ST. GEORGE'S GREEK CHURCH, NOW A MOSQUE, CONSTANTINOPLE
When seen from without it looks colossal. It is splendid and imposing, but it is much more, for it has a curiously fantastic, and indeed almost whimsical charm, as if its builder, Sinan, had been a playful genius, full of gaiety and exuberance of spirit, who made this great mosque with joy and with lightness of heart, but who never forgot for a moment his science, and who could not be vulgar even in his most animated moments of invention. Massiveness and grace are blended together in this beautiful exterior. Round the central dome multitudes of small domes—airy bubbles thrown up on the surface of the mosque—are grouped with delightful fantasy. Four minarets, the two farthest from the mosque smaller than their brethren, soar above the trees. They are gray, and the walls of the mosque are gray and white. In the forecourt there is a fine fountain covered with a cupola; the roof of the cloisters which surround it is broken up into twenty-four little domes. A garden lies behind the mosque, and the great outer court is planted with trees.
In the garden are the turbehs, or tombs, of Suleiman the Magnificent and of Roxalana, "the joyous one," that strange captive from Russia, who by her charm and the power of her temperament subdued a nation's ruler, who shared the throne of the sultan, who guided his feet in the ways of crime, and who to the day of her death was adored by him. For Roxalana's sake, Suleiman murdered his eldest son by another wife, and crept out from behind a curtain to look upon him dead; and for Roxalana's sake that son's son was stabbed to death in his mother's arms. Now the fatal woman sleeps in a great octagonal marble tomb near the tomb of her lord and slave.
An atmosphere of peace and of hoary age broods over these tombs and the humble graves that crowd close about them. Mulberry-trees, fig-trees, and cypresses throw patches of shade on the rough gray pavement, in which is a small oval pool, full of water lest the little birds should go thirsty. A vine straggles over a wall near by; weeds and masses of bright yellow flowers combine their humble efforts to be decorative; and the call to prayer drops down from the mighty minarets to this strange garden of stones, yellow flowers, and weeds, where the lovers rest in the midst of Stamboul, which once feared and adored them. They were two criminals, but there was strength in their wickedness, strength in their pride and their passion. Romance attended their footsteps, and romance still lingers near them.
One morning, as I sat beneath the noble fig-tree which guards Roxalana's tomb, and listened to the voice of the muezzin floating over old Stamboul, and watched the birds happily drinking at the edge of their little basin in the pavement, I thought of the influence of cities. Does not Stamboul forever incite to intrigue, to lawlessness, to bloodshed? The muezzin calls to prayer, but from old Stamboul arises another voice sending forth an opposing summons. Suleiman heard it echoed by Roxalana, and slew his son; Roxalana heard and obeyed it; and how many others have listened and been fatally moved by it! It has sounded even across the waters of the sea and over the forests of Yildiz; and Armenians have been slain by thousands while Europe looked on. And perhaps in our day, and after we are gone, old Stamboul will command from its seven hills and will be horribly obeyed.
I shall always remember, among many less famous buildings, the small mosque of Rustem Pasha near the Egyptian Bazaar, with its beautiful arcade and its strangely confused interior, full of loveliness and bad taste, of atrocious modern painting and oleographic horrors, mingled with exquisite marble and perfect tiles. The wall of the arcade gleams with lustrous faience, purple and red, azure and milk-white, and with patterns of great flowers with green centers and turquoise leaves. I recall, too, the Mosaic Mosque, once the church of the monastery of the Chora, which stands on a hill from which Stamboul looks like a beautiful village embowered in green, cheerful and gaily fascinating. The church is ugly outside, yellow and lead-colored, with a white plaster minaret, and it is surrounded by wooden shanties like booths. But its mosaics are very interesting and beautiful, and its chief muezzin, Mustafa Effendi, is a delight in his long golden robe and his yellow turban.
Mustafa Effendi was born near Brusa in Asia Minor, but for forty-two years he has held the office of chief muezzin at the Mosaic Mosque, on which all his thoughts seem centered. He speaks English a little, and has an almost inordinate sense of humor. As he pointed out the mosaics to me with his wrinkled hand he abounded in comment, and more than once his thin voice was almost overwhelmed by ill-suppressed laughter. He seemed specially entertained as he drew my attention to two birds on the wall—"Monsieur Peacock and Madame Peahen"; and he was obliged to abandon all dignity and to laugh outright when we came to a company of saints and angels.
The most sacred mosque in Turkey lies outside of Stamboul, at Eyub, far up the Golden Horn and not very distant from the "sweet waters of Europe." In it, on their accession, the sultans are solemnly girded with Osman's sword instead of being crowned. Eyub is a place of tombs. Chief eunuchs and grand vizirs sleep near the sea in great mausoleums inclosed within gilded railings, and some of them surrounded by gardens; on the hillside above them thousands of the faithful rest under cypresses in graves marked by dusty headstones leaning awry.