R. Walsh

“ Above Hasskui is the village of Halish-oglon, inhabited by Armenians; and while these robust, comely, healthy, and well-dressed people breathe the pure air in fine spacious houses above, the miserable Jew is thrust down below, grovelling in dirt, disease, and misery.
Near this is a mosque, distinguished by an extraordinary circumstance. The minarets attached to every other, are always seen of a pure white, and carefully kept so, particularly those of Imperial edifices: but the minaret here is red, and displays the only one so coloured, perhaps, in the Turkish empire. ”

“ The Mediterranean sent up its wealth by the Hellespont, and the Euxine sent hers down by the Bosphorus. The climate was the most bland and temperate to be found on the surface of the globe; the soil, the most fertile in every production of the earth; and the harbour, the most secure and capacious that ever opened its bosom to the navigation of mankind: winding round its promontories, and swelling to its base, it resembled the cornucopia of Amalthea, filled with fruits of different kinds, and was thence called “The Golden Horn.” ”

“ SMYRNA, FROM THE HARBOUR.
ASIA MINOR.
The Bay of Smyrna is one of the largest and deepest in the Levant. At the extremity rises the ancient city, crowning the distant hills, while the modern runs along the low ground below, and seems on a level with the sea. Ships from all nations crowd the water, and their various pennons, floating in the breeze, add to the gaiety of the scene. The French are particularly distinguished. On every fête-day there is kept up a kind of jubilee, and the gala of Paris seems transferred to this port: music resounds from every deck ”

“ People escape from the burning atmosphere, and an exposed unsheltered street, to this retreat. It then resembles a subterranean city, crowded with a busy population of many thousand persons, bustling, buying, and selling in the cool and dim twilight. But the fair sex form by far the majority. It seems a privileged place, where the ordinary distinction of sect or caste is laid aside, and the Turk, Frank, and Raya, all mix and chat and bargain together without restraint; and it seems the only place where the pride and taciturnity of the Osmanli is laid aside. ”

“ The exterior of this interesting edifice is singularly heavy, and, as a celebrated French traveller says, furieusement lourde en dehors. It exhibits an irregular mass of cupolas, half-domes, shelving roofs, and stunted minarets; one of which, more mean than the rest, is the identical one erected by Mahomet to convert the church into a mosque. Even the great dome, so celebrated for its architectural beauty, and which the Turks have never yet been able to imitate, looks low and flat when viewed on the outside, and produces nothing of that “aërial” effect, in comparison to its internal structure. ”

“ But in the East, every city has its Acropolis: some lofty eminence is chosen to build on, the summit of which is crowned with a fortress, and the sloping sides covered with streets and houses. In this way ancient towns are described by writers, who compare them to amphitheatres, with their streets, like the seats, rising one above the other. Constantinople participates in this advantage in an eminent degree.
The approach to this magnificent city, from the Sea of Marmora, is more beautiful, perhaps, than that of any other city in the world. ”

“ They have extended their population to the plains below, on each side: on the north to the Danube, and on the south nearly to the Propontis; and their manners form a strong contrast to those of the rude and inhospitable Turks, with whom they here mingle.
When a traveller enters a cottage, he is received with smiles and cheerfulness, as if he were one of the family returned home after an absence. The females treat him with that unsuspecting confidence which they would show to a brother, and with a good-will which those who have experienced their hospitality will never forget. ”

“ The town stands upon a hill, and, like all Greek cities, ascends to an acropolis. Around the base expands a singularly rich country, even now in a high state of cultivation, divided into gardens and vineyards, and beyond them one of those verdant and fertile plains which distinguish Asia Minor. There are few remains of antiquity which mark the era when Grecian art flourished. Such walls and masses of masonry as now stand, belong to the time of the Lower Empire. ”

“ From the gardens of the harem, gates open on the sea of Marmora, with kiosks of various Turkish character. One is the “yali kiosk,” where a suspected vizir, or other high officer of the seraglio, is ordered to retire to await his destiny. A venerable man, with a long beard, is sometimes observed, by passing boats, sitting in this kiosk, smoking his chibouque. He is a dismissed favourite, quietly waiting his doom; and when the door opens behind him, does not know whether the chaoush who appears, is the bearer of a bowstring to strangle him, or a pelisse to invest him with new honours. ”

“ Then there are the haunts of the turtle-doves, who flock to this sequestered place, as one suited to their nature; and their gentle cooing fills the air with a pensive and congenial sound, adding considerably to the effect of the solemn objects around them. These sacred edifices are held in such veneration, and so guarded from desecration, that an infidel is repelled from them with even more jealousy than from the precincts of Santa Sophia.
The time chosen for the Illustration is the return of the sultan from the mosque, after the ceremony of girding on the sword has been performed. ”

“ The minstrel draws after him a crowd of his countrymen, capering through the streets of Pera and Constantinople, on their way to the Sweet Waters, to amuse the company assembled there. The banks at this season are covered with a rich verdure, and enamelled with a profusion of flowers of all hues: the very humidity of the soil confers a luxuriance on the sward which is nowhere else to be seen. The soil round the city is a poor and sterile gravel, and for nine months in the year presents a parched and arid surface of irksome brown ”

“ They have seldom more than one mast and one immense mainsail, and seem to move with so infirm a balance, that they totter along through the water as if about to upset every moment. Approaching Constantinople, they are overtaken, late in the year, by the violent north-easter of the Melktem, or the misty weather that then prevails; and unable to make the narrow entrance of the Bosphorus, or bear up from a lee-shore, less skilful or less fortunate than the Argonauts, they are either dashed on the Cyanean rocks, or driven on the sands. ”

“ The great wall, forming as it were the base of the triangular area on which the city is built, and running from sea to sea, is nearly five miles in extent: a broad high road passes parallel to and just under it, so that a traveller can view without interruption the whole line, from the Golden Horn to the Propontis, and contemplate, during a delightful walk, the most interesting remains perhaps existing in the world. ”

“ With his iron mace, Mourzoufle stood the defender of Constantinople against the rapacity of the crusaders, and attempted to burn their galleys. He was, however, repulsed; and, after various struggles, the imperial city, the head of the Christian world, was taken by storm, and given up to plunder, by the pious pilgrims of the Cross, and its fierce defender was dragged to the summit of the pillar of Theodosius, and from thence cast down and dashed to pieces.
The scenes of carnage that followed are revolting to humanity. ”

“ THE SULTAN’S NEW PALACE ON THE BOSPHORUS.
Among the symptoms of growing European habits and usages, which are daily seen creeping over the metropolis of the Osmanli and its vicinity, one of the most remarkable perhaps is the change which is daily introduced into their public edifices, and the substitution of a chaste and classic, for a fantastic Oriental style of architecture. When the rude ignorant Turks first rushed among the monuments of European art, what they did not utterly destroy, they perverted. ”

“ The view of the city displays a mountain of houses, as far as the eye can reach: the seven hills form an undulating line along the horizon, crowned with imperial mosques, among which the grand Solimanie is the most conspicuous. These edifices are extraordinary structures, and, from their magnitude and position, give to Constantinople its most characteristic aspect. They consist of large square buildings, swelling in the centre into vast hemispherical domes, and crowned at the angles with four slender lofty minarets. ”

“ The navigation of the Bosphorus is the most lovely that ever invited a sail. Its length, in all its windings, is fifteen miles; and when the caïque glides down with the current, there is something exquisitely beautiful and grateful to the senses in every thing around. Nothing can exceed, in picturesque scenery, the whole coast on each side. It affords a continued succession of romantic wooded promontories, projecting into the stream, and presenting, at every winding of the strait, new and diversified objects. ”

“ In the course of ages it has assumed the character of a magnificent solitary lake, of nature’s own formation, though in several places mounds and ramparts are still discernible, and seem rather thrown up to prevent the overflowing of the lake, than as part of its original construction. The lake, as it now exists, is of considerable extent; the rich mould on its banks, of a muddy consistence, exuberant in reeds, and abundance of such aquatic and palustric plants as love such a soil. The water, in colour and transparency, resembles that of a common pond, and seems alive with fish. ”

“ THE GREAT CEMETERY OF SCUTARI.
Among the first objects that present themselves to a stranger entering Turkey, are the groves of cypress extending in dark masses along the shores. These are the last resting-places of the Turks; and their sad and solemn shade, far more gloomy than any which Christian usage has adopted, informs the traveller that he is now among a grave and serious people. The Turks permit the Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Franks to plant their cemeteries with other trees, but reserve the cypress exclusively to themselves. ”

“ The site chosen was particularly beautiful. A conical hill juts out from a deep bay, having secure harbours on each side. From hence the bay sweeps with picturesque curves, embracing with its long arms a magnificent sheet of water; the view terminated behind with the rugged precipice of the Albanian chain, and before by the islands of Paxo and Corfu, floating on a singularly clear and lucid sea. On the summit, over the caves, stands the acropolis of the city; and sloping down the sides, the houses of the inhabitants. ”

“ This spot recalls many interesting recollections of mythology, history, and natural phenomena. Here it was the Symplegades opened to invite, and closed to crush, the stranger who dared to intrude on these forbidden seas. Here it was the Greeks entered on the expanse of the Euxine, and disclosed new regions and new sources of wealth to their enterprising countrymen: and here it was the disruptured mountains first gave a passage to the waters of a vast internal ocean, which have continued ever since to pour down with impetuosity through the great chasm. ”

“ The city stands in the centre of an enormous plain, 140 miles, or about five days’ journey from Constantinople. It is distinguished by the approaching traveller at the distance of many miles, by the tall minarets of the mosque of Selim piercing the sky, when all other objects of the city are imperceptible. An Oriental town is never discovered like one where coal is consumed, by the dense vapours which fill the atmosphere about it, but obscuring every other object. ”

“ In cities, the khan has somewhat more accommodation, and in the country there is sometimes a small apartment stuck on the side of the lofty wall like a pigeon-house, and ascended by a ladder, like a hay-loft. Here the traveller finds a ragged mat on a rough dirty floor, and, perhaps, there is a coffee-room in the street, whence he can procure some refreshments; but these are rare luxuries. These naked edifices were first erected by Murad Khan, vizir to Soliman the Magnificent, and afterwards by the munificence and charity of sultans, for the gratuitous accommodation of all travellers. ”

“ In the foreground is a caravan crossing an antique bridge, thrown over one of the snow-dissolved currents which intersect the plain. On one side buffaloes are dragging the ponderous arrhuba; on the other, they are grazing on the low pastures, or cooling themselves in the water. The horse, in Turkey, is never degraded to a servile use: the drudgery of labour is thrown upon the buffalo. It is a singular species of ox, of immense strength, but of a structure so coarse and rude, that it seems “as if Nature’s journeymen had made it, and that not well.” ”

“ Sometimes vast forest-trees are seen rising from the depths of chasms, and shooting their giant trunks, as they struggle up for light and air, till they reach the summit, and then, and not till then, expanding their noble foliage; while the eye of the traveller, looking down into the chasm from which they issue, is lost in the immensity of the depth, and cannot trace the vast stems of the trees to the ground. ”

“ Though the bird is seen in great numbers in all Oriental towns, Pergamus seems its favourite haunt; the inhabitants feel for it a fraternal regard, call it by endearing names, and affirm their attachment is so mutual, that it follows the Moslem people into whatever part of the globe they emigrate. They erect on their houses frame-work of wood, to induce the stork to build there; the public edifices are covered with them; the mosques and their minarets are full of their nests, and on every “jutting pier, buttress, and coign of “vantage” is seen their “procreant cradle.” ”

“ The only motive of which he can have any distinct comprehension is that which leads a man to explore ruins; for every Turk is impressed with a notion that the ancients abounded in wealth, and that in the edifices they left behind them, a man could find an urn of gold under every stone, if he knew how to search for it, and this knowledge he believes the superior intelligence of every Frank imparts to him. The janissary, therefore, who attends a traveller, though perfectly indifferent in other places, is always on the alert among ruins. ”