Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor
TekstPASS AND WATERFALL IN THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS
Drawn fom Nature by F. Hervé E. Benjamin.
This celebrated chain presents continually to the traveller a succession of objects sometimes minute and picturesque, sometimes vast and sublime. In the recesses between the high ridges, the scenery is rural and pastoral, equalling that of Arcadia; on the summits of the mountains, all seems thunder-splintered rocks and riven precipices, where the ear is stunned with the roar of cataracts, as the eye is astonished and the senses are appalled by the vast chasms through which they rush. The Balkans are seldom seen covered with snows, and the waters are rarely arrested by ice. At no season is observed, as in the Alps, frost-suspended waterfalls,
“Whose idle torrents only seem to roar;”
but the sound of the bursting cataract never ceases, and the mountain-streams, fed by continued showers, do not depend on the solution of snows, but are always tumbling down the steeps and rushing through the ravines.
The beautiful waterfall given in our illustration, occurs in the pass by Bazarjik, not far from the village of Yenikui, half way up the mountain-side. In several parts of this pass, the vegetation is extremely luxuriant. Sometimes vast forest-trees are seen rising from the depths of chasms, and shooting their giant trunks, as they struggle up for light and air, till they reach the summit, and then, and not till then, expanding their noble foliage; while the eye of the traveller, looking down into the chasm from which they issue, is lost in the immensity of the depth, and cannot trace the vast stems of the trees to the ground. Sometimes the vegetation is of a very different character: the mountains are celebrated for the abundance of plants and shrubs used in dyeing, and parties set out every year, in the season, from Adrianople, Philopopoli, and other towns, to collect them. Nothing can then surpass the rich and glowing hue which clothes the surface. The deep crimson of the sumachs, with the varying colours of yellow, brown, purple, and the dark tints of the overhanging evergreens, give a beautiful variety, exceeding perhaps that of any other region on the surface of the earth.
CITY OF THYATIRA.
ASIA MINOR
T. Allom. S. Fisher.
The notice of Thyatira in profane history is brief. It is enumerated as one of the cities of Lydia, but not distinguished by any circumstances that would confer upon it celebrity among the Greek free cities of this region. When the all-conquering Romans possessed themselves of Asia, it fell under their power, and is mentioned by their historians. Livy says, Antiochus collected his forces at Thyatira, when he marched against their invading legions; he was defeated at Magnesia, and Thyatira with all the surrounding territories merged into a Roman province.
When Christianity began to expand itself, the inhabitants of this place early evinced a disposition to embrace its new doctrines. St. Paul, in his travels in Greece, met at Philippi a woman of Thyatira; she was concerned in the sale of purple, either the dye or the dyed cloth, for which the region in which her city was situated was then famous. It was extracted from the shell-fish abounding on the sea-coasts, and was in extensive demand as an article of commerce, used on various important occasions. It was selected by the Jews for the curtains of the tabernacle and the robes of the priests. Among Gentiles, the Chaldeans clothed their idols, and the Persians their great men, in purple; for Daniel was honoured with a robe of that colour when interpreting Belshazzar’s dream, and Mordecai was arrayed in it when he was raised to the rank of minister of state. Among the Romans, it was the hue most precious, and distinguished their kings and emperors from the time of Tullus Hostilius to Augustus Cæsar. It marked the difference between the patrician and the knight, the youth and the child; the temples of the gods, and the triumphs of mortals, were adorned with it. It was the colour most prized and honoured both in the East and the West of the ancient world.
Lydia, the vender of this precious dye in Europe, which was imported from her own country, when she heard Paul expound the doctrines of Christ, at once embraced them. She was baptized by the apostle, who, at her entreaty, made her house his abode while he remained at Philippi. It is probable that this circumstance may have facilitated the reception of the gospel at Thyatira among the friends and commercial connexions of Lydia. A congregation was immediately after formed there, and the fourth church of the Apocalypse established. It was eulogized by the Evangelist for the good works of the new converts; their charity, their patience, their service in God’s law, and all characters by which the primitive Christians were distinguished; but these high qualities were alloyed by the frailties of a corrupt nature, from which not even the purest Christian state was exempt. A woman named Jezebel, or whose character resembled that infamous one of the Old Testament, influenced and seduced them to evil; and, to reclaim them from their sinful practices, St. John sent them a solemn warning in his divine epistle to the Asiatic churches; but it does not appear with what success, for no further notice is found of the city, and its fate is involved in impenetrable obscurity. Its very site was lost in oblivion, and it was not till about a century and a half since, that travellers set out from Smyrna to ascertain its locality. At a Turkish village some inscriptions were discovered, on one of which was found the words ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΗ ΘΥΑΤΕΙΡΗΝΩΝ ΒΟΥΛΗ, which seemed to decide the situation of the ancient town; its modern Turkish name is “Akhissar,” or the White Castle.
The town is approached by a long avenue of cypress and poplars, through the vistas of which, the domes and minarets of the mosques are seen shooting up. The background is closed by an amphitheatre of hills, circling the rich plain on which the city stands. On entering it a busy scene presents itself, forming a strong and pleasing contrast to what the mind anticipates in this obscure church of the Apocalypse. Stores, merchant shops, and a busy crowd bustling through them, give it the appearance of a thronged and opulent mart, such as perhaps Thyatira once was, when purple was its staple commodity. It still carries on an extensive trade in cotton wool, and is still famous for the milesia vellera fucata, which formerly conferred celebrity upon its neighbouring city.
The present population of Akhissar amounts to between six and seven thousand inhabitants, of whom 1,500 are Christians of the Greek and Armenian churches, which have each respectively a place of worship. That of the Greeks is very mean, and the earth and numerous graves have so accumulated about it, that it seems half buried, and is approached by a descent of many steps. This process seems to have gone on, so as to obliterate the former Christian edifices which stood here. There exist no traces of them above ground, but in excavating different places, the remains of masonry, to a considerable extent, are discovered, having once, according to tradition, formed the foundation of Christian churches. Shafts of mutilated columns are often found obtruding above the soil in cemeteries and other places−all that exist of buildings once standing on the surface. It is probable that many of these marked fanes dedicated to Diana, whose worship was very extensive in Asia, and not confined to Ephesus; she appears to have been the tutelar deity of Thyatira also, and several inscriptions intimate the extent of her influence and the devotion of her worshippers, till both yielded to a superior power, and the visionary train of heathen deities vanished before the light of the gospel.
Among the very agreeable accessories of this place, is the abundance of pure water with which it is supplied; perennial streams run down from the hills by which it is surrounded, and, meandering through the more level ground, and imparting freshness and fertility to the meadows and gardens of its environs, they enter the city, conducted by various courses formed for the purpose. This fluid, essential to the Osmanli, both as a natural and religious want, they prize and cherish so dearly, that expedients are used to collect it, where it is available. At Ak Hissar they have taken more than common care; they have constructed aqueducts consisting of more than 3000 pipes, from whence the water issues in various channels through the streets, so that the air in the heats of summer is constantly refreshed by the gushing streams, and the ear soothed by the gurgling sound. This water is remarkable for its salutary qualities; it is cool, sweet, limpid, very grateful to the taste, and light of digestion to the stomach. The country about the town is rich and fertile to a high degree, and the air remarkable for its purity, fragrance, and salubrity; it has all those qualities which the bounty of nature has conferred on the lovely plains of Asia Minor, and has invited a larger population than is usually found in those beautiful but now desolate regions.
It is marked, however, by Oriental circumstances revolting to European feelings. It is surrounded by cemeteries more numerous than those found near much larger cities. Attracted, perhaps, by the odour of these charnel-houses, vultures abound here; instead of the cooing of doves which marks Philadelphia, or the crepitation of the stork’s bill which distinguishes Pergamus, the scream of this ravenous and unclean bird is the sound most frequently heard; flocks are constantly seen wheeling round in the air, or lighting by the road-side, covering the fields, and so tame as quite to disregard the approach of a passenger. It is this characteristic of the town which is presented in our illustration−one of its cemeteries strewn over with shafts and mouldings of former buildings now laid to mark the graves, and vultures flapping their wings over the corpse interred below.
CONSTANTINOPLE FROM THE HEIGHTS ABOVE EYOUB
Drawn by W. L. Leitch. Sketched by T. Allom. Engraved by H. Adlard.
This view of the city is a companion for a former. The one presented it as it appears from the mouth of the Golden Horn, the other from its head; and it displays many objects of interest on both sides of a beautiful expanse of water, whose visible circumference may be estimated at 20 miles; the length of the whole harbour being about 15 miles, and its general breadth from 8 to 10 furlongs.
Where the Cydaris and Barbyses discharge themselves into it, the slime and mud carried down by the stream are deposited; and it forms a flat alluvial soil, where extensive manufactories of pottery have been established. As this is in the vicinity of a royal kiosk, it has obtained the name of the Tuileries, for the same reason as the French called their palace−because it was built where a manufactory of tiles had been established. The deposit continues to fill up the harbour, and it is necessary to mark the new-formed shoals, for the direction of vessels, by stakes stuck in the mud, so that this part of the harbour exhibits a curious spectacle of a labyrinth of palisades.
Opposite these, on the northern shore, is the “Yelan Seraï” or Palace of the Serpent forming an imperial residence. Many fantastic reasons are assigned for this name by the Turks, and stories told similar to that of the Kiz-Koulesi. But the simple reason seems to be, that the soil in this place abounds with these reptiles; and they so infested the palace that they were found coiled up on divans, and it was necessary to inspect every couch and seat before it could be occupied; the kiosk has, therefore, been abandoned to decay. Though serpents seem now less numerous than formerly in this place, the deleterious character of it is not lessened. The mal-aria generated, spreads a venomous effluvia, as fatal as that of vipers; this is evinced on the residents. The barrack of the “kombaragees,” or bombardiers, who rendered such signal service to the sultan in extirpating the Janissaries, is not far from it, and their sallow and sickly aspect exhibits proof that health is assailed by an effluvia as mortal as the serpent’s breath.
Next in succession is the “Guiumuch Hané,” or Silver Foundery, from whence the prepared metal is brought to the Tarap Hané in the outer court of the seraglio to be stamped. There is no copper coin in circulation in Turkey; but silver is debased so as to become a more worthless metal. The coins of this imitation formerly were the asper, parasi, beslik, and onlik, they have become extinct except the parasi, and another, formerly unknown, introduced the piaster and its several denominations. The parasi is a minute coin, so very small and light, that it can only be taken up by the tip of a wet finger. Every shopkeeper has a board secured by a ledge and running to a point, on which the paras are reckoned, and then spouted into a canvass bag. At the present rate of exchange, this apparently silver coin is less than one third of a farthing, and, as all money is reckoned by it, a stranger is startled to see his baccul’s or huckster’s bills amount to 10,000 paras. Turkish coins contain no representation of the head of the sovereign, but give his name and title, the place where they were struck, the date and year of the sovereign’s reign; the inscription on the present, coin is−“Sultan Mahmoud ibn Sultan Abdul Hamed el Sultan ibn el Sultan,” that is, Sultan Mahmoud, the son of Sultan Abdul Hamed Khan, himself a sultan, and son of a sultan;” the reverse is−“Sultan alberim vehaka nul bahrim sarb fi Constantami,” that is, “Sultan, conqueror of the world, sovereign of men, struck at Constantinople.” All this is generally expressed by a convoluted cipher, called nizam. Three cities in the empire are allowed to coin, beside the capital; Adrianople, Smyrna, and Cairo.
This part of the harbour opens into a deep valley, ascending up to the high grounds on which stands the elevated village, called by the Turks Tatavola, and by the Greeks, Aya Demetri. Small streams, running down the sides of the hills, carry with them all kinds of offal, and the deposit below is sometimes so enormous that the whole surface becomes a most foul and putrid mass, the fumes of contagion, from whence it periodically expands itself over the city. So tremendous was the miasma generated on one occasion, that 1000 persons were brought out to be buried every day through the Top-Kapousi gate. It is in such places that the plague is never extinguished, but remains always slumbering, till some circumstance calls it into activity. But a still more dreadful calamity issued from this valley. It is supposed to be the avenue through which the Turkish fleet was conveyed into the harbour. Ascending from the Bosphorus by a corresponding valley on the other side, and climbing on machines the eminence between, the Greeks, secure as they thought themselves by closing the mouth of the harbour, were astonished to see the enemy’s fleet issue from the side of the hill, and ride directly under their walls. This decided the fate of the city−paralyzed by terror and despair, they made from that moment a feeble resistance.
The next object that presents itself is the village of Hasskui, the favourite residence of the Jews. It is computed, that there are 50,000 of these people living here, and in other districts, in or near the capital. They have a cemetery in this place, of considerable extent; and though the dead are assigned a residence on a healthful, breezy eminence, decorated with sculptured tombs and monuments of marble, inscribed with epitaphs in high relief, the abodes of the living are even more wretched than in any other place. They inhabit a valley shut out from the winds of the north by a high ridge of hills, and open to the sultry heat of the south; while the pestilential effluvia arising from the vegetable decomposition of the marsh, the suffocating smoke of brick and tile kilns, and the metallic vapours of the silver foundery, form the atmosphere they breathe. Their own habits are singularly dirty, and the streets are filled with putrid water stagnating into offensive pools, without any current of air to disperse the foul accumulation of gases in the atmosphere. They are a prey, therefore, to all the diseases resulting from such a combination of evils. Their houses are small, low, damp, dark, and unventilated; yet they contain a crowded population. The women living in such abodes are generally a deteriorated race. They marry at an early age, and bring forth children, diminutive, pale, bloated, and rickety. On every Saturday, their day of rest, they are seen swarming about the open doors, to breathe, as it were, a pure air; and a passing stranger is astonished at so wretched a population. The adult males are distinguished by dirty ragged garments. Small mean hats, bound round with a coarse cross-bar cotton handkerchief; trousers which scarcely reach to the leg, exposing stockings full of holes. The people here, like the Ephraimites, seem doomed to a sibboleth−a pronunciation so imperfect, that they are scarcely understood in any language they attempt to speak. They snatch with avidity at things rejected by others as unfit to be used. Their soiled ragged clothes are the refuse of other men’s dress; and their food, whatever withered vegetables or stale meat are cast away as improper for human consumption. They exercise all callings by which money can be made, and make no exception to the vilest; but particularly delight in the sale of old clothes, a propensity which seems to mark them in every country where they are scattered. Such are the characteristics which distinguish this people in whatever district they are established, forming a striking contrast with all about them, and evincing the indelible impression of a peculiar nation. Above Hasskui is the village of Halish-oglon, inhabited by Armenians; and while these robust, comely, healthy, and well-dressed people breathe the pure air in fine spacious houses above, the miserable Jew is thrust down below, grovelling in dirt, disease, and misery.
Near this is a mosque, distinguished by an extraordinary circumstance. The minarets attached to every other, are always seen of a pure white, and carefully kept so, particularly those of Imperial edifices: but the minaret here is red, and displays the only one so coloured, perhaps, in the Turkish empire. The reason assigned for it is characteristic of a Turk. When Constantinople was besieged by Bajazet, a desperate conflict took place in this valley, and the effusion of blood was so great from the slaughter of the Greeks, that it rose to the height of the minaret; and when it subsided, it left its own colour upon the tower, which it has ever since retained in memory of the event.
The palace of the “Tersana emini,” or master of the arsenal, next comes in view and the extensive and noble establishment over which he presides. The stores, docks, and other edifices connected with it, extend for nearly a mile and a half along the shores of the harbour. They are constructed of solid masonry, and contain rope-yards, and an hospital: 500 labourers, and the same number of slaves in chains, condemned for various offences, are daily at work there. The forests near the Black Sea furnish an inexhaustible supply of timber; hemp for cordage, and metal for ordinance, are ready in abundance in the neighbouring shores of Russia. Should any cause interrupt the communication, and render these resources unavailable, supplies of all kinds are found within the limits of the Ottoman empire. Negroponte sends pitch, tar, and rosin; Samsoun, hemp; Gallipoli and Salonichi, gunpowder. With these materials the Turks launch the largest ships in the world; but, manned by inferior crews, they are weak and worthless. They are seen riding before the arsenal, and among them the Mahmoud, supposed to be the largest vessel of war ever built. She is 223 feet long, is pierced for 140 guns, some of her carronades carry sixty-pound balls, and her burden is 3,934 tons. During the Greek war, these vast machines suffered severely from the small-craft of their more skilful and active enemies; and such was the terror their brulots inspired, that the Turks did not consider their ships safe, even within the protection of their harbours. Each of them, therefore, was insulated by a pile of stakes, to which were moored rafts, where sentinels kept watch night and day, warning off even the smallest caïque that approached. They were supplied with heaps of stones, piled on the rafts like cannon-balls, and pelted without mercy every incautious straggler that came within the reach of their missiles.
On the water’s edge, raised on piles, is seen the elegant edifice of the “Divan Hané,” or Council Chamber of the Admiralty. It is a light and airy specimen of Oriental architecture, of which the Turks are vain. It was built by two ingenious Greek architects, who soon after disappeared. It was said they were put to death by their employers, lest they should build another to rival it. Besides, it is the “Caïque Hané,” or Arsenal of the Sultan’s Barges: and near this, the quarters of “Galiongees,” or Marines. These soldiers of the fleet are distinguished by the richness and gaiety of their dress, and by the assumption and insolence of their demeanour.
In the rear of the arsenal appears the tower of Galata, shooting up its tall spire above the hills, that its vigilant sentinel should command a view of whatever fire may burst out, and its beacon-drum may be heard far and near, whenever it announces one to the Bektchi, who, with his iron-shod pole stamping on the pavement below, alarms the sleepy inhabitants. From hence the sweep of the shore gives to the water the appearance of a lake, and the peninsula of Constantinople seems joined to that of Pera. Along the horizon are seen the Imperial mosques, crowning the seven hills; Santa Sophia impending over the gardens and kiosks of the seraglio; the mosque of Achmet distinguished by its six minarets; Bajazet; the vast Sulimanie apparently as large as the hill on which it stands; Osmanie, Mahomet II., and Selim.
Returning by the harbour along the water’s edge, the various objects of the city come in view. The Yeni Djami, close on the shore, erected by the piety of the Sultana Valadi, mother of the reigning sovereign, from the dower settled on her, not to purchase pins as in Europe, but paponches or sandals, and hence the edifice is called the “Mosque of the Slipper.” Next the district called “Istambol dichare,” or exterior quarter, comes in view. This is the alluvial portion, lying between the walls and the water, and formed by the deposits of charcoal, ashes, and various heaps of dirt brought from the higher grounds by the many little rills which trickle down. It is a black, muddy stratum, seldom exceeding forty or fifty yards in breadth, but extending the length of a quarter of a mile. The streets formed on it are narrow, wet, and dirty, but far more populous than any other part of the city. Various iskelli, or slips, project into the water, whence passengers pass from side to side. It is the inlet for all foreign merchandise brought by Frank ships to the harbour. Tobacco, oil, wood, flour, green and dried fruits, are stored in various warehouses. Here, too, is the great depôt for gunpowder, which lies among wooden houses, with oil, charcoal, and other inflammable substances, where the crowded population are all smoking, and casting about the red embers of their chiboques, originating some of those tremendous conflagrations, which have at different times devastated the city.
It is here the Emirs reside, who are supposed to be the descendants of Fatimah, the daughter of Mahomet. They are endued by the Prophet with the faculty of healing all diseases by praying, breathing, and touching, but particularly erysipelas and eruptive distempers. They are allowed by the Porte a tahim, or a certain quantity of provisions for their maintenance, on the condition of dispensing their gift of the healing art to the people; and the patient is enjoined to give them for every cure a fee of five paras, something less than a farthing. They are distinguished by green turbans and a tebsib, or “chaplet of beads,” on which they count their prayers for the recovery of their patients. Their mode of cure is simple. They are found standing in the streets; and when a diseased man distinguishes the green turban among the crowd, he approaches with reverence. The emir lays his thumb on the side of his nose, breathes upon his forehead, utters a short prayer, and the cure is effected in five minutes. A belief in the efficacy of touch and prayer, in healing disease, is universal among the Christian and Jewish, as well as the Islam population of Constantinople, and constantly resorted to.
The Fanal, or celebrated Greek quarter, now succeeds. It is so called from a “phanar,” or light-house, which illumined the gate, and was assigned exclusively to the Christians, on the capture of Constantinople. Here is the residence of the patriarch, and here the venerable head of the Oriental church was hanged over his own gate-way, when the Greek insurrection commenced in the province, and hence his lifeless body was dragged through filth and mud with gratuitous insult by the Jews, and cast into the water. Here also is the metropolitan church, conferred by Mahomet II. on the Christians, when the Moslem took possession of Santa Sophia. Among the reliques which confer interest and
value to this edifice, is the actual pillar to which our Saviour was bound when he was scourged, and the chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, from which Chrysostom, with “the golden mouth,” delivered those eloquent homilies, which have been handed down to us in fourteen folio volumes. Here reside the seven princes of the Greek nation, which formerly filled the office of hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia, once the proud and the powerful, but now steeped in misery and humiliation. The streets of this celebrated district are dark and dirty; the houses, mean and neglected. During the tempest of the revolution they were entirely sacked by the Turkish mob, the property of their inhabitants confiscated by the government, the princely population strangled or exiled; and the Fanariots, once composing a noble and opulent community of 40,000 persons, are now confined to half the number, and that half reduced to the most abject poverty.
After the Fanal succeeds the district of Blachernæ, where the wall, which runs from sea to sea, meets the harbour, and impends over it with its lofty battlements. From hence it reaches to Eyoub, and that singular factory is seen on the water’s edge, so peculiar to the present state of Turkey. A distinguishing characteristic of the turban was a small red cap, called a fez, which covered the crown, and round which the turban was wound. When this ponderous head-dress was laid aside by the sultan, the fez was retained, as a remnant of Orientalism, but as its circumference was less than that of a saucer, its border was enlarged till it reached the ears, and it became the adopted and distinguishing covering of the head under the new regime. It was originally manufactured at Tunis, and cost the government such immense sums, that the sultan resolved to establish a manufactory of it at home, and extensive edifices were erected for the purpose. A number of African workmen were invited, and they succeeded in every thing except the vivid colour, the preparation of which was kept a profound secret at Tunis. At length the process was discovered by an intelligent and enterprising Armenian; and the establishment, now complete in all its parts, exceeds, perhaps, that of any in Europe. Nearly one thousand females, of all persuasions, Raya as well as Turk, assemble here, and receive the wool weighed out to them. This they knit into caps of the prescribed form, and then return them. They are next subject to a process of fulling, and teazel heads, to raise the knap, then to clipping with shears, and finally pressed under a screw, till at length the texture becomes so dense as to obliterate all trace of knitting, and appears like the finest broad cloth. When it has attained this state, it is dyed by the newly-discovered process, and assumes a hue of rich dark scarlet or crimson. The altered shape of the cap is now a cylinder with a flat top, from the centre of which a thrum of purple silk-thread depends, encircled by a piece of crumpled white paper, which is always suffered to remain as part of the ornament. This, which resembles the undignified red night-cap of Europe, drawn down about the ears, is the regulation cap, which the sultan presented to all his subjects as the first reformation in Oriental dress, and which he wore himself as an example to others: but it is a miserable substitute for his splendid turban. The demand for it, however, is so great, that 180,000 are here annually manufactured, and sent to all parts of the empire. They impress it with the sultan’s cipher, and thus designate it as of imperial manufacture.