From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

But the charm is not all gone, nor has it disappeared after twelve days of close familiarity. Only the picture takes a more defined shape, and we are able to distinguish the lights and shadows. Constantinople is a city full of sharp contrasts, in which one extreme sets the other in a stronger light, as Oriental luxury and show look down on Oriental dirt and beggary; as gold here appears by the side of rags, and squalid poverty crouches under the walls of splendid palaces. Thus the city may be described as mean or as magnificent, and either description be true, according as we contemplate one extreme or the other.

As to its natural beauty, (that of situation,) no language can surpass the reality. It stands at the junction of two seas and two continents, where Europe looks across the Bosphorus to Asia, as New York looks across the East River to Brooklyn. That narrow strait which divides the land unites the seas, the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. From the lofty height of the Seraskier tower one looks down on such a panorama as is not elsewhere on the face of the earth. Far away stretches the beautiful Sea of Marmora, which comes up to the very walls of the city, and seems to kiss its feet. On the other side of Stamboul, dividing it from Pera, is the Golden Horn, crowded with ships; and in front is the Bosphorus, where the whole Turkish navy rides at anchor, and a fleet of steamers and ships is passing, bearing the grain of the Black Sea to feed the nations of Western Europe. Islanded amid all these waters are the different parts of one great capital—a vast stretch of houses, out of which rise a hundred domes and minarets. As one takes in all the features of this marvellous whole, he can but exclaim, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is"—Constantinople!

Nor are its environs less attractive than the position of the city itself. Whichever way you turn, sailing over these waters and along these shores, or riding outside of the ancient wall, from the Golden Horn over the hills to the Sea of Marmora, with its beautiful islands, there is something to enchant the eye and to excite the imagination. A sail up the Bosphorus is one of the most interesting in the world. We have taken it twice. The morning after our arrival, our friend Dr. George W. Wood, to whom we are indebted for many acts of kindness, gave up the day to accompany us. For miles the shores on either side are dotted with palaces of the Sultan, or of the Viceroy of Egypt, or of this or that Grand Vizier, or of some Pasha who has despoiled provinces to enrich himself, or with the summer residences of the Foreign Ministers, or of wealthy merchants of Constantinople.

The Bosphorus constantly reminded me of the Hudson, with its broad stream indented with bays, now swelling out like our own noble river at the Tappan Zee, and then narrowing again, as at West Point, and with the same steep hills rising from the water's edge, and wooded to the top. So delighted were we with the excursion, that we have since made it a second time, accompanied by Rev. A. V. Millingen, the excellent pastor of the Union Church of Pera, and find the impression of beauty increased. Landing on the eastern side, near where the Sweet Waters of Asia come down to mingle with the sea, we walked up a valley which led among the hills, and climbed the Giants' Mountain, on which Moslem chronicles fix the place of the tomb of Joshua, the great Hebrew leader, while tradition declares it to be the tomb of Hercules. Probably one was buried here as truly as the other; authorities differ on the subject, and you take your choice. But what none can dispute is the magnificent site, worthy to have been the place of burial of any hero or demigod. The view extends up and down the Bosphorus for miles. How beautiful it seemed that day, which was like one of the golden days of our Indian summer, a soft and balmy air resting on all the valleys and the hills. The landscape had not, indeed, the freshness of spring, but the leaves still clung to the trees, which wore the tints of autumn, and thus resembled, though they did not equal, those of our American forests; and as we wandered on amid these wild and wooded scenes, I could imagine that I was rambling among the lovely hills along the Hudson.

But there is one point in which the resemblance ceases. There is a difference (and one which makes all the difference in the world), viz., that the Hudson presents us only the beauty of nature, while the Bosphorus has the added charm of history. The dividing line between Europe and Asia, it has divided the world for thousands of years. Here we come back to the very beginnings of history, or before all history, into the dim twilight of fable and tradition; for through these straits, according to the ancient story, sailed Jason with his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and yonder are the Symplegades, the rocks which were the terror of navigators even in the time of Jason, if such a man ever lived, and around which the sea still roars as it roared thousands of years ago. On a hill-top stood a temple to Jupiter Urius, to which mariners entering the stormy Euxine came to offer their vows, and to pray for favorable winds; and here still lives an old, long-haired Dervish, to whom the Turkish sailors apply for the benefit of his prayers. He was very friendly with us, and a trifling gratuity insured us whatever protection he could give. Thus we strolled along over the hills to the Genoese Castle, a great round tower, built hundreds of years ago to guard the entrance to the Black Sea, and in a grove of oaks stretched ourselves upon the grass, and took our luncheon in full view of two continents, both washed by one "great and wide sea." To this very spot came Darius the Great, to get the same view on which we are looking now; and a few miles below, opposite the American College at Bebek, he built his bridge of boats across the Bosphorus, over which he passed his army of seven hundred thousand men. To the same spot Xenophon led his famous Retreat of the Ten Thousand.

Coming down to later times, we are sitting among the graves of Arabs who fought and fell in the time of Haroun al Raschid, the magnificent Caliph of Bagdad, in whose reign occurred the marvellous adventures related in the Tales of the Arabian Nights. These were Moslem heroes, and their graves are still called "the tombs of the martyrs." But hither came other warriors; for in yonder valley across the water encamped Godfrey of Bouillon, with his Crusaders, who had traversed Europe, and were now about to cross into Asia, to march through Asia Minor, and descend into Syria, to fight for the Holy Sepulchre.

Recalling such historic memories, and enjoying to the full the beauty of the day, we came down from the hills to the waters, and crossing in a caique to the other side of the Bosphorus, took the steamer back to the city.

While such are the surroundings of Constantinople, in its interior it is the most picturesque city we have yet seen. I do not know what we may find in India, or China, or Japan, but in Europe there is nothing like it. On the borders of Europe and Asia, it derives its character, as well as its mixed population, from both. It is a singular compound of nations. I do not believe there is a spot in the world where meet a greater variety of races than on the long bridge across the Golden Horn, between Pera and Stamboul. Here are the representatives of all the types of mankind that came out of the Ark, the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth—Jews and Gentiles, Turks and Greeks and Armenians, "Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia," Persians and Parsees, and Arabs from Egypt and Arabia, and Moors from the Barbary Coast, and Nubians and Abyssinians from the upper Nile, and Ethiopians from the far interior of Africa. I have been surprised to see so many blacks wearing the turban. But here they are in great numbers, the recognized equals of their white co-religionists. I have at last found one country in the world in which the distinction between black and white makes absolutely no difference in one's rank or position. And this, strange to say, is a country where slavery long existed, and where, though suppressed by law, it still exists, though less openly. We visited the old slave market, and though evidently "business" was dull, yet a dozen men were sitting around, who, we were told, were slave merchants, and some black women who were there to be sold. But slavery in Turkey is of a mild form, and as it affects both races (fair Circassian women being sold as well as the blackest Ethiopian), the fact of servitude works no such degradation as attaints the race. And so whites and blacks meet together, and walk together, and eat together, apparently without the slightest consciousness of superiority on one side, or of inferiority on the other. No doubt this equality is partly due to the influence of Mohammedanism, which is very democratic, which recognizes no distinction of race, before which all men are equal as before their Creator, and which thus lifts up the poor and abases the proud. I am glad to be able to state one fact so much to its honor.

But these turbaned Asiatics are not the only ones that throng this bridge. Here are Franks in great numbers, speaking all the languages of the West, French and Italian, German and English. One may distinguish them afar off by their stove-pipe hat, that beautiful cylinder whose perpendicular outline is the emblem of uprightness, and which we wish might always be a sign and pledge that the man whose face appears under it would illustrate in his own person the unbending integrity of Western civilization. And so the stream of life rolls on over that bridge, as over the Bridge of Mirza, never ceasing any more than the waters of the Golden Horn which roll beneath it.

And not only all races, but all conditions are represented here—beggars and princes; men on horseback forcing their way through the crowd on foot; carriages rolling and rumbling on, but never stopping the tramp, tramp, of the thousands that keep up their endless march. Here the son of the Sultan dashes by in a carriage, with mounted officers attending his sacred (though very insignificant) person; while along his path crouch all the forms of wretched humanity—men with loathsome diseases; men without arms or legs, holding up their withered stumps; or with eyes put out, rolling their sightless eyeballs, to excite the pity of passers by—all joining in one wail of misery, and begging for charity.