A Journey to Crete, Costantinople, Naples and Florence: Three Months Abroad

CHAPTER III.

CONSTANTINOPLE. 6

Goethe says in his journey to Italy: “Thus it was written on my leaf in the Book of Fate, that on the twenty-eighth of September, 1786, towards five o’clock in the evening, I should see Venice for the first time.” So important and momentous—so much like an event—appeared also to me my entry into Constantinople on the twenty-first of April, 1865.

It was about seven o’clock in the morning when we saw the seven towers that mark the beginning of the town. I had been already some time on deck, pacing it with a feeling akin to the emotion with which I used to sit when a child in some theatre, before the rising of the curtain, expecting to see a Christmas Pantomime. And, as in that happy age, the red and blue fire, and the lovely fairies in pink tarlatan with silver gauze wings, far surpass our greatest expectations, so, although I had formed no mean idea of what I was going to see, did the sight of Constantinople far surpass all I had ever imagined. After we had passed the Seraglio Point and neared the harbour, the city appeared to encircle the sea and close around us. It was not so much the beauty, as the grandeur that surprised me. Genoa “la superba” and even glorious Naples appear but small in comparison to the wide extended sea and the mountains that tower above them; but Constantinople appears great in proportion to the surrounding scenery—a gigantic town. Immediately after we had passed the “Seven Towers” the mist that had till then obscured the horizon disappeared, and now the grand picture lay before us in a clear transparent light. It was a most exciting, happy moment. Round our boat crowds of porpoises were gambolling in the water in the “maddest, merriest” manner; over our head we saw innumerable flights of birds of passage coming from the south, and bringing the spring to Constantinople. At the very moment our boat entered the harbour all the Turkish men-of-war lying there, having all their flags hoisted, began to fire a splendid cannonade. The people around me said they were firing because it was Friday, which is the Turkish Sunday, and the Sultan was just going to the Mosque. That may have been the case; but at that moment I felt as elated as any Sultan can feel, and it seemed to me those guns were firing only to express the joy and wonder of my heart at what is certainly one of the most wonderful sights in the world. I shall not attempt to describe it; that has been done by far abler pens than mine, and even they have failed in conveying to their readers any adequate idea of it. In fact, I believe it is a hopeless undertaking. As no description can give to an Esquimaux an idea of the warmth and brightness of the sun when its rays make the waves of the Bosphorus and the Gulf of Naples appear a sea of gold; or a South American, who had heard nothing but the shriek of parrots and cockatoos, could never imagine what the song of the nightingale or lark is like; so one must have seen Constantinople and Scutari, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus to know what they are like, as they resemble nothing else on earth.

Everybody knows that Constantinople seen from the sea, is the grandest and most beautiful town in the world; it is also a well known fact that as soon as one puts one’s foot on shore, the picture changes entirely. But I must confess that after Smyrna, and the towns of Crete, I did not find it so wretchedly mean and dirty as I had expected, although the houses of Pera (the European quarter) are insignificant, and the wooden palaces of Stamboul not at all imposing. I never had much time to look at them, for the people that move through the streets, and that seem a series of strange, interesting, and beautiful pictures attracted all my attention. I advise all painters who are at a loss for subjects to go to Constantinople; one stroll along the great street of Pera, or through the bazaars of Stamboul, will supply him with subjects for years, so picturesque and beautiful is the life that moves around him. The first figure you see is the Kaïktchi or boatman, who in his kaik, the most elegantly shaped, and most neatly ornamental boat in the world, takes you ashore. With his bronzed face, his athletic chest and shoulders, in his thin silk shirt, that leaves his muscular arms and chest uncovered, his whole dress consisting besides this shirt of a red fez, and a pair of white pantaloons, he presents a most striking appearance; but you have hardly time to look at this new and interesting figure, when another one attracts your attention, it is the Hammal, or porter of Constantinople, who carries your luggage, which consists perhaps of two large trunks, a hat box, a dressing bag, wrappers, umbrellas, etc., all at once on his back. This human beast of burden is dressed in a light brown flannel suit, trimmed with black braid. He is often an elderly man, with a mild venerable face, and bent almost double under the weight on his back, looks the personification of the words “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.” But there are gayer pictures in the streets of Pera. You step aside to let a carriage pass, that is all gilt and glass, and that comes rattling up the streets. A child would mistake the coachman for a prince, so splendid does he look in his gold embroidered coat. The pavement, even in Pera, is not good enough to allow a carriage to drive quickly, so you have full leisure to look at its inmates. The crimson curtains are half let down, and through them a magic light falls on the picture within. Generally the carriage is occupied by three or four Turkish ladies. They are always young, and all look beautiful; old ladies it seems have no carriages to ride in. The mothers of Beys and Pashas stop at home, dressed in old calico gowns which they exchange for some rich attire on extraordinary occasions only. These young Turkish beauties wear gossamer veils so thin and transparent, as to hide no beauty of form or colour, while they just soften any little defect of either. Under this thin veil, face and neck show off to great advantage, and the jewellery they wear, and the gay colours of their satin cloaks, seen in the soft crimson light of the carriage, produce a very charming effect, unsurpassed even by our beauties, when they drive crowned with flowers, to the Princess of Wales’ Drawing-room. I think it is in these carriages that Turkish ladies look best, even better than in the Harem, where however, when they are well dressed, gracefully reclining on the divan, they often look very beautiful. Only those who are above the middle size, and they are few, look well standing. None walk gracefully, not even those that have exchanged the sock and clumsy slippers, usually worn, for French chaussure. This however is considered no fault in a Turkish lady, who would be almost ashamed to walk well, as it would prove that she had often used such vulgar exertion. Having a whole host of female slaves at her command, a Turkish lady moves about but little when in the Harem, which she never leaves except in a carriage. The women of the middle and lower classes however walk as badly as the ladies, which appears to be occasioned in a great measure by their mode of sitting. They shuffle along with their toes turned in, wearing large yellow boots, over which they often have slippers of the same colour. You seldom see a really pretty face among them. I believe beauty has a market value in Constantinople, and the women know that very well, and wont marry a poor man if their face can buy them a rich one. We must however not judge them too harshly on that account. Marriage from love is out of the question in a country where it would be scandal for a man to say that a lady is beautiful. He must never have seen her face, nor have exchanged a word with her before she is his wife. He values nothing but beauty in his wife, she looks for a rich Harem, jewels, carriages, and a handsome compensation in case he sends her away. The women of the middle classes, who have of course no carriages, ride sometimes on horseback. They sit like men, and are accompanied by some black or white man servant, who runs behind the horse, and carries his mistress’s slippers and parasol. These Amazons do not look particularly pretty or graceful, but the men on horseback are splendid. A Bey or Pasha, on a fine Arab horse, especially if he is an old man, and still wears the national dress, is a sight worth seeing. Horse and rider look as if moulded in one form, so firm and gracefully sits the rider in his saddle. Many of the horses are splendid, and seem gentle as well as lively, but now and then I saw a vicious one among the horses of the cavalry, that kicked with both front and hind legs, and frightened me in the narrow crowded streets of Stamboul. Yet I never saw any accident in consequence. The Turkish soldiers have a bold martial look, but in their dress they want entirely the neatness which European discipline requires of the soldier. The body guard of the Sultan looks magnificent. They are perhaps not such fine men as our horse-guards, but their dress is far more picturesque and imposing. But I forget that I intended to take you up the great street of Pera, to our hotel. Well, all I have hitherto described you may have seen before you have taken many steps in that crowded thoroughfare. Who is the next person that passes you? A Circassian with his high fur cap, and his row of cartridges across his chest, leading a pretty child of ten or eleven years, with soft brown melancholy eyes. He is taking her to the slave dealer, unless he attract in the street the attention of some rich Turk, or Turkish lady, who will perhaps there and then buy the child and take her away.

The little Turkish children appeared to me anything but what are vulgarly called “little Turks.” There are numbers of them in the streets, on the steamboats, and in the Harems, but I seldom saw a child in a real fit of naughtiness or passion. In their miniature dressing gowns of cotton, wool or silk, as the case may be, but always of most gorgeous colours and pattern, they looked funny little objects. The little girls in the Harems were sometimes pretty.

But what are those strange, wild figures, surrounded by a crowd of people coming slowly up the street? They are leading bears along to some more retired spot than the high street of Pera, where the bears and their masters dance together; a strange performance which the men accompany with a monotonous kind of song and beating of a tambourine. They look as uncouth and wild as the shaggy animals they lead along, but not more so than the shepherds you meet a little further on walking before their flocks of sheep and lambs. These wear a waistcoat and trowsers of undressed sheepskin, and a sheepskin hangs down their back as a cloak. Their long black hair falls over their shoulders and partly hides their faces. They carry long sticks in their hands, that look almost like the stems of young trees, and are of all the strange and wild figures you see perhaps the strangest and wildest.

What a contrast they form to the handsome Greek lady that now passes you. She is dressed in the latest Paris fashion, which is however modified just a little in accordance with the irresistible liking of all inhabitants of the South for gayer colours. Goethe observed this love for bright colours in Italy, and with his usual intelligence seems to have discovered at once a reason for it. What he wrote from Naples, on the 29th of May 1787, he might have written from Constantinople in 1865. He says: “The many coloured, variegated flowers and fruits, with which nature adorns itself here, seem to invite man to adorn himself and all that belongs to him with the brightest colours. Whoever can afford it decorates his hat with ribbons or flowers. Chairs and drawers in the poorest houses are painted with flowers, the carriages are scarlet with gilded ornaments, &c. We consider generally the love of gay colours vulgar and barbarous, and such it may become in certain conditions; but beneath a very clear blue sky there really exists no very bright colour, because nothing can vie with the splendour of the sun and its reflexion on the sea. The brightest colour is softened by the powerful light, and because all colours, such as the green of the trees and plants, and the yellow, brown and red of the ground, act with full power upon the eye, the flowers and dresses harmonize with it. Everything seems desirous to become somewhat visible under the splendour of sky and sea.”

If the Greek lady be the gayest figure in the crowd, the Arab woman is the most dreary and dismal. She is so entirely enveloped and thickly veiled, that but to look at her gives one a feeling of suffocation. The Turkish veil at Constantinople is a pretence, the Arab veil a reality. How the women can breathe or see through it is a wonder to me.

These are but a few of the strange and picturesque figures one meets on a walk through a street of Pera or Stamboul; there are many others, priests in a variety of dresses, Persians, Chaldeans, Jews, and some so strange and new, that like the flowers of Crete, I do not know their names, nor where they come from, nor what they mean. There are of course also some very disgusting sights; the dirty beggar that importunes you, the wretched lunatic with his shorn head uncovered, who touches your arm, the deaf and dumb boy that begs with hideous noises, the nasty dogs that in a torpid kind of dose lie about in the streets, and worst of all the cripples, that expose their deformed limbs in order to excite your pity. But as I always turned away from these wretched sights, I will not remember them here.

If this long description of a walk through Pera should seem tiring it is no wonder, for it is a long steep hill that leads from the Custom House where you land to the Hotel in Pera. Apropos of the Custom House, I must relate a little incident that happened to us when we arrived at Constantinople, and which well characterises Turkish Custom House administration. When the officer had minutely examined all our trunks, dressing-bags, etc., and had looked with great suspicion at my pincushion, the use of which he could not understand, and tried to open it in order to see if it contained any contraband, he discovered in a small basket half a dozen oranges, which kind Sig. A— of Canea had insisted upon my taking with me. These were seized, and the Turk asked us to pay five piastres (10d.) duty, when, to our utter astonishment, the dragoman of our hotel gave him one piastre (2d.), which he took and was thankful.

To walk up to the hotel in Pera is, as I said before, very tiring, for the hill is steep, the pavement bad, and there are no footpaths; still it is vastly preferable to driving. Those gaily-painted, gilded carriages have very bad springs, and on the pavement of Constantinople and across the wooden bridges they shake one to such a degree, that I felt if the human body was not grown together mine would surely have fallen to pieces. Men are much better off in that respect, they can hire a nice little horse, which may be found everywhere, and at a moderate price, while even a short drive always costs from fifty to seventy piastres (10s. or 12s.) There is one other kind of conveyance for women, that is the sedan-chair; it is not a cheap mode of transit, as you can go no distance under 6s. or 8s.; but the men carry you along quite as quickly as the carriages, and the movement is not unpleasant. These sedan-chairs are much used by the stout Greek and Armenian matrons. I did not notice that Turkish women used them, they seem to be of a sociable character, and like to go out in sets of three or four, and therefore ride in carriages.