upon a fine green plain under the Seraglio walls, where stands one
solitary column, erected in memory of some triumph of some
Byzantian emperor.
There were three battalions of the Turkish infantry, exercising
here; and they seemed to perform their evolutions in a very
satisfactory manner: that is, they fired all together, and charged
and halted in very straight lines, and bit off imaginary cartridge-
tops with great fierceness and regularity, and made all their
ramrods ring to measure, just like so many Christians. The men
looked small, young, clumsy, and ill-built; uncomfortable in their
shabby European clothes; and about the legs, especially, seemed
exceedingly weak and ill-formed. Some score of military invalids
were lolling in the sunshine, about a fountain and a marble summer-
house that stand on the ground, watching their comrades' manoeuvres
(as if they could never have enough of that delightful pastime);
and these sick were much better cared for than their healthy
companions. Each man had two dressing-gowns, one of white cotton,
and an outer wrapper of warm brown woollen. Their heads were
accommodated with wadded cotton nightcaps; and it seemed to me,
from their condition and from the excellent character of the
military hospitals, that it would be much more wholesome to be ill
than to be well in the Turkish service.
Facing this green esplanade, and the Bosphorus shining beyond it,
rise the great walls of the outer Seraglio Gardens: huge masses of
ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of numerous kiosks and
outhouses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so as to hide the
beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying eyes and
telescopes. We could not catch a glance of a single figure moving
in these great pleasure-grounds. The road winds round the walls;
and the outer park, which is likewise planted with trees, and
diversified by garden-plots and cottages, had more the air of the
outbuildings of a homely English park, than of a palace which we
must all have imagined to be the most stately in the world. The
most commonplace water-carts were passing here and there; roads
were being repaired in the Macadamite manner; and carpenters were
mending the park-palings, just as they do in Hampshire. The next
thing you might fancy would be the Sultan walking out with a spud
and a couple of dogs, on the way to meet the post-bag and the Saint
James's Chronicle.
The palace is no palace at all. It is a great town of pavilions,
built without order, here and there, according to the fancy of
succeeding Lights of the Universe, or their favourites. The only
row of domes which looked particularly regular or stately, were the
kitchens. As you examined the buildings they had a ruinous
dilapidated look: they are not furnished, it is said, with
particular splendour,--not a bit more elegantly than Miss Jones's
seminary for young ladies, which we may be sure is much more
comfortable than the extensive establishment of His Highness Abdul
Medjid.
In the little stable I thought to see some marks of Royal
magnificence, and some horses worthy of the king of all kings. But
the Sultan is said to be a very timid horseman: the animal that is
always kept saddled for him did not look to be worth twenty pounds;
and the rest of the horses in the shabby dirty stalls were small,
ill-kept, common-looking brutes. You might see better, it seemed
to me, at a country inn stable on any market-day.
The kitchens are the most sublime part of the Seraglio. There are
nine of these great halls, for all ranks, from His Highness
downwards, where many hecatombs are roasted daily, according to the
accounts, and where cooking goes on with a savage Homeric grandeur.
Chimneys are despised in these primitive halls; so that the roofs
are black with the smoke of hundreds of furnaces, which escapes
through apertures in the domes above. These, too, give the chief
light in the rooms, which streams downwards, and thickens and
mingles with the smoke, and so murkily lights up hundreds of
swarthy figures busy about the spits and the cauldrons. Close to
the door by which we entered they were making pastry for the
sultanas; and the chief pastrycook, who knew my guide, invited us
courteously to see the process, and partake of the delicacies
prepared for those charming lips. How those sweet lips must shine
after eating these puffs! First, huge sheets of dough are rolled
out till the paste is about as thin as silver paper: then an
artist forms the dough-muslin into a sort of drapery, curling it
round and round in many fanciful and pretty shapes, until it is all
got into the circumference of a round metal tray in which it is
baked. Then the cake is drenched in grease most profusely; and,
finally, a quantity of syrup is poured over it, when the delectable
mixture is complete. The moon-faced ones are said to devour
immense quantities of this wholesome food; and, in fact, are eating
grease and sweetmeats from morning till night. I don't like to
think what the consequences may be, or allude to the agonies which
the delicate creatures must inevitably suffer.
The good-natured chief pastrycook filled a copper basin with greasy
puffs; and, dipping a dubious ladle into a large cauldron,
containing several gallons of syrup, poured a liberal portion over
the cakes, and invited us to eat. One of the tarts was quite
enough for me: and I excused myself on the plea of ill-health from
imbibing any more grease and sugar. But my companion, the
dragoman, finished some forty puffs in a twinkling. They slipped
down his opened jaws as the sausages do down clowns' throats in a
pantomime. His moustaches shone with grease, and it dripped down
his beard and fingers. We thanked the smiling chief pastrycook,
and rewarded him handsomely for the tarts. It is something to have
eaten of the dainties prepared for the ladies of the harem; but I
think Mr. Cockle ought to get the names of the chief sultanas among
the exalted patrons of his antibilious pills.
From the kitchens we passed into the second court of the Seraglio,
beyond which is death. The Guide-book only hints at the dangers
which would befall a stranger caught prying in the mysterious FIRST
court of the palace. I have read "Bluebeard," and don't care for
peeping into forbidden doors; so that the second court was quite
enough for me; the pleasure of beholding it being heightened, as it
were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting next door, with
uplifted scimitar ready to fall on you--present though not seen.
A cloister runs along one side of this court; opposite is the hall
of the divan, "large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, after
the Moorish manner, plain enough." The Grand Vizier sits in this
place, and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be conducted
hence on horseback, attired with robes of honour. But the ceremony
is now, I believe, discontinued; the English envoy, at any rat
e, is
not allowed to receive any backsheesh, and goes away as he came, in
the habit of his own nation. On the right is a door leading into
the interior of the Seraglio; NONE PASS THROUGH IT BUT SUCH AS ARE
SENT FOR, the Guide-book says: it is impossible to top the terror
of that description.
About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans and
pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses; and among them, sunning
himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old fat, wrinkled, dismal white
eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head sunk into his
chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed incapable to hold
up his bloated old body. He squeaked out some surly reply to my
friend the dragoman, who, softened and sweetened by the tarts he
had just been devouring, was, no doubt, anxious to be polite: and
the poor worthy fellow walked away rather crestfallen at this
return of his salutation, and hastened me out of the place.
The palace of the Seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the
hall of the ambassadors, the impenetrable gate guarded by eunuchs
and ichoglans, have a romantic look in print; but not so in
reality. Most of the marble is wood, almost all the gilding is
faded, the guards are shabby, the foolish perspectives painted on
the walls are half cracked off. The place looks like Vauxhall in
the daytime.
We passed out of the second court under THE SUBLIME PORTE--which is
like a fortified gate of a German town of the middle ages--into the
outer court, round which are public offices, hospitals, and
dwellings of the multifarious servants of the palace. This place
is very wide and picturesque: there is a pretty church of
Byzantine architecture at the further end; and in the midst of the
court a magnificent plane-tree, of prodigious dimensions and
fabulous age according to the guides; St. Sophia towers in the
further distance: and from here, perhaps, is the best view of its
light swelling domes and beautiful proportions. The Porte itself,
of the court will permit him to design it. I made the attempt, and
a couple of Turkish beadles looked on very good-naturedly for some
time at the progress of the drawing; but a good number of other
spectators speedily joined them, and made a crowd, which is not
permitted, it would seem, in the Seraglio; so I was told to pack up
my portfolio, and remove the cause of the disturbance, and lost my
drawing of the Ottoman Porte.
I don't think I have anything more to say about the city which has
not been much better told by graver travellers. I, with them,
could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that
warned me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of
an empire; and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and
oppression. I even saw a Turkish lady drive up to Sultan Achmet's
mosque IN A BROUGHAM. Is not that a subject to moralise upon? And
might one not draw endless conclusions from it, that the knell of
the Turkish dominion is rung; that the European spirit and
institutions once admitted can never be rooted out again; and that
the scepticism prevalent amongst the higher orders must descend ere
very long to the lower; and the cry of the muezzin from the mosque
become a mere ceremony?
But as I only stayed eight days in this place, and knew not a
syllable of the language, perhaps it is as well to pretermit any
disquisitions about the spirit of the people. I can only say that
they looked to be very good-natured, handsome, and lazy; that the
women's yellow slippers are very ugly; that the kabobs at the shop
hard by the Rope Bazaar are very hot and good; and that at the
Armenian cookshops they serve you delicious fish, and a stout
raisin wine of no small merit. There came in, as we sat and dined
there at sunset, a good old Turk, who called for a penny fish, and
sat down under a tree very humbly, and ate it with his own bread.
We made that jolly old Mussulman happy with a quart of the raisin
wine; and his eyes twinkled with every fresh glass, and he wiped
his old beard delighted, and talked and chirped a good deal, and, I
dare say, told us the whole state of the empire. He was the only
Mussulman with whom I attained any degree of intimacy during my
stay in Constantinople; and you will see that, for obvious reasons,
I cannot divulge the particulars of our conversation.
"You have nothing to say, and you own it," says somebody: "then
why write?" That question perhaps (between ourselves) I have put
likewise; and yet, my dear sir, there are SOME things worth
remembering even in this brief letter: that woman in the brougham
is an idea of significance: that comparison of the Seraglio to
Vauxhall in the daytime is a true and real one; from both of which
your own great soul and ingenious philosophic spirit may draw
conclusions, that I myself have modestly forborne to press. You
are too clever to require a moral to be tacked to all the fables
you read, as is done for children in the spelling-books; else I
would tell you that the government of the Ottoman Porte seems to be
as rotten, as wrinkled, and as feeble as the old eunuch I saw
crawling about it in the sun; that when the lady drove up in a
brougham to Sultan Achmet, I felt that the schoolmaster was really
abroad; and that the crescent will go out before that luminary, as
meekly as the moon does before the sun.
CHAPTER VIII: RHODES
The sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa brought a great number of
passengers together, and our decks were covered with Christian,
Jew, and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles and Russians,
Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks; on the deck were
squatted several little colonies of people of different race and
persuasion. There was a Greek Papa, a noble figure with a flowing
and venerable white beard, who had been living on bread-and-water
for I don't know how many years, in order to save a little money to
make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There were several families of
Jewish Rabbis, who celebrated their "feast of tabernacles" on
board; their chief men performing worship twice or thrice a day,
dressed in their pontifical habits, and bound with phylacteries:
and there were Turks, who had their own ceremonies and usages, and
wisely kept aloof from their neighbours of Israel.
The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility of
description; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease
in the filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the
squalor of mats, pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew
friends, could hardly be painted by Swift in his dirtiest mood, and
cannot be, of course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What
would they say in Baker Street to some sights with which our new
friends favoured us? What would your ladyship have said if
you had
seen the interesting Greek nun combing her hair over the cabin--
combing it with the natural fingers, and, averse to slaughter,
flinging the delicate little intruders, which she found in the
course of her investigation, gently into the great cabin? Our
attention was a good deal occupied in watching the strange ways and
customs of the various comrades of ours.
The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones to
rest in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceeding
rigour the offices of their religion. At morning and evening you
were sure to see the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white
robes, bowing over their books, at prayer. Once a week, on the eve
before the Sabbath, there was a general washing in Jewry, which
sufficed until the ensuing Friday. The men wore long gowns and
caps of fur, or else broad-brimmed hats, or, in service time, bound
on their heads little iron boxes, with the sacred name engraved on
them. Among the lads there were some beautiful faces; and among
the women your humble servant discovered one who was a perfect
rosebud of beauty when first emerging from her Friday's toilet, and
for a day or two afterwards, until each succeeding day's smut
darkened those fresh and delicate cheeks of hers. We had some very
rough weather in the course of the passage from Constantinople to
Jaffa, and the sea washed over and over our Israelitish friends and
their baggages and bundles; but though they were said to be rich,
they would not afford to pay for cabin shelter. One father of a
family, finding his progeny half drowned in a squall, vowed he
WOULD pay for a cabin; but the weather was somewhat finer the next
day, and he could not squeeze out his dollars, and the ship's
authorities would not admit him except upon payment.
This unwillingness to part with money is not only found amongst the
followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, and Christians too.
When we went to purchase in the bazaars, after offering money for
change, the honest fellows would frequently keep back several
piastres, and when urged to refund, would give most dismally: and
begin doling out penny by penny, and utter pathetic prayers to
their customer not to take any more. I bought five or six pounds'
worth of Broussa silks for the womankind, in the bazaar at
Constantinople, and the rich Armenian who sold them begged for
three-halfpence to pay his boat to Galata. There is something naif
and amusing in this exhibition of cheatery--this simple cringing
and wheedling, and passion for twopence-halfpenny. It was pleasant
to give a millionaire beggar an alms, and laugh in his face and
say, "There, Dives, there's a penny for you: be happy, you poor
old swindling scoundrel, as far as a penny goes." I used to watch
these Jews on shore, and making bargains with one another as soon
as they came on board; the battle between vendor and purchaser was
an agony--they shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another
passionately; their handsome noble faces assumed a look of woe--
quite an heroic eagerness and sadness about a farthing.
Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy provisions,
and it was curious to see their dealings: there was our venerable
Rabbi, who, robed in white and silver, and bending over his book at
the morning service, looked like a patriarch, and whom I saw
chaffering about a fowl with a brother Rhodian Israelite. How they
fought over the body of that lean animal! The street swarmed with
Jews: goggling eyes looked out from the old carved casements--
hooked noses issued from the low antique doors--Jew boys driving
donkeys, Hebrew mothers nursing children, dusky, tawdry, ragged
young beauties and most venerable grey-bearded fathers were all
gathered round about the affair of the hen! And at the same time
that our Rabbi was arranging the price of it, his children were
instructed to procure bundles of green branches to decorate the
ship during their feast. Think of the centuries during which these