Galata.
On reaching Galata the excursion begins. Galata is situated on the hill which forms the promontory between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the former site of ancient Byzantium’s great cemetery. It is now the “city” of Constantinople. Its streets, almost all of them narrow and tortuous, are lined with restaurants, confectioners’, barbers’, and butchers’ shops, Greek and Armenian cafés, business-houses, merchants’ offices, workshops, counting-houses—dirty, ill-lighted, damp, and narrow, like the streets in the lower parts of London. A hurrying, pushing throng of foot-passengers comes and goes all day long, now and then crowding to right and left to make room in the middle of the street for the passage of porters, carriages, donkeys, or omnibuses. Almost all the business conducted in Constantinople flows through this quarter. Here are the Bourse, the custom-house, the offices of the Austrian Lloyd and the French express company, churches and convents, hospitals and warehouses. An underground railroad connects Galata and Pera. Were it not for the ever-present turban or fez, one would hardly know he was in the East at all. On every side is heard French, Italian, and Genoese. The Genoese are, in fact, almost on their native soil here, and are still somewhat inclined to assume the airs of proprietors, as in the days when they opened and closed the harbor at their will and replied to the emperor’s threats with volleys from their cannon. Of this ancient glory, however, nothing now remains except a few old houses supported on great pilasters and heavy arches, and the ancient edifice which was once the residence of the Podesta.
Old Galata has almost entirely disappeared. Thousands of squalid houses have been razed to the ground to make room for two wide streets, one of which mounts to the summit of the hill toward Pera, while the other runs parallel with the sea-wall from one end of Galata to the other. My friend and I took the latter, seeking refuge from time to time in some shop or other when a huge omnibus rolled by, preceded by Turks stripped to the waist, who cleared the street by means of long sticks, with which they laid about them. At every step some fresh cry assailed the ear, Turkish porters yelling, “Sacun ha!” (Make room!); Armenian water-carriers calling out, “Varme su!” and the Greek, “Crio nero!” Turkish donkey-drivers crying, “Burada!” venders of sweetmeats, “Scerbet!” newsboys, “Neologos!” Frankish cab-drivers, “Guarda! guarda!”
After walking for ten minutes we were completely stunned. Coming to a certain place, we noticed with surprise that the paving of the street suddenly ceased: it had evidently been removed quite recently. We stopped to examine the roadway and discover, if possible, some reason for this eccentricity, when an Italian shopkeeper, seeing what we were about, came to the rescue and satisfied our curiosity. This street, it seemed, led to the Sultan’s palace, and a few months previously, while the imperial cortège was passing along it, the horse of His Majesty Abdul-Aziz stumbled and fell. The good Sultan, much annoyed by this circumstance, commanded that the pavement should be removed all the way from the spot where the accident occurred, to the palace; which of course had been done. Fixing upon this memorable spot as the eastern boundary of our walk, we now turned our backs upon the Bosphorus and proceeded, by a series of dark, crooked little streets, in the direction of the