These are the briars which beset the wayside of the stranger in Turkey. He has not only to contend with the unaccustomed language and manners of the natives—to fling from him his European prejudices—and to learn to look candidly and dispassionately on a state of society, differing so widely from that which he has left—but when the wearied spirit would fain fall back, and repose itself for a while among more familiar and congenial habits, it has previously to undergo an ordeal as unexpected as it is irritating; and from which it requires no inconsiderable portion of moral courage to escape unshackled.
Such are the adventitious and unnecessary difficulties that have been gratuitously prepared for the Eastern traveller, and superadded to the natural impediments of the locality; and of these he has infinitely more reason to complain, than of the unavoidable obstacles which meet him at every step in his commerce with the natives. That the Turks as a people, and particularly the Turkish females, are shy of making the acquaintance of strangers, is most true; their habits and feelings do not lend themselves readily to a familiar intercourse with Europeans; nor are they induced to make any extraordinary effort to overcome the prejudice with which they ever look upon a Frank, when they remember how absurdly and even cruelly they have been misrepresented by many a passing traveller, possessed neither of the time nor the opportunity to form a more efficient judgment.
When my father and myself left Europe, it was with the intention of visiting, not only Turkey, but also Greece, and Egypt; and we accordingly carried with us letters to influential individuals, resident in each of those interesting countries, whose assistance and friendship would have been most valuable to us. And, for the two or three first months of our sojourn in Constantinople, while yet unwilling to draw deductions, and to trust myself with inferences, which might, and probably would, ultimately prove erroneous, I suffered myself to be misled by the assertions and opinions of prejudiced and party-spirited persons, and still maintained the same purpose. But, when awakened to a suspicion of the spirit-thrall in which I had been kept, I resolved to hazard no assertion or opinion which did not emanate from personal conviction, and I found that I could not prove an honest chronicler if I merely contented myself with a hurried and superficial survey of a country constituted like Turkey.
To this conviction must consequently be attributed the fact that the whole period of my sojourn in the East was passed in Constantinople, and a part of Asia Minor. But my personal disappointment will be over-paid, should it be conceded that I have not failed in the attempt of affording to my readers a more just and complete insight into Turkish domestic life, than they have hitherto been enabled to obtain.
Bradenham Lodge, Bucks,
May 1837.
CHAPTER I.
The Golden Horn—Stamboul in Snow—The Seraï Bournou—Scutari—Galata—First View of Constantinople—St. Sophia and Solimaniè—Pera—Domestication of Aquatic Birds—Sounds at Sea—Caïques—Oriental Grouping—Armenian Costume—Reforms of Sultan Mahmoud—Dervishes—Eastern Jews—Evening—Illuminated Minarets—Romance versus Reason—Pain at Parting—Custom House of Galata—The East versus the West—Reminiscences of Marseillois Functionaries—The British Consul at Marseilles—The Light-house at Syra—The Frank Quarter—Diplomatic Atmosphere—Straw Huts—Care of the Turks for Animals—A Scene from Shakspeare.
It was on the 30th of December, 1835, that we anchored in the Golden Horn; my long-indulged hopes were at length realized, and the Queen of Cities was before me, throned on her peopled hills, with the silver Bosphorus, garlanded with palaces, flowing at her feet!
It was with difficulty that I could drag myself upon deck after the night of intense suffering which I had passed in the sea of Marmora, and, when I did succeed in doing so, the vessel was already under the walls of the Seraglio garden, and advancing rapidly towards her anchorage. The atmosphere was laden with snow, and I beheld Stamboul for the first time clad in the ermine mantle of the sternest of seasons. Yet, even thus, the most powerful feeling that unravelled itself from the chaos of sensations which thronged upon me was one of unalloyed delight. How could it be otherwise? I seemed to look on fairy-land—to behold the embodiment of my wildest visions—to be the denizen of a new world.
Queenly Stamboul! the myriad sounds of her streets came to us mellowed by the distance; and, as we swept along, the whole glory of her princely port burst upon our view! The gilded palace of Mahmoud, with its glittering gate and overtopping cypresses, among which may be distinguished the buildings of the Seraï, were soon passed; behind us, in the distance, was Scutari, looking down in beauty on the channel, whose waves reflected the graceful outline of its tapering minarets, and shrouded themselves for an instant in the dark shadows of its funereal grove. Galata was beside us, with its mouldering walls and warlike memories; and the vessel trembled as the chain fell heavily into the water, and we anchored in the midst of the crowd of shipping that already thronged the harbour. On the opposite shore clustered the painted dwellings of Constantinople, the party-coloured garment of the “seven hills”—the tall cypresses that overshadowed her houses, and the stately plane trees, which more than rivalled them in beauty, bent their haughty heads beneath the weight of accumulated snows. Here and there, a cluster of graceful minarets cut sharply against the sky; while the ample dome of the mosque to which they belonged, and the roofs of the dwellings that nestled at their base, lay steeped in the same chill livery. Eagerly did I seek to distinguish those of St. Sophia, and the smaller but far more elegant Solimaniè, the shrine of the Prophet’s Beard, with its four minarets, and its cloistered courts; and it was not without reluctance that I turned away, to mark where the thronging houses of Pera climb with magnificent profusion the amphitheatre of hills which dominate the treasure-laden port.
As my gaze wandered along the shore, and, passing by the extensive grove of cypresses that wave above the burying-ground, once more followed the course of the Bosphorus, I watched the waves as they washed the very foundation of the dwellings that skirt it, until I saw them chafing and struggling at the base of the barrack of Topphannè, and at intervals flinging themselves high into the air above its very roof.
To an European eye, the scene, independently of its surpassing beauty and utter novelty, possessed two features peculiarly striking; the extreme vicinity of the houses to the sea, which in many instances they positively overhang; and the vast number of aquatic fowl that throng the harbour. Seagulls were flying past us in clouds, and sporting like domestic birds about the vessel, while many of the adjoining roofs were clustered with them; the wild-duck and the water-hen were diving under our very stern in search of food; and shoals of porpoises were every moment rolling by, turning up their white bellies to the light, and revelling in safety amid the sounds and sights of a mighty city, as though unconscious of the vicinity of danger. How long, I involuntarily asked myself, would this extraordinary confidence in man be repaid by impunity in an English port? and the answer was by no means pleasing to my national pride.
As I looked round upon the shipping, the language of many lands came on the wind. Here the deep “Brig a-hoy!” of the British seaman boomed along the ripple; there, the shrill cry of the Greek mariner rang through the air: at intervals, the full rich strain of the dark-eyed Italian relieved the wild monotonous chant of the Turk; while the cry of the sea-boy from the rigging was answered by the stern brief tones of the weather-beaten sailor on the deck.
Every instant a graceful caïque, with its long sharp prow and gilded ornaments, shot past the ship: now freighted