CHAPTER XII.
The Bosphorus in Summer—The Tower of Galata—Mosque of Topphannè—Summer Palace of the Grand Vizier—Seraï of the Princess Salihè—Seraïs and Salemliks—Palace of Azmè Sultane—Turkish Music—Token Flowers—Palace of the Princess Mihirmàh—The Hill of the Thousand Nightingales—Turkish, Greek, and Armenian Houses—Cleanliness of the Orientals—The Armenians—Cemetery of Isari—The Castle of Europe—Mahomet and the Greeks—Village of Mirgheun—The Haunted Chapel of St. Nicholas—Palace of Prince Calimachi—Imperial Jealousy—Death of Calimachi—The Bosphorus by Moonlight—Love of the Orientals for Flowers—Depth of the Channel—An Imperial Brig—Turkish Justice—Fortunes of the Turkish Fleet—Sudden Transitions—Influence of Russian Sophistry—The Sultan’s Physicians—Naval Appointments—Rigid Discipline—The Penalty of Disobedience—The Death-Banquet—Tahir Pasha—Radical Remedy—Vice of the Turkish System of Government—Unkiar Skelessi—A Mill and a Manufactory—Pic Nics—Arabian Encampment—Bedouin Beauty—Poetical Locality.
Nothing can be richer nor more various than the shores of the Bosphorus on a sunshiny day in summer; and many a delightful hour have I spent, in company with my father, in the contemplation of the glorious succession of pictures which they offer to the lover of the beautiful in nature. One delicious morning, when not a flitting cloud marred the clear lustre of the sky, when a gentle breeze murmured over the ripple, and the song of the birds swelled cheerily upon the wind, we resolved to enjoy them to their fullest extent; and, as our caïque darted along the European coast, a thousand interesting objects presented themselves.
| Miss Pardoe del. | Day & Haghe Lith.rs to the King. |
| THE SERAGLIO POINT, from the HEIGHT of PERA. | |
| Henry Colburn, 13 G.t Marlborough St 1837. | |
The tower of Galata, rife with memories of the days when the dreaded Janissaries ruled the destinies of the Empire, crowned the height, which, clothed with houses and with verdure, swept downward to the port. The spiral minarets of the Imperial mosque of Topphannè were flaunting their golden glories in the light; the sounds of busy life were on the wind; and the port once past, the wide artillery-ground, and the stately barrack were succeeded by the summer palace of the Grand Vèzir, standing proudly against the current, as though, like the Emperor of old, it dared the wave to overwhelm it. The wide sweep of hilly country, gradually closing, and becoming more lofty in the rear of the buildings that fringe the stream, was clothed with trees of every tint; from among which the many-coloured houses peeped forth in the most picturesque irregularity. Here and there a gleaming minaret shot upwards into the clear Heaven from amid a cluster of plum-coloured Judas trees laden with blossom, or a clump of limes filling the air with perfume; and leaving the dark spiral cypresses far beneath it; as the spirit, soaring above the earth, outtravels the gloom and care from which it frees itself.
What a line of palaces stretched along the coast! And what a wilderness of gardens, climbing the steeps behind them, made the background of the picture no inapt representation of fairy-land; while at intervals a little bay formed a delicious nook occupied by country-houses, and terraced-coffee-shops, where the luxurious Osmanli smoked his pipe, and inhaled his tiny cup of mocha, amid sights and sounds to which the world can probably produce no parallel.
The stately serail of the Princess Salihè, and the modest palace of her less high-born husband, which is attached like an excrescence to the far-spreading edifice occupied by the harem of his Imperial partner, stands upon a spot where the stream widens, as if to reflect more perfectly the golden shores that hem it in.
There is something amusing enough to a foreigner in the one-sided dwellings of the Sultan’s sons-in-law. Without the palace as well as within, they are constantly reminded of the superiority of their Imperial spouses. As they glide along in their gilded caïques, they pass the harem, with its tall doors of bronze, and golden lattices; its far-stretching terraces, and guarded avenues; and they arrive before the small landing-place which gives ingress to their own diminutive salemliek, with its single entrance, and its window draperies of white cotton.
You cannot pass the Palace of Azmè Sultane, the elder sister of the Sultan, without being saluted by the sounds of music. The ladies of her harem are many of them consummate musicians, according to Turkish ideas of harmony; and the tinkle of the zebec, the long notes of the violin, the ringing rattle of the tambourine, and a chorus of female voices, are so constantly sweeping over the water through the closed lattices, that your boatmen universally slacken their pace as they reach the Seraïl. Oriental music requires distance to mellow it: and when it floats along the water, as though it rose from the ocean caves; and you suffer your imagination to dwell upon the white arms which are tossed in air as the silver wheels of the elastic tambourine ring out; and the delicate fingers that press the strings, and the rich red lips and large dark eyes that lend new grace to the wild and bounding melodies of the country—you are almost ready to fancy for the moment, that Apollo must have first swept his lyre in a Turkish harem.
While you look fixedly towards the lattices, as though to search for the embodiment of your romantic fancies, you may discover proofs that the community is not one vowed to the rosary, though it may wear the veil. Here it is an orange attached by a lock of hair to the outer frame of the small centre window of the trellice-work; there it is a marigold suspended by a red ribbon; while, partially concealed, and twined amid the minute squares of the jealous screen, you may perhaps discover a small cluster of roses.
This is the very land of practical romance!
An arrow’s flight beyond the Palace of the elder Sultana, stands that of the Imperial bride of Saïd Pasha; a long, irregular, rose-coloured pile, pleasantly situated at the mouth of a lovely bay, whose shores are bright with groves and many-tinted villas; while in the distance, where the channel again narrows, the castles of Europe and Asia may be seen looming out against the pure blue of the sky. We loitered at this sweet spot for a brief space, and then, darting once more forward, soon arrived under the “Hill of the Thousand Nightingales.” Rightly is it named, for the mid-day air was vocal with their melody, and the dense foliage of the forest trees quivered with their song; while, as the melancholy music came to us along the water, its sadness was deepened by the aspect of a few scattered tombs gleaming out amid the rank underwood. The variety of timber which clothed the eminence formed such varying shades of green; from the bright soft tint of the water-willow, whose flexile branches swayed in the breeze like silken streamers, to the tall, dark, silent cypresses, that it was a study for a landscape painter.
Beyond this lovely hill, the shore is edged with Greek, Armenian, and Turkish houses; and here commences the moral interest of the locality. The dwellings of the raïahs are, when of any extent, almost universally painted of two different colours on the outside, in order to give them the appearance of separate tenements, and thus deceive the passers-by; while those of the Turks themselves are perfectly illustrative of the momentary condition of their owners.
The Osmanli is the creature of the present; he never falls back upon the past; he has no glorious memories to wile him from himself; every page of his history is shadowed over by some gloomy recollection—nor dare he dwell upon the future, for he is the subject of a despotic government: the proud Pasha of to-day may be headless, or at best houseless to-morrow; and hence, the premature decay of three-fourths of the Turkish dwellings.
When an individual becomes possessed of power, he buys or builds a residence suited to his brightened fortunes: he lavishes his revenue—why should he hoard it? it can only excite the cupidity of the Sultan, and accelerate his disgrace; or awaken the jealousy of his rivals, and insure his ruin. He makes his house gay without, and convenient within; but all its accessories are ephemeral—the paint which he spreads over the surface remains fresh for a year, and that suffices him. Perchance it may outlast his favour; should it not do so, it is no unpleasant task to renew it; and if it should, he contents himself with the weather-stained walls of a more golden season. Once in disgrace, he repairs only just sufficiently to defy the weather, and troubles himself no further. And thus, after you have been a few months in the country, and have studied in some degree the nature and habits of the people, you may give a shrewd guess as you ride along, at the past and present position of the owner of every edifice that fringes the Bosphorus.
The courtier has raised a pile which looks as though it had been finished only yesterday; the walls are so bright, and the lattices are so perfect—the blue ripple chafes against the marble steps that lead to the columned portico; and the feathery acacias nestle among their blossoming boughs, gilded kiosks, and lordly terraces.
The slighted favourite has still servants lounging about his door, and a stately landing-place beside which his caïque dances on the wave; but a shade has past over the picture: the summer sun and the winter wind have deadened the bright blue or the soft olive of the edifice, and here and there a slender bar is rent away from the discoloured lattices. The fair forest trees still wave along the covered terrace, but the steps are grass-grown, and the flower-vases are overthrown—they might be replaced; but it is better policy to let them suffer with their master.
The dwelling of the exile is still more distinguishable. The shutters are hanging loose and beating in the wind; the broken casements no longer exclude the weather; the lattices are wrenched away; the terrace-wall is falling inch by inch into the wave; the rank grass is forcing its way through the crevices of the marble floor; the garden kiosks are roofless; and the green fresh boughs are flaunting in the sunshine, mocking the desolation which they dominate.
Fathers do not, in Turkey, build, or plant, or purchase for their sons—their fathers did it not for them—it would entail the probable loss of both principle and interest.
The Armenian houses are peculiarly remarkable for their cleanliness. All the inhabitants of Constantinople in decent circumstances are scrupulously nice on this point, but the Armenians exceed all others: every respectable dwelling being scoured throughout once a week with soap and water. I have already, in speaking of this people, alluded to their utter deficiency in sentiment and ambition: their lives are frittered away in inconsequent details; and hence the attention and interest are bestowed on comparatively insignificant objects, which render them remarkable to strangers.
Another striking object on the coast is the romantic and beautiful little cemetery of Isari, situated immediately beneath the Castle of Europe, by which it is dominated as by the eagle-eïrie of some feudal Baron. Rocks, rudely flung together, and in their perpendicular ascent impervious to vegetation, sustain the foundations of the fortress; while around and among them snatches of kindlier earth are covered with dense rich underwood, from amid which tall graceful trees spring up, and overshadow the gilded marble of many a columned gravestone.
The Castle of Europe, standing immediately opposite to the valley occupied by the castle on the other coast, is built after a singular fancy. Tradition tells that Mahomet, from his Asiatic mountains, contemplated with envy the lovely shores of Europe; and that, unable to restrain his desire of possessing at least a speck of the fair landscape, he entreated permission of the Greeks to be allowed to build a small fortress as a landing-place, on their territory. The favour was granted, the materials collected, and the present Castle of Europe completed in six days; the ground-plan forming the characters of the Prophet’s name.
Near the edge of the channel, a small arched door is pointed out to the curious, whence the Janissaries who had become obnoxious to the reigning Sultan, and whose especial prison it was, were ejected from the fortress after they had been bow-strung, in order to be flung into the Bosphorus; while, at the instant that the waters closed over them, a gun was fired from one of the towers, to intimate to the Imperial despot that justice had been done on his enemies.
This Castle, like the Fortresses of the Dardanelles, has been suffered to fall into partial decay, but an order was lately issued for their simultaneous restoration, and workmen are now busily employed in repairing the united ravages of time and neglect.
The little village of Mirgheun, about a mile higher up the channel, is one of the prettiest things on the Bosphorus. A long street, terminating at the water’s edge, stretches far into the distance, its centre being occupied by a Moorish fountain of white marble, overshadowed by limes and acacias, beneath which are coffee terraces; constantly thronged with Turks, sitting gravely in groups upon low stools not more than half a foot from the ground, and occupied with their chibouks and mocha.
A short distance beyond Mirgheun the channel widens into a little bay, one of whose extremities is occupied by a ruined house, standing in the midst of a garden. This house, which was formerly a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, is now the property of a Turk, but is never inhabited in consequence of a superstition so wild, and withal so fully credited by both Greeks and Musselmauns, that I must not pass it by unnoticed.
The chapel was desecrated during the Greek revolution; and taken possession of, under the Imperial sanction, by a Turk, who, hurling the effigy of the saint from the niche above the altar, converted the holy shrine into a dwelling-place for himself and his family; but on the very night on which he removed thither he was destined to pay the price of his sacrilege, for he was found in the morning dead in his bed; an event which so appalled his relatives that they immediately disposed of the house to a neighbour, whose only child fell a victim, in the same mysterious manner, to the vengeance of the outraged saint—a third purchaser lost his wife by the like means; and the spot became from that day the dread and horror of every True Believer; while it is an extraordinary fact that its Infidel owner sent for a Greek Papas to exorcise the evil spirit, or to conciliate the saint; and that a solemn sprinkling of holy water and chanting of hymns took place; but it is impossible to say with what success, as no tenant has subsequently been found for the dwelling, which is rapidly crumbling to decay.
As you approach Therapia, you come upon a long stretch of wall, pierced in one regular line with small square windows, and looking exactly like an ill-kept manufactory; while the fine stone terrace that runs along its whole façade, and the thickly-planted shrubberies which clothe the hill behind it, have something so lordly and imposing in their aspect, that your attention is irresistibly attracted, and your curiosity awakened. Should your caïquejhes be Greeks, they will scarcely answer your inquiry without muttering an imprecation through their clenched teeth. It is the sorry remain of the palace of Prince Calimachi, seized by the Sultan in a fit of despotic jealousy, and converted into a stable for the Imperial stud, but so entirely disproportioned to its new office as to be perfectly useless—the extent being immense, and the number of the Sultan’s horses extremely limited; it has consequently been abandoned to premature decay, and a noble object is thus blotted from the landscape, and degraded into a deformity.
The son of the Prince was Dragoman to the Porte when the seizure was made; but being a Greek, his court interest availed him nothing; his ideas were too magnificent, and he paid the forfeit of his luxury.
But the misfortunes of Prince Calimachi did not end here. Exiled to Broussa, he endeavoured in the bosom of his family to lose the memory of his departed splendour; when he was one day invited to the palace of the Pasha to encounter him at chess, of which game both were passionately fond. Calimachi accepted the defiance with alacrity, for he knew not how dearly he was to pay the gratification. While he was deliberating on a move, the Pasha waved his hand, and in an instant the fatal cord was about the throat of his victim. The bereaved wife was next summoned; and though the dark ring of extravasated blood betrayed the deed which had been done, she was told that the Prince had expired from an attack of paralysis; nor did she dare to gainsay the falsehood; and thus she bore away the body of her murdered husband in the silence of despair.
The Sultan has a kiosk on the one hand, and a summer palace on the other, of this melancholy memorial of despotic power; but I was in no mood to admire either with such an object before me.
To be seen in all its beauty, the Bosphorus should be looked upon by moonlight. Then it is that the occupants of the spacious mansions which are mirrored in its waters, enjoy to the fullest perfection the magnificence of the scene around them. The glare of noon-day reveals too broadly the features of the locality; while the deep, blue, star-studded sky, the pure moonlight, and the holy quiet of evening, lend to it, on the contrary, a mysterious indistinctness which doubles its attraction. The inhabitants of the capital are conscious of this fact; and during the summer months, when they occupy their marine mansions, one of their greatest recreations is to seat themselves upon the seaward terraces, to watch the sparkling of the ripple, and to listen to the evening hymn of the seamen on board the Greek and Italian vessels; amused at intervals by a huge shoal of porpoises rolling past, gambolling in the moonlight, and plunging amid the waves with a sound like thunder: while afar off are the dark mountains of Asia casting their long dusky shadows far across the water, and the quivering summits of the tall trees on the edge of the channel sparkling like silver, and lending the last touch of loveliness to a landscape perhaps unparalleled in the world.
Shakspeare must have had a vision of the Bosphorus, when he wrote the garden scene in Romeo and Juliet!
All the Orientals idolize flowers. Every good house upon the border of the channel has a parterre, terraced off from the sea, of which you obtain glimpses through the latticed windows; and where the rose trees are trained into a thousand shapes of beauty—sometimes a line of arches rises all bloom and freshness above a favourite walk—sometimes the plants are stretched round vases of red clay of the most classical formation, of which they preserve the shape—ranges of carnations, clumps of acacias, and bosquets of seringa, are common; and the effect of these fair flowers, half shielded from observation, and overhung with forest trees, which are in profusion in every garden, is extremely agreeable.
Another peculiarity of the Bosphorus is the great depth of the water to the very edges of the channel. The terraces that hem it in are frequently injured by their contact with the shipping which, in a sudden lull of wind, or by some inadvertence on the part of the helmsman, “run foul” (to use a nautical expression) of the shore; nor is it the terraces alone that suffer, for the houses whose upper stories project over the stream, which is almost universally the case where they are of any extent, are constantly sustaining injury from the same cause.
We had occupied our summer residence only two days, when an Imperial Brig in the Turkish service, in attempting a tack, thrust its bowsprit through the centre window of the magnificent saloon of an Armenian banker, with whose family we were acquainted. The master of the house, exasperated at the evident carelessness in which the accident had originated, rushed out upon the terrace to remonstrate, but his remonstrances were unheeded; and he had scarcely re-entered the house when the Turkish captain, who was intoxicated, landed, and without ceremony passed into the outer court, accompanied by some of his crew; and, seizing the brother of the gentleman, and several of his servants, gave them a severe beating, and then quietly returned on board. The vessel was extricated after a time, carrying away with it nearly the whole front of the saloon, and a large portion of the roof; after which, the gallant commander again entered the house, and insisted upon conveying its master to Constantinople, there to expiate the sin of insolence to a Turkish officer. The Saraf, however, having business in the city, had already departed, and consequently escaped the inconvenience and insult destined for him.
Were I the Admiral of a Fleet charged with the conquest of a channel like that of the Bosphorus, I would employ none but Turkish sailors, who are never so much at home as when aground, or hung on to some building; they would literally carry the thing by assault. Their mighty ships of war do as they like, for they are constantly “touching,” when they are supposed to be cruizing; and “aground” when the authorities at home believe them to be at sea.
Where did you meet the Admiral’s schooner as you came from Malta? On shore off Tenedos. Where did you speak the frigate on your way here? Aground at Gallipoli? These were the answers to two questions put by myself; and had I ventured twenty more I should probably have received similar replies.
Englishmen will probably, at the first glance, wonder why it should be thus; but it would be greater subject for astonishment were it otherwise. When a Field Marshal, by kissing the Sublime Toe, is translated at once into a Lord High Admiral; and the Colonel of a Cavalry regiment becomes by an equally simple process a manufacturer of Macaroni; and when each is called upon to teach that which he never learnt, and to command ere he has been taught how to obey; the effects of the system may be readily foreseen. Nevertheless, were the Turks permitted to employ even subordinate European officers in their army and navy, much of the evil might be obviated. But Russia is opposed to a measure which would give them a correct idea of their own physical strength—by weakening the morale, she enervates the whole system; while, by her happy art of consopiation, and her finished tact at glossing over effects, and inventing causes, she has taught them to believe themselves independent of extraneous aid, Heaven-inspired, and all-sufficient.
It signifies not how irrelevant the duties of any situation may be to his previous habits and talent, no Turk would hesitate to accept it on that account, should the occasion of self-aggrandizement present itself; and he has two satisfactory reasons for acting thus—he must at least be as capable of fulfilling them as his predecessor, who was equally ill-fitted for the trust—and, should he refuse one good offer, he would probably never have a second. Thus reason the Osmanlis, and upon this conviction they act. Nor is Sultan Mahmoud one whit more difficult or quick-sighted on this point than his subjects; or more scrupulous as to the efficiency of those to whom he gives important appointments, than they are in accepting them; and a ludicrous example of this uncalculating facility occurred very lately, so perfectly in point that I cannot forbear to mention it.
His Highness had a favourite physician, to whom he had entrusted the superintendence of a public establishment, and who died suddenly at Scutari. When informed of his death, the Sultan was visibly affected: and in the first moment of regret he inquired anxiously if the deceased had left any family. He was answered that he had an only son, a clerk in the Greek Chancellery, whose situation was far from a lucrative one; and he immediately desired that the youth, who had not yet attained his twentieth year, should be appointed on the instant to his father’s vacancy, and receive the same salary which had been enjoyed by his parent. He was obeyed; and the spruce clerk at once became metamorphosed into the solemn physician, or something as near like it as he could accomplish.
By an arrangement not altogether so satisfactory, surgeons are supplied to the ships of war. When a medical man is required on board some vessel of the line, individuals appointed for the purpose walk into the first chemist’s shop they may happen to pass, seize the master, carry him off, hurry him first into a caïque, and thence to the ship; appoint him surgeon, enter him on the books, acquaint him with the amount of his pay; and, should he venture to remonstrate, give him a sound flogging.
Nor are “the powers that be” at all more particular in their bearing towards the officers of the ships, whom they flog (the captains inclusive) whenever they chance to consider the operation desirable. On a late occasion, two of the frigates ran foul of each other in the Channel, upon which Tahir Pasha, the High Admiral, bestowed the bastinado so unsparingly upon their commanders, that the blood penetrated their garments; and they were subsequently flung into some den in the hold, and there left during three days, not only without attendance, but literally without food!
It may be asked what punishment can be inflicted on the crews, if such unceremonious measures are pursued with the officers; and as one fact is better than a score of assertions, I will reply by relating another very recent occurrence, described to me by a Greek gentleman who was present during the whole transaction. The Capitan Pasha had a party of friends to dine with him on board his ship, who were about to seat themselves at table, when it was reported to him that one of the crew, in defiance of the order which forbade any individual to go on shore, had surreptitiously left the vessel.
“Let me know when he returns on board;” was the cold and careless rejoinder of the High Admiral, who had scarcely uttered the words, when the re-appearance of the delinquent was announced, after an absence of about ten minutes. He was ordered below to account for his conduct to the Pasha, whose very name is a terror to the whole fleet, when he stated that the following day being Friday (the Turkish Sabbath), he had ventured on shore to procure some clean linen, fearing the anger of the Admiral should he appear dirty.
“And was it for this trifle that you disobeyed my orders?” asked the Pasha; “I must take measures to prevent any future instance of the same misconduct—” and grasping an iron bar that served to secure one of the cabin windows, and which stood near him—without the pause of a moment—surrounded by his guestsstanding beside a table spread for a banquet and with his victim crouching at his feet—he struck the quailing wretch upon the head, and murdered him with a blow. The body fell heavily on the earth in the death-spasm; and the Admiral, addressing himself to an attendant, quietly ordered that the corpse should be removed, and the dinner served: but several of the party declined remaining after what they had witnessed, declaring their inability to partake of food at such a moment; these were, of course, Turks; for the Greek guests, although equally disgusted and heart-sick, were not at liberty to withdraw without danger; and the dead man was borne away, and the living feasted, with his death-groan still ringing in their ears, and his last fierce agony yet grappling at their hearts!
Tahir Pasha is a perfect embodiment of the vulgar idea of Turkish character which was so lately prevalent in Europe. He is the slave of his passions, and apparently without human affections or human sympathies. He lost his only son by his own violence, having beaten him so severely for quitting the house without his permission, that the unhappy young man died a day or two subsequently, in consequence of the injuries which he had sustained; and, instead of profiting by this awful occurrence, he afterwards murdered a nephew in the same manner.
And yet I have heard men, carried away by party-spirit, and hoodwinked by prejudice, maintain that this fiend in human shape was not cruel; and bolster their opinions with a sophistry that made me shudder.
I inquired of an attaché of the Porte whether the Sultan was aware of the waste of life in his fleet, where a week seldom passes in which some luckless wretch does not fall a victim to the wrath of the High Admiral; and the coolness of the answer was inimitable: “What has His Highness to do with it?” “How!” I rejoined in my turn, “are they not his subjects?” “Of course; but Tahir Pasha commands the fleet; and, while he does so, he has a right to enforce its discipline as he thinks best. Why should the Sultan interfere?” “But such wholesale cruelty is so revolting.” “Perhaps so; yet how can it be remedied?” “Were I the Sultan,” I answered unhesitatingly, “I would decapitate the High Admiral; it would be a saving of human blood.” The Turk laughed at my earnestness as he replied; “Mashallah! you have hit upon a radical remedy. But how would you secure the fleet against a second Tahir Pasha?”
He was right. The evil exists rather in the system than in the individual; but it is, nevertheless, a blessing for Turkey, that the equal of her High Admiral, for ruthlessness and cruelty, is probably not to be found in the country. And yet, to look at him, you would imagine that no thought of violence, no impulse of revenge, had ever stirred his spirit; he has the head of an anchorite, and the brow of a saint. I never beheld a more benevolent countenance—Lavater would have been at fault with him.
One of the most pleasant excursions that can be made to the opposite coast, is to Unkiar Skelessi, or the Sultan’s Pier; a sweet valley, under the shadow of the Giant’s Mountain, in which the famous treaty was signed with Russia. It is profusely shaded with majestic trees, the largest in the neighbourhood, and is entirely covered with rich grass. The spot on which the ceremony took place is overhung with maples, and washed by a running stream: behind it rises a range of hills; and on its left stands an extensive manufactory of cloth, and a paper-mill, erected at an immense expense, and furnished with their elaborate machinery by the present Sultan, who caused an elegant kiosk to be erected upon the height for his own use, when he went to superintend the works, which were, however, abandoned as soon as the novelty had worn off. They are now falling rapidly to ruin; and the noble run of water which was forced from its channel to turn the wheels of the mill, is wasting itself in an useless course across the valley, ere it is finally lost in the Bosphorus.
This lovely spot is much frequented on festival days by all classes of the population, who form pic-nic parties, and spend hours under the shade of the tall trees, sipping their coffee and sherbet; or occupying the different terraces which overlook the Bosphorus, with regular pleasure-parties, whose servants come well provided with provisions, and who linger throughout the whole day, enjoying the cool breezes from the sea, and the long shadows of the boughs beneath which they sit.
Higher up the valley, you generally meet with an encampment of Bedouin Arabs, where you are almost certain to see two or three faces of dark flashing beauty, which repay you for the annoyance that you experience from the importunity of the troop of children who assail you directly you approach the tents; little, ragged, merry-looking, vociferous urchins, of whom you cannot rid yourself either by bribes or menaces. These dark, proud beauties—for they are proud-looking, even amid their tatters, with their large, wild, black eyes, and their long raven hair plaited in many braids, which fall upon their shoulders, and hang below their waists; their round, smooth arms bare to the elbow, whence the large, hanging sleeves fall back; and their well-turned little feet peeping out from beneath their ample trowsers; these dark, proud beauties greet you with a smile, and a “Mashallah!” that introduce you to teeth like pearls, and voices like music; and as they sit, weaving their baskets for the market of Constantinople, they extend towards you their slender, henna-tipped fingers, and ask your piastres, without taking the trouble to rise, rather as a tribute to their loveliness, than as an offering to their necessities.
To escape from the importunities of the children, whom the sight of the tempting metal renders only more importunate, you have but to plunge deeper into the valley, and lose yourself among the majestic plane trees with which it abounds. The nightingale alone disturbs the deep silence of the solitude, save when at intervals the lowing of the cattle on the mountain sweeps along upon the wind.
It was here that De Lille wrote his “Pleasures of Imagination.”—It was here that De la Martine improvised to the memory of his daughter; the soil is poetic.