The sky, in which are blended together the most delicate shades of blue and silver, throws everything into marvellous relief, while the water, of a sapphire blue and dotted over with little purple buoys, reflects the minarets in long trembling lines of white; the cupolas glisten in the sunlight; all that mass of vegetation sways and palpitates in the morning air; clouds of pigeons circle about the mosques; thousands of gayly-painted and gilded pleasure-boats flash over the surface of the water; the zephyrs from the Black Sea come laden with the perfumes of a thousand flower-gardens; and when at length, intoxicated by the sights and sounds and smells of this paradise, and forgetful of all else, one turns away, it is only to behold with fresh sensations of wonder and amazement the shores of Asia, with their imposing panorama of beauty; Skutari and the nebulous heights of the Bithynian Olympus; the Sea of Marmora dotted over with little islands and white with sails; and the Bosphorus, covered with shipping, winding away between two interminable lines of kiosks, palaces, and villas, to disappear at last mysteriously amid the most smiling and radiant hillsides of the Orient. To deny that this is the most beautiful sight on earth would be churlish indeed, as ungrateful toward God as it would be unjust to his creation; and it is certain that anything more beautiful would surpass mankind’s powers of enjoyment.
On recovering somewhat from my own first overwhelming sensations I turned to see how the other passengers had been impressed. Every countenance was transfixed. The eyes of the two Athenian ladies were suspiciously moist; the Russian mother had, in that supreme moment, clasped her little Olga to her breast; even the voice of the icy English priest was now heard for the first time, murmuring to himself, “Wonderful! wonderful!”
The vessel having in the mean time dropped anchor not far below the bridge, we were quickly surrounded by small boats from the shore, which a moment later discharged a rabble of Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew porters upon our decks, and these, while anathematizing the aliens from the other world, at the same time took possession of our property and our persons. After making some feeble show of resistance, I shook hands with the captain, gave a kiss to little Olga, and, bidding our fellow-passengers farewell, went over the side with my friend, where a four-oared barge rapidly transported us to the custom-house. Thence, after threading a labyrinth of tortuous streets, we finally reached our quarters in the Hotel de Byzance on the summit of the hill of Pera.
FIVE HOURS LATER.
The visions of the morning have disappeared, and Constantinople, that dream of light and beauty, turns out to be a huge city, cut up into a succession of hills and valleys, a labyrinth of human anthills, cemeteries, ruins, and desert-places—a mixture without parallel of civilization and barbarism, reflecting something of every city in the world, gathering within its borders every aspect of human life. That comparatively small part enclosed within the walls forms, as it were, the skeleton of a mighty city; as for the rest, it is a vast aggregation of barracks, an enormous Asiatic encampment, in which swarms a population of every race and religion under the sun. It is a great city in a state of transformation, composed of ancient towns falling into decay, of new ones built but yesterday, and of still others in process of erection. Everything is topsy-turvy; on all sides are seen the traces of some gigantic undertaking—mountains tunnelled through, hills levelled, suburbs razed to the ground, great thoroughfares laid out, heaps of stone, and the traces of disastrous fires, portions of the earth’s surface for ever undergoing some alteration at the hand of man. The disorder and confusion and the never-ending succession of strange and unexpected sights make one dizzy.
Walk down a stately street, and you find it ends in a precipice; come out of a theatre, and you are surrounded by tombs; climb to the summit of a hill, beneath your feet you discover a forest, while a new city confronts you from some neighboring hilltop; the street you have this moment left suddenly winds away from you through a deep valley half hidden by trees; walk around a house, you discover a bay; descend a lane, farewell to the city: you find yourself in a lonely defile, with nothing to be seen but the sky above you; towns appear and disappear continually. They start into view over your head, beneath your feet, over your shoulder, far off, near by, in sun and shadow, on the tops of mountains and on the shore below. Take a step forward, an immense panorama is spread out before you; backward, and you see nothing at all; lift your head, and the points of a thousand minarets flash before your eyes; turn it, and not one is in sight. The network of streets winds in and out among the hills, overtopping terraces, grazing the edges of precipices, passing beneath aqueducts, to break up suddenly in footpaths leading down some grassy incline to the water’s edge, or else, skirting piles of ruins, meanders away among rocks and sand to the open country. Here and there the huge metropolis stops, as it were, to take breath in the solitude of the country, then recommences, more crowded, gay, noisy, bewildering, than before; here it spreads out flat and monotonous, there scales the hillside, disappears over the summit, disperses; then once more gathers itself together. In one section it ferments with life, noise, movement; in another there is the stillness of death; one quarter is all red, another white, a third shines with gilding, a fourth looks like a mountain of flowers: stately city, village, country, garden, harbor, wilderness, market, cemetery, in endless succession, rear themselves, one above another, in such a manner that certain heights command in a single view all the aspects of life which are usually found embraced in an entire province. In every direction a series of strange and unfamiliar shapes is outlined against the sea and sky, so close together and so indented and broken up by the extraordinary variety of architectural forms that the eye becomes confused and the various objects seem to melt one into another.
In among the Turkish dwelling-houses European palaces rise suddenly up, spires overtop the minarets, and cupolas crown the garden-terraces, with battlemented walls behind them; roofs of Chinese kiosks appear above the façade of a theatre; barred and grated harems face rows of glazed windows; side by side with open balconies and terraces are found Moorish buildings with recessed windows and small forbidding doorways. Shrines to the Madonna are set up beneath Arabian archways; tombs stand in the courtyards; towers arise amid the hovels; mosques, synagogues, Greek, Catholic, Armenian churches, crowd one upon the other, as though each were striving for the mastery, and, from every spot unoccupied by buildings, cypress and pine, fig and plane trees stretch forth their branches and tower above the surrounding roofs.
An indescribable architecture of expedients, following the infinite caprices of the soil, portions of buildings cut up into sections, triangular, upright, prone, surrounded and connected by bridges, props, and defiles, heaped up in confused masses, like huge fragments detached from a mountain-side.