Near this mosque are lines of booths and open-air shops, which had a fascination for me as long as I remained in the city. They extend from the trees in the place of the mosque down through lanes to the bazaars. The keepers of them were typical Orientals, honest Jews, honest Moslems, withered and one-eyed waiters on Providence and a good bargain, suave, gracious, patient, gowned and turbaned, sitting cross-legged behind their trays and showcases. These are the dealers in stones, both precious and common, in old and new ornaments, and the thousand cheap adornments in glass and metal which the humbler classes love. Here are heaps of blood-stones, of carnelians, of agates, of jasper, of onyx, dishes of turquoise, strings of doubtful pearls, barbarous rings and brooches, charms and amulets,—a feast of color for the eye, and a sight to kindle the imagination. For these bawbles came out of the recesses of the Orient, were gathered by wild tribes in remote deserts, and transported by caravan to this common mart. These dealers buy of the Persian merchants, and of adventurous Jew travellers who range all the deserts from Teheran to Upper Nubia in search of these shining stones. Some of the turquoises are rudely set in silver rings, but most of them are merely glued to the end of little sticks; these generally are the refuse of the trade, for the finer stones go to the great jewellers in the bazaar, or to the Western markets. A large and perfect turquoise of good color is very rare, and commands a large price; but the cunning workmen of Persia have a method of at once concealing the defects of a good-sized turquoise which has the true color, and at the same time enhancing its value, by engraving upon it some sentence from the Koran, or some word which is a charm against the evil eye; the skill of the engraver is shown in fitting his letters and flourishes to the flaws in the surface of the stone. To further hide any appearance of imperfection, the engraved lines are often gilded. With a venerable Moslem, who sat day after day under a sycamore-tree, I had great content, and we both enjoyed the pleasure of endless bargaining without cheating each other, for except in some trifles we never came to an exact agreement. He was always promising me the most wonderful things for the next day, which he would procure from a mysterious Jew friend who carried on a clandestine commerce with some Bedawee in Arabia. When I was seated, he would pull from his bosom a knotted silk handkerchief, and, carefully untying it, produce a talisman, presenting it between his thumb and finger, with a lift of the eyebrows and a cluck of the tongue that expressed the rapture I would feel at the sight of it. To be sure, I found it a turquoise set in rude silver, faded to a sickly green, and not worth sixpence; but I handed it back with a sigh that such a jewel was beyond my means, and intimated that something less costly, and of a blue color, would suit me as well. We were neither of us deceived, while we maintained the courtesies of commercial intercourse. Sometimes he would produce from his bosom an emerald of real value or an opal of lovely hues, and occasionally a stone in some peculiar setting which I had admired the day before in the jewelry bazaar; for these trinkets, upon which the eye of the traveller has been seen longingly to rest, are shifted about among this mysterious fraternity to meet him again.
I suppose it was known all over Stamboul that a Prank had been looking for a Persian amulet. As long as I sat with my friend, I never saw him actually sell anything, but he seemed to be the centre of mysterious transactions; furtive traders continually came to him to borrow or return a jewel, or to exchange a handful of trumpery. Delusive old man! I had no confidence in you, but I would go far to pass another day in your tranquil society. How much more agreeable you were than the young Nubian at an opposite stand, who repelled purchasers by his supreme indifference, and met all my feeble advances with the toss of the head and the cluck in the left cheek, which is the peremptory “no” in Nubia.
In this quarter are workers in shell and ivory, the makers of spoons of tortoise-shell with handles of ivory and coral, the fabricators of combs, dealers in books, and a long street of little shops devoted to the engraving of seals. To wander about among these craftsmen is one of the chief pleasures of the traveller. Vast as Stamboul is, if you remove from it the mosques and nests of bazaars, it would not be worth a visit.
XXV.—THE SERAGLIO AND ST. SOPHIA, HIPPODROME, etc
HAVING procured a firman, we devoted a day to the old Seraglio and some of the principal mosques of Stamboul. After an occupation of fifteen centuries as a royal residence, the Seraglio has been disused for nearly forty years, and fire, neglect, and decay have done their work on it, so that it is but a melancholy reminiscence of its former splendor. It occupies the ancient site of Byzantium, upon the Point, and is enclosed by a crumbling wall three miles in circuit. No royal seat in the world has a more lovely situation. Upon the summit of the promontory, half concealed in cypresses, is the cluster of buildings, of all ages and degrees of cheapness, in which are the imperial apartments and offices; on the slopes towards the sea are gardens, terraces, kiosks, and fountains.
We climbed up the hill on the side towards Pera, through a shabby field, that had almost the appearance, of a city dumping-ground, and through a neglected grove of cypresses, where some deer were feeding, and came round to the main entrance, a big, ugly pavilion with eight openings over the arched porte,—the gate which is known the world over as the Sublime Porte. Through this we passed into a large court, and thence to the small one into which the Sultan only is permitted to ride on horseback. In the centre of this is a fountain where formerly pashas foreordained to lose their heads lost them. On the right, a low range of buildings covered with domes but no chimneys, are the royal kitchens; there are nine of them,—one for the Sultan, one for the chief sultanas, and so on down to the one devoted to the cooking of the food for the servants. Hundreds of beasts, hecatombs, were slaughtered daily and cooked here to feed the vast household. From this court open the doors into the halls and divans and various apartments; one of them, leading into the interior, is called the Gate of Felicity; in the old times that could only be called a gate of felicity which let a person out of this spider’s parlor. In none of these rooms is there anything specially attractive; cheap magnificence in decay is only melancholy.
We were better pleased in the gardens, where we looked upon Galata and Pera, upon the Golden Horn and the long bridges streaming with their picturesque processions, upon the Bosphorus and its palaces, and thousands of sails, steamers, and caïques, and the shining heights of Scutari. Overhanging the slope is the kiosk or summer palace of Sultan Moorad, a Saracenic octagonal structure, the interior walls lined with Persian tiles, the ceilings painted in red arabesques and gilded in mosaics, the gates of bronze inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a most charming building, said to be in imitation of a kiosk of Bagdad. In it we saw the Sultan’s private library, a hundred or two volumes in a glass case, that had no appearance of having been read either by the Sultan or his wife.
The apartment in the Seraglio which is the object of curiosity and desire is the treasure-room. I suppose it is the richest in the world in gems; it is certainly a most wearisome place, and gave me a contempt for earthly treasure. In the centre stands a Persian throne,—a chair upon a board platform, and both incrusted with rubies, pearls, emeralds, diamonds; there are toilet-tables covered to the feet with diamonds, pipe-stems glistening with huge diamonds, old armor thickly set with precious stones, saddle-cloths and stirrups stiff with diamonds and emeralds, robes embroidered with pearls. Nothing is so cheap as wealth lavished in this manner; at first we were dazzled by the flashing display, but after a time these heaps of gems seemed as common in our eyes as pebbles in the street. I did not even covet an emerald as large as my fist, nor a sword-hilt in which were fifteen diamonds, each as large as the end of my thumb, nor a carpet sown with pearls, some of which were of the size of pigeon’s eggs, nor aigrettes which were blazing with internal fires, nor chairs of state, clocks and vases, the whole surfaces of which were on fire with jewels. I have seen an old oaken table, carved in the fifteenth century, which gave me more pleasure than one of lapis lazuli, which is exhibited as the most costly article in this collection; though it is inlaid with precious stones, and the pillars that support the mirror are set with diamonds, and the legs and claws are a mass of diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, emeralds, topazes, etc., and huge diamond pendants ornament it, and the deep fringe in front is altogether of diamonds. This is but a barbarous, ostentatious, and tasteless use of the beautiful, and I suppose gives one an idea of the inartistic magnificence of the Oriental courts in centuries gone by.
This treasure-house has, I presume, nothing that belonged to the Byzantine emperors before the Moslem conquest, some of whom exceeded in their magnificence any of the Osmanli sultans. Arcadius, the first Eastern emperor after the division of the Roman world, rivalled, in the appointments of his palace (which stood upon this spot) and in his dress, the magnificence of the Persian monarchs; and perhaps the luxurious califs of Bagdad at a later day did not equal his splendor. His robes were of purple, a color reserved exclusively for his sacred person, and of silk, embroidered with gold dragons; his diadem was of gold set with gems of inestimable worth; his throne was massy gold, and when he went abroad he rode in a chariot of solid, pure gold, drawn by two milk-white mules shining in harness and trappings of gold.
No spot on earth has been the scene of such luxury, cruelty, treachery, murder, infidelity of women, and rapacity of men, as this site of the old palace; and the long record of the Christian emperors—the occasionally interrupted anarchy and usurpation of a thousand years—loses nothing in these respects in comparison with the Turkish occupation, although the world shudders at the unrevealed secrets of the Seraglio. At least we may suppose that nobody’s conscience was violated if a pretty woman was occasionally dropped into the Bosphorus, and there was the authority of custom for the strangling of all the children of the sisters of the Sultan, so that the succession might not be embarrassed. In this court is the cage, a room accessible only by a window, where the royal children were shut up to keep them from conspiracy against the throne; and there Sultan Abdul Aziz spent some years of his life.
We went from the treasure-room to the ancient and large Church of St. Irene, which is now the arsenal of the Seraglio, and become, one might say, a church militant. The nave and aisles are stacked with arms, the walls, the holy apse, the pillars, are cased in guns, swords, pistols, and armor, arranged in fanciful patterns, and with an ingenuity I have seen nowhere else. Here are preserved battle-flags and famous trophies, an armlet of Tamerlane, a sword of Scanderbeg, and other pieces of cold, pliant steel that have a reputation for many murders. There is no way so sure to universal celebrity as wholesale murder. Adjoining the arsenal is a museum of Greek and Roman antiquities of the city, all in Turkish disorder; the Cyprus Collections, sent by General di Cesnola, are flung upon shelves or lie in heaps unarranged, and most of the cases containing them had not been opened. Near this is an interesting museum of Turkish costumes for the past five hundred years,—rows on rows of ghastly wax figures clad in the garments of the dead. All of them are ugly, many of them are comical in their exaggeration. The costumes of the Janizaries attract most attention, perhaps from the dislike with which we regard those cruel mercenaries, who deposed and decapitated sultans at their will, and partly because many of the dresses seem more fit for harlequins or eunuchs of the harem than for soldiers.
When the Church of Santa Sophia, the House of Divine Wisdom, was finished, and Justinian entered it, accompanied only by the patriarch, and ran from the porticos to the pulpit with outstretched arms, crying, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee!” it was doubtless the most magnificently decorated temple that had ever stood upon the earth. The exterior was as far removed in simple grandeur as it was in time from the still matchless Doric temples of Athens and of Pæstum, or from the ornate and lordly piles of Ba’albek; but the interior surpassed in splendor almost the conception of man. The pagan temples of antiquity had been despoiled, the quarries of the known world had been ransacked for marbles of various hues and textures to enrich it; and the gold, the silver, the precious stones, employed in its decoration, surpassed in measure the barbaric ostentation of the Temple at Jerusalem. Among its forest of columns, one recognized the starred syenite from the First Cataract of the Nile; the white marble of Phrygia, striped with rose; the green of Laconia, and the blue of Libya; the black Celtic, white-veined, and the white Bosphorus, black-veined; polished shafts which had supported the roof of the Temple of the Delian Apollo, others which had beheld the worship of Diana at Ephesus and of Pallas Athene on the Acropolis, and, yet more ancient, those that had served in the mysterious edifices of Osiris and Isis; while, more conspicuous and beautiful than all, were the eight columns of porphyry, which, transported by Aurelian from the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis to Home, the pious Marina had received as her dowry and dedicated to the most magnificent building ever reared to the worship of the True God, and fitly dominating the shores of Europe and Asia.
One reads of doors of cedar, amber, and ivory; of hundreds of sacred vessels of pure gold, of exquisitely wrought golden candelabra, and crosses of an hundred pounds’ weight each; of a score of books of the Evangelists, the gold covers of which weighed twenty pounds; of golden lilies and golden trumpets; of forty-two thousand chalice-cloths embroidered with pearls and jewels; and of the great altar, for which gold was too cheap a material, a mass of the most precious and costly stones imbedded in gold and silver. We may recall also the arches and the clear spaces of the walls inlaid with marbles and covered with brilliant mosaics. It was Justinian’s wish to pave the floor with plates of gold, but, restrained by the fear of the avarice of his successors, he laid it in variegated marbles, which run in waving lines, imitating the flowing of rivers from the four corners to the vestibules. But the wonder of the edifice was the dome, one hundred and seven feet in span, hanging in the air one hundred and eighty feet above the pavement. The aerial lightness of its position is increased by the two half-domes of equal span and the nine cupolas which surround it.
More than one volume has been exclusively devoted to a description of the Mosque of St. Sophia, and less than a volume would not suffice. But the traveller will not see the ancient glories. If he expects anything approaching the exterior richness and grandeur of the cathedrals of Europe, or the colossal proportions of St. Peter’s at Rome, or the inexhaustible wealth of the interior of St. Mark’s at Venice, he will be disappointed. The area of St. Peter’s exceeds that of the grand Piazza of St. Mark, while St. Sophia is only two hundred and thirty-five feet broad by three hundred and fifty feet long; and while the Church of St. Mark has been accumulating spoils of plunder and of piety for centuries, the Church of the Divine Wisdom has been ransacked by repeated pillages and reduced to the puritan plainness of the Moslem worship.
Exceedingly impressive, however, is the first view of the interior; we stood silent with wonder and delight in the presence of the noble columns, the bold soaring arches, the dome in the sky. The temple is flooded with light, perhaps it is too bright; the old mosaics and paintings must have softened it; and we found very offensive the Arabic inscriptions on the four great arches, written in characters ten yards long. They are the names of companions of the Prophet, but they look like sign-boards. Another disagreeable impression is produced by the position of the Mihrab, or prayer-niche; as this must be in the direction of Mecca, it is placed at one side of the apse, and everything in the mosque is forced to conform to it. Thus everything is askew; the pulpits are set at hateful angles, and the stripes of the rugs on the floor all run diagonally across. When one attempts to walk from the entrance, pulled one way by the architectural plan, and the other by the religious diversion of it, he has a sensation of being intoxicated.
Gone from this temple are the sacred relics which edified the believers of former ages, such as the trumpets that blew down Jericho and planks from the Ark of Noah, but the Moslems have prodigies to replace them. The most curious of these is the sweating marble column, which emits a dampness that cures diseases. I inserted my hand in a cavity which has been dug in it, and certainly experienced a clammy sensation. It is said to sweat most early in the morning. I had the curiosity to ascend the gallery to see the seat of the courtesan and Empress Theodora, daughter of the keeper of the bears of the circus,—a public and venal pantomimist, who, after satisfying the immoral curiosity of her contemporaries in many cities, illustrated the throne of the Cæsars by her talents, her intrigues, and her devotion. The fondness of Justinian has preserved her initials in the capitals of the columns, the imperial eagle marks the screen that hid her seat, and the curious traveller may see her name carved on the balustrade where she sat.
To the ancient building the Moslems have added the minarets at the four corners and the enormous crescent on the dome, the gilding of which cost fifty thousand ducats, and the shining of which, a golden moon in the day, is visible at the distance of a hundred miles. The crescent, adopted by the Osmanli upon the conquest of Jerusalem, was the emblem of Byzantium before the Christian era. There is no spot in Constantinople more flooded with historical associations, or more interesting to the student of the history of the Eastern Empire, than the site of St. Sophia. Here arose the church of the same name erected by Constantine; it was twice burned, once by the party of St. John Chrysostom, and once in a tumult of the factions of the Hippodrome. I should like to have seen some of the pageants that took place here. After reposing in their graves for three centuries, the bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy were transported hither. Fifty years after it was honored by a still more illustrious presence; the ashes of the prophet Samuel, deposited in a golden vase covered with a silken veil, left their resting-place in Palestine for the banks of the Bosphorus. The highways from the hills of Judæa to the gates of Constantinople were filled by an uninterrupted procession, who testified their enthusiasm and joy, and the Emperor Arcadius himself, attended by the most illustrious of the clergy and the Senate, advanced to receive his illustrious guest, and conducted the holy remains to this magnificent but insecure place of repose. It was here that Gregory Nazianzen was by force installed upon the Episcopal throne by Theodosius. The city was fanatically Arian. Theodosius proclaimed the Nicene creed, and ordered the primate to deliver the cathedral and all the churches to the orthodox, who were few in number, but strong in the presence of Gregory. This extraordinary man had set up an orthodox pulpit in a private house; he had been mobbed by a motley crowd which issued from the Cathedral of St. Sophia, “common beggars who had forfeited their claim to pity, monks who had the appearance of goats or satyrs, and women more horrible than so many Jezebels”; he had his triumph when Theodosius led him by the hand through the streets—filled with a multitude crowding pavement, roofs, and windows, and venting their rage, grief, astonishment, and despair—into the church, which was held by soldiers, though the prelate confessed that the city had the appearance of a town stormed by barbarians. It was here that Eutropius, the eunuch, when his career of rapacity exceeded even the toleration of Arcadius, sought sanctuary, and was protected by John Chrysostom, archbishop, who owed his ecclesiastical dignity to the late sexless favorite. And it was up this very nave that Mohammed II., the conqueror, spurred his horse through a crowd of fugitives, dismounted at the foot of the altar, cried, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet!” and let loose his soldiery upon the priests, virgins, and promiscuous multitude who had sought shelter here.
I should only weary you with unintelligible details in attempting a description of other mosques which we visited. They are all somewhat alike, though varying in degrees of splendor. There is that of Sultan Ahmed, on the site of the Hippodrome, distinguished as the only one in the empire that has six minarets,—the state mosque of the Sultan, whence the Mecca pilgrimages proceed and where the great festivals are held. From a distance it is one of the most conspicuous and poetically beautiful objects in the city. And there is the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, a copy of St. Sophia and excelling it in harmonious grandeur,—indeed, it is called the finest mosque in the empire. Its forecourt measures a thousand paces, and the enclosure contains, besides the mosque and the tomb of the founder, many foundations of charity and of learning,—three schools for the young, besides one for the reading of the Koran and one of medicine, four academies for the four Moslem sects, a hospital, a kitchen for the poor, a library, a fountain, a resting-place for travellers, and a house of refuge for strangers. From it one enjoys a magnificent view of the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, and the piled-up city opposite. When we entered the mosque hundreds of worshippers were at prayer, bowing their turbans towards Mecca in silent unison. The throng soon broke up into groups of from ten to forty, which seated themselves in circles on the floor for the reading of the Koran. The shoes were heaped in the centre of each circle, the chief reader squatted at a low desk on one side, and all read together in a loud voice, creating an extraordinary vocal tumult. It was like a Sunday school in fancy dress.
Stamboul is a very interesting place to those who have a taste for gorgeous sepulchres, and I do not know any such pleasant residences of the dead as the turbehs, or tombs of the imperial family. Usually attached to the mosques, but sometimes standing apart, they are elegant edifices, such as might be suitable for the living; in their airy, light, and stately chambers the occupants are deprived of no splendor to which they were accustomed in life. One of the most beautiful of these turbehs, that of Sultan Mahmood II., I mistook for a fountain; it is a domed, circular building of white marble, with Corinthian pilasters, and lighted by seven large windows with gilded grating. Within, in a cheerful, carpeted apartment, are the biers of the sultan, his valideh sultana, and five daughters, covered with cloths of velvet, richly embroidered, upon which are thrown the most superb India shawls; the principal sarcophagi are surrounded by railings of mother-of-pearl; massive silver candlesticks and Koran-stands, upon which are beautiful manuscripts of the Koran, are disposed about the room, and at the head of the Sultan’s bier is a fez with a plume and aigrette of diamonds. In the court of Santa Sophia you may see the beautiful mausoleum of Selim II., who reposes beside the Lady of Light; and not far from it the turbeh containing the remains of Mohammed III., surrounded by the biers of seventeen brothers whom he murdered. It is pleasant to see brothers united and in peace at last. I found something pathetic in other like apartments where families were gathered together, sultans and sultanas in the midst of little span-long biers of sons and daughters, incipient sultans and sultanas, who were never permitted by state policy, if I may be allowed the expression, to hatch. Strangled in their golden cradles, perhaps, these innocents! Worthless little bodies, mocked by the splendor of their interments. One could not but feel a little respect for what might have been a “Sublime Porte” or a Light of the Seraglio.
The Imperial Palace, the Church of Santa Sophia, the Hippodrome,—these are the triangle of Byzantine history, the trinity of tyranny, religion, and faction. The Circus of Constantinople, like that on the banks of the Tiber, was the arena for the exhibition of games, races, spectacles, and triumphs; like that, it was the arena of a licentious democracy, but the most disorderly mob of Rome never attained the power or equalled the vices of the murderous and incendiary factions of Byzantium. The harmless colors that at first only distinguished the ignoble drivers in the chariot races became the badges of parties, which claimed the protection and enjoyed the favor of emperors and prelates; and the blue and the green factions not only more than once involved the city in conflagration and blood, but carried discord and frenzy into all the provinces. Although they respected no human or divine law, they affected religious zeal for one or another Christian sect or dogma; the “blues” long espoused the orthodox cause, and enjoyed the partiality of Justinian. The dissolute youth of Constantinople, wearing the livery of the factions, possessed the city at night, and abandoned themselves to any deed of violence that fancy or revenge suggested; neither the sanctity of the church, nor the peace of the private house, nor the innocence of youth, nor the chastity of matron or maid, was safe from these assassins and ravishers. It was in one of their seditious outbreaks that the palace and Santa Sophia were delivered to the flames.
The oblong ground of the Hippodrome is still an open place, although a portion of the ground is covered by the Mosque of Ahmed. But the traveller will find there few relics of this historical arena; nothing of the marble seats and galleries that surrounded it. The curious may look at the Egyptian obelisk of syenite, at the crumbling pyramid which was the turning goal of the chariots; and he may find more food for reflection in the bronze spiral column, formed by the twinings of three serpents whose heads have been knocked off. It deserves to be housed and cared for. There is no doubt of its venerable antiquity; it was seen by Thucydides and Herodotus in the Temple of Delphi, where its three branching heads formed a tripod upon which rested the dish of gold which the Greeks captured among the spoils of the battle of Platæa. The column is not more than fifteen feet high; it has stood here since the time of Constantine.
This is the most famous square of Constantinople, yet in its present unromantic aspect it is difficult to reanimate its interest. It is said that its statues of marble and bronze once excelled the living population of the city. In its arena emperors, whose vices have alone saved their names to a conspicuous contempt, sought the popular applause by driving in the chariot races, or stripped themselves for the sports with wild beasts, proud to remind the spectators of the exploits of Caligula and Heliogabalus. Here, in the reign of Anastasius, the “green” faction, entering the place with concealed daggers, interrupted a solemn festival and assassinated three thousand of the “blues.” This place was in the first quarter of this century the exercise and parade ground of the Janizaries, until they were destroyed. Let us do justice to the Turks. In two memorable instances they exhibited a nerve which the Roman emperors lacked, who never had either the firmness or the courage to extirpate the Prætorian Guards. The Janizaries set up, deposed, murdered sultans, as the Guards did Emperors; and the Mamelukes of Egypt imitated their predecessors at Rome. Mahmood II. in Constantinople, and Mohammed Ali in Cairo, had the courage to extinguish these enemies of Turkish sovereignty.
In this neighborhood are several ancient monuments; the Burnt Column, a blackened shaft of porphyry; the column called Historical; and that of Theodosius,—I shall not fatigue you with further mention of them. Not far from the Hippodrome we descended into the reservoir called A Thousand and One Columns; I suppose this number is made up by counting one as three, for each column consists of three superimposed shafts. It is only partially excavated. We found a number of Jews occupying these subterranean colonnades, engaged in twisting silk, the even temperature of the cellar being favorable to this work.
As if we had come out of a day in another age, we walked down through the streets of the artificers of brass and ivory and leather, to the floating bridge, and crossed in a golden sunset, in which the minarets and domes of the mosque of Mohammed II. appeared like some aerial creation in the yellow sky.