After giving a superficial glance over all of Constantinople, including both banks of the Golden Horn, it seemed now time to penetrate into the heart of Stambul, to explore that world-embracing, perpetual fair, that hidden city, dim, mysterious, crammed with associations, wonders, and treasures, which, extending from the NÙri Osmaniyeh to the Serasker hill, is called The Great BazÂr.

We will start from the square in front of the ValidÊh Sultan mosque. Here the epicurean reader may like possibly to pause long enough to inspect the Baluk BazÂr, that fish-market famous ever since the days of thrifty old Andronicus PalÆologus, who, we are told, met the entire culinary expenses of his court with the profits made from fish caught only along the walls of the city, where, indeed, they are still most plentiful, and, seen on one of its principal days, the Baluk BazÂr would afford as succulent and tempting a subject for the author of the Ventre de Paris as one of those well-covered tables one sees in old Dutch pictures. The venders, almost without exception Turks, are drawn up all around the square behind their fish, which are spread out on mats stretched upon the ground or else on long tables, around which a crowd of customers and an army of dogs fight for precedence. Here may be found the delicious mullet of the Bosphorus, four times the size it attains to in our waters; oysters from the island of Marmora, which the Greeks and Armenians alone understand how to cook properly, broiling them on the live coals; sprats and tunnies, the salting of which is an industry confined almost entirely to the Jews; anchovies, which the Turks have learned how to put up in the Marseillaise fashion; sardines, with which Constantinople provides the entire Archipelago; the loufer, that most delicious of all the Bosphorus fish, which is caught by moonlight; mackerel from the Black Sea, which make seven invasions successively into the waters of the city, accompanied by a noise so loud that it can be heard in the towns on both shores; the colossal isdaurid; enormous sword-fish; turbots, or, as they are called by the Turks, kalkau-baluk; shellfish, and a thousand and one other varieties of the smaller kinds of fish which dart and frisk about from one to the other of the two seas, chased by dolphins and falianos, and preyed upon by innumerable kingfishers, from whose very mouths the booty is often snatched by the piombini.

Cooks from great houses, old Mussulman bons-vivants, slaves, and young employÉs from the various restaurants surround the tables, examine the fish with a meditative air, bargain in monosyllables, and walk off, each carrying his purchase suspended by a bit of twine, grave, taciturn, self-contained as though it were the head of an enemy. By mid-day the square is deserted and the venders have repaired to the various cafÉs in the neighborhood, where they will sit with their backs against the wall and the mouthpiece of a narghileh between their lips, in a sort of waking sleep, until sunset.

To reach the Great BazÂr we take a street opening out of the fish-market, so narrow that the projecting parts of the opposite houses almost touch one another; on either side are rows of low, ill-lighted tobacconist shops, that “fourth support of the tent of voluptuousness,” coming after coffee, opium, and wine, or “the fourth of pleasure’s couches,” as it is sometimes called. Like coffee, tobacco has been blasted by imperial edicts and denounced by the mufti, with the usual result of adding fresh zest to its use and making it a fruitful source of tumult and punishment; and now this entire street is devoted to traffic in it alone. The tobacco is displayed upon long shelves in pyramids and round piles, each one surmounted by a lemon. All kinds are to be found here: latakia from Antioch; Seraglio tobacco as fine and smooth as spun silk; tobacco for pipe and cigarette of every grade of strength and flavor, from that smoked by the gigantic porter of Galata to that used by the indolent odalisques of the Seraglio to put them to sleep. There is the tombeki, so powerful that it would set the head of even a veteran smoker spinning did its fumes not reach his mouth first purified by the water of the narghileh, and which is kept in glass jars like a drug. The tobacconists are all Greeks or Armenians, with ceremonious manners, somewhat inclined to give themselves airs. The customers assemble before the shops in groups. Many of them are employÉs of the various foreign ambassadors or of the Seraskerat, and occasionally one sees some personage of importance. It is a great place for gossip of all kinds; politics are discussed; the doings of the great world talked over; and merely to walk through this little, retired, aristocratic bazÂr leaves a strong impression upon one’s mind of the joys to be obtained from conversation and tobacco.

We now pass beneath an old arched doorway festooned with vines, and come out opposite a large stone edifice, from which opens a long, straight, covered street lined with dimly-lighted shops and filled with people, packing-boxes, and heaps of merchandise. Entering this, we are immediately assailed by an odor so powerful as to fairly knock one down: this is the Egyptian BazÂr, where are deposited all the wares of India, Syria, Egypt, and Arabia, which later on, converted into essences, pastilles, powders, and ointments, serve to color little hands and faces, perfume apartments and baths and breaths and beards, reinvigorate worn-out pashas, dull the senses of unhappy married people, stupefy smokers, and spread dreams, oblivion, and insensibility throughout the whole of the vast city. After going but a short distance in this bazÂr your head begins to feel dull and heavy, and you get out of it as fast as you can; but the effect of that hot, close atmosphere and those penetrating odors clings long to your clothing, and remains for all time in your memory as one of the most vivid and characteristic impressions of the East.

After escaping from the Egyptian BazÂr you pass among a crowd of noisy coppersmiths’ shops, Turkish restaurants, from which issue endless nauseous smells, and all manner of wretched booths, shops, and stands, dark little dens containing trash of all sorts, and finally come to the Great BazÂr itself, not, however, before you have been obliged to defend yourself from a vigorous attack.

About a hundred feet from the main entrance there lie in ambush like so many cutthroats the agents or middlemen of the merchants and the agents of the agents. These fellows are so well up in their business that at a single glance they learn not only that this is your first visit to the bazÂr, but usually make so clever a guess as to your nationality that they rarely make a mistake in the language which they first address you in. Approaching, fez in hand, they proceed, with an engaging smile, to offer their services.

There usually then follows a conversation something like this: the traveller, declining the proffered service, remarks,

“I do not propose to make any purchases.”

“Oh, sir, what difference does that make? I only want to show you the bazÂr.”

“I don’t care to see the bazÂr.”

“But I will escort you gratis.”

“I don’t wish to be escorted gratis.”

“Very well; then I will just go to the end of the street with you, merely to give you certain points, which you will find very useful some other day when you come to buy.”

“But suppose I don’t want to even hear you talk about buying?”

“Very well, then, let us talk about something else. How long have you been in Constantinople? Is your hotel comfortable? Have you gotten permits to visit the mosques?”

“But when I tell you that I don’t want to talk about anything—that I wish, in short, to be alone—”

“All right; then I will leave you alone, and follow a dozen steps behind you.”

“But why should you follow me at all?”

“Merely to prevent you from being cheated in the shops.”

“But I tell you I am not going into the shops.” “Well, then, to save you from annoyance on the street.”

And so you must finally either pause to take breath and collect your ideas, or else yield and allow him to accompany you.

There is nothing about the exterior of the Great BazÂr to either attract the eye or give the faintest idea of what it is within. It is an immense stone edifice in the Byzantine style, irregular in form and surrounded by high gray walls, lighted by means of hundreds of small lead-covered domes in the roof. The principal entrance is through a high, vaulted doorway of no architectural pretensions. Outside, in the neighboring streets, no sounds can be heard of what is going on within, and half a dozen steps away from the entrance one might easily believe that only silence and solitude reigned within those prison-like walls; once inside, however, this delusion is quickly dispelled. You find yourself not in a building at all, but in a labyrinth of streets with vaulted roofs, lined with columns and carved pilasters—a veritable city, with mosques and fountains, thoroughfares and open squares, pervaded with the dim, subdued light of the forest, where no ray or gleam of sunshine ever penetrates, and thronged with immense crowds of people. Every street is a bazÂr, generally leading out of the principal thoroughfare—a street covered by a roof composed of white and black stone arches and decorated with arabesques like the nave of a mosque. Processions of horses, camels, and carriages pass up and down the dimly-lighted streets, in the midst of the throng of foot-passengers, with a deafening, reverberating noise. On all sides attempts are being made by word and gesture to attract your attention. The Greek merchant hails you with loud, imperious voice, while his Armenian rival, by far the greater knave of the two, assumes a modest, retiring manner, addressing you in soft, obsequious tones; the Jew murmurs gently in your ear; while the Turk, silent and reserved as ever, squats on a cushion in his doorway and contents himself with addressing you solely with his eye, leaving the results to Fate. Ten voices appeal to you at once: “Monsieur! captain! caballero! signore! eccelenza! kyrie! milor!” Down every cross-street you catch glimpses of new vistas, long lines of columns and pilasters, corridors, other streets opening out of these again, arcades and galleries, confused far-off views of new bazÂrs, shops, merchandise suspended on the walls and from the roofs, bustling merchants, heavily-laden porters, figures of veiled women, noisy groups, which constantly form, dissolve, and form again—a mingling of sights, sounds, colors, and movement to set one’s head in a whirl. The confusion, however, is only apparent: in reality, this enormous mart is arranged with as much system and order as a barracks, and it takes but a few hours for one to become sufficiently at home in it to find his way to any object without difficulty or the help of a dragoman. Every separate kind of merchandise has its own especial quarter, its little street, corridor, and square; there are a hundred small bazÂrs opening one into another like the rooms in some vast suite of apartments, and each bazÂr is at the same time a museum, a promenade, a market, and a theatre, in which you can look at all without buying anything, can drink your cup of coffee, enjoy the open air, chat in a dozen different languages, and make eyes at the prettiest girls to be found in the East.

Dropping at random into any one of these bazÂrs, half a day goes by without your so much as knowing it: take, for instance, the bazÂr of stuffs and costumes. Here are displayed such a dazzling array of beautiful and rare objects that you at once lose your head, to say nothing of your purse, and the chances are that, should you in any unguarded moment be tempted to satisfy some small caprice, you will end by having to telegraph home for assistance. You pass between pyramids and heaps of Bagdad brocades; rugs from Caramania; Brusa silks; India linens; muslins from Bengal; shawls from Madras; Indian and Persian cashmeres: the variegated fabrics of Cairo; gold-embroidered cushions; silken veils striped with silver; striped blue and red gauze scarfs, so light and transparent as to look like clouds; stuffs of every variety of color and design, in which blue and green, crimson and yellow, all the colors which disagree most violently, are combined and blended together in a harmony so perfect and exquisite that you can only gaze in open-mouthed admiration; table-covers of all sizes upon whose background of red or white cloth are outlined intricate silken designs of flowers, verses from the Koran, and imperial monograms, which it would take a day to examine, like a wall in the Alhambra. Here one has as good an opportunity to see and admire, one by one, each of the various articles which go to make up the costume of a Turkish lady as though it were the alcove of a harem, from the green or orange or purple mantles which are thrown over everything in public down to the silken chemise, gold-embroidered kerchief, and even the satin girdle upon which no eye of man other than that of the husband or eunuch is ever allowed to fall. Here may be seen red-velvet caftans edged with ermine and covered with stars; yellow satin bodices; trousers of rose-colored silk; white damask undervests thickly covered with gold flowers; wedding veils sparkling with silver spangles; little greencloth jackets edged with swan’s down; Greek, Armenian, Circassian costumes of a thousand fantastic shapes, so thickly covered with ornamentation as to be as hard and glittering as breastplates; and mixed in with all this magnificence the sombre, commonplace, serviceable stuffs of England and France, producing much the same effect upon the mind as would the sight of a tailor’s bill introduced into the pages of a volume of poems. If there is a woman anywhere in the world whom you care for, you cannot walk through this bazÂr without longing to be a millionaire or else feeling the passion for plunder blaze up within you, if only for a moment.

To free yourself from these unhallowed desires you have but turn a little to one side and you find yourself in the pipe-bazÂr, where the soul is gently conducted back to more tranquil pastures. Here you come upon collections of cherry, maple, rosewood, and jessamine pipes, and of yellow amber mouth-pieces from the Baltic Sea, polished until they shine like crystal, and of every grade of color and transparency, some of them set with diamonds or rubies; pipes from CÆsarea, their stems wrapped with silk and gold thread; tobacco-pouches from Lybia decorated with many-colored lozenges and gorgeous embroidery; silver, steel, and Bohemian glass narghilehs of exquisite antique shapes, engraved and chased and studded with precious stones, their morocco tubes glittering with rings and gilding, all wrapped in raw cotton and under the constant surveillance of two glittering eyes whose gaze never wavers; but let any one short of a vizier or a pasha who has spent years in bleeding some province of Asia Minor approach, and the pupils dilate in such a manner as to cause the modest inquiry as to the price to die away upon one’s lips. Here the purchaser must be some envoy of the sultana anxious to present a slight token of her appreciation to the pliable grand vizier; or a high court dignitary, who on assuming the cares of his new office is obliged, in order to maintain his dignity, to expend the sum of fifty thousand francs upon a rack of pipes; or a newly-appointed foreign ambassador who on departing for some European court wishes to take to its royal master a magnificent memento of Stambul. The Turk of modest means gazes mournfully upon these treasures and passes by on the other side, paraphrasing for his consolation that saying of the Prophet, “The flames of the infernal regions shall rage like the bellowing of the camel in the stomach of him who shall smoke a pipe of gold or silver.”

Passing from here into the perfumery bazÂr, we once more find ourselves beset with temptations. It is one of the most distinctively Oriental in character of all the bazÂrs, and its wares were very dear to the heart of the Prophet, who classes together women, children, and perfumes as the three things which gave him the greatest pleasure. Here are to be had those famous Seraglio pastilles designed to perfume kisses; packages of the scented gum prepared by the hardy daughters of Chio to be used in strengthening the gums of delicate Mussulman women; exquisite essence of jessamine and of bergamont and powerful attar of roses, enclosed in red-velvet, gold-embroidered cases, and sold at prices that make one’s hair stand on end; here can be bought ointment for the eyebrows, antimony for the eyes, henne for the nails, soap to soften the Syrian beauty’s skin, and pills to prevent hair from growing on the face of the too masculine Circassian; cedar and orange-water, scent-bags of musk, sandal oil, ambergris, aloes to perfume cups and pipes—a myriad of different powders, pomatums, and waters with fanciful names and destined to uses undreamed of in the prosaic West, each one representing in itself some amorous fancy or seductive caprice, the very refinement of voluptuousness, and exhaling, all together, an odor at once penetrating and sensual, and dreamily suggestive of great languid eyes, soft caressing hands, and the subdued murmur of sighs and embraces.

These fancies are quickly dispelled on turning into the jewelry bazÂr, a narrow, dark, deserted street, flanked by wretched-looking little shops, the last places on earth where one would expect to find the fabulous treasures which, as a matter of fact, they do contain. The jewels are kept in oaken coffers, hooped and bound with iron, which stand in the front of the shops under the ever-watchful gaze of the merchant, some old Turk or Hebrew with long beard, and piercing eyes which seem to penetrate into the very recesses of your pocket and examine the contents of your purse; occasionally one or another of them, standing erect before his door, as you pass close by first regards you fixedly in the eye, and then with a rapid movement flashes before your face a diamond of Golconda, a sapphire from Ormus, or a ruby of Gramschid, which at the slightest negative movement on your part is as quickly withdrawn from sight. Others, circulating slowly about, stop you in the middle of the street, and, after casting a suspicious glance all around, draw forth from their bosoms a dirty bit of rag in whose folds is hidden a fine Brazilian topaz or Macedonian turquoise, watching like some tempting demon to see its effect upon you. Others, again, after scrutinizing you closely, come to the conclusion that you have not the precious-stones look, as it were, and do not trouble themselves to offer you anything, and you may wear the face of a saint or the airs of a Croesus, and it will not avail to open those oaken boxes. The opal necklaces, emerald stars and pendants, the coronets and crescents of pearls of Ophir, the dazzling heaps of beryls, agates, garnets, of crystals, aventurine, and lapis lazuli remain inexorably hidden from the eyes of the curious, provided he has no money, or, at all events, from those of a poor devil of an Italian writer. The utmost such an one can accomplish is to ask the price of a coral or sandal-wood or amber tespi which he runs through his fingers, as the Turk does, to pass away the time in the intervals of his forced labors.

If you want to be really amused, though, just go into the Frankish shops, those which deal in everything, and where there are goods to suit all pockets. Hardly has your foot crossed the threshold before a crowd of people spring up from you don’t know where, and in an instant you are surrounded. It is out of the question to transact your business with one single person. What between the merchant himself, his partners, his agents, and the various hangers-on of the establishment, you never have to do with less than a half dozen at least. If you escape being floored by one, you are, so to speak, strung up by another. There is no way by which final defeat can be warded off. Words fail to describe their patience, art, and persistency, the diabolical subterfuges to which they resort in order to force you to buy what they choose. Finding everything put at an exorbitant price, you offer a third, upon which they drop their arms in sign of profound discouragement or beat their foreheads in dumb despair, or else they burst into an impassioned torrent of appeal and expostulation calculated to touch your feelings as a man and a brother. You are hard and cruel; you are evidently determined to force them to close their shops; your object is to reduce them to misery and want; you have no compassion for their innocent children; they wonder plaintively what injury they could ever have done you that you should be so bent upon their ruin. While you are being told the price of an article an agent from a neighboring shop hisses in your ear, “Don’t buy it; you are being cheated.” Taking this for a piece of honest advice, you soon discover that there is an understanding between him and the shopkeeper; the information that you are being imposed upon in the matter of a shawl is only given in order to fleece you far worse in the purchase of a hanging. While you are examining the various articles they talk in broken sentences among themselves, gesticulating, striking their breasts, casting looks full of dark meaning. If you understand Greek, the conversation is in Turkish; if you are familiar with that, it is in Armenian; if you show any knowledge of Armenian, they employ Spanish; but whatever language is adopted, they know enough of it to cheat you. If after some time you still preserve an unbroken front, they begin stroking you down—tell you how beautifully you talk their tongue; that you have all the air and manner of a real gentleman; that they will never be able to forget your attractive face. They talk of the land of your birth, where they have passed so many happy years. They have, in fact, been everywhere. Then they make you a cup of fresh coffee and offer to accompany you to the custom-house when you leave in order to interpose between you and the overbearing authorities; which means, being interpreted, in order to secure a final opportunity for cheating you and your fellow-travellers, in case you may have any. They turn their whole shop upside down for you, and should you finally leave without having bought anything, you get no black looks, as they have a sustaining conviction that the harvest is only deferred; if not to-day, then some other day: you are certain to return to the bazÂr, when their bloodhounds will scent you out, and should you escape falling into their clutches, you will undoubtedly be caught in the toils of one of their associates; if they do not fleece you as shopkeepers, they will flay you as agents; if they fail to overreach you in the bazÂr, they will get the better of you at the custom-house. Of what nationality are these men? No one knows: by dint of having a smattering of so many different languages they have lost their original accent, and the constant habit of acting a part has ended by altering the natural lines of their faces to such a degree as to efface their national traits. They belong to any race you choose, and their profession is whatever you may have need of at the moment—shopkeeper, guide, interpreter, money-lender, and, above all, past master in the art of gulling the universe.

The Mussulman shopkeepers present an altogether different field of observation. Among them may still be found examples of those venerable Turks, rarely enough to be seen now-a-days in the streets of Constantinople, who look like living representatives of the days of the Muhammads and Bayezids, remnants left intact of that mighty Ottoman edifice whose walls received their first rude shock in the reforms of MahmÛd, and which since then, year by year, stone by stone, have been crumbling into ruins. One must now go to the Great BazÂr and search in the dimmest shops of the most obscure streets to behold those enormous turbans of the time of Suleiman, shaped like the dome of a mosque, and beneath them the impressive face, the expressionless eye, hooked nose, long white beard, antique purple or orange caftan, full, plaited trousers confined about the waist by a huge sash, and the haughty and melancholy bearing of a once all-powerful people. With expressions dulled by opium or lighted up with the fire of fanaticism, they sit all day in the backs of their dens with crossed legs and folded arms, calm and unmoved like idols, awaiting with closed lips the predestined purchaser. If business is brisk, they murmur, “Mach Allah!” (God be praised!); if dull, “Ol-sun!” (So be it!), and bow their heads resignedly. Some employ their time in reading the Koran; others run the beads of the tespi through their fingers, murmuring under their breath the hundred epithets of Allah; others, whose affairs have prospered, drink their narghilehs, as the Turks express it, slowly revolving around them their sleepy, voluptuous-looking eyes; others sit with drooping lids and bent brow in an attitude of profound meditation. Of what are they thinking? Possibly of their sons killed beneath the walls of Sebastopol, of their far-off caravans, of the lost pleasures of youth, or possibly of the eternal gardens promised by the Prophet, where, in the shade of the palm and the pomegranate, they will espouse those dark-eyed brides never yet profaned by mortal or geni. There is about each individual one of them something striking and original, and all are picturesque. The shop forms a framework for a picture full of color and suggestion; one’s mind is instantly filled with images taken from history or what is known of the domestic life of this strange people. This spare, bronzed man with a bold, alert expression is an Arab; he has led his train of camels laden with gems and alabaster from the interior of his far-off country, and more than once has felt the balls of the robbers of the desert whiz past him. This one in the yellow turban, bearing himself with an air of command, has crossed the solitudes of Syria on horseback, carrying with him treasures of silk from Tyre and Sidon. Yonder negro, with his head enveloped in an old Persian shawl, is from Nubia; his forehead is covered with scars made by magicians to preserve him from death, and he holds his head aloft as though still beholding before him the Colossus of Thebes or summits of the Pyramids. This good-looking Moor, with his black eyes and pallid skin, wrapped in a long snow-white cloak, has carried his caic and his carpets from the uttermost western limits of the Atlas chain. That green-turbaned Turk, with the emaciated face, has this very year returned from the great pilgrimage. After seeing relatives and companions die of thirst amid the interminable plains of Asia Minor, he finally reached Mecca in the last stages of exhaustion, and, after dragging himself seven times around the Kaaba, finally fell half swooning upon the Black Stone, covering it with impassioned kisses. This giant with a pale face, arched brows, and piercing eyes, who has far more the air of a warrior than of a merchant, his entire bearing breathing nothing but pride and arrogance, has brought his furs hither from the northern regions of the Caucasus, and in his day struck at a blow the head from off the shoulders of more than one Cossack. And this poor wool-merchant, with his flat face and small oblique eyes, active and sinewy as an athlete, it is not so long since he was saying his prayers in the shadow of that immense dome which rises above the sepulchre of Tamerlane. Starting from Samarcand, he crossed the desert of Great BÛkharia, and, passing safely through the midst of the Turkoman hordes, crossed the Dead Sea, escaped the balls of the Circassians, and, after returning thanks to Allah in the mosques of Trebizond, has at last come to seek his fortune in Stambul, from whence, as he grows old, he will surely return once more to his beloved Tartary, which always claims the first place in his heart.

The shoe bazÂr is one of the most resplendent of all, and possibly fills the brain more than any other with wild longings and riotous desires. It consists of two glittering rows of shops, which make the street in which it is situated look like a suite of royal apartments or like one of those gardens in the Arabian fairy-stories where the fruit trees are laden with pearls and have golden leaves. There are shoes enough there to supply the feet of every court in Europe and Asia. The walls are completely covered with slippers of the sauciest shapes and most striking and fanciful colors, made out of skins, velvet, brocade, and satin, ornamented with filigree-work, gold, tinsel, pearls, silken tassels, swan’s down; flowered and starred in gold and silver; so thickly covered with intricate embroidery as to completely hide the original texture; and glittering with emeralds and sapphires. You can buy shoes there for the boatman’s bride or for the Seraglio belle; you may pay five francs a pair or a thousand. There are morocco shoes destined to walk the paved streets of Pera, and beside them Turkish slippers which will one day glide over the thick carpets of some pasha’s harem; light wooden shoes which will resound on the marbles of the imperial baths; tiny slippers of white satin on which ardent lovers’ kisses will be showered; and it may well be that yonder pair encrusted with pearls will some day stand beside the couch of the PadishÂh himself, awaiting the pretty feet of some beautiful Georgian. But how, you ask yourself, is it possible for any feet to get into such tiny little receptacles? Some of them seem intended to fit the houris and fairies—long as the leaf of a lily, wide as the leaf of a rose, of such dimensions as to throw all Andalusia into despair; graceful as a dream—not slippers at all, but jewels, toys, objects to stand on one’s table full of bonbons or to keep billetsdoux in. Once allow your imagination to dwell upon the foot which could wear them, and you are seized with an insane desire to behold it yourself, to stroke and caress it like some pretty plaything. This bazÂr is one of those most frequented by strangers: it is not unusual to encounter young Europeans wandering about with slips of paper in their hands upon which are inscribed the measurements of some small French or Italian foot, of which they are possibly quite proud, and it is amusing to see their faces fall and the look of incredulous astonishment which follows the discovery that some slipper which has attracted their fancy is far too small; while others, having asked the price of a pair they had thought of buying, receive so overwhelming a reply that they make off without a word. Here, too, may sometimes be seen Mussulman ladies (hanum) with long white veils, and one can often catch, in passing, fragments of their lengthy dialogues with the shopkeepers, brief sentences of that beautiful language, uttered in sweet, clear tones, which fall upon the ear like the notes of a mandolin: “Buni catscia verersin!” (How much is this?) “Pahalli dir” (It is too high). “Ziade veremem” (I won’t pay any more). And then a childish, ringing laugh, which makes you feel like patting them on the head or pinching their cheeks.

But the richest and most picturesque of all is the armory bazÂr. It is more like a museum, really, than a bazÂr, overflowing with treasures and filled with objects which at once transport the imagination into the realms of history and legend. Every sort and shape of weapon is there, fantastic, horrible, cruel-looking, which has ever been brandished in defence of Islamism from Mecca to the Danube, polished and set out in warlike array, as though but now laid down by the fanatical soldiery of Muhammad and Selim. You seem to see the glittering eyes of those formidable sultans, those savage Janissaries, those spahis and azabs, drunk with blood, amid the gleaming blades—those silidars, to whom pity and fear were alike unknown, and who strewed Europe and Asia Minor with severed heads and stiffened corpses. Here are displayed those renowned cimeters capable of cutting through a floating feather or striking off the ears of audacious ambassadors; those heavy Turkish daggers which cleaved downward at a blow from the skull to the very heart; mighty clubs which crashed through Servian and Hungarian helmets; yataghans, their handles inlaid with ivory and encrusted with amethysts and rubies, and on their blades the engraved record of the number of heads they have cut off; poniards with silver, velvet, or satin sheaths and agate or ivory handles set with coral, turquoise, and garnets, inscribed in golden lettering with verses from the Koran, their blades curved backward as though feeling for a heart. Who can tell whether amid all this strange and terrible array there may not be the cimeter of Orcano or the sabre with which the powerful arm of the warrior-dervish Abd-el-Murad struck off the heads of his enemies at a single blow; or that famous yataghan with which Sultan Moussa clove asunder the body of Hassan from shoulder to heart; or the huge cimeter of the Bulgarian giant who set the first ladder in place against the walls of Constantinople; or the club with which Muhammad II. felled his rapacious soldiers beneath the roof of St. Sophia; or the mighty Damascus sabre with which Scanderbeg cut down Firuzi Pasha beneath the walls of Stetigrad? All the most horrible massacres and blood-curdling murders of Ottoman history, revolts of the Janissaries, and black deeds of treachery come crowding into one’s mind at the mere sight of these terrific weapons, and one fancies that bloodstains can be detected upon the gleaming blades, and that those old Turks lurking in the dim recesses of their shops have gathered them from the field of battle—yes, and the bodies of their owners as well—and that even now their shattered skeletons are occupying some obscure corner close at hand. In among the arms are great blue and scarlet velvet saddles, worked with gold stars and crescents and embroidered in pearls, with plumed frontals and chased silver bits; saddle-cloths magnificent as royal mantles; trappings which remind one of the Thousand and One Nights, seemingly intended for the use of a king of the genii making his triumphal entry into a golden city in the land of dreams. Suspended on the walls above all these treasures are antique firelock muskets, clumsy Albanian pistols, long Arabian guns worked and chased like pieces of jewelry; ancient shields made out of bark, tortoise-shell, or hippopotamus skin; Circassian armor, Cossack shields, Mongolian head-pieces, Turkish bows, executioners’ axes, great blades of uncouth shape and full of horrible suggestions, each one of which seems to bear witness to a crime committed, and brings before one frightful visions of death-agonies.

Seated cross-legged in the midst of all these objects of magnificence and horror are the merchants who, of all those to be found in the Great BazÂr, present the most striking and distinctive examples of the true Mussulman. They are, for the most part, old, of forbidding aspect, lean as anchorites, haughty as sultans, belonging apparently to another age and wearing the dress of a bygone era: it would seem as though they had arisen from the dead for the purpose of recalling their degenerate descendants to the forgotten austerities of their ancient race.

Another spot well worth seeing is the old-clothes bazÂr. Rembrandt would simply have taken up his abode here, and Goya have expended his last peseta. Any one who has never been in an Oriental second-hand shop can form no idea of the variety and richness of the rags, pomp of color, and irony of contrast to be found in them—a sight at once fantastic, melancholy, and repellent. They are a sort of rag-sewer, in which the refuse of harem, barrack, court, and theatre await together the moment when some artist’s caprice or beggar’s necessity shall once more call them forth into the light of day. From long poles fastened to the walls depend antique Turkish uniforms, swallow-tailed coats, fine gentlemen’s cloaks, dervishes’ tunics, Bedouins’ mantles, all greasy, torn, and faded, looking as though they had been taken by force from their former owners, and strongly resembling the booty found on footpads and assassins which may be seen on exhibition in the Court of Assizes. In among all these rags and tatters one catches the glitter of an occasional bit of gold embroidery; old silk scarfs and turbans, all unwrapped, dangle to and fro; a rich shawl with ragged edges; a velvet corsage looking as though some rude hand had torn off its trimming of pearls and fur; slippers and veils which may once have belonged to some beautiful sinner, whose body, sewn up in a bag, now sleeps quietly enough beneath the rippling waters of the Bosphorus;—these and countless other feminine garments and adornments, of all manner of charming shapes and colors, hang imprisoned between rough Circassian caftans, long black Jewish capes, rusty cartridge-boxes, heavy cloaks and coarse tunics beneath whose folds who knows how often the bandit’s musket or dagger of the assassin may have been hidden? On toward evening, when the subdued light from the roof above becomes still more uncertain, all these garments, as they sway back and forth in the wind, assume the look and air of human bodies strung up there by some murderer’s hand, and just then, as your eye catches the sinister glance of one of those old Jews seated watchfully in the rear of his gloomy den of a shop, you cannot avoid fancying that the skinny claw with which he scratches his forehead can be no other than the one which tightened the rope—a soothing idea which causes you to glance involuntarily over your shoulder to see if the entrance to the bazÂr is still open.

One day of wandering here and there will not suffice if you really wish to see every part of this strange city. There is the fez bazÂr, in which are to be found fezzes of every country in the world, from that of Morocco to the Vienna fez, ornamented with inscriptions from the Koran, which serve to ward off evil spirits; the fez which is worn perched on the tops of their heads by the pretty Greek girls of Smyrna, surmounting their coils of black hair intertwined with coins; the little red fez of the Turkish women; soldiers’, generals’, sultans’, dandies’ fezzes, of all shades of red and every style, from the primitive ones worn in the days of Orcano to the large and elegant fez of MahmÛd, emblem of reform and an abomination in the eyes of Mussulmans of the old school.

Then there is the fur bazÂr, where may be seen the sacred fur of the black wolf, which at one time none but the Sultan himself and his grand vizier were allowed to wear; the marten, used to trim state caftans; skins of white and black bears; astrakhan, ermine, blue wolf, and rich sable skins, upon which in old times the sultans would expend fabulous sums of money.

Then the cutlery bazÂr is worth a visit, if only to examine those huge Turkish shears whose bronzed and gilded blades, adorned with fantastic designs of birds and flowers, open with a murderous sweep wide enough to swallow up entirely the head of an unfavorable critic.

There are the gold-thread embroidery, china, household utensils, and tailors’ bazÂrs, all differing from one another in size, shape, and character, but all in one respect alike, that in none of them do you ever see a woman either attending to the customers or working apart. At the very most, it may occasionally happen that a Greek woman, seated for a moment in front of some tailor’s shop, will timidly offer to sell you a handkerchief she has just finished embroidering. Oriental jealousy forbids shopkeeping to the fair sex, as offering too wide a field for coquetry and intrigue.

In other parts of the Great BazÂr it is as well for a stranger not to venture unless he is accompanied by a dragoman or one of the shopkeepers. Those are the interior parts of the various districts into which this strange city is divided—the islands, as it were, about which wind and twist the rapid currents of streets and byways. If it is a difficult matter to keep from losing your way among the main thoroughfares, in here it is quite impossible. From passage-ways scarcely wider than a man’s shoulders, where it is necessary to stoop to avoid striking your head, you come out upon tiny courtyards encumbered with bales and boxes, where hardly so much as a single ray of light can penetrate. Feeling your way down flights of wooden steps, you come to other courts lighted only by lanterns, from which you descend below ground, or, climbing up again into what passes for the light of day, stumble with bent head through long, winding corridors, beneath damp roofs and between black and moss-grown walls, to come at last upon some small hidden doorway, and suddenly find yourself exactly where you started. Everywhere shadowy forms are seen coming and going; dusky shapes stand immovable in dark corners, outlines of persons handling merchandise or counting money; lights which flash ahead of you at one moment, and the next, disappear; a sound of hurrying footsteps, of low, eager voices, coming from you don’t know where; reflections thrown from unseen lights; suspicious encounters; strange odors like those one might expect to escape from a witch’s cave; and apparently no possible means of escape from it all. The dragoman is very apt to conduct his victim through these quarters on his way to those shops, usually somewhat apart, which contain a little of everything, like Great BazÂrs in miniature or a superior sort of second-hand shop, extremely curious and interesting, but extremely perilous as well, since they contain such a variety of rare and attractive objects as to woo the money out of the pocket of the veriest miser. The shopkeepers here are great solemn knaves, thoroughly well versed in every art appertaining to their business, and, polyglot like their brothers of the trade, have a certain dramatic power which they employ in the most entertaining manner to tempt people to buy, sometimes rising to the level of genuinely good acting. Their shops usually consist of dark little holes cluttered up with boxes and chests of drawers, where lights have to be lit in order to see anything, and there is barely enough space to turn around in. After displaying a few trifles inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, some bits of Chinese porcelain, a Japanese vase or two, and some other things of the same sort, the shopkeeper informs you with an impressive air that he sees what sort of person you are, and will now bring out something especially suited to you. He then proceeds to pull out a certain drawer, whose contents he empties upon the table. There are all manner of knick-knacks and gewgaws—a peacock-feather fan, a bracelet made of old Turkish coins, a little leather cushion with the Sultan’s monogram embroidered upon it in gold, a Persian hand-glass painted with a scene from the Book of Paradise, one of those tortoise-shell spoons with which Turks eat cherry compÔte, an ancient decoration of the Order of Osmanieh. You don’t care for any of these, either? Very well. He turns out the contents of another, and this is a drawer which, as a matter of fact, was being reserved for your eye alone. There is a broken elephant’s tusk; a Trebizond bracelet, looking as though it had been made from a lock of silver hair; a Japanese idol; a sandal-wood comb from Mecca; a large Turkish spoon, chased and filigreed; an antique silver narghileh, gilded and inscribed; bits of mosaic from St. Sophia; a heron’s feather, which once ornamented the turban of Selim III.: for the truth of this last statement the merchant, as a man of honor, is willing to vouch. And still there is nothing which suits your fancy? Here, then, is another drawer, crammed full of treasures—an ostrich egg from Sahara; a Persian inkstand; a chased ring; a Mingrelian bow, with its quiver made out of an elk’s skin; a Circassian two-pointed head-piece; a jasper rosary; a smelling-bottle of beaten gold; a Turkish talisman; a camel-driver’s knife; a box of attar-gul. In Heaven’s name, is there still nothing that tempts you? Have you no presents to make? no beloved relatives? no dear friends? Perhaps, though, your tastes run to stuffs and carpets. Well, here too he can assist you as a friend. “Behold, milor, this striped Kurdistan mantle, this lion skin; yonder rug is from Aleppo, with its little steel fastenings, while this Casablanca carpet, three fingers thick, is guaranteed to last for four generations; here, Your Excellency, are old cushions, old brocade scarfs, old silken coverlids, a little faded, a little frayed out at the edges, it is true, but such embroidery as you could not get in these days, even if you were to offer a fortune. You, caballero, have been brought here by a friend of mine, and for that reason I am going to let you have this ancient sash for the sum of five napoleons, and live myself on bread and garlic for one week in order to make up the loss.” Should even this magnificent offer fail to move you, he whispers in your ear that he has in his possession, and is moreover willing to sell, the very rope with which the terrible Seraglio mutes strangled Nassuh Pasha, Muhammad Third’s grand vizier. And if you laugh in his face and decline to swallow it, he gives it up at once like a sensible man, and proceeds to make his final effort, displaying before you, in rapid succession, a horse’s tail such as were once carried before and after every pasha; a janissary’s helmet, spattered with blood, which his own father picked up on the day of the famous massacre; a scrap of one of the flags carried in the Crimea, showing the silver star and crescent; a wash-basin studded with agates; a brazier of beaten copper; a dromedary-collar with its shells and bells; a eunuch’s whip made of hippopotamus leather; a gold-bound Koran; a Khorassan scarf; a pair of slippers from a kadyn’s wardrobe; a candlestick made from the claw of an eagle,—until at length your imagination is fired. The longing to possess breaks forth, and you are seized with a mad impulse to throw down your purse, watch, overcoat, everything you have, and fill your pockets with booty. One must indeed be an uncommonly well-balanced person, a very mountain of wisdom, to be able to withstand the temptations of this place, whence many an artist has come forth as poor as Job, and where more than one rich man has thrown away his fortune.

But before the Great BazÂr closes let us take a turn around to see how it looks at the end of the day. The crowd moves along more hurriedly; shopkeepers call out to you and gesticulate more imperiously than ever; Greeks and Armenians run through the streets calling aloud, with shawls or rugs hung over their arms, or form into groups, bargaining and discussing as they move about, then break up and form again into other groups farther off; horses, carriages, beasts of burden, all moving in the direction of the gateway, pass by in endless files. At this hour all those tradespeople with whom you have had fruitless negotiations during the day start to life again, circling around you in the dusk like so many bats: you see them peeping out from behind columns; come suddenly upon them at every turn; they cross in front of you or pass close by you gazing abstractedly in the air, to remind you by their presence of that certain rug or that bit of jewelry, and, if possible, reawaken your desire to possess it. Sometimes you are followed by a whole troop of them at once: if you stop, they do the same; if you slip down a side street, you find them there before you; turning suddenly, you are aware of a dozen sharp eyes fixed upon you which seem to fairly devour you whole. But already the fading light warns the crowd to disperse. Beneath the vaulted roof can be heard the voice of an invisible muezzin announcing the sunset from some wooden minaret. Some Turks have spread strips of carpet in the street before their shop-doors and are murmuring the evening prayer; others perform their ablutions at the fountains. The centenarians of the armor bazÂr have already shut to their great iron doors; the smaller bazÂrs are empty; the farther ends of the corridors are lost in shadow, and the openings of the side streets look like the mouths of caves. Camels suddenly loom up close to you in the uncertain light; the voices of the water-carriers echo distantly among the arched roofs; the Turk quickens his step and the eunuch’s eyes grow more alert; strangers are seen hurrying away; the entrance is closed; the day ended.

And now on all sides I can hear the questions: What about St. Sophia? and the old Seraglio? and the Sultan’s palaces? and the Castle of the Seven Towers? and Abdul-Aziz? and the Bosphorus. All in good time: each one of them shall be fully described in turn, but for still a little while longer let us wander here and there about the city, touching at every page upon some new theme just as some new idea strikes our fancy at every step.