Among the articles offered are musk and seraglio pastilles, frankincense, cedar-wood, and other perfume-emitting substances which Turks delight in throwing on the brazier to scent their apartments; otto of roses, produced in Bulgaria, rose-water, patchuli, jessamine, and other native fragrant oils, with which to perfume their person. Rouge, native hair-dyes, and henna for improving the complexion, painting the eyebrows until they meet, or staining the nails and finger-tips; corrosive sublimate, that deadly poison, for giving a flash to the eye; red and black pepper, and all sorts of condiments; seeds of the "love-in-the-mist" to protect yiaourt and pastry from the evil-eye; gum mastic from the island of Chio, which women love to chew and chew for hours, and children to blow into bubbles; herbal and quack medicines of all kinds, and even gall-stones from an ass to renew the vigour of youth. Nearer the sea are several streets, roofed with glass, called the Yemish, or fruit-bazaar, where dried fruits and nuts of every description are to be found. Among its peculiarities are fruit-pastes of plum, apricot, quince, mulberry, etc., which have been mashed, sun-dried, and rolled into thin long sheets; grape-juice, thickened with flour; unfermented grape-treacle; and honey from Angora, unrivalled for the whiteness of its comb.
The Wood-turners' bazaar gives you an insight into the native method of turning, which is performed with a bow in one hand and a chisel in the other, while the big toe supplies a third hand for holding the object in position. The Brass-turners' bazaar provides you with samovars, or special brass urns, for boiling water and preparing tea, and mangals, or braziers, for holding ignited charcoal to warm houses.
The main bazaars consist of a labyrinth of streets and alleys, arched over with masonry, and pierced with numerous domes from which the light enters. They extend over a surface of more than a mile, and their windings are so intricate that a traveller may easily lose his way.
Articles of every description, new and old, may be found there. Whole streets, for instance, are reserved for boots, shoes, and slippers of all kinds, shapes, and colours: soft yellow ones for Turkish women; patent-leather ones, with overshoes, for men; red shoes with turned-up points for Anatolians; sandals for Albanians; Parisian ones for those dressed à la Française; slippers of softest native tanned leather; slippers embroidered with seed-pearls and jewels, etc. Another street is reserved for silks from Brusa, Damascus, Syria, etc., another for pipes, hubble-bubbles, amber mouthpieces etc. Another, styled Manchester Street, is stocked with cotton prints, of flashy colours and designs, made specially for the East.
In the heart of the bazaar is the bezesten, an inner bazaar, with gorgeous carpets from all parts of the land, diamonds, pearls, turquoises, and all manner of precious stones; old armour, antiquities, curios, and relics of all kinds.
But the muezzim's cry now reverberates through the bazaar; the sun is setting, and the gates are to be closed. You rise to depart, but the crowds, the sights, the colours, the noises, the smells, the various costumes around—these will be there on the morrow as they have been in the past, and they will still in the future allure and charm all those who come in contact with the bewitching East.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
LIST OF VOLUMES IN THE PEEPS AT MANY LANDS AND CITIES SERIES
EACH CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR