I inquired of an attaché of the Porte whether the Sultan was aware of the waste of life in his fleet, where a week seldom passes in which some luckless wretch does not fall a victim to the wrath of the High Admiral; and the coolness of the answer was inimitable: “What has His Highness to do with it?” “How!” I rejoined in my turn, “are they not his subjects?” “Of course; but Tahir Pasha commands the fleet; and, while he does so, he has a right to enforce its discipline as he thinks best. Why should the Sultan interfere?” “But such wholesale cruelty is so revolting.” “Perhaps so; yet how can it be remedied?” “Were I the Sultan,” I answered unhesitatingly, “I would decapitate the High Admiral; it would be a saving of human blood.” The Turk laughed at my earnestness as he replied; “Mashallah! you have hit upon a radical remedy. But how would you secure the fleet against a second Tahir Pasha?”
He was right. The evil exists rather in the system than in the individual; but it is, nevertheless, a blessing for Turkey, that the equal of her High Admiral, for ruthlessness and cruelty, is probably not to be found in the country. And yet, to look at him, you would imagine that no thought of violence, no impulse of revenge, had ever stirred his spirit; he has the head of an anchorite, and the brow of a saint. I never beheld a more benevolent countenance—Lavater would have been at fault with him.
One of the most pleasant excursions that can be made to the opposite coast, is to Unkiar Skelessi, or the Sultan’s Pier; a sweet valley, under the shadow of the Giant’s Mountain, in which the famous treaty was signed with Russia. It is profusely shaded with majestic trees, the largest in the neighbourhood, and is entirely covered with rich grass. The spot on which the ceremony took place is overhung with maples, and washed by a running stream: behind it rises a range of hills; and on its left stands an extensive manufactory of cloth, and a paper-mill, erected at an immense expense, and furnished with their elaborate machinery by the present Sultan, who caused an elegant kiosk to be erected upon the height for his own use, when he went to superintend the works, which were, however, abandoned as soon as the novelty had worn off. They are now falling rapidly to ruin; and the noble run of water which was forced from its channel to turn the wheels of the mill, is wasting itself in an useless course across the valley, ere it is finally lost in the Bosphorus.
This lovely spot is much frequented on festival days by all classes of the population, who form pic-nic parties, and spend hours under the shade of the tall trees, sipping their coffee and sherbet; or occupying the different terraces which overlook the Bosphorus, with regular pleasure-parties, whose servants come well provided with provisions, and who linger throughout the whole day, enjoying the cool breezes from the sea, and the long shadows of the boughs beneath which they sit.
Higher up the valley, you generally meet with an encampment of Bedouin Arabs, where you are almost certain to see two or three faces of dark flashing beauty, which repay you for the annoyance that you experience from the importunity of the troop of children who assail you directly you approach the tents; little, ragged, merry-looking, vociferous urchins, of whom you cannot rid yourself either by bribes or menaces. These dark, proud beauties—for they are proud-looking, even amid their tatters, with their large, wild, black eyes, and their long raven hair plaited in many braids, which fall upon their shoulders, and hang below their waists; their round, smooth arms bare to the elbow, whence the large, hanging sleeves fall back; and their well-turned little feet peeping out from beneath their ample trowsers; these dark, proud beauties greet you with a smile, and a “Mashallah!” that introduce you to teeth like pearls, and voices like music; and as they sit, weaving their baskets for the market of Constantinople, they extend towards you their slender, henna-tipped fingers, and ask your piastres, without taking the trouble to rise, rather as a tribute to their loveliness, than as an offering to their necessities.
To escape from the importunities of the children, whom the sight of the tempting metal renders only more importunate, you have but to plunge deeper into the valley, and lose yourself among the majestic plane trees with which it abounds. The nightingale alone disturbs the deep silence of the solitude, save when at intervals the lowing of the cattle on the mountain sweeps along upon the wind.
It was here that De Lille wrote his “Pleasures of Imagination.”—It was here that De la Martine improvised to the memory of his daughter; the soil is poetic.