Throughout the whole Tower, which is of great height, and contains seven ranges of cells, all of them tolerably lofty, there were but two cachots forcés, or dark dungeons; every apartment being furnished with a narrow, grated aperture for the admission of air and light, and a small marble cistern for containing water. I wished to explore one of the two, but was withheld by the soldiers, who assured me that, since the destruction of the Janissaries, no one had ventured to enter them, and that they might be, and probably were, oubliettes, where one false step would plunge me headlong to destruction.
Thus warned, I desisted reluctantly from my purpose; and, sooth to say, we were sufficiently surrounded by horrors, to be enabled to dispense with one more or less. Our next point was the guard-room; an extensive apartment, with a floor boarded transversely with narrow planks, forming a lattice-work, through which the guard could both see and hear the prisoner beneath; and roofed in the same manner. Having traced the tower nearly to its summit, we descended, and passing onward a few paces at its base, we found ourselves in a compartment of the covered way that connects the towers throughout the fortress; and which was furnished with large arched doorways on either side. Here, within a recess, hung an old Roman bow of such strength that no modern arm can bend it; and to this, as we were informed, the cord was attached used in strangling the condemned Janissaries. I confess that I thrilled less at the sight of this instrument of torture, than at the idea of the refinement of cruelty, which, in a locality replete with gloom, had selected such a spot for the work of death.
Hither was the victim dragged from his twilight cell. Here, where the fresh breeze of Heaven came lovingly to his forehead, quivering among the broad leaves of the wild fig-trees; and dancing on the sunlighted waters. Hither, where the bright day-beam shed over the world a light which to him was mockery! What had he to do with the fresh breeze and the genial beam? His knee was upon the earth, and the cord was about his neck. One gaze, one long, wild, withering gaze, while his executioners were busied with the fatal noose; one sigh, the deep concentrated inspiration of despair; a shriek, a struggle; the last grappling of the strong man with his murderers, and all was over; the cord was transferred from the throat to the feet of the victim; and they who were lately his comrades and his friends, seized the extremity of the fatal rope, and, dragging after them the yet quivering body, it was thus hurried ignominiously down the rough and steep stone stair which traverses the fortress, ere it arrived at the Traitor’s Gate.
But I will pursue the revolting image no further. As the mangled body was hurled into the sea, the long gun which occupies an embrasure near the entrance of the fortress was fired, to announce to the authorities at Constantinople that justice had been done upon the guilty.
Early morning and noon were the periods usually selected for these executions; and few are the individuals who have been long resident in Turkey, who can fail to remember the dismal report of the solitary gun as it came booming over the Bosphorus!
The few houses built within the walls of the fortress are surrounded by cheerful gardens, and are kept in tolerable repair. As we left the castle, we were politely accosted by the officer on guard, who inquired whether we desired to visit the fortress on the opposite coast, which was formerly used as a prison for the Bostangis, or Imperial Body Guard; the order with which we were furnished sufficing for both. But I had become so heart-sick among the dungeons of the Janissaries, that I prevailed on my father to decline the proposal; and we accordingly reembarked, and proceeded to the Grand Armoury at Dolma Batchè.
Here again we were obliged to avail ourselves of our order, no female ever having been hitherto admitted within the gates of the establishment; but it was merely the delay of a moment, and, having passed the entrance, we stood within a spacious court forming the centre of the quadrangle, surrounded by the entrances of the several workshops, and furnished with an immense marble reservoir containing water for the supply of the artificers.
The greatest activity and order prevails throughout the whole establishment. Fifteen hundred men are constantly employed within the walls; and their wages vary from one to two shillings a day, according to the difficulty of the work, and their ability to execute it creditably. No distinction either of creed or nation operates against the reception of an artificer; Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Jews are alike eligible, if capable of performing their allotted duties; but the most difficult and finished branches of the different departments are almost universally confided to Armenian workmen, who are the best artificers of the East.
The nominal head of the establishment is a Turk, but he does not interfere beyond making a weekly survey to ascertain that all is progressing satisfactorily; while his deputy, who is an Armenian, enters into the detail of the labour, makes the contracts for timber and metal, pays the workmen, and performs every other responsible duty. The number of firelocks completed daily, and sent across each evening to the Armoury within the walls of the Seraï Bournou, was stated to us to average seventy; but this was probably an exaggeration.
The musket-barrels are at present bored by hand-machinery, and between forty and fifty men are constantly employed at this labour alone; but a substantial and handsome stone edifice is now constructing in the immediate neighbourhood, under the superintendence, and according to the design, of an English architect, to which this branch of the establishment is to be transferred, and where the work is to be done by steam; by which means a great ultimate saving will be effected.