The Project Gutenberg eBook, The City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836, Vol. II (of 2), by Miss (Julia) Pardoe

The part of List of Illustrations in Vol. I. related to Vol. II. is moved to Vol. II. for completenes and consistency.

THE
CITY OF THE SULTAN;

AND

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE TURKS,
IN 1836.

BY MISS PARDOE,

AUTHOR OF “TRAITS AND TRADITIONS OF PORTUGAL.”

TOWER OF GALATA.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1837.

LONDON:
P. SHOBERL, JUN., LEICESTER STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL II.

THE
CITY OF THE SULTAN.

CHAPTER I.

Departure for Broussa—Rocky Coast—Moudania—The Custom House—Translation of the word Backshich—The Archbishop of Broussa—The Boatman’s House—The Dead and the Living—Laughable Cavalcade—Dense Mists—Fine Country—Flowers, Birds, and Butterflies—The Coffee Hut—The Turkish Woman—Broussa in the Distance—The Dried-up Fountain—Immense Plains—Bohemian Gipsies—Mountain Streams—Turkish Washerwomen—Fine Old Wall—The Jews’ Quarter—The Turkish Kiosk—Oriental Curiosity—A Dream of Home.

Having decided on visiting Broussa, we hired an island caïque with four stout rowers, and provided ourselves with plenty of coats and cloaks, a basket of provisions, and a few volumes of French classics; and thus we set sail from the Golden Horn on the last day of May, leaving Stamboul all splendour and sunshine.

A brisk northerly wind carried us rapidly out into the Propontis; all sails were set; my father and myself comfortably established among “the wraps,” our Greek servant ensconced between two baskets, the steersman squatted upon the poop of the boat grinning applause, and revealing in his satisfaction a set of teeth as white as ivory; and, ere long, excepting this last, our attendant, and myself, every soul on board was asleep.

In less than two hours, Stamboul had vanished like a vision, and could only be traced by the line of heavy mist which skirted the horizon. The coast of Asia Minor was darkening as we advanced, wearing the dense drapery of vapour woven by the excessive heat—the mountain chain, fantastic in outline, stretched far as the eye could reach, and we had already left behind us the two quaint rocks which form so peculiar an object from the heights above Constantinople. But here the wind failed us altogether; the slumbering caïquejhes were awakened, the oars were plied, and we moved over the Sea of Marmora, of which I had such horrible memories, from the night of pain and peril that I had passed upon it on my way to Turkey, as though we had been traversing a lake.

Twilight darkened over us thus; and then a light breeze tempted us again to set the sails, and we glided along smoothly, skirting the rocky coast until we reached the point opposite Broussa; which, sloping rapidly downwards to the beach, suddenly revealed to us the glorious moon, that was rising broad and red immediately on our track, and tracing a line of light along the ripple which gleamed like gold.

After having sated myself with the bright moon, the myriad stars, and the mysterious mountains, at whose base the waves had hollowed caverns, through which they dashed with a noise like thunder, and once or twice almost deluded me into a belief that I could distinguish the sound of human voices issuing from their depths, I at length yielded to the excessive fatigue that overpowered me; and, wrapping myself closely in my mantle, I stretched myself along the bottom of the caïque, and did not again awaken until the boatmen announced our arrival at Moudania.

It was an hour past midnight, and not a sound came to us from the town. A score of Arabian barks were anchored off the shore, whose seaward houses overhang the water; the white minarets of the mosques were in strong relief upon the tall, dark, thickly-wooded mountains which rose immediately behind them, and whence the song of the nightingales swept sweetly and sadly over the ripple; and had we not been drenched with the heavy dew that had fallen during the night, I should have been quite satisfied to remain until daylight in the caïque, which soon entered a little creek in the centre of the town.

But, previously to casting anchor, we were obliged to pull considerably higher up the gulf in order to show ourselves at the Custom House, and to exhibit our Teskarè, or Turkish passport, as well as to submit our two travelling portmanteaux, and our provision-hamper, to the inspection of the examining officer. After a vast deal of knocking and calling, an individual was at length awakened, who came yawning into the caïque with a paper-lantern in his hand, and his eyes only half open; and who, after looking drowsily about him, murmured out “backschish,” and prepared to depart; upon which a few piastres were given to him, and he returned on shore.

The word backshich is the first of which a traveller learns the meaning in Turkey; it signifies fee, or present. The Pasha receives backshich for procuring a place or a pension for some petitioner; then, of course, it is a present, and precisely as unwelcome as it is unexpected: the boy who picks up your glove or your whip, as you ride along the street, demands backshich—he must be fee’d for his civility. Nothing is to be done in the country without backshich.

On entering the creek we despatched the servant and one of the caïquejhes to the house of the Greek Archbishop of Broussa, to whom we had brought a letter, and who had removed to the coast for the benefit of sea-bathing; but his Holiness was from home, and there was consequently no ingress for us. In this dilemma, for hotels there are none, we had no alternative but to accept for a few hours the hospitality of one of the boatmen, until we could procure horses to carry us on to Broussa; and we consequently made our debût in Asia Minor in an apartment up two flights of rickety stairs, walled with mud, and shivering under our footsteps. But it suffices to state that the caïquejhe was a Greek, for it to be understood at once by every Eastern traveller that the house was cleanly to perfection; and our reception by the hostess, even at that untoward hour, courteous and attentive.

Before the servant had brought the luggage up stairs, my father, worn out by fatigue, was sound asleep upon the divan; and, when the attendant had withdrawn, I also gladly prepared myself for the enjoyment of a few hours’ repose; and, casting off my shoes, and winding a shawl about my head, I took possession of the opposite side of the sofa, and should soon have followed his example, when I was aroused by the light foot of the caïquejhe’s wife in the apartment, who, opening a small chest, cast over me a sheet and coverlet as white as snow, and then retired as quietly as she came.

But that sheet and coverlet changed the whole tide of my feelings—the chest in which they had been kept was of cypress wood—they were strongly impregnated with its odour—I was exhausted by fatigue and excitement—and a thousand visions of death and the grave came over me in the half dreamy state in which I lay, that by no means added to my comfort.

With a morbidity of imagination to which I am unhappily subject, I followed up at length one fantastic and gloomy image, until I began to believe myself in a state of semi-existence, habiting with the dead; but the delusion was brief, for I was soon as disagreeably convinced that my affair was at present altogether with the living. I had been warned that Broussa was as celebrated for its bugs as for its baths, but I had never contemplated such martyrdom at Moudania! I sprang from the sofa, shook my habit with all my strength, and then, folding my fur pelisse for a pillow, I stretched myself on the carpet, and left the luxuries of the cushioned divan to my father; who, fortunately for him, proved to be a sounder sleeper than myself.

At five o’clock, the horses came to the door; and after partaking sparingly of the provisions which we had brought with us, we drank a cup of excellent coffee, prepared by our hostess, and descended to the street; where my European saddle, by no means a common sight at Moudania, had collected a crowd of idlers.

Had Cruikshank been by when we started, we should assuredly not have escaped his pungent pencil. My father led the van, mounted on a high-peaked country saddle, with a saddle-cloth of tarnished embroidery, and a pair of shovel stirrups; I followed, perched above a coarse woollen blanket, with my habit tucked up to preserve it from the stream of filth that was sluggishly making its way through the street; after me came our Greek servant, sitting upon a pile of cloaks and great coats, holding his pipe in one hand, and his umbrella in the other; and he was succeeded in his turn by the serudjhe who had charge of our luggage, and who rode between the portmanteaux, balancing the provision basket before him, dressed in a huge black turban, ample drawers of white cotton, and a vest of Broussa silk. The procession was completed by three attendants on foot, the owners of the horses; and thus we defiled through the narrow and dirty streets of Moudania, on our way to the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire.

For a time the mists were so dense that, although we had the sea-sand beneath the hoofs of our horses, we could not distinguish the water; and, as we turned suddenly to the right, and traversed a vineyard all alive with labourers, the vapours were rolling off the sides of the hills immediately in front of us. Feathered even to their summits with trees, they appeared to rest against the thick folds of heavy white mist in which they had been enveloped during the night, and presented the most fantastic shapes. I never traversed a more lovely country; vineyards were succeeded by mulberry plantations and olive groves, gardens of cucumber plants, beet-root, and melons, stretches of rich corn land, and immense plains, hemmed in by gigantic mountains, of which the unredeemed portions were a perfect garden.

I have spoken, in my little work on Portugal, of the beauty of the wild flowers in that country, but I found that those of Asia even transcended them. Delicate flowing shrubs, herbs of delicious perfume, and blossoms of every dye, were about our path: the bright lilac-coloured gum-cistus, with a drop of gold in its centre—the snowy privet, with its scented cone—the wild hollyhock—the bindweed, as transparent and as variously coloured as in an European parterre—the mallow, with its pale petals of pink and white—the turquoise, as blue as a summer sky, and as large as a field-daisy—the foxglove, springing from amid the rocky masses by the wayside, like virtue struggling with adversity, and seeming doubly beautiful from the contrast; the bright yellow blossom which owes to its constantly vibrating petals the vulgar name of “woman’s tongue”—the sweet-scented purple starch-flower—wild roses, woodbine, and, above all, the passion-flower, somewhat smaller than that cultivated in Europe, but retaining perfectly its pale tints and graceful character, were mingled with a thousand others that were new to me.

Upon one spot on this plain I saw the richest clump of vegetation that I ever met with in my life, it was a small mound near the road-side, covered with dwarf aloes and arum; I made one of the seridjhes tear up a plant of the latter for me to examine, and it was perfectly gigantic; the blossom measured eighteen inches from the base of the calyx to the extremity of the petal; the colour was a deep, rich ruby, and the stem was five or six feet in height. I need scarcely add that the stench which it emitted was intolerable, and we were obliged to rub our hands with wild chamomile to rid ourselves of it.

The butterflies were small, sober-coloured, and scarce; but the birds which surrounded us were various and interesting—the bulfinch, the elegant black-cap, the nightingale, making the air vocal; and the cuckoo, whose sharp, quick note cut shrilly through the sweet song with which it could not assimilate—the skylark, revelling in light, and drinking in the sunshine—the partridge, half hidden amid the corn, or winging its way along the valley, kept us constant company; while the majestic storks sailed over our heads, with their long thin legs folded back, and their long thin necks stretched forward, steering themselves by their feet; or remained, gravely standing near the road-side, eyeing us as we passed with all the confidence of impunity.

After rising a tolerably steep hill, we descended into a plain of vast extent, through which brawled a rapid river crossed by a bridge of considerable span, wherein a herd of buffaloes were cooling themselves; some lying on their sides wallowing in the mud, and others standing up to their noses in water, and defying the fierce beams of a sun under which we were almost fainting. As I pulled up for an instant to observe them, a kingfisher darted from a clump of underwood overhanging the bank, glittering in the light, and looking as though it had pilfered the rainbow.

Having passed the plain, we again descended, and stopped mid-way of the mountain before a little hut of withered boughs, tenanted by a superb-looking Turk, who dispensed coffee and pipes to travellers; beside the hut a handsome fountain of white granite poured forth a copious stream of sparkling rock water: and on the other side of the road a very fine walnut tree overshadowed a bank covered with grass. Upon this bank the servant spread our mat; and, having removed the large flapping hats of leg-horn which we wore, we revelled in the dense shade and refreshing coolness; nor were we the only individuals to whom they had proved welcome, for a portion of the space was already occupied by a Turkish woman, whose husband was in the coffee-hut, and who accepted readily a part of our luncheon, although she could not partake of it with us, the presence of my father preventing the removal of her yashmac. I felt glad that she received the offer in the spirit in which it was made, for the Turks are so universally hospitable that my obligations to them on this score are weighty; and, singularly enough, this was the first occasion on which I had ever had an opportunity of returning the compliment.

We lingered on this sweet spot nearly an hour, and then, continuing our descent, and crossing a little stream at its foot, we clomb a lofty mountain, whence we looked down upon a scene of surpassing beauty. Before us towered a chain of rocks, whose peaks were clothed with snow; and beneath us spread a valley dotted with mulberry and walnut trees, green with corn and vineyards, and gay with scattered villages. At the base of the highest mountain lay Broussa, and even in the distance we could distinguish the gleaming out of the white buildings from among the dense foliage which embosomed them.

From this point a new feature of beauty was added to the landscape: fountains rose on all sides, the overflowing of whose basins had frequently worn a deep channel across the road, where the waters rushed glittering and brawling along. With the form of one of these fountains I was particularly struck; it was evidently of considerable antiquity, and was overshadowed by a majestic lime-tree, whose long branches stretched far across the road; but its source was dried, and it was rapidly falling to decay.

I hesitated for an instant whether I should sketch the fountain, or again lend to it for an instant the voice that it had lost. I decided on the latter alternative—and, seating myself upon the edge of the basin, I hastily scratched the following stanzas in my note-book.

THE DRIED-UP FOUNTAIN.

The emblem of a heart o’er-tried,

I stand amid the waste;

My sparkling source has long been dried;

And the worn pilgrim, to whose ear

My gushing stream was once so dear,

Passes me by in haste.

No wild bird dips its weary wing

In my pure waters now;

No blushing flowers in beauty spring,

Fed by the gentle dews, that erst

Taught each fair blossom how to burst

With a yet brighter glow.

The nightingale responds no more

Since my glad sound was hushed,

As she was wont to do of yore,

To the continuous flow, which oft,

When leaves were rife, and winds were soft,

Like her own music gushed.

Still wave the lime-boughs, whose sweet shade

Was o’er my waters cast,

When high in Heaven the sunbeams played;

But o’er my dried-up basin now

Vainly is spread each leafy bough;

It but recalls the past—

And thus the human heart no less,

In its young ardent years,

Pours forth its gushing tenderness

Freely, as though time could not fling

A gloom around each lovely thing,

And turn its smiles to tears.

And thus, like me, it too must prove

How soon the spell goes by;

How falsehood follows fast on love,

Treachery on trust, and guile on truth;

Until the heart, so full in youth,

In age is waste and dry

Worn heart, and dried-up fount—for ye

The world is fair in vain;

Birds sing, boughs wave, and winds are free;

But song, nor shade, nor breath, can more

Your joyful gush of life restore—

It will not flow again!

A great stretch of road, after we had passed the exhausted fountain, traversed another of those immense plains for which this part of the country is celebrated. No monotony, however, renders them irksome to the traveller; on the contrary, they are characteristic and various in the extreme. Gigantic walnut trees, laden with fruit; fig trees, almost bending beneath their own produce; little wildernesses of gum cistus, carpeting the earth with their petals; woods of mulberry trees; stretches of dwarf oak, with here and there timber of larger size overtopping them; grass land, gay with tents, pitched for the accommodation of those who guard the droves of horses grazing in their vicinity; camels browzing on the young shoots of the forest trees; herds of buffaloes, with their flat and crescent-shaped horns folding backward, and their coarse and scantily-covered hides caked with the mud in which they have been wallowing; and flocks of goats as wild and as agile as the chamois, keep the eye and the imagination alike employed.

Now and then a native traveller, mounted on his high-peaked saddle, with a brace of silver-mounted pistols and a yataghan peeping from amid the folds of the shawl that binds his waist; his ample turban descending low upon his brow, and his yellow boots resting upon a pair of shovel stirrups; his velvet jacket slung at his back, and the long pendent sleeves of his striped silk robe hanging to his bridle-rein, passes you by. His horse is, nine times out of ten, scarcely one remove from a pony, but it can go like the wind; and, as it tosses its well-formed head, expands its eager nostril, and scours along with its long tail streaming in the wind, you are immediately reminded that both the animal and his rider are, although remotely, of Tartar origin. Of course, the horse has his charm against the Evil Eye, as well as his master; and, moreover, perhaps, his brow-band, or breeching, prettily embroidered with small cowries, and his saddle-cloth gay with the tarnished glories of past splendour.

At times you are met by a party of Greek serudjhes returning to Moudania with a band of hired horses, which, although they have probably tired the patience and wearied the whip of their strange riders, are now racing along amid the shouts and laughter of their owners, as though they were engaged in a steeple-chase. A cloud of dust in the distance heralds the approach of a train of rudely-shaped waggons, frequently formed of wicker-work, drawn by oxen or buffaloes, and generally laden with tobacco; while, nearer the city, gangs of donkeys, carrying neatly-packed piles of mulberry boughs for the use of the silk-worms, which form the staple trade of the neighbourhood, complete the moving picture.

The river which traverses the plain is spanned by a bridge of five beautifully-formed arches. When we passed, it was so shrunken that an active leaper might have cleared it at a bound; but the current was frightfully rapid, and the channel, heaped with flints and sand, had evidently been insufficient to contain its volume during the winter, as the land, for a wide space on either side, bore traces of having been flooded.

On the edge of the plain stands the fountain of Adzim Tzèsmèssi, overshadowed by three fine maple trees, and in itself exceedingly picturesque. A rudely-constructed kiosk, raised a couple of steps from the ground, and surrounded by seats, protects the small basin of granite into which the water rises, and whence it afterwards escapes by pipes into two exterior reservoirs: that which is shaded by the maples being reserved for the use of travellers, and the other for the supply of cattle.

Here, of course, we found a caféjhe, surrounded by a group of smokers; and procured some excellent coffee and cherries.

During our halt, a party of Bohemian gipsies, on their way to the coast, stopped to refresh themselves and their donkeys at the mountain spring; they were about thirty in number, and the men were remarkably tall and well-looking, but formidable enough, with their pistols and yataghans peeping from their girdles; they had two or three sickly, weary children in their train, who appeared half dead with heat and toil; and half a dozen withered old women, who might have sat for the originals of Macbeth’s witches, they were so “grim and grisly;” but there was one female among them, a dark-eyed, rosy-lipped maiden of sixteen, or thereabouts, who was the perfection of loveliness. For a while she stood apart, but, as the rest of the tribe, attracted by my riding-dress, clustered about me, and assailed me by questions to which I was utterly unable to reply, she at length took courage and joined the party. As her wild and timid glance wandered from me to her companions, I found that it invariably rested upon one individual, and I had little difficulty in filling up the romance suggested by her earnest looks. Nor was I deceived; for when the tribe moved away, the bridle of her donkey was held by the tall, sunburnt youth to whom she had attracted my attention; and as they passed the stream, he did not relinquish it though he trod knee-deep in water, when he might have traversed the little bridge without wetting the soles of his feet; but in recompense of his devotion, he feasted, as he went, on the smiles of his fair mistress, and the cherries which I had poured into her lap. After their departure, I made a hasty sketch of the fountain, and then quitted with reluctance a spot so redolent of beauty.

The plain at this point appeared to be set in one uninterrupted frame-work of mountains—the river ran shimmering and sparkling through its centre—the mulberry and walnut trees were scattered thickly over its entire surface—the clouds, as they flitted by, created a thousand beautiful varieties of light and shade; and the soft wind that sighed through the maple leaves almost made me forget my fatigue.

What rills of water we passed through after we left the plain! Every quarter of a mile we encountered a fountain; and for upwards of a league we rode through the heart of a mulberry plantation, fringed with noble walnut trees. At some of the fountains, groups of women were washing; and it was amusing to see them hastily huddling on their yashmacs as they remarked the approach of our party. In many cases, the water which escaped from the basins provided for it, ran rippling along the road, and covering the whole surface for a considerable distance, ere it buried itself among the long grass that skirted the plantation. The mulberry wood was succeeded by gardens; and the rich, rank vegetation reminded me strongly of Portugal, than which I never saw any country more similar.

At a short distance from Broussa, a fine old wall, based on the living rock, rose in its stern hoary decay immediately before our path; clusters of mouldering towers, half overgrown with parasites, from among which gleamed out the modern and many-gabled palace of some Turkish noble, all apparently growing out of its grey remains, varied the outline; nor did we lose sight of them until, on reaching the gate of the city, we turned sharply to the right, in order to escape the Jews’ quarter; and, on arriving in that appropriated to the Greeks, took possession of a furnished house, which had been prepared for us by the polite attention of Mr. Z——, an Armenian merchant, to whom we had a letter: when, on approaching the window, I found that the view was bounded by the same old wall, crowned by a charming kiosk, with its trelliced terrace and domed temple, overhung with roses; while the rock, and even the wall itself, were thickly covered with wild vines, trailing their long branches like garlands; flowering rock-plants in abundance, and white jessamine and other parasites, rooted in the garden above, and mingling their blossoms with those which Nature alone had planted.

A stately Turk was seated at the open window of the kiosk, smoking his chibouk, and attended by his pipe-bearer; who, when he had satisfied his own curiosity, slowly withdrew, and was shortly replaced by a female, closely veiled, and followed by a couple of slaves. I fell asleep on the sofa without obtaining a glimpse of her face; and, on awaking, found that she had departed in her turn, and that a party of solemn-looking Musselmauns had established themselves in the temple from which they could overlook the whole of our apartment, where they were smoking, and drinking large goblets of water.

I do not know when the party broke up, as I retreated to the other side of the house, and took possession of a room whose windows looked into a court enclosed by high walls painted in fresco, and containing two pretty fountains, whose ceaseless murmurings soon lulled me once more to sleep. A fine lime tree threw its shade far into the apartment—a female voice was singing in the distance—and as I cast myself on the divan, and closed my eyes, a feeling of luxury crept over me which influenced my dreams.——

No wonder that my visions were of home, and of the best of mothers!—I was in her arms—on her heart.

My first hour’s dream at Broussa was worth a waking day!

CHAPTER II.

Ancient Gate—Greek Inscriptions—Mausoleum of Sultan Orcan—Monkish Chronicle—The Turbedar Hanoum—Inverted Columns—Painted Pillars—Splendid Marbles—Tombs of the Imperial Family—The Greek Cross—The Sultan’s Beard—Mausoleum of Sultan Ali Osman—Monastic Vaults—Ruined Chapel—Remains of a Greek Palace—Bassi Relievi—Ruined Fountains—Ancient Fosse—Dense Vegetation—Noble Prospect—Roman Aqueduct—Valley of the Source—Picturesque Groups—Coffee-Kiosks—Absence of Pretension among the Turks—The Tale Teller—Traveller’s Khan—Sick Birds—Roman Bridge—Armenian Mother.

At an early hour on the following morning we started, accompanied by a guide, and our own servant who acted as Dragoman, to visit such objects of interest as might exist in the immediate vicinity of the city; and after climbing the hill on which the ancient wall is based, and passing through a fine old gate, in whose neighbourhood we remarked several Greek inscriptions that had apparently been displaced at the capture of the city, as one or two of them are inverted, we found ourselves in front of the Mausoleum of Sultan Orcan.

This sovereign, who was the son of Othman, the first Turkish Emperor, took Broussa, (which was at the time the capital of Bithinia) in the year 1350; and, according to an old monkish chronicle which I consulted on the spot, “He found three towers filled with the treasures of these kings, which they had been amassing from the first building of the city; gold and silver in ingots and in coins; pearls and jewels, among which were twelve precious stones unique in value; furniture and dresses wrought in gold and silver; crowns of great price filled with gold and pearls; saddles, pantaloons, and swords worked with gold, and pearls, and jewels—forming altogether the lading of seven hundred camels, all of which he despatched to his native country. This done, he collected together all the young children: some he caused to lie on their stomachs upon the earth, where he trampled them beneath the feet of horses; others he flung into the river; and others again he exposed naked to the sun, where they died of thirst. Many mothers stifled their children, rather than deliver them over to the barbarian. It would be difficult to describe the torments inflicted on the Bishops, the Priesthood, and the monks; some were drowned, some burnt, some dragged by horses, &c. &c.”

“This monarch,” pursues the historian, “was brave, luxurious, and generous; and was the husband of Kilikia, the Princess of Caramania; he was wounded at the taking of Broussa, and died in consequence a few days afterwards, having reigned twenty-two years.”

It was the tomb of this “generous” conqueror which we were about to invade; and, while the guide was absent in search of the Turbedar Hanoum, or Holy Woman, who had charge of the keys, I amused myself by examining the exterior entrance of the building, or rather of that portion of it now converted into an Imperial Mausoleum.

The open porch, with its deeply projecting roof painted in fresco, is supported by two pillars of coarse old Byzantine architecture, and composed of delicately-veined white marble. This porch gives admittance only to the Court of the Tomb-house, and presents a spectacle probably unique, and so characteristic of the progress of the fine arts in this country, that it deserves especial mention. The pillars to which I have alluded as supporting the porch are reversed; the sculptured capitals rest on the earth, and a plaistered summit has been supplied, gaudily painted in blue and yellow; while the pillars themselves are only just beginning, thanks to time and weather, to reveal the material of which they are composed, through their decaying coat of whitewash!

When a frightful old woman, huddled up in a scarf of coarse white cotton, at length made her appearance, key in hand, and admitted us to the Inner Court, a second anomaly nearly as startling as the first presented itself. The enclosure was thickly planted with young trees, among which a pomegranate, gorgeous in its livery of green and scarlet, was the most conspicuous; and a sparkling fountain was pouring forth its copious stream of clear cool water into a marble reservoir; while the long flexile branches of a wild vine were gracefully wreathed across the entrance of the Mausoleum. But here again the hand of barbarism had been at work; and the four slender Ionic columns of gray marble which support the porch, had undergone the same melancholy process of painting, and their capitals were decorated with a wreath of many-coloured foliage!

Little did such an exhibition of modern Vandalism prepare me for the splendid coup-d’œil that awaited me within. The Mausoleum is a portion of an ancient Greek monastery, dismantled by Sultan Orcan at the capture of the city; and is supposed to have been a private chapel in which the Emperor was accustomed to perform his devotions. It is of an oval form; and, previously to a fire which partially destroyed it a few years since, was entirely lined with rich marbles. Those now deficient have been replaced by paint and stucco, in precisely the same taste as that which operated on the exterior; but, as their number is comparatively small, the general effect is not greatly marred.

Sultan Orcan, with his wife Kilikia, two of his Odaliques, and seventeen of his children, occupy the centre of the floor; whose fine mosaic pavement has been covered throughout the whole space thus appropriated with a mass of coarse plaister, raised about a foot from the floor, and supporting the Sarcophagi. That of the Sultan himself is overlaid with a costly cachemire shawl, above which are spread two richly embroidered handkerchiefs in crimson and green, worked with gold; while the turban at its head is decorated with a third, wrought in beautiful arabesques, and by far the most splendid thing of the kind that I ever saw, Those of the Sultanas and their children are simply painted of the sacred green, and totally unornamented; the first instance of such a marked distinction that I had yet met with in the country.

At the upper end of the chapel, three rows of marble seats, arranged amphitheatrically, occupy the extremity of the oval immediately opposite to the altar, and are surmounted by a centre seat, supposed to have been that from which the monarch was accustomed to hear the mass, while his nobles placed themselves on the benches at his feet. The lofty dome is supported by six gigantic square pillars of masonry, and the marbles that line the walls are inserted with considerable taste. In one of the side arches a cross still remains, which was introduced among the mosaics by the Greeks; but a second, of much larger dimensions, which surmounted their altar, has been destroyed, and the space that it occupied coarsely covered with plaister.

On the left-hand side of the Imperial Sarcophagus hangs a small wooden case, shaped like a bird-cage, and covered with green silk, containing the Sultan’s beard!—the precious relic of five centuries!

The Mausoleum of Sultan Ali Osman, the son of Orcan, which occupies the other wing of the building, contains no object of particular interest; the Hall of Sepulchre is similar in material and in arrangement, save that the Sarcophagi of his wives and children are simply whitewashed. The modern Emperors have been more gallant; and many a deceased Sultana sleeps the last sleep at Constantinople, covered with shawls which, during the rage for cachemeres in Paris, would have killed half the élégantes with envy.

From the Mausoleum of Sultan Ali Osman, we passed into the vaults of the Monastery, and through a subterranean cloister, supported by pillars; whence we clambered by a crazy ladder into what had evidently been the Chapel of the Monastery. Fragments of frescoes still remain about the dilapidated altar, and on the screen of the Sanctuary—here it is a head without a body, and there a pair of legs without either—on one side a half-effaced inscription in old Monkish Latin; and on the other a cluster of wild flowers, concealing the ruin against which they lean. Several of the arches of the chapel still remain, and are very gracefully formed, but the whole scene is one of melancholy: the only portions of the building which are perfect are the tombs of the Ottoman Emperors; all that yet bears the trace of Christianity is stamped with ruin.

We next visited the remains of the Palace of the ancient Greek Emperors, whose dilapidated gateway is flanked by the mouldering remains of two bassi relievi; and the fragments of two fountains of white marble, whose waters, unrestrained by the mutilated basins into which they poured themselves, have worn a narrow channel beside the road, where they rush along, sparkling in the sunshine. The capital of one of the columns which once graced them still remains nearly entire, and is of that elegant stalactite-like architecture peculiar to the Arabs, and quite unknown in Europe. Having passed the gate, we entered a small court, thickly planted with ancient mulberry trees, and containing the remains of some of the Imperial offices; whence a second door admitted us into a wide enclosure, now converted into a nursery-garden, full of vigorous vegetation.

Passing onward, we crossed, by a few unsteady planks, a portion of the ancient fosse, and found ourselves upon the wall overhanging the city, surrounded by the group of mouldering and ivy-grown towers that I had remarked on my journey, and which I found to be the remains of the Palace.

RUINS OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE.

Nothing more magnificent can be imagined than the view from this height. The wide plain through which we had travelled from the coast lay spread out before us, dotted over its whole surface with mulberry and olive trees—the river ran rushing in the light among the dense vegetation—far as the eye could reach, lofty mountains, purpled by the distance, shut in the prospect—while, immediately beneath us, Broussa lay mapped out in all its extent, the sober-coloured buildings overshadowed by lofty trees; and the three hundred and eighty mosques of the city scattered in the most picturesque irregularity along the side of the mountains, and on the skirts of the valley. The palace of a Pasha was close beside us, and behind us rose the lofty chain of land which veiled the lordly summit of Mount Olympus; while over all laughed the bluest and the brightest sky that imagination can picture.

Beyond this, and this was of course the result of situation, and in itself independent of other interest, the remains of the Imperial Palace are altogether destitute of attraction; its decay is too far advanced, or rather its destruction is too absolute, to present a single charm to the most determined ruin-hunter in the world.

About a mile higher up the mountain stand the remains of a Roman aqueduct; half a dozen mouldering towers of colossal dimensions rise hoar and gray against the sky, and at their feet rushes along the pellucid water that supplies the fountains of the city. A narrow channel formed of stone, and full to overflowing, guides the course of the stream, which escapes from the heart of the mountain at the point where it hems in the gayest and the greenest valley that ever fairy revelled in by moonlight. The channel skirts this valley, until it again passes beneath the living rock, and pours itself into the reservoirs of Broussa—but it is less of the mountain stream, or of the fine old Roman remains, that I desire to speak, than of the lovely glen to which I have just alluded.

This fair spot is the “Sweet Waters” of Broussa; and as we chanced to visit it for the first time on a Turkish Sunday, its effect was considerably heightened. Surrounded by lofty mountains, overtopped by mouldering ruins, shaded by stately trees, and fresh with springing verdure, its aspect was yet further gladdened by groups of happy idlers in their holyday costume, seated on their mats along the margin of the source, or lounging beneath the shade of two rudely constructed coffee-kiosks; one of which, built immediately beside the spring, and resting against the rock whence it issued, was shaded from the north wind by a small but elegant mosque, whose tall minaret was reflected in the clear stream; while the other, erected beneath the shade of two majestic maples, seemed to contend the prize of coolness and comfort with its neighbour. From one ridge of rock an elegant kiosk overhung the valley; while from another a cherry tree, laden with fruit, tempted the hand with its clustering riches.

Altogether, I never beheld a more lovely scene; and the last touch of beauty was given by the distant view of a Turkish cemetery, which clomb the side of the mountain, and whose grave-stones were shaded by clumps of the dark, silent cypress, relieved here and there by a stately walnut tree, with its bright leaves dancing in the wind. The groups that were scattered over the valley were eminently picturesque: there was the employé with his ill-cut frock-coat and unbecoming fèz—the Emir, with his ample green turban, and his vest and drawers of snowy cotton—the Tatar, clad in crimson, wrought with gold, his waist bound with a leathern belt, and his legs protected by Albanian gaiters—the Ulema, with a white shawl twisted about his brow, and a brass ink-bottle thrust into his girdle—the Turning Dervish, with his high cap of gray felt, and his pelisse of green cloth—the Greek serudjhe, with a black shawl twined round his fèz, his jacket slung at his back, his gaily-striped vest confined by a shawl about his waist, his full trowsers fastened at the knee, and his legs bare—the Armenian, with his tall calpac and flowing robe—all sitting in groups, smoking their chibouks, sipping their coffee, and drinking huge draughts of the cold rock-water, from goblets of crystal as clear and sparkling as the liquid which they contained.

At the coffee-kiosk of the source, groups were engaged in conversation, without any regard to rank or situation in life. The Turks are perfectly destitute of that morgue which renders European society a constant state of warfare against intrusion. Every individual is “eligible” in Turkey—no one loses caste from the contact of unprivileged associates—the hour of relaxation puts all men on a level; and the Bey sits down quietly by the caïquejhe, and the Effendi takes his place near the fisherman, as unmoved by the difference of their relative condition, as though they had been born to the same fortune.

There is something beautiful and touching in this utter absence of self-appreciation; and the young noble rises from the mat which he has shared with the old artisan, as uncontaminated by the contact as though he had been partaking the gilded cushions of a Pasha. But, ready as I am to admire this state of things, I am well aware that it could not exist with us; the lower orders of Turkey and the lower orders of Europe are composed of totally different elements. The poor man of the East is intuitively urbane, courteous, and dignified—he is never betrayed into forgetfulness, either of himself or of his neighbour—he never knows, although he was bred in a hut, that he may not die in a palace—and with this possibility before his eyes, he always acts as though the hour of his metathesis were at hand.

It is probably from this feeling that an Osmanli smiles when he hears a Frank vaunting himself on his high blood; and that he replies tersely and gravely to the boast that “every Turk is born noble.”

No greater proof of the superiority of the working classes of Turkey over those of Europe can be adduced, than the tranquillity of the Empire under a government destitute alike of head, heart, and hand—a government whose hollowness, weakness, and venality, will admit of no argument—whose elements are chicane, treachery, and egotism—and which would be unable to govern any other people upon earth even for a twelvemonth. Perhaps the great secret of this dignified docility is to be found in the high religious feeling which is universal among the Turks, and to which I have made allusion elsewhere. Should my judgment on this point be erroneous, however, it is certain that the character of the mass in Turkey must be moulded by principles and impulses, in themselves both respectable and praiseworthy, to produce so powerful a moral effect.

At the maple-tree kiosk the crowd was greater, for there one of the itinerant Improvvisatori, or Eastern story-tellers, was amusing his hearers with a history, which, judging from its length, and the patience with which it was heard to an end, ought to have been exceedingly interesting. But no sound of boisterous merriment arose amid the grave and bearded auditors; once or twice, a low chuckle, and a denser cloud of smoke emitted from the chibouk, gave slight indications of amusement: but that was all; every thing was as quiet, as orderly, and as well-conducted, as though every individual of the party had been under priestly surveillance. On quitting the Valley of the Source, we visited the Tekiè of the Turning Dervishes, with its two fine fountains and its elegant chapel; and then proceeded to one of the public Khans, or Caravanserais, in which are lodged all travelling merchants, and such strangers as have not the opportunity of procuring private houses during their residence in Broussa. The building was inconvenient, ill-built, and confined in size, being a very inefficient substitute for one which was destroyed a few years ago by fire in its immediate vicinity; but its court was adorned with a very handsome fountain richly ornamented, beneath whose projecting roof the inhabitants of the Khan congregate to smoke and converse.

A small erection just within one of the gates of the court attracted my attention, from the circumstance of its roof being occupied by three eagles; two of them about half fledged, and the other evidently sick. I inquired the meaning of this location, and learnt that the little edifice was appropriated to the use of such wild birds as the hunters and peasants chanced to meet during their rambles among the mountains, and which were suffering either from disease, desertion, or injury. Being carefully transported hither, they are fed, and attended to until they voluntarily take wing, and return to their rocky haunts. The present patients were two eaglets, which had been abandoned in the nest, and a wounded bird, which, without assistance, must have died from starvation. Such a trait of national character is well worthy of mention.

Upon the roof of a mosque about a hundred yards from the house which we occupied, a couple of storks had made their nest, and, at the time of our visit, were carefully tending their young, apparently quite indifferent to all the noise and clamour going on immediately beneath. The Turks repay the confidence thus reposed in them with an almost superstitious reverence for these feathered children of the wilderness; and the destruction of a bird of this species would be sure to draw down upon the aggressor the displeasure, if not the vengeance, of every neighbouring Musselmaun.

I must not omit to mention the covered bridge; a curious Roman remain in the Armenian quarter of the city, forming a street across a rapid torrent, which, falling from the mountain, pours itself into the plain. It is entirely tenanted by silk weavers, and its numerous windows are so patched and built up as to render it extremely picturesque. Its single arch is finely formed, and from a distance it is a very attractive object; but it is rapidly falling to decay.

ROMAN BRIDGE AT BROUSSA.

I sketched it from the window of an Armenian house; overlooked in my employment by a sweet young woman, who held upon her knees her dying infant—her first-born son. As the Orientals believe every Frank, whether male or female, to be skilled in the healing art, she never ceased her prayer, during the whole of my stay under her roof, that I would restore her child to health. I shall never think of the Roman bridge at Broussa but the weeping image of the young Armenian mother will be associated with it in my memory.

CHAPTER III.

Orientalism of Broussa—Costume of the Men—Plain Women—Turbans and Yashmacs—Facility of Ingress to the Mosques—Oulou Jamè—Polite Imam—Eastern Quasimodo—Ascent of the Minaret—The Charshee—Travelling Hyperboles—Silk Bazàr—Silk Merchants’ Khan—Fountains of Broussa—Broussa and Lisbon—The Baths—Wild Flowers—Tzekerghè—Mosque of Sultan Mourad—Madhouse—Court of the Mosque—Singular Fountain—Mausoleum of Sultan Mourad—Golden Gate—Local Legend—The Tomb-house—More Vandalism—Ancient Turban—Comfortable Cemeteries—Subterranean Vault Great Bath—Hot Spring—Baths and Bathers—Miraculous Baths—Armenian Doctress—Situation of Tzekerghè—Storks and Tortoises—Turkish Cheltenham.

The city of Broussa is infinitely more oriental in its aspect than Stamboul; scarcely a Frank is to be seen in the streets; no French shops, glittering with gilded timepieces and porcelain tea-services, jar upon your associations; not a Greek woman stirs abroad without flinging a long white veil over her gaudy turban, and concealing her gay coloured dress beneath a ferdijhe; while the Turks themselves almost look like men of another nation.

I do not believe that, excepting in the palace of the Pasha, there are a hundred fèz-wearing Osmanlis in the whole city. Such turbans! mountains of muslin, and volumes of cachemire; Sultan Mahmoud would infallibly faint at the sight of them; worn, as many of them are, falling upon one shoulder, and confined by a string in consequence of their great weight. Such watches! the size, and almost the shape, of oranges—such ample drawers of white cotton, and flowing garments of striped silk, and girdles of shawl! The women, meanwhile, except such as belonged to quite the lower orders, were almost invisible; I scarcely encountered one Turkish woman of condition in my walks, and those who passed in the arabas kept the latticed windows so closely shut, despite the heat, that it was impossible to get a glimpse of them. The men were a much finer race than those of Constantinople; I rarely met a Turk who was not extremely handsome, and much above the middle height; while the few women whom I did see were proportionably unattractive.

There is not a greater difference in the mode of wearing the turban by the one sex at Broussa, than in that of wearing the yashmac by the other. In Constantinople it is bound over the mouth, and in most instances over the lower part of the nose, and concealed upon the shoulders by the feridjhe. In Asia, on the contrary, it is simply fastened, in most cases, under the chin, and is flung over the mantle, hanging-down the back like a curtain. In the capital, the yashmac is made of fine thin muslin, through which the painted handkerchief, and the diamond pins that confine it, can be distinctly seen; and arranged with a coquetry perfectly wonderful. At Broussa it is composed of thick cambric, and bound so tightly about the head that it looks like a shroud.

One circumstance particularly struck me at Broussa—I allude to the facility of visiting the mosques. While those of Stamboul are almost a sealed volume to the general traveller, he may purchase ingress to every mosque in Broussa for a few piastres; and well do many of them deserve a visit. That of Oulou Jamè, situated in the heart of the city, is the finest and most spacious of the whole. Its roof is formed by twenty graceful domes, of which the centre one is open to the light, being simply covered with iron net-work. Beneath this dome is placed a fine fountain of white marble, whose capacious outer basin, filled with fine tench, is fed from a lesser one, whence the water is flung into the air, and falls back with a cool monotonous murmur, prolonged and softened by the echoes of the vast edifice. The effect of this stately fountain, the first that I had yet seen within a mosque, was extremely beautiful; its pure pale gleam contrasting powerfully with the deep frescoes of the walls, and the gaudily-coloured prayer-carpets strown at intervals over the matting which covered the pavement. The pulpit, with its heavily screened stair, was of inlaid wood; and the whole building remarkable rather for its fine proportions and elegant fountain than for the richness of its details. The scrolls containing the name of Allah, and those of the four Prophets, were boldly and beautifully executed; and the arched recess at the eastern end of the temple painted with some taste.

The High Priest was reading from the Koràn when we entered, with his green turban and pelisse deposited on the carpet beside him. His utterance was rapid and monotonous, and accompanied by a short, quick motion of the body extremely disagreeable to the spectator. As we approached close to him, he suddenly discontinued reading, and examined us with the most minute attention; after which he resumed his lecture, and took no further notice of our intrusion. In one corner we passed a man sound asleep—in another, a woman on her knees before the name of Allah in earnest prayer, with the palms of her hands turned upwards. On one carpet an Imam was praying, surrounded by half a dozen youths, apparently students of the medresch attached to the mosque; while on every side parties of True Believers were squatted down before their low reading desks, studying their daily portion of the Koràn.

The Imam who accompanied us in our tour of the mosque was so indulgent as even to allow me to retain my shoes, alleging that they were so light as to be mere slippers, and that consequently it was unnecessary to put them off; and on my expressing a wish to ascend one of the minarets, the keeper was sent for to open the door and accompany me; nor shall I easily forget the object who obeyed the summons.

His brow girt with the turban of sacred green—his distorted body enclosed within a dark wrapping vest of cotton—and his short, crooked legs covered with gaiters of coarse cloth—moved forward a humped and barefooted dwarf with a long gristled beard, whose thin skinny fingers grasped a pole much higher than himself; and who, after eyeing us with attention for a moment with a glance as keen and hungry as that of a wolf, sidled up close to the servant, and growling out “backshich,” with an interrogative accent, began to fumble amid the folds of his garment for the key of the tower; and at length withdrew it with a grin, which made his enormous mouth appear to extend across the whole of his wrinkled and bearded countenance. As I looked at him I thought of Quasimodo—the monster of Nôtre Dame could scarcely have been more frightful!

Having carefully concealed his pole behind a pile of carpets, and flung back the narrow door of the minaret, this Turkish Quasimodo led the way up a flight of broken and dangerous stone steps, in perfect darkness, consoling himself for the exertion which we had thus entailed on him by an occasional fiend-like chuckle, when he observed any hesitation or delay on the part of those who followed him; and a low murmured commune with himself, in which the word backshich was peculiarly audible.

The stair terminated at a small door opening on the narrow gallery, whence the muezzin calls The Faithful to prayers. The burst of light on the opening of this door was almost painful; nor is the sensation experienced when standing within the gallery altogether one of comfort. The height is so great, the fence so low, and the gallery itself so narrow, that a feeling of dizziness partially incapacitates the unaccustomed spectator from enjoying to its full extent the glories of the scene that is spread out before him, and which embraces not only the wide plain seen from the ruins of the Imperial Palace, but the whole chain of mountains that hem it in.

After a great deal of stumbling, slipping, and scrambling, we again found ourselves beside the fountain of Oulou Jamè; and, on leaving the mosque, remarked with some surprise that its minarets are painted in fresco on the outside, to about one-fourth of their height.

Having presented Quasimodo with a backshich, which sent him halting away with a second hideous grin, we proceeded to the Charshee, which is of considerable extent. As it chanced to be Sunday, the stalls usually occupied by Armenian and Greek merchants were closed; but many a Hassan, an Abdallah, and a Soleiman was squatted upon his carpet, with his wares temptingly arranged around him, his long beard falling to his girdle, his chibouk lying on the carpet beside him, and his slippers resting against its edge. Here, a green-turbaned descendant of the Prophet, with half a dozen ells of shawl twisted about his head, dark fiery eyes, and a beard as white as snow, pointed silently as we passed to his embossed silver pistols, his richly-wrought yataghans, and his velvet-sheathed and gilded scimitars. There, a keen-looking Dervish, with his broad flat girdle buckled with a clasp of agate, and his gray cap pulled low upon his forehead, extended towards us one of his neatly-turned ivory perfume-boxes.

While examining his merchandize we might have been inclined to believe that we could purchase of him perpetual youth, and imperishable beauty. He had dyes, and washes, and pastes, and powders—essences, and oils, and incenses, and perfumed woods—amulets, and chaplets, and consecrated bracelets, and holy rings; all set forth with an order and precision worthy of their high qualities. A little further on, a solemn-looking individual presided over a miniature representation of Araby the Blest—Spices were piled around him pyramidically, or confined in crystal vases, according to their nature and costliness: there were sacks of cloves, heaps of mace, piles of ginger, mountains of nutmegs, hampers of allspice, baskets of pepper, faggots of cinnamon, and many others less commonly known. Opposite the spice-merchant was the gay stall of the slipper-maker, with its gaudy glories of purple, crimson, and yellow—its purple for the Jew, its crimson for the Armenian, and its yellow for the Turk. I purchased a pair of slippers of the true Musselmaun colour, for which I paid about twice as much as their value, being a Frank; and we then continued our walk.

Not far from the slipper-merchant, on the platform in front of one of the closed shops, sat a ragged Turk, surrounded by flowers of a pale lilac colour, which emitted a delicious odour. While I was purchasing some, I inquired whence they came, and learnt that they were wild auriculas from Mount Olympus. I paid twice the price demanded for them, and bore them off. How knew I but that the seed might have been sown by Venus herself?

I had been told, previously to my leaving England, and indeed before I had an idea of visiting Turkey, that the stalls of the sweetmeat venders resembled fairy-palaces built of coloured spars; and this too by an individual who had resided a few weeks at Constantinople. I can only say, that with every disposition to do ample justice to all I saw, my own ideas of enchantment are much nearer realization at Grange’s or Farrance’s. The Turks do not understand that nicety of arrangement which produces so much effect in our metropolitan shops; and with the exception of the perfume and silk merchants, and perhaps one or two others, they are singularly slovenly in the disposition of their merchandize.

The sweetmeat-venders have a row of glass jars along the front of their stalls, some filled with dried and candied fruits, others with sherbet cakes, and others with different descriptions of coloured and perfumed sugar; while the scented pastes, of which the Orientals are so fond, are cut up into squares with scissors, and spread out upon sheets of paper; or perforated with twine, and hung from the frame-work of the shops like huge sausages. I confess that my imaginings of fairy-land extended considerably beyond this. The merchandize itself, however, is far from contemptible; and we found that of the Charshee of Broussa even more highly perfumed than what we had purchased at Constantinople.

From the Charshee we passed into the silk-bazàr, which was almost entirely closed, three-fourths of the merchants being Armenians; but among those who were at their posts, we selected one magnificent looking Turk, who spread out before us a pile of satin scarfs, used by the ladies of the country for binding up their hair after the bath; the brightest crimson and the deepest orange appeared to be the favourite mixture, and were strongly recommended; but their texture was so extremely coarse, and their price so exorbitant, that we declined becoming purchasers.

On leaving the silk bazàr we proceeded to the silk merchants’ Khan, a solid quadrangular building, having a fine stone fountain in the centre of the paved court, the most respectable establishment of the kind throughout the city, where their number amounts to twenty. Above the great gate, the wrought stone cornice is curiously decorated with a wreath of mosaic, formed of porcelain, as brightly blue as turquoise, which has a very pretty and cheerful effect.

The number of fountains in Broussa must at least double that of the mosques, which amount to three hundred and eighty seven. You scarcely turn the corner of a street that is not occupied by a fountain, and it is by no means uncommon to have three and even four in sight at the same time, without calculating that all the good houses have each one or more in their courts or gardens; no kiosk being considered complete without its basin and its little jet d’eau. Yet, notwithstanding this profusion of water, many of the streets are disgustingly dirty, not an effort being made to remove the filth which accumulates from the habit indulged in by the inhabitants of sweeping every thing to the fronts of their houses. Indeed, setting aside the costume and the language, Broussa and its neighbourhood are a second edition of Lisbon; nearly the same dirt, the same bullock-cars, and luggage-mules, and rattle from morning to night within the city; the same blue sky, sparkling water, dense vegetation, bright flowers, and lofty trees without; the golden Tagus of the one being replaced by the magnificent plain of the other.

After having returned home and changed our dress, we mounted our horses, and started to see the Baths. Nothing can be more beautiful than the road which conducts to them. Immediately on passing the gate of the city, you wind round the foot of the mountain, and descend into the village of Mouradiè; having the small mosque of Sultan Mourad on your right, and in front of you, the lofty chain of land along which you are to travel. After traversing the village, you turn abruptly to the left, and by a gentle ascent, climb to about one-third the height of the mountain; having on one hand the nearly perpendicular rock, and on the other a rapid and almost unprotected descent, clothed with vines and mulberry trees, whence the plain stretches away into the distance. The road, as I have described, hangs on the side of the mountain, and is fringed with wild flowers and shrubs: having the aspect of a garden; the white lilac, the privette, the pomegranate, the rose, the woodbine, the ruby-coloured arum, and the yellow broom, are in profusion; and it is with compunction that you guide your horse among them when turning off the narrow pathway at the encounter of a chance passenger; while the perfume which fills the air, and the song of the nightingales among the mulberry trees, complete the charm of the picture.

By this delightful road you reach the village of Tzèkerghè, in which the Baths are situated. It possesses a very handsome mosque, which was originally a Greek monastery. The exterior of the Temple is very handsome, the whole facade being adorned with a peristyle of white marble, and the great entrance approached by a noble flight of steps. The interior is, as usual, painted in scrolls, and lighted by pendent lamps, but is not remarkable for either beauty or magnificence. The arrangement of the cloisters and the refectory of the monks is very curious, being all situated above the chapel, and opening from a long gallery, surmounting the peristyle. To this portion of the building we ascended by a decaying flight of stone steps, many of whose missing stairs had been replaced by fragments of sculptured columns: and found the gallery tenanted by a solitary old lunatic, who, squatted upon a ragged mat, was devouring voraciously a cake of black soft bread, such as is used by the poorest of the population. The monastic cells have been converted into receptacles for deranged persons, but this poor old man was now their only occupant. We threw him some small pieces of money, which he clutched with a delight as great as his surprise, murmuring the name of Allah, and apparently as happy as a child.

The court of the mosque is shaded by three magnificent plantain trees, and the fountain which faces the peristyle is remarkable from its basin containing cold water, and its pipes pouring forth warm. As the pipe is connected with the basin, the phenomenon is startling, although the effect is very simply produced when once its cause is investigated, the fountain being fed by two distinct springs; the hot spring being built in, and forced into the pipes; and the cold one being suffered to fill the basin, whence it runs off in another direction.

Near the mosque stands the Mausoleum of Sultan Mourad I., whose court is enclosed by a heavy gate, said to be formed of one of the precious metals cased with iron; and the country people have a tradition that previously to his death, the Sultan desired that should the Empire ever suffer from poverty, this gate might be melted down, when the reigning monarch would become more rich than any of his predecessors. Be this as it may, and it is sufficiently paradoxical, the gate has originally been richly gilded, though much of the ornamental work is now worn away; and it is probably to this circumstance that it owes its reputation.

Of an equally questionable nature is the legend relating to the name of the village, which signifies in English, Grasshopper—a fact accounted for by the peasantry in the following manner.

Sultan Mourad, during the time that the Christian monastery was undergoing conversion into a Mohammedan mosque, was one day sitting within the peristyle, when a grasshopper sprang upon him, which he adroitly caught in his hand; where he still held it, when a Dervish approached, who, after having made his obeisance, began to importune the pious Sultan for some indulgence to his order; and was answered that if he could tell, without hesitation or error, what was grasped by the monarch, the favour should be granted. The wily Dervish, knowing that the mountain abounded with grasshoppers, and that nothing was more probable than that one of these might have jumped upon the Sultan, immediately replied: “Though the ambition of a vile insect should lead it to spring from the earth of which it is an inhabitant, into the face of the sunshine, as though it were rather a denizen of the air, it suffices that the Imperial hand be outstretched, to arrest its arrogance. Happy is it, therefore, both for the rebel who would fain build up a sun of glory for himself, of a ray stolen from the hâlo which surrounds the forehead of the Emperor of the World; and for the tzèkerghè, that, springing from its leafy obscurity, dares to rest upon the hem of the sacred garment, when the Sultan (Merciful as he is Mighty!) refrains from crushing in his grasp the reptile which he holds. Favourite of Allah! Lord of the Earth! Is my boon granted?”

“It is, Dervish:”—said the Sultan, opening his hand as he spoke, and thus suffering the insect to escape: “And that the memory of thy conference with Sultan Mourad may not be lost, and that the reputation of thy quick wit and subtle policy may endure to after ages, I name this spot, Tzèkerghè——and let none dare to give it another appellation.”

We were obliged to exert all our best efforts, in order to induce the Imam, who had charge of the Imperial Mausoleum, to allow us to enter. We were compelled to declare our country, our reasons for visiting Asia, and our purpose in desiring to see the tomb of a True Believer, when we were ourselves Infidels. Having satisfactorily replied to all these categories, we were, however, finally gratified by an assent; and the tall, stately Imam rose from the wayside bank upon which he had been sitting, and, applying a huge key to the gate of which I have already spoken, admitted us to the Court of the Tomb.

This edifice, which was erected by the Sultan himself, is beautifully proportioned, and paved with polished marble; the dome is supported by twelve stately columns of the same material, six of them having Byzantine, and six, Corinthian Capitals, but the whole number are now painted a bright green, having a broad scarlet stripe at their base! I inquired the cause of this Vandalism, hoping, as the colour chosen was a sacred one, that some religious reason might be adduced, which, however insufficient to excuse the profanation, might at least tend to palliate it: but I failed in my object; they had simply been painted to make them prettier; and the same cause had operated similarly upon the gigantic wax candles, that stood at the extremities of the Imperial Sarcophagus, and which were clad in the same livery.

A goodly collection of wives and children share the Mausoleum with Sultan Mourad, who is covered with splendid shawls, and at the head of whose tomb, protected by a handkerchief of gold tissue, towers one of the stately turbans of the ancient costume. As it was the first that I had seen, I examined it attentively; and am only astonished how the cobweb-like muslin was ever woven into such minute and intricate folds. At the head of the Sarcophagus, on a marble pedestal (painted like the others!) stood a copper vessel inlaid with silver, and filled with wheat—the symbol of abundance; and at its foot was suspended a plough; while lamps and ostrich eggs were festooned among the columns.

The light fell in patches upon the marble floor, or quivered as the wind swept through the plantain trees, throwing fantastic shadows over the tombs; and I left the Mausoleum of Sultan Mourad, more than ever convinced that no people upon earth have succeeded better than the Turks in robbing death of all its terrors, and diffusing an atmosphere of cheerfulness and comfort about the last resting-places of the departed.

The Sarcophagus, as I have already stated, is universally based on a mass of masonry about a foot in height, covered with plaister, and whitewashed. I inquired why this portion of the tomb was not built of marble, when in many cases the floors, and even the walls of the mausoleum were formed of that material; and was assured by the Imam that it was from a religious superstition, which he was, nevertheless, unable to explain.

Beneath this stone-work an iron grating veils the entrance of the subterranean in which the body of the Sultan is deposited; the sarcophagus being a mere empty case of wood, overlaid by a covering of baize or cloth, concealed in its turn by shawls and embroidered handkerchiefs. No one is permitted to enter this subterranean, which can generally be approached also by an exterior door opening into the court of the tomb-house, save the reigning monarch, the Turks looking with horror on all desecration of the dead, and neither bribes nor entreaties being sufficient to tempt them to a violation of the sacred trust confided to them.

On quitting the mausoleum we proceeded to the principal bath; where, leaving the gentlemen comfortably seated under the shade of a maple tree near the entrance, I went in alone. The appearance of the outer hall was most singular; the raised gallery was tenanted, throughout its whole extent, with Turkish and Greek women, eating, sleeping, and gossipping, or busied in the arrangement of their toilette; while, suspended from the transverse beams of the ceiling, swung a score of little hammocks, in which lay as many infants. How the children of the country can, at so tender an age, endure the sulphurous and suffocating atmosphere of the bath is wonderful, but they not only do not suffer, but actually appear to enjoy it.

Passing from this hall, which was of considerable extent, I entered the cooling-room, in which the bathers were braiding their hair, or sleeping upon the heated floor: and opening a door at the upper end, I walked into the bath-room. Here I found between forty and fifty women, whom for the first moment I could scarcely distinguish through the dense steam, arising from a marble basin that occupied the centre of the floor, and which was about a hundred feet in circumference.

The natural spring that supplies this basin is so hot that it requires considerable habit to enable an individual to support its warmth, when the doors of the bath are closed. The effect which it produced on me was most disagreeable; the combined heat and smell of the water were overpowering; but the scene was altogether so extraordinary, that I compelled myself to endure the annoyance for a few minutes, in order to form an accurate idea of an establishment of which I had heard so much.

The spring, escaping from a neighbouring mountain, is forced by pipes into the bathing-hall, where it pours its principal volume into the main basin, part of the stream being diverted from its channel in order to feed the lesser tanks of the private rooms; from the basin it escapes by a sluice at the lower end, and thus the body of water is constantly renewed. When I entered, several of the bathers were up to their chins in the basin, their long dark tresses floating on the surface of the water; others, resting upon a step which brought the water only to their knees, were lying upon the edge of the tank, while their attendants were pouring the hot stream over them from metal basins; some, seated on low stools, were receiving the mineralized fluid after the fashion of a shower bath; while one, lying all her length upon the heated marble of the floor—so heated that I could scarcely apply my open palm to it without suffering—was sleeping as tranquilly as though she had been extended upon a bed of down.

The hot springs of Broussa are numerous, but vary considerably in their degrees of temperature; those which are frequented by persons labouring under chronic diseases are much warmer than those used by ordinary patients. The most powerful spring boils an egg perfectly hard in two minutes; while there are others that are not more than blood heat. They are all highly mineralized, and that which feeds the large basin of the public hall is strongly impregnated with sulphur.

My appearance in the bath did not create the slightest sensation among the bathers. The few whom I encountered on my way moved aside to enable me to pass, and uttered the usual salutation; while those who were more busily engaged simply suspended their operations for a moment, and resumed them as soon as their curiosity was gratified.

I afterwards visited the “Miraculous Bath,” of which it is asserted that a person in a dying state, who will submit to pass a night in complete solitude on the margin of the basin, will rise in the morning perfectly restored to health, whatever may have been the nature of the disease: but, unfortunately, I could not find any one who had experienced, or even witnessed, a cure of the kind, though many had heard of them in numbers. As an equivalent, however, an old, ugly, red-haired Armenian woman was pointed out to me, who is a celebrated doctress, and who had just succeeded in sending home a credulous elderly gentleman to die in Constantinople, who came to Broussa in a state of indisposition, and left it, thanks to the nostrums of this ancient sybil, without a hope of recovery.

Many of the houses in the village are furnished with hot springs; and although they are, generally speaking, of mean appearance, and in a dilapidated condition, they produce very high rents during the season; and are usually let to Greek families of distinction, or to Europeans.

The situation of Tzèkerghè is eminently beautiful, and the air is balmy and elastic; the magnificent plain is spread out beneath it; it is backed by lofty mountains; and it is in itself a perfect bower of fig-trees, plantains, and maples. The nightingales sing throughout the whole of the day—the rush of water into the valley feeds a score of fountains, which keep up a perpetual murmur; open kiosks are raised along the hill side, some of them traversed by a running stream; storks build in the tall trees; tortoises and land turtles crawl among the high grass and the wild flowers; and altogether I know not a prettier spot than that which is occupied by the village of Tzèkerghè—the rural Cheltenham of Turkey.

CHAPTER IV.

Difficulty of Access to the Chapel of the Howling Dervishes—Invitation to Visit their Harem—The Chapel—Sects and Trades—Entrance of the Dervishes—Costume—The Prayer—Turning Dervishes—Fanatical Suffering—Groans and Howls—Difficulty of Description—Sectarian Ceremony—Music versus Madness—Tekiè of the Turning Dervishes.

Of all the religious ceremonies of the East, those of the different sects of Dervishes are the most extraordinary, and, generally speaking, the most difficult of access. The Turning Dervishes alone freely admit foreigners, and even provide a latticed gallery for the use of the women: while their chapels are usually so situated as to enable the passer-by to witness all that is going on within. The more stern and bigoted sects, on the contrary, permit none but Mussulmauns to intrude upon their mysteries, and build their chapels in obscure places, in order to prevent the intrusion of Christians.

I had heard much of the Howling Dervishes, and had made many unsuccessful attempts at Constantinople to penetrate into their Tekiè; but they are so jealous of strangers that I was unwillingly compelled to give up all idea of accomplishing my object, when, on arriving at Broussa, and finding how comparatively easy it was to gain admittance to the mosques, I resolved to renew my endeavours. But I found that even here many difficulties were to be overcome; difficulties which, of myself, I never could have surmounted; when, having fortunately made the acquaintance of a gentleman who was known to the High Priest, and who had already witnessed their service, I prevailed on him to exert his influence for me, in which he fortunately succeeded.

On arriving at the Tekiè, we found that the service had not yet commenced, and we accordingly seated ourselves on a stone bench in the little outer court, to await the gathering of the fraternity. While we remained there, one of the principal Dervishes approached us, and offered, should I desire it, to admit me into the interior of the harem to visit the women; but, as the ceremonies were shortly to commence in the chapel, and I was already suffering extremely from the heat, I declined to profit by the indulgence.

The chapel, which was up stairs, was approached by an open entrance, having on the left hand a small apartment whose latticed windows looked into this place of mystery; and into this room we were admitted, after having taken off our shoes; while a couple of youths were stationed within the gallery of the chapel itself, in order to prevent the crowd from impeding our view.

A large square apartment surrounded by a low gallery, and ornamented like the mosques, with written passages from the Koràn; upon whose walls were suspended battle-axes, tambourines, and half a dozen small Arabian drums; and whose arched recess was shaded by three banners of the sacred green, and overlaid with a rich crimson rug, formed the chapel of the Howling Dervishes. Within the niche, framed and glazed, were suspended the names of the Prophets, a huge chaplet, and a green scarf; and on each side a small portion of the gallery was railed off for the convenience of a few individuals of rank. One of these was already occupied by a solemn-looking Turk, in a frock-coat and fèz, doubtlessly one of the sect, who had withdrawn from the public exercise of his religion.

I know not whether I have elsewhere noticed that every Musselmaun, however high his rank, has a trade and a peculiar faith—thus the Sultan is a Turning Dervish and a Tooth-pick maker—and I have consequently no doubt but the Turk in question had an individual interest in the ceremonial. He was accompanied by a child of about six years of age, dressed precisely like himself, and attended by a black slave. I was more confirmed in my opinion relative to the father by watching the gestures of the son, who imitated every motion of the Dervishes during the service with the most perfect exactness, and who was accommodated with a rug near the seat of the High Priest.

The throng which pressed into the chapel was immense, and the heat most oppressive; while the youths who guarded our windows were kept in constant action by the strenuous efforts made by the crowd to occupy the vacant space. I never saw a finer set of men—such bright black eyes, fine foreheads, and sparkling teeth.

At length a low chanting commenced in the court, and a train of Dervishes, headed by the High Priest, slowly ascended to the chapel. They had no peculiar costume, save the chief himself, who wore a magnificent green turban with a white crown, and a cloak of olive-coloured cloth. He was a pale, delicate-looking man of about one or two-and-twenty, whose father had been dead a couple of years; when, as the dignity is hereditary throughout all the sects of the Dervishes, he had succeeded to the painful honours of the crimson rug. There was something melancholy in seeing this sickly youth lead the nine fanatics who followed him to the upper end of the chapel, to commence their agonizing rites; and as he stepped upon the rug, with the palms of his hands turned upwards, and the attendant Dervishes cast themselves on the earth, and laid their foreheads in the dust, I felt a thrill of pity for the ill-judged zeal and blind delusion which was rapidly wearing him to the grave.

One of the causes adduced by this sect of their disinclination to admit Christians to their worship is the frequent recurrence of the name of Allah in their orizons, which should never be uttered in an atmosphere polluted by the breath of a Giaour. I presume that, in our case, their consciences were quieted by the intervention of the wooden lattices, and the reflection that we were not actually within the chapel.

The prayer was long and solemn; not a sound was audible, save the low monotonous chant of the High Priest, and the deep responses of his followers, who, ere it ended, had increased in number to about fifty. At its close, the whole of the Dervishes formed a ring round the chapel, and one of the elders, of whom there were four, spread in the recess a fine tiger skin, upon which the High Priest took his place; and then, turning his face towards Mecca, and murmuring a low prayer, to which the rest replied by stifled groans, he invested himself with the green scarf which I have already mentioned, and, resuming his seat upon the rug, commenced a species of chant, which was echoed by the whole fraternity: every individual swinging himself slowly to and fro, as he sat with his feet doubled under him upon the floor. Every moment added to their numbers, and each on his arrival cast off his slippers at the entrance, and advanced barefooted to the place of the High Priest; where, after praying silently for a moment with outstretched palms, he stroked down his beard, and, bending on one knee, pressed the hand of his leader to his lips and forehead, and then took up a position in the ring; which ultimately became so thronged that the individuals who composed it pressed closely upon each other, and, as they swung slowly to and fro, appeared to move in one dense mass.

The ceremony was at this point, when the Chief of the Turning Dervishes, accompanied by his two principal Priests, arrived to assist at the service of his fellow-Dervish. The chant ceased as they entered the chapel; the youthful leader of the Howling Dervishes bent down in his turn, and pressed the hand of his visitor to his lips, while the stately guest kissed the cheek of the pale stripling who passed forward to greet his companions, and after conducting them to the place of honour, seated himself beside them.

The chanting was then resumed, and after a time increased in quickness; while at intervals, as the name of Allah was pronounced, some solitary individual uttered a howl, which I can compare to nothing but the cry of a wild beast.

Things had progressed thus far, when suddenly a strong voice shouted, “Allah Il Allah!” and a powerful man sprang from the floor, as though he had been struck in the heart, fell forward upon his head, and by a violent spasm rolled over, and lay flat upon his back, with his arms crossed on his breast, and his whole frame as rigid as though he had stiffened into death. His turban had fallen off, and the one long lock of hair pendent from the centre of his head was scattered over the floor—his mouth was slightly open, and his eyes fixed—in short, the convulsion was a terrific one; and it was not before the lapse of several minutes that two of the fraternity, who hastened to his assistance, succeeded in unclasping his hands, and changing his position. Having ultimately raised him from the floor, still in a state of insensibility, they carried him to the crimson rug, and laid him at the feet of the High Priest, who stroked down his beard, and laid his right hand upon his breast; they then continued to use all their efforts to produce re-animation; and having ultimately succeeded, they seated him once more in his place, and left him to recover himself as he might.

The howling still continued at intervals, and as the chanting and the motion increased in violence, these miserable fanatics appeared to become maddened by their exertions; when, at a certain point of the ceremony, four of the fraternity, who had green scarfs flung over their left shoulders, advanced, one by one, to the seat of the High Priest, and there slowly, and with much parade, transferred them first to their necks, and afterwards to their waists, and ultimately took their stand, two on each side of the mihrab, or recess.

After the lapse of a short interval the High Priest rose and advanced into the centre of the ring, where he took possession of a carpet that had been spread for him, having immediately behind him two of the assistant priests; and they then commenced a prayer, the effect of which was thrilling. The young chief delivered a sentence in a clear, melodious voice, and paused; when the whole fraternity responded by a long groan: again and again this was repeated, only interrupted from time to time by some wild, fiendish howl, the individual who uttered it tossing back his head, and flinging his arms into the air with the gesture of a maniac.

To this prayer succeeded another low sustained wail, during whose continuance the priests collected the turbans, pelisses, cloaks, pistols, and yataghans of the Dervishes, who, springing to their feet, stood in a circle about their chief; and then commenced the painful portion of their service. The measure of the chant was regulated by the High Priest, who clapped his hands from time to time to increase its speed: himself and his four green-girdled assistants uttering the words of the prayer, while the fraternity, rocking themselves to and fro, kept up one continual groan, rising and falling with the voices of the choir. Howl succeeded to howl, as the exhaustion consequent on this violent bodily exertion began to produce its effect; until at length strong men fell on the earth on all sides like children, shrieking and groaning in their agony—some struggling to free themselves from the grasp of those who endeavoured to restrain them, and others trembling in all their limbs, and sobbing out their anguish like infants.

I never witnessed such a scene; nor should I have conceived it possible for human beings to have gratuitously subjected themselves to the agony which these misguided wretches visibly endured. The chanting ceased suddenly at given intervals, but not so the groans; for the speed with which they were uttered, and the violence of motion by which they were accompanied, became finally so great, that several seconds frequently elapsed before the miserable beings could check either the one or the other, and many of them fell into convulsions with the effort.

The more I write on the subject of this extraordinary and disgusting exhibition, the more I feel the utter impossibility of conveying by words a correct idea of it; from a long sustained groan, and a slow, heaving, wave-like motion, it grew into a hoarse sobbing, and a quick jerk, which I can compare to nothing that it more resembles than the rapid action of a pair of bellows; the cheeks and foreheads of the actors became pale, their eyes dim, and white foam gathered about their mouths—in short, the scene resembled rather the orgies of a band of demons than an offering of worship to a God of peace and love!

At this period of the ceremony, the muffled flutes used by the Turning Dervishes were heard, accompanied by the low sound of the small Arabian drums; and a majestic-looking man, clad entirely in white, with a black girdle, rose, at a signal from his chief, and commenced his evolutions. His example was speedily followed by two more of the fraternity; the chanting ceased, but the circle of Howling Dervishes continued their short groans to the accompaniment of the music, and the spectacle thus produced was most extraordinary. Such an occurrence had not taken place for an immense time, and arose from the anxiety of each sect to impress our party in their favour, which they were desirous of doing when they had once been induced to admit us.

To this exhibition succeeded one as striking of its kind; the tambourines and drums were divided among the fraternity; the latter were all beat by youths, who formed a second, or inner circle, and in the midst of whom stood the High Priest, striking a pair of cymbals. Groans, howls, and yells, such as may haunt the ear of the midnight traveller in the wilderness, filled up the diapason; while the struggles of the convulsion-smitten, and their wild shrieks, completed the horror of the scene. It was impossible to bear it longer; and we hurried from the latticed apartment just as three more tottering wretches were falling to the earth, howling out the sacred name of Allah, in tones better suited to a Satanic invocation!

On the morrow we visited the elegant chapel of the Turning Dervishes, where a carpet was politely spread for us by order of the High Priest; and we once more witnessed their service, which was far more picturesque at Broussa than at Pera, owing to the beauty of the building and the numbers of the fraternity. However extraordinary and unmeaning their ceremonies may appear to strangers, they have this great advantage over the other sect, that they are neither ridiculous nor disgusting. The most perfect order, the most touching solemnity, and the most beautiful cleanliness, are their leading characteristics; and it is impossible for any unprejudiced person to quit their Tekiè, without feeling at least as much respect as pity for the Turning Dervishes.

CHAPTER V.

Loquacious Barber—Unthrifty Travellers—Mount Olympus—Early Rising—Aspect of the Country at Dawn—Peasants and Travellers—Fine View—Peculiarity of Oriental Cities—Stunted Minarets—Plains and Precipices—Halting-Place—Difficulty of Ascending the Mountain—Change of Scenery—Repast in the Desart—Civil Guide—Appearance of the Mount—Snows and Sunshine—Fatiguing Pilgrimage—Dense Mists—Intense Cold—Flitting Landscape—The Chibouk—The Giant’s Grave—The Roofless Hut—Lake of Appollonia—The Wilderness—Dangerous Descent—Philosophic Guide—Storm among the Mountains—The Guide at Fault—Happy Discovery—Tempest.

I remember to have heard an anecdote of a facetious barber, who, while operating upon the chin of a customer, commenced catechising his victim on the subject of his foreign travel.

“You are an army gentleman, I believe, Sir; pray were you in Egypt?” “Yes.” “Really! then perhaps you saw the Pyramids?” “Yes.” “Travelled a little in Greece, perhaps, Sir?” “A little.” “Pleasant place, Greece, I’ve been told; Athens, and all that. I dare say you fought in the Peninsula?” “Once or twice.” “Charming country, Spain, I’ve heard, Sir; indeed I’ve read Gil Blas, which gives one a very pretty notion of it. Plenty of oranges in Portugal, Sir?” “Plenty.” “Vastly nice, indeed, quite a favourite fruit of mine. Did you ever serve in the East or West Indies, Sir?” “In both.” “Really! why you’re quite a traveller. Of course, Sir, you’ve seen Paris?” “Never.” “Never seen Paris, Sir!” exclaimed the man of suds and small-talk: “never visited the French metropolis! why, dear me, Sir, you have seen nothing!”

In like manner, he who travels to the East—who feasts with Pashas in Europe, and eats pillauf with Beys in Asia—who peeps into palaces—glides in his swift caïque along the channel of the Bosphorus—overruns all Turkey, and half Egypt, and returns home without smoking a pipe on the summit of Mount Olympus, has, according to the declaration of the natives, “seen nothing.”

Of course it was out of the question that I should add to the number of these unthrifty travellers; and accordingly on the morning of the 11th of June (at least two months too soon), the horses were at the door at four o’clock; and, shaking off my sleepiness as well as I could, I set forward, accompanied by a Greek gentleman, with whose charming family we had formed a friendship, and who was himself well calculated by his scientific acquirements to enhance the enjoyment of the expedition, our servant, and a guide, for the dwelling of the Gods.

The morning was yet gray; the mists were hanging in wreaths about the mountains, and draping them in ermine; the dew was lying heavily on the dense vegetation; a few straggling peasants passed us on the outskirts of the sleeping city, some bearing scythes upon their shoulders, affixed to straight poles about eight feet in length—or carrying round spades of wood—or driving before them the animals who were to return laden with mulberry branches for the nurture of the silk-worms which are reared in millions at Broussa. The number of individuals constantly employed in providing food for these insects must be very great, as we have counted upwards of two hundred horses, mules, and donkeys, bearing closely-packed loads of boughs, passing in one day beneath our windows from the same gate of the city; and, as the immense plain is covered with trees, which are each year cut closely down to the trunk, the consumption may be imagined.

A little beyond the city we passed a mule-litter, closely covered with scarlet cloth, guided by two men, and followed by three Turkish gentlemen on horseback, attended by their servants, bound on some mountain pilgrimage; but we had not proceeded above half a league, ere, with the exception of a string of mules laden with timber, which occasionally crossed our path, we had the wilderness to ourselves.

The ascent commences, immediately on leaving the city, which on this side is bounded by a deep ditch or fosse, into which two mountain torrents, boiling and bellowing down from the neighbouring heights, pour their flashing waters. A narrow pathway, so narrow that two saddle-horses cannot pass in it, traverses a dense wood of dwarf oak and hazel, clothing the hill-side, above whose stunted summits we looked down upon the plain, and the minarets of Broussa.

A sudden turn in the road conducted us rapidly upwards, freed us from the hazel wood, and plunged us among masses of rock, over which our horses slid and stumbled, until we reached the foot of the next range of heights. Here the landscape began to grow in beauty; behind us was the city fenced with mountains, mapped out in all its extent, and as remarkable as that of Constantinople for the extraordinary and beautiful admixture of buildings and foliage, which I never remember to have seen elsewhere.

Every habitation possessing, if not its garden, at least its one tall tree, beneath whose boughs the family congregate during the warm hours, the appearance of an Eastern city, as you look down upon it from any neighbouring height, is entirely devoid of that monotony which renders the roofs and chimneys of an European town so utterly uninteresting. It looks as though the houses had grown up gradually in the midst of a thick grove, and the eye lingers without weariness on the scene, where the glittering casements, touched by the sunlight, flash through the clustering leaves, and the wind heaves aside the more flexile branches to reveal a stately portal, or a graceful kiosk. From the spot on which we now stood, we saw Broussa to great advantage. The most striking object was the spacious mosque of Oulou-Jamè piercing through the morning mists in spectral whiteness—the stunted minarets, looking like caricatures of those light, slender, fairy-moulded creations which shoot so loftily into the blue heaven at Stamboul; minarets that have sacrificed their grace to the south wind, which blows so violently at Broussa as frequently to unroof the more lofty buildings; and whose ill-proportioned cupolas of lead complete the pictorial ruin, and give them the appearance of bulky wax candles, surmounted by metal extinguishers. A small space beyond ran the gleaming river, sparkling along its bed of white pebbles—the wilderness of mulberry trees spreading over the green carpet of the plain—and away, afar off, the range of mountains purpling in the distance, and crowned with clouds!

Beside us, not half a foot from our horse’s hoof, we had a sheer precipice clothed with dwarf-oak and spruce, and we heard, although we could not see, the tumbling waters of a torrent which roared and rushed along the bottom of the gulph. Beyond the precipice, towered a lordly mountain, upon whose crest were pillowed dense masses of fleecy vapour; while stately fir trees draped it with a thousand tints. Before us rose masses of rock, through which we had to make our way: and from every crevice sprang a forest tree, whose gnarled and knotted roots were washed by a rushing stream, which was flung up like spray as our horses splashed through it. We next reached a patch of soft fresh turf; maple and ash trees overshadowed it; wild artichokes and violets were strown in every direction; the rich ruby-coloured arum hung its long dank leaves over the narrow channel, through which glided a pigmy stream almost hidden by the rank vegetation; the little yellow hearts’-ease was dotted over the banks; the ringdoves were cooing amid the leaves; and the grasshopper, as green and almost as bright as an emerald, was springing from flower to flower. It is a place of pause for the traveller, and it deserves to be so. There can scarcely be a lovelier in the world! One or two fragments of cold grey rock pierced through the rich grass, as if to enhance its beauty, and afforded a resting-place, whence we looked round upon the masses of mountain scenery by which we were surrounded; and few, I should imagine, would fail to profit by this opportunity of temporary rest, when they contemplated the far extent of wild and difficult country through which they were to travel.

Let none venture the ascent of Mount Olympus who have not the head and the hand equally steady; who are incapable not only of standing upon the “giddy brink,” but also of riding along it when the road is scarcely a foot in width, and the precipice some hundreds in depth; and where the only path is a torrent-chafed channel, or a line of rock piled in ledges, and slippery with water; for assuredly, to all such, le jeu ne vaudra pas la chandelle, as it is impossible to imagine ways less calculated to calm the nerves, or to re-assure the timid. You urge your horse up a flat stone, as high and as large as a billiard table, and splash he descends on the other side up to his girths in mud: now you ride up a bank to escape collision with a string of timber-laden mules, and in descending you are stumbling and scrambling among the roots of trees, which twirl and twist among the vegetation like huge snakes; at one moment you are almost knocked off your saddle by a forest-bough that you have not room to avoid, and the next you are up to your knees in a torrent which he refuses to leap. Assuredly the Gods never wished to receive company.

As the ascent became more difficult, the whole face of the landscape changed: lofty firs shot upwards against the clear sky, while rocks fantastically piled, and looking like the ruins of a lordly city, were scattered over a plain which we skirted in turning the elbow of the next range of heights. Here and there, a tree that had been smitten by the thunder reared aloft its white and leafless branches, while its shivered trunk looked like a mass of charcoal. Eagles and vultures soared above our heads; innumerable cuckoos called to each other among the rocks: at intervals the low growl of a bear was heard in the distance; and altogether, a more savage scene can scarcely be imagined.

A fine fir-wood succeeded, which terminated in a small plain intersected by a sparkling trout-stream, whose waters formed a thousand pigmy cascades as they tumbled over the rocky fragments that choked their channel. Here we spread our morning meal, cooling our delicate Greek wine in the waters of Mount Olympus, and seating ourselves upon the fresh turf which was enamelled with violets and wild hyacinths. At this spot travellers usually leave their horses, and proceed to the summit of the mountain on foot; but our good cheer, our soft words, and, above all, the promise of an increased backshish, so won upon our guide, that he consented to let his horses’ knees and our necks share the same risk, and to proceed as much further as might be practicable for the animals.

What a breakfast we made! My intelligent Greek friend already talking of his mineralogical expectations; I decorating my riding-habit with lovely wild flowers; the portly Turk paying marked attention to the hard eggs and caviare, and the servant passing to and fro the stream with glasses of cool wine, sparkling like liquid topaz.

Before us towered the mountain, whose every creek and crevice was heaped with snow, while one dense mass of vapour hung upon its brow like a knightly plume. From the summit of the mount the snow had disappeared, but the white slate-stone of which it is composed gleamed out beneath the sunshine with a glare that was almost dazzling. The sides of the rock are clothed with juniper, which, from the continual pressure of the snow, is dwarfed and stunted, and rather crawls along the earth than springs from it; and whose berries produce a singular and beautiful effect on the masses beneath which they are concealed, by giving to them a pink tinge that has almost the effect of art. Yet, nevertheless, I could not forbear casting a glance of anxiety at the towering height, which all its majesty and magnificence failed to dispel. I had been told that in the month of June it would be impossible for a female to ascend to the summit—I had already left behind me six long leagues of the wilderness—two more of perpetual and difficult ascent were before me—but I remembered my prowess in the Desart of the Chartreux, and I resolved to persevere.

Our hamper was repacked, our bridles were re-adjusted, and, fording the little stream, we once more set forward upon our “high emprize;” and after scrambling through acres of juniper, sliding over ledges of rock, and riding through nine torrents, we at length found ourselves at the foot of the almost perpendicular mountain.

It was a magnificent spectacle! The mid-day sun was shining upon the eternal snows, which, yielding partially and reluctantly to its beams, were melting into a thousand pigmy streams that glittered and glided among the juniper bushes; the highest peak of the mount, crowned by its diadem of vapour, rose proudly against the blue sky; the ragged ridges of the chain, tempest-riven and bare, hung over the snow-filled gulphs, into which the grasp of centuries had hurled portions of their own stupendous mass; and not a sound was audible save the brawling of the torrents in the lower lands, or the wind sweeping at intervals round the rocky point.

When I dismounted, and flung my bridle to the guide, I felt as though I had gained another year of life!

Never shall I forget the fatigue of that ascent!—a weary league over the gnarled roots of the juniper plants, and loose stones which treacherously failed beneath our feet, and frequently lost us six steps for the one that we thought to gain. But at length we stood upon the edge of the rock; we had clomb the ascent, and were looking down upon the mountains that we had traversed in the morning;, as though into a valley; but our task was not yet ended: the loftiest peak, the seat of Jupiter, yet towered above us, and seemed to mock our efforts. Between that peak, and the spot on which we stood, there was a deep hollow, to be descended on our side, and again mounted on the other: the rock was edged with snow many feet in depth; our feet sank among the loose stones; the cold was piercing; and to add to our discomfort, the vapours were rising from the valley beyond the mountain in one dense mass which resembled the concentrated smoke of a burning world.

The effect was sublimely awful! Fold upon fold—shade darkening over shade—nothing was to be seen but the cold, gray, clinging vapour which hung against the mountain, as if to curtain the space beyond. It was frightful to stand upon the edge of the precipice, and to mark the working of that mysterious cloud—fancy ran riot in looking on it—its superhuman extent—its unearthly, impalpable texture—its everchanging form—its deep, dense tint—my brain reeled with watching its shifting wonders; and had not my companion withdrawn me from the brink, I should have sunk down from sheer mental exhaustion.

We had been warned not to linger when on the mountain, and after the lapse of a few moments we again toiled on. At intervals the vapour rolled back, and gave us glimpses of hills, and valleys, and woods, and streams, far below us; but it was like the production of a fairy-wand, for while we yet looked upon them they were lost: another heavy fold of mist rose from the chasm, and again all was chaos.

At length the chibouk was lighted. We stood upon the Grave of the Giant; upon the highest point of Mount Olympus—beside the roofless hut, built for the shelter of the storm-overtaken traveller, and so ingeniously sunk beneath the surface as to form a well, in which such a shower of rain as commonly falls in the neighbourhood of the mountain, would go nigh to drown the hapless wanderer who might trust to the treacherous asylum.

Behind us all was vapour: before us stretched away the mountain-chain across which we had travelled: while far, far in the distance, and almost blent with the horizon, we distinguished the blue Lake of Apollonia. While we yet looked, we saw the mists gathering about our own path; curling up from the swampy patches between the hills; rolling along the rocky channel of the torrents: draping the broad branches of the dark firs; clinging to the mountain sides—we had no time to lose. We were not travellers on a highway; we had neither finger-posts nor landmarks—all is so nearly alike in the wilderness: one pile of cold gray rock looms out from amid the mists shaped so like its neighbour; one rushing torrent brawls over its stony bed so like another: one stretch of forest darkens the mountain side with a gloom so similar to that which shadows the opposite height, that we thought it well to avoid the gathering of the vapours, if we did not wish to sleep in the desart.

To return by the way that we had ascended was out of the question; for we had walked upwards of a league along the summit of the mountain, after having gained the height. The other face of the rock presented a much shorter road, but, as it was extremely dangerous, we held a council to decide on which we should venture—the fatigue and loss of time, or the possibility of accident. We were already travel-worn and foot-sore, but not caring to confess even to each other that it was the exertion from which we shrank, we both talked very sagely of the danger of delay, with the mists gathering so rapidly about us; and decided, as a matter of prudence, on descending the precipice.

I have already mentioned the mountain-ridge that projected over the gulph, and whose jagged and storm-riven outline bore testimony to the ravages of time and tempest; while the huge fragments of fallen rock which heaved up their dark masses from among the accumulated snows beneath, broke the smooth surface, and betrayed the depth of the precipice.

This was the point on which we fixed for our descent: my companion, who was an accomplished sportsman, and accustomed to the dizzy mountains of the East, led the way; and, as he assured me that nothing but nerve was required to ensure success, I followed without hesitation. Seating ourselves, therefore, upon the summit of the mountain, we slid gently down to a narrow ledge of rock, just sufficiently wide to afford us footing; and clinging to the stones which jutted out from the natural wall on the one side, and carefully avoiding to look towards the precipice on the other, we slowly made our way to a second descent similar to the first. This hazardous exploit, thrice repeated, carried us through the most difficult portion of our undertaking, as the rock then projected sufficiently towards the base to enable us to step from stone to stone, until we arrived at the edge of the snow.

As we could form no calculation of its depth, we did not venture to traverse it, which would have shortened the distance very considerably; but skirting the gulph, where it was not more than mid-way to our knees, we at length arrived in a patch of swampy land, inundated by the melting of the mountain snows, and scattered over with rocks, many of them split asunder, as though they had suffered from the wrath of Vulcan in one of his stormy moods. Our wet and weary feet next carried us up a slight ascent, to a stretch of land as brilliant and as sweet as a flower-garden. Were I to enumerate all the blossoms that I saw growing wild on this spot, the next page of my book would resemble a floricultural catalogue; and tired as I was, I could not pass them by without gathering a bouquet which would have done no disgrace to an English parterre.

In half an hour more we entered the grassy nook where we had left our horses; and the recompense of our prowess from the guide when we pointed out to him the spot whence we had descended was a look of contemptuous pity, accompanied by the remark that we were “two mad Franks!”

We had scarcely taken a hasty glass of wine, and mounted our horses, when two loud claps of thunder, following close upon each other, rattled along the mountain-tops, and enforced on us the necessity of speed. But, alas! there was no possibility of travelling at more than a foot’s-pace between Mount Olympus and Broussa; all that we could do, therefore, was to commence our homeward journey without a moment’s delay, and trust to our lucky stars, both for finding our way, and for getting home dry. On we pressed accordingly, “over bank, bush, and scaur;” but in half an hour we were so completely enveloped in mist that we could not see each other. The guide still moved steadily on, however, like a man who is sure of his path; and I felt no misgivings until, on arriving in the dry bed of a torrent from which the stream had been diverted by some convulsion of nature, he suddenly ceased the wild monotonous melody with which he had favoured us for a considerable time, and, turning round in his saddle, remarked quietly: “We are lost.”

For an instant no one replied. We had each anticipated the probability of such an occurrence, but it was not the less disagreeable when it came to pass. What was to be done? First, the guide was convinced that he had borne too much to the right, and accordingly we all turned our horses in the other direction; when being close upon a wall of rock that loomed out from the vapour like some bristling fortress, he admitted that this could not be the way, and that consequently he must have inclined too much to the left. We performed a fresh evolution with equal success: the man was fairly bewildered; and meanwhile the vapour was spreading thicker and faster about us.

At length my companion suggested the expediency of shouting aloud, that in the event of any shepherd or goatherd being in the neighbourhood, we might procure assistance and information. Shout, accordingly, we did, at the very pitch of our lungs; but the mists were so dense that they stifled the voice, and we were ourselves conscious that we could not be heard at any great distance. After the suspense of a long, weary half-hour, we had just abandoned all hope of help, when a huge dog came bounding out of the vapour, barking furiously, but to us his voice was music, as it assured us of the vicinity of some mountaineer; at the same moment the mists broke partially away, and the guide, uttering an exclamation of joy, suddenly descended a steep bank, and we found ourselves on the skirts of the fir wood, and in the mule-track which we had followed in the morning.

We had scarcely congratulated each other on the termination of our dilemma, and the partial dispersion of the vapours, when a jagged line of serpent-like lightning ran shimmering through the broad flash that lit up for a second the whole wild scene amid which we were moving; and at the same instant, the loudest and the longest peal broke from the sky to which I ever listened; rock after rock caught up the sound, and flung it back, until the wizard thunder rattled in fainter echoes down into the plain.

It was an awful moment! The terrified animals stood suddenly still, and trembled with affright; but we had no time to waste upon alarm, for, as if conjured by that awful crash, and the wild light by which it was accompanied, down came the imprisoned waters from the mass of vapour that hung above us. I can scarcely call it rain; it was as though a sluice had been let loose upon us, and in an instant we were drenched. Every mountain stream grew suddenly into a torrent—every wayside fountain, (and there were many in the forest formed of the hollow trunks of trees,) overflowed its basin—the branches against which we brushed in our passage, scattered the huge drops from their leaves—large stones fell rattling down the sides of the mountain—in short it was as wild a storm as ever inspired the pencil of Salvator Rosa; and its solemnity was deepened by the twilight gloom of the clinging and changeful vapours.

We arrived at Broussa both wet and weary, having been thirteen hours on the road; but, despite all that I suffered, I would not have lost the sublime spectacle on which I gazed from the summit of Mount Olympus, for the enjoyment of a month of luxurious ease. Well might Howitt exclaim, in the gushing out of his pious and poetical nature:—

“Praise be to God for the mountains!”

CHAPTER VI.

The Armenian Quarter of Broussa—Catholics and Schismatics—Armenian Church—Ugly Saints—Burial Place of the Bishops—Cloisters—Public School—Mode of Rearing the Silk Worms—Difference between the European and the Asiatic Systems—Colour and Quantity of the Produce—Appearance of the Mulberry Woods.

It is a singular fact, that although the Armenian quarter of Broussa contains upwards of a thousand houses which are all inhabited, the number of Catholic families does not amount to fifty; their place of worship is consequently small, and unworthy of description, being merely the chapel attached to a private house, while the Schismatic Church is proportionably handsome. The difference of faith between the two sects hangs upon a single point—the Schismatics deny the double nature of Christ, and are accordingly denounced as heretics by their more orthodox brethren; although they worship the same profusion of Saints—weep over the wounds of the same blessed martyrs—and build altars to the same Virgin under all her multitudinous designations.

The Armenian Church of Broussa is very elegant. The altar, which extends along its whole width, is of white marble, highly polished, and divided into three compartments, merely separated from the aisles by a simple railing, and is arranged with considerable taste; the sacerdotal plate being interspersed with vases of white lilies. The roof is supported by ten fine columns, and the floor covered, like that of a mosque, with rich carpets.

The Saints, whose portraits adorn the walls, (which are covered with Dutch tiles to the height of the latticed gallery,) have been most cruelly treated. I never beheld “the human face divine” so caricatured! A tale is somewhere told of a susceptible young Italian, who became enamoured of the Madonna that adorned his oratory; he might kneel before the whole saintly community of the Armenian Church of Broussa, without a quickening pulse—they would haunt the dreams of an artist like the nightmare! At the base of the pictures, crosses of white marble are incrusted in the masonry, curiously inlaid with coloured stones; and a portable altar, whose plate was enriched with fine turquoises, stood in the centre of the aisle, surmounted by a hideous St. Joseph, glaring out in his ugliness from beneath a drapery of silver muslin.

The church is surrounded on three sides by a noble covered cloister, lined with marble, partially carpeted, and furnished with an altar at each extremity. That on the right hand is the burial place of the Bishops, who lie beneath slabs of marble, elaborately carved; the left hand cloister, into which flows a noble fountain, serves as a sacristy; and the third, situated at the extreme end of the church, is decorated with a dingy Virgin, and a congregation of Saints in very tattered condition, to whom their votaries offer the tribute of lighted tapers, whose numerous remains were scattered about in their immediate vicinity. The women’s gallery is handsome and spacious, and is partially overlooked by the windows of the Bishop’s Palace; a fine building erected a year ago at an immense expence.

From the church we passed into the public school, where three hundred boys were conning their tasks under the superintendence of a single master. Though we were perfectly unexpected, we did not hear a whisper; every boy was in his place; and the venerable Dominie, with a beard as white as snow, and a head which would have been a study for a painter, rose as we entered, and courteously invited us to take our seats upon the comfortable sofa that occupied the upper end of the hall. The most beautiful cleanliness pervaded the whole establishment; and the boarded floor was rubbed as bright by the constant friction of six hundred little naked feet, as though it had been waxed.

The number of Turkish children now receiving their education in Broussa we could not ascertain, as they are divided among the different mosques; but the Greek Rector, who, in the absence of the Archbishop, interested himself in our comfort and amusement, told me that they had but fifty in their school, although the Greek population of Broussa is tolerably numerous. There is, however, a second description of free-school or college, attached to the Greek and Armenian Churches, wherein the pupils advance a step in their studies, and prepare themselves for the Priesthood, and for commercial pursuits.

Our next object of inquiry was the mode of feeding the silk-worms, which produce in the neighbourhood of Broussa an extraordinary quantity of silk. We accordingly visited the establishment of a Frenchman, who exports the raw material to Europe. I was struck by the colour of the silk, which was of a dingy white; and learnt that, despite all the efforts of the feeders, they seldom succeeded in producing any other tint, although the worms are themselves of different qualities and colours, varying from a dead white to a dark brown, and are fed with the leaves of both the red and the white mulberry indiscriminately. The most experienced feeders, however, give a decided preference to the wild white mulberry, of which most of the plantations about Broussa are formed. The silk, when first spun, is of a clear, silvery, brilliant tint; but submersion in the highly mineralized water of the neighbourhood robs it of its gleam, and reduces it to the dead, dingy colour I have mentioned; and I was assured that in some hundreds of pounds weight of silk, not more than two or three could be met with of yellow.

The Asiatic method of rearing the worm is totally different from that of Europe, and, according to the account given to me, much more profitable in its results, as well as simple in its process. The insect has a natural dislike to being handled, which is inevitable where it is fed day by day, and the withered leaves of the previous morning cleared away; the discomfort produced by the touch rendering the worm lethargic, and retarding its growth. The Asiatics never approach it with the hand: when it is hatched, the floor of the apartment is covered with layers of mulberry branches to about three or four inches in depth; and upon these the insects are laid, and suffered to feed undisturbed until their first sleep, when they are covered by a fresh supply of boughs similar to the first, through which they eat their way, and upon which they subsist until their next change. This operation is repeated four times, always at the period when the worm casts its skin; and on the first appearance of an inclination to spin, boughs of oak, of about four feet in length, stripped of their lower leaves, and planted, if I may so express it, in close ranks in the bed of mulberry branches, form a pigmy forest in which the insects establish themselves, and wherein they produce their silk. Every crevice of the apartment is carefully stopped to prevent the admission of air, and a fire of charcoal ashes is kept up constantly throughout the day and night.

Whether the mode of feeding operates on the colour of the silk, I could not ascertain, though it struck me that the experiment would be worth trying; but meanwhile it appears to be certain that it greatly increases its quantity, and diminishes the labour of the feeders. There is scarcely a house in the neighbourhood of Broussa which does not contain several apartments filled with silk worms, whose produce is disposed of to the spinners, of whom there are a considerable number in the city; and the far-spreading mulberry woods assume in the height of summer the appearance of stretches of locust-blighted landscape, every tree being left a branchless trunk without a sign of foliage.

CHAPTER VII.

The Cadi’s Wife—Singular Custom—Haïsè Hanoum—The Odalique—The Cadi—Noisy Enjoyment—Lying in State—Cachemires—Costume—Unbounded Hospitality of the Wealthy Turks—The Dancing Girl—Saïryn Hanoum—Contrast.

The wife of the Cadi of Tzèkerghè having given birth to her first-born son, I received an invitation to visit her the same evening, which I accepted, although not without some surprise; and, on expressing my astonishment at her subjecting herself to the intrusion of guests at such a period, I learnt that it is universally the custom, among the wives of the wealthy Turks, to receive company during seven days after the birth of the first son, until midnight; on which occasion they display the most valuable portions of their trousseau.

Haïsè Hanoum was a young creature of sixteen, very pretty, and very stupid, who, individually, created no great interest; but she had a rival in the harem, a sweet girl of twelve years of age, with the face of an angel, and the grace of a sylph; who, if the gossipry of the neighbourhood may be relied upon, was no especial favourite with her companion, whose dullness yet left her discrimination enough to be jealous of the superior attractions of the gazel-eyed Odalique. The Cadi himself had reached his eightieth year, and his silver beard would rather have distinguished him as the grandsire than as the husband of these two beautiful young creatures.

I entered the house at eight o’clock in the evening; and, having traversed the marble court, whose fountain poured forth its limpid waters beneath the shade of a venerable fig tree, I passed along the latticed terrace of the harem, to the Hanoum’s apartment. Long before I reached it, I was deafened with the noise which issued from its open door; the voices of the singing-women—the rattle of the tambourines—the laughter of the guests—the shouts of the attendant slaves—the clatter of the coffee and sherbet cups—I could scarcely believe that I was about to be ushered into a sick-chamber! At length, the three attendants who had lighted me upstairs, made way for me through the crowd of women who thronged the entrance of the apartment, and one of the most extraordinary scenes presented itself upon which it has ever been my fate to look.

Directly opposite to the door stood the bed of the Hanoum; the curtains had been withdrawn, and a temporary canopy formed of cachemire shawls arranged in festoons, and linked together with bathing scarfs of gold and silver tissue: and, as the lady was possessed of fifty, which could not all be arranged with proper effect in so limited a space, a silk cord had been stretched along the ceiling to the opposite extremity of the apartment, over which the costly drapery was continued. Fastened to the shawls were head-dresses of coloured gauze, flowered or striped with gold and silver, whence depended oranges, lemons, and candied fruits. Two coverlets of wadded pink satin were folded at the bed’s foot; and a sheet of striped crape hung to the floor, where it terminated in a deep fringe of gold.

The infant lay upon a cushion of white satin, richly embroidered with coloured silks, and trimmed like the sheet; and was itself a mass of gold brocade and diamonds. But the young mother principally attracted my attention. As I entered, she was flinging over her child a small coverlet of crimson velvet, most gorgeously wrought with gold; and as the sleeves of her striped silk antery and gauze chemisette fell back to the elbow, her white and dimpled arms circled by bracelets of brilliants, and her small hand glittering with jewelled rings, were revealed in all their beauty. Her dark hair was braided in twenty or thirty small plaits, that fell far below her waist, as she leant against a cushion similar to that on which she had pillowed her infant. Her throat was encircled by several rows of immense pearls, whence depended a diamond star, resting upon her bosom; her chemisette was delicately edged by a gold beading, and met at the bottom of her bust, where her vest was confined by a costly shawl. Her head-dress, of blue gauze worked with silver, was studded with diamond sprays, and ornamented with a fringe of large gold coins, which fell upon her shoulders, and almost concealed her brilliant earrings. Her satin antery was of the most lively colours, and her salva were of pale pink silk, sprinkled with silver spots. A glass vase of white lilies rested against her pillow, and a fan of peacocks’ feathers, and a painted handkerchief, lay beside her. Previously to her confinement, she had plucked out the whole of her eyebrows, and had replaced them by two stripes of black dye, raised about an inch higher upon the forehead. This is a common habit with the Turkish women on great occasions; and they no where display more coquetry or more decided bad taste than in the arrangement of their eyebrows, which they paint in all kinds of fantastic shapes; sometimes making them meet across the nose, and sometimes raising them at the outer point to the temples! I have seen many a pretty woman destroyed by this whim.

I was conducted with great ceremony to the sofa, when I had saluted the Hanoum, and uttered my “Mashallah” as I leant over the infant; which, poor little thing! was almost smothered in finery; and, having taken my seat, I had time to contemplate the singular scene around me.

I have alluded elsewhere to the facility with which the working classes of Turkey obtain access into the houses of the wealthy. On every occasion of rejoicing, the door is open to all; it is the sofa only which is sacred; but the poor share in all the enjoyments of the festival; the coffee and sherbet is served to them, if not with the same ceremony, at least with the same welcome, as to the prouder guests; they listen to the music—they mingle in the conversation—they join in the gaiety—and they are never made to feel that their lot is cast in a more lowly rank than that of their entertainer.

On the present occasion the floor was thronged. Mothers were there with their infants at their breasts, for whose entire costume you would not have given fifty piastres; and whose sunburnt arms and naked feet bore testimony to a life of toil. A group of children were huddled together at the bed’s foot; a throng of singing women occupied the extreme end of the apartment; the mother of the young wife sat beside the pillow of her child, dressed in a vest and trowsers of white, with a large handkerchief of painted muslin flung loosely over her turban; the lovely little Odalique, totally unheeded, squatted on the ground at my feet; half a dozen stately Hanoums were seated on the crimson velvet sofa, leaning against its gorgeous cushions, and some of them engaged with the chibouk. But the most attractive object in the apartment was the dancing-girl, who occupied the centre of the floor.

I have rarely beheld any thing more beautiful; and, with the exception of the daughter of the Scodra Pasha, I had seen no woman in the country who could be compared with her. On my entrance she had been beating the tambourine; and as, out of respect for the Frank visitor, the music was momentarily suspended, she remained in the attitude she had assumed when she first caught sight of me. Her arms were raised above her head, and her open sleeves fell back almost to her shoulder; her delicate little feet were bare, and only partially revealed beneath the large loose trowsers of dark silk; a chemisette of gauze, richly fringed, relieved the sombre tint of her tightly-fitting antery, and a shawl of the most glowing colours bound her slender waist; her head-dress was nearly similar to that worn in the Imperial Seraïs—a painted handkerchief was folded round her forehead, whose deep fringe fell low upon her cheeks; part of her long hair was dishevelled, and spread wide upon the summit of her head, and the rest, formed into innumerable little plaits, was looped about her shoulders. A large bunch of white lilies drooped gracefully above her right ear, and her figure was bent slightly backward, in the easiest attitude in the world.

She was assuredly very lovely; but it was not genuine oriental beauty. Her large, full eyes were as blue and bright as a summer sky, when the heavens are full of sunshine; her nose was à la Roxalane; and she had a pretty pout about her little cherry-coloured lips, worth half a dozen smiles.

I could not help expressing my surprise at the style of her coïffure, as I had never before seen it so worn, except in the Imperial Palaces; when I was informed that the Sultan, having accidentally seen her mother, who far exceeded the daughter in beauty, became so enthralled by her extreme loveliness as to make her an inmate of his harem, where she still remains.

When I had seated myself, the dancer suddenly suffered her arms to fall by her side, and flinging the tambourine to one of the singing women, she clapped her hands, and a couple of slaves entered with coffee. One bore a large silver salver, from which depended a napkin of gold tissue, richly fringed, with the tiny cups of glittering porcelain, and the silver coffee-holders neatly arranged upon its surface; and the other carried a weighty sherbet-vase of wrought silver, shaped as classically as that of Hebe herself.

I never saw any woman so light or so graceful as that lovely dancing-girl. She had the spring of a sylph, and the foot of a fawn. As she presented the coffee, she laid her hand first upon her lips and then upon her head, with an elegance which I have seldom seen equalled; and then bounding back into her place, she twirled the tambourine in the air with the playfulness of a child; and, having denoted the measure, returned it to one of the women, who immediately commenced a wild chant, half song and half recitative, which was at times caught up in chorus by the others, and at times wailed out by the dancer only, as she regulated the movements of her willow-like figure to the modulations of the music. The Turkish women dance very little with the feet; it is the grace and art displayed in the carriage of the body and arms which form the perfection of their dancing; the rapid snapping of the fingers, meanwhile, producing the effect of castanets.

Even at the risk of making a portrait gallery of my chapter, I must mention the magnificent Saïryn Hanoum, who shortly afterwards entered the apartment. She was in the autumn of her beauty, for she must have been eight or nine and twenty, at which period the women of the East begin to decline. But what an autumn! Could you only have clipped the wings of Time for the future, you would not have wished her to be a day younger. She was dark, very dark: almost a Bohemian in complexion; but you saw the rich blood coursing along her veins, through the clear skin; her eyes were like the storm-cloud, from which the lightning flashes at intervals; her hair was as black as midnight; her teeth were dazzling: and her brow—it was a brow which should have been circled by a diadem, for it was already stamped with Nature’s own regality. She was tall, even stately; and the dignity of her step accorded well with the fire of her dark eye, and the proud expression that sat upon her lip, and dilated her thin delicate nostril. Her costume was as striking as her person; and, had she studied during a century how best to enhance her beauty, she could never have more perfectly succeeded. Her vest and trowsers were of the most snowy muslin; she wore neither diamond nor pearl; but the handkerchief was fastened about her head with a chain of large gold coins, which being threaded upon a silken cord, formed a fringe that rested upon her forehead; and a necklace of the same material fell low upon her bosom. The Turkish women of rank have universally very sweet voices—her’s was music.

On glancing back upon what I have written, I fear that much of it may be condemned as hyperbole, or at best as exaggeration. I only wish that they who are sceptical could look for an instant upon Saïryn Hanoum—they would confess that I have done her less than justice.