But what are those strange, wild figures, surrounded by a crowd of people coming slowly up the street? They are leading bears along to some more retired spot than the high street of Pera, where the bears and their masters dance together; a strange performance which the men accompany with a monotonous kind of song and beating of a tambourine. They look as uncouth and wild as the shaggy animals they lead along, but not more so than the shepherds you meet a little further on walking before their flocks of sheep and lambs. These wear a waistcoat and trowsers of undressed sheepskin, and a sheepskin hangs down their back as a cloak. Their long black hair falls over their shoulders and partly hides their faces. They carry long sticks in their hands, that look almost like the stems of young trees, and are of all the strange and wild figures you see perhaps the strangest and wildest.
What a contrast they form to the handsome Greek lady that now passes you. She is dressed in the latest Paris fashion, which is however modified just a little in accordance with the irresistible liking of all inhabitants of the South for gayer colours. Goethe observed this love for bright colours in Italy, and with his usual intelligence seems to have discovered at once a reason for it. What he wrote from Naples, on the 29th of May 1787, he might have written from Constantinople in 1865. He says: “The many coloured, variegated flowers and fruits, with which nature adorns itself here, seem to invite man to adorn himself and all that belongs to him with the brightest colours. Whoever can afford it decorates his hat with ribbons or flowers. Chairs and drawers in the poorest houses are painted with flowers, the carriages are scarlet with gilded ornaments, &c. We consider generally the love of gay colours vulgar and barbarous, and such it may become in certain conditions; but beneath a very clear blue sky there really exists no very bright colour, because nothing can vie with the splendour of the sun and its reflexion on the sea. The brightest colour is softened by the powerful light, and because all colours, such as the green of the trees and plants, and the yellow, brown and red of the ground, act with full power upon the eye, the flowers and dresses harmonize with it. Everything seems desirous to become somewhat visible under the splendour of sky and sea.”
If the Greek lady be the gayest figure in the crowd, the Arab woman is the most dreary and dismal. She is so entirely enveloped and thickly veiled, that but to look at her gives one a feeling of suffocation. The Turkish veil at Constantinople is a pretence, the Arab veil a reality. How the women can breathe or see through it is a wonder to me.
These are but a few of the strange and picturesque figures one meets on a walk through a street of Pera or Stamboul; there are many others, priests in a variety of dresses, Persians, Chaldeans, Jews, and some so strange and new, that like the flowers of Crete, I do not know their names, nor where they come from, nor what they mean. There are of course also some very disgusting sights; the dirty beggar that importunes you, the wretched lunatic with his shorn head uncovered, who touches your arm, the deaf and dumb boy that begs with hideous noises, the nasty dogs that in a torpid kind of dose lie about in the streets, and worst of all the cripples, that expose their deformed limbs in order to excite your pity. But as I always turned away from these wretched sights, I will not remember them here.
If this long description of a walk through Pera should seem tiring it is no wonder, for it is a long steep hill that leads from the Custom House where you land to the Hotel in Pera. Apropos of the Custom House, I must relate a little incident that happened to us when we arrived at Constantinople, and which well characterises Turkish Custom House administration. When the officer had minutely examined all our trunks, dressing-bags, etc., and had looked with great suspicion at my pincushion, the use of which he could not understand, and tried to open it in order to see if it contained any contraband, he discovered in a small basket half a dozen oranges, which kind Sig. A— of Canea had insisted upon my taking with me. These were seized, and the Turk asked us to pay five piastres (10d.) duty, when, to our utter astonishment, the dragoman of our hotel gave him one piastre (2d.), which he took and was thankful.
To walk up to the hotel in Pera is, as I said before, very tiring, for the hill is steep, the pavement bad, and there are no footpaths; still it is vastly preferable to driving. Those gaily-painted, gilded carriages have very bad springs, and on the pavement of Constantinople and across the wooden bridges they shake one to such a degree, that I felt if the human body was not grown together mine would surely have fallen to pieces. Men are much better off in that respect, they can hire a nice little horse, which may be found everywhere, and at a moderate price, while even a short drive always costs from fifty to seventy piastres (10s. or 12s.) There is one other kind of conveyance for women, that is the sedan-chair; it is not a cheap mode of transit, as you can go no distance under 6s. or 8s.; but the men carry you along quite as quickly as the carriages, and the movement is not unpleasant. These sedan-chairs are much used by the stout Greek and Armenian matrons. I did not notice that Turkish women used them, they seem to be of a sociable character, and like to go out in sets of three or four, and therefore ride in carriages.
A few days after our arrival we went the usual round of sight-seeing, in company with several other persons staying at the hotel, who all profited by the special permission which must be obtained before one can visit some of the places of interest in Constantinople. Our companions were all English; and I am sorry to say there were several of them with us who made themselves conspicuously ridiculous. One promising youth, measuring in his slippers at least five feet ten inches, wore a knickabocker suit like my little boy of seven, who has lately rebelled against this dress as too childish, declaring his determination to wear trousers; and, although it was as cold as on a March day with an easterly wind, and no more sun than shines on a bright November day in London, he had, in order to protect himself against the sunstroke, a large white handkerchief twisted round his wide-awake, which looked like a turban out-of-fashion. For turbans are quite out of fashion in Constantinople, where the red fez has been almost exclusively adopted as a head-covering. Another of the young men of our party had a pair of very small slippers which, when entering a mosque, he used to put over his large boots, of course with the heels down. They covered only half of his boots, which offended one of the Turkish priests, who told him through the dragoman to take his dusty boots off, but the proud young Briton refused to do so, and very nearly brought us all into trouble.
The sights of Constantinople are so far interesting as they are different from those of all other European capitals. Their novelty was the chief attraction they had for me. We saw them all in one day, which proves that there are not many.
We first visited the garden of the old Seraglio, whose situation on a gentle hill, sloping down to the Sea of Marmora, is one of the most beautiful in the world. There are large numbers of fine cypresses and plane-trees growing in masses there, almost like a forest, which gives an air of perfect solitude and retirement to the garden, although it is surrounded on two sides by one of the largest and busiest towns in the world. The beautiful old Seraglio that formerly adorned this splendid site was burned down a few years ago. It was then the residence of what are called the “Imperial widows” of the late Sultan. These unhappy creatures are never allowed to leave the precincts of the palace that has been assigned to them as a residence, but must mourn, in perfect retirement, the loss of their late lord till death ends their existence. There is a rumour that one of these Serailee Hanum (that is the title by which they are distinguished), in order to get a chance of escape from her prison, set it on fire; but this is, of course, a conjecture only. The Dowager Sultanas inhabit now another large palace situated in the same garden, and I looked at its latticed windows, when it was pointed out to me, with a feeling of unspeakable pity.
There are in the same delightful locality some pretty Kiosks of the Sultan. One is called the Library, which did however not contain more books than a well stocked schoolroom in an English country house. We visited three mosques: the beautiful one of Sultan Sulimani, Sultan Achmet’s, which has six minarets, and Aja Sophia, the grand old church, the very carpets of which look venerable.