Various - Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

Our hotel stands in the Rue de Pera, the principal street of the European quarter, and as it is narrow the lights from the shops make it safe and agreeable to walk out in the evening. This is one of the few streets accessible to carriages, though in some parts it is difficult for two to pass each other. Most of the shops are French and display Paris finery, but the most attractive are the fruit-shops with their open fronts, so you take in their inviting contents at a glance. Broad low counters occupy most of the floor, with a narrow passage leading between from the street to the back part of the shop, and counters and shelves are covered with tempting fruits and nuts. Orange boughs with the fruit on decorate the front and ceiling of the shop, and over all presides a venerable Turk. In the evening the shop is lighted by a torch, which blazes and smokes and gives a still more picturesque appearance to the proprietor and his surroundings. You stand in the street and make your purchases, looking well to your bargains, for the old fellow, with all his dignity, will not hesitate to cheat a "dog of a Christian" if he can. From every dark alley as we walked along several dogs would rush out, bark violently, and after following us a little way slink back to their own quarter again. Each alley and street of the city has its pack of dogs, and none venture on the domain of their neighbors. During the day they sleep, lying about the streets so stupid that they will hardly move; in fact, horses and donkeys step over them, and pedestrians wisely let them alone. After dark they prowl about, and are the only scavengers of the city, all garbage being thrown into the streets. The dogs of Pera have experienced, I suppose, the civilizing effects of constant contact with Europeans, as they are not at all as fierce as those of Stamboul. They soon learn to know the residents of their own streets and vicinity, and bark only at strangers.

Quite a pretty English garden has been laid out in Pera, commanding a fine view of the Bosphorus. There is a coffee-house in the centre, with tables and chairs outside, where you can sip your coffee and enjoy the view at the same time. The Turks make coffee quite differently from us. The berry is carefully roasted and then reduced to powder in a mortar. A brass cup, in shape like a dice-box with a long handle, is filled with water and brought to a boil over a brasier of coals: the coffee is placed in a similar brass dice-box and the boiling water poured on it. This boils up once, and is then poured into a delicate little china cup half the size of an after-dinner coffee-cup, and for a saucer you have what resembles a miniature bouquet-holder of silver or gilt filigree. If you take it in true Turkish style, you will drink your coffee without sugar, grounds and all; but a little sugar, minus the coffee-mud at the bottom, is much nicer. Coffee seems to be drunk everywhere and all the time by the Turks. The cafés are frequent, where they sit curled up on the divans dreamily smoking and sipping their fragrant coffee or hearing stories in the flowery style of the Arabian Nights . At the street corners the coffee-vender squats before his little charcoal brasier and drives a brisk business. If you are likely to prove a good customer at the bazaar, you are invited to curl yourself up on the rug on the floor of the booth, and are regaled with coffee. Do you make a call or visit a harem, the same beverage is immediately offered. Even in the government offices, while waiting for an interview with some grandee, coffee is frequently passed round. Here it is particularly acceptable, for without its sustaining qualities one could hardly survive the slow movements of those most deliberate of all mortals, the Turkish officials.

A few days after our arrival my friend of the steamer, Madame A–, the pretty Austrian bride, invited me to breakfast, and sent her husband's brother, a fine-looking young Greek, to escort me to her house. He spoke only Greek and Italian—I neither: however, he endeavored to beguile the way by conversing animatedly in Italian. As he gazed up at the sun several times, inhaled with satisfaction the exhilarating air and pointed to the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus and the distant hills, I presumed he was dilating on the fine weather and the glorious prospect. Not to be outdone in politeness, I smiled a great deal and replied to the best of my ability in good square English, to which he always assented, "Yes, oh yes!" which seemed to be all the English he knew. Fortunately, our walk was not long, and Madame A– was our interpreter during the breakfast. Her husband was absent.

The breakfast was half German, half Turkish. Here is the bill of fare: Oysters on the shell from the Bosphorus—the smallest variety I have ever seen, very dark-looking, without much flavor; fried goldfish; a sort of curry of rice and mutton, without which no Turkish meal would be complete; cauliflower fritters seasoned with cheese; mutton croquettes and salad; fruit, confectionery and coffee. With a young housekeeper's pride, Madame A– took me over her house, which was furnished in European style, with an occasional touch of Orientalism. In the centre of the reception-room was a low brass tripod on which rested a covered brass dish about the size of a large punch-bowl. In cold weather this is filled with charcoal to warm the room. "Cold comfort," I should think, when the snow falls, as it sometimes does in Constantinople, and the fierce, cold winds sweep down the Bosphorus from the Black Sea and the Russian steppes. As in all the best houses in Pera, there were bow-windows in the principal rooms of each story. A large divan quite fills each window, and there the Greek and Armenian ladies lean back on their cushions, smoke their cigarettes and have a good view up and down the street. There was a pretty music-room with cabinet piano and harp, and opening from that the loveliest little winter garden. The bow-window was filled with plants, and orange trees and other shrubs were arranged in large pots along the side of the room. The wall at one end was made of rock-work, and in the crevices were planted vines, ferns and mosses. Tiny jets of water near the ceiling kept the top moist, and dripped and trickled down over the rocks and plants till they reached the pebbly basin below. The floor was paved with pebbles—white, gray, black and a dark-red color—laid in cement in pretty patterns, and in the centre was a fountain whose spray reached the glass roof overhead. There were fish in the wide basin around the fountain, which was edged with a broad border of lycopodium. A little balcony opening out of an upper room was covered with vines, and close to the balustrade were boxes filled with plants in full bloom.

But the housetop was my especial admiration. It was flat, with a stone floor and high parapet. On all four sides close to this were wide, deep boxes where large plants and shrubs were growing luxuriantly. Large vases filled with vines and exotics were placed at intervals along the top of the parapet. Part of the roof was covered with a light wooden awning, and a dumb-waiter connected with the kitchen, so that on warm evenings dinner was easily served in the cool fresh air of the roof. The view from here was magnificent—the Golden Horn, Stamboul with its mosques and white minarets, and beyond the Sea of Marmora. Where a woman's life is so much spent in the house, such a place for air and exercise is much to be prized, but I fear my pretty Austrian friend will sigh for the freedom of Vienna after the novelty of the East has worn off.

Of course we paid a visit to Seraglio Point, whose palmy days, however, have passed away. The great fire of 1865 burned the palace, a large district on the Marmora, and swept around the walls of St. Sophia, leaving the mosque unharmed, but surrounded by ruins. The sultan never rebuilds: it is not considered lucky to do so. Indeed, he is said to believe that if he were to stop building he would die. Seraglio Point has been abandoned by the court, and the sultan lives in a palace on the Bosphorus, and one of the loveliest spots on earth is left to decay. We entered through the magnificent gate of the Sublime Porte, passed the barracks, which are still occupied by the soldiers, visited the arsenal and saw the wax figures of the Janizaries and others in Turkish costume. The upper part of the pleasure-grounds is in a neglected state, and those near the water are entirely destroyed. In one of the buildings are the crown-jewels and a valuable collection of other articles. There were elegant toilet sets mounted in gold; the most exquisitely delicate china; daggers, swords and guns of splendid workmanship and sparkling with jewels; Chinese work and carving; golden dishes, cups and vases, and silver pitchers thickly encrusted with precious stones; horse trappings and velvet hangings worked stiff with pearls, gold and silver thread, bits of coral, and jewels; three emeralds as large as small hen's eggs, forming the handle of a dirk; and in a large glass case magnificent ornaments for the turban. There must have been thousands of diamonds in these head-pieces, besides some of the largest pearls I have ever seen; a ruby three-quarters of an inch square; four emeralds nearly two inches long; and a great variety of all kinds of precious stones. The handle and sheath of one sword were entirely covered with diamonds and rubies. There were rings and clasps, and antique bowls filled with uncut stones, particularly emeralds. It recalled the tales of the Arabian Nights . The collection is poorly arranged, and the jewels dusty, so that you cannot examine closely or judge very well of the quality. Those I have mentioned interested me most, but there were many elegant articles of European manufacture which had been presented to the sultan by various monarchs. Near the treasury is a very handsome pavilion, built of white marble, one story high, with fine large plate-glass windows. A broad hall runs through the centre, with parlors on each side. The walls were frescoed, and on the handsomely-inlaid and highly-polished floors were beautiful rugs. The divans were gilt and heavy silk damask—one room crimson, one blue and another a delicate buff. A few large vases and several inlaid Japanese cabinets completed the furniture: the Koran does not allow pictures or statuary. The view from the windows, and especially from the marble terrace in front, is one of the finest I have ever seen. The pavilion stands on the highest part of Seraglio Point, two hundred feet above the water: below it are the ruins of the palace, and the gardens running down to the shore. Just before you the Bosphorus empties into the Marmora; in a deep bay on the Asiatic shore opposite are the islands of Prinkipo, Prote and several others; and on the mainland the view is bounded by the snow-capped mountains of Olympus. On the right is the Sea of Marmora. To the left, as far as you can see, the Bosphorus stretches away toward the Black Sea, its shores dotted with towns, cemeteries and palaces; on the extreme left the Golden Horn winds between the cities of Stamboul and Pera; while behind you is St. Sophia and the city of Stamboul. It is a magnificent view, never to be forgotten. There are several other pavilions near the one just described. A small one in the Chinese style, with piazza around it has the outer wall covered with blue and white tiles, and inside blinds inlaid with mother of pearl. The floor was matted, and the divans were of white silk embroidered with gilt thread and crimson and green floss. A third pavilion was a library.