Nearly opposite the yacht was a very handsome building of white Greek marble, with an immense frontage to the sea. This is the Sultan’s palace of Dolmé-Batché. The wing on the right, where the windows are closely barred and jealously latticed, contains the apartments of the ladies of the Imperial harem.
Behind the palace, stretching up the hill and crowning its summit, are seen the white, handsome houses that form the fashionable suburb of Pera. Here ambassadors and bankers have large, comfortable hotels; here, too, are the European shops, and the promenade for the Christian world. But the part to see—the part that interests—is, of course, the old Turkish quarter, Stamboul; for in Stamboul are Turks in turbans, and in Stamboul are real Turkish houses.
More tumble-down places it would be difficult to find. A man had need to be a fatalist to live in a house of which all the four walls lean at different angles. A fire, instead of a misfortune, must be a real blessing, were it only to bring some air into the dirty, narrow, ill-savoured streets.
The dirt, the narrowness, and the wretchedly bad pavement, combined with another trouble, the multitude of dogs lying about, make walking, pain and grief to the newly-arrived foreigner.
Besides these disagreeables, there is the danger of being crushed flat against a wall by human beasts of burden called “hamals” or porters. It is really frightful to see men so laden.
As they come staggering along, bent double beneath their loads, at every few steps they utter a loud cry, to warn passers-by to get out of their way. It is, however, by no means an easy matter to avoid them. The streets are so narrow and tortuous that, after jumping hastily aside to escape one monstrous package coming up the road, the unhappy stranger is nearly knocked over by another huge load coming down. Dogs’ tails, too, are always lying where dogs’ tails should not be; and in the agitation and anxiety caused by incessantly darting from side to side of the street to avoid the groaning “hamals,” it is exceedingly difficult to avoid treading occasionally on one of these inconvenient tails, and then the whole quarter resounds with hideous howlings.
The bazaars have been so well and so fully described that it is needless to say much about them. Our first sensation on seeing them was, perhaps, that of a little disappointment; but after a time we better appreciated the picturesque beauty and richness of colouring that the long dark lanes of little shops presented.
As a rule, few pretty things, excepting shoes and slippers, are exposed on the stalls. Rugs, carpets, shawls, and jewels are generally kept behind the shops in cupboards and warehouses.
Turquoises were very abundant and low in price, but all we saw were of inferior quality, and the large stones had some flaw. Pretty melon-shaped caskets are made in silver to hold cakes, and the silver rose-water bottles are charming both in design and workmanship. Foreigners are speedily attracted to the drug bazaar by the odd mixture of pungent, pleasant, and disagreeable odours that proceed from it. Here the scene is like a living picture of the “Arabian Nights’ Tales.” Like Amine in the story of “The Three Calenders,” many a veiled figure attended by her black slave may be seen making her purchases of drugs and spices of the venerable old doctors, who, with spectacles on nose, and huge musty folios at their side, look the very personification of wisdom, equally able to administer medicines and to draw the horoscopes of their patients.
The arms bazaar is also attractive, not only for the magnificence and value of its contents, but from the picturesque beauty of the quaint, dark, lofty old building in which the richly-decorated weapons are displayed.