Along the Bosphorus, and other sketches

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE

I— ALONG THE BOSPHORUS 5

The Mohammedan Sunday.

I. Along The Bosphorus

The Mohammedan Sunday.

The stranger entering Constantinople at noon might think the rushing stream of life on Galata bridge represents a people of industrious habits and tireless energy. In reality it is one of the idlest of cities, and repose of mind and body, taking kief (i. e., lazing) is the Turk's supreme happiness.

Time has no value to the Moslem. Immovable fatalism makes the future, whatever it be, acceptable, and the ambitions and industries of restless Christian nations are unknown to the descendants of men who ravaged the earth under Genghis Khan and Tamerlane.

Friday, the Mohammedan Sunday, is the most delightful of all the week. It is an interruption to labor, if there be any, because then the Sultan makes his only outing; the whole population rouses and goes to see the one sovereign of Europe who can trace his lineage through four centuries, an unbroken succession, without the scepter once decHning to the distaff, and without the accession of a collateral branch.

He is the thirty-first ruler of the house of Othman, reaching back to Shiek Ertogrul of glorious memory, founder of the Ottoman dynasty, who was buried at Eske Scheher, 1238.

About 2 o'clock in the afternoon the commander of the faithful leaves Yildiz — Palace of the Star — mounted usually on a milk-white Arabian, which he manages with delicate and skillful hand. He wears the uniform of an army officer, without ornament except a slight dress sword. His bearing is kingly, his face thin and colorless, eyes black and keen as a falcon's; in his lofty ease there is a mingling of fierceness and gentleness, as becomes the descendant of the most illustrious warrior of Islam, the successful wooer of the fair Malkhatoon.

If the old Tartar blood is dominant in Abdul Hamid Second, one would not suspect it while he bows right and left, as though by life-long contact with different races he had caught and united in himself the graces of them all. Seeing him thus we readily believe that the wearer of the sword of Othman, uncontrolled master of 60,- 000,000, has so kindly a nature he has never signed a death warrant. His manner is always

The Sultan s Arabs.

winsome and gracious, in the throne-room the perfection of that subtle attraction conveyed to our minds by the word courtly — a charm far beyond the reach of mere personal appearance.

Some of the royal family have had great beauty inherited from Circassian mothers. An English artist who painted Abdul Medjid, father to the present Sultan, declared he had never seen so fine a mouth; it was a perfect cupid's bow. Physically, the house has declined since Turkish corsairs scoured the Mediterranean countries for women worthy the name of Sultana, and stole high-born Venetian ladies to adorn the Imperial harem.

There must be no umbrellas opened in presence of the shadow of God upon earth. Time was when raising a parasol in front of majesty would be the signal and mark for a musket-shot from a sentinel. This peaceful furling of parasols is a far-away reminder of the tyranny of Amurath Fourth (1623), who opened batteries on boats impeding the view and sent all on board to the bottom.

Those were the days of the sword and the bowstring, when sunrise over the Bosphorus revealed on its shores corpses of victims nightly strangled; and so familiar with executions were the abject councilors of the Divan that, when summoned to appear at the Sublime Porte, they usually made the death ablution before entering the presence of the despot. He it was who, among small murders, beheaded his chief musician for singing a Persian air, and decreed : "Those of my illustrious offspring who ascend the throne may put their brothers to death in order to secure the peace of the world."

Shrill and clear the bugle calls; the band discourses wild, barbaric music attuned to fighting and victory, which must have been inspired when the Padisha himself led the armies and made it his custom to pitch his tent and sleep on the field of battle.

The whole ceremony of marching to the mosque is much changed since the Oriental dress has vanished. The flowing robes crusted with precious stones, the jeweled turbans and cimeters dazzling the sight are now to be seen only in museums and treasure houses. Anciently the war horse of the king of a hundred kings pranced on carpets soft as plush spread along the way from Seraglio Point to St. Sophia, to be taken up and then distributed among the crowd.

Still the troops are of martial and imposing carriage — picked men of the empire from the Soudan to Albania. Well do they guard the banners of green — ^the colors of the Prophet (he

I

The Sultan Gomg to Prayer.

Page y.

rests in glory !) — and every man is ready at every breath to do gallant service or, if need be, to die for the true faith. The Islamite who deserts his post or flies before his foe is held by the military code deserving of death in this world and of hellfire in the next.

Turkish cavalry has long been admitted the finest in Europe; and first among them are the Circassians, body-guard of the Sultan, whom Russell of the London Times called the most picturesque scoundrels in the world. They are bloodthirsty and treacherous, renowned for reckless bravery and matchless beauty of the pure Caucasian type. Even among the meanest of them you see noble, well-set heads of finest mold, testifying to unmixed blood of the most perfect of living races.

They wear curious arms and silver cartridgepockets at their breasts in memory of a twenty-five years' struggle against Russia under their prophet-chief, Schamyl, when their power was first shattered and broken.

The Sultan enters the mosque with one Iman to offer the prayer none other is entitled to utter. The ranking officers of the army and navy in full uniform, with jeweled orders and decorations, wait at the entrance. The stay within is short; the half hour soon passes, the royal suppliant reappears, remounts the fretting desertborn steed, the guards close round him, the multitude cheer, "Long Live the Padisha," and then the immense crowd breaks away for the pleasant afternoon on the banks of the Bosphorus.

Let us quit this overcrowded Babylon and seek the Valley of Sweet Waters of Asia, and, that we may be Oriental as possible, let us not take a steamer, but step into a caique, a vessel peculiar to the Bosphorus as the gondola is to Venice, and the dahaibeah is to the Nile.

The Bosphorus is but a passage way for the waters of the Black Sea setting in slow and uncertain currents for the Mediterranean. It has no tide, only the currents, which, for cleansing and purification, are better than a tide. Commercial intercourse has converted it into a canal, but such a canal as Nature alone can dig, putting to mock ditches like that Nero attempted across the Corinthian isthmus. It is faintly counterparted on the Hudson, and, if accounts be true, IS in some respects rivaled by channels in the Straits of Magellan. The chain of mountains through which the Bosphorean rift was worked is high; the rift itself is deep, in places deep as the sea; and so bold is the step-ofif from the shores that the greatest ships pass within a fathom of the quays with which they are for

THE MOHAMMEDAN SUNDAY. H

the most part lined. The sight of a boat in motion is always a pleasure, and the larger the boat the greater the pleasure. Fancy what it must be to watch the passage at full speed of an ocean going steamer so close that you see the eyes of the passengers, and hear the officers on the bridge speaking in ordinary tones.

The stream is of irregular width, generally from one-half of a mile to a mile, and it goes its way in a serpentine fashion, leaving immense bends in the banks opposite corresponding promontories, from which springs the ceaseless change of landscape that constitutes the main charm of the locality. Traversing it is like witnessing the unfolding of a panorama. Overhead is the softest blue sky, humid with the vapors of two seas. Breathing them, you afterwhile come to taste their salty flavor. Nowhere is there such variety in boats. You never weary of watching them going and coming here and there, in and out, their sails whitening in the sun and darkening in the shade, and at all times, whether in sun or shade, things of living grace. You cannot hang a banner on a stafif but it will drop when left to itself into folds and figures of beauty; sails take on the same charm. You should see what, in the way of vessels, a clear day can bring forth. Yonder go the woodmen, a dozen of them, racing to make the market first; here, hugging the shore to escape the force of the current, the rowers, brawny fellows, picturesque in their very rags, rising to take reach with the oars and falling in the pull together, come fishermen in their black boats, modeled like ancient Scandinavian galleys. Observe how carefully the rude fellows give right of way to the slender caique of the Pacha, whose ten rowers are in livery, and trained to perfect form. When their oars drop the frail vessel rises as if to leap from the water. They go noiselessly and swift, almost like swallows, yet before they are out of sight another caique even more beautiful passes you, carpeted, carven, gilt and painted, and driven by three oarsmen. The black Aga sitting cross-legged behind a nest of parasols dyed in the most brilliant unmixed colors is sufficient warning that the passengers are ladies of rank. You can take one look to satisfy yourselves on the point — only one, for the Aga carries pistols, and it is lawful for him to use them. At such times it is wonderful how much one can take in with the briefest glance. He can at least always tell if it be worth while to venture a second look.

From the water, turn now to the shore — it makes no difference which shore. Your eyes cannot be cast to a point where there is not a picture to fascinate them. Observe first that town of long extent- — a city in fact though of but one row of houses. The owners prefer the one row, for it brings their town down to the water's edge; still, if their taste were otherwise, they could not help themselves, for the space they occupy with their buildings had to be blasted out of the solid mountain. Look again, I say, and study the effect of the arrangement. You are reminded at once of Venice. The waves wash the marble of the doors from which the owners can step into their boats; and then fishing was never made so easy; the children drop their lines out of the windows, and catch red mullets for breakfast. The painted fronts in air are painted fronts in the water; their reflections reach to an infinite depth; and back of the red-tiled roofs rise the stony faces of the mountain left perpendicular by the workmen who did the blasting; in one place, they present the appearance of a wall of dark ivy which grows there with wonderful vigor, and keeps verdurous all the year round; in another place, they are broken with terraces that go up zig-zag clear to the summit, bordered on the outer edges with accacias, and oranges and lemon trees, and flowering shrubs; while on the extreme summit, to get the benefit of the background of sky, the great rock pines stand holding their umbrella tops outspread like tireless servants appointed especially to shade the roses in the gardens below them. On the terraces you see the people in gay garments, mostly women and children, seated upon their rugs, getting the sweetness of the breeze, and idly watching the going and coming of the boats and boatmen. Sitting there, they smoke and take sherbet, and eat cakes and conserves, and loll or gossip, offering such a picture of dolce far niente as may be seen nowhere else. Of still evenings their voices drop to you, and on looking up to find the speakers, you think to yourself how it would be to do nothing as they do, except it may be of mornings to watch the sun lift the vapors of night from the green sea-river beneath them so far, revealing one by one the caiques at their swallow-like play between Europe and Asia, and the pretentious ships, which were belated there at sundown last evening, their sails now hanging in idle waiting for the wind which is to blow them it may be to Sebastapol or Odessa or the other way to the city of the Sultans. And when, as is not seldom, the rising curtain gives to sight a fleet of majestic steamers flying the flags of all the commercial nations, ah, you will admit that the Bosphorus is the perfectest summering place this side of Paradise. Is it wonderful that the OsmanHe is always ready to fight for it?

Formerly the Sultan spent his holidays on the water, but the present dispenser of crowns to monarchs leaves Yildiz only to seek the nearest mosque, so the imperial caique is rarely seen, which is a pity, for it is the prettiest thing afloat — a long, slender boat, sharply tapered at both ends, painted pure white, touched with pink and gold, and graceful as a lily on the waters. Its twenty-four rowers keep perfect time together. They are clad in silk, scarlet and embroideries. Draperies of foreign fabric and glowing color touch the ripples. At the stern is a gilded peacock, and the airy craft skims the waves like some swift bird in swimmmg flight.

A generation ago there were 80,000 caiques plying up and down, darting in every direction lightly as butterflies. Now there are less than half that number. The natives call them swallow boats, and the motion is so restful to the two passengers (the dear reader and writer), we hardly realize the hard work required among the varying currents till we see sweat pour down the faces of our oarsmen and the muscles of their bare arms knot like cords.

Thin planks of tulip and beechwood appear too frail to oppose any force, and we shiver when l6 ALONG THE BOSPHORUS.

heavy steamers pass. The aerial fabric rides the tiny waves, and its sharp points offer small resistance to the sweep of the ever-moving waters. The fragile things have no ballast but the occupants, and we must sit perfectly still or upset while we head toward the Asian shore.

Now the stream is two miles wide. Look back at Seragho Point, the scene of imperial wars and loves, the residence of masters of Byzantium a thousand years before the Turks crossed into Europe. In the tideless land-locked harbor we call the Golden Horn, ironclads bought in England are idly lying. Beyond them westward, vast and dark, is the leaden roof of St. Sophia, the temple where forty generations had worshiped before Michael Angelo beheld against the sky of Italy the peerless dome of St. Peter's.

Every sort of boat that goes by oar, and everything that can sail, and everything that goes by steam, passes us. Many vessels carrying merchandise are built like the galley af Jason, which sailed this way, bound for Colchis, in the prehistoric, mythic period, and some touch for lading at a wharf that yet bears his name. The water is blue as though colored with indigo, clear as cr3^stal, and sparkles fall off the oars like pearly beads. Some caiques are gilt, richly carved and inlaid with precious woods. Perhaps the rowers

Palais de Dolmabagtche.

are named Aristides and Themistocles, showing they have not forgotten the glory that was Greece, or may be there is an armed attendant in gorgeous vestments, a native of Montenegro — the m.ountain eyrie which has defied the Sultan and all his hosts four hundred years.

Here comes the splendid caique of an Eastern Ambassador, curtained with shawls of finest fabric and warm and changeful hues. Madame TAmbassadrice, robed with soft raiment inwrought with gold, reclines in quietude among her silky pillows, placid and content as the cushat in her nest; beside her a little daughter. The child has wonderful dark eyes, and looks about in eager delight. At the age of fourteen she will be veiled and guarded. On her tiny hand is a flaming jewel so precious we may well believe the legend that, when wrested from a wandering tribe, only one man knew in which of twelve boxes it was kept, or on which of one hundred camels it was carried in the march.

The mother wears a veil of flowered gauze through which we cannot see her features, but elsewhere I have been allowed to behold the full moon of full moons in her unveiled loveliness.* They say she is of an unconquered people in some remote corner of a sterile mountain region. I do not know; but I do know that from the bel8 ALONG THE BOSPHORUS.

ginning, though beauty abide in a wilderness, the king's son will make a path to her hiding place and fit the magic slipper to her foot.

The Sultana Valide (Sultan mother) is abroad to-day, and no one can guess how many odalisques from the Seraglio. It is said the Padisha has more wives than David, but not so many as Solomon. Who knows may tell.

It is early spring; the judas trees (our redbud) are in bloom, tinting the atmosphere pink like peach bloom, and the sheltered slopes on both sides of the Bosphorus are redolent of Damascus roses. Thousands of pigeons flutter in the melancholy cypress groves which mark the home of the absent. Along the terraced hills are strings of palaces with steps leading to the water, cool pavilions, costly as gems, gushing fountains, fairy villas of cedar and stone, with terraces light as lace, summer houses, picture-like shapes floating up out of the depths and resting on air. Oh, how its beauty comes back to me now !

The Cheregan is largest of the many palaces of the Sultan; a memorial towering above the tomb of a canonized dervish. It is built nobly of marble, snowy white, with balustrades and columns graceful and elegant. A row of cormorants sits on the roof, moveless, like a cresting; bright-winged birds flit through the shrubbery, and doves coo and flutter tamely about the windows. The gates are freshly gilded, and, though delicate as filigree, are strong and well locked. As we float along you may hear hints (not from me, dear reader) of a high-born prisoner held in regal state within; and whispers that it is the abode of a remnant of an aged harem entailed for maintenance on the present Sultan since the death of his father. Having once belonged to royalty, the wives must live in perpetual widowhood, monuments sacred to the memory of the dead-and-gone father of the King of Kings of the world. Let us not inquire too closely; questioning is impertinent.

Fishermen cast their nets froma kind of cage upheld on beams of wood buoyed on gourds or corks. In wailing cadence and swell they answer each other across wide spaces, sometimes with broken time and long intervals; weird notes, making strange effects on ear and fancy — a vague reminder of the ancient Greek chorus; a strain well calculated to raise the ghosts of heroes who sailed the Propontis in the dateless years before the Odyssey was written.

Look at the White Castle, founded no one knows when or by whom — a grim fortress famous in war, whose tragedies many a minstrel has harped and many a troubadour sung to the thrumming of his two-stringed guitar. In its horrid dungeons Christian prisoners have languished, and through its narrow windows the captive has stretched his skinny hands, praying for help, and has worn away slow years, till his poor heart broke, waiting for the ransom that might never be paid.

On a ruinous tower the silent stork lays her eggs and broods her young — a sacred bird, which makes every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca; and her nest, though left empty on a chimney, secures the owner of the house against fire and pestilence.

Spectral forms hover about these hoary turrets, and mysterious voices blend with the sounding sea as deep calleth unto deep. Here Persian armies in barbaric pomp marched over their pontoon bridge to invade Europe; here Crusaders crossed into Asia, and here, type of our higher civilization, the underlying cable joins the two continents, making the shortest route to India.

One poetic tradition softens the rugged front of the battlemented walls of the White Castle. It is of the son of Amurath, who first planted the Crescent on St. Sophia, and over the city of the Holy Trinity proclaimed the oneness of God. At the White Castle he met by accident and loved at once, and with his whole heart, a Grecian princess of transcendent lovehness, a near kinswoman of the Emperor Constantine. When the city of Constantinople fell she was taken prisoner and kept in honor and safety till order was restored; then the Conqueror, Mohammed Second, sent for the fascinating Giaour, and thus runs the ancient chronicle : "He took in her Perfections such delight and contentment, as that in short time he had changed state with her, she being become the Mistress and Commander of him so great a Conqueror; and he in nothing more delighted than in doing her the greatest Honor and Service he could. All the day he spent with her in discourse; all time spent in her company seemed to him short, and without her nothing pleased; his fierce Nature was now by her well tamed, and his wonted care of Arms quite neglected. Mars slept in Venus' lap, and now the Soldiers might go play."

A reedy little stream called Sweet Waters of Asia empties into the Bosphorus; its margin is bordered with sycamores, chestnut, and oak trees, and overlooked by the exquisite kiosk of the mother of Sultan Abdul Medjid — a gentle, smiling landscape in a sunny atmosphere of peace. Yet it is never safe to go without shawls, for the land of citron and vine has its cold shoulden and, like a spoiled favorite, sometimes suddenly turns it on her lovers.

The sexes do not mingle in picnic. Carpets are spread on the grass, aiid women and children, in dresses gaudy as tulip beds, eat sweets and loll on cushions of down, in simple enjoyment of earth, sea, and sky. The ladies have their black guardsman, called bolt of the door, keeper of the lilies, watchman of the hyacinths, etc. The whip of hippopotamus hide in his hand is the sign of his ofhce, and its lash is ready for him who gazes too curiously at the Paradise eyes, or tries to peer under the misty white veils.

Sellers of melons, fruit, cakes, move about crying their wares, and slaves are in waiting who are such only in name They are part of the household, free at the end of seven years and eligible to any position. More than half the marriages in Turkey are with slaves.

The men, who are comparatively few, smoke, drowse, and take their pleasure solemnly. A tiny cup of coffee, sipped drop by drop, will last through hours. Here and there a solitary under the sad cypresses ponders the deep mysteries, murmurs the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, and dreams of the rose-door of Paradise that shuts in the golden pleasure fields kept for the Faithful.

In some out-of-the-way place, under a planetree, may be seen a group, reverend as patriarchs, enjoying the story-teller. One tale consumes the whole day, the listeners sitting motionless in rapt attention. Orientals revel in accounts of buried treasure, and the poorer the reciter the richer the mine, the deeper the enchanted cavern where jars of inestimable jewels and bags of gold are locked under the spell of wizard or evil genii. Sindbad, Aladdin, the never-ending Arabian Night stories are familiar and charming to them.

One of the central figures in their legends is Solomon, wisest of prophets, who was learned in the language of beasts and birds, and heard secrets whenever he walked in his gardens of spices. He had three talismans: first, a signet-ring, at whose touch thrones crumbled and mighty spirits rose from the dead; on this stone was engraven the Nameless Name. The second, less potent, was a magic glass that revealed the movements of his enemies, and showed the laws of all things; and the third was the east-wind, which was the great king's horse.

An unskilled musician, with a reed, pipes a desert strain to the lean, swart Bedouin; and if you have the gift of tongues you may hear of many sorts of treasures — of a radiant glance which throws the sun and moon into shade — when Leila lifts her white eyelids the stars grow pale; of flower-soft lips and voices sweeter than the bulbul's; and of a gallant steed; the wind lagged after him, and between his hoofs his master slept as in a safe tent.

The literature of the Turk is scant, and his poetry is borrowed mainly from the Arabic. Come near and you hear something like this little story from the Persian. I have seen it rendered into verse, but the literal translation gives best the fine essence of the original :

"One knocked at the Beloved's door, and a voice asked from within, 'Who is there?' and he answered, 'It is L' Then the voice said, This house will not hold thee and me;' and the door was not opened. Then went the lover out into the Desert, where there is nothing but Allah, and fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he returned and knocked again at the door; and again the voice asked, 'Who is there?' and he said, 'It is thyself,' and the door was opened to him."

Here is a favorite chant given with droning accompaniment on the tambours :

"Clear as amber, fine as musk,

Is life to those who, pilgrimwise, Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk, Each morning nearer Paradise.

"Oh, not for them need angels pray! They stand in everlasting light; They walk in Allah's smile by day, And nestle in his heart at night."

And this is a part of the

Message from under the Cypress Tree in the Garden Green.

"I had gold robes, and greatness, and sweetness, I was queen of the land.

In my Palace shone pride of completeness; On my lips sate command.

But the heart of my Lord was my glory, Not the crown on my brows.

And my garden is green with Love's story. And my Tomb is Love's house."

The tranquil enjoyment lasts till twilight. All are sober, none noisy; laughing children now and then clap hands and make a little stir, but if there is anything like vivacity, be sure it is in a Greek or Armenian. There is no color line, and an Ethiop girl in tinseled slippers may sing to an enraptured audience the "Frantic Lay of the Night-black Lover," and with mad gesture shout, rather than hymn, the praises of love and wine. 3

Through the sunset sky we have a vanishing glimpse of the invisible and heavenly. Ten thousand voices thrill the air calling to prayer from ten thousand minarets. Then is the witching hour. As darkness deepens the flood calms; the unresting birds — a species of halcyon — hush their screams, and, in wing-worn flocks, seek their nests at the entrance of the Black Sea; a quickening breeze fans the cheek; voices of serenaders, not Moslem, are wafted through the perfumed dusk; innumerable wavelets, faint pulsations of the sea, unite in lulling monotone. Beneath yon latticed balcony a flower drops on a dark upturned face. Romeo is breathing the eternal tale of which the world never tires, begun in Eden, new every morning and fresh every evening.

The words, in Greek or Italian, run on the same tender theme — the bliss of meeting, the pain of parting. The lovelorn watcher under the sentinel stars calls the bright powers of Heaven to hear his lament and witness his woe : 'T weep not for the ship, I weep not for the sails, but I weep for the fair one, the lily-bud who is sailing far away."

In sweetness and grace our festal day is dying. Of the balmy eve softly following, I hardly trust myself to speak. Nine months in the year the

FEAST OF BAIRAM. 27

pleasure-lover may find it such as I have tried to describe — the indescribable. With a feeling of unreality we float between blue and blue, past gardens blossoming with jasmine, heliotrope, lavender, groves of pine with tall dark crowns, and hearken to the secrets in the nightingale's song. Of the myriad melodies of Nature it is the saddest, and, listening to the wondrous plaint, we cannot doubt that she is telling to her beloved rose how her breast is pierced with cruel thorns. Like an uplifted mirage looming on high rise the towers and domes of old Stamboul; beyond them in a glad radiance, changeful as fire-opal, drift the Happy Isles of the Marmora. Night and day, truth and fable, are blent in absolute harmony, a perfect chord. It is all a witchery, a spell fleeting as some seolian strain enchanting us in sleep; it haunts our waking, but is doomed to remain forever unsung, and now is so dim and distant I sometimes wonder which was dream and which reality.