THE OLD SERAGLIO.

At Granada one feels as though his sightseeing had hardly begun until he has been to the Alhambra, and it is the same way at Constantinople so long as the interior of the Old Seraglio has not been explored. Twenty times a day, wherever you may be on sea or land, that hillside covered with vivid green starts into view, tantalizing you with suggestions of what it has to disclose, forcing itself upon your attention, riveting the mind upon itself when you would fain think of other things—an unsolved enigma, a haunting mystery, which gives you no peace until at last you yield and go there before the appointed day, more to have done with it than for the purpose of enjoying the sight.

There is, in fact, not another spot of earth in Europe whose mere name calls into life such an extraordinary mixture of awful and pleasing associations, about which so much has been talked and thought and written and guessed, which has given rise to so many vague and contradictory rumors—been the object of so much insatiate curiosity, of so many stupid mistakes and extravagant tales. Now-a-days any one can go there, and many who do so come away quite unimpressed; but of one thing we may be quite certain, and that is that when centuries shall have elapsed, when possibly the Ottoman power will be only a memory in Europe, and that exquisite hill be crowned by the busy streets of a new and populous city, no traveller will pass through them without seeing again, in fancy, the imperial kiosks of former days, and thinking enviously of us in the nineteenth century who can still behold the speaking, breathing records of that storied habitation of the Ottomans. Who knows how many archæologists will concentrate their painstaking research upon the identification of a doorway or portion of a wall discovered in the courtyard of some modern building—how many poets will break forth into verse over a few heaps of stones scattered along the shore? On the other hand, it may be that hundreds of years from now those walls will still be jealously preserved, and scholar, lover, and artist, flocking to see them, that strange picturesque life which was led there for four hundred years be resuscitated and spread over the entire surface of the globe in hundreds of volumes and pictures.

It is not owing to any architectural beauty that the interest of the whole world is directed toward the Seraglio. Unlike the Alhambra, it is not a great artistic monument: the Court of the Lions alone in the Arabian palace is worth all the kiosks and towers of the Turkish one put together. No, the value of the Seraglio lies wholly in its great historic interest: it illustrates and gives life to almost the entire history of the Ottoman dynasty; upon its walls and the trunks of its century-old trees are engraved the most secret and intimate records of the empire. Nothing but the period covered by the past thirtyE years and the two centuries preceding the conquest of Constantinople are wanting to complete the chronicle. From Muhammad II., who laid its foundations, to Abdul-Megid, who abandoned it to take up his residence in the palace of Dolmabâghcheh, twenty-five sultans have dwelt there. Hardly had the dynasty conquered its European metropolis when it planted its foot upon this spot; here it climbed to the apex of its glory, and here its decadence began. It was at once a palace, a fortress, and a sanctuary; here was the brain of the empire and the heart of Islamism; it was a city within a city, an imposing and magnificent stronghold, inhabited by a people, guarded by an army, embracing within its walls an infinite variety of buildings, pleasure-grounds, and prisons, city, country, palaces, arsenals, schools, offices, and mosques, where fêtes, executions, religious ceremonies, love affairs, state functions, and wild revels succeeded one another with startling rapidity; here sultans were born, elevated to the throne, deposed, imprisoned, strangled; here were woven the tangled webs of every conspiracy that threatened the empire; here resounded the hoarse cry of every popular tumult; hither flowed the purest gold and bluest blood of the Turkish dominions; here was wielded that shining blade that flashed above the heads of a hundred different peoples; and upon this spot, for nearly three centuries, was concentrated the gaze of uneasy Europe, suspicious Asia, and cowering Africa, as upon some smoking crater which threatened at any moment to overflow and engulf the whole earth.

This huge royal residence is situated upon the most eastern of Stambul’s seven hills, the one which inclines gently to the edge of the Sea of Marmora, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn. It is the site formerly occupied by the Acropolis of Byzantium, a part of the ancient city and one wing of the great imperial palace, and is by far the most beautiful hill in Constantinople, as well as the promontory most favored by nature of the whole European shore. Here converge as to a common centre two seas and two straits; to this spot led all the great military and commercial high-roads of Eastern Europe; torrents of water poured into it through the aqueducts constructed by the Byzantine emperors; the hills of Thracia protect it from the north winds; the sea bathes it on three sides; Galata watches over it from the harbor; Skutari mounts guard from across the Bosphorus; and the snow-crowned heights of Bithynia close in the Asiatic horizon. Standing alone at the extreme end of the great metropolis in an almost isolated position, in its beauty and strength it seems formed by nature to act as the pedestal of a great monarchy, and to encircle and screen the life of those princes who were half gods.

The entire hill is surrounded at its base by a high battlemented wall flanked by massive towers. On the sides toward the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn this is identical with the city wall. On the land side it was erected by Muhammad II., and shuts the Seraglio Hill off from that one on which the mosque of Nûri Osmaniyeh stands. Describing a right angle near the Sublime Porte, it passes in front of St. Sophia, and then, making a wide outward curve, joins the walls of Stambul on the shore. This is the outer enclosure of the Seraglio. Properly speaking, what is meant by the Seraglio is only that part which occupies the summit of the hill, shut in behind high walls of its own—the central redoubt, as it were, of the great fortress of the hill.

It would be, however, nothing but wasted time and energy to enter into a detailed description of this spot such as it is at present. The railroad crosses its outer walls; a disastrous fire destroyed many of the buildings in 1865; the gardens are largely despoiled of their beauty; hospitals, barracks, and military schools have been established within its precincts; and of the old buildings which are still standing many have been either so altered or their original function so changed that, although the most salient features still remain, and one finds the outline of the Old Seraglio clearly defined, yet the number and nature of the minor alterations and the abandonment and neglect of the past thirty years have so changed the character of the whole place that it would be impossible to render a faithful description of it as it now appears without disappointing even the most modest expectations.

It will, then, be better for his sake who writes, as well as his who reads, to describe this famous Seraglio such as it was at the most glorious period of the Ottoman power.

Any one who in those old days—say from a lofty tower or one of the minarets of St. Sophia—could take in the entire Seraglio Hill must have enjoyed a sight of extraordinary beauty. Framed by the deep blue of the sea, the Bosphorus, and the harbor, with their semicircle of white sails, arose the great green mass of the hill, girdled by walls and towers and crowned by guns and sentinels. From the centre of this forest of lofty trees, through which innumerable footpaths glistened and flower-beds flaunted their gay colors, rose the vast rectangle of the Seraglio buildings, divided into three large courtyards, or rather little towns, built around three irregular squares, whose roofs showed in a confused, many-colored mass—terraces filled with flowers, gilded cupolas, white minarets, airy pinnacles of kiosks, great arched doorways, alternating with gardens and groves, and half buried in foliage. It was a little white metropolis, glittering, irregular, light as an encampment of tents, through which there breathed a spirit at once voluptuous, pastoral, and warlike. In one part it was all life and movement, in another silent and deserted as a necropolis; here open and bathed in sunlight, there plunged in perpetual gloom and hidden from human gaze. A thousand zephyrs fanned it, while its unending succession of contrasting lights and shadows, its brilliant coloring, and subdued tints of blue and gray were alike reflected in its marble buildings and tiny lakes, above which soared flocks of doves and swallows.

Such was the external aspect of the imperial city, not, perhaps, so very large to the eye of one overlooking it from above, but within so divided and subdivided, so intricate and irregular, that servants familiar with its inner courts for upward of fifty years would still grow confused and take the wrong turn, and the Janissaries when they invaded it for the third time again lost their way.

The principal entrance then, as now, was the Bâb-i-Humayûn, or Imperial Gate, opening on the little square in which stands the fountain of Sultan Ahmed, back of St. Sophia. It is a lofty portal of white and black marble, richly adorned with arabesques and crowned by a high superstructure with eight windows and a spreading roof, the architecture being that mixture of the Arabian and Persian styles by which almost everything erected by the Turks in the years immediately following the conquest can be so readily distinguished, before they began to copy the Byzantine architecture around them. Above the entrance, on a marble scroll, are the inscriptions of Muhammad II.: “May Allah preserve the glory of its possessor for ever! May Allah strengthen its buildings! May Allah establish its foundations!”F Before this gate the populace of Stambul used to assemble in the morning to see which of the great men of the court or state might have been decapitated during the previous night, it being customary in such cases to either suspend the heads in the niches which may still be seen almost intact to right and left of the entrance, or else place them in a silver basin, with the accusation and sentence exhibited alongside, the bodies of those victims who were sentenced to be strangled being thrown out into the square. Here detachments of troops from far-off armies awaited the necessary permission to enter the outer court bearing their victorious trophies and heaping on the imperial threshold arms, flags, the skulls of vanquished enemies, and magnificent uniforms stained with blood.

The entrance was guarded by a powerful band of kapuji, the sons of beys and pashas, gorgeously arrayed, who, from the windows and summits of the towers overlooked the continual procession of people coming and going below, or held back with their great cimeters the silent curious throng collected without in the hope of catching, through some crack, a fleeting glimpse of the courtyard, a brief view of the second gateway, a suggestion at least of that enormous and mysterious abode which was the object of so much conjecture and dread. Passing by, the devout Mussulman would pause to murmur a prayer for his sublime lord; the poor and ambitious youth picture to himself the day when he too might possibly cross that threshold to receive the horse-tail; the pretty ragged little maid of the street dream gorgeous dreams, not unmixed with hope, of the splendid existence of a kadyn; and the relatives of state victims avert their heads and shudder; while throughout the entire square a strict silence was observed, broken only three times a day by the muezzin’s voice on St. Sophia.

From the Humayûn Gate one enters the so-called Court of the Janissaries, which was the first enclosure of the Seraglio. This large courtyard is still surrounded by various long, irregular buildings and shaded by groups of trees, among the latter of which the huge plane tree of the Janissaries is conspicuous with its mighty trunk, which the outstretched arms of ten men cannot span. On the left as you enter stands the church of St. Irene, founded by Constantine the Great, and converted into an armory by the Turks; all around stood the Seraglio hospital, the treasury, the orange storehouses, imperial stables, kitchens, the barracks of the kapuji, the mint, and the residences of high officials of the court. Beneath the plane tree may still be seen the two small stone pillars which mark the spot where public executions took place. Through this enclosure every one had to pass on his way either to the Divân or the presence of the Pâdishah: it was like a great open anteroom, always crowded with people and filled with bustle and confusion. In the enormous kitchens two hundred cooks with their assistants presided over a hundred and fifty ovens, preparing all the food consumed by that vast family “who ate the bread and salt of the Grand Seignior,” while opposite crowds of guards and attendants, feigning illness, tried to gain admission to the luxurious and sumptuous hospital, in which twenty physicians and an army of slaves were kept constantly employed. Long files of mules and camels brought provisions for the kitchens, or arms taken from victorious battlefields to the church of St. Irene, where, with the sword of Muhammad II., was that of Skanderbeg and the armlet of Tamerlane. Tax-collectors went by, followed by slaves laden with gold for that treasury which already, according to Sokolli, grand vizier under Suleiman the Magnificent, contained money enough to pay for the construction of an entire fleet of vessels, with silken rigging and anchors of silver; and handsome Bulgarian grooms led up and down the nine hundred horses of Murad IV., which fed out of mangers of solid silver. All day long there was a never-ceasing flash and glitter of gorgeous uniforms. Here towered the high white turbans of the Janissaries, and there the heron-quills of the solaks or silver helmets of the peiks; members of the sultan’s guard lounged about in their golden tunics fastened about the waist with jewelled belts; the zuluftu-baltagé, employed under the officials of the bed-chamber, could be distinguished by the tuft of wool hanging from their caps; the kasseki carried their wands of office, and the balta-gi their axes; while the grand vizier’s pages were furnished with whips ornamented with silver chains. Then there were members of the bostangi, or guards of the gardens, in big purple caps—the courageous guard, the impetuous guard, archers, lancers, treasury guards, a countless variety of colors and devices; white eunuchs and black, esquires, and sciaus; tall, ponderous men, whose haughty bearing savored of the atmosphere of the court, while their scented garments filled the air with heavy perfume. Confused and disorganized as this vast throng may have appeared to the onlooker, it was, in reality, governed by a strict and minute schedule. Every individual who came and went through that courtyard was something like an automaton, moved about on a board by an unseen but powerful mechanism. At daybreak there arrived the thirty muezzins of the court, selected from among the sweetest singers in Stambul, who on their way to announce the sunrise from the minarets of the Seraglio mosques would encounter parties of astronomers and astrologers descending from lofty terraces where they had passed the night in studying the heavenly bodies with a view to determining what hours would be most propitious for the Sultan’s various undertakings. Next to arrive would be the head physician of the Seraglio to inquire touching the health of his lord, and after him a member of the ulema charged with the religious instruction of his illustrious pupil. Next the private secretary would come to read all the petitions received in the course of the preceding day. Professors of the arts and sciences passed through on their way to instruct the imperial pages, and one after another, each at his appointed hour, every individual in the personal service of the Grand Seignior presented himself to receive the orders for the day. The bostangi-basci, general of the imperial guard and governor of the Seraglio and of all the Sultan’s villas scattered along the shores of the Bosphorus and Propontis, came to inquire if his mighty lord proposed to make an expedition by water, as in that case to him belonged the honor of steering, and to his bostangi that of rowing, the boat. The master of the hunt, head falconer, and chiefs of the vulture, white falcon, and hawk-hunt came to inquire the Pâdishah’s will. Then all the superintendents of the kitchens, storehouses, mint, and treasury, and the superintendent-general of the city, arrived, each one in his appointed order, with his memoranda, his set speech, his train of servants, and his distinctive style of dress. Later, the viziers of the cupola, followed by a crowd of secretaries and hangers-on, would be seen on their way to the Divân, while every grade of official, up to the very highest, would alight from horse or chair or carriage at the second gate, beyond which no one was permitted to go except on foot. In some way the position, rank, or office of every individual in all that great crowd was so plainly indicated as to be instantly distinguishable. The shape of the turban, fashion of the sleeves, quality of the furs, color of the facings, ornamentation of the saddle, the wearing of moustaches only or of a beard in addition,—each and all gave the clue, and there was not the smallest room for confusion or mistake. The mufti were dressed in white, the viziers in pale green, the chamberlains in scarlet; dark blue indicated one of the six chief justices, the chief of the emirs, and the judges of Mecca, Medina, and Constantinople; the head ulema wore violet, the murdâs and sheikhs light blue, while pale sky-blue denoted a feudal sciaù or vizier’s agha; deep green was reserved for the aghas of the imperial staff and sacred standard-bearers; Nile green was the uniform of the imperial stables; generals of the army wore red shoes, officials of the Porte yellow, members of the ulema turquoise-blue. To all this careful scale of color exactly corresponded the degree of reverence shown in the obeisances. The bostangi-basci, chief of the Seraglio police force and commander of an army of jailors and executioners, the mere sound of whose name or echo of whose footfall spread terror and consternation, strode across the courtyard between two ranks of heads bowed to the very earth; the chief eunuch and grand marshal of the court, both internal and external, approached, and down went all those turbans, plumes, and helmets as though struck by a hundred invisible hands. The grand almoner made his progress amid a flutter of obsequious bows. Every one in personal attendance upon the Sultan—such as the master of the stirrup, who assisted him to mount; master of the bed-chamber, who brought him his sandals; the silidar agha, who cleaned his armor; the white eunuch, who licked the pavement before spreading out his lord’s rug; the page, who poured out the water for his ablutions; he who handed him his arquebuse during the hunt; and those who had charge of his turbans and robes of black fox skin and dusted off his jewelled plumes—were the objects of special curiosity and veneration. A subdued murmur of voices preceded and followed the passage of the imâm of the court, and the grand master of the wardrobe, who was charged with the distribution of money among the people during the imperial fêtes; while envious glances followed that fortunate Mussulman to whose lot it fell every ten days to shave the head of the Sultan of sultans. The crowd fell back with marked alacrity before the head surgeon, who circumcised the imperial princes; the chief oculist, who prepared washes and unguents for the eyelids of the kadynas and odalisques; and the grand master of the flowers, whose life was passed in carrying out the capricious fancies of a hundred spoiled beauties, and who carried beneath his caftan his diploma of poetry ornamented with gilded roses. The head cook received his adulatory greetings, while smiles and salutations were showered upon the keeper of the nightingales and parrots, to whom the doors of the most secret kiosks were thrown open.

It was a vast hierarchy, composed of thousands of persons, subject to a ceremonial filling fifty volumes, and clad in an endless variety of picturesque costume, which thronged the great courtyard, intermingling and separating every moment. From time to time all the heads would turn to look after the hurrying form of a special emissary: now it was the vizier khara khulak, despatched by the Sultan to hold a secret consultation with the grand vizier; now a kapuji, hastening to the palace of a pasha fallen under suspicion to acquire his instant attendance before the Divân; or the bearer of good tidings on his way to announce to the Pâdishah the safe arrival of the great caravan at Mecca. Other special messengers employed between the Sultan and chief officials of the state, each one distinguished by a title and some peculiarity of attire, would traverse the space cleared before him by the crowd at a run, and disappear through one or other of the two gateways. Files of kahveji (coffee-bearers) passed through to the kitchens; troops of imperial huntsmen bending beneath the weight of their gilded gamebags; porters laden with rich stuffs preceded by the Grand Merchant, purchaser for the Sultan; and bands of galley-slaves led by other slaves to perform the heavier kinds of work in the Seraglio,—all could be seen intent upon their several duties. Twice daily the doors of the kitchens opened to emit processions of scullions bearing huge pyramids of rice, and sheep roasted whole, which they distributed among the guards and attendants scattered about beneath the plane trees, under the arcades, and all along the walls, so that the great courtyard presently assumed the festive appearance of an encampment of the army holding a revel. By and by the scene would change, and now it was a foreign ambassador who would make his stately progress between two walls of gold and silk to that presence to which, as Suleiman the Magnificent wrote to the Shah of Persia, “flowed the entire universe.” Side by side with ambassadors from Charles V. were those of Francis I.; envoys from Hungary, Servia, and Poland entered with representatives of the Genoese and Venetian republics. The peskesdgi-basci, who received all the gifts, would go as far as the Bâb-i-Humayûn to meet the foreign caravans, and return, amidst the curious gaze of thousands of spectators, accompanied by elephants with gold thrones on their backs, enormous gazelles, lions in cages, Tartary horses, and steeds of the desert laden with tiger-skins or shields made out of elephants’ ears; envoys from Persia brought vases of costly porcelain, and those from the sultans of India golden boxes filled with jewels; African kings sent rugs made out of the skins of young camels torn from their mothers’ bodies, and pieces of silver brocade which the backs of ten slaves could barely carry; and ambassadors from northern kingdoms brought gifts of rare furs and valuable weapons. After a successful campaign conquered generals, laden with chains, would be led through for exhibition before the Pâdishah, and captive princesses veiled and followed by their mournful little company of disarmed and helpless attendants; eunuchs of all colors and ranks, seized as spoils of war or offered as gifts to the victorious princes; and in the mean time officers of the conquering army crowded to the treasury doors to deposit rich booty in the shape of sabres studded with pearls and magnificent brocades taken in the sack of some Persian city, the gold and jewels of the vanquished Mamelukes of Egypt, cups of gold found among the treasures of the chevaliers of Rhodes, statues of Diana and Apollo brought from Greece and Hungary, and the keys of conquered cities and strongholds; and others still, led the youths and maidens stolen from the isle of Lesbos into the inner court. All the enormous quantities of stores of every description brought to the Seraglio from the various ports of Africa, Morea, Caramania, and the Ægean Sea were either received between those walls or flowed through them to the inner courts, and an army of majordomos and clerks were kept constantly occupied in registering what was brought, giving receipts, paying out money, and arranging audiences. Merchants from the slave-markets of Brusa and Trebizond would await their turn to enter with poets come from Bagdad to recite their verses in the presence of the Sultan. Governors fallen into disgrace, bearing basins full of gold coins wherewith to purchase pardon, stood side by side with the messenger of a pasha bringing a beautiful girl of thirteen, found, after months of careful search, in a cabin in Anatolia, as a present to the Grand Seignior, and with them emissaries returned from the farthermost confines of the empire, tired little family groups just arrived from some far-off province to seek justice at the hands of their lord, and women and children of the lowest orders in Stambul come to present their grievances before the Divân. On those days when the Divân was to hold its sessions ambassadors from rebel provinces would be seen passing slowly through the curious and mocking crowd, mounted upon asses, with shaven faces and women’s caps upon their heads, or the too insolent envoys of some Asiatic prince with their noses split open by the cimeters of the sciaùs. Sometimes state officials would pass out bearing a magnificent shawl which they were to take to a distant governor as a present from the grand vizier, quite unconscious that their own death-sentence was concealed within its folds. Now the radiant face of some ambitious schemer showed that his plots had been so far successful, and a sanjak was his, while the pallid countenance of another proved all too plainly that he had heard in the Divân the first dark rumors of approaching disgrace. Messengers went by with those inexorable hattiscerifs which they were to carry in their saddle-croups three hundred miles for the purpose of spreading ruin and death through the palace of a viceroy, and those terrible court-mutes sent to strangle illustrious prisoners in the subterranean dungeons of the Castle of Seven Towers. Crowds of beys, mollahs, and emirs passed back and forth, to and from audiences, with bent heads, eyes on the ground, and hands hidden in their big sleeves; viziers who made it a habit to carry a copy of the Koran about with them, so as to be prepared at a moment’s notice to read the office of the dead; the despotic grand vizier, constantly shadowed by an executioner, who never went abroad without a copy of his will concealed somewhere about his person, so as to be ready to face death at any moment.

And all of them maintained the most perfect decorum, passing by with measured steps and serious mien, either silent or else conversing only in undertones and in such circumspect and correct language as was suitable to the sacred precincts of the Seraglio. There was a constant interchange of grave, scrutinizing looks; hands were laid on the forehead or breast, and momentary breaks occurred in the murmured conversations—a discreet rustling and patter of slippers and long cloaks, a subdued clanking of cimeters, a something monastic and mournful, which contrasted strangely with the haughty, warlike faces, pompous coloring, and splendid armor seen on all sides. In every eye could be read the reflection of the same ruling idea, on every brow was written the awe and dread of a single man, high above them all, wielding an absolute power over each and every one of them, and before whom all were ready to bow down, cringe, crawl, efface themselves; it seemed as though every object bore the imprint of his image, every sound carried the echo of his name.

From this court the Bâb-el-Selam,G Gate of Health, gives access to the second court. It is still standing intact, flanked by two massive towers, and can only be passed even now on presenting a firman or order from the Sultan. Formerly the great doors which shut it on either side enclosed a space between them which was used as a chamber of execution, where persons could be detained and secretly despatched. The cell of the executioner was just below, and communicated by secret passage-ways with the hall of the Divân. Persons of rank who had incurred the displeasure of the Divân would be detained there while awaiting their sentence, which not infrequently was first made known to them by being carried out. At other times a suspected governor or vizier, summoned to the Seraglio on some pretext or other, came, passed unsuspiciously beneath that sinister roof, entered the council hall, and, being received with benevolent smiles or such mitigated severity as laid his fears to rest, would pass tranquilly forth again, to suddenly feel a knife beneath his shoulders or a cord about his neck, and sink to the ground without seeing any one or being able so much as to make one effort at resistance. At the sound of his dying cry a hundred heads in the outer court would turn quickly, but in an instant every one would have resumed his occupation in perfect silence. Presently the head would be carried out to the Bâb-i-Humayûn, the body thrown to the ravens on the shore near St. Stephen’s, the news sent to the Sultan, and the whole matter be finished.

To the right and under the roof can be seen the small iron doorway of the chamber into which those victims were cast whose death-sentence had been recalled just in time, or others whose agony it was wished to prolong or who were to be sent into exile instead.

Passing beneath the gateway, you enter the second court, and begin to breathe more unmistakably the sacred atmosphere which surrounded the lord “of the two seas and two worlds.” Entering there for the first time, one pauses involuntarily on the threshold, held back by feelings of awe and veneration and fear. It was a huge, irregular courtyard, a sort of enormous open hall, surrounded by graceful buildings with gold and silver domes: here and there were groups of tall trees, while two avenues crossed each other, flanked by great cypresses. All around it ran a low gallery, supported on graceful marble columns and protected by a spreading roof covered with lead. To the left as you enter was the hall of the Divân, surmounted by a glittering dome, and beyond it the reception chamber, before which stood six huge columns of Marmora marble supporting a wide roof with undulating border. Bases and capitals, walls, roofs, doorways, arches, all were embossed, carved, chiselled, painted, and gilded, and as light and graceful as pavilions made of lace and encrusted with gems, while a group of superb plane trees cast their shadows over it all. On the other side were the apartments where the robes of state were kept, the archives, the tents, the residence of the chief of the black eunuchs, and the kitchens of the court. Here was to be found that intendant on whom far more devolved than on one of the ministers of state, under whom were employed fifty sub-lieutenants and a whole army of cooks, supplemented on great occasions by chefs collected from every corner of the empire. On the days of the Divân, dinner was served here for all the viziers, and, when such functions as imperial weddings or circumcisions were in progress, were prepared those far-famed pastry gardens, sugar swans, giraffes, falcons, and camels; and roasted sheep from which flocks of birds issued, to be carried later on in great pomp to the Hippodrome square; here too were manufactured those sweetmeats of every conceivable form and flavor designed to melt away in the thousand greedy little mouths of the harem. On fête-days eight hundred workmen swarmed close by the kitchens, occupied in getting out the Sultan’s tents and those of the harem, which they were to erect all about the Seraglio gardens and on the hillsides overlooking the Bosphorus; and when even these apparently inexhaustible storehouses gave out, pavilions were constructed from the sails of the fleet, and cypress trees taken up by the roots from the gardens of the imperial villas.

The residence of the chief eunuch near by was a small royal palace in itself, between which and the third court flowed a constant stream of black eunuchs, slaves, and servants. Foreign ambassadors passed through on their way to the reception-chamber of the Sultan, and then the gallery would be hung from one end to the other with scarlet cloth, while the walls and pavements were as polished and glittering as the floor of a room. Two hundred Janissaries, spahis, and silidars, members of the Divân guard, would stand drawn up in the shade of the cypress and plane trees, dressed and armed like princes, while troops of white and black eunuchs, perfumed and anointed, flanked the entrance. Everything within this second enclosure indicated the vicinity of the Grand Seignior: voices were pitched in a lower key, steps were more measured, and all noises which indicated labor or toil, and the sounds of horses’ hoofs, were rigorously banished. Soldiers and servants alike went back and forth in silence, and a certain sanctuary-like stillness reigned over the entire courtyard, broken only from time to time by the sudden cry of a bird winging its way among the high branches of the trees or the resounding clang of the great iron doors being swung to by the kapuji.

The only one of the buildings in this court visited by me was the hall of the Divân, which is almost precisely as it was in the days when the deliberations of the chief assemblage of the state were held within its walls. It is a large, vaulted apartment, lighted from above by small Moorish windows, lined with marbles, covered with gold arabesques, and without other furniture save the long divan upon which the members of the council took their seats. Directly above the grand vizier’s place may still be seen the small window covered with a gilded lattice from behind which first Suleiman I., and after him all the other pâdishahs, took part unseen, or at all events were supposed to take part, in the sessions.H A secret passageway led from this hidden recess to the imperial apartments in the third enclosure. Here the great assembly, composed of all the chief ministers of the empire, met five times a week, presided over by the grand vizier. It was a most impressive sight: facing the entrance sat the grand vizier, and near him the viziers of the dome, the kapudan pasha, or chief admiral, the two chief justices of Anadoli and Rumili, representing the judiciary of the provinces of Asia and Europe; on one side the imperial treasurers, on the other the nisciandgi, whose duty it was to affix the Sultan’s seal to all decrees; beyond, to the right and left, two long lines of ulemas and chamberlains, and in the angles the sciaùs to whom were assigned the duties of bearing the orders and despatches of the assembly and carrying out the sentences, and who were trained to comprehend at once the exact significance of every look and gesture. Before this gathering the boldest quailed and the most innocent began to fearfully interrogate their own consciences. Every one sat with immovable countenance, crossed arms, and hands concealed in the folds of his garment; from overhead a flood of pale golden light fell upon the white turbans, long beards, rich furs, jewelled dagger-hilts, and motionless figures of the council, lending them a death-like pallor, as though a row of statues had been dressed and colored in imitation of life. Thick matting muffled the footfall of all who came and went, heavy perfumes filled the air from the rich furs of the ministers, and the green branches of the trees in the court without were reflected in the polished marbles of the walls, while from time to time the silence was broken by bursts of melody from the birds, which echoed and re-echoed beneath the gilded roof. All the surroundings of that awful tribunal were graceful, charming, delicate. One at a time the different voices of the members could be heard, subdued, monotonous, like the murmur of a brook, so that the accused, standing erect in the centre of the hall, would not know even from which particular mouth the sounds issued. A hundred great eyes were fixed with penetrating scrutiny upon a single face, whose every shade of expression was noted, and every smallest word that dropped from whose lips was taken account of. The deepest, most hidden secrets of the heart were guessed from a change of countenance. Sometimes the death-sentence would be pronounced in a few calm words after long dialogues carried on in subdued tones and listened to in sepulchral silence; or, again, it would fall suddenly, unexpectedly, like a clap of thunder, having its echoes in the passionate remonstrances of a tortured soul in its supreme moment, cut suddenly short when, at a sign from the vizier, a cimeter would descend, cleaving the skull in twain and staining the marbles and matting with blood. Aghas of spahis and Janissaries would fall to the earth, thrust through with daggers; governors and kaimacan sink with staring eyes, the noose drawn tight about their necks. In a few moments the body would have been laid beneath the plane trees with a green cloth thrown over it, the blood have been wiped up, the air perfumed afresh, and, the executioner having returned to his post, the council would resume its deliberations with countenances unmoved, hands still concealed, and unruffled, monotonous voices, while from the little Moorish windows above the same long, slanting rays of pale yellow light fell upon the same white turbans and black beards. It was those haughty judges’ turn to tremble, however, when, the Divân having incurred the displeasure of Murad IV. or the second Selim by some of its measures, the gilded grating which concealed the imperial recess was suddenly heard to resound beneath the furious fist of their supreme lord; even then, after a long and profound silence, during which terrified eyes furtively took counsel of one another, the deliberations were resumed in solemn tones and with impassive faces, but their icy fingers trembled beneath the great sleeves and their souls they commended to the mercy of God.

At the end of this second courtyard, which may be called, in a certain sense, the diplomatic court of the Seraglio, stood the third gate, flanked by marble columns and covered by a wide, overhanging roof, before which, night and day, a troop of white eunuchs and a band of kapuji, armed with sabres and daggers, stood on guard. This was the famous Bâb-i-Sâdet, or Gate of Felicity, leading to the third and innermost enclosure—that sacred portal which for nearly four centuries remained obdurately closed to every Christian who was not the representative of a reigning sovereign or a state; that door at which the supplicating curiosity of thousands of celebrated and influential travellers has knocked in vain; that door from out of which flowed, to spread abroad through every country on the surface of the earth, so many wild and fantastic and romantic tales, so many strange and mournful rumors, so many recitals of love and adventure and shadowy whispers of intrigues and dark conspiracies—so many volumes of poetry, voluptuous, fantastic, and horrible. It was the sacred threshold of the sanctuary of the king of kings, whose name was only pronounced by the common people with bated breath and feelings of secret awe and terror, as though it were the portal leading to some region of enchantment, passing which a profane mortal might suddenly find himself turned to stone or else behold sights which human language would be powerless to express—a door, in short, before which even now the most matter-of-fact, unimaginative traveller pauses with some slight feeling of awe, while his incredulous glance rests upon the lengthened shadow of his own stiff hat as it falls athwart the heavy half-closed doors.

And yet even this sacred precinct was not respected by the mad billows of military revolt. Indeed, it may be said that this particular corner of the great courtyard, situated between the hall of the Divân and the Bâb-i-Sâdet, is the precise spot in which the blind fury of rebellion has committed some of its most daring acts of insubordination. The vicar of God sometimes beheld that gleaming sword with which he ruled the world turned against himself, and that despotism which so jealously guarded every approach to the Seraglio was the very same which, on occasion, violated its most secret recesses. Once the dazzling blades of the cimeters were withdrawn from around that threatening colossus, it was easily seen upon how fragile a support its power rested. Armed hordes of Janissaries and spahis, pounding down the first and second doors with clubs, poured through in the dead of night, waving lighted torches and brandishing on the points of their gleaming blades the names of those ministers upon whom they were determined to wreak their vengeance, while their fierce shouts, reaching far beyond those invulnerable walls, spread terror and dismay in the very innermost recesses of their sovereign’s abode. In vain were bags of gold and silver coins thrown down from the summits of the walls; in vain did terrified muftis, sheikhs, ulemas, and all the most powerful and influential members of the court plead, reason, implore, promise, try by every means their fears or ingenuity could suggest to lower those brawny arms rigid with rage and fury; in vain the validéh sultans, half dead with fright, appeared at the grated windows holding up to view their little innocent children. The blind beast with a thousand heads was unchained, and nothing would satisfy it but living human victims, flesh to tear, blood to pour out, heads to carry stuck on the points of spears; and then the Sultan would appear in person between the battlements, even adventure as far as the barricades of the gateway, surrounded by trembling eunuchs and terrified pages armed with useless daggers, and, one by one, plead for each victim, promising, weeping, begging for mercy in the name of his mother, his sons, the Prophet, for the glory of the empire, the peace of the world; but nothing would avail. A fresh outburst of insults and threats, a waving of torches and brandishing of cimeters, was the only response to all entreaties; and so at last forth from the Gate of Felicity were led ministers, viziers, generals, eunuchs, favorites, one after another, cowering, shrieking, swooning with terror, and on the instant were torn in pieces by the howling pack, hacked by a hundred blades, trodden underfoot, mangled past recognition. Thus Murad III. surrendered his favorite falconer to be torn in pieces before his very eyes, as did Muhammad III. the kislaraghà Otman, and Ghaznèfer, chief of the white eunuchs, being moreover forced to salute the troops in the actual presence of their bleeding and mutilated corpses. And Murad IV. cast down the shrinking form of his grand vizier, Hafiz, into which seventeen daggers were instantly buried to the hilt, while Selim III. sacrificed his entire ministry to the fury of the mob; and then, as these weak pâdishahs returned to their own apartments beside themselves with shame and impotent rage, the triumphant rebels paraded the streets of Stambul, the lights from thousands of torches falling upon the torn and bleeding bodies of their victims dragged in brutal exultation in their midst.

The Gate of Felicity, like the Bâb-el-Selam, is a sort of passageway out of which one issues directly into that mysterious enclosure, the abode of the “brother of the sun.”

For my description to be effective, or for it to give a really good idea of the character of this part of the Seraglio, it should have a running accompaniment of subdued music full of sudden breaks and changes.

This small enchanted city, with its strange, confused architecture, whimsical, graceful, charming, was buried in a forest of great plane trees and cypresses, whose mighty branches stretched far above the roofs, casting their thick shade over an intricate labyrinth of gardens filled with roses and verbenas, courtyards reached by small, heavy doorways, and narrow streets flanked by rows of pavilions and Chinese kiosks. Footpaths led off under the trees to little lakes fringed with myrtle, in whose sparkling bosoms were reflected tiny white mosques and the silver domes of buildings built to resemble temples and cloisters, connected by covered galleries and long files of airy columns, and wooden roofs, inlaid and painted, overhanging arabesqued doorways, and flights of stairs leading to balconies furnished with carved balustrades. In every direction were long, dim perspectives, through which fountains could be seen sparkling in the distance, while glimpses of marble arch and column and terrace alternated with broad views of the Sea of Marmora, two shores of the Bosphorus, the harbor, and Stambul, all framed in by the deep green of the pines and sycamores; and spreading above this paradise that wonderful sky.

The buildings had been added on to one another without any settled plan or design, just as the needs or whims of the moment might dictate, both imposing and flimsy, like a stage-setting, and fairly bristling with secret passage-ways and hidden chambers, planned by a childish jealousy which, unseen itself, desired to see and hear everything. Although swarming with life, this little imperial city looked almost deserted upon the surface, as though the contemplative, pastoral character of the ancient Ottoman princes still brooded over the abode of their descendants—an encampment of stone, which, with all its pomp and splendor, still brought to mind that other one of canvas of the wandering tribes of Tartary; a great, spreading royal residence composed of a hundred little princely dwellings hiding behind one another, combining something of the confinement and melancholy of a prison with the decorum of a temple and the gay abandonment of the country. Before this spectacle, so full of princely magnificence and fantastic ingenuity, the new-comer pauses to ask himself what country he lives in or if he has fallen into another world.

This was the heart of the Seraglio, whence all the arteries of the empire drew their life, and to which all its veins led back.

The first building you see on entering is the throne-room, which is open to visitors. It is a small square edifice, surrounded by a beautiful marble portico, entered through a richly ornamented doorway flanked by two charming fountains. The roof is covered with gold arabesques, and the walls are lined with slabs of marble and faïence set in a symmetrical design: in the centre is a marble fountain, and it is lighted by means of lofty windows of stained glass. At the farther end stands the throne, fashioned like a great bedstead, covered by a canopy edged with pearls and supported on four slender columns of gilded copper, ornamented with arabesques and precious stones, and surmounted by four golden balls and crescents, from which horses’ tails—the emblem of the military power of the pâdishahs—are suspended.

Here the supreme lord held his solemn receptions of state in the presence of the assembled court, and here at the feet of the newly-installed Sultan were thrown the bodies of his brothers and nephews murdered to secure his reign from plots and conspiracies. My first thought on entering that room was of the nineteen unfortunate brethren of Muhammad III. The sound of the guns which announced their father’s death to Europe and Asia was heard in their prisons as well, where it meant the death-knell of them all, and soon after the Seraglio mutes threw them in one ghastly heap at the foot of the throne: young and old, it made no difference—some babies whose golden heads rested upon the sturdy chests of grown men, while even grizzled locks flowed over the pavement beneath the feet of boys of ten or twelve, rough prison caftans and muslin swaddling-bands all alike enwrapping stiffened limbs and staring faces. What rivers of blood have been reflected in those polished marbles and beautiful porcelains in this spot where the savage fury of Selim II., of Murad IV., of Ahmed I., and of Ibrahim burst all bounds, and they stood exulting witnesses of their victims’ agonies! Here viziers have been beaten down and trodden under foot by the sciaùs, their brains dashed out beneath the marble fountain, and governors conducted all the way from Syria or Egypt, tied to an agha’s saddle, to have their heads struck off at last; any one whose conscience accused him did well to turn on this threshold and bid an everlasting farewell to the blue sky and beautiful hills of Asia, while he who came forth alive greeted the sunshine with the feelings of a man who had just escaped death.

The throne pavilion is not the only building to which the public is now admitted. On coming out from thence we pass through a number of flower-gardens and courtyards surrounded by small buildings and Moorish archways supported upon slender marble columns. Here stood the college where the imperial pages received such instruction as should fit them for the highest offices of the state and court, and their princely residences and recreation halls; troops of servants waited upon them, and their masters were selected from among the most gifted and learned men of the empire. In the centre stood the library, consisting of a row of graceful Saracenesque kiosks with open peristyles; one of these is still standing, and is chiefly noticeable for its great bronze door ornamented with reliefs in jasper and lapis lazuli and covered with marvellous arabesques of foliage, stars, and figures of every conceivable device, so intricate and so delicately executed as to hardly seem like the work of mortal hands. Not far from the library stands the treasury, glistening with tiles, once the repository of fabulous riches, consisting for the most part of weapons seized by, or presented to, victorious sultans, and preserved by them as curiosities; but Muhammad II., who prided himself upon his skilful penmanship, left his inkstand studded with diamonds to the collection. The greater part of these treasures have now passed, converted into gold coins, into the coffers of the public treasury, but in the great days of the empire this pavilion contained a glittering array of Damascus cimeters whose hilts were solid masses of pearls and precious stones; huge pistols, their handles studded with as many as two hundred diamonds; daggers, a single one of which was worth a year’s tribute from an Asiatic province; massive silver and steel clubs, whose hand-pieces were of solid crystal, all chased and gilded; and among them the jewelled aigrettes of the Murads and Muhammads, the agate goblets in which once sparkled the wines of Hungary at imperial banquets, cups hollowed out of a single turquoise which once graced the tables of shahs of Persia, necklaces of Caramanian diamonds the size of walnuts, pearl-studded belts, saddles overlaid with gold, rugs glittering with gems; so that the whole building seemed to be on fire and one’s sight and reason alike became dazed. A little farther on, in the middle of a lonely garden, is the famous “cage” in which, from the fourth Muhammad’sI time on, those of the imperial princes whose liberty seemed to offer a menace to the peace of the throne were kept in confinement, until, on the death of the reigning monarch, the shouts and acclamations of the Janissaries should call one of them to succeed him, or the appearance of the executioner warn them to prepare for death. It is built in the form of a small temple, with massive walls unbroken by windows, and lighted from above. Against the single door, made of iron, a heavy stone was always rolled. Here Abdul-Aziz passed the few days which elapsed between his downfall and death. Here the Caligula of Ottoman history, Ibrahim, met his horrible and wretched end, and his image is the first which rises to confront the visitor as he pauses at the entrance to that necropolis of the living. The military aghas, having torn him from the throne, dragged him hither like any common criminal, and imprisoned him with two of his favorite odalisques. After the first wild paroxysms of despair he grew resigned. “This doom,” said he, “was written upon my forehead; it is the will of God.” Of all his great empire and that vast harem, the scene for so many years of such acts of mad folly, nothing remained to him but a prison-cell, two slaves, and the Koran. Believing his life, at all events, to be safe, his mind was at rest, and he even cherished a hope that his boon-companions of the barracks and taverns of Stambul might bring about a popular reaction in his favor. But, unfortunately, if he had forgotten that admonition in the Koran, “When there are two khalifs, kill one of them,” the muftis, their memories jogged by the aghas and viziers, had not. And so it came to pass that he sat one day upon a mat in a corner of his prison reading aloud from the Koran to the two slaves who stood erect before him, their arms crossed upon their breasts; he wore a black caftan fastened about the waist with a tattered scarf, and upon his head a red woollen cap, while a ray of pale light falling from above upon his face showed it to be wasted and waxen, but composed. Suddenly there was a dull, hollow noise without, and, leaping to his feet as the door opened, he confronted a sinister group upon the threshold whose significance he understood at once. Raising his eyes to a small grated balcony extending out from the wall near the roof, he could distinguish the impassive faces of a group of muftis, aghas, and viziers upon which his doom was plainly written. Beside himself with terror, he poured out a torrent of prayers and supplications: “Mercy! mercy for the Pâdishah! spare my life! If there be any among you who have eaten my bread, save me now in God’s name! You, Mufti Abdul-rahim, be careful of what you are about to do; you will see very soon that people are not all blind and stupid. I will tell you now that Insuf-pasha advised me to have you executed for a traitor, and I refused, and now you want to kill me! Read the Koran, as I am doing; read the word of God, and see how ingratitude and injustice are condemned! Let me live, Abdul-rahim! Life! life!”