Constantinople ... Translated ... by Caroline Tilton

Front matter

■ CONSTANTINOPLE BY ED MONDO DE AMICIS translated from the seventh Italian edition BY CAROLINE TILTON NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 182 Fifth Avenue 187S Copyright, 1S78, by G. P. Putnam's Sons. CONTENTS PAGE The Arrival i Five Hours After . . 18 The Bridge 23 Stamboul 32 At the Inn 42 Constantinople 47 Galata 49 The Great Bazaar 71 The Light 95 Birds 98 Memorials 100 Resemblances 102 Costume 104 The Future Constantinople 106 The Dogs of Constantinople 108 The Eunuchs . . 114 The Army 120 Idleness 127 Night 130 Life at Constantinople 132 Italians CONTENTS. PAGE Theatres 138 Cookery . . 14° Mahomet 144 Ramazan 146 Antique Constantinople 14S The Armenians 153 The Hebrews 158 The Bath 160 The Tower of the Seraskiarat 164 Constantinople 167 Santa Sofia 169 Dolma bagtche 190 Turkish Women . . 206 Yanghen Var , . . 238 The Walls 247 The Old Seraglio 265 Last Days 292 The Turks 304 The Bosphorus CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE ARRIVAL. The emotion I felt on entering Constantinople, almost ob literated from my recollection all that I had seen in my ten days voyage from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the Bos phorus. The blue Ionian Sea, motionless as a lake, the distant mountains ofthe Morea tinted with rose by the first rays ofthe sun, the ruins of Athens, the Gulf of Salonica, Lemnos Tenedos, the Dardanelles, and many persons and things that had diverted me during the voyage, all grew pale in my mind at the sight ofthe Golden Horn ; and now, if I wish to describe them, I must work more from imagination than from memory. In order that the first page of my book may issue warm and living from my mind, it must commence on the last night of the voyage, in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, at the moment when the captain of the ship approached me, and putting his hands upon my shoulders, said, " Signori, to-morrow at dawn we shall see the first minarets of Stamboul."

Ah ! reader, full of money and ennui ; you, who a few years ago, when you felt a whim to visit Constantinople, replenished your purse, packed your valise, and within twenty -four hours CONSTANTINOPLE. quietly departed as for a short country visit, uncertain up to the last moment whether you should not after all, turn your steps to Baden-Baden ! If the captain had said to you, " To-morrow morning we shall see Stamboul," you would have answered phlegmatically, "I am glad to hear it." But you must have nursed the wish for ten years, have passed many winter even ings sadly studying the map of the East, have inflamed your imagination with the reading of a hundred books, have wandered over one half of Europe in the effort to console yourself for not being able to see the other half, have been nailed for one year to a desk with that purpose only, have made a thousand small sacrifices, and count upon count, and castle upon castle, and have gone through many domestic battles ; you must finally have passed nine sleepless nights at sea with that immense and luminous image before your eyes, so happy as even to be con scious of a faint feeling of remorse at the thought of the dear ones left behind at home ; and then you might understand what these words meant, " To-morrow at dawn, we shall see the first minarets of Stamboul;" and instead of answering quietly, "I am glad to hear it," you would have struck a formidable blow with your closed fist upon the parapet of the ship as I did.