Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor

THE GREAT BAZAAR, CONSTANTINOPLE

T. Allom. J. W. Lowry.

Markets at Constantinople, where various commodities are vended, are properly distinguished by three names−Bezesteen contained shops where cloth was sold; Bazaar was an open market where eatables were exposed for sale; thus Et-Bazaar, and Baluk-Bazaar, are the flesh and fish markets; and Charschey was a covered street, with stalls or shops on each side, where all kinds of manufactured wares were to be met with. These original designations, however, have merged into one, and bazaar is a general name by which every market is denominated.

The Great Bazaar, or Charschey, was erected by Mohamed II. when he took possession of Constantinople, and began to change its character from a European to an Asiatic city, by introducing the edifices and usages of the East. It was afterwards re-edified by his successors, and its parts distinguished by Eski and Yeni, the Old and the New Bazaar. They now consist of long avenues covered over with lofty arches of brick, lighted by apertures in the roof, and branching off in various directions. The ceilings of the vaults, and other parts of the walls, are painted with various flowers and devices. On each side of the passage are counters, or stalls, ranged along, leaving a wide way between. On the counter of each stall the merchant sits, generally smoking a chibouque, or narghillai, with his crossed legs drawn under him. If he be distinguished by a calpac, or inverted cone, upon his head, or a large snow-white turban, he is either an Armenian or a Turk; so he quietly abides his time, and suffers you to pass with imperturbable gravity, seldom condescending to ask your custom. If he wear a cross-barred handkerchief, twisted round the crown of a hat, or a coarse muslin wound about a red fez, he is either a Jew or a Greek, and is as importunate with you to buy as a salesman in Monmouth-street. Behind him, his larger wares are ranged against the walls, and his smaller in clumsy glass-cases beside him on the counter, where all articles are confounded in a heap. In his rear is generally a low door, opening into a small room in the thickness of the walls, where his unexposed goods are stored.

These edifices, filled with light and inflammable goods, are liable to danger from the constant fires which occur at Constantinople, though they are in some measure protected by their construction, and the thickness of the walls. When fires have penetrated, they have been attended with the most awful consequences. It has happened that both ends of the covered way have been blazing at once, and all egress prevented to the crowd within, and hundreds have miserably perished, either consumed or suffocated in these vaults of fire. In order to guard against this, no smoking, or light of any kind, is allowed: notwithstanding this, the inveterate propensity of the Turk is not to be controlled, and, relying on his unalterable destiny, he is often seen with the glowing bowl of his pipe thrust among the inflammable materials of his counter. Every evening at sunset, the bazaar is closed with iron gates, and the merchants having locked up their wares behind certain partitions drawn before them, are seen wending their way in groups to the several quarters of the city in which each class is located−the Jew to Galata, the Greek to the Fanar, the Armenian to Ypsomathia, and the Turk to various quarters.

Under cover at all times, and protected from wind, rain, and sun, this bazaar is the resort of crowds every day and all day long. In the heats of summer it is particularly agreeable. People escape from the burning atmosphere, and an exposed unsheltered street, to this retreat. It then resembles a subterranean city, crowded with a busy population of many thousand persons, bustling, buying, and selling in the cool and dim twilight. But the fair sex form by far the majority. It seems a privileged place, where the ordinary distinction of sect or caste is laid aside, and the Turk, Frank, and Raya, all mix and chat and bargain together without restraint; and it seems the only place where the pride and taciturnity of the Osmanli is laid aside. At the entrance are crowds of poor Jews, who proffer their services to conduct you to what you want, and carry home what you purchase.

The first attraction is generally a perfume-stall. Here attar of roses, essence of lemon, extract of jasmine, pastiles of odoriferous gums, which, when ignited, fill the air with their aromatic scent, are presented to your choice. The last are particularly recommended, as used by the ladies of the seraglio, who burn them in their pipe-bowls. But of all the singular perfumes presented to you, are rats’-tails. An animal of this species is endued with musky secretions, and its tail yields a strong scent, which it retains for an indefinite term. All these and many more odoriferous delicacies, which a Turk prizes, are presented to you; and to induce you to buy, your hands, lips, hair, whiskers, and cravat, are bedewed with them all, and you go forth redolent with animal and vegetable odours. The next attraction is the shoe-bazaar. Here the varied display of imeh and papoosh, boots and slippers, is very dazzling: a Turk never wears a boot without a slipper. The first are red or yellow morocco, without soles, but sewed below into a pointed bag, into which the foot is first forced; and then, with the boot, into the slipper. The gait of both men and women, thus encumbered, is singularly awkward and helpless. The feet scrape the ground, and the sole of the slipper, which scarcely adheres to the point of the toe, is dragged along, continually flapping against the heel. These characteristic parts of Oriental dress are the particular objects of Frank purchasers. The slippers are made of all materials, and braided with all kinds of embroidery in gold and silver, and often ornamented with pearls and precious stones. In this department are found drinking-cups of untanned leather, and mirrors with morocco frames.

But by far the most attractive display is the pipe department, and the variety of chiboques. It is here the fancy of a Turk luxuriates, and loves to exhibit itself with a dexterity shown in nothing else. The implement consists of three separate parts−tube, bowl, and mouth-piece—in each of which there is an endless variety of shape, size, and material. The most favourite wood for the first is cherry-tree brought from Trebisond, rose-wood and jasmine, sometimes extending to the length of ten or twelve feet. When you choose your rod, the artist pierces it with the aid of his toe, a member he uses with more skill than his finger. The bowl is a red earth, found and manufactured at Burgaz, highly gilt and polished. The mouth-piece is generally amber, imported by Armenians from the Baltic. This is prized above all materials, not only for its beauty, but for its qualities. It is supposed to be unsusceptible of the contagion of the plague; and when that disease is raging, and every man shrinks from contact with his neighbour, the amber chiboque passes from mouth to mouth without any apprehension of pestilent saliva. A pipe is sometimes ornamented with precious stones, and, with the tobacco-bag glittering with spangles, varies in price from 10 to 1000 piastres, according to the workmanship. Besides these and other articles peculiarly Turkish, clothing, stuffs, carpets, shawls, &c. are displayed, and among them the highly-prized manufactures of Manchester.

THE ATMEIDAN, OR HIPPODROME; AND MOSQUE OF ACHMET.
WITH THE COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE AND EGYPTIAN OBELISK

T. Allom. S Lacey.

The word meidan signifies “a place,” and corresponds with the sense in which we use the latter term in our towns. There are many so called in Constantinople, but the most distinguished is the Atmeidan, or “Place of the Horse.” It was, under the Greek empire, called Hippodrome, which implies a horse-course. The Turks applied it to the same purpose, and translated the Greek appellation into their own language. It is described in the most gorgeous manner by the writers of the lower empire, as ornamented with marble colonnades, and surrounded by seats like an amphitheatre, where the courses were observed by the spectators. These things have disappeared under the Turks, and it is now a naked oblong area, with a very ruinous and neglected aspect. It has, however, still its attractions. It is almost the only open and airy public space within the walls of the city, and it is the only spot where the very few ornaments of this great capital, now extant, are to be seen in their original site and form.

The present area is an irregular quadrangle, about 260 yards long, and 150 wide. It is bounded on one side by the mosque of Sultan Achmet, from which it is separated only by an open screen, and from it this beautiful edifice, with its six elegant minarets, appears to the greatest advantage. On the others, by large but mean edifices, one of which is the menagerie of the Turkish empire. Among the gifts expected from the pasha of a distant province, are specimens of its wild animals; and lions, tigers, and other beasts are here enclosed and exhibited, as formerly in the tower of London. Among the animals here in the time of Busbequius, was an extraordinary elephant, which, he affirmed, “could dance and play ball.” They are not confined to cages, but allowed to walk about in large caverns, where the solitary magnificence of the animal would be strikingly exhibited, were it not that the foul odour exhaled from putrid offals, on which they feed, repels a stranger with insuperable disgust.

Down the centre are seen the splendid remains of the Greek empire. The first is the granite obelisk, still in high preservation, brought from the Thebaïd to Rome, and from thence to ornament the new city of Constantine. It is supported on brazen globes, resting on a sculptured pedestal bearing an inscription implying that it was erected by Theodosius. On one face is sculptured the machines by which the obelisk was raised to its present site, and is a curious display of the mechanical powers at that time in use. A singular circumstance occurred at its erection, which has since that time furnished an extraordinary auxiliary to mechanical powers. When the ponderous block was raised as high as the combination of cords and pulleys could draw it, it was found to want one inch of elevation to place it on the pedestal. The emperor and all the spectators supposed the labour and expense lost, and the case hopeless; when the ingenious artist who had undertaken to raise it, caused water to be thrown upon the cords by which the obelisk was suspended: an immediate contraction of the fibres took place, the cords shortened, and the immense weight was quietly raised to its place without any other mechanical Contrivance. Another is that called the Colossus: it was once covered with dense brass plates; and a Greek couplet on the pedestal, described what it formerly was, and the reason of its name−

 
“A brazen wonder of colossal size,
Which Rhodes could boast−lo! here is seen to rise.”
 

But the Turks have belied the inscription. They have carefully picked off the brass plates for their trifling value, and left nothing but an unsightly shaft of masonry and mortar in which they were embedded. But the most valuable remnant of antiquity existing here, or perhaps in any other country, is a colossal brazen twisted serpent, which once had a triple head, from whence issued wine, water, and milk. It had formed a shrine at Delphi, on which were placed the golden tripod and patera presented to the god of the temple by the Greeks, to commemorate the victories in the Persian war, and was removed to Constantinople as one of the most valuable remains of ancient art and historic recollection. It was so highly prized, that the Turks considered it as the talisman that protected the Greek empire; and when Mohammed entered the devoted capital in triumph, he struck off one of the heads with his battle-axe, to destroy, as it were, the delusion. It is now a truncated stump, and constantly battered with stones by the Turks, as if their ancient superstition and prejudice yet existed.

The illustration represents the present state of the Hippodrome, and gives an idea of its ancient use. The Turks have no trials of equestrian skill like those of the Greeks; but here they usually exercise their horses, and throw the djerid, a wooden pointless spear, which they cast to a distance, and catch as it recoils from the ground, with considerable dexterity. On one side is the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, now the head-quarters of the cavalry staff, who are seen among the equestrians.

THE MOSQUE OF SANTA SOPHIA AND FOUNTAIN OF THE SERAGLIO

Drawn by Leitch. Engraved by J. Sands.

When Constantine dedicated his great city to Christ, he thought it right to erect in it a suitable edifice for Christian worship, on a scale of magnificence commensurate with his capital; he therefore built one of the first public temples, to the new faith, that had been permitted since the destruction of Christian churches and the extirpation of their congregations by the decree of Diocletian, and he dedicated it to the Ἁγία σοφία, “the Holy and Eternal Wisdom of God,” as manifested in his blessed Son. During the discordant schisms which unhappily rent the Christian church, this splendid structure was reduced to a state of ruin, and it was reserved for the emperor Justinian to re-edify it. He had the old foundations cleared away, and purchased, at a considerable expense, a larger area on which to erect it. To obtain funds for the purpose, he suspended the pensions he had granted to learned men, and melted down the silver statue of Theodosius the Great, which weighed 7400 lb. Ten thousand men were employed, whose exertions were stimulated by encouragements and rewards. The emperor himself appeared among them, and paid them every night, in pieces of silver, for the work they had executed during the day. He was seen divested of his imperial robes, in a simple tunic of linen, examining their progress, and applauding and conferring gifts on the most expert and industrious artisans. In five years and eleven months, the vast building was completed; and when he had thus accomplished his splendid undertaking, he exclaimed with exultation, “I have conquered thee, O Solomon.” The city was at that time so subject to earthquakes, that private houses were generally constructed of wood, to obviate their destructive effects. This magnificent work had scarcely been completed, when it was shattered by one of those rude and frequent shocks; but the indefatigable emperor again repaired the shaken ruins. From some unknown physical cause, the violent concussions ceased to shake the place, so that slight and scarcely perceptible shocks occur only at intervals of many years; and the church of Santa Sophia is now as it was left by the last re-edification of Justinian.

When the Turks entered the city, they rushed to this building, to massacre or make slaves of all who took refuge there; they then proceeded to demolish it, as the most eminent place of infidel worship. In this critical moment, the sultan entered, and arrested the destruction just as it had commenced. He announced, that he gave to his soldiers the plunder of spoil and captives, but the public edifices he reserved to himself. He at once conceived the idea of converting this magnificent Christian church into a Mohammedan mosque; and as he had transferred the government of the Osmanli to the most splendid capital, so the worship of Islam should be celebrated in the most splendid edifice in the world. In order to accommodate the interior to the new rites, the effigies and pictures which covered the walls were erased, and all trace of such representations was effaced by a simple and uniform colouring: the arms of the cross were, with little violence of alteration, bent up into the form of a crescent; and, to silence the sound of a bell, so revolting to the followers of the Prophet, he caused a minaret to be erected at an angle, to invite the faithful to prayer by the sound of the human voice; and having thus purified it from what he supposed to be superstitious and idolatrous emblems, he sat down cross-legged in the sanctuary, and caused himself to be shaved there. He then ordered the Koran to be read in place of the Bible, offered up his prayers, and finally suspended the curtain that had once closed the door of the temple at Mecca. He made no further alteration in the Christian church, and it remains as it was left by Justinian, unchanged for 1300 years, the most perfect and splendid monument of the arts of the Lower Empire.

The general model of a Christian church was that of a cross; the stem represented by the nave, the cross by the transepts, and the upper part by the choir: but from the inequality of the parts, the western churches laboured under a disproportion from which the eastern were exempt. The arms of the Greek cross are all of equal length, and Santa Sophia is built on its model; it has therefore a symmetry which the Latin churches have not, though founded on the same symbol. The ground-plan is that of a cross enclosed in a square whose sides measure 243 feet, but, including the portico, its length is 269. Over the centre of the cross rises the dome. This dome is called “aërial,” because it is so constructed that its height is only one-sixth of its diameter, and its curve so flat that its convexity seems to correspond with that of the sky, and be a portion only of the great firmament, let down, and suspended, as the Greeks say, by a chain. To effect this, it is built of materials of the least possible gravity, pumice-stone, specifically lighter than the water on which it floats, and bricks from Rhodes five times less weighty than those of ordinary burnt clay. The vast dome, thus reduced in weight, is further secured by the pillars on which it rests. These are ponderous piles of freestone, made of blocks hewn into cubes and triangles, united by huge cramps of iron. It is partly by this judicious distribution of its materials, that the vast edifice has stood so long unshaken by those shocks of earthquakes, which have prostrated so many other edifices in the same period.

The mosque is entered by a portico twelve yards in breadth; this communicates with another by nine gates with marble arches, closed by valves of rich bronze cast in high relief: this opens into another parallel to it. These vestibules formed what is called the narthex, or pronaos, of the Greek Christian church. Here stood the font where catechumens were baptized, and penitents were placed before they presumed, or were deemed worthy to enter the naos, or body, of the sacred edifice. From hence they passed into the interior by five doors of plain bronze.

The first object that strikes, on entering the body of the edifice, is the vast aërial dome, rising to the height of 180 feet above the flooring, reposing on four massive arches, forming the segments of semi-domes, and supported by others still less. The dome is perforated by twenty-six windows, and a multitude of others appear in the perspective. On each side are colonnades supporting galleries, one of which was reserved for the emperor, and called the Gallery of Constantine. Round the base of the dome runs another gallery, at a great elevation. It is splendidly illuminated during the evenings of the Ramazan and other Turkish festivals, and produces a magnificent effect. Different parts of the edifice are supported by 104 pillars, amongst which are eight of porphyry removed by Constantine from the temple of the Sun at Rome, and six of green jasper from the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The sun was the tutelary deity of the emperor while he continued a heathen; when he adopted a better, he removed those ornaments of the temples both of Apollo and Diana, to enrich the temple of Christ. The walls and domes are encrusted with mosaic, which forms various figures and devices. They have been nearly obliterated by the Turks. There yet remain, however, great winged seraphims in the four angles under the central dome, whose faces are mutilated because they represented the human countenance. The rest are covered over with Arabic inscriptions from the Koran, and among them the 104 attributes of Allah, which every Turk is bound to repeat over in his daily prayers. The mosaic of the dome is constantly falling from its cement, and is found to consist of small cubes about the size of playing-dice, of various-coloured glass, which the imaums collect and sell to Franks, who have them formed and set in crosses, and thus commemorate that faith for which the mosque was originally built.

Passing under the great dome, and opposite the vestibule, is the semi-dome which forms the termination of the temple. Here was the high altar of the Christian church; behind it, the sanctuary, separated by a screen from the body of the edifice. This sacred place is now the Mehrabé, where the Koran is deposited. The ground-plan annexed to the map will convey a better idea of these localities than any description.

The exterior of this interesting edifice is singularly heavy, and, as a celebrated French traveller says, furieusement lourde en dehors. It exhibits an irregular mass of cupolas, half-domes, shelving roofs, and stunted minarets; one of which, more mean than the rest, is the identical one erected by Mahomet to convert the church into a mosque. Even the great dome, so celebrated for its architectural beauty, and which the Turks have never yet been able to imitate, looks low and flat when viewed on the outside, and produces nothing of that “aërial” effect, in comparison to its internal structure. The edifice has at length begun to exhibit symptoms of decay. About six years ago, after a continued storm of wind and rain, one of the smaller domes fell into the church. On clearing away the surface of rubbish, the flooring was found covered over with glittering cubes which had formed the ceiling, and, in such abundance, that every one was supplied with as much as he chose to take for a trifling gratuity.

The Turks regard this mosque with a veneration and jealousy greater than any other. It is not always difficult to obtain admission to the rest, and generally the area in which they are placed is a thoroughfare, through which a Frank may pass unmolested, but the foot of an infidel is never suffered to desecrate, a second time, the precincts of this converted temple: if he attempt to approach, he is always driven back with abuse. The only occasion when permission is given to see it, is when an ambassador arrives, or is about to leave Constantinople. As a special favour, a firman is granted to him and a certain number of his suite, who are then, only, permitted to enter without molestation. But even this is not always a protection against the fanaticism of individuals. Secretaries to embassies, accompanied by their ladies, have been insulted and assaulted with the sultan’s firman in their hands.