The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

V
THE CITY OF THE GRAND TURK

Poets, painters and other people with vivid imaginations and emotional natures have become ecstatic in describing the city of the Grand Turk, and while it has unique and exquisite attractions, it is no more beautiful than New York or San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Naples, Hongkong or half a dozen other cities I might name. There is none of the barbaric splendor, the gold and purple and blue and scarlet of Moscow, as seen from the Sparrow Hills; nor the fantastic pagodas and temples of Kioto or Peking. It has none of the quiet dignity of Stockholm or the soft beauty of Naples, but the colors that are lacking and the gorgeousness that is invisible is readily supplied by the imaginations of tourists, who generally see what they expect to see, no matter whether it is there or not. You find the same trouble in Holland and Spain after reading the books of D’Amicis, and at Venice after studying Ruskin. Perhaps it is the fault of the observer, who lacks sufficient sentiment, but when you begin to dissect the scene and separate the actual from the imaginary the criticism of practical minds is sustained.

The continents of Europe and Asia are separated by the Sea of Marmora, which is 110 miles long and 40 miles wide in its widest part. At the west end it is entered through the Hellespont or Dardanelles, a deep and swift stream or strait, about as wide as the Hudson River. The place where Leander swam across to visit Hero, his sweetheart, and where Lord Byron imitated his example, is only about three-quarters of a mile wide, and although to swim it was a prodigious feat in those days, it would not be more than an ordinary adventure to many members of a modern athletic club.

At its east end the Sea of Marmora is connected with the Black Sea by the Bosphorus, a channel similar to the Hellespont. These streams, which form a remarkable boundary between the continents, have always been regarded of great strategic importance, and from the time of Alexander the Great to Alexander II. of Russia have been fought for by rival nations.

Where the Bosphorus joins the Sea of Marmora there is a little bay, about half a mile wide at its mouth, growing gradually narrower and curving like a cornucopia for about three miles through the hills to a point where it receives fresh water from a little stream. This bay is called the Golden Horn. Between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora is a tongue of land similar in size and shape to Manhattan Island, upon which New York is built, except that it is higher in the center. This ridge, or “hog’s back,” rises about five hundred feet above the water, and at intervals is broken by gullies, several of them very wide and deep,—gashes that have been cut into the soil by water. This ridge or tongue of land is occupied by the old city of Stamboul, and upon the extreme point, corresponding to Battery Park, New York, is located the Seraglio, a group of palaces occupied by the Sultans before the nineteenth century. An imposing marble gate, by which the grounds are entered, is the ancient Sublime Porte, and from it is derived the title by which the Turkish government is often referred to in history and diplomatic discussions. The modern Sublime Porte is a still more imposing marble gate which leads into an inclosure where are situated the palace of the grand vizier, the ministry of finance and other official departments of the government.

The Sublime Porte, Mosque of St. Sophia
THE SERAGLIO, CONSTANTINOPLE

Upon the opposite side of the Bosphorus, situated to Stamboul as Jersey City is to New York, is Scutari, a city of residences, schools, hospitals, military barracks, carpet factories and other manufacturing establishments, with a population of about 50,000. It is surrounded by a group of fertile hills, which in the spring and summer are covered with brilliant foliage.

Upon the opposite side of the Golden Horn a steep hill, rising directly from the water, is occupied by the city of Galata, corresponding to Brooklyn. Its houses and shops are arranged in terraces along precipitous slopes to a height of five hundred feet; and on the other side of the crest, which slopes to the Golden Horn, is the city of Pera, which means “beyond”—that is, the place beyond the hill.

This completes the group of four cities, which, combined, are called Constantinople, and from the bridge which connects Stamboul and Galata, or at any other point between, they are spread out before the spectator like an audience in an amphitheater, rising in irregular terraces and showing patches of whitewashed walls among unpainted, wood-colored houses, shingled roofs and occasionally a roof of tile. Here and there appear squatty domes like warts, queer-looking towers and slender minarets, which are peculiar to Constantinople and are its greatest attraction. The domes indicate mosques and occupy the summits of the hills. Their ugliness heightens the beauty and grace of the minarets by which they are surrounded. The minarets take the place of church steeples and the campaniles or bell-towers that are usually attached to cathedrals in southern Europe. They look very slender and very tall, rising often to the height of three hundred feet—delicate, beautiful shafts, perhaps twenty feet in diameter at the bottom and gradually tapering to a needle point at the top, upon which a golden crescent is always placed. About the center, overlooking the roofs of the houses and the adjoining streets, are balconies, sometimes only one, sometimes two, and, on the taller minarets three, protected by beautifully carved balustrades and sustained by brackets, from which the muezzin calls the Mohammedans to prayer. In Constantinople most of the minarets are of marble and other stones, as they were built by rich Sultans as monuments to their own memory, but elsewhere such structures are of brick, coated with stucco, and kept neatly whitewashed. Whatever may be said of the Moslem, his houses of worship always show evidences of careful and constant attention. You seldom see a slovenly mosque and seldom a mosque out of repair. They set an example to other religious sects in this, as in several other matters.