Constantinople, v. 1 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

The shoe bazâr is one of the most resplendent of all, and possibly fills the brain more than any other with wild longings and riotous desires. It consists of two glittering rows of shops, which make the street in which it is situated look like a suite of royal apartments or like one of those gardens in the Arabian fairy-stories where the fruit trees are laden with pearls and have golden leaves. There are shoes enough there to supply the feet of every court in Europe and Asia. The walls are completely covered with slippers of the sauciest shapes and most striking and fanciful colors, made out of skins, velvet, brocade, and satin, ornamented with filigree-work, gold, tinsel, pearls, silken tassels, swan’s down; flowered and starred in gold and silver; so thickly covered with intricate embroidery as to completely hide the original texture; and glittering with emeralds and sapphires. You can buy shoes there for the boatman’s bride or for the Seraglio belle; you may pay five francs a pair or a thousand. There are morocco shoes destined to walk the paved streets of Pera, and beside them Turkish slippers which will one day glide over the thick carpets of some pasha’s harem; light wooden shoes which will resound on the marbles of the imperial baths; tiny slippers of white satin on which ardent lovers’ kisses will be showered; and it may well be that yonder pair encrusted with pearls will some day stand beside the couch of the Padishâh himself, awaiting the pretty feet of some beautiful Georgian. But how, you ask yourself, is it possible for any feet to get into such tiny little receptacles? Some of them seem intended to fit the houris and fairies—long as the leaf of a lily, wide as the leaf of a rose, of such dimensions as to throw all Andalusia into despair; graceful as a dream—not slippers at all, but jewels, toys, objects to stand on one’s table full of bonbons or to keep billetsdoux in. Once allow your imagination to dwell upon the foot which could wear them, and you are seized with an insane desire to behold it yourself, to stroke and caress it like some pretty plaything. This bazâr is one of those most frequented by strangers: it is not unusual to encounter young Europeans wandering about with slips of paper in their hands upon which are inscribed the measurements of some small French or Italian foot, of which they are possibly quite proud, and it is amusing to see their faces fall and the look of incredulous astonishment which follows the discovery that some slipper which has attracted their fancy is far too small; while others, having asked the price of a pair they had thought of buying, receive so overwhelming a reply that they make off without a word. Here, too, may sometimes be seen Mussulman ladies (hanum) with long white veils, and one can often catch, in passing, fragments of their lengthy dialogues with the shopkeepers, brief sentences of that beautiful language, uttered in sweet, clear tones, which fall upon the ear like the notes of a mandolin: “Buni catscia verersin!” (How much is this?) “Pahalli dir” (It is too high). “Ziade veremem” (I won’t pay any more). And then a childish, ringing laugh, which makes you feel like patting them on the head or pinching their cheeks.

But the richest and most picturesque of all is the armory bazâr. It is more like a museum, really, than a bazâr, overflowing with treasures and filled with objects which at once transport the imagination into the realms of history and legend. Every sort and shape of weapon is there, fantastic, horrible, cruel-looking, which has ever been brandished in defence of Islamism from Mecca to the Danube, polished and set out in warlike array, as though but now laid down by the fanatical soldiery of Muhammad and Selim. You seem to see the glittering eyes of those formidable sultans, those savage Janissaries, those spahis and azabs, drunk with blood, amid the gleaming blades—those silidars, to whom pity and fear were alike unknown, and who strewed Europe and Asia Minor with severed heads and stiffened corpses. Here are displayed those renowned cimeters capable of cutting through a floating feather or striking off the ears of audacious ambassadors; those heavy Turkish daggers which cleaved downward at a blow from the skull to the very heart; mighty clubs which crashed through Servian and Hungarian helmets; yataghans, their handles inlaid with ivory and encrusted with amethysts and rubies, and on their blades the engraved record of the number of heads they have cut off; poniards with silver, velvet, or satin sheaths and agate or ivory handles set with coral, turquoise, and garnets, inscribed in golden lettering with verses from the Koran, their blades curved backward as though feeling for a heart. Who can tell whether amid all this strange and terrible array there may not be the cimeter of Orcano or the sabre with which the powerful arm of the warrior-dervish Abd-el-Murad struck off the heads of his enemies at a single blow; or that famous yataghan with which Sultan Moussa clove asunder the body of Hassan from shoulder to heart; or the huge cimeter of the Bulgarian giant who set the first ladder in place against the walls of Constantinople; or the club with which Muhammad II. felled his rapacious soldiers beneath the roof of St. Sophia; or the mighty Damascus sabre with which Scanderbeg cut down Firuzi Pasha beneath the walls of Stetigrad? All the most horrible massacres and blood-curdling murders of Ottoman history, revolts of the Janissaries, and black deeds of treachery come crowding into one’s mind at the mere sight of these terrific weapons, and one fancies that bloodstains can be detected upon the gleaming blades, and that those old Turks lurking in the dim recesses of their shops have gathered them from the field of battle—yes, and the bodies of their owners as well—and that even now their shattered skeletons are occupying some obscure corner close at hand. In among the arms are great blue and scarlet velvet saddles, worked with gold stars and crescents and embroidered in pearls, with plumed frontals and chased silver bits; saddle-cloths magnificent as royal mantles; trappings which remind one of the Thousand and One Nights, seemingly intended for the use of a king of the genii making his triumphal entry into a golden city in the land of dreams. Suspended on the walls above all these treasures are antique firelock muskets, clumsy Albanian pistols, long Arabian guns worked and chased like pieces of jewelry; ancient shields made out of bark, tortoise-shell, or hippopotamus skin; Circassian armor, Cossack shields, Mongolian head-pieces, Turkish bows, executioners’ axes, great blades of uncouth shape and full of horrible suggestions, each one of which seems to bear witness to a crime committed, and brings before one frightful visions of death-agonies.

Seated cross-legged in the midst of all these objects of magnificence and horror are the merchants who, of all those to be found in the Great Bazâr, present the most striking and distinctive examples of the true Mussulman. They are, for the most part, old, of forbidding aspect, lean as anchorites, haughty as sultans, belonging apparently to another age and wearing the dress of a bygone era: it would seem as though they had arisen from the dead for the purpose of recalling their degenerate descendants to the forgotten austerities of their ancient race.

Another spot well worth seeing is the old-clothes bazâr. Rembrandt would simply have taken up his abode here, and Goya have expended his last peseta. Any one who has never been in an Oriental second-hand shop can form no idea of the variety and richness of the rags, pomp of color, and irony of contrast to be found in them—a sight at once fantastic, melancholy, and repellent. They are a sort of rag-sewer, in which the refuse of harem, barrack, court, and theatre await together the moment when some artist’s caprice or beggar’s necessity shall once more call them forth into the light of day. From long poles fastened to the walls depend antique Turkish uniforms, swallow-tailed coats, fine gentlemen’s cloaks, dervishes’ tunics, Bedouins’ mantles, all greasy, torn, and faded, looking as though they had been taken by force from their former owners, and strongly resembling the booty found on footpads and assassins which may be seen on exhibition in the Court of Assizes. In among all these rags and tatters one catches the glitter of an occasional bit of gold embroidery; old silk scarfs and turbans, all unwrapped, dangle to and fro; a rich shawl with ragged edges; a velvet corsage looking as though some rude hand had torn off its trimming of pearls and fur; slippers and veils which may once have belonged to some beautiful sinner, whose body, sewn up in a bag, now sleeps quietly enough beneath the rippling waters of the Bosphorus;—these and countless other feminine garments and adornments, of all manner of charming shapes and colors, hang imprisoned between rough Circassian caftans, long black Jewish capes, rusty cartridge-boxes, heavy cloaks and coarse tunics beneath whose folds who knows how often the bandit’s musket or dagger of the assassin may have been hidden? On toward evening, when the subdued light from the roof above becomes still more uncertain, all these garments, as they sway back and forth in the wind, assume the look and air of human bodies strung up there by some murderer’s hand, and just then, as your eye catches the sinister glance of one of those old Jews seated watchfully in the rear of his gloomy den of a shop, you cannot avoid fancying that the skinny claw with which he scratches his forehead can be no other than the one which tightened the rope—a soothing idea which causes you to glance involuntarily over your shoulder to see if the entrance to the bazâr is still open.

One day of wandering here and there will not suffice if you really wish to see every part of this strange city. There is the fez bazâr, in which are to be found fezzes of every country in the world, from that of Morocco to the Vienna fez, ornamented with inscriptions from the Koran, which serve to ward off evil spirits; the fez which is worn perched on the tops of their heads by the pretty Greek girls of Smyrna, surmounting their coils of black hair intertwined with coins; the little red fez of the Turkish women; soldiers’, generals’, sultans’, dandies’ fezzes, of all shades of red and every style, from the primitive ones worn in the days of Orcano to the large and elegant fez of Mahmûd, emblem of reform and an abomination in the eyes of Mussulmans of the old school.

Then there is the fur bazâr, where may be seen the sacred fur of the black wolf, which at one time none but the Sultan himself and his grand vizier were allowed to wear; the marten, used to trim state caftans; skins of white and black bears; astrakhan, ermine, blue wolf, and rich sable skins, upon which in old times the sultans would expend fabulous sums of money.

Then the cutlery bazâr is worth a visit, if only to examine those huge Turkish shears whose bronzed and gilded blades, adorned with fantastic designs of birds and flowers, open with a murderous sweep wide enough to swallow up entirely the head of an unfavorable critic.

There are the gold-thread embroidery, china, household utensils, and tailors’ bazârs, all differing from one another in size, shape, and character, but all in one respect alike, that in none of them do you ever see a woman either attending to the customers or working apart. At the very most, it may occasionally happen that a Greek woman, seated for a moment in front of some tailor’s shop, will timidly offer to sell you a handkerchief she has just finished embroidering. Oriental jealousy forbids shopkeeping to the fair sex, as offering too wide a field for coquetry and intrigue.

In other parts of the Great Bazâr it is as well for a stranger not to venture unless he is accompanied by a dragoman or one of the shopkeepers. Those are the interior parts of the various districts into which this strange city is divided—the islands, as it were, about which wind and twist the rapid currents of streets and byways. If it is a difficult matter to keep from losing your way among the main thoroughfares, in here it is quite impossible. From passage-ways scarcely wider than a man’s shoulders, where it is necessary to stoop to avoid striking your head, you come out upon tiny courtyards encumbered with bales and boxes, where hardly so much as a single ray of light can penetrate. Feeling your way down flights of wooden steps, you come to other courts lighted only by lanterns, from which you descend below ground, or, climbing up again into what passes for the light of day, stumble with bent head through long, winding corridors, beneath damp roofs and between black and moss-grown walls, to come at last upon some small hidden doorway, and suddenly find yourself exactly where you started. Everywhere shadowy forms are seen coming and going; dusky shapes stand immovable in dark corners, outlines of persons handling merchandise or counting money; lights which flash ahead of you at one moment, and the next, disappear; a sound of hurrying footsteps, of low, eager voices, coming from you don’t know where; reflections thrown from unseen lights; suspicious encounters; strange odors like those one might expect to escape from a witch’s cave; and apparently no possible means of escape from it all. The dragoman is very apt to conduct his victim through these quarters on his way to those shops, usually somewhat apart, which contain a little of everything, like Great Bazârs in miniature or a superior sort of second-hand shop, extremely curious and interesting, but extremely perilous as well, since they contain such a variety of rare and attractive objects as to woo the money out of the pocket of the veriest miser. The shopkeepers here are great solemn knaves, thoroughly well versed in every art appertaining to their business, and, polyglot like their brothers of the trade, have a certain dramatic power which they employ in the most entertaining manner to tempt people to buy, sometimes rising to the level of genuinely good acting. Their shops usually consist of dark little holes cluttered up with boxes and chests of drawers, where lights have to be lit in order to see anything, and there is barely enough space to turn around in. After displaying a few trifles inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, some bits of Chinese porcelain, a Japanese vase or two, and some other things of the same sort, the shopkeeper informs you with an impressive air that he sees what sort of person you are, and will now bring out something especially suited to you. He then proceeds to pull out a certain drawer, whose contents he empties upon the table. There are all manner of knick-knacks and gewgaws—a peacock-feather fan, a bracelet made of old Turkish coins, a little leather cushion with the Sultan’s monogram embroidered upon it in gold, a Persian hand-glass painted with a scene from the Book of Paradise, one of those tortoise-shell spoons with which Turks eat cherry compôte, an ancient decoration of the Order of Osmanieh. You don’t care for any of these, either? Very well. He turns out the contents of another, and this is a drawer which, as a matter of fact, was being reserved for your eye alone. There is a broken elephant’s tusk; a Trebizond bracelet, looking as though it had been made from a lock of silver hair; a Japanese idol; a sandal-wood comb from Mecca; a large Turkish spoon, chased and filigreed; an antique silver narghileh, gilded and inscribed; bits of mosaic from St. Sophia; a heron’s feather, which once ornamented the turban of Selim III.: for the truth of this last statement the merchant, as a man of honor, is willing to vouch. And still there is nothing which suits your fancy? Here, then, is another drawer, crammed full of treasures—an ostrich egg from Sahara; a Persian inkstand; a chased ring; a Mingrelian bow, with its quiver made out of an elk’s skin; a Circassian two-pointed head-piece; a jasper rosary; a smelling-bottle of beaten gold; a Turkish talisman; a camel-driver’s knife; a box of attar-gul. In Heaven’s name, is there still nothing that tempts you? Have you no presents to make? no beloved relatives? no dear friends? Perhaps, though, your tastes run to stuffs and carpets. Well, here too he can assist you as a friend. “Behold, milor, this striped Kurdistan mantle, this lion skin; yonder rug is from Aleppo, with its little steel fastenings, while this Casablanca carpet, three fingers thick, is guaranteed to last for four generations; here, Your Excellency, are old cushions, old brocade scarfs, old silken coverlids, a little faded, a little frayed out at the edges, it is true, but such embroidery as you could not get in these days, even if you were to offer a fortune. You, caballero, have been brought here by a friend of mine, and for that reason I am going to let you have this ancient sash for the sum of five napoleons, and live myself on bread and garlic for one week in order to make up the loss.” Should even this magnificent offer fail to move you, he whispers in your ear that he has in his possession, and is moreover willing to sell, the very rope with which the terrible Seraglio mutes strangled Nassuh Pasha, Muhammad Third’s grand vizier. And if you laugh in his face and decline to swallow it, he gives it up at once like a sensible man, and proceeds to make his final effort, displaying before you, in rapid succession, a horse’s tail such as were once carried before and after every pasha; a janissary’s helmet, spattered with blood, which his own father picked up on the day of the famous massacre; a scrap of one of the flags carried in the Crimea, showing the silver star and crescent; a wash-basin studded with agates; a brazier of beaten copper; a dromedary-collar with its shells and bells; a eunuch’s whip made of hippopotamus leather; a gold-bound Koran; a Khorassan scarf; a pair of slippers from a kadyn’s wardrobe; a candlestick made from the claw of an eagle,—until at length your imagination is fired. The longing to possess breaks forth, and you are seized with a mad impulse to throw down your purse, watch, overcoat, everything you have, and fill your pockets with booty. One must indeed be an uncommonly well-balanced person, a very mountain of wisdom, to be able to withstand the temptations of this place, whence many an artist has come forth as poor as Job, and where more than one rich man has thrown away his fortune.

But before the Great Bazâr closes let us take a turn around to see how it looks at the end of the day. The crowd moves along more hurriedly; shopkeepers call out to you and gesticulate more imperiously than ever; Greeks and Armenians run through the streets calling aloud, with shawls or rugs hung over their arms, or form into groups, bargaining and discussing as they move about, then break up and form again into other groups farther off; horses, carriages, beasts of burden, all moving in the direction of the gateway, pass by in endless files. At this hour all those tradespeople with whom you have had fruitless negotiations during the day start to life again, circling around you in the dusk like so many bats: you see them peeping out from behind columns; come suddenly upon them at every turn; they cross in front of you or pass close by you gazing abstractedly in the air, to remind you by their presence of that certain rug or that bit of jewelry, and, if possible, reawaken your desire to possess it. Sometimes you are followed by a whole troop of them at once: if you stop, they do the same; if you slip down a side street, you find them there before you; turning suddenly, you are aware of a dozen sharp eyes fixed upon you which seem to fairly devour you whole. But already the fading light warns the crowd to disperse. Beneath the vaulted roof can be heard the voice of an invisible muezzin announcing the sunset from some wooden minaret. Some Turks have spread strips of carpet in the street before their shop-doors and are murmuring the evening prayer; others perform their ablutions at the fountains. The centenarians of the armor bazâr have already shut to their great iron doors; the smaller bazârs are empty; the farther ends of the corridors are lost in shadow, and the openings of the side streets look like the mouths of caves. Camels suddenly loom up close to you in the uncertain light; the voices of the water-carriers echo distantly among the arched roofs; the Turk quickens his step and the eunuch’s eyes grow more alert; strangers are seen hurrying away; the entrance is closed; the day ended.