But Galata is by no means all primrose path. Other, more laborious paths abound there, of drudgery manifold but chiefly of those who go down to the sea in ships. The tangle of narrow streets between the “Bowery” and the harbour is given up almost entirely to sailors and watermen—their lodging, their outfitting, and their amusement. The thickest of these streets in local colour are in the purlieus of Pershembeh Bazaar. Pershembeh Bazaar means Thursday Market, and Thursday is a day to come here. Then awnings shade the little streets around Arab Jami, and venders of dreadful Manchester prints, of astonishing footwear, of sweets, of perfumes, of variegated girdles, leave no more than a narrow lane for passers-by, and there is infinite bargaining from sunrise to sunset. The next morning there will be not a sign of all this commerce. It has gone elsewhere: to be precise, to Kassîm Pasha. On Tuesdays you will find these peripatetic merchants near Top Haneh.
Fountain near Galata Tower
The Kabatash breakwater
If the Thursday Market goes, the rest of Galata remains, and the best of it: the alleys of jutting upper stories that know so well the value of a grape-vine, the quaint shops and coffee-houses, the cavernous bakeries, the place of broken lights where the oar makers ply the local variation of their trade, the narrow courtyard where the sailmakers sit, the wharves and landings of the Golden Horn, the quays of Top Haneh, the breakwater of Kabatash—which is at its best in a south wind—and all that enticing region called Kalafat Yeri, the Place of Pitch, where from time immemorial men have built boats and caulked them, and fitted them out with gear. In front of this shore, off the old Galata which the Genoese originally walled in, lies the noble mass of shipping of which I have already spoken. That is the supreme resource of Galata, and one which is hidden under no bushel, waiting patiently to make the fortune of the man who will etch it. Where were Mr. Murray’s eyes when he came to Galata? Her vices would hardly have attracted his attention if he had taken in the virtue of her contribution to the pictorial.