The next day we took the “Oleg,” a Russian boat going straight to the shores of the Bosphorus. Except ourselves there were only three passengers on board: Mme. Lebedeff, an orientalised European, wearing a scarlet fez, who was returning to Constantinople, and two inhabitants of Alexandria, father and son, whom we took for Greeks, very taciturn-looking both of them. Our crossing was not agreeable, the sea being very rough. I was roused in the night by a terrible squall, which subsided only towards morning.
CHAPTER LIV
CONSTANTINOPLE
Towards midday, when we entered the “Golden Horn,” we were plentifully rewarded for our bad passage by the enchanting view of the bay, the harbour of Constantinople being one of the most beautiful in the world. We passed the Citadel and the “Dolman-Baghtcha Palace,” where Mourad, the deposed Sultan, is kept prisoner; all around the castle stood sentinels. We glided now along the verdant shores of “Boyouk-Dere,” the summer residence of the Ambassadors, and dropped anchor at Constantinople.
The town scrambles up and spreads itself over three sharp-sided hills. It is divided into three quarters: Scutari, on the Asiatic shore, inhabited mostly by Mahometans; Stamboul; and Pera-Galata, on the European side of the “Golden Horn,” joined by a long bridge to the Asiatic shore, where all the Embassies, banks and hotels are concentrated.
As soon as we were moored to the shore, a fleet of caïques surrounded us, and a crowd of sallow-faced guides invaded the deck, offering their services. We stepped into a canoe which took us to the Custom-House. After having got our baggage speedily chalked, we called a carriage and drove to the Hôtel de Londres, by narrow and badly paved streets, where appalling beggars and cripples of every description exposed to the eye their sores and insisted upon thrusting their distorted limbs into our faces. It was sickening to look at them!
The streets in Constantinople are awfully dirty, all the refuse is carried out and spilt into the middle of them, and the homeless dogs, who serve here as sweeps, lick them up greedily. Each street has its own band of dogs, who bark and howl throughout the whole night. The carriages and horsemen don’t abstain running over them, and the greater part of these poor mongrels are lacking, here a paw, and there a tail. We saw fat Greeks chatting in groups, coffee drinking and smoking before their open shops. The Imams, in white turbans and flowing robes, sat dreaming on the threshold of their dwellings. They are also free to engage in trade, and it is not uncommon to discover that an Imam owns a melon-shop, or proves to be a milkman. Long white veils conceal the form of the Turkish women from head to foot, whenever she leaves her house. I remarked that the old women, to whom age and ugliness permitted their faces to be revealed without offending the Mussulman’s ideas of propriety, were particularly well wrapped in their chadras, leaving only their eyes exposed, but the young and good-looking ones are not averse to show a little more.
The Hôtel de Londres being quite full, we were led into a large saloon, which was hastily converted into a bedroom. It was all windows on one side, and seemed horribly uncomfortable. Looking about me with dissatisfied eyes, my face began to lengthen. I suppose it was very silly, but I felt so tired and out of sorts that I could have cried.
On the day following our arrival we explored the outskirts of Constantinople. The Sultan had the amiability to send his aide-de-camp to go about with us to all the places of interest we should like to visit, and put at our disposal, as often as we pleased to use it, one of his row-boats with ten men. This Turkish officer, a very stylish young man, was the son of Jakir Pacha, ex-Ambassador of Turkey at St. Petersburg, where he has been educated in the Corps-des-Pages. He speaks Russian and French to perfection. He told me that he had a tedious time at Constantinople and was pining for St. Petersburg. In the first place he took us to Dolma-Bachtche Palace, and the Museum of Eski-Sarai, where we saw a throne inlaid with precious stones, dating from the 16th century. We went afterwards to the Cathedral of St. Sofia, transformed now into a Mosque. All the Christian paintings on the walls are scraped out, except a big image of Christ, which the Mussulmans could not manage to rub off. Then we were rowed over to Scutari, on the opposite shore, in a rich yawl with scarlet velvet cushions belonging to the Sultan. Its crew, ten bronzed-skinned men of athletic build, showing bare, muscular brown hands and legs, rowed vigorously bending to the oars. We moored before Belerbey Palace, and entered an immense hall with a marble floor, mirrored walls, and a fountain in the middle, looking out upon the Bosphorus. Before leaving the palace, we visited the sumptuous apartments of the chief of the eunuchs.
The next day we went for a sail in a steam-launch belonging to the Russian Embassy, the swiftest vessel on the Bosphorus. After having moored at Boyouk-Dere we took a long walk in the gardens of the Russian and French Embassies; the dead autumn leaves covered the paths with a yellow carpet, and were crushed under our feet. On our way back to Constantinople the moon showed above the hills, lighting the Bosphorus.