It was a solemn moment! The pomp and circumstance of human worship had passed away, and we looked only on the uncertain moon, over which the light scud was rapidly drifting; while the only sound that fell upon our ears was the sighing of the midnight wind through the leaves of the tall plane tree. I bowed my head in silence upon the cushion against which I leaned—my excited fancies were suddenly sobered, my throbbing pulses stilled—Nature had spoken to my heart, and my spirit was subdued beneath her influence. It was a sudden and strange reaction; and, could I at that moment have escaped to the solitude of my own chamber, I do not think that one idle memory of the magnificence which I had so lately witnessed would have intruded on my reveries.
Man’s pride, and pomp, and power, had fettered my fancy, and riveted my gaze—But it was night; the still, soft night, with its pale moon, its mysterious clouds, and its sighing voice, which had touched my spirit. In such hours, the heart would be alone with God!
When we re-entered the church, I feared that I should have fainted; thick volumes of smoke were rolling heavily along the roof; the suffocating incense was mounting in columns from the censers—the myriad tapers were adding their heat to that of the burning perfume; and the transition from the light pure atmosphere without was sickening. I persisted, nevertheless, in my determination of remaining until the close of the ceremony, which concluded with the Declaration of Faith, read by Logotheti; and a portion of the Gospel, delivered from the pulpit by a priest, richly dressed in blue and silver.
The grey light of morning was glimmering on the Bosphorus as we returned to the house, where we breakfasted, and then retired to bed with aching heads and dazzled eyes, to prepare for the fatigues of the morrow.
CHAPTER XX.
Feasting after Fasting—Visit to the Patriarch—Gorgeous Procession—Inconvenient Enthusiasm—Indisposition of the Patriarch—The Ceremony of Unrobing—The Impromptu Fair—The Patriarch at Home—The Golden Eggs.
To what a breakfast did we sit down the following morning! The long and rigorous fast was over, and a hearty vengeance was to be taken for the previous forty days of penance and abstinence. It was amusing to remark with what interest every dish was examined, and how universally each was rejected which was not composed of some hitherto forbidden luxury. The centre of the table was occupied by a porcelain bowl filled with eggs boiled hard, and stained a fine red with logwood; but it was placed there merely in compliance with the national custom, as an Easter emblem; for on this, the first day of emancipation from the thrall of fast, no individual of the party had a thought to bestow on such primitive fare.
At the conclusion of the meal, I went, accompanied by my father, and a fine youth who had escaped from college for the Easter recess, and who volunteered to act as interpreter, to pay a visit to the Patriarch, who had expressed a desire to make our acquaintance. We were conducted through several large, cold, scantily furnished apartments, presenting rather the appearance of belonging to a barrack than to an episcopal palace, with their floors thickly strown with bay leaves, which emitted a delicious perfume as we passed along, to the private sitting-room overlooking the court of the church, where we seated ourselves to await the arrival of the Patriarch, who had not yet left the Sanctuary.
A sudden rush from the door of the church called us to the windows, whence we could distinguish, in the distance, the gorgeous procession which was conducting the Patriarch home after eight and forty hours of constant ceremonial. We had ample time to enjoy the spectacle, for the throng was so dense, that it was with the utmost difficulty that the beadles and kavasses could force a passage through the excited and clamorous multitude, for the objects of their overweening and inconvenient enthusiasm. Nor was the difficulty likely to decrease, for the crowd were still pouring out from the church, clinging one to the other to secure their footing, and defying alike the many-thonged whips of the beadles, and the powerful elbows and staves of the police.
The Patriarch, who had rigorously observed the fast throughout the whole of Lent; and who had, moreover, only partially recovered from a severe and lingering illness, was little able, after forty-eight consecutive hours of exertion, to contend with this unlooked-for and gratuitous demand upon his energies; and as he moved forward, supported by two of the Bishops, he continually implored the forbearance of the people, who, in their eagerness to kiss the hem of his garment, subjected him to no slight risk of suffocation. But he implored in vain; the crowd shouted and struggled—the beadles struck and shoved—and the priests threatened and expostulated—unheeded; while the Patriarch was ultimately lifted from his feet, and carried to the foot of the great stair leading to the palace, by half a dozen of his followers.
The solemn chant of the approaching priests instantly re-echoed through the vast pile, and an avenue was formed from the portal of the building to the door of the apartment in which we stood. First entered the incense-bearer, who swung his censor twice or thrice at each extremity of the room, and then hastily withdrew; and he was almost immediately followed by the whole train of Bishops, sinking under the weight of jewels and embroidery in which they were attired, and who took their places in line along the edge of the divan, and there awaited in silence the arrival of the two Archbishops who preceded the Patriarch. The sight was dazzling! On all sides a mass of gold and precious stones, of tissue and embroidery, presented itself; and the eye actually ached with gazing. After the lapse of a few seconds, the Great Dignitaries also arrived: and as I advanced to kiss the hand of the Patriarch, I felt completely overawed by the magnificence of the spectacle.
The ceremony of unrobing followed, during which the solemn chanting of the priests, who lined the gallery through which the train had passed, was never once interrupted; and as the Bishops cast off robe after robe of costly silk, gorgeous brocade, and glittering tissue, I only marvelled how they could have supported such a weight of dress amid the crowd that had so unmercifully pressed upon them below, without sinking under it!
A furred mantle having been flung over the shoulders of the Patriarch, he was conducted from the apartment, followed by the Bishops; and we remained for a time watching the movements of the multitude in the court beneath, while he prepared himself to receive the numerous visits which he had to undergo, ere he could enjoy the repose that he so much needed. Triumphal arches, formed of green boughs and flowering shrubs, had been hastily set up in every direction, and beneath these stood the sherbet venders, and confectioners, without whom no festival is complete in the East.
The church doors were already closed: and the versatile Greeks were now as ardent and eager in the pursuit of pleasure as they had been but an hour previously in that of salvation. Most of them were employed in re-arranging their turbans, which had been unwound in the late struggle; others were squatted on the ground, eating yahourt (a sort of coagulated buttermilk) out of small earthen basins, which they emptied with their forefinger, with a rapidity perfectly surprising; and others again surrounding a mohalibè merchant, whose large tray, neatly covered with a white cloth, china saucers, and shining brass spoons shaped like trowels, enhanced the relish of the dainty that he dispensed—a species of inferior blanc-manger, eaten with rose-water and powdered sugar.
A servant having announced that the Patriarch awaited us in another department, we followed him to a spacious saloon in the opposite wing of the palace, where we found the magnificent Prelate seated in a cushioned chair raised a few steps from the floor. He had exchanged his party-coloured raiment for a flowing robe of violet silk with a falling collar of velvet, and wore about his neck a massive gold chain, from which was suspended a star of brilliants. On his right hand were two baskets of variegated wicker-work; the one containing eggs of a crimson colour richly gilt, and the other filled with eggs of white and gold; while on his left-hand, a larger basket was upheaped with others simply stained with logwood, like those which I had seen on the breakfast table.
He received us with much politeness; and, through the medium of our young friend, who made an admirable Dragoman, he asked me several questions on the impressions which I had received in the East: appeared gratified at the admiration that I expressed of the gorgeous ceremonial to which I had so lately been a witness; and regretted that the exhaustion under which he was then suffering from the fatigues of the last two days rendered him unable to converse with me, as he had been desirous of doing.
Coffee and sweetmeats were shortly afterwards served; and, as I was aware that the anti-room was thronged with persons who were waiting to pay their compliments to him, I rose to depart; when he presented to me a couple of the gilded eggs, which he accompanied by a flattering expression of the pleasure that my visit had afforded to him, and a hope that he should again see me when his health was re-established. I made as handsome a reply as I was capable of doing; pressed to my lips the holy fingers which were extended towards me, and took my leave.
I was not aware, as I received the eggs, of the extent of the compliment that had been paid to me, which I only learnt accidentally, on inquiring the origin and meaning of so singular an offering. The custom, as I was informed, is of so ancient a date, that no reason, save its antiquity, can now be adduced for its observance; but great ceremony is kept up in the distribution. To the principal persons of the nation the Patriarch gives two of those eggs which are gilt, to the next in rank one gilt and one plain—then follows one gilt—then two plain—and finally one—but, to each person who is admitted to the presence of the Patriarch, he is under the necessity of making the offering, be the guest who he may; and a day is set apart during the week, on which the whole of the male Greek population of Constantinople have the right to receive it at his hands, until extreme fatigue obliges him to resign the office to the Grand-Vicar.
On returning to the house of our friends, we partook of coffee, and the delicious Easter cake peculiar to the Greeks; and immediately afterwards embarked in our caïque, which was to convey us to the Echelles des Morts, in order to witness the festivities of the Armenians in the great cemetery.
CHAPTER XXI.
High Street of Pera—Dangers and Donkeys—Travelling in an Araba—Fondness of the Orientals for their Cemeteries—Singular Spectacle—Moral Supineness of the Armenians—M. Nubar—The Fair—Armenian Dance—Anti-Exclusives—Water Venders—Being à la Franka—Wrestling Rings—The Battle of the Sects.
The araba was already at the door when we arrived at home; and, weary with mounting the steep ascent to Pera, I gladly threw myself upon the crimson mattress, and among the yielding cushions, and prepared to become a spectator of this new festival in luxurious inaction.
Let no one venture either on foot, on horseback, or in a carriage, along the all-but-interminable High Street of Pera, on a fête-day, if he be in a hurry! In the first place, two moderately-sized individuals who chance to be opposite neighbours may shake hands from their own doors without moving an inch forward—and in the next, there is no other road from Topphannè or Galata (the principal landing-places) to the Great Cemetery. And then the natives of the East have a very sociable, but extremely inconvenient habit of walking with their arms about each other’s necks, or holding hands like children in parties of five or six, although they are obliged, from the narrowness of the thoroughfare, to move along sideways; but, nevertheless, they will not slacken their hold until the necessity for so doing becomes sufficiently imperative to admit no alternative.
Another peculiarity attending an Eastern mob is its utter disregard of being run over, or knocked down: an Oriental will see your horse’s nose resting on his shoulder, and even then he will not move out of the way until you compel him; and when your arabajhe warns him that he is almost under the wheel of the carriage, he looks at him as though he wondered at the wanton waste of words bestowed upon so insignificant a piece of information.
But, if the bipeds are difficult of management, the quadrupeds are altogether unmanageable! Let those whose nerves are shattered by the rattle of the London carts come here, and have their temper tried by the donkeys of Constantinople. You have scarcely turned the corner of the street, and forced your way among the clinging, chattering, lounging mob, ere you come upon a gang of donkeys—your horse is restless, he champs the bit, paws with his foreleg, and backs among the crowd, in his impatience to get on; you must be contented to allow him the privilege of champing, pawing, and backing, for there is no contending against a string of a dozen donkeys, laden with tiles.
While you are trying to look amused at your dilemma, and endeavouring with “favour and fair words” to induce their owner to arrange them in regular line in order to enable you to pass, you hear a portentous clatter a hundred yards a-head:—you look forward with foreboding, and your fears have not misled you: it is, indeed, “the meeting of the donkeys;” and another gang, heavily charged with earth, or bricks, or unhewn stone, are gravely approaching to entangle themselves among your first favourites, and to be dislodged only with blows and kicks very ill-calculated to pacify either you or your horse.
In an araba your case is still more hopeless; for a horse must get on at last, by dint of intruding upon the pavement, and impudently poking his nose into every window; applying his shoulder to the back of one individual, and whisking his long tail into the face of another—but a carriage following a carriage must be satisfied to travel at the pace which may chance to be agreeable to its leader—while a carriage meeting a carriage is pushed one way, lifted another, driven against the walls of the houses, and shoved into the kennel, until you begin to consider it very doubtful whether you possess sufficient strength of wrist and tenacity of finger, to enable you to remain within, while such violent proceedings are taking place without. And when to these difficulties are superadded the inconvenience of a dense, reckless, pleasure-seeking mob, it must be conceded on all hands that the progress along the High Street of Pera on a festival day is by no means “easy travelling.”
On the occasion of which I am about to speak we encountered three detachments of donkeys, four arabas, six horses laden with timber, and a flock of sheep—fortunately, we were by no means pressed for time; though how we escaped victimizing a few of the supine subjects of his Sublime Highness, I cannot take upon me to explain.
I have already spoken elsewhere of the indifference, if not absolute enjoyment, with which the inhabitants of the East frequent their burying-grounds; but on the occasion of this festival I was more impressed than ever by the extent to which it is carried. The whole of the Christian Cemetery had assumed the appearance of a fair—nor was this all, for the very tombs of the dead were taxed to enhance the comforts of the living; and many was the tent whose centre table, covered with a fringed cloth, and temptingly spread with biscuits, sweetmeats, and sherbet, was the stately monument of some departed Armenian! Grave-stones steadied the poles which supported the swings—divans, comfortably overlaid with cushions, were but chintz-covered sepulchres—the step that enabled the boy to reach his seat in the merry-go-round was the earth which had been heaped upon the breast of the man whose course was run—the same trees flung their long shadows over the sports of the living and the slumbers of the dead—the kibaub merchants had dug hollows to cook their dainties under the shelter of the tombs—and the smoking booths were amply supplied with seats and counters from the same wide waste of death.
On one side, a slender train of priests were committing a body to the earth, and mingling their lugubrious chant with the shrill instruments of a party of dancers; on the other, a patrol of dismounted lancers were threading among the many-coloured tents, in order to maintain an order which the heavy-witted Armenians lacked all inclination to break.
I never saw a set of people who bore so decidedly the stamp of having been born to slavery as the Armenians: they seem even to love the rattle of their chains; they have no high feeling, no emulation, no enthusiasm, no longing for “a place among the nations;” no aspirations after the bright and the beautiful; no ideas, in short, beyond a pitiful imitation of their Moslem masters, whom they consider as the ne plus ultra of all perfection.
The appearance of the upper class of Armenians I have already described. Give them a more becoming head-dress, and their costume is surpassingly graceful; but their advantages are all external; their dreams are all of piastres; they have no soul. If you talk to them of their subjection to the Osmanli, what do they reply? “All that you say may be very true, but it does not concern me—my affairs are in a most prosperous condition.”
It is impossible to make them sensible of their own social position; they listen, twirl their mustachioes, flourish their white handkerchiefs, replenish their chibouks, utter from time to time “pekké,” (very well), with an inane smile, and ultimately walk away, as well satisfied with themselves and with their tyrants as though the subject were one of the most irrelevant nature.
From this sweeping accusation of apathy and self-depreciation, even after many months passed in the East, I can except only one individual; but that one is indeed a rare and a bright example to the rest of his countrymen. To those travellers who have visited Constantinople, and who have had the pleasure and advantage of his acquaintance, I need scarcely say that I allude to M. Nubar, the eminent merchant of Galata, whose extensive information, sound judgment, and habitual courtesy, render his friendship extremely valuable to those who are fortunate enough to secure it.
To return, however, to the festival of the Champ des Morts, from which I have digressed. Every hundred yards that we advanced, the scene became more striking. One long line of diminutive tents formed a temporary street of eating-houses; there were kibaubs, pillauf, fritters, pickled vegetables, soups, rolls stuffed with fine herbs, sausages, fried fish, bread of every quality, and cakes of all dimensions. Escaping from this too savoury locality, we found ourselves among the sherbet venders, whose marquees, lined with blue or crimson, were pitched with more precision and regard to comfort and convenience than those of the restaurateurs. Mirrors, bouquets, and a display of goblets of all shapes and sizes, were skilfully set forth in many of them; some even indulged in the luxury of pictures, which were universally-glaring and highly-coloured French prints of female heads, of the most common description; and in these tents chairs and cushions were alike provided for the guests; while in one corner stood the mangal, ready to supply the necessary fragment of live coal for igniting the chibouk.
Scattered among these more assuming establishments were the stands of the itinerant merchants, whose little cupolaed fountains threw up a slender thread of water to the accompaniment of a tinkling sound, produced by the contact of half a dozen thin plates of metal; while a circle of sherbet glasses, filled with liquids of different colours, and interspersed with green boughs, and suspended lemons, looked so cool and refreshing that they were more tempting by far than the aristocratic establishments of the marquee owners. Here and there a flat tomb, fancifully covered with gold-embroidered handkerchiefs, was overspread with sweetmeats and preserved fruits; while, in the midst of these rival establishments, groups of men were seated in a circle, wherever a little shade could be obtained, smoking their long pipes in silence, with their diminutive coffee-cups resting on the ground beside them. The wooden kiosk overhanging the Bosphorus was crowded; and many a party was snugly niched among the acacias, with their backs resting against the tombs, and the sunshine flickering at their feet.
But the leading feature of the festival was the Armenian dance, that was going forward in every direction, and which was so perfectly characteristic of the people that it merits particular mention. A large circle was formed, frequently consisting of between forty and fifty individuals, (chance comers falling in as they pleased without question or hindrance) holding each other by the hand, or round the neck, and wedged closely together so as to form a compact body; the leader of the dance being the only one who detached himself from the rest, and held the person next to him at arm’s length. In the centre of the ring stood, and sometimes danced, the musician, whose instrument was either a species of small, cracked guitar, with wire strings, which he struck with very slender regard to either time or tune; or a bagpipe precisely similar to that of Scotland, but not played in the same spirit-stirring style, the Armenian performer making no attempt at any thing beyond noise, and never by any accident forming three consecutive notes which harmonized; but his hearers were not fastidious, and the music was, at least, in good keeping with the dance. Beside the minstrel, such as I have described him, moved the buffoon of the company, who also, by some extraordinary and perfectly Armenian concatenation of ideas, acted as Master of the Ceremonies.
The leader flourished a painted muslin handkerchief, while he lifted up first one foot and then the other, as fowls do sometimes in a farmyard; poising the body on one leg for an instant, and then changing the position. This movement was followed by the whole of the party with more or less awkwardness; and thus hopping, balancing, and shifting their feet, they slowly worked round and round the circle, without changing either the time or the movement for several consecutive hours; the different individuals falling in and out of the ring as their inclination prompted, without disturbing in the slightest degree the economy of the dance. There was nothing exclusive in these Terpsichorean circles, where the smart serving-man’s neck was clasped by the sinewy hand of the street-porter, and where the embroidered Albanian legging and European shoe were placed in juxtaposition with the bare limb and heelless slipper. There must have been at least a dozen of these dances going forward in the fair, (for such I may truly call it), with a perseverance and solemnity perfectly astonishing, when it is remembered that many of the individuals thus engaged had walked five and six leagues to share in the festival, and would have no resting-place but the earth whereon to sleep away their fatigue.
Great was the commerce of the water-venders, who traversed the crowd in every direction, with their classically formed earthen jars upon their shoulders, and their crystal goblets in their hands, who, for a couple of paras, poured forth a draught of sparkling water, which almost made one thirsty to look at it; and were as particular and punctilious in cleansing the glass after every customer, as though they were under the surveillance of his successor.
A few, a very few, of the revellers had indulged in deeper potations, and were exhibiting proofs of their inebriety in their unsteady gait and uncertain utterance; but intemperance is not yet the common vice of the East; although it bids fair in time to become such. A very talented and distinguished individual, with whom I was lately conversing on the subject of the different degrees of civilization attained by particular nations, said of the Russians that they had commenced with champagne and ballet-dancers. Glorious was it, therefore, for the half dozen Armenians who were staggering among the crowd, to have profited as far as they could by so brilliant an example. Being intoxicated is, according to the Eastern phraseology, being à la Franka.
Apart from the crowd were wrestling-rings, where the combatants exhibited their prowess precisely after the fashion of the Ancient Romans; and on all sides were bands of Bohemians, as dark-eyed and as voluble as the gipsies of Europe.
The festival lasted three days, and not a single hand nor voice was raised in violence during the whole period; when, as if resolved to vindicate themselves from the aspersion of utter insensibility, the Catholic and Schismatic sects terminated their sports with a regular fight, in front of an Armenian church in Galata. The Schismatic party were returning to the place of embarkation in order to pass over to Constantinople, and singing at the pitch of their voices, at the precise moment when a priest of the opposite sect was performing mass in the church. A messenger was despatched to the revellers to enforce silence until they had quitted the precincts of the chapel; but his errand was a vain one; the Schismatics were not to be controlled; a crowd collected—the merits of the case were explained—the Catholics became furious, and insisted on the instant departure of the intruders—the Schismatics waxed valiant, and refused to move—and, finally, after a fight in which many blows were given and received, the Turks stepped in as mediators, and carried off a score of the combatants to Stamboul, where they were detained for the night, fined a few piastres, and dismissed like a set of lubberly schoolboys, who had wound up a holyday with a boxing-match!
CHAPTER XXII.
The Mosques at Midnight—Baron Rothschild—Firmans and Orders—A Proposition—Masquerading—St. Sophia by Lamplight—The Congregation—The Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Colossal Pillars—Return to the Harem—The Chèïk-Islam—Count Bathiany—The Party—St. Sophia by Daylight—Erroneous Impression—Turkish Paradise—Piety of the Turkish Women—The Vexed Traveller—Disappointment—Confusion of Architecture—The Sweating Stone—Women’s Gallery—View from the Gallery—Gog and Magog at Constantinople—The Impenetrable Door—Ancient Tradition—Leads of the Mosque—Gallery of the Dome—The Doves—The Atmeidan—The Tree of Groans—The Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Antique Vases—Historical Pulpit—The Inner Court—The Six Minarets—The Mosque of Solimaniè—Painted Windows—Ground-plan of the Principal Mosques—The Treasury of Solimaniè—Mausoleum of Solyman the Magnificent—Model of the Mosque at Mecca—Mausoleums in General—Indispensable Accessories—The Medresch—Mosque of Sultan Mahmoud at Topphannè.
Although I am about to describe to my readers a morning at the mosques, I must nevertheless first conduct them into the mosques at midnight, by recounting a visit to St. Sophia and Sultan Achmet, which I have hitherto forborne to mention, in the hope (since realized) of being enabled, ere my departure from Constantinople, both to form and to impart a better idea of these magnificent edifices than my first adventurous survey had rendered me capable of doing.
During a visit that I made to a Turkish family, with whom I had become acquainted, the conversation turned on the difficulty of obtaining a Firman to see the mosques; when it was stated that Baron Rothschild was the only private individual to whom the favour had ever been accorded: (probably upon the same principle that the Pope instituted the order of St. Gregory, and bestowed the first decoration upon the Hebraic Crœsus) and that travellers were thus dependent on the uncertain chance of encountering, during their residence in Turkey, some distinguished person to whom the marble doors were permitted to fall back.
In vain I questioned and cross-questioned; I failed to obtain a ray of hope beyond the very feeble one held out by this infrequent casualty; and I could not refrain from expressing the bitterness of my disappointment, with an emphasis which convinced my Musselmaun hearers that I was sincere.
Hours passed away, and other subjects had succeeded to this most interesting one, when, as the evening closed in, I remarked that —— Bey, the eldest son of the house, was carrying on a very energetic sotto voce conversation with his venerable father; and I was not a little astonished when he ultimately informed me, in his imperfect French, that there was one method of visiting the mosques, if I had nerve to attempt it, which would probably prove successful; and that, in the event of my resolving to run the risk, he was himself so convinced of its practicability, that he would accompany me, with the consent of his father, attended by the old Kïara, or House-steward; upon the understanding (and on this the grey-bearded Effendi had resolutely insisted) that in the event of detection it was to be sauve qui peut; an arrangement that would enable his son at once to elude pursuit, if he exercised the least ingenuity or caution.
What European traveller, possessed of the least spirit of adventure, would refuse to encounter danger in order to stand beneath the dome of St. Sophia? And, above all, what wandering Giaour could resist the temptation of entering a mosque during High Prayer?
These were the questions that I asked myself as the young Bey vowed himself so gallantly to the venture, (to him, in any case, not without its dangers) in order to avert from me the disappointment which I dreaded.
I at once understood that the attempt must be made in a Turkish dress; but this fact was of trifling importance, as no costume in the world lends itself more readily or more conveniently to the purposes of disguise. After having deliberately weighed the chances for and against detection, I resolved to run the risk; and accordingly I stained my eyebrows with some of the dye common in the harem; concealed my female attire beneath a magnificent pelisse, lined with sables, which fastened from my chin to my feet; pulled a fèz low upon my brow; and, preceded by a servant with a lantern, attended by the Bey, and followed by the Kïara and a pipe-bearer, at half-past ten o’clock I sallied forth on my adventurous errand.
We had not mentioned to either the wife or the mother of the Bey whither we were bound, being fearful of alarming them unnecessarily; and they consequently remained perfectly satisfied with the assurance of the old gentleman, that I was anxious to see the Bosphorus by moonlight; though a darker night never spread its mantle over the earth.
I am extremely doubtful whether, on a less exciting occasion, I could have kept time with the rapid pace of my companion, over the vile pavement of Constantinople; as it was, however, I dared not give way, lest any one among the individuals who followed us, and who were perhaps bound on the same errand, should penetrate my disguise.
“If we escape from St. Sophia unsuspected,” said my chivalrous friend, “we will then make another bold attempt; we will visit the mosque of Sultan Achmet; and as this is a high festival, if you risk the adventure, you will have done what no Infidel has ever yet dared to do; but I forewarn you that, should you be discovered, and fail to make your escape on the instant, you will be torn to pieces.”
This assertion somewhat staggered me, and for an instant my woman-spirit quailed; I contented myself, however, with briefly replying: “When we leave St. Sophia, we will talk of this,” and continued to walk beside him in silence. At length we entered the spacious court of the mosque, and as the servants stooped to withdraw my shoes, the Bey murmured in my ear: “Be firm, or you are lost!”—and making a strong effort to subdue the feeling of mingled awe and fear, which was rapidly stealing over me, I pulled the fèz deeper upon my eyebrows, and obeyed.
On passing the threshold, I found myself in a covered peristyle, whose gigantic columns of granite are partially sunk in the wall of which they form a part; the floor was covered with fine matting, and the coloured lamps, which were suspended in festoons from the lofty ceiling, shed a broad light on all the surrounding objects. In most of the recesses formed by the pillars, beggars were crouched down, holding in front of them their little metal basins, to receive the paras of the charitable; while servants lounged to and fro, or squatted in groups upon the matting, awaiting the egress of their employers. As I looked around me, our own attendant moved forward, and raising the curtain which veiled a double door of bronze, situated at mid-length of the peristyle, I involuntarily shrank back before the blaze of light that burst upon me.
Far as the eye could reach upwards, circles of coloured fire, appearing as if suspended in mid-air, designed the form of the stupendous dome; while beneath, devices of every shape and colour were formed by myriads of lamps of various hues: the Imperial closet, situated opposite to the pulpit, was one blaze of refulgence, and its gilded lattices flashed back the brilliancy, till it looked like a gigantic meteor!
As I stood a few paces within the doorway, I could not distinguish the limits of the edifice—I looked forward, upward—to the right hand, and to the left—but I could only take in a given space, covered with human beings, kneeling in regular lines, and at a certain signal bowing their turbaned heads to the earth, as if one soul and one impulse animated the whole congregation; while the shrill chanting of the choir pealed through the vast pile, and died away in lengthened cadences among the tall dark pillars which support it.
And this was St. Sophia! To me it seemed like a creation of enchantment—the light—the ringing voices—the mysterious extent, which baffled the earnestness of my gaze—the ten thousand turbaned Moslems, all kneeling with their faces turned towards Mecca, and at intervals laying their foreheads to the earth—the bright and various colours of the dresses—and the rich and glowing tints of the carpets that veiled the marble floor—all conspired to form a scene of such unearthly magnificence, that I felt as though there could be no reality in what I looked on, but that, at some sudden signal, the towering columns would fail to support the vault of light above them, and all would become void.
I had forgotten every thing in the mere exercise of vision;—the danger of detection—the flight of time—almost my own identity—when my companion uttered the single word “Gel—Come”—and, passing forward to another door on the opposite side of the building, I instinctively followed him, and once more found myself in the court.
What a long breath I drew, as the cold air swept across my forehead! I felt like one who has suddenly stepped beyond the circle of an enchanter, and dissolved the spell of some mighty magic.
“Whither shall we now bend our way?” asked my companion, as we resumed our shoes.
"To Sultan Achmet,”—I answered briefly. I could not have bestowed many words on my best friend at that moment; the very effort at speech was painful.
In ten minutes more we stood before the mosque of Sultan Achmet, and, ascending the noble flight of steps which lead to the principal entrance, we again cast off our shoes, and entered the temple.
Infinitely less vast than St. Sophia, this mosque impressed me with a feeling of awe, much greater than that which I had experienced in visiting its more stately neighbour—four colossal pillars of marble, five or six feet in circumference, support the dome, and these were wreathed with lamps, even to the summit; while the number of lights suspended from the ceiling gave the whole edifice the appearance of a space overhung with stars. We entered at a propitious moment, for the Faithful were performing their prostrations, and had consequently no time to speculate on our appearance; the chanting was wilder and shriller than that which I had just heard at St. Sophia; it sounded to me, in fact, more like the delirious outcry, which we may suppose to have been uttered by a band of Delphic Priestesses, than the voices of a choir of uninspired human beings.
We passed onward over the yielding carpets, which returned no sound beneath our footsteps: and there was something strangely supernatural in the spectacle of several human beings moving along, without creating a single echo in the vast space they traversed. We paused an instant beside the marble-arched platform, on which the muezzin was performing his prostrations to the shrill cry of the choir;—we lingered another, to take a last look at the kneeling thousands who were absorbed in their devotions; and then, rapidly descending into the court, my companion uttered a hasty congratulation on the successful issue of our bold adventure, to which I responded a most heartfelt ‘Amen’—and in less than an hour, I cast off my fèz and my pelisse in the harem of——Effendi, and exclaimed to its astonished inmates:—“I have seen the mosques!”
Knowing what I now know of the Turks, I would not run the same risk a second time, though the Prophet’s Beard were to be my recompense. There are some circumstances in which ignorance of the extent of the danger is its best antidote.
But the feeling that remained on my mind was vague even to pain; I had seen St. Sophia, it is true, and seen it in all the glory of its million lamps; I had beheld it at a moment when no christian eye had ever heretofore looked on it; and when detection would have involved instant destruction. I had lifted aside the veil from the Holy of Holies—witnessed the prostration which followed the thrilling cry of “Allah Il Allah!”—and polluted, with the breath of a Giaour, the atmosphere of the True Believers—I had looked upon the Chèïk-Islam, as he stood with his face turned Mecca-ward, his pale brow cinctured with gold, and his stately figure draped in white cachemere—and I had stood erect when every head was bowed, and every knee bent at the name of the Prophet; but still I had no definite idea of the mosque of St. Sophia; on the contrary, the wish that I had formerly felt to visit it grew to a positive craving from the hour in which I found myself at midnight beneath its fire-girdled dome, and glanced out into the deep and mysterious darkness beyond; and it was not until months afterwards that it was satisfied, when the arrival of Count Bathiany, an Hungarian nobleman, brother to the Princess Metternich, gave an opportunity to the curious of indulging their lion-hunting propensities.
The party assembled at half-past ten in the morning at one of the gates of the city, near the Seraglio wall, known by the name of “The Gate of the Garden.” There were horsemen and pedestrians—ladies in arabas, and on foot—spruce attachés, grave elderly gentlemen, anxious antiquaries, officers of the navy, dragomen, foreign nobles, native servants, and a motley train of sailors and attendants, carrying the slippers of their several masters.
But if the eye were confused by the number of objects by which it was attracted as our party passed, procession-like, through the narrow streets, amid the comments and not unfrequently the scowls of the Turks, who bear but impatiently this licensed profanation of their temples; the ear was infinitely more so by the confusion of languages which assailed it on all sides; here, two Russians almost set your teeth on edge as they exchanged a few sentences—there, a couple of Germans deluded you for the first moment into a belief that they were conversing in English—on one side, a dark-eyed stranger begged your pardon in his low soft Italian, for an awkwardness of which you were not conscious, and thus gave himself an opportunity of addressing you during the morning, without rudeness—and on the other, two smart midshipmen laughed out in the lightness of their hearts words which told of home, because they were breathed in the language of your own land—while a constant chorus of Turkish, Greek, and Arab, was kept up by the attendants in the rear.
At length we reached St. Sophia; and I felt my heart beat quicker, as I once more traversed the flagged court, and passed the elegant fountain, at which the Faithful perform their ablutions; with its projecting octagonal roof, its marble basin, and its covering of close iron net-work, to protect the spring from the pollution of the birds.
At the entrance of the peristyle to which I have before alluded, we put on the slippers we had provided, and, as soon as we had all passed, the doors were closed.
How different was the aspect of every object around me from that which it wore on my last visit! Then, all was refulgent with light; and now, a sacred gloom hung upon the dark walls, and floated like a veil about our path. Few were they who did not pass on in silence; for there is a power and a sublimity in scenes like the one I am attempting to describe, which overawe for awhile even the most vulgar minds; while to the susceptible and contemplative the spell is deepened a thousand-fold.
One burst, rather of sound than speech—the wordless tribute of irrepressible admiration—heralded our passage across the block of porphyry upon which close the interior doors of the mosque; and in less than a moment the richly carpeted floor of marble, porphyry, jasper, and verd-antique, was mosaiced with groups of gazers throughout its whole extent. Some stood riveted to the spot on which they had first halted, as if touched by the wand of an enchanter, and scarcely stirring a limb in the excess of their absorbing contemplation; others hurried rapidly along, as though breathless with eager and impatient curiosity—one tall, pale man, with amber-coloured mustachioes and long thin fingers, was already taking notes, with his little red book resting against the boots that he carried in his hand; and a couple of antiquaries were just commencing a dispute sotto voce relatively to some pillars of Egyptian granite on the left hand side of the temple.
Nor were the Imams idle; for they had instantly detected the unhandsome intrusion of one traveller with his boots on; an insult so great, that no Moslem can tolerate it; and they were busily employed in compelling their removal: accompanying the ceremony with certain epithets addressed to the Giaour, with which, if he were unfortunate enough to understand them, he had no opportunity of feeling flattered.
Our party were not, however, the only tenants of the vast pile. A group of Ulemas were engaged in prayer as we entered, nor did they suffer our presence to interfere with their devotions; and almost in the centre of the floor knelt a party of women similarly engaged, while a couple of children, who had accompanied them, were chasing each other over the rich carpets.
An erroneous impression has obtained in Europe that females do not attend, or rather, I should perhaps say, are not permitted to enter, the mosques; this, as I have just shewn, is by no means the case; the entrance is forbidden to them only during the midnight prayer. And, in like manner, I had been taught to believe, before I visited the country, that the Turks denied to their women the possession of souls: this is as false a position as the other. It is true that the lordly Moslem claims a paradise apart; where Hourii are to wreathe his brow with ever-blooming flowers—pour his sherbet in streams of perfume into its crystal vase—and fill his chibouk with fragrance.5 But, amid these voluptuous dreams, he does not quite overlook the eternal interests of his mere earthly partner; I do not believe that her future enjoyments are as clearly defined as those which he arrogates to himself—there is a little harem-like mystery flung over the destiny that awaits her; but, meanwhile, he does not altogether shut her out from the promise of a hereafter, from which he himself anticipates so full a portion of felicity.
The Turkish women are intuitively pious; the exercises of religion are admirably suited to their style of existence. In the seclusion of the harem the hour of prayer is an epoch of unwearying interest to the whole of its inhabitants; and there is something touching and beautiful in the humility with which, when they have spread their prayer-carpets, they veil themselves with a scarf of white muslin, ere they intrude into the immediate presence of their Maker.
Being aware of all this, the appearance of females in the mosque of St. Sophia did not produce the same effect upon me as upon many of the party. Those who were lately from Europe could scarcely believe their eyes; and when, in reply to the remark of a person who stood near me, expressing his astonishment at such an apparition, I explained to him that the presence of females in the different mosques was of constant and hourly occurrence, he looked so exceedingly annoyed at the sweeping away of his ancient prejudices, that I verily believe he thought the deficiency of the whole female Empire of Turkey must be transferred to my own little person, and that I, at least, could have no soul.
Upon the whole, the first view of St. Sophia disappointed me; I had carried away an idea of much greater extent; spacious as it was, I could now see from one extremity of the wide edifice to the other—I was no longer bewildered by the blaze of innumerable lights—and I know not wherefore, but I regretted the mysterious indistinctness of outline which had thralled me during my midnight visit.
Ignorant as I am also of architecture as a science, I have a sufficient perception of the beautiful and the symmetrical, to make me lament the incongruous medley of different orders and materials by which I was surrounded. What gigantic pillars encircle the dome!—What individual treasures are collected together! But with what recklessness are they forced into juxtaposition! Columns of varying sizes and proportions; some of Egyptian granite, others of porphyry, others again of scagliola, and various precious marbles, are scattered, like the fragments of many distinct buildings, throughout the whole body of the edifice. The eye is bewildered, and the mind remains unsatisfied.
Eight of the porphyry pillars are relics of the temple of Heliopolis; while those of verd-antique are from that of Ephesus. The walls are lined with marble, jasper, porphyry, and verd-antique, to the height of a gallery which surrounds the temple; and which, like the base of the building, is floored with rich marbles, and supported by plain columns of the same material. But the dome, which was formerly adorned with minute mosaics, was white-washed when the Turks converted St. Sophia into a mosque; and the original richness of the design is now only to be deciphered in spots where the plaster has fallen away; added to which, the inferior Imams attached to the building make a trade of the fragments of mosaic that they are continually tearing down, and which are eagerly bought up by travellers, who thus encourage a Vandalism whose destructive effects are irreparable.
Before we ascended to the gallery, we were introduced to one of the miracles of the place, in the shape of a column; a portion of whose surface is cased with iron, in one part of which a deep cavity is worn away beneath the metal; and into this orifice the visiter is invited to insert his finger, in order to convince himself of the humidity of the marble. This column is called by the Imams “the Sweating Stone;” but if the indignation of the inanimate matter at the transformation of a Christian temple into a Mahommedan mosque have really reduced it to a state of perpetual and palpable perspiration, I am under the necessity of confessing that the miracle was not wrought for me; for, on making the trial, I was conscious only of an extreme chill.
Hence we ascended by a very dilapidated and crumbling spiral stair to the gallery, devoted originally to the use of the women, and capacious enough to contain several hundreds; and here the mosaic merchants plunged their hands into their breasts, and from amid the folds of their garments drew forth some thousands of the gilt and coloured stones which they had torn away from the elaborately-ornamented dome.
These were soon disposed of, and then we were permitted to contemplate at our ease the marvels of the mighty pile, with its vast uncumbered space, its bronzed columns, (many of them clamped with iron to enable them to resist more powerfully the ravages of time,) and the huge, shapeless, mystic-looking masses of dark shadow immediately beneath the dome, which, after you have lost yourself in a thousand vague conjectures on their nature and purport, turn out to be nothing more than the mere daubing of some journeyman painter for the purpose of effacing two mighty cherubim, that, in days of yore, pointed to the Christian votary the way to Heaven, but which now, in the dim twilight of the place, look like familiar spirits, shapeless and grim, guarding the accumulated relics of the days of paganism, congregated beneath them.
The view from this gallery, at the upper extremity of the mosque, is extremely imposing; from that point you take in, and feel, all the extent of the edifice, whose effect is rendered the more striking, from the fact that it is entirely laid bare beneath you, being totally free from the divisions and subdivisions which in Catholic chapels are necessary for the location of the different shrines. Plain and unornamented, save by the casing of marble already alluded to, the walls tower upward in severe beauty, until they reach the base of the stately dome, which is poized, as if by some mighty magic, on the capitals of a circle of gigantic and rudely fashioned pillars; immediately beneath you are the columns that support the gallery in which you stand, throughout the whole extent of the temple; while on your left hand the marble pulpit, with its flight of noble steps, shut in by a finely sculptured door of the same material, and on your right the Imperial closet, with its gilded lattices, complete the detail of the picture.
The two huge waxen candles occupying the sides of the arched recess, or mihrab, at the eastern end of the building, are lighted every night, and last exactly twelve months; they are the very Gog and Magog of wax-chandlery, and must be at least eighteen inches in circumference.
In making the tour of the gallery, we came upon a door that had been stopped with masonry; the frame into which it had originally fitted is of white marble, and remains quite perfect. There are traces of violence on the brick-work, which appears to have been secured by some powerful cement that has indurated with age, until it has acquired the solidity of stone, and has become capable of resisting any ordinary effort to remove it; and this door is the second miracle of St. Sophia.
The legend runs that the united attempts of all the masons of Stamboul are powerless against the rude masonry that blocks the entrance of this passage, by reason of a wondrous and most potent talisman, which human means have as yet failed to weaken; but that it conducts to an apartment in which a Greek Bishop is seated before a reading-desk perusing an open volume of so holy a nature, that no Moslem eye must ever rest upon it. Nor does the tradition end here, for both the Turks and Greeks have a firm faith in the prophecies which have been made, that St. Sophia will one day revert to the Christians, on which occasion the walled-up Bishop will emerge from his concealment, and chant a solemn high mass at the great altar.
The latter portion of the legend would imply that the superstition is of remote origin. I felt glad of this—these mystic imaginings require to be enveloped in the mist of centuries, in order to elevate the ridiculous into the sublime, and to attract our fancy without revolting our reason.
From the gallery we passed out upon the leads that cover the inferior cupolas of the building, and screen the mausoleums of the Sultans, and other distinguished personages, whose ashes repose within the holy precincts of St. Sophia; and, after traversing a number of these, and crouching through several low and narrow stone passages, stopping at intervals to contemplate the magnificent views that were spread out beneath us on all sides, and which varied every moment as we advanced, we at length found ourselves at the foot of the ruinous and crumbling stair, or rather ascent, (for the traces of steps are almost worn away) leading to the gallery encircling the dome.
Few of the party were disheartened by the difficulty; and accordingly we slipped and scrambled towards the summit, and resolved to see all the marvels of the place; but when the narrow door which opens from the gallery was flung back by the guide, “a change came o’er the spirit of our dream”—and out of the hundred individuals who were lion-hunting at St. Sophia, there were only seven who possessed nerve enough to make the tour of the dome. Many a fair lady and gallant knight leant for an instant over the slender fence, and looked down into the body of the building while clinging firmly to the rail; gazing on men reduced to the dimensions of pigmies, and wide carpets dwindled to the proportions of a pocket handkerchief; but a brief survey contented them, and they drew back from the dizzy spectacle, with swimming heads and aching eyes.
Seven individuals only, as I have already mentioned, detached themselves from the throng, of which number I was one; and I understood at once the secret of the line of light that had struck me so forcibly on the night of my first visit, when I remarked the clustered lamps which were still attached to the lower railing of the gallery; and I wondered no longer at the sublime effect they had produced, as I perceived the immense height at which they had been placed.
The path we had to follow was about a foot in width, and the slight railing that protected it was secured by iron bars to the wall beyond; but in two places the projecting ledge that formed the passage had lost its horizontal position, and sloped downwards at the outer edge, giving a most uncomfortable projection to the wooden fence; these little inconveniences were, however, amply compensated by the sublime effect of the edifice, seen thus, as it seemed, from the clouds; while the beautiful proportions of the dome became tenfold more evident as the eye took in its whole extent, unbewildered by the immense space which had baffled it from below.
While I stood gazing on the magnificent spectacle spread out beneath me, a couple of doves winged their tranquil flight across the body of the mosque, to their resting-places on the opposite side of the building. As these birds are held sacred by the Musselmauns, they abound about all their public edifices, and multiply to an extraordinary extent; and their appearance, at a moment when my fancy was awakened, and my feelings excited, by the objects of beauty and of grandeur that surrounded me, produced an effect so powerful as to give birth to a very different train of ideas from those in which I had previously been indulging.6
The tour of the gallery completed our survey of the far-famed St. Sophia; and flinging off the slippers which we had drawn over our shoes, we exchanged the marble floor, covered with yielding carpets, for the steep and stony streets leading to the mosque of Sultan Achmet.
On passing through the Atmeidan (or Place of Horses) on one side of which the mosque is situated, a large plane tree was pointed out to me, from whose branches Sultan Mahmoud caused several of the principal Janissaries to be hanged, during the destruction of that formidable body, whence it is called by the Turks “the Tree of Groans.” The exterior of the building was already familiar to me, as it was from the courtyard of Sultan Achmet that I had seen the procession of the Kourban-Baïram; but of its interior I retained only the same dreamy, indistinct impression which I had carried away on the same occasion from St. Sophia.
The mosque of Sultan Achmet is remarkable for the immensity of the four colossal columns that support the dome, to which I have already alluded; and from the fact that the decree against the Janissaries was unrolled and read by the Chief Priest from its marble pulpit. An air of solemn and religious grandeur is shed over it by the dim twilight that enters through the windows of clouded glass; and it possesses a side gallery, roofed with mosaic and supported by marble pillars, which produces a very pleasing effect; but beyond this, there is little to attract in its detail, if, indeed, I except the curious and valuable collection of antique vases, many of them richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and various coloured stones, (and all of them, as the Imam assured us, authentic) which are suspended from the transverse bars of iron that support the lamps, intermixed with ostrich eggs, bunches of corn in the ear, and similar symbols of abundance.
The inner court of the mosque is truly beautiful, being surrounded by an open cloister supported by graceful columns in the Arabian taste, whose capitals resemble clusters of stalactites, and whose slender shafts shoot upwards almost with the lightness of a minaret. In the centre of the court, a stately fountain pours forth its sparkling waters; and on the left hand as you enter is situated the marble balcony from which are read all the Imperial Firmans that possess public interest. Near the gate of entrance, stands an immense block of porphyry of singular beauty, resting upon two masses of stone; on which the dead are exposed previous to their interment; no corpse being permitted to defile the interior of the mosque, and the Sultans themselves having the funeral prayers read over them in the open air.
The mosque of Sultan Achmet is the only one in the city that has six minarets. This peculiarity arose from the desire of the Sultan to be the first monarch who should build a mosque in his capital, rivalling that of Mecca in the number of its minarets; but, as this could not be done without permission of the Mufti, compliance with the Imperial request was delayed, until steps had been taken to increase those at Mecca to seven, as it was not deemed expedient for any other mosque to enjoy the same privileges as that which is sanctified by the presence of the Prophet’s Tomb.
These minarets are arranged with the most beautiful taste: two of them are attached to the main body of the building, while the four others pierce through the dense foliage of the stately forest trees which encircle the mosque, with an irregularity singularly graceful. Their transparent galleries of perforated masonry (three in number) girdle the slender shafts with the lightness and delicacy of net-work, and their pointed spires, touched with gold, gleam out like stars through the clear blue of the surrounding horizon.
From the mosque of Sultan Achmet we proceeded to that of Solimaniè, built by Solyman the Magnificent, which is considered to be the most elegant edifice in Stamboul. Its interior is eminently cheerful and attractive; and the splendid windows of stained glass are the spoils of its founder, who, subsequently to a victory obtained over the Persians, bore them away in triumph to enrich the present building, which was then in a state of progression. The four pillars that support the dome are slight and well-proportioned; but the four porphyry columns which form the angles of the temple are the boast of the edifice; they originally served as pedestals to as many antique statues, and are of surpassing symmetry. St. Sophia, amid all the remains which are collected beneath its roof, possesses nothing so fine; and, independently of these, there is a greater attempt at architectural elaboration throughout the whole building, than in either of the mosques that we had previously visited.
The pulpit is very peculiar, being shaped somewhat like the blossom of the aram, which it the more resembles from the fact that the marble whereof it is formed is of the most snowy whiteness; and the great doors of the main entrance are richly inlaid with devices of mother-of-pearl.
Attached to the wall, near the platform of the muezzin, hangs a long scroll of parchment, on which are traced, in black and gold, the ground-plans of the five principal mosques in the world—viz. those of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, St. Sophia, and Adrianople. It is evidently of great antiquity, and was precisely the description of relic which an antiquary would have valued; while even to the unscientific it was an object of considerable interest.
There is one peculiarity in the mosque of Solimaniè, which it were an injustice to the Turkish government to pass over in silence; and which is in itself so interesting, that I am surprised no traveller has yet made it matter of record.
An open gallery, extending along the whole of the northern side of the edifice, is filled with chests of various sizes and descriptions, piled one on the other, and carefully marked; these chests contain treasure, principally in gold, silver, and jewels, to a vast amount; and are all the property of individuals, who, in the event of their leaving the country, family misunderstandings, or from other causes, require a place of safety in which to deposit their wealth. Each package being accurately described, and scrupulously secured, is received and registered at Solimaniè by the proper authorities, and there it remains intact and inviolate, despite national convulsions and ministerial changes. No event, however unexpected, or however extraordinary, is suffered to affect the sacredness of the trust; and no consideration of country, or of religion, militates against the admission of such deposits as may be tendered, by persons anxious to secure their property against casualties.
On one side may be seen the fortune of an orphan confided to the keeping of the Directors of the Institution during his minority; on the other, the capital of a merchant who is pursuing his traffic over seas. All classes and all creeds alike avail themselves of the security of the depository; and, although an individual may fail to reclaim his property for twenty, fifty, or even an unlimited number of years, no seal is ever broken, no lock is ever forced. And despite that this great National Bank, for as such it may truly be considered, offers not only an easy, but an efficient and abundant, mean of supply, no instance has ever been known in which government has made an effort to avail itself of the treasures of Solimaniè. As the property is deposited, so is it withdrawn—the proper documents are produced, and the chest or desk is delivered up without the demand of a piastre from those who have acted as its guardians.
The despotism of the Turkish government cannot, in this instance, be subject of complaint; when, amid all its reverses, and all its necessities, it has ever respected the property thus trustingly confided; while it can scarcely be denied that the admirable integrity, which is the great safeguard of the heaped-up wealth within the walls of the mosque, is at least as worthy of commendation, as the generous liberality which has foreborne to levy a tax upon so valuable a privilege.
From the mosque we passed out by a charming covered walk to the mausoleum of the Magnificent Solyman; an elegant cupolaed building, with a fluted roof projecting about two feet forward, cased with marble on the outside, and finely painted within in delicate frescoes. An enormous plane tree flings its tortuous branches over the beautiful edifice, which has far more the aspect of a temple than a tomb; and the sunshine falls flickeringly on the marble steps, as it struggles through the fresh leaves. The floor is richly carpeted, and along the centre are ranged the sarcophagi of Solyman the Magnificent and his successor, of Sultan Akhmet, and of the two daughters of the Imperial founder of the mosque. Those of the Sultans are adorned with lofty turbans of white muslin, decorated with aigrettes, and attached to the sarcophagi by costly shawls; the tombs of the Princesses are covered plainly with cachemire of a dark green colour, and are considerably injured by time.
An admirable model of the mosque of Mecca occupied a stand on the right of the entrance, and was an object of general curiosity; it was well executed, and gave an excellent idea not only of the building itself but of the approaches to it. The Tomb of the Prophet occupied the centre of the plan; and the line of road, covered with pilgrims, with its mountain barrier and halting-places, enabled the spectator to form an accurate judgment of the locality.
In all mausoleums of this description, (and they abound in Constantinople) a priest each day lights up the huge wax candles that are placed at the feet of the sarcophagi, and leaves them burning while he reads a chapter from the Koran. Every part of the building is kept scrupulously clean, and a grain of dust is never suffered to pollute the tombs; the light is freely admitted to the interior, and no feeling of gloom connects itself with these resting-places of the dead, which are the very types of luxury and comfort.
Each mausoleum has its peculiar priest, which renders a fact that at first startled me infinitely less surprising; I allude to the immense number of individuals attached to the service of each mosque—St. Sophia alone, as I have been credibly informed, affording occupation to more than three hundred persons!
Three accessories are indispensable to a mosque—a clock, a fountain, and a minaret; the clock determines the hour of prayer—the fountain enables the Faithful to perform their ablutions—and the minaret supplies the gallery whence the muezzin warns the pious to the temple of Allah.
But, independently of these, every Imperial mosque possesses also its Medresch or College, where the Sophtas are instructed at the expense of the establishment; and its Imaret, or receiving-house for pilgrims, where wayfaring strangers are lodged and fed, and the poor are relieved at a certain hour each day, when a distribution of food takes place to all who think proper to solicit it. In the event of a Kourban, or sacrifice, it is in the Imaret that the animal is put to death, and shared among the needy who throng its entrance to benefit by the pious offering.
The mosque of Sultan Mahmoud at Topphannè is greatly enhanced in beauty by the splendid fountain and clock-house which he has built on either side of the entrance; and whose gilded lattice-work, and paintings in arabesque are truly Oriental in their taste; this small but elegant mosque is also remarkable for the gilt spires of its minarets, and the stately flight of marble steps by which it is approached.
The ruins of a mosque still remain in Constantinople which was overthrown by an earthquake, wherein the tomb of the Sultan by whom it was built, was covered with a slab of red marble, said to have been the identical stone on which our Saviour was stretched on his descent from the cross, embalmed, and prepared for the sepulchre!
All the principal mosques are surrounded, and partially overshadowed, by ancient and stately trees, that, in many cases, appear to be coeval with the edifice, and through whose leafy screen portions of the white building gleam out in strong relief; and these are dominated in their turn by the arrowy minarets, which, springing from a dense mass of foliage, cut sharply against the clear sky, and heighten the beauty of the picture.
I have seldom spent a morning of more absorbing interest than that which I passed among the Mosques of Constantinople.