Chapter XIV

A white cock--Russian agency--Specimen of cookery--Dining in state--Departure from Silivria--Mahometan causeway--Perilous roads--Knowing horses--First view of Constantinople--Advantages of its position--Extent of its capabilities--An abstracted goose--Entrance of the capital--Pera--Vitali’s hotel--The plague--Character of the malady--Armenian funeral--Associations--Funeral of a Greek.

♦ A WHITE COCK ♦

I sauntered about Silivria for some time, amused by the novel and animated scene which it presented. Several large charcoal fires were made up in pans in the street, on which kettles containing pieces of meat, onions, and other vegetables were boiling, surrounded by groups of soldiers who fanned the fires occasionally with a turkey’s wing. Here a baker was as busy as he could possibly be, serving out cakes of bread, just taken from the oven, to soldiers who passed in single file before his window. A beautiful white cock was a conspicuous character all day: he seemed to think that the whole of these preparations were going on for persons very much inferior to himself in all the requisites of dignity. Flies swarmed in all directions. The balconies of the caffinés were filled with Turks, who as usual sipped their nectar, smoked and continued for hours gazing at vacancy. I was honoured by a look from a Mussulman who was idling about like myself, one hand in his breeches pocket, while the other wielded his pipe and a switch. A boy walking along with a pitcher of water on his head, seemed also very much astonished at my appearance in Silivria, a feeling in which he was joined by a shoemaker who was taking home a pair of mended slippers to a customer hard by.

A fruitman seemed to be making his fortune amongst the recruits, to whom he had already disposed of five or six large baskets of very fine fresh grapes. He had still a few clusters remaining, which I purchased for a small silver coin equivalent to about two pence of our money. Even out of this he gave me some change in copper, which I presented to a decent-looking beggar-woman who was going about from shop to shop veiled. A string of camels laden with merchandise, and as usual led by a donkey, entered the town from the Constantinople road, their loud bells tinkling as they paced along. They lay down in the middle of the street, while their drivers went in search of refreshment. Here and there the merry tones of the xebeck were heard from latticed windows.

♦ RUSSIAN AGENCY ♦

While I was thus roving about, one of a group of soldiers who were sitting on a wall addressed me in good French. He turned out to be a Corsican, who, by some vicissitude of fortune, was enlisted in the Mahometan service. From him I learned that Constantinople was perfectly tranquil--that no tumults had recently occurred there--and that the Russians, as he expressed it, had “not yet” possession of Constantinople, nor had they “yet” even returned to the Bosphorus. He placed such an emphasis on his _pas encores_, that I instinctively assumed him to be a Russian spy. There can be no doubt at all that Russian agency is at full work in every part of Turkey; and that the stories which I heard on the road were the inventions of men well paid for the propagating them, under the impression that, by means of that kind, Mussulmen will become reconciled, by so often hearing of Russian invasion, to the ultimate result of Russian supremacy. But this will be found a most grave mistake, if I have read the Turkish mind with any thing like critical acumen.

♦ SPECIMEN OF COOKERY ♦

By the time I returned to my balcony I fully expected that my dinner would have been there before me, but no symptom of it was perceptible. I called the factotum to account, who assured me that it would be ready in a few minutes. I waited for half an hour, when I sent him to make inquiries. He returned with a question, how I wished it to be done? I desired it to be plainly boiled, and sent to me in its own gravy, without any rice or oil. He came back, after the lapse of another half-hour, with a piece of the meat in his hand, by way of a sample for me to taste, and say whether it was boiled enough! I objected to touch this precious fragment which he had dug out of my leg of mutton with the dirtiest fingers I ever beheld, and directed the dish, such as it was, to be served without further delay.

♦ DEPARTURE FROM SILIVRIA ♦

At length the mutton made its appearance in a wooden dish, without any accompaniment of any kind! There was not even a grain of salt. The cook ran off in one direction, the Italian in another, and, in about a quarter of an hour, the latter returned with a little coarse salt in a bit of greasy paper. Then there was no bread. Off scampered the Italian to a baker’s shop, whence he brought back a smoking hot roll, which he put into my hand. Meantime my Tartar came to claim his share of the spoil, which he by no means deserved. I cut out some slices, however, for myself with his knife, and gave him up the remainder. My repast was soon over; but, after all, not unsatisfactory, concluding with coffee and grapes. I was glad to see that something continued in the wooden dish for my faithful auxiliary, for which he waited with a keen eye, but at the same time with exemplary patience. This dinner scene passed in the balcony, open to all the street; and I had the felicity of being closely observed, during the whole transaction, by a group of gaping recruits and ragged children.

We found some difficulty in procuring four horses at Silivria: at length, about seven o’clock in the evening, we mounted a set of animals of the most wretched description, already fatigued, as I afterwards learned, by a long journey, from which they had rested only a few hours. We set out by the light of the moon, and, in about an hour, reached a very handsome khan, where we took coffee. We then proceeded along the beach of Marmora, the murmur of whose gentle waves, borne on the fresh atmosphere of the sea, fell upon my heart like a spring shower on the parched earth. At midnight we arrived near the once magnificent series of bridges, which, in a former age, were erected over a wide arm of the sea, and considerably shorten the road to Constantinople. Clouds having set in and darkened the night, a thunder-storm and violent rains came on, which compelled us to take shelter in the gateway of an inn at the foot of the principal bridge. We dismounted and rested here until four o’clock, when we again proceeded on our journey.

♦ MAHOMETAN CAUSEWAY ♦

From these bridges to Constantinople a causeway has been constructed upon the plan of the ancient Roman roads. But, like the bridges across the arms of the Marmora, it has fallen into such a state of ruin as to become infinitely more a source of danger than of convenience to the traveller. It is as bad as the worst parts of the track over the Balkans. Had the sultan taken pains to render his capital inaccessible to cavalry on the side of Silivria, no engineer could have broken up the causeway, which in some places is the only road, with more skill, with a view to render it perilous, than time and shameful negligence have done throughout the whole of the line. Five hundred or a thousand men, employed for a fortnight, would, at a trifling expense, restore it to its pristine solidity and beauty. But the genius of decay seems to have paralyzed, for the present, the wonted energies of the Turkish people.

♦ PERILOUS ROADS ♦

The soil through which this causeway runs, is in general a soft clay, upon some more adhesive strata, which do not rapidly absorb the humid atmosphere of the neighbouring waters. The consequence is that when heavy rains have fallen, the earth becomes so slippery that it requires the greatest care on the part of the rider to preserve his horse from falling at every step, when he is not on the causeway, which for the greater portion of the way is absolutely impassable. My Tartar, a bulky man, was seated on a wretched pony, which came down three or four times. Once the animal lost footing for both his hinder legs, and stuck so firmly in the mud on his haunches that the Tartar tumbled backwards head over heels. He got up in a fury and assailed the postilion in such a storm of passion, that I thought he would have ended by shooting him. However he was content with compelling the man to give up his own horse and mount the pony.

♦ KNOWING HORSES ♦

In a few minutes after down came the unfortunate postilion in a marsh, whence we had great difficulty in extricating him, covered all over with mud. I held a tight rein, and though my Rosinante stumbled at every fourth or fifth step, I had the good fortune to escape the general destiny. Even the baggage-horse was tripped up repeatedly, falling sometimes on his haunches, sometimes rolling quite over on his back, his legs dancing in the air. Whether riding on a level, ascending or descending the numerous hills which intervene between the bridges and the capital, the peril was the same. The horses seemed painfully conscious of the difficulties which they had to go through, and whenever they could get upon the causeway they preferred it, picking their steps through the stones with marvellous ingenuity. To the less experienced traveller, however, the change appeared to be only “from the frying-pan into the fire.”

♦ VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE ♦

At length we entered on a more sandy track, and rode with less toil until the day returned: when, from the top of the highest eminence we had yet ascended, we beheld at three leagues’ distance below the Ottoman capital, still reposing in the twilight of early morning. The east soon after began to redden, and the sun rose in all his Asiatic glory over the mountains behind Scutari, which almost touched the sky. Their tabled summits were already spread with cloth of gold, and clouds of fiery dust were rolling around, as if raised by the march of armies tending towards that splendid plain for encampment. The crescents and spires of the white minarets, the tall green cypresses, the minarets of nature, greatly excelling the others in the solemnity of their beauty, shone out in the descending beams. The venerable watch-towers, and the countless domes of the mosques were all illumined, and then the castellated battlements, caravanserais, bazaars, and palaces, extending in a long line to the waters of the Marmora, which reflected the blaze. Seen at that moment of enchantment, Constantinople, distinguished from all other European capitals by its oriental architecture, whose filagree Arabesques became transparent in the light, and rising from amidst groves and cemeteries and gardens, where the foliage and the flowers of summer were still in bloom, looked less a reality than the vision of some Persian tale.

♦ EXTENT OF CAPABILITIES ♦

It was unnecessary for my Tartar to point downwards and say, “There is Stamboul!” The capital of the Constantines has no rival upon this planet of ours, in external appearance, at least, and in the peculiar advantages of its position. Having free access to the Mediterranean through the Hellespont, it may with every possible facility defend itself at the Dardanelles from a maritime force, and having shut its gates at that point, may withdraw to the Marmora, the Bosphorus, or the Euxine, repair there its ships, build new fleets, equip and abundantly provision them from a populous and fertile territory, and rush out again upon its enemies, with an overwhelming force. Or if the chieftain who is master of Stamboul choose not to run the further risk of maritime war, he need only put the key of his gates at the Dardanelles in his pocket, turn his men of war into merchant ships, and find employment for them in trading along the coasts of Turkey, Asia Minor, the whole of the borders of the Black Sea, to which the silks of Broussa, the carpets and brocades of Persia, the rice, and fruits, and corn of all that territory, and the riches of central and southern Russia, are brought.

♦ ABSTRACTED GOOSE ♦

If not content with the field of the Euxine, he may extend his commerce without a single convoy, along the Danube to Wallachia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Servia, and Austria, attracting within his reach, in exchange for the productions of the East, the spoils of all Germany. When the Danube shall be united with the Rhine, by means of the canal now about to be formed, the ruler of Constantinople, though at war with Syria, the Barbary States, Egypt, Greece, France, Spain, England, and the two Americas, may not only live in safety within the castles of his Dardanelles, but carry his trade to the very verge of the British channel, fearless of all the naval powers in the world!

While I was indulging in these fine speculations, my reverie was turned into uncontrollable laughter by a lad whom we overtook, riding behind a stately Turk, having at his saddle-bow a bag, from which a goose was looking out. The picture was an odd contrast to my airy dreams, and was not a little heightened when the winged prisoner, effecting his escape, ran off towards the home from which he had been just abstracted. The Turk was discomposed, the lad went off in chase of the goose, which his lordship had intended for his dinner. But though he would not wait to witness the result of the pursuit, he cast many a “longing, lingering look behind,” until at length the boy returned in triumph, and tied up the goose again in his bag, allowing him, as before, to look at the beauteous world which he was so soon to leave.

♦ ENTRANCE OF THE CAPITAL ♦

As we approached the outer gate of Constantinople, we were confined entirely to the causeway, the sands being deep and marshy. It was, gently speaking, a most execrable road. If our animals from long experience, and the judicious selection which marked all their steps, had not been enabled to work miracles, I know not how we could have got on. It was half-past ten o’clock when we passed the gate, where my firman was exhibited. We then pursued our way through numerous cemeteries, planted with cypresses, and crowded with gravestones, usually small round columns, carved at the top in the figure of a turban. As I was hastening as well as I could after my Tartar, through these desperate defiles, a fine-looking Turk stopped me, broke a walnut in his hand and divided it with me. It was his mode of bidding me welcome to my destination.

♦ VITALI’S HOTEL ♦

After leaving the receptacles of the dead, which were very extensive, and afforded by their numberless fresh graves, abundant evidence of the havoc which the plague had recently made, we entered the streets, and were immediately in the midst of the industry and bustle of a great city. Riding to the edge of the “Golden Horn,” as the inner harbour is called, I gladly dismounted, and transferred my weary limbs to a boat, where my luggage and Tartar were also speedily deposited. In a few minutes we were landed at Galata, whence we walked on to Pera, and found a French youth, who conducted us to Vitali’s hotel, familiarly called Giusepino’s, in the Strada Santa Maria, and almost next door to the church of the Holy Trinity.

The hotel was full of Englishmen; but Vitali very civilly offered to fit up for me in an hour or two, a chamber at the top of his house, which presented magnificent views of Constantinople. My goods and my person having been then fumigated--as, through ignorance, I had taken no precautions whatever in passing through crowds amongst which the pestilence was absolutely raging--I was admitted to intercourse; breakfasted, reposed a while on a sofa, then with infinite delight changed my travelling attire, and noted in my journal, that, calculating to a moment, I had thus been exactly five days and nights on the road from Rutschuk to the gate of the capital. This was considered a good journey, as, although the Tartars perform it in three days and nights, when great expedition is required, travellers seldom go over the whole ground in less than nine. The expectation, therefore, held out to me at the commencement of my ride, that I might accomplish it within three days was all moonshine.

♦ THE PLAGUE ♦

Vitali’s account of the plague was alarming. Within the last week it had considerably diminished, but suddenly returned again with more violence than ever, and in the city no fewer than fifteen hundred victims had been numbered with the dead only the day before. At Galata and Pera a few deaths had also occurred, and even Therapia, higher up the Bosphorus, was said not to be exempt from the contagion. He confirmed the reports of Mr. Wood’s death; but I afterwards learned, that, in point of fact, that gentleman had recovered from the plague by means of prompt, judicious, and vigorous measures; that being then in a very weakly state, he unfortunately accepted the advice of an Ionian quack, who promised to restore his strength rapidly by the use of a potion which he carried about as a sovereign remedy in all cases of debility, and that the patient died of the dose, in consequence of its having been too powerful for his then wasted constitution.

♦ ITS CHARACTER ♦

Mr. Cartwright, the British Consul-General, who lived nearly opposite to Vitali’s, and to whom I lost no time in paying my respects, also assured me that he had himself recovered from the plague, by the adoption of timely applications: that the malady was, in truth, nothing more than a violent typhus fever, which, if permitted to reach its height, seemed to be in all cases fatal, but if met in the beginning by medical skill, and determination on the part of the sufferer, it yielded the contest, though the poison which it diffused through the veins was felt for a long time after. The first symptoms of the malady are swellings under the arms, which if not opened at once, spread in an hour over the whole frame. The only precautions, he said, which I could adopt, were to procure airy apartments, to live generously, to be attentive to personal cleanliness, and when I walked out to carry in my hand a substantial cane, by which I should prevent any body whomsoever from touching me even with the hem of his garment. I found it awkward enough at first to guide my way through the very narrow streets of Pera, especially during the hours when they were most crowded, by poking people away, now at one side, now at the other. But the same thing, I observed, was done by every passenger: it was no rudeness, for it was the result of a universally understood necessity; and I soon found that I was not more anxious to avoid coming into contact with others, than they were to shun too near an approach to me.

♦ ARMENIAN FUNERAL ♦

As I was returning from the consul’s, where I had the happiness to find letters from home, to my hotel, I met an Armenian funeral procession passing along the street, formed of a long double file of men, preceded by several priests and choir-boys, who were singing the Roman catholic anthems of the dead, bearing a large silver crucifix, a vase of holy water, a pan of incense, smoking censers, and lighted tapers; the priests in their stoles, surplices, cassocks, and caps; the boys in surplices and cassocks; all moving on with as much order and freedom as I had ever observed in any part of Spain. A black velvet pall was thrown over the coffin, which six men sustained on their shoulders. I followed the procession to the Frank cemetery, which was at the distance of about a mile higher up the Bosphorus: when they arrived at the newly-made grave, the concluding psalms and prayers, closed by that solemn and affecting series of supplications, the _De Profundis_, were read by the officiating clergyman, and responded to by the crowd, in a manner that made me feel at once as if I were not in a Mahometan but a Catholic country.

♦ ASSOCIATIONS ♦

Here was a remarkable result of the plan upon which that religion was traced from the earliest ages. By its having adopted for its invariable and universal dialect the Latin tongue, I, who am wholly ignorant of Armenian, found myself at home amidst the orisons of that people to the God of all men. The psalms which they repeated, the _Requiem_ which they sung, their final adieus to the dead, as the body was lowered into the grave, were those to which I had been accustomed from my infancy--those in which I last took a deep share when I was separated from a mother who had loved me above all earthly things. My tears mingled with those of the real mourners over the departed--the associations of the scene were not to be controlled.

♦ FUNERAL OF A GREEK ♦

I was not at all prepared for this open and authorized celebration of Christian rites in the public streets and cemeteries of the very capital of the koran. But I had afterwards abundant opportunities of satisfying my mind, that, in no other part of Europe is the existence of all religions more liberally secured and even protected than within the precincts of Constantinople. It was, I think, only the very next day that I witnessed a similar procession of Greek catholics, whose anthems and prayers differed in language and in other points from those of the Armenians. The body was borne on a bier, clothed in the ordinary attire of life; the head was crowned with a wreath of flowers, the eyes were still open, and the spirit seemed to have departed but a few moments before its receptacle was carried to the cemetery, where it had to wait until its place was hollowed in the earth. On each of these occasions, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Franks, were seen collected round the grave, all listening with respectful and even solemn attention to the prayers which were uttered by the ministers in attendance.