chant of the Turk; while the cry of the sea-boy from the rigging was answered by the stern brief tones of the weather-beaten sailor on the deck.
Every instant a graceful caïque, with its long sharp prow and gilded ornaments, shot past the ship: now freighted with a bearded and turbaned Turk, squatted upon his carpet at the bottom of the boat, pipe in hand, and muffled closely in his furred pelisse, the very personification of luxurious idleness; and attended by his red-capped and blue-coated domestic, who was sometimes a thick-lipped negro, but more frequently a keen-eyed and mustachioed musselmaun—now tenanted by a group of women, huddled closely together, and wearing the yashmac, or veil of white muslin, which covers all the face except the eyes and nose, and gives to the wearer the appearance of an animated corpse; some of them, as they passed, languidly breathing out their harmonious Turkish, which in a female mouth is almost music.
Then came a third, gliding along like a nautilus, with its small white sail; and bearing a bevy of Greeks, whose large flashing eyes gleamed out beneath the unbecoming fèz, or cap of red cloth, with its purple silk tassel, and ornament of cut paper, bound round the head among the lower classes, by a thick black shawl, tightly twisted. This was followed by a fourth, impelled by two lusty rowers, wherein the round hats and angular costume of a party of Franks forced your thoughts back upon the country that you had left, only to be recalled the next instant by a freight of Armenian merchants returning from the Charshees of Constantinople to their dwellings at Galata and Pera. As I looked on the fine countenances, the noble figures, and the animated expression of the party, how did I deprecate their shaven heads, and the use of the frightful calpac, which I cannot more appropriately describe than by comparing it to the iron pots used in English kitchens, inverted! The graceful pelisse, however, almost makes amends for the monstrous head-gear, as its costly garniture of sable or marten-skin falls back, and reveals the robe of rich silk, and the cachemire shawl folded about the waist. Altogether, I was more struck with the Armenian than the Turkish costume; and there is a refinement and tenue about the wearers singularly attractive. Their well-trimmed mustachioes, their stained and carefully-shaped eyebrows, their exceeding cleanliness, in short, their whole appearance, interests the eye at once; nor must I pass over without remark their jewelled rings, and their pipes of almost countless cost, grasped by fingers so white and slender that they would grace a woman.
While I am on the subject of costume, I cannot forbear to record my regret as I beheld in every direction the hideous and unmeaning fèz, which has almost superseded the gorgeous turban of muslin and cachemire: indeed, I was nearly tempted in my woman wrath to consider all the admirable reforms, wrought by Sultan Mahmoud in his capital, overbalanced by the frightful changes that he has made in the national costume, by introducing a mere caricature of that worst of all originals—the stiff, starch, angular European dress. The costly turban, that bound the brow like a diadem, and relieved by the richness of its tints the dark hue of the other garments, has now almost entirely disappeared from the streets; and a group of Turks look in the distance like a bed of poppies; the flowing robe of silk or of woollen has been flung aside for the ill-made and awkward surtout of blue cloth; and the waist, which was once girdled with a shawl of cachemire, is now compressed by two brass buttons!
The Dervish, or domestic priest, for such he may truly be called, whose holy profession, instead of rendering him a distinct individual, suffers him to mingle like his fellow-men in all the avocations, and to participate in all the socialities of life; which permits him to read his offices behind the counter of his shop, and to bring up his family to the cares and customs of every-day life; and who is bound only by his own voluntary act to a steady continuance in the self-imposed duties that he is at liberty to cast aside when they become irksome to him; the holy Dervish frequently passed us in his turn, seated at the bottom of the caïque, with an open volume on his knees, and distinguished from the lay-Turk by his geulaf, or high hat of grey felt. Then came a group of Jews, chattering and gesticulating; with their ample cloaks, and small dingy-coloured caps, surrounded by a projecting band of brown and white cotton, whose singular pattern has misled a modern traveller so far as to induce him to state that it is “a white handkerchief, inscribed with some Hebrew sentences from their law.”
Thus far, I could compare the port of Constantinople to nothing less delightful than poetry put into action. The novel character of the scenery—the ever-shifting, picturesque, and graceful groups—the constant flitting past of the fairy-like caïques—the strange tongues—the dark, wild eyes—all conspired to rivet me to the deck, despite the bitterness of the weather.
Evening came—and the spell deepened. We had arrived during the Turkish Ramazan, or Lent, and, as the twilight gathered about us, the minarets of all the mosques were brilliantly illuminated. Nothing could exceed the magical effect of the scene; the darkness of the hour concealed the outline of the graceful shafts of these etherial columns, while the circles of light which girdled them almost at their extreme height formed a triple crown of living diamonds. Below these depended (filling the intermediate space) shifting figures of fire, succeeding each other with wonderful rapidity and precision: now it was a house, now a group of cypresses, then a vessel, or an anchor, or a spray of flowers; and these changes were effected, as I afterwards discovered, in the most simple and inartificial manner. Cords are slung from minaret to minaret, from whence depend others, to which the lamps are attached; and the raising or lowering of these cords, according to a previous design, produces the apparently magic transitions which render the illuminations of Stamboul unlike those of any European capital.
But I can scarcely forgive myself for thus accounting in so matter-of-fact a manner for the beautiful illusions that wrought so powerfully on my own fancy. I detest the spirit which reduces every thing to plain reason, and pleases itself by tracing effects to causes, where the only result of the research must be the utter annihilation of all romance, and the extinction of all wonder. The flowers that blossom by the wayside of life are less beautiful when we have torn them leaf by leaf asunder, to analyze their properties, and to determine their classes, than when we first inhale their perfume, and delight in their lovely tints, heedless of all save the enjoyment which they impart. The man of science may decry, and the philosopher may condemn, such a mode of reasoning; but really, in these days of utilitarianism, when all things are reduced to rule, and laid bare by wisdom, it is desirable to reserve a niche or two unprofaned by “the schoolmaster,” where fancy may plume herself unchidden, despite the never-ending analysis of a theorising world!
My continued indisposition compelled my father and myself to remain another day on board; but I scarcely felt the necessity irksome. All was so novel and so full of interest around me, and my protracted voyage had so thoroughly inured me to privation and inconvenience, that I was enabled to enjoy the scene without one regret for land. The same shifting panorama, the same endless varieties of sight and sound, occupied the day; and the same magic illusions lent a brilliancy and a poetry to the night.
Smile, ye whose exclusiveness has girdled you with a fictitious and imaginary circle, beyond which ye have neither sympathies nor sensibilities—smile if ye will, as I declare that when the moment came in which I was to quit the good brig, that had borne us so bravely through storm and peril—the last tangible link between ourselves and the far land that we had loved and left—I almost regretted that I trod her snow-heaped and luggage-cumbered deck for the last time; and that, as the crew clustered round us, to secure a parting look and a parting word, a tear sprang to my eye. How impossible does it appear to me to forget, at such a time as this, those who have shared with you the perils and the protection of a long and arduous voyage! From the sturdy seaman who had stood at the helm, and contended with the drear and drenching midnight sea, to the venturous boy who had climbed the bending mast to secure the remnants of the shivered sail, every face had long been familiar to me. I could call each by name; nor was there one among them to whom I had not, on some occasion, been indebted for those rude but ready courtesies which, however insignificant in themselves, are valuable to the uninitiated and helpless at sea.
On the 1st of January, 1836, we landed at the Custom House stairs at Galata, amid a perfect storm of snow and wind; nor must I omit the fact that we did so without “let or hindrance” from the officers of the establishment. The only inquiry made was, whether we had brought out any merchandize, and, our reply being in the negative, coupled with the assurance that we were merely travellers, and that