(l^arttell Untttetaitg Eibrarg JItttaca. TStm Hartt FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 18S4-19I9 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library .. 3 1924 031 197 183 olin.anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 1 971 83 CONSTANTINOPLE BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS TRANSLATED FROM THE SEVENTH ITALIAN EDITION BY CAROLINE TILTON NEW YORK G. p. PUTN A M'S SONS 182 Fifth Avenue 1878 Copyright, 1S78, by G. P. Putnam's Sons. CONTENTS. PAGB THE' Arrival i Five Hours After i8 The Bridge 23 Stamboul 32 At the Inn 42 Constantinople 47 Galata 49 The Great Bazaar 71 The Light 95 Birds 98 Memorials 100 Resemblances 102 Costume 104 The Future Constantinople io6 The Dogs of Constantinople 108 The Eunuchs 114 The Army 120 Idleness 127 Night 130 Life at Constantinople 132 Italians 135 IV CONTENTS. fAGB Theatres 138 Cookery 140 Mahomet 144 Ramazan 146 Antique Constantinople 148 The Armenians 153 The Hebrews 158 The Bath 160 The Tower of the Seraskiarat 164 Constantinople . . .• 167 Santa Sofia 169 dolma bagtche i90 Turkish Women 206 Yanghen Var .......... 338 The Walls 247 The. Old Seraglio 265 Last Days 292 The Turks 304 The Bosphorus 316 CONSTANTINOPLE. THE ARRIVAL. The emotion I felt on entering Constantinople^ almost ob- literated from my recollection all that I had seen in my ten days voyage from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the Bos- phorus. The blue Ionian Sea, motionless as a lake, the distant mountains of the Morea tinted with rose by the first rays of the sun, the ruins of Athens, the Gulf of Salonica, Lemnos TenedoSj the Dardanelles, and many persons and things that had diverted me during the voyage, all grew pale in my mind at the sight of the Golden Horn ; and now, if I wish to describe them, I must work more from imagination than from memory. In order that the first page of my book may issue warm and living from my mind, it must commence on the last night of the voyage, in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, at the moment when the captain of the ship approached me, and putting his hands upon my shoulders, said, " Signori, to-morrow at dawn we shall see the first minarets of Stamboul." Ah ! reader, full of money and ennui ; you, who a few years ago, when you felt a whim to visit Constantinople, replenished your purse, packed your valise, and within twenty-four hours 2 CONSTANTINOPLE. quietly departed as for a short country visit, uncertain up to the last moment whether you should not after all, turn your steps to Baden-Baden ! If the captain had said to you, " To-morrow morning we shall see Stamboul," you would have answered phlegmatically, "I am glad to hear it." But you must have nursed the wish for ten years, have passed many winter even- ings sadly studying the map of the East, have inflamed your imagination with the reading of a hundred books, have wandered over one half of Europe in the effort to console yourself for not being able to see the other half, have been nailed for one year to a desk with that purpose only, have made a thousand small sacrifices, and count upon count, and castle upon castle, and have gone through many domestic battles ; you must finally have passed nine sleepless nights at sea with that immense and luminous image before your eyes, so happy as even to be con- scious of a faint feeling of remorse at the thought of the dear ones left behind at home ; and then you might understand what these words meant, " To-morrow at dawn^ we shall see the first minarets of Stamboul ;" and instead of answering quietly, "I am glad to hear it,'' you would have struck a formidable blow with your closed fist upon the parapet of the ship as I did. One great pleasure for me was the profound conviction I had that my immense expectations could not be delusive. There can be no doubt about Constantinople, even the most diffident traveller is certain of his facts ; no one has ever been deceived, and there are none of the fascinations of great memories and the habit of admiration. It is one universal and sovereign beauty, before which poet and archeologist, ambassador and trader, prince and sailor, sons of the north and daughters of the THE ARRIVAL. 3 south, all are overcome with wonder. It is the most beautiful spot on the earth, and so judged by all the world. Writers of travels arriving there are in despair. Perthusers stammers, Tournefort says that language is impotent, Fonqueville thinks himself transported into another planet. La Croix is bewildered, the Viconte de Marcellus becomes ecstatic, Lamartine gives thanks to God, Gautier doubts the reality of what he sees, and one and all accumulate image upon image ; are as brilliant as possible in style, and torment themselves in vain to find expres- sions that are not miserably beneath their thought. Chateau- briand alone describes his entrance into Constantinople with a remarkable air of tranquillity of mind ; but he does not fail to dwell upon the beauty of the spectacle, the most beautiful in the world, he says, while Lady Mary Wortley Montague, using the same expression, drops a perhaps, as if tacitly leaving the first place to her own beauty, of which she thought so much. There is, however, a certain cold German who says that the loveliest illusions of youth and even the dreams of a first love are pale imaginations in the presence of that sense of sweetness that pervades the soul at the sight of this enchanted region ; and a learned Frenchman affirms that the first impres- sion made by Constantinople is that of terror. Let the reader imagine the illusions which such words of fire a hundred times repeated, must have caused in the brains of two enthu- siastic young men, one of twenty-four, and the other twenty- eight years of age.! But even such illustrious praises did not content us, and we sought the testimony of the sailors. Even they, poor, rough fellows as they were, in attempting to give an idea of such beauty, felt the need of some word by simile beyond 4 CONSTANTIA^OPLE. the ordinary, and sought it, turning their eyes here and there, pulling their fingers, and making attempts at description with that voice that sounds as if it came from a distance, and those largfe, slow gestures with which such men express their wonder when words fail them. "To come into Constantinople on a fine morning," said the head steersman, "you may believe me, Signori, it is a great moment in a man's life." Even the weather smiled on us ; it was a warm, serene night ; the sea caressed the sides of the vessel with a gentle murmur ; the masts, and spars, and smallest cordage were drawn clear and motionless upon the starry heaven ; the ship did not appear to move. At the prow there lay a crowd of Turks peacefully smoking their narghiles with their faces turned up to the moon, their white turbans shining like silver in her rays ; at the stern, a group of people of every nation, among them a hungry-looking company of Greek comedians who had embarked at the Pirseus. I have still before me, in the midst of a bevy of Russian babies going to Odessa with their mother, the charming face of the little Olga, all astonishment that I could not understand her language, and provoked that her questions three times repeated should receive no intelligible answer. On one side of me there is a fat and dirty Greek priest with his hat like a basket turned upside down, who is trying with a glass to discover the Archipelago of Marmora ; on the other, an evangelical English minister, cold and rigid as a statue, who for three days has not uttered a word or looked a living soul in the face ; before me are two pretty Athenian sisters with red caps and hair falling in tresses over their shoul- ders, who the instant any one looks at them, turn both together THE ARRIVAL. 5 toward the sea in order to display their profiles ; a little further on an Armenian merchant fingers the beads of his oriental rosary, a group of Jews in antique costume, Albanians with their white petticoats, a French governess who puts on melan- choly airs, a few of those ordinary looking travellers with noth- ing about them to indicate their country or their trade, and in the midst of them a small Turkish family, consisting of a papa in a fez, a mamma in a veil, and two babies in full pantaloons, all the four crouched under an awning upon a heap of mat- tresses and cushions, and surrounded by a quantity of baubles of every description and of every color under the sun. The approach to Constantinople had inspired every one with an unusual vivacity. Almost all the faces that were visible by the light of the ship's lanterns were cheerful and bright. The Russian children jumped about their mother, and called out the ancient name of Stamboul ; Zavegorod ! Zavegorod ! Here and there among the groups could be heard the names of Galata, of Pera, of Scutari ; they shone in my fancy like the first sparkles of a great firework that was just about to burst forth. Even the sailors were content to arrive at a place where, as they said, they could forget for an hour all the miseries of life. Meantime a movement was perceptible at the prow among that white sea of turbans ; even those idle and impassi- ble Mussulmen beheld with the eyes of their imagination the fantastic outline of Ummekmia undulating upon the horizon ; the mother of the world; the "city," as the Koran says, "of which one side looks upon the land and the other upon the sea." The very vessel seemed to quiver with impatience and to move forward of her own will without the aid of her engines. O CONSTANTINOPLE. Every now and then I leaned upon the railing and looked at the sea, from which seemed to arise the confused murmur of a hundred voices. They were the voices of those who loved me, saying, " Go on, go on, son, brother, friend ! go on, enjoy your Constantinople. You have fairly earned it, be happy, and God be with you." Not until night did any of the travellers descend under cover. My friend and I went in among the last, with slow and reluctant steps, unwilling to enclose within four narrow walls a joy for which the whole circuit of the Propontis seemed insuf- ficient. About half-way down the stairs we heard the voice of ' the captain inviting us to come up in the morning upon the officers' reserved deck. " Be up before sunrise," he called ; "whichever one comes late shall be thrown into the sea." A more superfluous threat was never made since the world existed. I never closed an eye. I believe that the youthful Mahomet the Second, when on that famous night of Adrianople, agitated by his vision of the city of Constantinople, he turned and re-turned on his uneasy couch, did not make so many revo- lutions as I did in my berth during those four tedious hours of waiting ; in order to dominate my nerves, I tried to count up to a thousand, to keep my eyes fixed upon the white water wreaths, which constantly rose around the port-hole of my cabin, to hum an air in cadence with the monotonous beat of the engines ; but it was all in vain. I was feverish, my breath came in gasps, and the night seemed eternal. At the first faint sign of dawn I rose — my friend was already afoot ; we dressed in wild haste and in three bounds were on deck. Horror of horrors ! a black fog ! The horizon was completely veiled on every side ; rain THE ARRIVAL. 7 seemed imminent; the great spectacle of the entrance to Con- stantinople was lost, our most ardent hopes deluded ; our voy- age, in one word, a failure ! I was annihilated. At this moment the captain appeared with his unfailing smile upon his lip. There was no need of speech, he saw and understood, and striking his hand upon my shoulder, said, in a tone of consola- tion, " It is nothing, nothing, do not be discouraged, gentlemen, rather bless the fog, thanks to it, we shall make the finest en- trance into Constantinople that could be wished for; in two hours we shall have clear weather, take my word for it!" I felt my life come back to me. We ascended to the officers' deck ; at the prow all the Turks were already seated with crossed legs upon their carpets, their faces turned toward Constantinople. In a few minutes all the other passengers came forth, armed with glasses of various kinds, and planted themselves in a long file against the left hand railing, as in the gallery of a theatre. There was a fresh breeze blowing ; no one spoke. All eyes and every glass, became gradually fixed upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora ; but as yet, there was nothing to be seen. The fog now formed a whitish band along the hori- zon ; above, the sky shone clear and golden, directly'in front of us, on the bows, appeared confusedly the little archipelago of the Nine Islands of the Princes, the demonesi of the ancients, a pleasure resort of the court in the time of the Lower Empire, and now used for the same purpose by the inhabitants of Con- stantinople. The two shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely hidden; not until an hour had passed, did those on deck behold them. But, it is impossible to understand any description of the CONSTANTINOPLE. entrance to Constantinople without first having clearly in one's mind the configuration of the city. We will suppose the reader to have in front of him the mouth of the Bosphorus, that arm of the sea which divides Asia from Europe and joins the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea. So placed, he has on his right hand the Asiatic coast, and the European shore on his left ; here the antique Thrace, and there the ancient Hanatolia ; moving on- ward, threading this arm of the sea, the mouth is hardly passed before there appears, on the left, a gulf, a narrow roadstead, which lies at a right angle with the Bosphorus, and penetrates for several miles into the European land, curving like the horn of an ox ; whence its name of Golden Horn, or horn of abun- dance, because through it fiowed, when it was the port of Byzan- tium, the wealth of three continents. At the angle of the European shore, which on one side is bathed by the waters of the Sea of Marmora, and on the other by those of the Golden Horn, where once Byzantium stood, now rises upon seven hills, Stamboul, the Turkish city, — at the other angle, marked by the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, stand Galata and Pera, the Prankish cities, — opposite the mouth of the Golden Horn, upon the hills of the Asiatic side, is the city of Scutari. That then which is called Constantinople is composed of three great cities, divided by the sea but placed the one op- posite the other, and the third facing the other two, and so near each to each, that the edifices of the three cities can be seen distinctly from either, like Paris or London at the wider parts of the Seine or the Thames. The point of the triangle upon which stands Stamboul, bends toward the Golden Horn, and is that famous Seraglio THE ARRIVAL. 9 Point which up to the last moment hides from the eyes of those approaching by the Sea of Marmora, the view of the two shores of the Horn, that is,, the finest and most beautiful part of Con- stantinople. It was the captain of the ship, who with his seaman's eye discovered the first glimpse of Stamboul. The two Athenian sisters, the Russian family, the English clergyman, Yank and I, and others who were all going to Con- stantinople for the first time, stood about him in a compact group, silent, and straining our eyes in vain to pierce the fog, when he, pointing to the left towards the European shore, called out, " Signori, behold the first gleam." It was a white point, the summit of a very high minaret whose lower portion was still concealed. Every glass was at once levelled at it, and every e^'e stared at that small aperture in the fog as if they hoped to make it larger. The ship ad- vanced swiftly. In a few moments a dim outline appeared beside the minaret, then two, then three, then many, which little by little took the form of houses, and stretched out in lengthen- ing file. In front and to the right of us every thing was still veiled in fog. What we saw gradually appearing was that part of Stamboul which stretched out, forming a curve of about four Italian miles, upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, between Seraglio Point and the castle of the Seven Towers. JBut the hill of the Seraglio was still covered. Behind the houses shone forth one after another the mina- rets, tall and white, with their summits bathed in rosy light from the ascending sun. Under the houses began to appear the old battlemented walls — strengthened at equal distances by 1* lO CONSTANTINOPLE. towers, that encircle the city in unbroken line, the sea breaking upon them. In a short time a tract of about two miles in length of the city was visible ; and, to tell the truth, the spec- tacle did not answer my expectation. We were off the point where Lamartine had asked himself, "Is this Constantinople," and exclaimed, " What a delusion ! " " Captain," I called out, " Is this Constantinople ?" The captain, pointing forward with his hand, " Oh, man of little faith !" he cried — ;" look there !" I looked and uttered an exclamation of amazement. An enormous shade, a mass of building of great height and light- ness, still covered by a vaporous veil, rose to the skies from the summit 'of a hill, and rounded gloriously into the air, in the midst of four slender and lofty minarets, whose silvery points glittered in the first rays of the sun. " Santa Sophia !" shouted a sailor ; and one of the two Athenian girls murmured to her- self, " ffagia Sophia!" (The Holy Wisdom.) The Turks at the prow rose to their feet. But already before apd around the great basilica, other enormous domes and minarets, crowded and mingled like a grove of gigantic palm trees without branches, shone dimly through the mist. "The mosque of Sultan Ahmed," called out the captain, pointing ; " the mosque of Bajazet, the mosque of Osman, the mosque of Latili, the mosque of Soliman." But no one gave heed to him any more, the fog parted on every side, and through the rents shone mosques, towers, mosses of verdure, houses upon houses ; and as we advanced, higher rose the city, and more and more dis- tinctly were displa)'ed her grand, broken and capricious outlines, white, green, rosy and glittering in the light. Four miles of city, all that part of Stamboul that looks upon the Sea of Mar- THE ARRIVAL. II mora, lay spread out before us, and her dark walls and many- colored houses were reflected in the clear and sparkling water as in a mirror. Suddenly the ship stopped to await the dissipation of the fog before advancing further, which still lay like a thick curtain across the mouth of the Bosphorus. After a few moments we cautiously proceeded. We drew near to the height of the old Seraglio. Then my curiosity became uncon- trollable. "Turn your face that way,'' said the captain, " and wait for the moment when the whole hill becomes visible." After a moment, " Now ! " exclaimed the captain. I turned ; the ship was motionless. We were close in front of the hill. It is a great hill, all covered with cypresses, pines, firs, and gigantic plane trees, which project their branches far beyond the walls, and throw their shadows upon the water, and from the midst of this mass of verdure, arise in disorder, separate and in groups, as if thrown about by chance, roofs of kiosks, little pavilions crowned with galleries, silvery cupolas, small edifices of strange and graceful forms, with grated windows and Ara- besque portals ; half hidden, and leaving to the fancy to create a labyrinth of gardens, corridors, courts ; a whole city shut up in a grove ; separated from the world, and full of mystery and sadness. In that moment, though ^till slightly veiled in mist, the sun shone full upon it. No living soul was to, be seen, no sound broke the silence. We stood with our eyes fixed upon those heights crowned with the memories of four centuries of glory, pleasure, love, conspiracy and blood, the throne, the citadel, the 12 CONSTANTINOPLE. tomb of the Great Ottoman Empire ; and no one spoke or moved. Suddenly the mate called out ; " Signori, Scutari !" All eyes were turned to the Asiatic shore. There lay Scutari, the golden city, stretching out of sight over the tops and sides of her hills, veiled in the luminous morning mists, smiling and fresh as if created by the touch of a magic wand. Who can express that spectacle ? The language that serves to describe our cities would give no idea of that immense variety of color and of prospect, of that wondrous confusion of city and of country, of gay, austere, European, Oriental, fanciful, charming and grand ! Imagine a city composed of ten thousand little purple and yellow houses, often thousand gardens of luxuriant green, of a hundred mosques as white as snow ; beyond a forest of enor- mous cypresses, the largest cemetery in the East, at the end immeasurable white barracks, villages grouped upon heights, behind which peep out others half hidden in verdure ; and over all tops of minarets and white domes shining half way up the spine of a mountain that closes in the horizon like a cur- tain ; a great city sprinkled into an immense garden, upon a shore here broken by jagged precipices clothed with sycamores, and there melting into verdant plains dotted with spots of shade and flowers ; and the azure mirror of the Bosphorus reflecting all their beauly. While I stood looking at Scutari, my friend touched me with his elbow to announce the discovery of another city, and there it was indeed, looking toward the Sea of Marmora, be- yond Scutari and on the Asiatic side a long line of houses, mosques and gardens, near which the ship was passing, and THE ARRIVAL. 13 which had until now been hidden by the fog. With our glasses we could distinctly see the cafes, bazaars, the European houses, the staircases, the walls, bordered by kitchen gardens, and the small boats scattered along the shore. It was Kadi Kioi (the village of the Judges) built upon the ruins of the ancient Calcedonia, once the rival of Byzantium, that Calce- donia which was- founded six hundred and eighty-five years be- fore Christ, by the Megarians to whom the oracle of Delphi gave the title of the blind people, for having chosen that site instead of the point where Stamboul stands. At last came glimmering through the veil some whitish spots, then the vague outline of a great height, then the scat- tered and vivid glitter of window panes shining in the sun, and finally Galata and Pera in full light, a mountain of many col- ored houses, one above the other ; a lofty city crowned with minarets, cupolas, and cypresses ; upon the summit the monu- mental palaces of the different embassies, and the great Tower of Galata ; at the foot the vast arsenal of Tophane and a forest of ships; and as the fog receded, the city lengthened rapidly along the Bosphorus, and quarter after quarter started forth stretching from the hill tops down to the sea, vast, thickly sown with houses, and dotted with white mosques, rows of ships, lit- tle doors, palaces rising from the water; pavilions, gardens, kiosks, groves ; and dimly seen in the mist beyond, the sun- gilded summits of still other quarters ; a glow of colors, an ex- uberance of verdure, a perspective of lovely views, a grandeur, a delight, a grace to call forth the wildest exclamations. On the ship every body stood with open mouths ; passengers and sailors, Turks, Europeans and babies, not a word was spoken. T4 CONSTANTINOPLE. no one knew which way to look. We had on one side Scutari and Kadi-Kioi ; on the other side the hill of the Seraglio; in front Galata, Pera, the Bosphorus. To see them all one must spin round and round, and spinning throw on every side our hungry eyes, laughing and gesticulating without speech. Great Heaven ! what a moment ! And yet the grandest and loveliest remained to be seen. We still lay motionless outside of Seraglio Point, and beyond that only could be seen the Golden Horn, and the most won- derful view of Constantinople is on the Golden Horn. " Gen- tlemen, attention," called out the captain, before giving the order to advance; "In three minutes we shall be off Con- stantinople." A cold shiver ran over me, my heart leaped. With what feverish impatience I awaited the blessed word, Forward ! The ship moved, we were off! Kings, princes, potentates, and all ye fortunate of the earth, at that moment my post upon the ship's deck was worth to me all your treasury. One moment, two, to pass Seraglio Point, a glimpse of an enormous space filled with light and colors, the point is passed. Behold Constantinople ! sublime, superb Constantinople, glory to creation and man ! I had never dreamed of such beauty ! And I, poor wretch, to describe, to dare to profane with my poor weak words that divine vision ! Who could describe it ? Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Gautier, what have you stammered ? And yet imagination and words rush to my mind while they -flee my pen. But let me try. The Golden Horn directly be- fore us like a river ; and on either shore two chains of heights on which rise and lengthen out two parallel chains of city, em- THE ARRIVAL. IS bracing eight miles of hills, valleys, bays and promontories ; a hundred amphitheatres of monuments and gardens • houses mosques, bazaars, seraglios, baths, kiosks, of an infinite variety of colors ; in the midst thousands of minarets with shinin"- pin- nacles rising into the sky like columns of ivory ; groves of cypress trees descending in long lines from the heights to the sea, engarlanding suburbs and ports ; and a vigorous vegetation springing and gushing out everywhere, waving plume-like on the summits, encircling the roofs and hanging over into the water. To the right Galata, faced by a forest of masts and sails and flags ; above Galata, Pera, the vast outlines of her European palaces drawn upon the sky ; in front, a bridge con- necting the two shores, and traversed by two opposing throngs of many-colored people ; to the left Stamboul stretched upon her broad hills, upon each of which rises a gigantic mosque with leaden dome and golden pinnacles ; Saint Sophia, white and rose colored ; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six minarets ; Soliman the Great crowned with ten domes; Sultana Valide mirrored in the waters ; on the fourth hill the Mosque of Mahomet Second ; on the fifth the Mosque of Selim ; on the sixth the Seraglio of Tekyr ; and above them all the white Tower of the Seraskiarat which overlooks the shores of both continents from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill of Stamboul and beyond Galata there is nothing but vague profiles to be seen, points of city or suburb, foreshortened glimpses of ports, fleets, groves, vanishing into the azure air, looking not like realities, but visions of the light and atmos- phere. How shall I seize the features of this prodigious pic- ture ? The eye is fixed for one moment upon the nearer shore, 1 6 CONSTANTINOPLE. upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret ; but suddenly it darts off into that depth of luminous space towards which fly and vanish the, two lines of fantastic cities, followed by the bewil- dered mind of the spectator. An infinite serenity and majesty is diffused over all this loveliness ; a something of youthful and passionate which rouses a thousand memories of tales of en- chantment and visions of spring ; a something airy and grandly mysterious that carries the fancy beyond realities. The misty sky tinted with opal and with silver, forms a background on which everything is drawn with marvelous clearness and precis- ion ; the sapphii'e-colored sea dotted with crimson buoys gives back the minarets in trembling white reflections ; the domes glitter ; all the immensity of vegetation waves and quivers in the morning air ; clouds of doves hover about the mosques ; thousands .of gilded and pointed caiques dart about the waters ; 'the breeze from the Black Sea brings perfume from ten thou- sand gardens; and when drunk with the beauty of this Para- dise, and forgetful of all else, you turn away, you see behind you with renewed wonder the shores of Asia closing the pano- rama with the pompous splendors of Scutari and the snowy peaks of Mount Olympus, the Sea of Marmora sprinkled with islets and white with sails; and the Bosphorus covered with ships winding between the endless files of temples, palaces, and villas and losing itself mysteriously, among the smilino- hills of the East. The first emotion past, I looked at my fellow travellers ; their faces were all changed. The two Athenian ladies had wet eyes ; the Russian in that solemn moment, held the little Olga to her breast ;. even the cold English priest, for the first THE ARRIVAL. 1 7 time, let his voice be heard, exclaiming from time to time, ■' wonderful ! wonderful !" The ship had stopped not far from the bridge ; in a few moments there had gathered about it a crowd of boats, and a throng of Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, who, swearing and cursing in barbarous Italian, took possession of our persons and effects. 'After a vain attempt at resistance, we embraced the captain, kissed the little Olga, said good-bye to all, and descended into a four-oared caique, which took us to the cus- tom house, from whence we climbed through a labyrinth of narrow streets to the Hotel de Byzantium, upon the top of the hill of Pera. 1 8 CONSTANTINOPLE. FIVE HOURS AFTER. The vision of this morning has vanished. The Constan- tinople of light and beauty has given place to a monstrous city, scattered about over an infinity of hills and valleys ; it is a labyrinth of human ant-hills, cemeteries, ruins and solitudes ; a confusion of civilization and barbarism wMch presents an image of all the cities upon earth, and gathers to itself all the aspects of human life. It is really but the skeleton of a great city, of which the smaller part is walls and the rest an enormous agglomeration of barracks, an interminable Asiatic encamp- ment ; in which swarms a population that has never been counted, of people of every race and every religion. It is a great city in process of transformation, composed of ancient cities that are in deca)-, new cities of yesterday, and other cities now being born ; everything is in confusion ; on every side are seen the traces of gigantic works, mountains pierced, hills cut down, houses leveled to the ground, great streets designed ; an immense mass of rubbish and remains of con- flagrations upon ground forever tormented by the hand of man. There is a disorder, a confusion, of the most incongruous objects, a succession of the strangest and most unexpected sights, that make one's head turn round ; you go to the end of a fine street, it is closed by a ravine or precipice ; you come out of the theatre to find yourself in the midst of tombs ; you FIVE HOURS AFTER. 1 9 climb to the top of a hill, to find a forest under your feet and a city on the hill opposite to you ; you turn suddenly to look at the quarter you have just traversed and you find it at the bot- tom of a deep gorge, half hidden in trees ; you turn towards a house, it is a port ; you go up a street, there is no more city ; only a deserted defile from which nothing but tlie sky is visible ; cities start forth, hide themselves, rise above your head, under your feet, behind your back, far and near, in the sun, in the shade, among groves, on the sea ; take a step in advance, behold an immense panorama ; take a step backward, there is nothing to be seen ; lift your eyes, a thousand mina- rets ; descend one step, they are all gone. The streets, bent into infinite angles, wind about among small hills, are raised on terraces, skirt ravines ; pass under aqueducts, break into alleys, run down steps, through bushes, rocks, ruins, sand hills. Here and there, the great city takes as it were, a breathing time in the country, and then begins again, thicker, livelier, more highly colored ; here it is a plain, there it climbs, farther on it rushes downwards, disperses, and again crowds together ; in one place it smokes and is land, in another sleeps ; now it is all red, now all white, again all gold colors, and further on it presents the aspect of a mountain of flowers. The elegant city, the village, the open country, the gardens, the port, the desert, the market, the burial place, alternate — without end, rising one above the other, in steps, so that at some points these embrace at one glance, all the diversities of a province ; an infinity of fantastic outlines are drawn everywhere upon the sky and water, so thickly and richly designed, and with such a wondrous variety of architecture, that they cheat the eye, and 20 CONSTANTINOPLE. seem to be mingling and twisting themselves together. In the midst of Turkish houses, rise European palaces ; behind the minaret stands the bell-tower ; above the terrace, the dome ; beside the dome, the battlemented wall ; the Chinese roofs of kiosks hang over the fagades of theatres ; the grated balconies of the harem confront the plate glass window ; Moorish lattices look upon railed terraces ; niches with the Madonna within, are set beneath Arabian arches ; sepulchres are in the courtyards, and towers among the laborers' cabins ; mosques, synagogues, Greek churches, Catholic churches, Armenian churches, rise one above the other, amid a confusion of vanes, cypresses, umbrella pines, fig and plane trees, that stretch their branches over the roofsj — an indescribable architecture, apparently of expediency, lends itself to the caprices of the ground, with a crowd of houses cut into points, in the form of triangular towers, of erect and overturned pyramids, surrounded with bridges, ditches, props, gathered together- like the broken fragments of a mountain. At every hundred paces all is changed. Here you are in a suburb of Marseilles, and it is an Asiatic village ; again, a Greek. quarter; again, a suburb of Trebizond. By the tongues, by the faces, by the aspect of the houses, you recognize that the country is changed. There are points of France, strips of Italy, fragments of England, relics of Russia. Upon the im- mense fagade of the city is represented in architecture, and in columns, the great struggle that is being fought out, between the Christians that reconquer and the children of Islam, that defend with all their strength, the sacred soil. Stamboul, once a Turkish city only, is now assailed on every side by Christian quarters, which slowly eat into it along the shores of the FIVE HOURS AFTER. 21 Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora ; on the other side the conquest proceeds with fury \ cliurches, palaces, hospitals, pub- lic gardens, factories, schools, are crushing the Mussulman quarters, overwhelming the cemeteries, advancing from hill to hill, and already vaguely designing upon the distracted land the outlines of a great city, that will one day cover the Euro- pean shore of the Bosphorus, as Stamboul now covers the shore of the Golden Horn. But from these general observations the mind is constantly distracted by a thousand new things ; there is a convent of Dervishes in one street, a Moorish barrack in another, and Turkish cafes, bazaars, fountains, aqueducts, at every turn. In one quarter of an hour you must change your manner of proceeding ten times. You go down, you climb up, you jump down a declivity, ascend a stone staircase, sink in the mud and clamber over a hundred obstacles, make vour way now through the crowd, now through the bushes, now through a forest of rags hung out, now you hold your nose, and anon breathe waves of perfumed air. From the glowing light of an elevated open space whence can be seen the Bosphorus, Asia, and the infinite sky, you drop by a few steps into the gloom and obscu- rity of a network of alleys, flanked by houses falling to ruin, and strewn with stones like the bed of a rivulet. From the fresh and perfumed shade of trees, into suffocating dust and overpowering sun ; from places full of noise and color, into sepulchral recesses, where a human voice is never heard; from the divine Orient of our dreams, into another Orient, gloomy, dirty, decrepit, that gradually takes possession of the imagination. After a few hours spent in this way, should any 22 CONSTANTINOPLE. one suddenly ask what is Constantinople like ? You could only strike your hand upon your forehead, and try to still the tem- pest of thoughts. Constantinople is a Babylon, a world, a chaos. Beautiful ? wonderfully beautiful. Ugly ? — It is horri- ble ! — Did you like it ? madly. Would you live in it ? How can I tell ! — who could say that he would willingly live in another planet ? You go back to your inn, full of enthusiasm, and disgust ; bewildered, delighted, and with your head whirl- ing, as if cerebral congestion had begun, and your agitation gradually quiets down into a profound prostration and mortal tedium. You have lived through several years in a few hours — and feel old and exhausted. THE BRIDGE. 23 THE BRIDGE. To see the population of Constantinople, it is well to co upon the floating bridge, about one-quarter of a mile in length, which extends from the most advanced point of Galata to the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, facing the great mosque of the Sultana Valid6. Both shores are European territory ; but the bridge may be said to connect Asia to Europe because in Stamboul there is nothing European save the ground, and even the Christian suburbs that crown it are of Asiatic char- acter and color. The Golden Horn, which has the look of a river, separates two worlds, like the ocean. The news of events in Europe which circulates in Galata and Pera clearly and minutely, and much discussed, arrives on the other shore confused and garbled, like a distant echo ; the fame of great men and great things in the west are stopped by that narrow water as by an inseparable barrier; and over that bridge, where every day a hundred thousand people pass, not one idea passes in ten years. Standing there, one can see all Constantinople go by in an hour. There are two exhaustless currents of human beings that meet and mingle forever from the rising of the sun until his setting, presenting a spectacle before which the market- places of India, the fair of Nijui-Novgorod, and the festivals of Pekin grow pale. To see anything at all, one must choose a 24 CONSTANTINOPLE. small portion of the bridge and fix his eyes on that alone, other- wise in the attempt to see all, one sees nothing. The crowd passes in great waves, each one of which is of a Imndred colors, and every group of persons represent a new type of people. Whatever can be iraagiped that is most extravagant in type, costume, and social class may there be seen, within the space of twenty paces and ten minutes of time. Behind a throng of i Turkish porters who pass running, and bending under enormous burdens, advances a sedan-chair,_ inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, and bearing an Armenian lady ; and at either side of it a Bedouin wrapped in a white mantle and a Turk in muslin turban and sky-blue caftan, beside whom canters a young Greek gentleman followed by his dragoman in embroidered vest, and a dervise with his tall conical hat and tunic of camel's hair, who makes way for the carriage of a European ambassa- dor, preceded by his running footman* in gorgeous livery. All this is only seen in a glimpse, and the next moment you find yourself in the midst of a crowd of Persians, in pyramidal bon- nets of Astrakan fur, who are followed by a Hebrew in a long yellow coat, open at the sides ; a frowzy-headed gypsy woman with her child in a bag at her back ; a Catholic priest with breviary staff; while in the midst of a confused throng of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians comes a big eunuch on horse- back, crying out, Larya ! (make way !) and preceding a Turkish carriage, painted with flowers and birds, and filled with the ladies of a harem, dressed in green and violet, and wrapped in large white veils ; behind a Sister of Charity from the hos- pital at Pera, an African slave carrying a monkey, and a pro- * Batistrada. THE BRIDGE. 25 fessional story-teller in a necromancer's habit, and what is quite natural, but appears strange to the new comer, all these diverse people pass each other without a look, like a crowd in London ; and not one single countenance wears a smile. The Albanian in his white petticoat and with pistols in his sash, beside the Tartar dressed in sheepskins ; the Turk, astride of his capar- isoned ass, threads pompously two long strings of camels ; behind the adjutant of an imperial prince, mounted upon his Arab steed, clatters a cart filled with all the odd domestic rub- bish of a Turkish household ; the Mahometan woman a-foot, the veiled slave woman, the Greek with her red cap, and her hair on her shoulders, the Maltese hooded in her hX'A.cV faldetta, the Hebrew woman dressed in the antique costume of India, the negress wrapped in a many-colored shawl from Cairo, the Armenian from Trebizond, all veiled in black like a funeral apparition, are seen in single file, as if placed there on purpose, to be contrasted with each other. It is a changing mosaic of races and religions that is com- posed and scattered continually with a rapidity that the eye can scarcely follow. It is amusing to look only at the passing feet and see all the foot-coverings in the world go by, from that of Adam up to the last fashion in Parisian boots — yellow Turkish babouches, red Armenian, blue Greek and black Jew- ish shoes ; sandals, great boots from Turkestan, Albanian gaiters, low cut slippers, leg-pieces of many colors, belonging , to horsemen from Asia Minor, gold embroidered shoes, Spanish alporgatos, shoes of satin, of twine, of rags, of wood, so many, that while you look at one you catch a glimpse of a hundred more. One must be on the alert not to be jpstledi 2 26 CONSTANTINOPLE. and overthrown at every step. Now it is a water-carrier with a colored jar upon his back; now a Russian lady on horseback, now a squad of Imperial soldiers in zouave dress, and step- ping as if to an assault ; now a crew of Armenian porters, two and two, carrying on their shoulders immense bars, from which are suspended great bales of merchandise ; and now a throng of Turks who dart from left to right of the bridge to embark in the steamers that lie there. There is a tread of many feet, a murmuring, a sound of voices, guttural notes, aspirations inter- jectional, incomprehensible and strange, among which the few French or Italian words that reach the ear seem like luminous points upon a black darkness. The figures that most attract the eye in all this crowd are the Circassians, who go in groups of three and five together, with slow steps ; big bearded men of a terrible countenance, wearing bear-skin caps like the old Napoleonic Guard, long black caftans, daggers at their girdles, and silver cartridge-boxes on their breasts ; real figures of ban- ditti, who look as if they had come to Constantinople to sell a daughter or a sister — with their hands embrued in Russian blood. Then the Syrians, with robes in the form of Byzantine dalmatie, and their heads enveloped in gold-striped handker- chiefs ; Bulgarians, dressed in coarse serge, and caps encircled with fur ; Georgians in hats of varnished leather, their tunics bound round the waist with metal girdles ; Greeks from the Archipelago, covered from head to foot with embroidery, tas- sels and shining buttons. From time to time the crowd slackens a little; but in- stantly other groups advance, waving with red caps and white turbans, amid