Sketches and Travels in London

by William Makepeace Thackeray

upon a fine green plain under the Seraglio walls, where stands one

  solitary column, erected in memory of some triumph of some

  Byzantian emperor.

  There were three battalions of the Turkish infantry, exercising

  here; and they seemed to perform their evolutions in a very

  satisfactory manner: that is, they fired all together, and charged

  and halted in very straight lines, and bit off imaginary cartridge-

  tops with great fierceness and regularity, and made all their

  ramrods ring to measure, just like so many Christians. The men

  looked small, young, clumsy, and ill-built; uncomfortable in their

  shabby European clothes; and about the legs, especially, seemed

  exceedingly weak and ill-formed. Some score of military invalids

  were lolling in the sunshine, about a fountain and a marble summer-

  house that stand on the ground, watching their comrades' manoeuvres

  (as if they could never have enough of that delightful pastime);

  and these sick were much better cared for than their healthy

  companions. Each man had two dressing-gowns, one of white cotton,

  and an outer wrapper of warm brown woollen. Their heads were

  accommodated with wadded cotton nightcaps; and it seemed to me,

  from their condition and from the excellent character of the

  military hospitals, that it would be much more wholesome to be ill

  than to be well in the Turkish service.

  Facing this green esplanade, and the Bosphorus shining beyond it,

  rise the great walls of the outer Seraglio Gardens: huge masses of

  ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of numerous kiosks and

  outhouses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so as to hide the

  beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying eyes and

  telescopes. We could not catch a glance of a single figure moving

  in these great pleasure-grounds. The road winds round the walls;

  and the outer park, which is likewise planted with trees, and

  diversified by garden-plots and cottages, had more the air of the

  outbuildings of a homely English park, than of a palace which we

  must all have imagined to be the most stately in the world. The

  most commonplace water-carts were passing here and there; roads

  were being repaired in the Macadamite manner; and carpenters were

  mending the park-palings, just as they do in Hampshire. The next

  thing you might fancy would be the Sultan walking out with a spud

  and a couple of dogs, on the way to meet the post-bag and the Saint

  James's Chronicle.

  The palace is no palace at all. It is a great town of pavilions,

  built without order, here and there, according to the fancy of

  succeeding Lights of the Universe, or their favourites. The only

  row of domes which looked particularly regular or stately, were the

  kitchens. As you examined the buildings they had a ruinous

  dilapidated look: they are not furnished, it is said, with

  particular splendour,--not a bit more elegantly than Miss Jones's

  seminary for young ladies, which we may be sure is much more

  comfortable than the extensive establishment of His Highness Abdul

  Medjid.

  In the little stable I thought to see some marks of Royal

  magnificence, and some horses worthy of the king of all kings. But

  the Sultan is said to be a very timid horseman: the animal that is

  always kept saddled for him did not look to be worth twenty pounds;

  and the rest of the horses in the shabby dirty stalls were small,

  ill-kept, common-looking brutes. You might see better, it seemed

  to me, at a country inn stable on any market-day.

  The kitchens are the most sublime part of the Seraglio. There are

  nine of these great halls, for all ranks, from His Highness

  downwards, where many hecatombs are roasted daily, according to the

  accounts, and where cooking goes on with a savage Homeric grandeur.

  Chimneys are despised in these primitive halls; so that the roofs

  are black with the smoke of hundreds of furnaces, which escapes

  through apertures in the domes above. These, too, give the chief

  light in the rooms, which streams downwards, and thickens and

  mingles with the smoke, and so murkily lights up hundreds of

  swarthy figures busy about the spits and the cauldrons. Close to

  the door by which we entered they were making pastry for the

  sultanas; and the chief pastrycook, who knew my guide, invited us

  courteously to see the process, and partake of the delicacies

  prepared for those charming lips. How those sweet lips must shine

  after eating these puffs! First, huge sheets of dough are rolled

  out till the paste is about as thin as silver paper: then an

  artist forms the dough-muslin into a sort of drapery, curling it

  round and round in many fanciful and pretty shapes, until it is all

  got into the circumference of a round metal tray in which it is

  baked. Then the cake is drenched in grease most profusely; and,

  finally, a quantity of syrup is poured over it, when the delectable

  mixture is complete. The moon-faced ones are said to devour

  immense quantities of this wholesome food; and, in fact, are eating

  grease and sweetmeats from morning till night. I don't like to

  think what the consequences may be, or allude to the agonies which

  the delicate creatures must inevitably suffer.

  The good-natured chief pastrycook filled a copper basin with greasy

  puffs; and, dipping a dubious ladle into a large cauldron,

  containing several gallons of syrup, poured a liberal portion over

  the cakes, and invited us to eat. One of the tarts was quite

  enough for me: and I excused myself on the plea of ill-health from

  imbibing any more grease and sugar. But my companion, the

  dragoman, finished some forty puffs in a twinkling. They slipped

  down his opened jaws as the sausages do down clowns' throats in a

  pantomime. His moustaches shone with grease, and it dripped down

  his beard and fingers. We thanked the smiling chief pastrycook,

  and rewarded him handsomely for the tarts. It is something to have

  eaten of the dainties prepared for the ladies of the harem; but I

  think Mr. Cockle ought to get the names of the chief sultanas among

  the exalted patrons of his antibilious pills.

  From the kitchens we passed into the second court of the Seraglio,

  beyond which is death. The Guide-book only hints at the dangers

  which would befall a stranger caught prying in the mysterious FIRST

  court of the palace. I have read "Bluebeard," and don't care for

  peeping into forbidden doors; so that the second court was quite

  enough for me; the pleasure of beholding it being heightened, as it

  were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting next door, with

  uplifted scimitar ready to fall on you--present though not seen.

  A cloister runs along one side of this court; opposite is the hall

  of the divan, "large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, after

  the Moorish manner, plain enough." The Grand Vizier sits in this

  place, and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be conducted

  hence on horseback, attired with robes of honour. But the ceremony

  is now, I believe, discontinued; the English envoy, at any rat
e, is

  not allowed to receive any backsheesh, and goes away as he came, in

  the habit of his own nation. On the right is a door leading into

  the interior of the Seraglio; NONE PASS THROUGH IT BUT SUCH AS ARE

  SENT FOR, the Guide-book says: it is impossible to top the terror

  of that description.

  About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans and

  pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses; and among them, sunning

  himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old fat, wrinkled, dismal white

  eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head sunk into his

  chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed incapable to hold

  up his bloated old body. He squeaked out some surly reply to my

  friend the dragoman, who, softened and sweetened by the tarts he

  had just been devouring, was, no doubt, anxious to be polite: and

  the poor worthy fellow walked away rather crestfallen at this

  return of his salutation, and hastened me out of the place.

  The palace of the Seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the

  hall of the ambassadors, the impenetrable gate guarded by eunuchs

  and ichoglans, have a romantic look in print; but not so in

  reality. Most of the marble is wood, almost all the gilding is

  faded, the guards are shabby, the foolish perspectives painted on

  the walls are half cracked off. The place looks like Vauxhall in

  the daytime.

  We passed out of the second court under THE SUBLIME PORTE--which is

  like a fortified gate of a German town of the middle ages--into the

  outer court, round which are public offices, hospitals, and

  dwellings of the multifarious servants of the palace. This place

  is very wide and picturesque: there is a pretty church of

  Byzantine architecture at the further end; and in the midst of the

  court a magnificent plane-tree, of prodigious dimensions and

  fabulous age according to the guides; St. Sophia towers in the

  further distance: and from here, perhaps, is the best view of its

  light swelling domes and beautiful proportions. The Porte itself,

  too, forms an excellent subject for the sketcher, if the officers

  of the court will permit him to design it. I made the attempt, and

  a couple of Turkish beadles looked on very good-naturedly for some

  time at the progress of the drawing; but a good number of other

  spectators speedily joined them, and made a crowd, which is not

  permitted, it would seem, in the Seraglio; so I was told to pack up

  my portfolio, and remove the cause of the disturbance, and lost my

  drawing of the Ottoman Porte.

  I don't think I have anything more to say about the city which has

  not been much better told by graver travellers. I, with them,

  could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that

  warned me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of

  an empire; and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and

  oppression. I even saw a Turkish lady drive up to Sultan Achmet's

  mosque IN A BROUGHAM. Is not that a subject to moralise upon? And

  might one not draw endless conclusions from it, that the knell of

  the Turkish dominion is rung; that the European spirit and

  institutions once admitted can never be rooted out again; and that

  the scepticism prevalent amongst the higher orders must descend ere

  very long to the lower; and the cry of the muezzin from the mosque

  become a mere ceremony?

  But as I only stayed eight days in this place, and knew not a

  syllable of the language, perhaps it is as well to pretermit any

  disquisitions about the spirit of the people. I can only say that

  they looked to be very good-natured, handsome, and lazy; that the

  women's yellow slippers are very ugly; that the kabobs at the shop

  hard by the Rope Bazaar are very hot and good; and that at the

  Armenian cookshops they serve you delicious fish, and a stout

  raisin wine of no small merit. There came in, as we sat and dined

  there at sunset, a good old Turk, who called for a penny fish, and

  sat down under a tree very humbly, and ate it with his own bread.

  We made that jolly old Mussulman happy with a quart of the raisin

  wine; and his eyes twinkled with every fresh glass, and he wiped

  his old beard delighted, and talked and chirped a good deal, and, I

  dare say, told us the whole state of the empire. He was the only

  Mussulman with whom I attained any degree of intimacy during my

  stay in Constantinople; and you will see that, for obvious reasons,

  I cannot divulge the particulars of our conversation.

  "You have nothing to say, and you own it," says somebody: "then

  why write?" That question perhaps (between ourselves) I have put

  likewise; and yet, my dear sir, there are SOME things worth

  remembering even in this brief letter: that woman in the brougham

  is an idea of significance: that comparison of the Seraglio to

  Vauxhall in the daytime is a true and real one; from both of which

  your own great soul and ingenious philosophic spirit may draw

  conclusions, that I myself have modestly forborne to press. You

  are too clever to require a moral to be tacked to all the fables

  you read, as is done for children in the spelling-books; else I

  would tell you that the government of the Ottoman Porte seems to be

  as rotten, as wrinkled, and as feeble as the old eunuch I saw

  crawling about it in the sun; that when the lady drove up in a

  brougham to Sultan Achmet, I felt that the schoolmaster was really

  abroad; and that the crescent will go out before that luminary, as

  meekly as the moon does before the sun.

  CHAPTER VIII: RHODES

  The sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa brought a great number of

  passengers together, and our decks were covered with Christian,

  Jew, and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles and Russians,

  Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks; on the deck were

  squatted several little colonies of people of different race and

  persuasion. There was a Greek Papa, a noble figure with a flowing

  and venerable white beard, who had been living on bread-and-water

  for I don't know how many years, in order to save a little money to

  make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There were several families of

  Jewish Rabbis, who celebrated their "feast of tabernacles" on

  board; their chief men performing worship twice or thrice a day,

  dressed in their pontifical habits, and bound with phylacteries:

  and there were Turks, who had their own ceremonies and usages, and

  wisely kept aloof from their neighbours of Israel.

  The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility of

  description; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease

  of their venerable garments and faces, the horrible messes cooked

  in the filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the

  squalor of mats, pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew

  friends, could hardly be painted by Swift in his dirtiest mood, and

  cannot be, of course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What

  would they say in Baker Street to some sights with which our new

  friends favoured us? What would your ladyship have said if
you had

  seen the interesting Greek nun combing her hair over the cabin--

  combing it with the natural fingers, and, averse to slaughter,

  flinging the delicate little intruders, which she found in the

  course of her investigation, gently into the great cabin? Our

  attention was a good deal occupied in watching the strange ways and

  customs of the various comrades of ours.

  The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones to

  rest in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceeding

  rigour the offices of their religion. At morning and evening you

  were sure to see the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white

  robes, bowing over their books, at prayer. Once a week, on the eve

  before the Sabbath, there was a general washing in Jewry, which

  sufficed until the ensuing Friday. The men wore long gowns and

  caps of fur, or else broad-brimmed hats, or, in service time, bound

  on their heads little iron boxes, with the sacred name engraved on

  them. Among the lads there were some beautiful faces; and among

  the women your humble servant discovered one who was a perfect

  rosebud of beauty when first emerging from her Friday's toilet, and

  for a day or two afterwards, until each succeeding day's smut

  darkened those fresh and delicate cheeks of hers. We had some very

  rough weather in the course of the passage from Constantinople to

  Jaffa, and the sea washed over and over our Israelitish friends and

  their baggages and bundles; but though they were said to be rich,

  they would not afford to pay for cabin shelter. One father of a

  family, finding his progeny half drowned in a squall, vowed he

  WOULD pay for a cabin; but the weather was somewhat finer the next

  day, and he could not squeeze out his dollars, and the ship's

  authorities would not admit him except upon payment.

  This unwillingness to part with money is not only found amongst the

  followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, and Christians too.

  When we went to purchase in the bazaars, after offering money for

  change, the honest fellows would frequently keep back several

  piastres, and when urged to refund, would give most dismally: and

  begin doling out penny by penny, and utter pathetic prayers to

  their customer not to take any more. I bought five or six pounds'

  worth of Broussa silks for the womankind, in the bazaar at

  Constantinople, and the rich Armenian who sold them begged for

  three-halfpence to pay his boat to Galata. There is something naif

  and amusing in this exhibition of cheatery--this simple cringing

  and wheedling, and passion for twopence-halfpenny. It was pleasant

  to give a millionaire beggar an alms, and laugh in his face and

  say, "There, Dives, there's a penny for you: be happy, you poor

  old swindling scoundrel, as far as a penny goes." I used to watch

  these Jews on shore, and making bargains with one another as soon

  as they came on board; the battle between vendor and purchaser was

  an agony--they shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another

  passionately; their handsome noble faces assumed a look of woe--

  quite an heroic eagerness and sadness about a farthing.

  Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy provisions,

  and it was curious to see their dealings: there was our venerable

  Rabbi, who, robed in white and silver, and bending over his book at

  the morning service, looked like a patriarch, and whom I saw

  chaffering about a fowl with a brother Rhodian Israelite. How they

  fought over the body of that lean animal! The street swarmed with

  Jews: goggling eyes looked out from the old carved casements--

  hooked noses issued from the low antique doors--Jew boys driving

  donkeys, Hebrew mothers nursing children, dusky, tawdry, ragged

  young beauties and most venerable grey-bearded fathers were all

  gathered round about the affair of the hen! And at the same time

  that our Rabbi was arranging the price of it, his children were

  instructed to procure bundles of green branches to decorate the

  ship during their feast. Think of the centuries during which these