Galata.
On reaching Galata the excursion begins. Galata is situated on the hill which forms the promontory between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the former site of ancient Byzantium’s great cemetery. It is now the “city” of Constantinople. Its streets, almost all of them narrow and tortuous, are lined with restaurants, confectioners’, barbers’, and butchers’ shops, Greek and Armenian cafés, business-houses, merchants’ offices, workshops, counting-houses—dirty, ill-lighted, damp, and narrow, like the streets in the lower parts of London. A hurrying, pushing throng of foot-passengers comes and goes all day long, now and then crowding to right and left to make room in the middle of the street for the passage of porters, carriages, donkeys, or omnibuses. Almost all the business conducted in Constantinople flows through this quarter. Here are the Bourse, the custom-house, the offices of the Austrian Lloyd and the French express company, churches and convents, hospitals and warehouses. An underground railroad connects Galata and Pera. Were it not for the ever-present turban or fez, one would hardly know he was in the East at all. On every side is heard French, Italian, and Genoese. The Genoese are, in fact, almost on their native soil here, and are still somewhat inclined to assume the airs of proprietors, as in the days when they opened and closed the harbor at their will and replied to the emperor’s threats with volleys from their cannon. Of this ancient glory, however, nothing now remains except a few old houses supported on great pilasters and heavy arches, and the ancient edifice which was once the residence of the Podesta.
Old Galata has almost entirely disappeared. Thousands of squalid houses have been razed to the ground to make room for two wide streets, one of which mounts to the summit of the hill toward Pera, while the other runs parallel with the sea-wall from one end of Galata to the other. My friend and I took the latter, seeking refuge from time to time in some shop or other when a huge omnibus rolled by, preceded by Turks stripped to the waist, who cleared the street by means of long sticks, with which they laid about them. At every step some fresh cry assailed the ear, Turkish porters yelling, “Sacun ha!” (Make room!); Armenian water-carriers calling out, “Varme su!” and the Greek, “Crio nero!” Turkish donkey-drivers crying, “Burada!” venders of sweetmeats, “Scerbet!” newsboys, “Neologos!” Frankish cab-drivers, “Guarda! guarda!”
After walking for ten minutes we were completely stunned. Coming to a certain place, we noticed with surprise that the paving of the street suddenly ceased: it had evidently been removed quite recently. We stopped to examine the roadway and discover, if possible, some reason for this eccentricity, when an Italian shopkeeper, seeing what we were about, came to the rescue and satisfied our curiosity. This street, it seemed, led to the Sultan’s palace, and a few months previously, while the imperial cortège was passing along it, the horse of His Majesty Abdul-Aziz stumbled and fell. The good Sultan, much annoyed by this circumstance, commanded that the pavement should be removed all the way from the spot where the accident occurred, to the palace; which of course had been done. Fixing upon this memorable spot as the eastern boundary of our walk, we now turned our backs upon the Bosphorus and proceeded, by a series of dark, crooked little streets, in the direction of the
Tower of Galata.
The city of Galata is shaped like an open fan, of which the tower, placed on the crest of the hill, represents the pivot. This tower is round, very lofty, dark in color, and terminates in a conical point formed by a copper roof, directly beneath which runs a line of large glazed windows, forming a sort of gallery enclosed with glass, where a lookout is kept night and day ready to give warning of the first appearance of fire in any part of the immense city. The Galata of the Genoese extended as far as this tower, which stands on the exact line of the walls which once divided it from Pera—walls of which at present no trace remains;[F] nor is the present tower the same as that ancient Tower of Christ, erected in memory of the Genoese who fell in battle, having been rebuilt by Mahmûd II., and prior to that restored by Selim III.,[G] but it is none the less a monument to the glory of Genoa, and one upon which no Italian can gaze without feeling some pride at the thought of that handful of soldiers, merchants, and sailors—haughty, audacious, proud, stubborn—who for centuries floated the flag of the mother republic from its summit and treated with the emperors of the East as equals.
[F] A few traces of these walls may still be seen near the Galata Tower.—Trans.
[G] The Galata Tower, called in the Middle Ages the Tower of Christ or of the Cross, was built in 1348, probably on the foundations of an earlier Byzantine tower ascribed to Anastasius Dicorus, and in the present century was repaired by Mahmûd II.—Trans.
