Around the World in Seven Months

by Charles J. Gillis

THE harbor appears to be about a mile wide and two miles long, surrounded by steep hills, on which the city is built, largely in terraces, with many great palaces, mosques, and public buildings, the Mosque of St. Sophia being very prominent. I took a guide at the ship and went ashore in his boat. I had been often informed of the annoyances by custom-house officials to which travellers are often obliged to submit on their arrival in the Turkish dominions, and was agreeably surprised at the ease with which I was permitted to go on shore. The guide showed my passport to an officer, who looked it over and returned it, and we went to another wharf, where my trunk and bag had been landed. There were three venerable officers here, who each took a franc and passed the baggage without opening any thing, or saying a word.

A big Turk took my trunk and bag on his back, and we went up an ill-paved and dirty street, a quarter of a mile long, and almost as hard to climb as the Pyramids of Egypt, leading to a nice and well-paved avenue, lined with fine shops, on which was the Hotel Pesth, where we found comfortable quarters.

I had a cup of tea, and then sallied out to see the city. There are few carriages to be seen in the streets, but great numbers of large and homeless yellow dogs, all of the same shaggy breed, apparently well fed and happy and certainly good-natured. There were twelve of these dogs on the walk opposite the hotel, and I counted 164 on one of the main streets, about a mile long. We remarked that they were about as thick all over the city, and there must be as many as fifty thousand altogether. We walked down a fine street to the water, and along the shore for a mile or two, and again admired the beautiful bay, which poets have raved about for centuries, and which most people think the finest in all the world.

We went as far as one of the big palaces belonging to the Sultan, which faces the water. It is twelve hundred feet long, and has two grand entrances built of white marble. There we took a circuit around the hills, and saw many great buildings, barracks, schools, etc. Once we saw a regiment of horsemen drilling in a large square. The men were tall and fine-looking, and the horses excellent. There were two fire alarms while we were out, and it was enough to make a New York horse laugh to see the arrangements for putting them out. The engine, so called, was an ordinary force-pump with two handles, placed on a platform and carried by a dozen men, who were followed by fifty more, in a leisurely way. There are no water-works, and many large and very old wooden buildings, so one can readily see that there must be destructive fires here sometimes.

I have been here a week, and have seen many mosques, including the immense and famous St. Sophia, which must have been in days of old very magnificent, but it has been largely robbed of its treasures, and is now quite dilapidated.

The weather here is very bad, cold, rainy, and blustering, much as we often have it in March. There was a heavy fall of snow two weeks ago, and the streets are wet, slippery, and disagreeable. On the 6th instant we made the famous trip up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea, which has been so often written about. There were four of us, Mr. Zucker, myself, and two friends, all sedate, over sixty years of age, and representing a combined weight of nearly eight hundred pounds.

We left the hotel at 9 A.M., walked a short distance through the middle of the muddy streets to a cable road, which we took, and in ten minutes were in a busy street near the water. We then crossed a fine iron bridge and went on board a side-wheel steamer. Looking across the water we could see the great hospital buildings where Florence Nightingale immortalized her name, by her care of wounded soldiers during the Crimean war. Steam was up, and soon we were away, going along near the shore of the European side and making about ten landings. On the shore, buildings have been erected, sometimes a hundred or more together, so that practically speaking the ten miles to the Black Sea is a continuation of the city. Palaces are to be seen all along, several of them belonging to the Sultan, and one very large and splendid one occupied by the Persian Ambassador.

The ranges of hills near the water are largely cultivated, and even now are covered with green grass, the whole presenting a panorama of great beauty.

We stopped at noon, went on shore and had an excellent lunch at a German restaurant, and then took another boat as far as the Black Sea, and returned along the shore of Asia, stopping at numerous places to take on passengers and mail, and in an hour reached the city.