| Miss Pardoe del. | Day & Haghe Lith.rs to the King. |
| THE MILITARY COLLEGE. | |
| Henry Colburn 13 G.t Marlborough St 1837. | |
The main building forms three sides of a square, and the centre of the fourth is occupied by an elegant kiosk-like edifice, containing the lithographic presses. Here we found an individual designing a very neatly-ornamented sheet-almanac, of which he had sketched the border with great delicacy. All the machinery is English, and appears to be in constant use. I have omitted to mention that, before we quitted the apartment of Azmi Bey, he presented to us several of the Professors, who entered to pay their respects. Among these, the most remarkable was Saduk Agha, a Prussian renegade, who speaks French, Italian, and Turkish fluently, and has a considerable knowledge of English. After conversing with him for some time on the merits of lithography, and examining a number of drawings, principally military figures, that had been executed by the pupils of the establishment, and were many of them of considerable merit; he joined his entreaties to those of Azmi Bey that I would write a few lines as evidence of my visit, which they might put under the press. Finding that they were both determined to succeed, and not considering the point worthy of contention, I complied with the request, not a little amused at my first appearance in print in Turkey: and I much doubt whether any thing that I have hitherto written, am now writing, or may hereafter write, will ever be read and re-read with so much apparent gusto as the half dozen lines of doggrel verse which I improvised on a scrap of torn paper, sur la plante des pieds, surrounded by about a score of Turkish spectators.
From this point, we proceeded to the inner or garden court, of which one side is laid out in a parterre inclosure, the centre being occupied by the mosque, and the extreme end terminated by the two great halls of study. We entered the first of these by a noble flight of stone steps, and found ourselves in an apartment of vast extent, admirably lighted, and arranged with the most perfect order and conveniency. Thickly set rows of high-backed benches of stained wood extended the whole depth of the hall, leaving a passage on either side just sufficiently wide for the ingress and egress of visitors; and the first ranges of seats were occupied by about one hundred and fifty of the junior pupils, who were busily employed in tracing upon their slates the elegant characters of their language, as sentence after sentence was slowly declaimed by the head boy of the class. This department of the institution is on the Lancastrian system.
There are at present only three hundred students on the establishment; a report having been promulgated by its enemies that an attempt would be made to interfere with their religious tenets; in consequence of which many parents declined sending their sons: the only answer of the Governors to this calumny has been to compel the attendance of the boys three times a day at the mosque; a tolerably convincing proof that they entertain no anti-Mohammedan partialities.
As the School is expressly intended as a nursery for the army, all the ambition of the students is made to bear upon that point: extraordinary application, or regularity of conduct, is recompensed by a step of military rank; and thus, should the intention of the authorities ever be borne out, a youth of talent and good conduct may hereafter quit the college as an officer, and thus commence his actual career of life, where many of his predecessors have terminated their’s.
Having traversed the Lancastrian class, we reached the mathematical hall, where a considerable number of young men were busily engaged in colouring ground-plans of the surrounding country. The lower end of this stately apartment forms a deep bay, round which rows of seats are arranged amphitheatrically, having in the midst of them a table whereon are placed globes, charts, and all the requisites for study. The other extremity of the hall is terminated by a raised gallery, intended for the use of the Sultan, above which hangs his portrait in oils, executed by an Armenian artist, harsh, and crude, and wiry, as though it had been the production of a Chinese easel, and surmounted by a most elaborate drapery. Beneath the portrait is stretched a noble map of the Archipelago, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus. An electrifying machine, and a large map of America, an immense table, and the desks and seats of the students, made up the remainder of the furniture; and the apartment itself was by far the finest that I had yet seen in the country.
The next point of curiosity was the mosque; and I was no less surprised than gratified at the readiness with which Azmi Bey acceded to our desire of visiting it. The outer apartment, or vestibule, was covered with fine Indian matting, and before we traversed it the Bey requested my father to put off his boots, though he made no objection to my retaining my slippers. As we reached the door which opened into the body of the mosque, I perceived that we had arrived during the prayers. The High Priest sat with his arms folded above his ample robe; his dark brow surmounted by a turban of the sacred green, and his feet doubled under him, in a recess facing the entrance, chanting in a nasal and monotonous drawl; while a very slender congregation was scattered over the floor, squatted upon the rich carpets that covered it. But we no sooner made our appearance than the Mufti rose and quitted the mosque, followed by his little flock; and we were left in quiet possession of the elegant temple whence they had so hastily withdrawn.
The faith of the Musselmauns is that of love, not fear: to believe in One God, and to be charitable—and who shall deny that it is a comprehensive creed? The mosque in which we stood was the very embodiment of such a worship—the sunshine streamed through its many windows upon the most delicate fresco-painting, the brightest and richest of carpets, and the glittering lattices of the Imperial closet. The only dark object that met the eye was a curtain of olive-coloured cloth, surrounded by a bordering of flowers, delicately worked in tinted silks, which veiled the entrance of the marble steps leading to the pulpit—all beside was dazzlingly bright, and it was almost with regret that I returned into the vestibule, in order to ascend to the Sultan’s gallery.
A small hall and a handsome flight of stairs, closely covered with English carpeting, conducted us to an elegant anti-room, from which four doors, veiled by draperies of dove-coloured cloth heavily fringed, opened into as many apartments, appropriated to the Sultan and his suite.
The Imperial closet is richly hung with gold-coloured draperies, that fling a sunset glow on the surrounding objects: a magnificent sofa occupies one side of the room, and the floor is covered with a Brussels carpet. Portions of the gilded lattice open and shut at pleasure; and the whole has so perfectly Oriental an effect, that you involuntarily think of Scheherazade and her fable-loving Sultan; and forget the sanctity of the place, while contemplating the luxury of its arrangement.