Any Infidels May
Enter The Court Without Molestation, And, Looking Through The
Barred Windows Of The Mosque, Have A View Of Its Airy And Spacious
Interior.
A small audience of women was collected there when I
looked in, squatted on the mats, and listening to a preacher, who
was walking among them, and speaking with great energy.
My
dragoman interpreted to me the sense of a few words of his sermon:
he was warning them of the danger of gadding about to public
places, and of the immorality of too much talking; and, I dare say,
we might have had more valuable information from him regarding the
follies of womankind, had not a tall Turk clapped my interpreter on
the shoulder, and pointed him to be off.
Although the ladies are veiled, and muffled with the ugliest
dresses in the world, yet it appears their modesty is alarmed in
spite of all the coverings which they wear. One day, in the
bazaar, a fat old body, with diamond rings on her fingers, that
were tinged with henne of a logwood colour, came to the shop where
I was purchasing slippers, with her son, a young Aga of six years
of age, dressed in a braided frock-coat, with a huge tassel to his
fez, exceeding fat, and of a most solemn demeanour. The young Aga
came for a pair of shoes, and his contortions were so delightful as
he tried them, that I remained looking on with great pleasure,
wishing for Leech to be at hand to sketch his lordship and his fat
mamma, who sat on the counter. That lady fancied I was looking at
her, though, as far as I could see, she had the figure and
complexion of a roly-poly pudding; and so, with quite a premature
bashfulness, she sent me a message by the shoemaker, ordering me to
walk away if I had made my purchases, for that ladies of her rank
did not choose to be stared at by strangers; and I was obliged to
take my leave, though with sincere regret, for the little lord had
just squeezed himself into an attitude than which I never saw
anything more ludicrous in General Tom Thumb. When the ladies of
the Seraglio come to that bazaar with their cortege of infernal
black eunuchs, strangers are told to move on briskly. I saw a bevy
of about eight of these, with their aides-de-camp; but they were
wrapped up, and looked just as vulgar and ugly as the other women,
and were not, I suppose, of the most beautiful sort. The poor
devils are allowed to come out, half-a-dozen times in the year, to
spend their little wretched allowance of pocket-money in purchasing
trinkets and tobacco; all the rest of the time they pursue the
beautiful duties of their existence in the walls of the sacred
harem.
Though strangers are not allowed to see the interior of the cage in
which these birds of Paradise are confined, yet many parts of the
Seraglio are free to the curiosity of visitors, who choose to drop
a backsheesh here and there. I landed one morning at the Seraglio
point from Galata, close by an ancient pleasure-house of the
defunct Sultan; a vast broad-brimmed pavilion, that looks agreeable
enough to be a dancing room for ghosts now: there is another
summer-house, the Guide-book cheerfully says, whither the Sultan
goes to sport with his women and mutes. A regiment of infantry,
with their music at their head, were marching to exercise in the
outer grounds of the Seraglio; and we followed them, and had an
opportunity of seeing their evolutions, and hearing their bands,
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.
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