[15] Irving says, in one of his most exquisite passages—“He who has sallied forth into the world like poor Slingsby, full of sunny anticipations, finds too soon how different the distant scene becomes when visited. The smooth place roughens as he approaches; the wild place becomes tame and barren; the fairy teints that beguiled him on, still fly to the distant hill, or gather upon the land he has left behind, and every part of the landscape is greener than the spot he stands on.” Full of merit and beautiful expression as this is, I, for one, have not found it true. Bright as I had imagined the much-sung lands beyond the water, I have found many a scene in Italy and the East that has more than answered the craving for beauty in my heart. Val d’Arno, Vallombrosa, Venice, Terni, Tivoli, Albano, the Isles of Greece, the Bosphorus, and the matchless valley I have described, have, with a hundred other spots less famous, far outgone in their exquisite reality, even the brightest of my anticipations. The passage is not necessarily limited in its meaning to scenery, however, and of moral disappointment it is beautifully true. There is many a “poor Slingsby,” the fate of whose sunny anticipations of life it describes but too faithfully.
[16] Sulymanye was built of the ruins of the church St. Euphemia, at Chalcedonia.

LETTER XXXVI.

Sultan Mahmoud at his Devotions—Comparative Splendour of Papal, Austrian, and Turkish Equipages—The Sultan’s Barge or Caïque—Description of the Sultan—Visit to a Turkish Lancasterian School—The Dancing Dervishes—Visit from the Sultan’s Cabinet—The Seraskier and the Capitan Pacha—Humble Origin of Turkish Dignitaries.

I had slept on shore, and it was rather late before I remembered that it was Friday (the Moslem Sunday), and that Sultan Mahmoud was to go in state to mosque at twelve. I hurried down the precipitous street of Pera, and, as usual, escaping barely with my life from the Christian-hating dogs of Tophana, embarked in a caique, and made all speed up the Bosphorus. There is no word in Turkish for faster, but I was urging on my caikjees by a wave of the hand and the sight of a bishlik (about the value of a quarter of a dollar), when suddenly a broadside was fired from the three-decker, “Mahmoudier,” the largest ship in the world, and to the rigging of every man-of-war in the fleet through which I was passing, mounted, simultaneously, hundreds of blood-red flags, filling the air about us like a shower of tulips and roses. Imagine twenty ships of war, with yards manned, and scarce a line in their rigging to be seen for the flaunting of colours! The jar of the guns, thundering in every direction close over us, almost lifted our light boat out of the water, and the smoke rendered our pilotage between the ships and among their extending cables rather doubtful. The white cloud lifted after a few minutes, and, with, the last gun, down went the flags altogether, announcing that the “Brother of the Sun” had left his palace.

He had but crossed to the mosque of the small village on the opposite side of the Bosphorus, and was already at his prayers when I arrived. His body-guard was drawn up before the door, in their villainous European dress, and, as their arms were stacked, I presumed it would be some time before the sultan reappeared, and I improved the interval in examining the handja-bashes or state-caïques, lying at the landing. I have arrived at my present notions of equipage by three degrees. The pope’s carriages at Rome rather astonished me. The emperor of Austria’s sleighs diminished the pope in my admiration, and the sultan’s caïques, in their turn, “pale the fires” of the emperor of Austria. The handja-bash is built something like the ancient galley, very high at the prow and stem, carries some fifty oars, and has a roof over her poop, supported by four columns, and loaded with the most sumptuous ornaments, the whole gilt brilliantly. The prow is curved over, and wreathed into every possible device that would not affect the necessary lines of the model; her crew are dressed in the beautiful costume of the country, rich and flowing, and with the costly and bright-coloured carpets hanging over her side, and the flashing of the sun on her ornaments of gold, she is really the most splendid object of state equipage (if I may be allowed the misnomer) in the world.

I was still examining the principal barge, when the troops stood to their arms, and preparation was made for the passing out of the sultan. Thirty or forty of his highest military officers formed themselves into two lines from the door of the mosque to the landing, and behind them were drawn up single files of soldiers. I took advantage of the respect paid to the rank of Commodore Patterson, and obtained an excellent position, with him, at the side of the caique. First issued from the door two Georgian slaves, bearing censers, from which they waved the smoke on either side, and the sultan immediately followed, supported by the capitan-pacha, the seraskier, and Haleil Pacha (who is to marry the Sultana Esmeh). He walked slowly down to the landing, smiling and talking gaily with the seraskier, and, bowing to the commodore in passing, stepped into his barge, seated himself on a raised sofa, while his attendants coiled their legs on the carpet below, and turned his prow across the Bosphorus.