These delicious spots, so green and fresh, nestled, as it were, amidst comparatively barren hills, seem to invite all the happy ones of earth to come and repose under the tender shade of their great trees. The air, though soft, is so fresh and invigorating, that the fact of existence seems a joy. Nature rejoices on all sides—the brilliant sky above, the bright rays glancing through the trees, the merry little wavelets that show their white heads upon the intense blue of the Bosphorus, the birds singing blithely from every coppice and tangled brake—all nature smiles in sunshine, hope, and joy. Little troubles and unworthy anxieties fade and fall away, and life seems for a few short hours to be the delight that Our Heavenly Father probably once meant it to be.
There are few things more charming in the Turkish character than the honest, hearty love for the beauties of nature that prevails in all classes. From the Sultan to the meanest and poorest of his subjects, whenever a holiday occurs, all hasten to enjoy the luxury of fresh air and the soft green sward, there to while away the few hours (perhaps in both cases) hardly wrung from many days of weary and exhausting toil. In the winter the men of course frequent the coffee-shops, there to enjoy their pipes and the long histories of the professional story-tellers, but in the summer every valley is thronged with people, all evidently enjoying themselves with a completeness and an absence of Western ennui that is most refreshing to behold.
Many a delightful hour did we pass in these valleys. The merry melodious voices of the women, the ringing laughter of the children, made a music very pleasant to the ear; and the eye was charmed with the brilliant beauty of the colouring, and the picturesque grace of the groups that surrounded one on every side.
On a Friday, or other holiday, many hundreds of people congregate at the Sweet Waters both of Europe and Asia. The women, arrayed in gorgeous dresses, recline on carpets beneath the trees, little spirals of smoke ascend from the numerous pipes, the narghilé bubbles in its rose-water, the tiny cups of coffee send forth a delicious fragrance, the perfume of fresh oranges and lemons fills the air. The still more exquisite sweetness of orange blossoms is wafted towards us, as a gipsy flower-girl passes through the groups, carrying many a mysterious bouquet, of which the flowers tell a perhaps too sweet and too dangerous love-tale to the fair receiver.
Then a bon-bon seller comes, laden with his box of pretty sweets. Many are really good, especially the sweetmeat called Rahat-la-Koum, when quite fresh, and another, made only of cream and sugar flavoured with orange-flower water.
Every now and then the wild notes of some Turkish music may be heard from the neighbouring hills—the band of a passing Turkish regiment; or perhaps the monotonous but musical chant of some Greek sailors falls on the ear, as they struggle to force their boat up the tremendous stream of the Bosphorus.
Seen from a little distance, and shaded by the flattering folds of the “yashmak,” Oriental women almost always look pretty; but when, as they often do, the fair dames let the veil fall a little, and the features become distinctly visible, the illusion is lost at once.
The eyes are magnificent, almond-shaped, tender and melting, but, with very few exceptions, the nose and mouth are so large and ill-formed, that the face ceases to be beautiful; the superb eyes not compensating for the want of finish in the other features.
As a class, the Armenians were the best-looking, but the women’s head-dress was remarkably becoming. They wear a thin coloured handkerchief, with a broad fringe of gauze flowers, tied coquettishly on one side of the head, long plaits of hair being arranged round it like a coronet.
As in Western countries, the middle and lower classes seemed to enjoy themselves the most. They sat on the grass, and talked to their friends. They could eat their fruit and drink their coffee al fresco, while some of the Sultan’s odalisks, and other great ladies, shut up in their arabas and carriages, performed a slow and dreary promenade up and down the middle of the valley.