Sudludji.
Merciful Heavens! what did we reach? Nothing in the world but another suburb, the Christian settlement of Sudludji, built on a hill surrounded by woods and cemeteries, the same hill at whose base was formerly one end of the only bridge which in ancient times connected the two banks of the Golden Horn. But this suburb, by a merciful providence, was actually the last, and our excursion had finally come to an end. Quitting the houses, we cast about us for some spot where we might seek a little much-needed repose. Back of the village there rises a bare, steep ascent, up which dragging our weary limbs, we found before us the largest Jewish cemetery in Constantinople. It is a vast open space, filled with innumerable flat gravestones, presenting the desolate appearance of a city destroyed by an earthquake, and unrelieved by a tree or flower or blade of grass, or even so much as a footpath—a desert solitude as depressing to look upon as the scene of some great disaster. Seating ourselves upon one of the tombs, we turned in the direction of the Golden Horn, and while resting our tired bodies feasted our eyes upon the superb panorama which lay spread out before us. At our feet lay Sudludji, Kaliji Oghlu, Haskeui, Piri Pasha, a chain of picturesque villages set in the midst of green gardens and cemeteries and blue water; to the left, the solitary Ok-Meidan and the hundred minarets of Kassim Pasha, and farther on the huge, indistinct outlines of Stambul; beyond, fading away into the distant sky, the blue line of the mountains of Asia; directly facing us on the opposite shore of the Golden Horn lay the mysterious quarter of Eyûb, whose gorgeous mausoleums, marble mosques, deserted streets, and shady inclines, dotted with tombstones, could be clearly distinguished from where we sat, rural-looking solitudes full of a melancholy charm; to the right of Eyûb lay still other villages covering the hillsides and peeping at their own reflections in the water; and then the final bend of the Golden Horn, lost to view between two lofty banks covered with trees and flowers.
Half asleep, exhausted in mind and body, we sat there, allowing our eyes to wander at will over the whole exquisite scene; put all we had done and seen to music, and chanted antiphonally a rigmarole of I don’t know what nonsense; discussed the history of the dead man upon whose tomb we were sitting; poked into an ant-hill with bits of straw; talked of all manner of foolish and irrelevant things; asked ourselves from time to time if it were really true that we were in Constantinople; reflected upon the shortness of life and vanity of all human desires, at the same time drawing in deep breaths of pleasure and delight; but away down in the bottom of our secret souls we each realized through it all that nothing on earth, no matter how charming and beautiful it may be, can quite satisfy a man, provided he does not while enjoying it feel in his the hand of the woman he loves.