A less ornamental but a deservedly famous fountain of the same period is to be seen on the upper Bosphorus, at Beïkos. I suspect, however, that it was once more ornamental than it is. A tall marble pavilion hospitably opens its arches on three sides to the streets of the village. At the bottom of the wall on the fourth side water pours noisily out of fifteen bronze spouts—or I believe they are thirteen now—into three marble troughs sunk below the level of the street, and runs away through a marble channel in the middle of the pavilion. From this T-shaped lower level steps rise to two marble platforms at the outer corners, where you may sip a coffee while drinking in the freshness and music of the water. This delightful fountain was also built by Mahmoud I. I know not whether the inhabitants of Roumeli Hissar got from Beïkos the idea of a fountain of their own, much smaller, which is flat on top and furnished with benches that are very popular on summer evenings. Another, at Beïlerbeï, has a place of prayer on the top, which you reach by a steep little stair of stone. Yet another might be pointed out at Top Haneh, in front of the big mosque, as at least one good deed of the late Sultan Abd ül Hamid II. It would not be fair to compare this structure with its greater neighbour at the other end of the parade-ground. Nevertheless, in spite of its ugly sculpture, it is one of the most successful modern fountains in Constantinople. Suggested, perhaps, by a fountain behind the Arsenal, built by the Admiral Süleïman Pasha in 1750, it is much happier in its lines. And the architect had something like a stroke of genius when he opened a space above the taps and filled it with twisted metal work. The little dome was originally surmounted by an intricately wrought alem. But the winter after the donor retired to Salonica this ornament disappeared as well.
Fountain of Abd ül Hamid II
No one can explore much of Stamboul without noticing certain large grilled windows with metal cups chained to their sills. These are the windows of sebils, which I have referred to as one type of street fountain. If I have not yet mentioned them more fully it is because their chronological place is after the wall fountain. They are also much less numerous, though architecturally rather more important. The word sebil means way or path: to build a sebil is a step on the way to God. The water comes into a small room or pavilion, and an attendant is supposed to keep cups filled where they will be easily accessible from the street. A simpler form of foundation provides for a man to go about the streets giving water to those who ask for it. Or sometimes dervishes seek this “way” of acquiring merit. They usually wear green turbans, and the inside of the small brass bowl into which they pour water from a skin slung over their shoulders is inscribed with verses from the Koran.
Sebil behind the tomb of Sultan Mehmed III
The Seljukian Turks of Asia Minor, I have been told, were the inventors of this graceful philanthropy, remembering the thirst of the martyr Hüsseïn at Kerbela and the women who brought water to the companions of the Prophet at the battle of Bed’r. The earliest sebil I know of in Constantinople, however, is the one at the corner of the triangular enclosure where the architect Sinan lies buried, near the great mosque he built for Sultan Süleïman. Small and simple though it is, the lines have the elegance that distinguishes the work of this master. And it proved full of suggestion for succeeding architects. It showed them, for one thing, how to treat a corner in a new and interesting way. And while the metal work of the windows is the simplest, the designers in iron and bronze found a new field for their craft. One or two architects took a hint from the openwork that lightens the wall beyond the sebil and filled their windows with pierced marble, as in the fountain adjoining the tomb of Sultan Mehmed III at St. Sophia. But most architects preferred the lightness and the contrast of metal. Some of their experiments may be rather too complicated and spidery. Nevertheless, the grille work of sebil windows would make an interesting study by itself.
In time sebils were treated in the same variety of ways as other street fountains. Perhaps the first example of an applied sebil is that of the eunuch Hafîz Ahmed Pasha. The fountain forms an angle of his mosque, not far from that of the Conqueror. Ahmed Pasha was twice Grand Vizier under Sultan Mourad IV. Shortly before his death the Conqueror appeared to him in a dream, angrily reproaching him for building a mosque so near his own and threatening to kill him. The old man was greatly troubled by this vision of evil omen; and, sure enough, he was murdered about two months afterward. There is something very attractive in his unpretentious sebil, with its tall pointed windows, its little arched door, and its lichened cupola. Another applied corner sebil, built by Sultan Ahmed I behind his mosque, is unusual in that it is lined with tiles. Similar tiles are to be seen in the window embrasures of that Sultan’s tomb. Their conventionalised peacock eyes, a green-rimmed oval of blue on a white ground, would be too coarse in the open; but seen in shadow through the small hexagons of the grille, they are wonderfully decorative. By an odd chance they were not destroyed by the fire that raged through this quarter in 1912. Among other fountains which came off less happily was one uniting a sebil and a cheshmeh. This experiment, if I am not mistaken, was first tried in the time of Ahmed III. A beautiful example is to be seen on the busy street of Shah-zadeh, where Ahmed’s Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, is buried within his own medresseh. Four windows round the corner with a curve of handsome grille work, while the tall arch of the cheshmeh decorates the side street with its gilding and delicate reliefs.
