CONSTANTINOPLE.

I am in Constantinople, founded 658 b.c. by Byza, King of Megara, after whom it was called Byzantium. After some hundreds of years it fell into the hands of the Romans, who, like the Scotch, kept everything they could lay their hands on; and then came Constantine the Great, whose mother, some people say, lived in East Anglia, who enlarged and beautified the city, built the Hippodrome (one of the wonders of the place), and would have made it the capital of his enormous empire. No one can blame the Emperor for preferring Constantinople to Rome.

The city soon became worthy to be the seat of empire. It commanded from its seven hills the opposite shores of Asia and Europe. The climate was healthy, the soil fertile, and the harbour capacious and secure. The Bosphorus and the Hellespont were its two gates, which could always be shut against a hostile fleet. A hundred years after its foundation, a writer, quoted by Gibbon, describes it as possessing a school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public and a hundred and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate and courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred private houses, which from their size and beauty deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian buildings. Successive wars and invasions impaired the wealth and the magnificence of the city. Of the time of Constantine little remains but the ruins of the Hippodrome. The Christian Church of St. Sophia, which he erected to the Eternal Wisdom, and from the pulpit of which Gregory of Nazianzen and Chrysostom the golden-mouthed thundered, was burnt in the reign of Justinian, and his Church of St. Sophia is now a Turkish mosque. The city was the seat and centre of the controversies originated in Alexandria as to the nature of the Trinity, and its rival factions, the Greens and the Blues, were ever ready to engage in bloody and disastrous conflict. As a rule, a man’s zeal is according to his ignorance, and at Constantinople the meanest mechanics spent most of their time in discussing mysteries of which the acutest intellects can never even form an adequate idea, and which no human creed can properly define and express. The Crusaders, who knew little of these matters, seem to have been quite awestruck when they made their way to Constantinople. ‘That such a city could be in the world,’ writes one of the old chroniclers, ‘they had never conceived, and they were never weary of staring at the high walls and towers with which it was entirely compassed; the rich palaces and lofty churches, of which there were so many that no one could have believed it if he had not seen with his own eyes that city—the queen of all cities.’

There are few places naturally so picturesque—no city where the suburbs are so charming. One never wearies of Scutari, Gallipoli, washed by the splendid waters of the Sea of Marmora, the Bosphorus, or those of that magnificent harbour, the Golden Horn, which extends eight miles, and affords an anchorage for a fleet of twelve hundred vessels. Indeed, whether viewed from sea or land, or from such a wonderful standpoint as the marble tower of the Seraskierat, Constantinople on its seven hills, divided as it were between Europe and Asia, presents a marvellous display of scenic beauty. You gaze on stately white palaces, surrounded by domes, towers, cupolas, standing amidst tier above tier of many-coloured dwellings, surrounded on all sides by graceful masses of dark cypresses and sombre pines. High above all rises the grand marble mosque of St. Sophia, resplendent with mosaics, and sending up heavenwards its lofty minarets, whence five times a day the cry of the muezzin calls the world to prayer. As you look and admire, you feel, with the poet,

‘That every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile’—

that is, ever since the Turk has been there. And thus it appears that Constantinople has been, socially and politically, a centre of abominations. It was in 1453 that Mahomet II. took it as his own, and it is there that the unspeakable Turk has ever since remained, and mainly in consequence of English diplomacy and the prodigal expenditure of English treasure and blood. The climax was reached in the days of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe—the Great Elchi, as he was termed. He insisted on reforms, and the Sultan granted them. He insisted that all religions should be equal in the eye of the law, and the precious boon was at once declared. A busy street in Constantinople. (From a photograph) Under the pressure of the Great Elchi, the Sultan issued a proclamation, stating his desire of renewing and enlarging the numerous improvements suggested in his institutions, with a view of making them worthy of the place which his empire held among civilized nations. He was anxious, he said, to promote the happiness of his people, who in his sight were all equal and equally dear. ‘Every distinction or designation tending to make any class of subjects of my empire inferior to any other class on account of their religion, language, or race shall be for ever effaced.’ No one was to be hindered in future on account of his religious creed; no one was to be compelled to change his religion. Such was the spirit of the famous hatti Humayun of 1856. Then came the Treaty of Paris, to destroy the influence of England in the East. The French cared nothing for Turkish reform, and have cared nothing ever since. Bulgarian atrocities, murder and massacre in Cyprus, murder and massacre on a larger scale in Armenia or wherever Armenians are gathered together—of these things the gay world of Paris takes little heed, except when an occasion offers to sneer at John Bull. What cares La Belle France, so long as it has its boulevards and theatres, for the deadly sufferings of any nationality? When did it ever fight for men and women dying by the thousand—ay, tens of thousands, under the despotic sway of a Sultan Abdul Hamid? France does not fight; its aim is to sneer at others and to glorify itself, to make better people as heartless, as cynical, as frivolous as itself. And are we much better—we, whose people, and nobles, and courtiers, and statesmen, and princes, have just done throwing themselves under the feet of A Mosque on the Bosphorus. (From a photograph by Frith and Co., Reigate) the Czar? Yes, but John Bull can act when he has a mind—that is, when he has his inferiors to deal with. It was beautiful when we brought Greece on her knees over the Don Pacifico affair! How bitterly we made China pay for her attack on the Arrow! How we settled the would-be Sultan of Zanzibar! How we have smitten the Dervishes hip and thigh! When I was in Ceylon, I had an interesting interview with Arabi Pasha. I left him hoping, and that is what we all do as regards Turkish affairs—hoping for what never comes.

In the Dardanelles we make our first acquaintance with the Turk. He arrives in a small steamer, with a crew of men wearing the red fez, and at the stern of his boat floats the red flag of Turkey, bearing the crescent. He gives us permission to pursue our way past the forts on either side at the mouth and along the Dardanelles, at the entrance to which point are lying off on our right the far-famed plains of windy Troy. I see also a couple of ironclads, but of what nationality I cannot exactly make out. We are soon out of the Dardanelles, and at Gallipoli, the last town on the European side, and we enter the Sea of Marmora. In current language, Constantinople includes Stamboul, Galata, and its suburbs, which stretch up both sides of the Bosphorus. Galata, the mercantile and shipping quarter, occupies the point and slopes at the right-hand side of the Golden Horn.

Constantinople looks best at a distance. It is true here that distance lends enchantment to the view. Outside it glitters with magnificence. Inside it is foul and beastly, with pavements detestable to walk along or drive, with ruins at every corner, and with refuse The Quay, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young) lying to fester in the blazing sun all day long—certainly a remarkable illustration of what Lord Palmerston affirmed, that dirt was only matter in the wrong place. If you drive you are choked with dust, and the streets are by no means broad enough for the constant business and bustle. Enter the mosques, and you are astonished at their grandeur and the air of desolation and neglect all round. On the waters you miss the gay caique, now superseded by the steam-ferries, ever vomiting clouds of sulphurous smoke. In the city you see the tramcar, a very shabby one, doing a roaring trade. Down by the harbour you see the police, well armed and in small detachments, carefully guarding the streets. The men, with the exception of the red fez, mostly wear the European costume. The women you see in the streets are old and ugly, and, happily, veiled, so that you see nothing of their ugliness but the nose and eyes. Some of the little urchins and girls are very bright-looking, but I fancy they are mostly Greeks. The Turkish boy of the middle class seemed to me very heavy, but, however that may be, he develops into a fine man, with a grand dark face and powerful nose, and looks especially well when on his Arab steed—small, but active and strong, as if he were born to drive everyone before him. Alas! in his little shop he seems very listless and apathetic, but the man in the street is very pertinacious, and I have just bought an elegant walking-stick for half a crown, after being asked four shillings, which I hold to be the cheapest bargain I have made for some time.

We are quite mistaken in England as to the safety of walking the streets in Constantinople. I heard of a row last night, but by day the streets are quite as secure as they are in London. One thing that astonishes me is the utter ignorance of the people of what is going on outside respecting Turkish affairs, and the action, if any, of the diplomatists. You never hear a word on the subject. To sell seems to be the only aim of the Turk. The shops are prodigious. In London their owners would be a great middle class, and form an enlightened public opinion. Here they do nothing of the kind, and there is not a street that has a decent pavement nor a corner that is not a dunghill. There seems to be no attempt at improvement. The dogs—very much like Australian dingoes—bark and bite all day and howl all night. Confusion and decay seem to reign paramount. Now and then you come to an open space—as at the old slave-market, the mosques, and the Hippodrome, where a few trees, chiefly acacias, manage to live, and then you plunge into Holywell Street as it existed half a century back, and all is darkness and dirt again.

Constantinople seems to live chiefly on corn imported from Roumelia and Bulgaria; but they say they are going to open up Asia Minor by means of railways, and the wheat-grower there will then have his chance. There are few liquor-shops, but many for the sale of lemon-and-water and grapes and melons. In many a shop I see Sunlight Soap and the biscuits of Huntley and Palmer and Peek and Frean. The donkeys and horses have an awful time of it as they go along the narrow streets, with panniers on each side, which appear to get in everyone’s way. Then comes a rickety waggon, drawn by two big oxen, which seem as if they must grind the pedestrian to powder. Then follows the porter, perspiring and bending under his heavy load, and the aged crone, more or less veiled, as if she had—which she has not, unhappily—a glimpse of female charm to display. Now and then you meet a priest with his red-and-white turban and long brown robe, and if you make your way into a mosque—and they are all worth visiting—there, in a little wooden recess, seated cross-legged on an Indian mat, you will find a priest or devout layman by himself, repeating verses of the Koran. The mosques are grotesque outside, but inspiring from their size inside.

Constantinople is not the place to come to on a hot November day, and the commercial port is, I hold, utterly unfit for shipping. We have a good deal of diarrhoea on board, nor can you wonder, when you remember that into this one spot flows all the filth and sewage of Galata. It is worse than Naples; it is worse than Athens, and that is saying a good deal. Coleridge’s Cologne, with its numerous stenches, is nothing to it. If there be any truth in sanitary science, there must be an awful waste of life in these parts. Here we hear not a whisper of the Turkish crisis, or of the driving out of the Turk, ‘bag and baggage,’ as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe wrote fifty years before Mr. Gladstone adopted the celebrated phrase. Be that as it may, Constantinople gives you an idea of a densely-populated city. It is with real difficulty that you make your way anywhere. The fat official Turk, who dines in some gorgeous palace—and the place is full of them—and drives in his brougham and pair, may have an easy time of it; but the majority of the inhabitants, in their narrow shops and darkened houses, must have a bad time of it. I sigh for the wings of a dove, that I may fly away and be at rest. Under this pestiferous atmosphere and bright, blazing sun, it is impossible to do anything but sleep; but that is not easy in one’s small cabin, floating on this wide waste of sewage. There seems nothing to amuse the people. In the course of my peregrinations I met with but one minstrel, and he was far away. Next to the mosques, the coolest place I have yet visited is the new museum, with a Galata Bridge, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young) fine collection of Greek and Roman and Egyptian antiquities; but I am no friend to a hurried visit to a museum, which leaves the mind rather confused and uninformed. As yet I have made no attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of the harem. For one thing, I am rather past that sort of thing. But if I may judge from what I have seen outside the harem, there can be but little to tempt one to enter within; and with the poet I exclaim, ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’

I fancy we are most of us tired of Constantinople. To me it is a place where a little sight-seeing goes a long way. Our gallant captain, on the contrary, tells me that he could put in three months here very well. As it is, there are about 2,000 English here, to say nothing of naturalized Greeks and Maltese. I suppose Constantinople is not a bad place for a short residence. The hotels are good, and in some you may have a bedroom for four francs a day. Provisions are not dear, but house-rent is very expensive. The population of the place is dense, at which I wonder, as Constantinople seems to me the most unhealthy city I have ever seen. The only nuisances are the guides, who will persist in following you everywhere, and whose knowledge of English and of the things you really want to know is very limited. For instance, I passed two obelisks one day. I asked my guide about them. ‘They come from Egypt,’ was his reply. I could have told him as much myself.

If you need rest, seek it not in Constantinople, with its noisy crowds by day and its noisy dogs by night; seek it not in its narrow streets, where horses and asses and big bullocks, dragging along the most rickety of waggons, are ever to be seen; seek it not as you drive along its uneven and disgracefully-paved streets. The mosques are cool and spacious—there you may rest; but if there is a service, you are not permitted to remain unless you are a Mohammedan. One advantage of the mosques is that there is generally a large open space attached to them, where people can wash themselves and also hold a market. People seem to An old street, Constantinople. (From a photograph by Fradelle and Young) do much as they like, as they talk and smoke and play cards, and indulge in coffee or lemon-and-water. I have never yet seen a drunken man or—what is worse—a drunken woman, and yet an English lady, a clergyman’s wife, told me that she only went on shore once, and was so shocked that she resolved never to set foot in the place again. The people were so degraded; the poor porters were so overburdened; and, then, they were all such awful idolaters. I presume the lady knows nothing of parts of London where worse sights are to be seen every day.

The Bosphorus is beautiful beyond description. It beats the Rhine, it beats the American Hudson; indeed, it is the grandest panorama in the world. At its back rise the green wooded hills, and the front is lined with pleasant villas and palaces—white or yellow, built in Turkish fashion, with innumerable windows everywhere. There must be great wealth in the district to build and support such places. Everywhere there is a great appearance of religion. Go into a mosque any hour you will, and you see a priest or layman sitting in a quiet corner, fenced with a wooden rail, cross-legged, repeating the Koran. One of the oddest sights I saw in the grand Mosque of St. Sophia was that of an old-fashioned London clock. One of my troubles as I explored the mosque—the floor of which is lined with Indian matting—was to keep on my Turkish slippers. An attendant who followed me had to stoop down every minute to put them on, that I might not reveal the deck-shoes which I wore inside. A gentleman who had visited the mosque told me that on one occasion, when he took off a pair of new boots there which he was wearing, he never saw them again.It is wonderful how cheap provisions are: beef, threepence a pound; bread, a halfpenny; grapes, a halfpenny; fowls for sevenpence; and mountains of melons everywhere. There is free education, and an abundant supply of schools. The labouring classes are well employed. The English here are chiefly merchants or agents or engineers. On our way back we pass that favourite resort of the Turkish holiday-makers—the Valley of Sweet Waters—and have a good view of the hospital at Scutari, built by Florence Nightingale—now utilized as barracks—and of the monuments in front of the cemetery in memory of the British officers and soldiers who died during the Crimean War.

It is a relief to us all to get back into the Dardanelles and sail over the spot where Xerxes built his famous bridge, the narrow strait across which Leander swam nightly to visit his lady-love—a feat performed by our great poet Byron at a later age—and wander in fancy as we again catch sight of the plains of Troy, the spot where the Greek hero Protesilaus first struck the Trojan strand, and thus gave occasion to our Wordsworth to write his immortal poem—a poem that will be read and admired when all the puny poets of the present age are dead and forgotten. Out in the Ægean Sea the weather is almost cool and delightfully refreshing, just like a fine morning in spring at home. The first isle of any importance we make is Tenedos, behind which, on the mainland, lies Troas, visited by the Apostle Paul. To the north lies Besika Bay, where once the French and English fleets assembled prior to their passage of the Dardanelles, and where the British fleet, under Admiral Hornby, lay in 1887–88 during the Russo-Turkish War. Next we reach the ancient Lectum, the most westernly point of Asia, and get a glimpse of the beautiful island of Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos. Mitylene, on the east coast, is prettily situated, and does a considerable trade. There are few remains of the ancient city. The island has 115,000 inhabitants, mostly Greeks.