Our rowers had calculated to a nicety, for, as the sound died away, the caïque touched the crazy wooden pier of Topphannè, and we were once more in Europe!
There is not a locality throughout the whole of the capital more strictly or more richly oriental in its aspect than the small square of Topphannè. In the midst stands the celebrated Kilidge Ali Pasha Djiamini, or Fountain of the Mosque of Ali Pasha, a French renegade, who built the temple which bears his name. Constantinople boasts no other fountain of equal beauty. Its rich and elegant arabesques are beyond all praise; and, when the sun is shining on them, almost look like jewels. It has, however, suffered materially from the reforming mania of the Sultan, who, in his rage for improvement, has replaced its wavy and deeply-projecting roof with a little terrace railing, out of all keeping, alike with its architecture and its ornaments; and who was with difficulty persuaded not to destroy it altogether.
On one side of the fountain is the mosque to which it belongs, and on the other the kiosk of Halil Pasha, with its magnificent portal and glittering casements. But to be seen to perfection, the square of Topphannè must be visited during the autumn, when the rich fruits of Asia are scattered over its whole extent; piles of perfumed melons, pyramids of yellow grapes, heaps of scarlet pomegranates—the golden orange, the amber-coloured lemon, the ruddy apple, the tufted quince, all are poured forth before you. Nor are the vendors less various or less glowing than their merchandize, as they sit doubled-up upon their mats, clad in all the colours of the rainbow, with their chibouks between their lips; rather waiting than looking for customers—a bright sky above them, and the blended languages of many lands swelling upon the wind.
Had I landed at Topphannè on my arrival in Turkey, I should have fancied myself a spectator of one of the scenes described by the tale-telling Schererazade.
CHAPTER XVI.
Turkish Superstitions—Auguries—The Court Astrologer—The Evil Eye—Danger of Blue Eyes—Imperial Firman—The Babaluk—The Ceremony—Sable Pythonesses—Witchcraft.
The Turks are strangely superstitious; they cling resolutely to the absurd and wild fancies which have been banished from Europe for centuries; and that too with a blindness of faith, and a tenacity of purpose, quite in keeping with their firm and somewhat dogged natures.
Many of their superstitions they inherit from the Romans; they extract auguries of good and evil from the entrails of fresh-slaughtered animals—they draw inferences from the flight of birds—they have auspicious and inauspicious hours, which are gravely determined by the Astrologers; and no Osmanli ever undertakes a journey, builds a house, marries a wife, or commences any business of importance, without satisfying himself on this important point. Should evil or disappointment overtake him, despite the precaution he has used, he never blames either his own mismanagement or another’s treachery; neither does he sink beneath the trial: he tells you that it is his kismet—his fate—and he calmly submits to what he considers to have been inevitable; and should misfortunes accumulate about him, instead of attributing them to worldly causes, he ascribes them to felech—his constellation—without searching further.