The Grand Bazaar of Constantinople, and its infinite Variety of Wonders—Silent Shopkeepers—Female Curiosity—Adventure with a Black-eyed Stranger—The Bezestein—The Stronghold of Orientalism—Picture of a Dragoman—The Kibaub-Shop—A Dinner without Knives, Forks, or Chairs—Cistern of the Thousand and One Columns.
Bring all the shops of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, around the City Hall, remove their fronts, pile up all their goods on shelves facing the street, cover the whole with a roof, and metamorphose your trim clerks into bearded, turbaned, and solemn old Mussulmans, smooth Jews, and calpacked and rosy Armenians, and you will have something like the grand bazaar of Constantinople. You can scarcely get an idea of it, without having been there. It is a city under cover. You walk all day, and day after day, from one street to another, winding and turning, and trudging up hill and down, and never go out of doors. The roof is as high as those of our three-story houses, and the dim light, so favourable to shop-keepers, comes struggling down through skylights, never cleaned except by the rains of heaven.
Strolling through the bazaar is an endless amusement. It is slow work, for the streets are as crowded as a church-aisle after service; and, pushed aside one moment by a bevy of Turkish ladies, shuffling along in their yellow slippers, muffled to the eyes, the next by a fat slave carrying a child, again by a kervas armed to the teeth, and clearing the way for some coming dignitary, you find your only policy is to draw in your elbows, and suffer the motley crowd to shove you about at their pleasure.
Each shop in this world of traffic may be two yards wide. The owner sits cross-legged on the broad counter below, the height of a chair from the ground, and hands you all you want without stirring from his seat. One broad bench counter runs the length of the street, and the different shops are only divided by the slight partition of the shelves. The purchaser seats himself on the counter, to be out of the way of the crowd, and the shopman spreads out his goods on his knees, never condescending to open his lips except to tell you the price. If he exclaims “bono,” or “calo,” (the only words a real Turk ever knows of another language), he is stared at by his neighbours as a man would be in Broadway who should break out with an Italian bravura. Ten to one, while you are examining his goods, the bearded trader creeps through the hole leading to his kennel of a dormitory in the rear, washes himself, and returns to his counter, where, spreading his sacred carpet in the direction of Mecca, he goes through his prayers and prostrations, perfectly unconscious of your presence, or that of the passing crowd. No vocation interferes with his religious duty. Five times a day, if he were running from the plague, the Mussulman would find time for prayers.
The Frank purchaser attracts a great deal of curiosity. As he points to an embroidered handkerchief, or a rich shawl, or a pair of gold-worked slippers, Turkish ladies of the first rank, gathering their yashmacks securely over their faces, stop close to his side, not minding if they push him a little to get nearer the desired article. Feeling not the least timidity, except for their faces, these true children of Eve examine the goods in barter, watch the stranger’s countenance, and if he takes off his glove, or pulls out his purse, take it up and look at it, without even saying “by your leave.” Their curiosity often extends to your dress, and they put out their little henna-stained fingers and pass them over the sleeve of your coat with a gurgling expression of admiration at its fineness, or if you have rings or a watch-guard, they lift your hand or pull out your watch with no kind of scruple, I have met with several instances of this in the course of my rambles. But a day or two ago I found myself rather more than usual a subject of curiosity. I was alone in the street of embroidered handkerchiefs (every minute article has its peculiar bazaar), and wishing to look at some of uncommon beauty, I called one of the many Jews always near a stranger to turn a penny by interpreting for him, and was soon up to the elbows in goods that would tempt a female angel out of Paradise. As I was selecting one for a purchase, a woman plumped down on the seat beside me, and fixed her great, black, unwinking eyes upon my face, while an Abyssinian slave and another white woman, both apparently her dependents, stood respectfully at her back. A small turquoise ring (the favourite colour in Turkey), first attracted her attention. She took up my hand in her soft, fat fingers, and dropped it again without saying a word. I looked at my interpreter, but he seemed to think it nothing extraordinary, and I went on with my bargain. Presently my fine-eyed friend pulled me by the sleeve, and as I leaned toward her, rubbed her forefinger very quickly over my cheek, looking at me intently all the while. I was a little disturbed with the lady’s familiarity, and asked my Jew what she wanted. I found that my rubicund complexion was something uncommon among these dark-skinned orientals, and she wished to satisfy herself that I was not painted! I concluded my purchase, and putting the parcel into my pocket, did my prettiest at an oriental salaam, but to my mortification, the lady only gathered up her yashmack, and looked surprised out of her great eyes at my freedom. My Constantinople friends inform me that I am to lay no “unction to my soul” from her notice, such liberties being not at all particular. The husband exacts from his half-dozen wives only the concealment of their faces, and they have no other idea of impropriety in public.
In the centre of the bazaar, occupying about as much space as the body of the City Hall in New York, is what is called the bezestein. You descend into it from four directions by massive gates which are shut, and all persons excluded, except between seven and twelve of the forenoon. This is the core of Constantinople—the soul and citadel of orientalism. It is devoted to the sale of arms and to costly articles only. The roof is loftier, and the light more dim than on the outer bazaars, and the merchants who occupy its stalls are old and of established credit. Here are subjects for the pencil! If you can take your eye from those Damascus sabres, with their jewelled hilts and costly scabbards, or from those gemmed daggers and guns inlaid with silver and gold, cast a glance along that dim avenue and see what a range there is of glorious old grey beards, with their snowy turbans! These are the Turks of the old régime, before Sultan Mahmoud disfigured himself with a coat like a “dog of a Christian,” and broke in upon the customs of the Orients. These are your opium-eaters, who smoke even in their sleep, and would not touch wine if it were handed to them by houris! These are your fatalists, who would scarce take the trouble to get out of the way of a lion, and who are as certain of the miracle of Mohammed’s coffin as of the length of the pipe, or of the quality of the tobacco of Shiraz!
I have spent many an hour in the bezestein, steeping my fancy in its rich orientalism, and sometimes trying to make a purchase for myself or others. It is curious to see with what perfect indifference these old cross-legs attend to the wishes of a Christian. I was idling round one day with an English traveller, whom I had known in Italy, when a Persian robe of singular beauty hanging on one of the stalls arrested my companion’s attention. He had with him his Turkish dragoman, and as the old merchant was smoking away and looking right at us, we pointed to the dress over his head, and the interpreter asked to see it. The Mussulman smoked calmly on, taking no more notice of us than of the white clouds curling through his beard. He might have sat for Michael Angelo’s Moses. Thin, pale, calm, and of a statue-like repose of countenance and posture, with a large old-fashioned turban, and a curling beard half mingled with grey, his neck bare, and his fine bust enveloped in the flowing and bright coloured drapery of the East—I had never seen a more majestic figure. He evidently did not wish to have anything to do with us. At last I took out my snuff-box, and addressing him with “effendi!” the Turkish title of courtesy, laid my hand on my breast and offered him a pinch. Tobacco in this unaccustomed shape is a luxury here, and the amber mouth-piece emerged from his moustache, and putting his three fingers into my box, he said “pekkhe!” the Turkish ejaculation of approval. He then made room for us on his carpet, and with a cloth measure took the robe from its nail, and spread it before us. My friend bought it unhesitatingly for a dressing-gown, and we spent an hour in looking at shawls, of prices perfectly startling, arms, chalices for incense, spotless amber for pipes, pearls, bracelets of the time of Sultan Selim, and an endless variety of things “rich and rare.” The closing of the bezestein gates interrupted our agreeable employment, and our old friend gave us the parting salaam very cordially for a Turk. I have been there frequently since, and never pass without offering my snuff-box, and taking a whiff or two from his pipe, which I cannot refuse, though it is not out of his mouth, except when offered to a friend, from sunrise to midnight.
One of the regular “lions” of Constantinople is a kibaub shop, or Turkish restaurant. In a ramble with our consul, the other day, in search of the newly-discovered cistern of a “thousand and one columns,” we found ourselves, at the hungry hour of twelve, opposite a famous shop near the slave-market. I was rather staggered at the first glance. A greasy fellow, with his shirt rolled to his shoulders, stood near the door, commending his shop to the world by slapping on the flank a whole mutton that hung beside him, while, as a customer came in, he dexterously whipped out a slice, had it cut in a twinkling into bits as large as a piece of chalk (I have stopped five minutes in vain, to find a better comparison), strung upon a long iron skewer, and laid on the coals. My friend is an old Constantinopolitan, and had eaten kibaubs before. He entered without hesitation, and the adroit butcher, giving his big trowsers a fresh hitch, and tightening his girdle, made a new cut for his “narrow-legged” customers, and wished us a good appetite (the Turks look with great contempt on our tight pantaloons, and distinguish us by this epithet). We got up on the platform, crossed our legs under us as well as we could, and I cannot deny that the savoury missives that occasionally reached my nostrils, bred a gradual reconciliation between my stomach and my eyes.
In some five minutes, a tin platter was set between us, loaded with piping hot kibaubs, sprinkled with salad, and mixed with bits of bread; our friend the cook, by way of making the amiable, stirring it up well with his fingers as he brought it along. As Modely says in the play, “In love or mutton, I generally fall to without ceremony,” but, spite of its agreeable flavour, I shut my eyes, and selected a very small bit, before I commenced upon the kibaubs. It was very good eating, I soon found out, and, my fingers once greased (for we are indulged with neither knife, fork, nor skewer, in Turkey), I proved myself as good a trencherman as my friend.