Yet Who Is To Get An Idea Of St. Sophia From Dates,
Proper Names, And Calculations With A Measuring-Line?
It can't be
done by giving the age and measurement of all the buildings along
the river, the names of all the boatmen who ply on it.
Has your
fancy, which pooh-poohs a simile, faith enough to build a city with
a foot-rule? Enough said about descriptions and similes (though
whenever I am uncertain of one I am naturally most anxious to fight
for it): it is a scene not perhaps sublime, but charming,
magnificent, and cheerful beyond any I have ever seen - the most
superb combination of city and gardens, domes and shipping, hills
and water, with the healthiest breeze blowing over it, and above it
the brightest and most cheerful sky.
It is proper, they say, to be disappointed on entering the town, or
any of the various quarters of it, because the houses are not so
magnificent on inspection and seen singly as they are when beheld
en masse from the waters. But why form expectations so lofty? If
you see a group of peasants picturesquely disposed at a fair, you
don't suppose that they are all faultless beauties, or that the
men's coats have no rags, and the women's gowns are made of silk
and velvet: the wild ugliness of the interior of Constantinople or
Pera has a charm of its own, greatly more amusing than rows of red
bricks or drab stones, however symmetrical. With brick or stone
they could never form those fantastic ornaments, railings,
balconies, roofs, galleries, which jut in and out of the rugged
houses of the city. As we went from Galata to Pera up a steep
hill, which newcomers ascend with some difficulty, but which a
porter, with a couple of hundredweight on his back, paces up
without turning a hair, I thought the wooden houses far from being
disagreeable objects, sights quite as surprising and striking as
the grand one we had just left.
I do not know how the custom-house of His Highness is made to be a
profitable speculation. As I left the ship, a man pulled after my
boat, and asked for backsheesh, which was given him to the amount
of about twopence. He was a custom-house officer, but I doubt
whether this sum which he levied ever went to the revenue.
I can fancy the scene about the quays somewhat to resemble the
river of London in olden times, before coal-smoke had darkened the
whole city with soot, and when, according to the old writers, there
really was bright weather. The fleets of caiques bustling along
the shore, or scudding over the blue water, are beautiful to look
at: in Hollar's print London river is so studded over with wherry-
boats, which bridges and steamers have since destroyed. Here the
caique is still in full perfection: there are thirty thousand
boats of the kind plying between the cities; every boat is neat,
and trimly carved and painted; and I scarcely saw a man pulling in
one of them that was not a fine specimen of his race, brawny and
brown, with an open chest and a handsome face.
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