Galatz is like a rural Wapping, but muddier. We went to bed, to find ourselves under weigh in the morning. We soon got to Tchernavoda, which seemed a mere village. There we landed, and thence, by a very slow train indeed, to Kustendji. At this place we heard the ravages of the cholera had been very great. We slept there that night, and started at noon next day for Constantinople by steamer.
It blew hard, and we were very glad indeed to find ourselves in the Bosphorus. There the scenery became splendid; no description of mine can do justice to the castles and palaces hanging on the water’s edge; the crowded picturesque villages that were reflected in the clear blue water; the shoals of porpoises that accompanied the ship at full speed, ploughing the water with a loud noise, and then, in their course, leaping, still continuing the race, from the water; and then entering it again amid a shower of spray. This wonderful scene continued for eighteen miles. At 5 P.M. we anchored in the Golden Horn. The scene was indescribable; all I had ever seen or read of paled before it. We were too late to land, as one cannot do so after sunset.
Next morning we went ashore in a caique, rowed by very picturesque boatmen in white kilts, passed the Custom House, and went straight to Misseri’s, preceded by our baggage, borne by three porters. These “hammals” bear gigantic burdens, and as in most Eastern towns there are no carriage-roads, they are of great use, and generally form a distinct corporation.
At Misseri’s the Colonel was well known, having stayed there several times before. In Constantinople, happily for me, instead of going on at once, my chief was delayed by orders from home for nearly two months; and I was enabled to see a good deal of the town.
Great was my delight to watch the Turkish ladies, their muslin yashmaks lending a fictitious delicacy to their complexions, going about in handsome carriages. Innumerable were the mysterious stories I heard after table d’hôte of these veiled beauties. Many a time have I gone on long expeditions into Stamboul with Mr. Ayrton, a brother of “Board of Works Ayrton,” who, with a thorough knowledge of Turkey and the Turk, took me under his wing in his daily pilgrimages to the most unsavoury but interesting nooks of the Mahommedan portion of the city. We went to coffee-houses, and listened to story-tellers; we dined on savoury kabobs; and, alas! I well remember my philo-Turk friend persuaded me to have my hair cut by a Turkish barber. It was only too well done; when the satisfied shaver handed me the glass I was as a sheep before the shearer, dumb, but with horror; my head was pink, so closely was it cropped, and my only consolation was the remark of my introducer to oriental life, that “in the East they generally did things thoroughly.”
I saw too the Turkish Punch (“Karagews”), a most immoral puppet; and the mildest and most favourable description of him was that “his manners were none, his customs disgusting,” but then my mentor said he was “very oriental”—perhaps the terms mean much the same thing.
As the coffee seemed particularly delicious in the native cafés, I, after some trouble, ascertained the real receipt for coffee à la Turca (not à la Turque), as they call it. Here it is; for each tiny cup (about a small wineglassful), a teaspoonful of coffee fresh roasted, and ground at once while hot to a fine powder in a brass hand-mill, or at times pounded in a mortar, is thrown into a small and heated saucepan; add the required quantity of boiling water. Place on the embers; when it threatens to boil over, remove; replace, and remove a second and a third time; serve. All the dregs go to the bottom. No sugar or milk used—never clean the saucepan!
At these cafés long chibouques with yellow clay heads are smoked, the heads being rested on a brass tray. A ball of live charcoal is placed on the long-cut Samsoon tobacco (or if the customer be liberal, Macedonian), the stem is jasmine or cherry wood, and the grander the pipe the longer the stem; rich customers bring their own mouth-pieces, which have a long inner conical tube that fits any stem. These mouth-pieces are of amber, and are frequently ornamented with a hoop of brilliants. The pieces of amber are two in number, and if of large size and of good colour cost two pounds, upwards to even five-and-twenty: the ordinary fashion is to separate these two pieces by a thin circle of lapis-lazuli or other stone.
The narghilé is also much used. It will be fully described as the “kalian” further on. In it is smoked the tumbaku of Persia. A few pence is charged for the whole entertainment of coffee, smoke, shelter, and music, such as it is, generally a guitar or flute-player, who is glad to play to order for a cup of coffee. The customers sit on little low stools like the French church chairs without their backs. In some of the grander cafés divans, and even chairs, are provided.
Mr. Ayrton had spent many years in Egypt. He wore a coat made by a Turkish tailor, a shawl waistcoat and a fez, and with his cropped grey hairs (it was his barber who operated on me) and his big chibouque with the amber mouth-piece (he had a large collection of them) with the ring of diamonds, he looked a thorough Turk, and I fancy posed and was treated as such. I remember myself thinking that the get-up was assumed for the purpose of getting a deeper insight into Turkish life. From what I know now, I merely suppose that, from his wearing the fez, he was, or had been, in Turkish employ; all government servants in Turkey have to wear it. Dr. Millengen, in whose arms Byron died, and who was an old government employé (physician to three Sultans), wore it; so did his son, who was in the Turkish Government Telegraph; and another son of his, I afterwards met in the Turkish Quarantine Service at Teheran, told me he wore it always while in Turkey.