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.
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