Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by John L. Stephens

Castle of the Seven Towers.

About four o'clock we embarked in our caique to return to Constantinople. In an hour Mr. D. and I landed at the foot of the Seven Towers, and few things in this ancient city interested me more than my walk around its walls. We followed them the whole extent on the land side, from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn. They consist of a triple range, with five gates, the principal of which is the Cannon Gate, through which Mohammed II. made his triumphal entry into the Christian city. They have not been repaired since the city fell into the hands of the Turks, and are the same walls which procured for it the proud name of the "well-defended city;" to a great extent, they are the same walls which the first Constantine built and the last Constantine died in defending. Time has laid his ruining hand upon them, and they are everywhere weak and decaying, and would fall at once before the thunder of modern war. The moat and fossé have alike lost their warlike character, and bloom and blossom with the vine and fig tree. Beyond, hardly less interesting than the venerable walls, and extending as far as the eye can reach, is one continued burying-ground, with thousands and tens of thousands of turbaned headstones, shaded by thick groves of the mourning cypress. Opposite the Damascus Gate is an elevated enclosure, disconnected from all around, containing five headstones in a row, over the bodies of Ali Pacha, the rebel chief of Yanina, and his four sons. The fatal mark of death by the bowstring is conspicuous on the tombs, as a warning to rebels that they cannot escape the sure vengeance of the Porte. It was toward the sunset of a beautiful evening, and all Stamboul was out among the tombs. At dark we reached the Golden Horn, crossed over in a caique, and in a few minutes were in Pera.

The next day I took a caique at Tophana, and went up to the shipyards at the head of the Golden Horn to visit Mr. Rhodes, to whom I had a letter from a friend in Smyrna. Mr. Rhodes is a native of Long Island, but from his boyhood a resident of this city, and I take great pleasure in saying that he is an honour to our state and country. The reader will remember that, some years ago, Mr. Eckford, one of our most prominent citizens, under a pressure of public and domestic calamities, left his native city. He sailed from New-York in a beautiful corvette, its destination unknown, and came to anchor under the walls of the seraglio in the harbour of Constantinople. The sultan saw her, admired her, and bought her; and I saw her "riding like a thing of life" on the waters of the Golden Horn, a model of beauty.

The fame of his skill, and the beautiful specimen he carried out with him, recommended Mr. Eckford to the sultan as a fit instrument to build up the character of the Ottoman navy; and afterward, when his full value became known, the sultan remarked of him that America must be a great nation if she could spare from her service such a man. Had he lived, even in the decline of life he would have made for himself a reputation in that distant quarter of the globe equal to that he had left behind him, and doubtless would have reaped the attendant pecuniary reward. Mr. Rhodes went out as Mr. Eckford's foreman, and on his death the task of completing his employer's work devolved on him. It could not have fallen upon a better man. From a journeyman shipbuilder, all at once Mr. Rhodes found himself brought into close relations with the seraskier pacha, the reis effendi, the grand vizier, and the sultan himself; but his good sense never deserted him. He was then preparing for the launch of the great ship; the longest, as he said, and he knew the dimensions of every ship that floated, in the world. I accompanied him over the ship and through the yards, and it was with no small degree of interest that I viewed a townsman, an entire stranger in the country, by his skill alone standing at the head of the great naval establishment of the sultan. He was dressed in a blue roundabout jacket, without whiskers or mustache, and, except that he wore the tarbouch, was thorough American in his appearance and manners, while his dragoman was constantly by his side, communicating his orders to hundreds of mustached Turks, and in the same breath he was talking with me of shipbuilders in New-York, and people and things most familiar in our native city. Mr. Rhodes knows and cares but little for things that do not immediately concern him; his whole thoughts are of his business, and in that he possesses an ambition and industry worthy of all praise. As an instance of his discretion, particularly proper in the service of that suspicious and despotic government, I may mention that, while standing near the ship and remarking a piece of cloth stretched across her stern, I asked him her name, and he told me he did not know; that it was painted on her stern, and his dragoman knew, but he had never looked under, that he might not be able to answer when asked. I have seldom met a countryman abroad with whom I was more pleased, and at parting he put himself on a pinnacle in my estimation by telling me that, if I came to the yard the next day at one, I would see the sultan! There was no man living whom I had a greater curiosity to see. At twelve o'clock I was at the yard, but the sultan did not come. I went again, and his highness had come two hours before the time; had accompanied Mr. Rhodes over the ship, and left the yard less than five minutes before my arrival; his caique was still lying at the little dock, his attendants were carrying trays of refreshments to a shooting-ground in the rear, and two black eunuchs belonging to the seraglio, handsomely dressed in long black cloaks of fine pelisse cloth, with gold-headed canes and rings on their fingers, were still lingering about the ship, their effeminate faces and musical voices at once betraying their neutral character.

The next was the day of the launch; and early in the morning, in the suite of Commodore Porter, I went on board an old steamer provided by the sultan expressly for the use of Mr. Rhodes's American friends. The waters of the Golden Horn were already covered; thousands of caiques, with their high sharp points, were cutting through it, or resting like gulls upon its surface; and there were ships with the still proud banner of the crescent, and strangers with the flags of every nation in Christendom, and sailboats, longboats, and rowboats, ambassadors' barges, and caiques of effendis, beys, and pachas, with red silk flags streaming in the wind, while countless thousands were assembled on the banks to behold the extraordinary spectacle of an American ship, the largest in the world, launched in the harbour of old Stamboul. The sultan was then living at his beautiful palace at Sweet Waters, and was obliged to pass by our boat; he had made a great affair of the launch; had invited all the diplomatic corps, and, through the reis effendi, particularly requested the presence of Commodore Porter; had stationed his harem on the opposite side of the river; and as I saw prepared for himself near the ship a tent of scarlet cloth trimmed with gold, I expected to see him appear in all the pomp and splendour of the greatest potentate on earth. I had already seen enough to convince me that the days of Eastern magnificence had gone by, or that the gorgeous scenes which my imagination had always connected with the East had never existed; but still I could not divest myself of the lingering idea of the power and splendour of the sultan. His commanding style to his own subjects: "I command you, ——, my slave, that you bring the head of ——, my slave, and lay it at my feet;" and then his lofty tone with foreign powers: "I, who am, by the infinite grace of the great, just, and all-powerful Creator, and the abundance of the miracles of the chief of his prophets, emperor of powerful emperors; refuge of sovereigns; distributor of crowns to the kings of the earth; keeper of the two very holy cities (Mecca and Medina); governor of the holy city of Jerusalem; master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered with our victorious sword and our terrible lance; lord of two seas (Black and White); of Damascus, the odour of Paradise; of Bagdad, the seat of the califs; of the fortresses of Belgrade, Agra, and a multitude of countries, isles, straits, people, generations, and of so many victorious armies who repose under the shade of our Sublime Porte; I, in short, who am the shadow of God upon earth;" I was rolling these things through my mind when a murmur, "the sultan is coming," turned me to the side of the boat, and one view dispelled all my gorgeous fancies. There was no style, no state, a citizen king, a republican president, or a democratic governor, could not have made a more unpretending appearance than did this "shadow of God upon earth." He was seated in the bottom of a large caique, dressed in the military frockcoat and red tarbouch, with his long black beard, the only mark of a Turk about him, and he moved slowly along the vacant space cleared for his passage, boats with the flags of every nation, and thousands of caiques falling back, and the eyes of the immense multitude earnestly fixed upon him, but without any shouts or acclamations; and when he landed at the little dock, and his great officers bowed to the dust before him, he looked the plainest, mildest, kindest man among them. I had wished to see him as a wholesale murderer, who had more blood upon his hands than any man living; who had slaughtered the janisaries, drenched the plains of Greece, to say nothing of bastinadoes, impalements, cutting off heads, and tying up in sacks, which are taking place every moment; but I will not believe that Sultan Mahmoud finds any pleasure in shedding blood. Dire necessity, or, as he himself would say, fate, has ever been driving him on. I look upon him as one of the most interesting characters upon earth; as the creature of circumstances, made bloody and cruel by the necessities of his position. I look at his past life and at that which is yet in store for him, through all the stormy scenes he is to pass until he completes his unhappy destiny, the last of a powerful and once-dreaded race, bearded by those who once crouched at the footstool of his ancestors, goaded by rebellious vassals, conscious that he is going a downward road, and yet unable to resist the impulse that drives him on. Like the strong man encompassed with a net, he finds no avenue of escape, and cannot break through it.

The seraskier pacha and other principal officers escorted him to his tent, and now all the interest which I had taken in the sultan was transferred to Mr. Rhodes. He had great anxiety about the launch, and many difficulties to contend with: first, in the Turks' jealousy of a stranger, which obliged him to keep constantly on the watch lest some of his ropes should be cut or fastenings knocked away; and he had another Turkish prejudice to struggle against: the day had been fixed twice before, but the astronomers found an unfortunate conjunction of the stars, and it was postponed, and even then the stars were unpropitious; but Mr. Rhodes had insisted that the work had gone so far that it could not be stopped. And, besides these, he had another great difficulty in his ignorance of their language. With more than a thousand men under him, all his orders had to pass through interpreters, and often, too, the most prompt action was necessary, and the least mistake might prove fatal. Fortunately, he was protected from treachery by the kindness of Mr. Churchill and Dr. Zohrab, one of whom stood on the bow and the other in the stern of the ship, and through whom every order was transmitted in Turkish. Probably none there felt the same interest that we did; for the flags of the barbarian and every nation in Christendom were waving around us, and at that distance from home the enterprise of a single citizen enlisted the warmest feelings of every American. We watched the ship with as keen an interest as if our own honour and success in life depended upon her movements. For a long time she remained perfectly quiet. At length she moved, slowly and almost imperceptibly; and then, as if conscious that the eyes of an immense multitude were on her, and that the honour of a distant nation was in some measure at stake, she marched proudly to the water, plunged in with a force that almost buried her, and, rising like a huge leviathan, parted the foaming waves with her bow, and rode triumphantly upon them. Even Mussulman indifference was disturbed; all petty jealousies were hushed; the whole immense mass was roused into admiration; loud and long-continued shouts of applause rose with one accord from Turks and Christians, and the sultan was so transported that he jumped up and clapped his hands like a schoolboy.

Mr. Rhodes's triumph was complete; the sultan called him to his tent, and with his own hands fixed on the lappel of his coat a gold medal set in diamonds, representing the launching of a ship. Mr. Rhodes has attained among strangers the mark of every honourable man's ambition, the head of his profession. He has put upon the water what Commodore Porter calls the finest ship that ever floated, and has a right to be proud of his position and prospects under the "shade of the Sublime Porte." The sultan wishes to confer upon him the title of chief naval constructor, and to furnish him with a house and a caique with four oars. In compliment to his highness, who detests a hat, Mr. Rhodes wears the tarbouch; but he declines all offices and honours, and anything that may tend to fix him as a Turkish subject, and looks to return and enjoy in his own country and among his own people the fruits of his honourable labours. If the good wishes of a friend can avail him, he will soon return to our city rich with the profits of untiring industry, and an honourable testimony to his countrymen of the success of American skill and enterprise abroad.

To go back a moment. All day the great ship lay in the middle of the Golden Horn, while perhaps more than a hundred thousand Turks shot round her in their little caiques, looking up from the surface of the water to her lofty deck: and in Pera, wherever I went, perhaps because I was an American, the only thing I heard of was the American ship. Proud of the admiration excited so far from home by this noble specimen of the skill of an American citizen, I unburden myself of a long-smothered subject of complaint against my country. I cry out with a loud voice for reform, not in the hackneyed sense of petty politicians, but by a liberal and enlarged expenditure of public money; by increasing the outfits and salaries of our foreign ambassadors and ministers. We claim to be rich, free from debt, and abundant in resources, and yet every American abroad is struck with a feeling of mortification at the inability of his representative to take that position in social life to which the character of his country entitles him. We may talk of republican simplicity as we will, but there are certain usages of society and certain appendages of rank which, though they may be unmeaning and worthless, are sanctioned, if not by the wisdom, at least by the practice of all civilized countries. We have committed a fatal error since the time when Franklin appeared at the court of France in a plain citizen's dress; everywhere our representative conforms to the etiquette of the court to which he is accredited, and it is too late to go back and begin anew; and now, unless our representative is rich and willing to expend his own fortune for the honour of the nation, he is obliged to withdraw from the circles and position in which he has a right and ought to move, or to move in them on an inferior footing, under an acknowledgment of inability to appear as an equal.

And again: our whole consular system is radically wrong, disreputable, and injurious to our character and interests. While other nations consider the support of their consuls a part of the expenses of their government, we suffer ourselves to be represented by merchants, whose pecuniary interests are mixed up with all the local and political questions that affect the place and who are under a strong inducement to make their office subservient to their commercial relations. I make no imputations against any of them. I could not if I would, for I do not know an American merchant holding the office who is not a respectable man; but the representative of our country ought to be the representative of our country only; removed from any distracting or conflicting interests, standing like a watchman to protect the honour of his nation and the rights of her citizens. And more than this, all over the Mediterranean there are ports where commerce presents no inducements to the American merchant, and there the office falls into the hands of the natives; and at this day the American arms are blazoned on the doors, and the American flag is waving over the houses, of Greeks, Italians, Jews, and Arabs, and all the mongrel population of that inland sea; and in the ports under the dominion of Turkey particularly, the office is coveted as a means of protecting the holder against the liabilities to his own government, and of revenue by selling that protection to others. I will not mention them by name, for I bear them no ill will personally, and I have received kindness from most of the petty vagabonds who live under the folds of the American flag; but the consuls at Gendoa and Algiers are a disgrace to the American name. Congress has lately turned its attention to this subject, and will, before long, I hope, effect a complete change in the character of our consular department, and give it the respectability which it wants; the only remedy is by following the example of other nations, in fixing salaries to the office, and forbidding the holders to engage in trade. Besides the leading inducements to this change, there is a secondary consideration, which, in my eyes, is not without its value, in that it would furnish a valuable school of instruction for our young men. The offices would be sought by such. A thousand or fifteen hundred dollars a year would maintain them respectably, in most of the ports of the Mediterranean, and young men resident in those places, living upon salaries, and not obliged to engage in commerce, would employ their leisure hours in acquiring the language of the country, in communicating with the interior, and among them would return upon us an accumulation of knowledge far more than repaying us for all the expense of supporting them abroad.