Constantinople, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

All at once the Bosphorus widens out, and the aspect of everything changes anew. Again we are between two bays, in the centre of a large lake: that on the left is narrow and deep, and around it lies the little Greek city of Stenia, formerly called Sosthenius from the temple and winged statue placed there by the Argonauts in honor of their tutelary genius, who had awarded them the victory in their encounter with Amycus, king of Bebryces. Thanks to the inward course of the steamer at this point, we are able to distinguish quite clearly the cafés and small, closely-built houses along the shore, the villas scattered about among their vineyards and olive trees, the valley opening up from the harbor, the cascade which falls from a neighboring height, and the celebrated Moorish fountain of pure white marble, shaded by a group of huge maple trees, from whose branches fish-nets are suspended above the groups of Greek women who pass back and forth carrying amphora upon their heads. Opposite Stenia, on the bay in the Asiatic coast, is the Turkish village of Chibûkli, where the famous Monastery of the Sleepless once stood, whence prayer and praise ascended to Heaven without interruption day and night. Both shores of the Bosphorus from one sea to the other teem with associations connected with those fanatical monks and anchorites of the fifth century, who wandered over the hills and valleys laden with crosses and chains, wore hair-cloth and iron collars, and remained immovable for weeks and months at a time in the branches of a tree or upon the summit of a column, while princes, magistrates, soldiers, and churchmen prostrated themselves at their feet, fasting, praying, beating their breasts, imploring advice or a blessing as though seeking a favor from God.

The Bosphorus has, however, one striking characteristic, that of drawing away the thoughts of the traveller who passes through it for the first time, from the past to the present. All the associations, dreams, fancies, memories awakened by familiarity with its history or legends are put to flight, driven back by the extraordinary richness of the vegetation, the pomp of color, exuberance of life, and magnificent abandonment of nature, in which everything appears as though it were wreathed in smiles and decked for a fête. It is even difficult to realize that these same waters, these enchanting scenes, were the witnesses of those furious sea-battles when Bulgarians and Goths, Byzantines, Russians, and Turks fell upon one another, fought, bled, and were vanquished or overcame in turn; the very fortresses which frown from the heights fail to awaken a spark of that romantic horror which such ruins always inspire when seen at other places; they seem more like artificial adjuncts to the landscape than the stern and actual records of a past which has seen them vomit fire and death. Over all there hangs a veil of languor and quiescence which suggests no thoughts other than dreams of idleness and an immense longing for peace.

Beyond Stenia the Bosphorus becomes still wider, and in a few moments we are greeted with the finest of any of the views we have had up to this time. Looking toward Europe, we see directly before us the little Greek and Armenian city of Yeni, built upon the side of a hill covered with vineyards and groves of pine trees, and extending around in the shape of a bow above a rocky shore against which the current sweeps with great violence; a little beyond is the beautiful bay of Kalender, crowded with boats, surrounded by small houses with gardens; and garlanded with luxuriant vegetation, while overhanging it are the aërial terraces of an imperial kiosk. Turning to the other shore, we find it curving in a large semicircle, above which rises a hill, and in the natural amphitheatre thus formed are a number of villages and harbors: Injir Keui—the Fig village—set in a circle of gardens; Sultanieh, half hidden in a forest; and the large village of Beikos, surrounded by kitchen-gardens and vineyards and shaded by tall walnut trees, whose buildings are reflected in the waters of the most beautiful gulf in the whole Bosphorus, the very spot on which the king of Bebryces was defeated by Pollux, and where the enchanted laurel tree stood whose branches caused all who touched them to become insane. Some distance beyond Beikos may be seen Yali, the ancient village of Amea, looking like a bunch of red and yellow flowers thrown down on a great green carpet. All of this, however, is but the merest sketch of that wonderful picture; to which must be added the indescribably soft lines of those lovely hills, looking as though made to stroke with the hand; the innumerable little nameless villages, which seem to have been thrown in here and there as the artist had need of them; that vegetation belonging to every climate; that architecture representing every land; those terraced gardens and cascades of water; the dark shadows, shining mosques, deep blue sea dotted with white sails, and over all that sky flushed by the setting sun.

At this point, however, I was seized with that sensation of weariness and satiety which at some part or other of the Bosphorus is pretty sure to attack the traveller. The endless succession of soft lines and brilliant colors becomes tiresome, the very monotony of its beauty dulling one’s sense of enjoyment. You feel at last that it would be a relief to come upon some huge, rugged, misshapen mass of rock sticking out from the land, or even a long desert strip of coast, wild, desolate, strewn with the fragments of a wreck. There is nothing to do, then, but turn your attention to the water. The Bosphorus is like an enormous port: we pass close beneath the shining guns of the Ottoman men-of-war, through fleets of merchantmen from every country in the world, with sails of all colors, queerly-shaped bows, and crowds of foreign-looking men upon their decks; we meet and pass outlandish craft from the Asiatic ports of the Black Sea; beautiful little sloops belonging to the various embassies; gentlemen’s yachts shoot by like arrows from the bow, taking part in races which are witnessed from the shore by crowds of spectators; rowboats of every pattern, filled with persons of all colors, push off from the shore or draw up at the thousand landing-stairs of the two continents; käiks dart in and out among long lines of barges, heavily laden with merchandise, towing slowly up the stream; navy-launches flying flags from their sterns; fishermen’s rafts; gilded käiks belonging to wealthy pashas; and steamboats from Constantinople filled with turbans, fezzes, and veils, which zigzag back and forth from one continent to the other in order to touch at every landing. All these sights seem to revolve around us as the steamer pursues its winding course; the promontories shift their positions; the hills unexpectedly change their outlines; villages glide out of sight, to suddenly reappear with an entirely new aspect; and both in front and back of us the Bosphorus keeps altering its character: now it is shut in like a big lake; now it opens out into a long chain of smaller lakes, with hills in the distance; then suddenly the hills close in again before and behind, and we are encircled by a green basin from which there is no apparent outlet, but before there is time to exchange more than half a dozen words with a neighbor the basin has disappeared in its turn, and once again we find ourselves surrounded by new heights, new towns, new harbors.

We are now between the two bays of Therapia—formerly Pharmakia, from Medea’s poisons—and Hunkiar Iskelesi, or Landing-place of the Sultan, where the famous treaty of 1833 was signed which closed the Dardanelles to foreign fleets. At this spot the spectacle of the Bosphorus reaches the penultimate stage of its beauty. Therapia is the finest of the towns which grace its banks, after Buyukdereh, while the valley which extends behind Hunkiar Iskelesi is the greenest, most charming and romantic valley to be found from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea. Therapia is built partly upon a level strip of shore at the foot of a large hill, and partly around a deep bay, which forms its harbor and is filled with small boats and shipping. Back of it opens the narrow valley of Krio-nero, where more of the town is squeezed in between the green sides of the hills. The shore is dotted with picturesque-looking cafés extending out over the water, handsome hotels, gay little houses, and groups of lofty trees which shade open squares and marble fountains; back of these are the summer residences of the French, Italian, and English ambassadors, and beyond these, again, stands an imperial kiosk. All up the hillsides are terrace upon terrace, garden upon garden, villa upon villa, grove upon grove; people dressed in vivid colors crowd in and out of the cafés, stream over the harbor and shore and up the paths leading to the tops of the hills, just as though some great fête were in progress. The Asiatic shore, on the contrary, is tranquillity itself. The little village of Hunkiar Iskelesi, a favorite place of residence among the wealthy Armenians of Constantinople, sleeps quietly among its plane and cypress trees and about its diminutive harbor, on the bosom of whose waters a few boats may be seen gliding peacefully along. High above the village, upon the summit of a vast incline of terraced gardens, towers the solitary and magnificent kiosk of Abdul-Aziz, beyond which, again, extends the favorite valley of the pâdishahs half hidden under dense masses of tropical vegetation and surrounded by a dreamy mystery.

All of this marvellous beauty, however, fades into nothing a mile farther on, when, the steamer having arrived off the Bay of Buyukdereh, we are confronted by the crowning, the supreme glory of the Bosphorus. Here he who has become weary of its beauty, and possibly allowed himself to give utterance to some irreverent criticism, is forced to bow his head and humbly beg for pardon. We are in the centre of a large lake, so surrounded and hemmed in by marvels of every description that there seems nothing for it but to begin spinning around in the bow, like dervishes, so as to see all the shore and all the hills at once.

On the European side, extending around a deep bay where the swift current dies away in gentle little waves, and below a large hill whose sides are dotted with innumerable villas, lies the town of Buyukdereh, large, colored like a huge bed of flowers, and entirely composed of small palaces, kiosks, and villas planted in the midst of a mass of vegetation of the most vivid green imaginable, which seems to pour out over the roofs and walls and overflow into the streets and squares. To the right the town extends as far as an inlet like a smaller bay in the large one, surrounded by the village of Kefeli; behind this a wide valley opens, green with meadows and sprinkled with white houses, following which one can reach the aqueduct of Mahmûd and the forest of Belgrâd. Tradition says that the armies of the first Crusaders encamped in this valley in 1096, and one of the seven gigantic plane trees for which the spot is famous is called the plane tree of Godfrey de Bouillon. Beyond Kefeli Keni is still another small bay, colored with white and green reflections from the neighboring houses and trees, and beyond this, again, Therapia is visible scattered along the base of her dark-green hills.

Having allowed our gaze to wander thus far, we turn once more toward Asia, and find with astonishment that we are opposite the loftiest hill on the Bosphorus, the Giant’s Mountain, shaped like a huge green pyramid, on whose summit is the celebrated grave to which three separate legends have given the names, respectively, of “The Couch of Hercules,” “The Grave of Amycus,” and “The Tomb of Joshua.” It is now guarded by a couple of dervishes and visited by sick Mussulmans, who carry thither the rags of their clothing according to a practice in vogue among them. The forest-clad and vine-decked sides of the mountain extend to the very water’s edge, where, between two bright green promontories, lies the pretty bay of Umur Yeri, all streaked with the hundred different colored reflections of a Mussulman village on its shore, from which strings of villas and houses extend like wings across the adjoining fields or like masses of flowers thrown about at random. But the entire view is not confined to this body of water: directly ahead of us glimmers the Black Sea, and looking back toward Constantinople, we behold on the other side of Therapia, in the dim purple distance, the bay of Kalender, Yeni Keui, Injir Keui, and Sultanieh, looking far more like imaginary scenes from some dream-world than actual towns and villages.

The sun is setting: a delicate veil of pale blue and gray begins to fall over the European shore, but Asia is still bathed in golden light; across the sparkling water numbers of boats filled with married couples and lovers, excursionists from Constantinople, press toward the European shore, meet and stop one another, and overtake others filled with parents and children from the neighboring villas. Bursts of music and song come from the cafés of Buyukdereh; eagles circle above the summit of Giant’s Mountain, the white lights on the shore fly by, kingfishers gleam through the water, dolphins swim about the ship, the fresh wind of the Black Sea blows in our faces. Where are we? whither are we bound? It is a moment of rapture, of intoxication, in which the sights of the past two hours, both shores of the Bosphorus, all that we have felt and seen, melt and blend together in one glowing, rapturous vision of a single vast city ten times the size of Constantinople, peopled by all the nations of the earth, visited by every blessing from the Almighty, and given over to an endless series of feastings and merrymakings, the contemplation of which fills one with despairing envy.