FROM THE PAINTING MADE FOR THE CENTURY BY JULES GUÉRIN

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Upon Seraglio Point I found many more soldiers resting in groups by the edge of the sea, upon the waste ground that lies at the foot of the walls, beyond the delightful abandoned glades that are left to run wild and to shelter the birds. If you wish to understand something of the curious indifference that hangs, like moss, about the Turk, visit Seraglio Point. There, virtually in Stamboul, is one of the most beautifully situated bits of land in the world. Though really part of a great city, much of it has not been built upon. Among the trees on the ridge, looking to Marmora and Asia, to the Bosporus and the palaces, to the Golden Horn, Galata, and Pera, lie the many buildings and courts of the Old Seraglio, fairy-like in their wood. The snowy cupolas, the minaret, and towers look ideally Eastern. They suggest romantic and careless lives, cradled in luxury and ease. In that white vision one might dream away the days, watching from afar the pageant of the city and the seas, hearing from afar the faint voices of the nations, listening to strange and monotonous music, toying with coffee and rose-leaf jam in the jewel-like kiosk of Bagdad, and dreaming, always dreaming. There once the sultan dwelt in the Eski-Serai, which exists no longer, and, there was built the great Summer Palace, which was inhabited by Suleiman I and by his successors. Hidden in the Old Seraglio there are many treasures, among them the magnificent Persian throne, which is covered with gold and jewels. Beyond this neglected wonder-world the woods extend toward the waters—hanging woods by the sea; and the Turks care nothing about them. One may not wander through them; one may not sit in them; one may only look at them, and long to lose oneself in their darkness and silence, to vanish in their secret recesses. The Turk leaves them alone, to rot or to flourish, as Allah and nature will it.

On the third of Stamboul’s seven hills stands the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, all glorious without, as Santa Sophia is not, but disappointing within, despite its beautiful windows of jeweled glass from Persia, and the plaques of wonderful tiles which cover the wall on each side of the mihrab. Somber and dark, earth-colored and gray, dark green and gold, it has a poorly painted cupola and much plastered stone, which is ugly; but there is fascination in its old dimness, in its silence and desertion. More than once I was quite alone with it, and was able, undisturbed, to notice its chief internal beauty—the exquisite proportions which trick you at first into believing it to be much smaller than it is.

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.