Edmondo De Amicis

“ The city is wonderfully adapted to form a background and framework for the beauty of the women and the picturesque style of their dress. You should see, for instance, one of those graceful figures, with its white veil and crimson ferajeh, seated in a käik on the surface of the blue Bosphorus, or extended on the grass surrounded by the vivid green of some cemetery, or, better still, coming toward you down one of the steep lonely side-streets of Stambul, closed in at the end by a great plane tree, when the wind is blowing and veil and ferajeh flutter about and reveal neck and foot and ankle. ”

“ In the old days, when a fire broke out in Constantinople, if the Sultan happened to be at that moment in the harem, news of the disaster was sent to him in the person of an odalisque dressed in scarlet from head to foot, with orders to present herself before him wherever he might be, were it even in the embraces of the favorite. She had only to appear upon the threshold: the flaming color of her attire would do the rest and be the mute announcement of her errand. ”

“ Occasionally one sees a face of great beauty, and not always the same type either, since there is Circassian, Persian, and Arabian blood mingled with the Turkish. There is the matron of thirty, whose ample form the ferajeh cannot entirely conceal, very tall, with great dark eyes, protruding lips, and delicate nostrils, the kind of hanum who makes a hundred slaves tremble at her glance, and the mere sight of whom turns into ridicule the boast made by Turkish gentlemen that they are four times the husband. ”

“ In one kiosk flows the accursed liquor amid a circle of dishevelled revellers; in another a wretched sultana, mother for but one short moment, stifles her shrieks beneath the pillows that she may not see her child’s life-blood flowing from the artery opened by order of the Pâdishah; and in the marble niches of the Bâb-i-Humayûn blood is still dropping from the heads of beys executed at nightfall. Within the loftiest kiosk of the third enclosure there is a room hung with crimson brocade and flooded with soft radiance from a Moorish lamp of chased silver suspended from the cedar-wood roof. ”

“ The little village of Hunkiar Iskelesi, a favorite place of residence among the wealthy Armenians of Constantinople, sleeps quietly among its plane and cypress trees and about its diminutive harbor, on the bosom of whose waters a few boats may be seen gliding peacefully along. High above the village, upon the summit of a vast incline of terraced gardens, towers the solitary and magnificent kiosk of Abdul-Aziz, beyond which,290 again, extends the favorite valley of the pâdishahs half hidden under dense masses of tropical vegetation and surrounded by a dreamy mystery. ”

“ They seem all to be gentlemen educated after one pattern, from the pasha to the shopkeeper, and animated in common by a certain well-bred dignity, which, wore it not for the differences in dress, would lead one to suppose that Stambul had no plebeians. The expression is almost universally cold, revealing nothing of the soul and mind within, it being exceedingly rare to come across one of those open countenances so common among us which reflect, like mirrors, the passionate or loving or spiteful nature below, and lend themselves to a quick and accurate reading of the man. ”

“ Spreading trees grow from the very summits of the towers, as though they stood in gigantic vases; garlands of brilliant flowers, vines, and creepers droop and wave from the battlements; while below, from the midst of a dense undergrowth of brambles, nettles, wild strawberries, and lentisks, plane and willow trees cast their dark shadows across the moat and its banks. Whole sections of the walls are completely covered with vegetation flung like a green veil over the brickwork and crumbling masonry, and concealing the cracks and fissures. The moat is laid out in truck-gardens ”

“ Their eager desire to make friends among European women is perfectly natural: they are to them like revelations of another world. They are never weary of hearing descriptions of some grand theatrical performance or ball or state reception—of the doings of women of the world, the brilliant society, adventures during Carnival time, long journeys, and all the other strange features of that wonderful Western life; and these glowing scenes take complete possession of the poor little brains, sick to death of the dull monotony of the harem and gloomy shadow of the garden-walls. ”

“ Allah!” which, dying out, left us once more silent and alone. Not long after another mob, with all the now familiar accompaniments, poured by, and still another, then two more, and finally the madman of Pera, stark naked and half dead with cold, rending the air with his piercing shrieks, and followed, as usual, by a crowd of Turkish ragamuffins. They, like the firemen, were swallowed up in the dark openings of the streets on the Frankish shore, and again profound silence fell upon the mighty city, now gilded by the first rays of morning. ”

“ There is the one clear, distinct, all-compelling idea of a sole and omnipotent God, who demands in his temple the severe nakedness of the sunlit desert, and permits no likeness or image of himself other than the sky. All the imperial mosques of Constantinople possess these common characteristics—a majesty which uplifts and a simplicity which concentrates upon one single object the mind of the worshipper, differing so little from one another, even in the matter of detail, that it is difficult to preserve any distinct recollection of them. ”

“ Swiss châlets, Japanese huts, little Moorish palaces, Turkish kiosks, whose three stories project one beyond the other, the grated galleries of their harems overhanging the Bosphorus, while little flights of stairs lead down to gardens washed by the waves. All the buildings are small, light, unsubstantial, corresponding precisely to the nature of the power wielded by those who inhabit them—the triumph of youth, the success of an intrigue, a high office which may be forfeited to-morrow, a glory doomed to end in exile, a fortune destined to evaporate, a greatness which will crumble away. ”

“ It is even difficult to realize that these same waters, these enchanting scenes, were the witnesses of those furious sea-battles when Bulgarians and Goths, Byzantines, Russians, and Turks fell upon one another, fought, bled, and were vanquished or overcame in turn; the very fortresses which frown from the heights fail to awaken a spark of that romantic horror which such ruins always inspire when seen at other places; they seem more like artificial adjuncts to the landscape than the stern and actual records of a past which has seen them vomit fire and death. ”

“ I would give my memories of the most beautiful view in Constantinople if in exchange I could transfer to my readers any of the profound and singular impressions made upon me by my slow progress between those two interminable chains of ruins and sepulchres, beneath that eastern sun, amid that profound solitude, that utter peacefulness. Often, at some troubled period of my life, I had wished that I might find myself one of a great silent caravan of mysterious persons ever travelling through strange, unfamiliar lands to an unknown goal. ”

“ Every European innovation means to them simply a fresh attempt upon their national life and interests. The government is revolutionary, the people conservative; the seed of the new ideas falls upon a dry, compact soil, which refuses to yield up the necessary moisture for its nutriment; he who rules the nation’s affairs draws and manipulates the hilt, but the blade merely spins around in the haft. ”

“ Foreign ambassadors passed through on their way to the reception-chamber of the Sultan, and then the gallery would be hung from one end to the other with scarlet cloth, while the walls and pavements were as polished and glittering as the floor of a room. Two hundred Janissaries, spahis, and silidars, members of the Divân guard, would stand drawn up in the shade of the cypress and plane trees, dressed and armed like princes, while troops of white and black eunuchs, perfumed and anointed, flanked the entrance. ”

“ And Khurrem, Suleiman’s favorite, at what window did she linger, graceful, languid, her great black eyes fixed upon the Sea of Marmora beneath their veil of silken lashes? How often must this very path have felt the light pressure of that fascinating Hungarian dancer’s feet who effaced the image of Saffié from the heart of Murad III., slipping like a blade of steel between the imperial arms! Above this flowery bank must Kesem, that beautiful Grecian and jealous fury who beheld the reigns of seven sultans, have bent her pale proud face to pluck a flower in passing. ”

“ The market-place is but little less dignified than the mosque, and everywhere the utmost restraint is put upon both language and gesture—no singing, no loud laughter, no vulgar scuffling, no importunate rabble blocking up the way; clean faces, hands, and feet; rarely is any one to be seen ragged, still more rarely dirty; there is no brawling, and a universal and reciprocal respect exists between all classes of society. ”

“ The Bosphorus is like an enormous port: we pass close beneath the shining guns of the Ottoman men-of-war, through fleets of merchantmen from every country in the world, with sails of all colors, queerly-shaped bows, and crowds of foreign-looking men upon their decks; we meet and pass outlandish craft from the Asiatic ports of the Black Sea; beautiful little sloops belonging to the various embassies; gentlemen’s yachts shoot by like arrows from the bow, taking part in races which are witnessed from the shore by crowds of spectators ”

“ One wears an amulet around her neck, another a bit of garlic bound to her head to avert the evil eye; there are savages with tattooed arms, and little ladies of fashion whose tender skin betrays the stays and shoes of modern civilization; while the shoulders of more than one poor slave bear witness to the existence of a eunuch’s whip. Everywhere groups are to be seen in an endless variety of graceful abandonment. Some lie stretched out full length upon rugs smoking, others are having their hair combed out by slaves ”

“ Twenty times a day, wherever you may be on sea or land, that hillside covered with vivid green starts into view, tantalizing you with suggestions of what it has to disclose, forcing itself upon your attention, riveting the mind upon itself when you would fain think of other things—an unsolved enigma, a haunting mystery, which gives you no peace until at last you yield and go there before the appointed day, more to have done with it than for the purpose of enjoying the sight. ”

“ Throughout all the towers, and parts of the walls themselves, is a network of dark corridors, secret stairways, low, ponderous doors secured with heavy bars and beams, beneath which many a haughty head of pasha or chamberlain, governor or imperial prince, has bent for the last time, hurled in the flower and vigor of youth from the height of power and success to a dark and ignominious death, their life-blood often staining the castle-walls, while their wives, arrayed in their richest robes, wondered as they sat expectantly amid the splendors of the harem why their lord delayed his coming. ”