[13] That is, if he stands up at all. Oriental etiquette would not warrant his rising, unless his visitor were supposed to be at least his equal in point of rank and station.
[14a] [A man in charge of post-horses. At the present day most business connected with horse-transport in European Turkey is managed by Vlachs, a people speaking a language closely akin to Roumanian, and scattered over Macedonia, particularly near the Thessalian frontier.]
[14b] [This accomplished gentleman subsequently became the proprietor of an hotel, which was long the principal hostelry of Constantinople. The name still exists, but the building has been burnt down.]
[14c] The continual marriages of these people with the chosen beauties of Georgia and Circassia have overpowered the original ugliness of their Tatar ancestors.
[23] [The remains of this pyramid, or rather the chapel which is erected over them, can be seen close to the railway immediately after leaving Nish for Pirot and the Bulgarian frontier. Only two or three skulls are now left embedded in masonry. According to the story now told in Servia, Singelich, a Servian leader during the Karageorge Insurrection, when hard pressed by the Turks, fired into his powder magazine, and blew up himself and his followers as well as numbers of his enemies. The Turks, in order to intimidate the other Serbs, collected the heads of the victims and built of them a tower or pyramid. In 1878, when Nish became part of the principality of Servia, most of the skulls were removed and buried, but two or three remain.]
[31] There is almost always a breeze either from the Marmora or from the Black Sea, that passes along the course of the Bosphorus.
[34] The yashmak, you know, is not a mere semi-transparent veil, but rather a good substantial petticoat applied to the face; it thoroughly conceals all the features, except the eyes; the way of withdrawing it is by pulling it down.
[35] The “pipe of tranquillity” is a tchibouque too long to be conveniently carried on a journey; the possession of it therefore implies that its owner is stationary, or, at all events, that he is enjoying a long repose from travel.
[36] [The structure of Turkish can only be said to resemble Latin in the general sense that the verb comes at the end of the sentence, which can be swelled out to enormous, and indeed preposterous, dimensions. The Turk of the old school thinks that a letter or document, and even a single chapter of a book, ought to consist of one sentence; but in this respect there has been considerable improvement of late, and modern newspapers and light literature are written in phrases of relatively reasonable length,—not longer, say, than German,—and with a much smaller proportion of Arabic and Persian words. The Osmanli gets few opportunities for public speaking nowadays, but it is said that the short-lived Turkish Parliament in 1877 furnished a very creditable oratorical display.]
[41] [Since this chapter was written the labours of Schliemann and Dorpfeld have excavated Hissarlik, commonly considered to be the site of Troy, though some prefer to identify the city of the Iliad with the ruins of Bunar Bashi, farther inland. Hissarlik is a huge mound, in a singularly desolate plain about an hour’s ride from Kum Kale, at the entrance of the Dardanelles, and is said to be composed of the ruins of no less than eight or nine cities placed one on the top of the other. Of the older layers the best preserved are the second and sixth cities. There are no statues, inscriptions, or other indications, so that the structure of this pile of dead towns is excessively difficult to understand, and only becomes intelligible when explained by someone thoroughly acquainted with the course of the excavations; for in order to reach the lower layers it has naturally been necessary to displace the upper ones. The general character of the scene is still excellently described by Byron’s lines in Don Juan, Cant. iv.: