, the forks of several being now hidden by the soil which has accumulated above them, while others are distant as much as seven or eight feet from the earth. One has been broken off at an immense height, and another is entirely hollow, apparently from fire, and is frequently used by the goat-herds as a refuge during storms.

Perhaps no platanus ever sung by the ancients, honoured by the admiration of an Emperor, haunted by the philosopher and the patriot, or nourished by the Anacreontic libations of Roman revellers, deserved immortality more fully than that of Buyukdèrè. A French naturalist has conjectured that it must have existed more than two thousand years; yet still its gigantic branches spread far and wide, garlanded with fair fresh leaves, and its sturdy boughs rebound from the pressure of the tempest-wind which sweeps over them in its fury, with all the firm free vigour of eternal youth: generations pass away—the infant rises into the boy—the boy strengthens into the man—manhood withers into old age—and the grave closes over the dead:—another race succeeds, and yet another, and another; while the same tree lives on, hale, and green, and flourishing, mocking at poor mortality, and weaving a new web of beauty with every changing season. The triumph of man’s strength and of man’s ingenuity, the stately aqueduct of Baghtchè-Keuï, still stands indeed, and has also endured throughout its weary centuries; but like all man’s works it is perishable and imperfect. The ponderous masonry is loosened and displaced—the surface of the stone is corroded by the tooth of time, and the action of the atmosphere—lichens and caper-plants have rooted themselves amid the interstices of the building; and while the platanus bursts out into fresh youth with every coming spring, each revolving year renders the human monument more weak and hoar and writes upon its gigantic arches the characters of decay.

A COFFEE-KIOSQUE.

Even as the English have their tavern, the French their restaurant, and the Portuguese their estralagem, so have the Turks their Coffee-Kiosque—the rendezvous alike of the idle and the exhausted—of the man of pleasure who lives only for self-indulgence, and the man of business who reluctantly snatches an hour of relaxation from the all-absorbing toils of commerce. What the public baths are to the women of Turkey, the public coffee-houses are to their lords—the head-quarters of gossipry, and news, and enjoyment—where every passing event is canvassed, and weighed, and judged; and time is suffered to slide by as carelessly as though it might one day be redeemed.

In the villages, the Coffee-Kiosques are erected in pleasant shady nooks, where the maples shed a glory and a grace over the hamlet, (for these are never wanting in a village on the Bosphorus;) and where, with the leaves above their heads, canopied by the bright blue sky which peeps in among them as if to lend them an added beauty, and the “ocean-stream” flowing at their feet, the placid and nature-loving Moslems inhale the fragrance of the chibouque, and drain their tiny cups of scented mocha. But in the city, few are the coffee-kiosques which can boast better shade than that of the deeply-projecting roof of the building, which, flung boldly forward several feet from the walls of the house itself, serves to shelter the open terrace that stretches along each side of the edifice; and this terrace, furnished with wide seats, on which the visitor can lounge at ease, forms the nearest approach to out-of-door enjoyment compatible with their situation.

The Coffee-Kiosque chosen by the artist for his sketch, is that of Pieri Pasha, near the Arsenal, and overlooking the harbour—a position eminently calculated to render it popular. The moving panorama which it commands, is a perpetual source of interest; and the breeze comes softly from the sea of Marmora, with freshness and perfume on its wing.

The amusements provided, or rather customary, at these places of resort, are numerous, but seldom commence before noon, the morning passing listlessly away in the gossipry of which mention has already been made. They consist principally of music, (the performers being usually young Jews,) improvisation, matches at tric-trac, and an exhibition somewhat resembling a magic-lantern in effect, though not in principle; the mover of the puppets occupying an angle of the apartment screened off, and presenting a front covered with muslin stretched over a frame, against which the puppets are pressed, to exhibit their grotesque antics. Their performance is accompanied by the ceaseless recitative of the exhibitor, who must be a decided humourist, if not a genuine wit, to judge by the effect of his oration. The Turks are too well-bred, and too self-possessed, to indulge in the boisterous laughter which is often elicited by a clever mime in Europe; but the low quiet chuckle, and the hand passed slowly and complacently over the beard, proclaim their thorough appreciation of the attempt to amuse them: nor is the mountebank backward in deciding on the precise moment in which the richest harvest may be reaped; for no sooner has he secured the good-will of his audience by a burst of humour, and excited their curiosity by a mystery, than forth he pops from his concealment with a little metal basin in his hand to levy contributions; and this ceremony is repeated several times during the evening.

The Improvvisatori generally accompany themselves on a rude sort of guitar, which they twang most unmercifully, as they pour forth their lays of love, or their tales of tradition, in a heavy, monotonous, sleep-inspiring drawl, never seeming themselves to become inspired by their subject; while their hearers, apparently quite insensible to the soporific medium through which the legends are conveyed, frequently betray extreme emotion as they listen, grasping the hilts of the handjars⁠[53] in their girdles, setting their teeth firmly, clenching their fingers rigidly upon their palms, and drawing their breath hard, as though their respiration were impeded.

The Hebrew music already mentioned comprises several performers, and the instruments are commonly a small Arab drum, two or three bad guitars, and a tambourine; these are relieved by the voices of the younger boys, which are generally very thin and shrill, and they sometimes accompany their songs with a heavy languishing movement—a caricature of the graceful dance of the Harem.

That some of these establishments, however, not only emulate, but even exceed in luxury and magnificence the most costly and fashionable European “Clubs,” we have the evidence of Mr. St. John, (no mean authority on oriental subjects,) who thus describes one visited by himself during a season of high festival:—

“We now proceeded to the coffee-house of Kodjia Ben Lolo, near the great Hammams,⁠[54] the approaches to which were so crowded, that it was with much difficulty we found our way in. This establishment, which is on a grand scale, corresponds in a great measure with our ideas of Oriental splendour. Erected, like a caravanseraï, about a spacious quadrangular court, it contains an infinite number of magnificent rooms, paved with marble, and furnished with superb divans of crimson velvet, bordered with gold fringe a foot deep. The windows are glazed, if one may so speak, with large panes of gypsum,⁠[55] gorgeously painted in various colours; and in the midst of the principal apartment, an elegant marble fountain, constantly playing, maintains an agreeable freshness in the air. None but opulent Turks frequent this establishment, the expense of the entertainment being considerable....

“Small brazen censers, placed on the summit of pyramidal flower-stands, and constantly burning, filled the apartment with the perfume of sandal-wood, benzoin, and wood of aloes, intermingled with the rich odours of Indian myrtle, jasmine, and other rare or sweet plants.”⁠[56]⁠

In establishments, such as the one here described, the most rare and costly coffee and tobacco is served to the guests, by the owner of the house; but in the common run of Coffee-kiosques, each individual brings his own tobacco in a small bag, which he carries amid the folds of the shawl that he wears about his waist, or, should he have adopted the new costume, in his bosom. A brazier, full of heated charcoal, stands in the apartment, and the stranger is no sooner seated, and has filled his chibouque, (two almost simultaneous operations,) than the cafèjhe seizes a small live coal in a pair of iron pincers, and deposits it on the summit of the tobacco. When the customer has smoked a few long whiffs, he calls for coffee, which is made over another and larger brazier, and handed to him in its minute cup of porcelain, standing in a metal zarf;⁠[57] and the few paras which, on departing, are paid for the coffee, are considered a sufficient compensation to the attentive cafèjhe for his house-room, his goblets of clear cool water, and his exhausted charcoal, as well as for the article for which they profess to pay.

There is a marked difference in the method of smoking pursued by the upper class of Turks and that practised by the poorer orders. The wealthy and fastidious Effendi fills the boudaka⁠[58] of his chibouque with the mild and costly tobacco of Salonica, which he inhales, until round the edges of the bowl a circle of white ash is formed, which rises buoyantly from the superincumbent morsel of heated charcoal, when he immediately empties the boudaka, and flings the exhausted weed away, for its aroma has then perished, and the tobacco, to a connoisseur, has become worthless; while the boatmen and mechanics smoke the strong, coarse produce of Latakia, even to the last fragment. There are other varieties of the “scented weed” imported from the Crimea, Ormus, Circassia, and different parts of the East, but the two already quoted are by far the most popular, and the most extensively consumed.

There were, formerly, establishments at Constantinople, called Teriarki Tcharchi, or opium-houses, but these exist no longer; they were conducted on the same principle as the Coffee-Kiosques; but in the Teriarki Tcharchi, the comparatively innoxious use of tobacco was accompanied by that of opium, which was handed from guest to guest, made up into pills. One of them, no longer appropriated to its original purpose, but rapidly mouldering to decay, may still be seen in the neighbourhood of the Mosque of Solimaniè. It differs in nothing from a common coffee-house, save in its extent, which is considerable; and the miserable victims to this singular vice, so painfully described by the Baron de Tott, nearly a hundred years ago, are fortunately no longer to be seen, as the use of opium is now considered disgraceful by the Turks; and an individual addicted to its use, is regarded as that almost obsolete animal, a sot, would be among ourselves.

The motive of such of the population as still adhere to this disgraceful practice in private—a practice reprobated by the respectable portion of the community, and formally forbidden by the government, is, as they express it, to make kef; a phrase perfectly untranslatable, but which would seem to mean the creation of a species of unnatural but pleasurable excitement, unconnected with any physical exertion, as kef may be made where the person under the operation of the drug lies quietly on his cushions, wrapped in a sort of drowsiness indicative of no emotion whatever to the lookers-on; although it is asserted that there are frequent cases where the effects of the kef would be well worthy the attention of any oriental police-office.

The habit of opium-eating, is, however, rapidly declining among the Turks. Denounced by the government, despised by the bulk of the population, and only practised by the dissipated and the depraved, it will probably soon cease to exist altogether; while the legitimate Coffee-Kiosque, quiet, orderly, and moderate, is as essential a feature of the country as the Mosque, the Khan, or the Tcharchi.

THE BOSPHORUS.

Ere I take my leave of the reader, whom I have endeavoured, in conjunction with Mr. Bartlett, to interest in one of the most glorious portions of the earth, I cannot deny myself the gratification of once more addressing him in my own proper person.

In the volume which is now nearly completed, space was not permitted to me for mention of many things on which it would have been a pleasure to expatiate; nor have I made an effort towards this self-indulgence. The work is a purely descriptive one, and I have followed the talented artist wheresoever he has led me, and have found him no inefficient guide. Together we have visited mosques, wandered in burial-places, clombe mountains, and glided over the sun-lighted Bosphorus: and there were times when such a pilgrimage would have been deemed no trifling undertaking; but Steam has now annihilated both time and space; and we can only hope that our pictorial and literary pictures may induce the traveller on his summer trip to Palmyra, Balbek, or Jerusalem, not to overlook in his haste the fair city of Byzantium.

Snatches of exquisite poetry have frequently been written on the subject of the Bosphorus; from the days of Lady Mary Wortley Montague to our own, every pilgrim-bard has wooed the glorious “ocean-stream” in song—every traveller has freely offered to it the meed of his admiration; yet still I feel convinced that those who know it only by verse and story cannot form a correct or adequate idea of its peculiar beauties. The description of one tourist gives a balloon view of the whole channel, sweeping it from the Euxine to the Sea of Marmora, levelling mountains, prostrating forests, and making curved lines straight; while an eminent French traveller and literateur, in an eloquent and elegant burst of imaginative genius, setting fact at defiance, removes some of the windings of the Strait, and enlarges the range of vision with true poetic license, in order to present a more rich and animated tableau at a single coup-d’œil, instead of distinguishing the series of points in keeping with the original. This bold and energetic style of verbal painting may produce a powerful picture, well calculated to impress the mind of the reader, but it by no means does justice to its subject, for the surpassing beauty of the Bosphorus is its exquisite variety. History and fable go hand in hand, walking over its waters, and awakening pleasant memories of the past; but it needed not these additional incitements to admiration, for nature has woven so powerful a spell about its shores that the present scarcely asks the prestige of the past. The liveliest creations of the fancy are not likely to be disappointed on the spot; and hence there is no reason why even the most enthusiastic tourist should overcharge the colouring, or aim at additional ornament in grouping the details.

The true charm of the Bosphorus, as I have already remarked, lies in its endless variety of perspective: it is like a garland, woven by the hand of beauty, of which each blossom is brighter than the last; not a rock, not a tree, not a tower, could be displaced without injury to the whole. Rival castles, looking each upon the other from the shores of Europe and of Asia, stand on the nearest point of approach between the two coasts, and seem at one interval to close the entrance of the channel; but, as the rapid caïque starts onward, they yield to laughing groves, and painted palaces, and hamlets scattered along the lip of the water, and mirrored in the waves; and the beautiful curve is lost only to be succeeded by another, and another. At almost every boat’s length the vista changes, and presents new combinations; inlets and glens at intervals peeping out in their pleasant greenery, break the rigid outline of the rocks; valleys, such as even Rasselas might have loved to dwell in, studded with trees to the very edge of the current which their branches overhang, are sheltered by the woods on the sloping sides of the adjacent heights—the cypress and pine retaining throughout the year their deep perpetual green, and the brighter foliage ever shifting under the breeze, and wearing new shapes and hues as it sweeps over them.

A range of populous villages, composed of party-coloured houses, intermingled with trees and gardens, and handsome mansions backed by lofty hills, extends for about twelve miles on either shore; the finest sites being occupied by the palaces and kiosques of the court, either erected or embellished by the present Sultan, with their bright façades and fanciful parapets glittering in the sun-light; while numerous private villas are interspersed among them, always gaily and fancifully painted when belonging to a Turk, and in sober grey or lead colour when tenanted by an Armenian or a Greek, Christians not being permitted to use any other colours on the exterior of their dwellings; while the houses of the Jews are invariably black. These villas frequently have terraces, formed into parterres and flower-beds, cut in the face of the precipitous rocks, and leading by winding steps to the pretty kiosque, or pavilion, pitched like an eyrie on the cliff above; others have gardens laid out along the banks of the channel, whose rose-wreaths, suspended from the walls, almost drop into the current; while their fading blossoms, scattering their loosened petals on the tide, freight it as with a fleet of fairy barks!

One Imperial Kiosque, perched on the apex of a cone-like rock on the Asiatic coast, about midway of the strait, is a very conspicuous object. From below it appears as though it covered the whole summit of the height; not a tree breaks its beautiful Grecian outline as it stands out in strong relief against the intense blue of the sky, and it is very appropriately called the “Kiosque of the Sun.”

It has been said that travellers should never set foot in the city of Constantinople, in order not to dispel by unsightly contacts in its mean and narrow streets the glorious illusion of the spectacle from the waters. This assertion is hyper-fastidious, and must have emanated from a mind totally unable to appreciate the treasures to which those streets conduct. Should the Tchernberlè Tasch remain unvisited because the unsavoury lanes in its vicinity are disagreeable to traverse? Should the Palace of Belisarius be avoided because Jews burrow among the ruins? Should the Mosques, the Khans, the Tcharchi, and the Seraï, continue unexplored, because the wandering Sybarite cannot walk to them over rose-leaves? Surely some sacrifice may well be made in order to insure a pilgrimage round the old, ivy-clad, historical walls of Byzantium, or a glance into one of its stately Mosques—some annoyance undergone to obtain an opportunity of studying the national character, and judging of the national manners.

The most celebrated view in the environs is that from the Bulgurlhu Daghi, behind Scutari, overlooking the Marmora, the city, the harbour, and the whole line of coast in the direction of Asia Minor; but, by ascending some other peak a few miles from the shore, the oblique and narrow strait of the Bosphorus may be traced in all its windings, until diminished in appearance to a mere meadow rivulet; while at each extremity of the horizon, seemingly linked together by this silver chain, the Euxine and the Propontis spread their broad waters.

A ramble over the mountain-heights of the Asian coast is delicious: the pure cool wind comes lovingly to your cheek, untainted by one touch of earth; and the silence is unbroken, save by the shrill whistle of the shepherd, and the responsive bark of his trusty dog; the call of the goat-herd to his truant flock; the short keen stroke of the woodcutter; or, frequently, the rustle of a pheasant springing from the copse beside you, rather startled than alarmed, and sailing away in all his primitive glory and wildness, such as he is still found in his native woods of the Phasis.

The Bosphorus wears the most animated appearance early in June, when the trees are in full foliage, and every leaf is redolent of life, ere the heats have withered the herbage, and when a light southerly wind is wafting hundreds of vessels up the strait towards the Black Sea, the inner tiers almost touching the houses with their spars; while all the caïques are plying busily between the city and the villages on the channel, laughter is ringing out on the clear air, roses blossoming along the banks, and the waters are buoyant with life and motion, and adding to the magic of the landscape.

But to be seen in all its beauty, it should be looked upon by moonlight. Then it is that the occupants of the spacious mansions which overhang its waters enjoy to the fullest perfection the magnificence of the scene around them. The glare of noonday reveals too fully the colours of the picture, and the garish sun withers as it shines; while the deep, purple, star-encrusted sky, the pure moonlight, and the holy quiet of evening, lend to it, on the contrary, a mysterious indistinctness which doubles its attraction.

The inhabitants of the capital are conscious of this fact; and, during the summer months, when they occupy their marine villas, one of their favourite recreations is to seat themselves upon their seaward terraces to enjoy the passing music of the caïques which skim over the ripple, freighted with amateur minstrels gliding from house to house, and warbling their good-night at each, to the accompaniment of a guitar; or in listening to the evening hymns of the seamen on board the Italian and Greek vessels anchored in the strait; amused at intervals by the rolling by of a huge shoal of porpoises on their way to the harbour, (where they frequently abound,) gambolling in the moonlight, and plunging among the waves with a sound like thunder; while, in the distance, loom out the dark mountains of the Asian coast, casting their long dusky shadows far across the water; and close beside them are the quivering summits of the tall trees on the edge of the channel, sparkling like silver, and lending the last touch of loveliness to a landscape, perhaps unparalleled in the world.

The Bay of Naples—the fairest and most picturesque points of the Rhine—the approach to sea-seated Venice—the entrance of the Tagus—and the noblest portions of the Danube, have each in turn been quoted as all-excelling, and unsurpassable in natural beauty; but who that has anchored in the Golden Horn, just where beyond the shadow of the Guz-Couli, his eye could wander onward along the channel, will not at once yield the palm to the “rolling seas between the Bosphorus?” Truly, the Bay of Naples boasts its volcanic mountain, which in sublimity must stand unrivalled; but it has not the freshness, the changefulness, the never-ending variety of the Golden Horn; and it, moreover, wants the strait which renders the site of the Moslem city unique in its character. The great German streams, noble and majestic as they may be, are devoid of those lovely breaks and varied vistas which render the Bosphorus so beautiful, and divest it of all tameness and monotony; grandeur and softness vie with each other upon its banks; and it is, moreover, the swift ocean-tide which flows between them, while the shores of the Danube and the Rhine are laved only by the waters of one of its humble tributaries.

And now my pleasant task is ended. I have exhausted the artist’s portfolio, and I have nothing left to do, save to take leave of the reader, who has wandered with me in idea under the sunny skies of the fair East.

I have said little—almost nothing, of the inhabitants of the “City of the Sultan;” not because I could not have said much, very much, which might have gratified both them and myself, but because the nature of the present work did not admit of my doing so; and it is only now, at the “eleventh hour,” that I permit myself to remark, that the courtesy, kindness, and friendship, which I universally experienced from the natives of the country, and the veneration which I felt for their many virtues, tended greatly to endear to my heart “The Beauties of the Bosphorus.”

CONCLUSION.

At this crisis, when both the political and transition state of Turkey render it a subject of more than usual importance to all who are interested in Oriental affairs, a work on the Bosphorus would be incomplete if wanting a record of the most remarkable period of its modern history, during the presence of the Russian expedition, which arrived upon its shores in February, 1833; and this I am fortunately enabled to give through the kindness of a diplomatic friend who was resident at Constantinople at the time, and who obligingly furnished me with the very interesting details.

It was known that the Sultan had accepted the offer of Russian assistance, after having in vain applied to France and England in the extremity to which he was driven by Mehemet Ali. But the design had been decidedly disapproved of in a grand council of his people and ministers, summoned to take it into consideration:—“Were it the English, they might bid them welcome; but to invite the Muscovite infidel, their bitter and hereditary foe, was inadmissible; they would rather leave the event to Providence.” Not so judged the Sultan, who had seen no reason to change his mind. The battle of Konia was his last cast, and had been lost; he had no army left, and the people would not fight in his cause; whilst Ibrahim, at the head of his victorious troops, had advanced to within a fortnight’s march of the capital, and menaced the throne. The order for relief from Russia had been despatched by the Envoy, under discretionary authority from his Court, and never been recalled; a circumstance of which only a few Europeans were aware, besides the parties to the arrangement. Various rumours on the subject were afloat, and the public in anxious suspense, when all doubt was ended by the intelligence that the Russian fleet had appeared in sight. Hearing the news, numbers of persons crowded the windows of the houses which commanded a view of the passage from the Black Sea, whence they could discern one or two large ships already advanced within the channel, followed by several others, looming in the distance. The blue cross in a white field soon became visible, salutes were interchanged with the Turkish batteries, and, in another hour, a Russian squadron of seven line-of-battle ships was anchored at Buyukdèrè.

Never before had a naval force visited these waters since they owned the sway of the Crescent, but what bore its emblem. A single frigate, or, occasionally, a two-decker, conveying an Ambassador, was admitted as a favour—their mission being regarded as a tribute to the sublime dignity of the Porte. Even the English, the heroes of the sea, and countrymen of Nelson, had, under Duckworth, ventured only in sight of the bristled walls of Stamboul, but not in reach of their cannon; and the granite masses launched from the huge guns of the Dardanelles, had taken revenge on their return for their audacity in forcing an entrance. For nearly four centuries since its conquest from the Greeks, the Imperial City of Islamism had not bowed to the dominion of strangers.

The Ghiaours, the fleet of the Muscov Ghiaours, arrived! It seemed incredible to the astonished and bewildered Turks. They would not at first believe the assurances of eye-witnesses of the fact; and numbers ascended the channel, and gazed on the ships, before they were fully satisfied. “Ah! where are our own that fought so manfully at Navarino?” some exclaimed. Others, “Why did we not make a stand in defence of our Sultan and country, when we might have squeezed like paste (as truly they could) the handful of infidels that crossed the Balkans with Diebitch?” Mehemet Ali was also a favourite with the populace, and they wished him success in order to keep out the Russians, with hopes of better fortune under his command. A Turkish workman standing by as their ships entered, cast one look at them, and then quietly resumed his labour, with the ejaculation, “Zavali Mehemet Ali yeldizin caboul edemez;” It was not your destiny, Mehemet Ali—your star would not permit.

An encampment was ordered for the Russian troops on the hills, on the Asiatic side, above Unkiar Skelessi,⁠[59] famous afterwards for the treaty concluded there before their departure; but in the country, more noted for the delightful valley of the same name to which it is the landing-place. Mouravieff, the commander-in-chief of the army, was a bluff, uncouth Russian, who seemed indifferent to intercourse with strangers, and concerned only with his military duties, taking notice of no one but to give his orders and receive visitors of rank with a stiff, formal salute. He scarce felt at ease, more than his soldiers, as to what part they might have to act, and how the inhabitants would endure their presence. Strict precautions were taken to keep the men within their lines, placed where not a hut or human being was to be seen in their immediate neighbourhood; and the ships in sight, not two miles distant, with which they could communicate. The Turks, however, suppressed their indignation, submitting to circumstances which they could not control, and considering that the strangers had come by the authority of their Sultan. Their national character, at times furious and ungovernable on sudden excitement, is tractable under command, and guided by calm discretion when they have time for reflection; and there is, perhaps, scarcely an instance of a people entertaining such a rooted animosity, and restraining it so completely, when thus placed in contact with the objects of their hate.

The heights soon exhibited a novel and picturesque appearance, dotted over by the Russian encampment; and some regiments of Turkish guards, with their circular and blue tents, according to national usage, shortly after took their quarters a little below, in unwonted fraternity. The representatives of the other great powers, anxious to see the Sultan’s new allies dismissed as quickly as possible, made an arrangement in a few weeks to that effect. It was proposed by the French Ambassador, supported by the Austrian, under the guarantee of the former, that Mehemet Ali should accept the terms. Our minister, who was only ad interim, of minor rank, and without instructions, also assisting in promoting a settlement. The compact, however, was rejected by Mehemet Ali, and disapproved of by the French government; and although the basis was far more favourable to the Porte than that of the Convention of Kutaya afterwards concluded, as Adana and Tarsus were reserved, and Syria only ceded to the Egyptian chieftain, it was fortunate for the Sultan that the sailing of the expedition, if ever seriously intended at the time, did not then take place. A few days before that fixed for the purpose, news arrived of an event which caused its indefinite postponement, and superseded all diplomatic combinations.

Smyrna, the second city in Turkey, with a population of 120,000 inhabitants, had withdrawn from its allegiance to the Porte, and under circumstances, notwithstanding the gravity of the change, perfectly ridiculous. Ibrahim’s detached parties had already assumed the command of Magnesia, another city, thirty miles distant; and from thence, three individuals, the bearers of a pretended letter, with his sanction, presented themselves to the Governor of Smyrna, requiring him to abdicate in favour of a successor appointed by their Chief. The Egyptian General, who had agreed to an armistice until an answer should be received from his father to the recent proposals, disavowed having sent the summons when called on for an explanation. It had, however, been immediately obeyed by the notables of Smyrna, who, when consulted on the occasion, judged submission to be the most prudent course; and an intriguing personage of their own body, named Buladauli, who contrived the plot, was, without a dissentient voice, installed in the Government, like Sancho Panza in that of Barrataria. The customs and other branches of the revenue, of which he took possession, showed afterwards by the empty state of the money chests, deep traces of his ten days’ administration, for it lasted no longer. As soon as the matter came to be understood, orders were despatched by the Porte to the legitimate Governor to resume his functions. On the firman to that effect being read, the foreign Consuls, who, without instruction, had judiciously declined to acknowledge the intruder, again hoisted their flags, his mock lordship decamped, and in the brief space mentioned, a second revolution took place as tranquilly as the first. No violence or disorder occurred on either occasion; and the principals in the contrivance having sought Ibrahim’s protection, no other individual suffered, either at that time, or since, the slightest molestation for having been its dupes. But the example must have been dangerous, perhaps contagious, at the capital, on the first shock, had the Sultan possessed no foreign support. It was at the option of England to have rendered him the service he then received from another power; and we may regret to this day that our Government did not seize the opportunity of securing the lasting advantage to both countries to which it would have led.

Further reinforcements for the fleet and army next followed from Russia, accompanied by Count Orloff, as Ambassador Extraordinary, and invested with the supreme command by sea and land. Shortly before, in March, Lord Ponsonby arrived to fill his post, and, with his political associate and colleague, Admiral Roussin, the French Ambassador, saw with great dissatisfaction this increase of strength, and appearance of a prolonged sojourn. It was remarked that the Russian ships, in conveying the new troops to the camp, passed under their Excellencies’ windows at Therapia, making a sweep, as if for the purpose, before proceeding to the opposite side. A corvette, armed en flute, with her decks crowded, and a band playing, was particularly conspicuous in paying this compliment; one of the most unwelcome serenades to which Lord Ponsonby, a thorough anti-Russian in politics, had probably ever been treated.

From the first entrance of the squadron, there had been abundant firing of salutes for distinguished visitors; and in mutual courtesy between the flags of Russia and the Porte, every national anniversary receiving from both the like honours. But now began the full roar of cannon, till scarce an hour elapsed but the whole line of the channel re-echoed with the sound, and as much powder was expended as might have sufficed to decide the fate of the empire in battle. When the fine season set in, with calm, cloudless nights, the tones of the Russian sentinel’s challenge, mellowed in traversing the water to the European shore, fell on the ear in the stillness with an effect not easy to describe. Again, on the morrow, recommenced the continuous discharge of artillery from the ships and forts, as the Sultan, or other high personages, passed in state in their visits to the military stations. The stirring news and discussions of the day more seriously occupied the public mind amidst this joyous show of ceremony and cordiality between the Porte and its allies, since it was yet uncertain how the event might terminate for the country, and with whom the sovereignty would remain. From their warlike attitude on the hills, where they were making additional entrenchments and depôts, it appeared that the danger for which the Russians had been summoned was not past, or that they were in no haste to depart. Suspicions were not wanting that the temptation to keep possession was too strong for them to resist. But reserve and distrust gradually gave way to more placid feelings and cheerful prospects; and fêtes and spectacles assumed their wonted gaiety. Some of the foreign ministers, who had hitherto declined visiting the camp, attended a grand review, where it was announced that the Sultan was to be present; and the whole diplomatic corps, invited by his special desire, came in full pomp to meet his Highness.

He was received with due honours on landing by Count Orloff, and after consulting his pleasure, aides-de-camp were sent off at full gallop to form the troops immediately under arms, till then remaining at ease near their posts. They were placed under the Sultan’s command for the day, the General-in-chief acting as his adjutant, and repeating the orders for the different manœuvres, after they had been first submitted to his approbation. The Sultan, equipped in a splendid military cloak, the collar ornamented with diamonds, a surtout, light pantaloons, boots, with massive gold spurs, and a red fur cap, rode through the field on a noble Arab charger with the ardour of an accomplished horseman, and the air of a soldier, attended by Orloff and a numerous staff. All the expertness of Russian tactics was displayed, and men and officers decked in their best attire; the soldiers, having their mustachoes stiffened with grease, and their chests thickly padded. The evolutions, performed with due precision, presented nothing remarkable, with the exception of one manœuvre, in which two battalions crossed each other’s ranks by companies, each file spreading a little for the purpose, and the first battalion occupying the ground from which the former retired. A Russian officer, standing by, observed, that this manœuvre, which the Turks did not comprehend, had cost them dear in battle. It is, however, known in our army, and allows any corps which may be weakened or harassed in action, or whose services might be more effective at some other point, to be relieved by an almost instantaneous change, scarce requiring any additional space, and in no degree deranging the order of the line in bringing up the reserves.

The extent of the valley afforded more than ample room for the exercises, and an immense concourse of spectators assembled, of both sexes and of every nation. The whole scene was, from the circumstances, exciting, far beyond mere parade, for the Russian force, stated to consist of fifteen thousand troops, appeared to have been far overrated when their camp was emptied; and they had, moreover, brought with them but a single troop of Cossack cavalry, and a very slender train of light artillery.

At the close of the review the Sultan received the staff and the members of the diplomacy in an adjoining kiosk, the same in which the treaty was afterwards signed. His position was a trying one for a sovereign, as he stood in the midst of a foreign soldiery, whom he might consider as his masters, having accepted their protection against his own subjects. It was therefore expected that he would appear somewhat subdued on the occasion,—not such, however, was his bearing; and never did he acquit himself with more éclat. Count Orloff was very remarkable during the ceremony of audience; a fearless soldier, of massive stature, and renowned as one of the most powerful men living for muscular strength, a noble and a courtier; and, still more, he was the generalissimo and delegate of his Emperor, selected by him, and entrusted with unlimited powers for this important service; but in the presence of Sultan Mahmoud he seemed completely overcome by the commanding aspect of the Turkish sovereign; and his looks and attitude, in tendering his homage, bespoke that sort of submissiveness and awe which he might himself inspire in his own humblest dependents. It is this imposing, lofty air, accompanied by extreme energy of will, which has given to the Sultan the wonderful ascendant he possesses over the minds of all who surround him. Those who have been accustomed to intercourse with royalty, and contact with the most distinguished statesmen and geniuses of their time, speak of the Moslem monarch as the most remarkable person they have ever seen, beside whom every other individual sinks into insignificance. A stranger meeting him incognito, would be struck by his appearance, as if denoting a more than common dignity; and at times, the expression of his countenance will cause an impression which none other could excite. His features are manly, though not regular, his cheeks being angular and prominent, and his complexion is flushed, when he is in exercise, as if from vigorous health. His person is a little above the middle size, neither spare nor corpulent, well-proportioned except in the legs, which are bent slightly inwards from the knee; and his whole appearance much enhanced by a handsome jet beard, arranged and preserved with special care. In minute attention to his person and dress he resembles George IV.; but he is, both physically and mentally, more active than that monarch. While flattered by the deference he inspires, and the observance of the forms of devotedness paid to absolute sovereignty in the East, he assumes no studious gestures, or affectation of majesty. Regality is stamped by nature on his brow, animating every feature and every movement; and even on that day, when surrounded by Russian bayonets, and his armies scattered in the field by a vassal—his spirit remained unquenched—he was “every inch a king!”

Terms had, meanwhile, been made with Ibrahim, whose army was withdrawn from Kutuya to Syria; and the Russians, who had only waited for the intelligence of his having retired within his own boundary, quitted the country a few weeks after the review. During their stay, they constantly remained twelve miles distant from Constantinople, which was not even in sight from their position; and the precautions taken in keeping the men to their quarters, and the placid temper of the inhabitants, prevented any squabbles of the least consequence arising between them. Their semi-barbarism was, however, constantly showing itself to strangers, in some shape or other. On one occasion, during an inspection of the troops, the Crown Prince of Bavaria, a tall slim youth, was presented to the Sultan on the ground. As the concluding ceremony, a soldier of each regiment advanced singly to his Imperial Highness, and gave the history of his corps, recapitulating the actions in which it had acquired its honorary titles. No one offered to explain; but the names of the places had almost all reference to campaigns in Turkey or Persia, whence the Sultan could sufficiently understand the drift of an address, not calculated to revive in his mind any agreeable recollections. It appeared to me that the mortification was harsh and displaced, if designed to gratify Russian pride; or very bad taste if it were mere formality. The artificial step and starched attitude of the soldier in this piece of acting were highly amusing and ludicrous; not a muscle of his boorish features changed as he delivered his set speech; after which he presented arms, turned round, and marched off with the same automaton strut. This rapidity was more conspicuous in a single individual than when the men were seen en masse, and proved how perfectly Russian discipline reduced them to mere living machines, guided by an instinctive impulse to obedience, the character for which this army is justly distinguished. So severe are the rules, and so rigidly are they observed, that several of their sentinels perished at St. Petersburg, some years since, during an inundation of the Neva, from remaining at their post till submerged, when they could have saved themselves on the first rise of the waters, by a prompt retreat, which they dared not attempt without receiving orders in the regular routine.

One of the minor Perote Diplomatists, who had gone en grande tenue to the camp at Unkiar Skelessi, had a soldier assigned to him, in compliment, as his attendant in taking a survey. By this guide, who could only speak Russian, not a word of which the other understood, he was led round their quarters, obliged to listen to long unintelligible details, till his patience became exhausted, and he made some significant signs of a desire to depart. But he was a prisoner; for the soldier, who had received orders to show and to explain to his charge every thing necessary, fulfilled his instructions to the letter, and detained him for hours, to complete his office; not sparing an item from the titles of the colonels, and the distinctions in the colours of each regiment or battalion, down to the calibre of a howitzer, and the mess in their kettles, which was not of the most savoury description, consisting of beans and other coarse vegetables, and sour crout, eaten with black bread, with the addition of an allowance of fresh meat twice a week. On this rude fare the men looked prim and hardy enough in their limbs, but dingy in their complexion, and stunted in size.

One morning in the beginning of July, their tents were struck; ten thousand troops, with their equipage, reimbarked, and their fleet advanced before evening to the head of the Bosphorus. A single vessel was reserved for Count Orloff, who followed the next day, having been occupied to the last in the settlement of the secret treaty relating to the Dardanelles, which was signed on the 8th July, 1833. The Russians came to the Moslem nation as friends, and might have left with the glory of generosity towards their ally, but for this act of rapacity, which emulated the prowess of a bird of prey leaving the marks of its talons on its victim. Orloff had well performed his mission in obtaining the consent of the Porte to the contract, of which it is believed he carried the draft in his pocket—giving to Russia the power she had not attempted to enforce, of closing or opening the passage for ships of war at her pleasure. Such was the General’s eagerness to arrive, under the apprehension that affairs might be already so settled as to thwart his object, that he flew into a violent rage with the captain of the ship for losing some hours’ way, by mistake, in making the Bosphorus, and he is stated to have knocked him down on the quarter-deck. Their naval officers, nettled at this story being made public, denied the concluding circumstance, but admitted the remainder. Orloff had next a trial of pride, as well as temper, to undergo, which he is not likely to have borne with complacency. It happened that both himself and Lord Ponsonby waited on the Sultan the same day for their introductory audience; and his Lordship learning that Count Orloff, who had preceded him to the palace, was to be honoured with the earliest reception, sent in a message that in such case he would quit the country without delivering his credentials. They were of equal rank as ambassadors, but the British envoy asserted his right of precedence from priority of arrival at the capital, which regulates the etiquette, and carried his point, leaving the Count to pass the time as he best might, till the ceremony of his own presentation was ended.

The legitimate line of the Orloffs is extinct, and the name is now borne by two natural nephews of the famous Prince Orloff, the favourite of Catherine, and the leader in the conspiracy which deprived the Emperor Paul of his throne and life. Count Alexis, who figured in the expedition, owes his honours and favour to the zeal which he displayed in supporting the reigning Emperor at the time of the insurrection at St. Petersburg, in December 1826, on his Majesty’s accession to the throne. The brother of Alexis, who had unhappily connected himself with the revolutionists, was said, by an English writer, to have obtained a remission of the severer part of his sentence; but there is every reason to believe that he continued up to that very period an exile in Siberia, to expiate his crime. Such is the diversity of fortune, and the extreme of summary reward and punishment among Russian nobles of the same family at the present day.

A stone, erected at the foot of their lines, near the sea, commemorates by a simple inscription of dates in Turkish, the visit of the Muscovite forces to the Bosphorus; no other vestiges of the event being now visible, save in the bare and shorn aspect of the hills on which they were encamped; and, doubtlessly many a longing on their part did that visit excite for their permanent establishment in a land and climate, so superior to their own flat and icy regions.

PRINTED BY RICHARD CLAY, BREAD-STREET-HILL.

FOOTNOTES