Whereas a dome was something bold and striking; its construction evinced great architectural skill; and rewarded the labour bestowed upon it, by the dignity and the grace it gave to the building whose brow it crowned. It also appealed to the spiritual mind; it lifted the heart on high, it was kindred to the skies; it was a cloud through which the glory beyond the earth could come, in the subdued light that permits mortal eyes to behold the vision of God. For, most assuredly, the architects of S. Sophia were not content to rear only a marvel of mechanical skill. Like true artists they intended to compose “a poem in stone,” nay, to build a “gate of heaven.” But first that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual. And we must therefore glance at the method they employed to cover a basilica with a domed canopy.

In the central area, let us say, of a rectangular building, 235 feet N. and S. by 250 feet E. and W., erect a square structure of four arches. Where arch bends away from arch, there are triangular empty spaces breaking the continuity of the lines of the square summit. Such a base is not round, and it is broken. Can it be made continuous and circular—that is the question? It can. Fill the yawning triangular spaces with masonry to the level of the heads of the arches; only let that masonry be made concave, as though portions of the proposed dome were inserted between the arches, to dovetail with them. And to your surprise, perhaps, but inevitably, the square summit is transformed into a circle, capable of becoming the bed on which a dome may rest as accurately and securely, as though the square of arches was round and solid to the very floor. It is all very simple, after you have seen it done; but the device which introduced into those triangular gaps at the upper corners of the square the pendentives which, when they mounted to the height of the arches, converted a square into a circle was a master-stroke of genius, whoever conceived it first, and an epoch in the history of architecture. But how is this domed square structure to be connected with the walls of the rectangular area within which it is enclosed? How, especially, is it to be held in position, lest it be split open by the thrust of the dome and hurled to the ground? The double-storied aisles to the north and the south furnish the required support in those directions. But it was in the means devised to sustain the dome on the east and the west, that Anthemius and Isidorus displayed all their daring, and secured an effect that has never been matched for grandeur and beauty.

They placed two comparatively small piers to the east of the dome-crowned fabric and two to the west of it; arched the piers, and connected them to the right and the left, still with arches, with the great piers to the rear of which they respectively stood. Filling up the triangular void spaces between these arches, they thus gained a semi-circular base upon which to rear, at either extremity, a semi-dome, climbing with gentle curve to the feet of the great dome, to support it in its lordly place, and (if the expression may be pardoned) to stretch it from one end of the nave to the other. It is as though the octagon of SS. Sergius and Bacchus had been cut in twain and set east and west of a square surmounted by a dome, converting the central area of the church into an elliptical or oval figure.

For elasticity of spring, for the grace and majesty of its upward flight, for amplitude, for the lightness with which it hangs in air, there is no canopy like the arched roof spread over the nave extending from the Royal Gates to the altar of S. Sophia.

Poised on arches and columns, soaring from triple bays to semi-dome, and from semi-dome to dome, bolder and bolder, higher and higher, more and more convergent, culminating above a circle of forty lights, through which the radiant heavens appear, it is not strange that it has seemed a canopy merged in the sky, and that for more than thirteen centuries men have worshipped beneath it with the feeling “This is none other than the House of God!”

Only one thing more was needed to make the fabric artistically complete—to spread over it what Ruskin terms, “that most subtle, variable, inexpressible colour in the world—the colour of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished marble, and lustrous gold.” Accordingly, all that porphyry, verde antique, white marble, marbles of variegated hues, in the form of pillar, slab, capital, inlaid patterns, could contribute, all that delicate carving, with its lights and shadows, all that mosaics bright and soft as sunset tints could lend, was brought into requisition, until every part of the interior surface was suffused in a splendid coloration, and the solid fabric stood transfigured into a pavilion of some iridescent tissue, overwrought with gorgeous embroidery, and held up on shafts of prophyry and emerald.

Many persons are, it is said, disappointed with the first view of even the interior of S. Sophia. Of course the church is not in the state which made Justinian exclaim, when he first crossed its threshold, “O Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” But, after making every allowance for the effect of what detracts from the original glory of the church, those disappointed with S. Sophia must be reminded that, as some one has remarked, “it costs an expensive education to admire a sunset”; and, furthermore, that it is the mark of what is truly great to transcend our immediate grasp, and to reveal its majesty only to prolonged and reverent contemplation.

S. John Studius, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, S. Sophia, and S. Irene, notwithstanding their great differences, agree in following, to an extent that can be recognised, traditions of ancient art. The light of a day, that is past and over, is still reflected from them; or, to change the figure, in them the foliage of a bygone summer mingles sparse and faded forms with the leaves of a new spring. In the other churches left in the city, old features disappear, and what is new reigns supreme. The influence of S. Sophia upon the history of Art has, it is said, been greater than that of any other single building. And yet S. Sophia has never been repeated.

Nor is this strange. A masterpiece cannot be reproduced. But we must seek farther for a complete explanation of the fact. While S. Sophia is, from one point of view, a culmination, it is, from another point of view, a stage in a process of development. The combination of basilican and domical features which it displays is a tribute at once to the influence of old tastes and to the influence of a new fashion. The result of the cross, so to speak, of the two influences was superb, and might well have arrested further change. But considerations, practical and theoretical, were at work urging movement onwards. Although the dome of S. Sophia was a great triumph, it was not a complete success. It rested squat upon the building, when viewed from without. And what was more serious, its thrust against the walls of the church was so strong as to demand external buttressing to prevent a fall. Furthermore, while to stand in a forest of pillars was impressive, it was a pleasure that interfered with the duty of following readily the services at the altar, and broke the unity of the congregation of worshippers. Then, men had grown somewhat weary of the basilica, and were enamoured with the dome. Accordingly, a logical necessity urged the mind to draw all the conclusions involved in the premises which had won the faith of the world of Art. Henceforth, the architectural ideal would be a domed rectangular edifice as free from pier or pillar, and as wide open to view, if that were possible, as the area beneath the dome of the Pantheon.

Consequently, the columns or piers bordering the nave decrease in number until they are reduced to the four necessary to carry the arches upon which the dome rests. Lateral aisles become narrow; galleries disappear, or are represented by a gallery only over the narthex. Indeed, in such churches as S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, the piers that bear the dome are not free-standing supports, but narrow projections from the walls of the edifice; so that the interior is practically open to view in all its length and breadth, having neither aisles nor gallery. In dealing with the dome, the thrust was reduced, by carrying a cylindrical or polygonal turret (drum) to a moderate height above the roof, and surmounting the structure with a cupola. That the fundamental idea inspiring this movement, from the basilica to the perfect development of a domical building, was legitimate, and capable of producing magnificent results, cannot be disputed. But, for some reason, Byzantine architects in Constantinople did not realise their ideal to the extent we might expect. At least, no large church constructed on this plan is found in the city. Then a dome set upon a turret lacks mass and dignity, when viewed from without, and fails to dominate the interior, or lift eye and heart upwards, the moment the worshipper crosses the threshold. To look into such a dome and admire its mosaics is also difficult; sometimes, even painful.

In order to obtain a church of considerable size, the device was adopted of building several small churches side by side, furnished with a continuous narthex, and communicating with one another through their common wall or walls. The Church of S. Mary Panachrantes, situated in the Lycus valley, is an example of twin churches, while the Church of the Pantocrator offers an example of an agglomeration of three churches. At other times the same result was obtained by adding to an older church a small chapel, as in S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, and the Pammacaristos.

To overcome the lack of grandeur in a dome placed on a drum, recourse was had to the system of adorning a church with several domes, in the hope that multiplicity would compensate for the absence of mass. This employment of several domes appears already in the reign of Justinian, who crowned the Church of the Holy Apostles with five domes. When a church is small, this arrangement produces a graceful and pleasing effect, as may be seen in the domes of S. Saviourin-the-Chora, S. Mary Pammacaristos, and the charming Church of S. Theodore Tyrone (Kilissé Djamissi, near Vefa Meidan). It is seen at its best in the domes of S. Mark’s of Venice. But after all, this multiplication of domes does not harmonize with lofty sites and broad spaces. Under the wide sky, and on the hilltops of Constantinople, it looks a petty thing. It can never attain the grandeur and sublimity essential to the highest achievements of artistic architecture. Strangely enough, the ideal of Byzantine architects is realised better in the imperial mosques that crown the summits of Stamboul, and rise above the hills on which they stand, as naturally and proudly as a peak lifts its head into the sky. How puny are the domes of the Pantocrator or those of the Pantepoptes compared with the dome of the Mosque of the Conqueror, or the dome over the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, or the dome of the Mosque Shahzade, or even the dome of the Mosque of Sultan Selim! Nor is it only in their exterior aspect that the great mosques fulfil the Byzantine ideal. They do so likewise within. The long pillared lines of the basilica have vanished. In the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, only four piers and four columns, the latter from Byzantine buildings, break the interior view. In the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, only four piers uphold the roof. And at the same time, what spaciousness! What loftiness and grandeur! If in these mosques one misses the warmth of feeling awakened in S. Sophia, one finds the same sense of the majesty of Heaven, the same suggestion of the littleness of man.

But, if we must not look for grandeur in the churches of Constantinople outside S. Sophia, we meet with much that is exceedingly attractive. This would be more evident were it not for the neglect, the wilful destruction, the inane attempts at decoration, to which the buildings have been subjected. The groined ceiling, edged with a broad band of marble lace, in the lateral apses of the Pantepoptes is very graceful. As a general rule, considerable fancy and taste are displayed in the ornamentation of capitals. The exterior of apses is sometimes rendered pleasing by tiers of blind arches, or of niches and pilasters. The portico of S. Theodore Tyrone, with its columns, melon-capitals, sculptured balustrade, retains, even in its decay and neglect, traces of remarkable beauty. There is fine work to be seen likewise in the Pantocrator. While in S. Saviour-in-the-Chora, one can spend days in admiration of its mosaics, frescoes, marbles, carvings, cornices, and borders. The undercut foliage, upon a dark background, which crowns the mosaic figure of the Virgin on the south-eastern pier of the church, is exquisite. Very fine also are the faces and the robes of some of the archangels in the dome of the side-chapel of the church. The mosaics on the vaulted ceiling of the inner narthex, representing traditional scenes in the life of the Virgin, are among the finest to be found anywhere. They are wonderfully rich and brilliant in colour. The marble revetment of the narthex is a splendid specimen of that style of decoration. There must have been excellent artists in Constantinople in the reign of Andronicus II., when the narthexes and the side-chapel of this church were so beautifully embellished.

Yet the visitor to the churches of Constantinople must be armed with such enthusiasm for what is historically great and artistically beautiful, that he will be stirred to pursue his way by even the minutest fragments of objects invested with these attributes. For it cannot be said of these old sanctuaries, that they have—

They have stood where no general appreciation for such things exists. They have been in the keeping of those who have no pride in their preservation, no reverence for their associations, no admiration for certain features of their beauty. They are covered not only with the dust of ages, but of neglect, ignorance, and depreciation. In visiting these churches, diverted from their original destination, and shorn of their glory, one is sometimes reminded of Gibbon sitting on the Capitoline hill of Old Rome, and listening to the barefooted monks who chanted vespers in the ruined temple of Jupiter. To his mind the spectacle suggested the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. So, as one hears the muezzin’s call sounding above the decayed sanctuaries of New Rome, one may feel disposed to muse on the destruction of the Roman Empire in the East. That is a natural, a legitimate, a profitable, line of thought. But it should not be the only direction our thoughts follow. The Past comes before us not only with its faults, and weaknesses, and failures. It had its virtues, its strength, its achievements. The landmarks which it has left behind are not here to recall only the vanity of human things. They are with us to carry our minds and hearts back to great examples and to glorious deeds. Sometimes the visitor to these “church-mosques” is offered pieces of mosaic that have fallen from the dome under which he stands. They tell of decay, it is true. But with those radiant little cubes in his hand, an artist may reconstruct the forms of saints, the figures of apostles and martyrs, the faces of angels, the majesty of the Pantocrator. So these churches, even in their humiliation, recall the great community of our fellowmen who lived their lives, and wrought their deeds, in this city for more than a thousand years, and they aid us to think the noble thoughts, to catch the love for beauty, to cherish the high aspirations, and to emulate the services which glorified that community—that these things may never pass away.

CHAPTER X

impressions of the city to-day

So much has been written about Constantinople in its Turkish character, that to say anything entirely fresh and new upon the subject is impossible. The reader must, therefore, look to the illustrations which adorn this work for the impression which the Oriental aspect of the city makes upon an artistic eye. If the writer of the text ventures to repeat some parts of a well-known tale, it is only because different ways of telling an old story vary the points of view from which the matter is regarded, bring different features into relief, and set them in another atmosphere and colour; as the appearance of the same landscape changes, according as it is seen at dawn, or at noon, or by the light of the setting sun.

Speaking of the bridge that spans the Golden Horn from Galata to Stamboul, De Amicis remarks that; “where every day a hundred thousand people pass, not one idea passes in ten years.” The slowness with which the East changes is, perhaps, the impression which the spectacle of life in Constantinople naturally makes upon the mind of a stranger. His attention is arrested by the differences between the scenes he observes for the first time and the scenes with which he is familiar. A fresh eye is quick to detect distinctions and peculiarities. On the other hand, “an old resident,” on the same principle, is more deeply impressed by the changes which have been wrought in the life and aspect of the city of his abode, since the days of his early recollections. To the visitor the old is new, and the new is old; while to the resident the old is familiar, and the new is strange. If the former observer has the advantage of seeing things from a more striking and picturesque point of view, the latter is closer to fact and truth. Colonel White, writing in 1844, in his interesting book, Three Years in Constantinople, which such a competent authority as Sir Henry Layard pronounced to be the best work on Turkish life, said, that if a certain policy were pursued, “fifty years cannot elapse ere travellers will flock to Constantinople in search for relics of Moslem institutions with as much eagerness as they now seek for vestiges of Christian or Pagan antiquities. “It would be an exaggeration to say that this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. But events have verified its forecast to such an extent, that one is tempted to assume the prophet’s mantle, and predict that Colonel White’s words will come to pass in the next half-century. At any rate, if the world here has moved slowly, it has moved very far. The descriptions of Constantinople in such works as Miss Pardoe’s City of the Sultan, and Colonel White’s Three Years in Constantinople, seem to-day descriptions of another city.

In the political situation, in the matter of education both among the Turks and the Christian populations, the changes are simply enormous. This is, however, not the place to expatiate upon these serious topics, although it is only by their consideration that the greatness and far-reaching consequences of the new state of things can be properly appreciated. But look at the change in the matter of dress. Where is now the variety of costume, where the brightness of colour that made the movement of the population at all times a procession in gala dress? So far as her garb is concerned, a Turkish woman to-day is a sere and withered leaf. She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of dignity he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caïque of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes. What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native apparel. But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished. Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair faces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “à la Franca.”

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient. The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon-trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caïque, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.

Nowhere, perhaps, is the mark of change more evident than in respect to the means of communication, whether in the city or on the straits. Long lines of tramways run from the Galata Bridge to the Golden Gate and the Gate of S. Romanus, from one end of Stamboul to the other. Along the railway that forms the highway to Europe, there are five stations within the city limits for the accommodation of the districts beside the track. The sedan chairs in which ladies were usually carried, in making calls, are now occasionally employed to convey them to and from evening parties. The groups of horses standing at convenient points in the great thoroughfares to carry you up a street of steps or to a distant quarter, with the surudji, switch in hand, running beside you to urge the animal onward and to take it back at the close of your ride, have given way to cabstands, and to a tunnel that pierces the hill of Galata. A tramway carries one through Galata and Pera as far out as the suburb of Chichli, while another line runs close to the shore from the Inner Bridge to Ortakeui. There are persons still living who remember the first steamer that plied on the Bosporus, in the forties of last century. Its main occupation was to tug ships up or down the straits; but once a day, in summer, it conveyed passengers between the city and the villages of Therapia and Buyukderé. A second steamer soon followed, and charged eleven piasters for the trip each way. Owing, however, to the opposition of the caïquedjis, the steamer could not moor at the quay, so that passengers were obliged to embark and disembark at both ends of the journey in caïques, at the rate of one piaster each way. Thus a return trip, which now costs one shilling and eight pence, involved an expense of four shillings and four pence.

No one, of course, undervalues the advantages of steam navigation, or suggests a return to sailing ships. At the same time it remains true, that never again will men see the Bosporus so beautiful as it looked in days when its waters were untroubled by steam. Owing to the prevalence of northerly winds in these regions, ships bound for the Black Sea were liable to long detention on their way up from the Mediterranean. Great fleets of merchantmen were accordingly apt to collect in the Dardanelles and in the Golden Horn, waiting for a favourable breeze. They had sometimes to wait six weeks ere they could stir. When at length the south wind did come, every stitch of canvas the ships could carry was unfurled, and an immense procession of winged sea-coursers and chariots rode through the Bosporus day after day so long as the south wind blew. In an hour, a hundred, two hundred, vessels might pass a given point, all panting to reach the open sea before the wind failed, and racing one another to get there first. Ships of all sizes and of every form, European and Oriental, sails and rigging of every style; huge three-masted merchantmen, “signiors and rich burghers on the flood,” schooners, brigs, barges, caïques, “petty traffickers,” with their white wings stretched over the blue waters, from one green bank across to the other, flew before the wind, and formed a spectacle solemn and stately as a royal or religious ceremonial. It was a magnificent scene of colour, motion, and variety of form; of eagerness and achievement.

When we think of the means of communication with the outer world, the change is extraordinary. For the voyage from England to Constantinople a sailing vessel took usually thirty to sixty days. It might be even three months, as an Englishman still living in the city found, in 1845, in his own case. To-day one travels by rail to London in three and a half days. Letters from England took ten days. There was a weekly European mail viâ Trieste, and three times a month viâ Marseilles. Now, a European mail arrives daily. The postage on a letter was 1s. 4d. where now it is 2½d. It is impossible to exaggerate the influence upon the life of the place due to this close connection by steamship and by rail with the Western world. The Ottoman authorities were not altogether mistaken, from their point of view, when they looked with disfavour upon the junction of the railroads in Turkey with the European railway system. That junction, it was thought, would facilitate the military invasion of the country. But ideas travel by rail, as well as soldiers. And the invasion of a country by new ideas may have consequences as formidable and far-reaching as any that arms can introduce. The completion of the railroad between Constantinople and Vienna in 1888 may be regarded as the conquest of the city by foreign thought and enterprise. Little, perhaps, did the crowds, that gathered at the Stamboul railway station on the 14th of August in that year to witness the arrival of the first train from the Austrian capital, appreciate the significance of that event. But it was the annexation of Constantinople to the Western world. New ideas, new fashions now rule, for better and for worse. And soon the defects and the charms of the old Oriental city will be a dream of the past.

Owing to the narrowness and steepness of the streets of Constantinople, the transportation of heavy loads through the city by means of wheeled vehicles has always been a difficult, and often an impossible, undertaking. Much has been done in recent years to widen and grade the chief thoroughfares. The authorities are even accused of having occasionally secured that improvement, by setting fire to the houses along an old narrow but picturesque lane in order to take advantage of the law, that when a house is rebuilt the municipality has the right to appropriate a part of the old site to broaden the public way, without giving compensation to the owner of the ground. Moreover, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1876-77, the Moslem refugees from Bulgaria introduced the use of a rough four-wheeled cart drawn by one horse, and that conveyance is now extensively employed. The old-fashioned, long, narrow, wagon drawn by a pair of oxen or buffaloes, so primitive that it might be a wagon which the Huns left behind in their march through the land, still crawls and creaks under a pile of the household furniture of a family removing from one house to another, or from town to country, or from country to town. But the means of transportation most characteristic of the place are the backs of animals and of men. To an extent seen nowhere else, at all events, in Europe, the streets are obstructed by long trains of donkeys and horses carrying planks, or stones, or lime, or bricks, to some building in course of erection, or hurrying back from it for fresh loads. It is, however, in the employment of human beings as beasts of burden that Constantinople excels.

The traveller soon makes the acquaintance of these hamals, as they are called, upon his arrival, whether by sea or by land, and beholds with surprise that, while he drives to his destination in a cab and pair, his luggage is perched on the broad back of a fellowman, and proceeds thither, so to speak, on foot. And the surprise grows into wonder at the number of articles and the weight which can be put on that stooping figure. In the affairs of residents, hamals occupy an important place. No business at the Custom House can be done without their assistance. They carry the merchant’s goods to and fro. They bring your charcoal, your coal, your wood, your stoves, your piano, your chest of drawers, every heavy piece of your furniture. They chop your wood, and store it in your cellar. They will even carry a child in their arms up a hill or to a distant house, as tenderly as any nurse. Sometimes a poor sick man is taken on a hamal’s back to the hospital. To relieve the pressure of his loads, a hamal wears a thick pad on his back, suspended from the shoulders by straps through which he passes his arms, and curved upwards at the lower end to furnish a hollow in which his burden may lodge. Thus equipped, he stoops low, as a camel does, for friendly hands to load him; a cord, by which he may steady himself and keep what he carries in position, is then passed round his burden and given him to hold, and thereupon he rises slowly and moves off. When a street is unusually steep, it is customary to place, at convenient intervals, a series of large stones or small platforms, upon which a hamal may rest his load without removing it, and take breath for a few moments. To provide stones of rest for these burden-bearers is considered a pious act. When the load is too heavy for one man, it is slung upon a long ashen pole and given to a couple of hamals to carry, by placing the ends of the pole upon their shoulders. In the case of still heavier weights, four, six, or eight hamals perform the task in a similar way. The load is then attached to as many poles as are required; the men, ranged both in front and in the rear in an oblique line, put the ends of the poles on the left shoulder, and the right hand, where possible, upon the shoulder of the comrade to the right; and thus bound and locked together the band swings forward, shouting Varda. Many a person turns round to watch the fine stalwart figures bearing off their burden, like a trophy in a triumphal march.

The hamals are not natives of the city, but come from various districts of Asia Minor. They form part of that numerous body of men in Constantinople who have left their homes and families in the interior of the country to find work in the capital for a term of years, in order to support their parents, or their wives and children. It is a practice due to the scarcity of work in the interior, and a considerable portion of the money thus earned is sent home to pay the taxes for which the relatives there are a security. At intervals of five, or even ten years, these men make a long visit to their homes, and then return to their work, until they become too old for it, or have earned enough upon which to retire. They generally own a cottage and a field, property sufficient to afford the family the bare means of existence, and to furnish a convenient retreat at last for the weary bread-winner at his final home-coming. An ignorant, stubborn lot of men they may be, but their simple lives, their hard labour, and the frequency and fidelity with which they serve you, give them a place among the kind memories of a resident in Constantinople.

A company of hamals, generally natives of the same district or village, acquire the monopoly of carrying loads in a particular quarter or suburb of the town. One of their number acts as their chief, and it is through him that arrangements with them for work are made. All earnings are put into a common fund, and divided fairly between the members of the society. The various companies of hamals are as jealous of their claims upon a particular locality as are the dogs of the quarter. They may carry a load in a district not their own, only if the load is taken up first in their own quarter. Any attempt to commence work in another company’s territory results in a fierce fight between the parties concerned, and exposes the articles in dispute to serious damage. The Moslem hamals are very attentive to their religious duties. It is often impossible to get them to attend to your wants at the hours of prayer.

At one time, by far the larger number of hamals employed in the city were Armenians. Those of them who were attached to merchants’ offices, as caretakers and confidential messengers, were renowned for their fidelity and honesty. Any sum of money could be entrusted to their keeping with absolute safety. Since the massacres of 1896, when this class of the Armenian population was the object of special attack, and was almost exterminated, the hamals of the city are chiefly Kurds. It took some time for the newcomers to learn their duties, and merchants were seriously inconvenienced by the consequent accumulation of their goods at the Custom House, and the slowness of delivery. But, to all complaints on the subject, the authorities, as though the injured parties, returned the characteristic reply, “Why do you bring so many goods?” Armenian hamals used to have one great holiday in the year—Easter Monday—which they spent in dancing together, in their best garb, on a great mound of rubbish beside the military parade ground at Taxim. On their return, through the Grand Rue of Pera, “it was not uncommon to see a band of them, carrying their long, massive poles, heaving with every appearance of intense strain and fatigue; the burden hung in the centre—an egg!” With the growth of a higher sense of human dignity this species of a beast of burden will become extinct.

To omit all reference to the dogs of a city which has been styled a “dog-kennel” is impossible, however well worn the theme may be. They are one of the prominent features in the street-scenery of the city, and attract the attention of all travellers. Along with other “improvements” their number has been greatly diminished during recent years, but they are still in evidence in every thoroughfare of the place. Tawny in colour, with a furry coat, bushy tail, and pointed ears, they betray their relationship to the wolf and the fox, although the hardships of their lot, and still more the indulgence with which they are treated by a large part of the population, have taken almost all their ferocity out of them, except in their treatment of one another. They are the assistant-scavengers of the city, eating the pieces of food found in the rubbish, which, after an old custom not yet obsolete, is still too often dumped into the street by the inhabitants at night, for the official scavenger to remove in the morning. To some extent they act also as watchmen, making night hideous with their barking.

For these purposes they divide the city between them; so that the different quarters of Constantinople are respectively the special domains of different companies of dogs, who guard their boundaries as jealously and fiercely as any frontiers between rival nations. No sooner does a strange dog enter a canine ward than his arrival is signalled by a peculiar bark from a faithful defender of the rights of the invaded district. The bark is echoed from member to member of the injured community, until the whole pack is roused, and rushes upon the intruder like a horde of savages, biting and worrying him beyond the bounds he transgressed in an evil hour. Hence it is extremely difficult to take your own dog out for a walk in the streets of the city. A deafening uproar greets you from every community of dogs through which your road passes. You must hold your companion in leash; you must be on the alert, whip or cane in hand, to strike at the infuriated beasts that spring with flashing teeth at him from all directions; and if you are fortunate enough to get your dog safely through the fight, it will probably be owing to the courtesy of some sympathetic onlookers who came to the rescue in your extremity. When such an encounter occurs on an open road with wilder dogs, the scene may prove a battle royal. In that case the most effective way of driving your assailants off is to throw stones at them, of which they are more afraid than of any stick in your hand. Sometimes even the gesture of stooping to pick up a stone will suffice to put the enemy to flight, yelping with imaginary pain. In view of this state of things among the dogs of the city, a Turk, wishing to say that a certain person is not of his “sort,” puts the case in the clearest and most scathing light by the simple remark, “He is not a dog of my quarter.”

The dogs are treated very kindly by the Moslem population. Large companies of them encamp near barracks and guard-houses, certain to find friends among the soldiers, and to share their rations. They will gather about the shop of a baker or of a butcher, or wander like beggars from one such place of entertainment to another in their district, sure they will not be left to starve. There is a racy Turkish proverb based upon this habit of dogs to sit in a row before a butcher’s shop, expecting scraps of meat. It is pointed against idlers who are waiting for something to turn up, and runs to the following effect, “If looking on were enough to get on, dogs would become butchers.” It is not rare to see Turks purchasing a loaf and distributing it among a company of dogs. Sometimes a dog will take his stand near a baker’s shop, and at your approach will place himself at your feet, and with beseeching eyes appeal to your generosity to buy him some bread, wagging his tail in gratitude for the anticipated favour. There are dogs who come to an understanding with a family of their acquaintance as to the most convenient time to call for food, and who, at the appointed hour, tap at the door of their host’s house for the promised meal. It is common to see at the door of a Turkish house an earthen jar, or an old petroleum can, half sunk in the ground, and kept filled with water for the dogs; and there is a low drinking-trough, for the benefit of the poor creatures, at many of the public fountains in the city. Frequently also, one sees a bed of straw provided for the comfort of a mother dog and her litter of puppies.

The idea of killing a dog is shocking to a Turk’s mind. In his opinion, it is sinful to do so. At one time, a dog in the village of Roumeli Hissar upon the Bosporus became exceedingly dangerous. Not content with keeping stray members of his own race off his ground, he snarled and showed his teeth at every decent person who crossed his path, until at length a European resident, losing patience, drew a pistol and fired upon the obnoxious animal. The shot missed, but the gentleman who had fired it was guilty of a double offence. He had broken the law forbidding the carrying of firearms, and he had attempted the life of a dog. The culprit was instantly surrounded by a fierce mob, arrested by the police, and taken to the village prison. As strong influence could be secured for his protection, his case was easily settled. But the question how to deal with the dog was a more difficult matter to arrange. Neither arguments nor backsish could persuade the police to kill the dog. The utmost the guardians of the public safety would do was to transport him to the opposite side of the Bosporus, and consign him to the tender mercies of the inhabitants of that shore; and this would be done, only if the aggrieved party would defray the expense involved in executing the decree of banishment. A change of domicile from Europe to Asia, or from Asia to Europe, is the most usual remedy applied, when dogs show bad temper or become too numerous for the happiness of a particular locality. It is a remedy, however, that provokes a policy of retaliation, and induces a return of the evil in some analogous form.