CHAPTER XVII.
Turkish Ladies “At Home”—The Asiatic Sweet Waters—Holy Ground—The Glen of the Valley—Hand Mirrors—Holyday Groups—Courtesy of the Oriental Females to Strangers—The Beautiful Devotee—The Pasha’s Wife—A Guard of Honour—Change of Scene—The Fortress of Mahomet—Amiability of the Turkish Character.
The traveller who desires to see the Turkish women really “at home,” should visit the beautiful valley of Guiuk-Suy, the Sweet Waters of Asia, on a Friday during the hot months. This lovely spot, shut in on three sides by lofty hills covered with vegetation, is open to the Bosphorus immediately opposite to the Castle of Europe, the prison of the Janissaries, where the branch-embowered river which gives its name to the locality, (literally “chest-water”) runs rippling into the sunlighted channel.
The transition is delicious, as, shooting round an abrupt point of land, gay with its painted palace and leafy garden, you glide into the deep shadows of the little river, whose fringe of trees throws a twilight softness over the water, and mirrors itself in the calm ripple. Beneath the boughs rise, as is usual on every spot of peace and beauty, the columned head-stones of many a departed Mussulmaun; while the birds, screened from the noon-day heats, are ever pouring forth their glad song in all the gushing joyousness of conscious security.
Your boatmen, refreshed by the grateful coolness of the locality, speedily bring you to an open bridge; which, spanning the river at its narrowest point, unites the secluded valley, in which the holyday-keeping crowd are wont to assemble during the noon-tide sunshine, with the more open space on which they congregate towards the evening, to profit by the waters of a superb fountain of white marble, richly adorned with arabesques; and to inhale the fresh breeze that sweeps over the Bosphorus.
The stretch of turf on which the ladies spread their carpets, drive their arabas, and spend the long summer morning, is screened from the river by a small space thickly wooded, and appropriated to the men; who smoke their chibouks, and enjoy their sherbet and water-melons, far from the gossipry of their more voluble helpmeets. Passing through this “holy ground,” you come at once upon the lovely nook, which, surrounded on all sides by trees, and thronged with company, affords one of the prettiest coup-d’œils in the world.
PART OF THE VALLEY OF GUIUK-SUY.
Here the Sultanas move slowly along over the smooth turf, the vizors of their oxen flashing with foil and plate glass, and the deep golden edges of their araba-awnings glittering in the sunshine; while they lean on their silken cushions, with their yashmacs less carefully arranged than on ordinary occasions. Here the gilded carriage of the Pasha’s Harem, with its gaily tasselled draperies, and its gaudily caparisoned horses, rolls rapidly over the yielding verdure; while the veiled beauty within screens her pure, pale loveliness with a fan of feathers, which serves at once to amuse her idleness, and to display the fairy-like hand that grasps its ivory handle, with the priceless gems which glitter on the slender fingers, and the taper wrist. Here, the wives of the Bey, the Effendi, and the Emir spread their Persian carpets, and their crimson rugs; and, while the elder ladies remove the fold of muslin which veils the lower portion of their faces, and indulge themselves in the luxury of the kadeun-chibouk, or woman’s pipe; the younger of the party find amusement no less engrossing, in the re-arrangement of their head-dresses with the assistance of a hand-mirror, (the constant travelling companion of a Turkish female), which is held by a slave who kneels at the edge of the carpet.