Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean on board an American frigate

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

We reached the waste plains above the city at sunset, and turned a little out of our way to enter through the Turkish cemetery (poetically called by Mr. MacFarlane “death’s coronal”), on the summit and sides of the hill behind Pera. Broad daylight, as it was still without, it was deep twilight among its thick-planted cypresses; and our horses, starting at the tall, white tombstones, hurried through its damp hollows and emerged on a brow overlooking the bright and crowded Bosphorus, bathed at the moment in a flood of sunset glory. I said again, as I reined in my horse and gazed down upon those lovely waters, there is no such scene of beauty in the world! And again I say, “poor Slingsby” never was here!

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[17]	Whether the difficulty of talking through the yashmack, which is drawn tight over the mouth and nose, may account for it, or whether they have another race of the sex in the East, I am not prepared to say, but Turkish women are remarkable for their taciturnity.

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LETTER XXXIX.

Scutari—Tomb of the Sultana Valide—Mosque of the Howling Dervishes—A Clerical Shoemaker—Visit to a Turkish Cemetery—Bird’s-Eye View of Stamboul and its Environs—Seraglio-Point—The Seven Towers.

Pulled over to Scutari in a caique, for a day’s ramble. The Chrysopolis, the “golden city” of the ancients, forms the Asian side of the bay, and though reckoned, generally, as a part of Constantinople, is in itself a large and populous capital. It is built on a hill, very bold upon the side washed by the sea of Marmora, but leaning toward the seraglio, on the opposite shore, with the grace of a lady (Asia) bowing to her partner (Europe). You will find the simile very beautifully elaborated in the first chapter of “The Armenians.”

We strolled through the bazaar awhile, meeting, occasionally, a caravan of tired and dusty merchants, coming in from Asia, some with Syrian horses, and some with dusky Nubian slaves, following barefoot, in their blankets; and, emerging from the crowded street upon a square, we stopped a moment to look at the cemetery and gilded fountains of a noble mosque. Close to the street, defended by a railing of gilt iron, and planted about closely with cypresses, stands a small temple of airy architecture, supported on four slender columns, and enclosed by a net of gilt wire, forming a spacious aviary. Within sleeps the Sultana Valide. Her costly monument, elaborately inscribed in red and gold, occupies the area of this poetical sepulchre; small, sweet-scented shrubs half bury it in their rich flowers, and birds of the gayest plumage flutter and sing above her in their beautiful prison. If the soul of the departed Sultana is still susceptible of sentiment, she must look down with some complacency upon the disposition of her “mortal coil.” I have not seen so fanciful a grave in my travels.

We ascended the hill to the mosque of the Howling Dervishes. It stands in the edge of the great cemetery of Scutari, the favourite burial-place of the Turks. The self-torturing worship of this singular class of devotees takes place only on a certain day of the week, and we found the gates closed. A small café stood opposite, sheltered by large plane-trees, and on a bench at the door sat a dervish, employed in the unclerical vocation of mending slippers. Calling for a cup of the fragrant Turkish coffee, we seated ourselves on the matted bench beside him, and, entering into conversation, my friend and he were soon upon the most courteous terms. He laid down his last, and accepted a proffered narghilé, and, between the heavily-drawn puff’s of the bubbling vase, gave us some information respecting his order, of which the peculiarity that most struck me was a law compelling them to follow some secular profession. In this point, at least, they are more apostolic than the clergy of Christendom. Whatever may be the dervish’s excellence as a “mender of souls,” thought I, as I took up the last, and looked at the stitching of the bright new patch, (may I get well out of this sentence without a pun!) I doubt whether there is a divine within the Christian pale who could turn out so pretty a piece of work in any corresponding calling. Our coffee drunk and our chibouques smoked to ashes, we took leave of our papoosh-mending friend, who laid his hand on his breast, and said, with the expressive phraseology of the East, “You shall be welcome again.”