Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor / Series One and Series Two in one Volume

by R. Walsh

Below the promontory of Scutari, the Bosphorus rushes out with its rapid current, and, no longer confined within its narrow shores, expands itself into the open sea. The limpid torrent, like that of some great river tumbling down from its source, now wheels and boils, and creates such commotion that boats are oftentimes dangerously entangled.

On the European shore, and opposite to Scutari, two promontories project into the Bosphorus. The first is the peninsula of Pera, its lower part terminated by the ancient city of Galata, where the enterprising Genoese established one of their commercial marts under the Greek emperors, and where their language still attests their origin. The walls, with their ramparts and towers, are still entire; and the gates are nightly shut by the Turks with the same vigilant precaution as they were by their former masters. This is the crowded mart, where merchants of all nations have their stores and counting-houses, and which the active and busy genius of the Genoese still seems to animate.

The town of Pera occupies the elevated ridge of a high promontory between the harbour and the Bosphorus. On the spine of this eminence the European natives have established their residence. The merchants, whose stores and offices are below, have their dwelling-houses on this lofty and healthful elevation, to which they are seen climbing in groups every evening, when the business of the day is over. Their habitations form a strong contrast to those of the Turks. They are lofty, solid, and convenient, and from their height command a magnificent view of the circumjacent seas, with all their bays and islands. Here also the ambassadors of the different powers of Europe have their palaces, among which the British, before its destruction by fire, was the most beautiful and conspicuous.

Below the promontory of Pera, the noble harbour of “The Golden Horn” opens to the view, its entrance formed by the points of Galata and that of the seraglio. Here it is that ships of all nations are seen floating side by side, and indicating, by the peculiarity of their structure, the people to which they belong. But the most remarkable and characteristic are those which are sent from the different parts of the vast Turkish empire, in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The enormous vessels that compose the Turkish fleet are the most conspicuous objects. Some of them rise out of the water with a length and breadth so imposing, as to excite wonder how a nation, so ignorant of maritime affairs, and limited in their commercial intercourse, could have built such stupendous specimens of naval architecture. Many of them carry 140 brass cannon, of a calibre so enormous on the lower deck, as to throw balls of 100 lbs. weight. They are navigated by crews of 2000 men, and seem capable of opening a cannonade that could instantly sink the largest opponent. The brightness of their guns of burnished brass, the freshness of their cordage, the snowy whiteness of their sails, the gaiety and richness of their painting, always fresh and bright, give an impression that the nation to which they belong must have brought the art of ship-building to the highest perfection. On the bow of each is a colossal lion, highly carved and naturally coloured, which presents the emblem of the Turkish empire in its most formidable attitude. The first impression made by these great engines of naval warfare, is the vast superiority they possess, and the hopelessness of any opposition to them. Yet they are utterly powerless in the unskilful hands that guide them. The Turks, like their predecessors the Persians, are impotent by sea; and as the ancient Greeks with ease destroyed the fleets of the one, so did the modern Greeks those of the other with their tiny ships. Their small craft, like fishing-boats, with decayed timbers, ragged sails, and rotten cordage, which are now sometimes seen in the harbour lying peaceably beside the Turkish men-of-war, were more than a match for those gorgeous but unmanageable masses; and their rusty iron guns, whose explosion sounded like the shot of a pistol in comparison, silenced the immense batteries of ordnance, that seemed capable of blowing a Greek island out of the water.

The galleys of Africa next attract attention; these are always summoned, and ready to join the naval armaments of their sovereign, like the military vassals of some feudal lord. Their habits of ferocity, though restrained, still continue; when attached to the Turkish fleet, they carry ruin and desolation wherever they sail. These allies destroyed, in Greece, whatever the less merciless Turks had spared, and would have utterly exterminated the remnant of that people, had not Christian Europe interfered.

Beside these pirate galleys of the Mediterranean, are to be seen moored the lofty merchantmen of the Euxine. The singular structure of these vessels is peculiar to the eastern coasts of the Black Sea, and has been preserved from the earliest times. These immense and unwieldy ships rise to a considerable height out of the water, both at the bow and the stern, and seem altogether incapable of resisting a gale of wind. They have seldom more than one mast and one immense mainsail, and seem to move with so infirm a balance, that they totter along through the water as if about to upset every moment. Approaching Constantinople, they are overtaken, late in the year, by the violent north-easter of the Melktem, or the misty weather that then prevails; and unable to make the narrow entrance of the Bosphorus, or bear up from a lee-shore, less skilful or less fortunate than the Argonauts, they are either dashed on the Cyanean rocks, or driven on the sands. Against this misfortune they adopt many superstitious precautions. Every vessel has a wreath of blue beads suspended from the prow, as a protection against the glance of an evil eye, which is supposed to expend itself on this amulet.

But the vessel which gives the “Golden Horn” its most distinctive character and striking feature, is the “light caïque,” It is impossible to conceive forms more elegant; from their levity and fragility, they have been compared to an egg-shell divided longitudinally, and drawn out at each end to a point. They project to a considerable elongation at the stem and stern, and, gracefully ascending from below, seem to touch the water only at a point. They are made of thin beech-plank, not grosser than the birch-bark of an Indian canoe, and finished with considerable care and neatness. The gunwale and sides are tastily carved with beads and various devices of Turkish sculpture, and the pure and polished wood is not defiled by paint. The exceeding levity of the materials of which the caïques are composed, the slight resistance they meet with in the water from the small surface in contact with it, and the great strength and dexterity of the caïquegees or boatmen who propel them, give them wonderful rapidity. The oars are not, like ours, confined in rullocks, emitting a harsh sound by their attrition, and impeding the stroke by their concussion; they are paddles of shaven beech, exactly poised by a protuberance on the handle to counteract the length of the blade, and bound to the gunwale by a single pin, with a thong of sheep-skin leather. This is constantly kept oiled, so that the stem slips freely and noiselessly through the loop, and the blade cuts the water with the whole collected strength of the rower. Each caïquegee pulls a pair of oars, and their skiffs glide along the surface with the speed, silence, and flexibility of a flight of swallows. The only objection to their structure is the difficulty of getting into them. If the passenger step on the stem or stern, his footing has no stability, as the boat has no hold of the water beneath the point of pressure: if he step on the gunwale, it turns over at once, as there is no keel to offer resistance. It requires therefore considerable caution to enter a caïque; and when this is effected, the passenger sits on the bottom, either at length or from side to side. Sometimes these unstable skiffs carry a sail, at the imminent hazard of upsetting. As they have neither keel, ballast, or rudder, the passenger must move hastily to the windward side, and watch to counterpoise the pressure of the sail. Caïques are the only ferry-boats to cross from shore to shore, and various wooden platforms, called iskelli, project from the beach for their accommodation. On each of these stands a venerable Turk with a long beard, and generally a badge, which denotes him to be a hadgee, or “pilgrim,” who has made a perilous journey to the tomb of the Prophet. He keeps order with his baton; and when you are safely deposited in the bottom of the boat, he gives you the pilgrim’s benediction−Allah smaladik, “I commend you to God.” From the constant and crowded intercourse between 700,000 people, inhabiting the peninsulas on both sides of the water, and each skiff taking no more than one or two passengers, the water is covered all day long with these caïques in constant motion. The passengers are clad in snow-white turbans, tall calpacs, and flowing pelisses, of scarlet or other dazzling colours, so that this ever-moving scene is a perpetual change of elegant forms and brilliant hues.

Mixing with them, and penetrating through the crowd, are daily seen the larger caïques, destined to convey the sultan, or some high dignitary, from the seraglio or the porte, to some palace or kiosk on the Bosphorus. These long galleys are propelled by sixteen or twenty pair of oars. They are ornamented by a long projecting prow, with various sculpture, curling over or about, and covered with the richest gilding. At the stem is a silken canopy, and within it the stately and solitary personage to whom it belongs. Below the canopy sits the Reis, the important person who guides it, with its valuable freight. This man is often chosen for his humour, with which the sultan is fond of amusing himself on his passage, like an European monarch, of old, with his fool; and he sometimes prefers him, for his talent in this way, to the first post in the empire. The Reis who most distinguished himself was the Delhi Abdallah. He had a loud voice, shouting out his words−a rude humour, very coarse−and a faculty of inventing new and extraordinary oaths and curses. After it was supposed that he had exhausted all the forms of imprecation, the sultan laid a wager one day that he could not invent a new one. To the great gratification of his master, he did so; and he was so pleased with his ingenuity, that he raised him at once from the state of a boatman on the Bosphorus to that of Capitan Pasha; and he who had never been on board a larger vessel than a caïque, now commanded the vast Turkish fleet. His first occupation was that of bostandgee, or gardener, at the seraglio. Such are the incongruous pursuits and rapid elevations of public men in Turkey.

Mixed with these light and elegant forms, are large, deep, and clumsy barges, rowed with long heavy sweeps, and filled with people of all nations crowded together. These are used for conveying persons to their residences in the villages along the shores of the Bosphorus. In a country where there are neither roads nor carriages, these boats are the only conveyance for the lower order of people. They are seen every evening slowly emerging from the harbour, filled with Turks, Jews, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, and Franks, in all their variety of costumes, covered over with a cloud of tobacco-smoke from their several chibouques, and making the harbour resound with the loud and discordant jargon of the several tongues.