University of Virginia Library

98. LETTER XCVIII.

Bring all the shops of New York, Philadelphia,
and Boston, together around the City Hall, remove
their fronts, pile up all their goods on shelves facing
the street, cover the whole with a roof, and metamorphose
your trim clerks into bearded, turbaned, and
solemn old mussulmans, smooth Jews, and calpacked
and rosy Armenians, and you will have something like
the grand bazar of Constantinople. You can scarcely
get an idea of it, without having been there. It is
a city under cover. You walk all day, and day after
day, from one street to another, winding and turning,

and trudging up hill and down, and never go out of
doors. The roof is as high as those of our three-story
houses, and the dim light so favorable to shop-keepers,
comes struggling down through skylights, never
cleaned except by the rains of heaven.

Strolling through the bazar is an endless amusement.
It is slow work, for the streets are as crowded
as a church-aisle after service; and, pushed aside one
moment by a bevy of Turkish ladies, shuffling along
in their yellow slippers, muffled to the eyes, the next
by a fat slave carrying a child, again by a kervas armed
to the teeth, and clearing the way for some coming
dignitary, you find your only policy is to draw in your
elbows, and suffer the motley crowd to shove you about
at their pleasure.

Each shop in this world of traffic may be two yards
wide. The owner sits cross-legged on the broad
counter below, the height of a chair from the ground,
and hands you all you want without stirring from his
seat. One broad bench or counter runs the length of
the street, and the different shops are only divided by
the slight partition of the shelves. The purchaser
seats himself on the counter, to be out of the way of
the crowd, and the shopman spreads out his goods on
his knees, never condescending to open his lips except
to tell you the price. If he exclaims “bono,” or
“calo,” (the only words a real Turk ever knows of another
language), he is stared at by his neighbors as a
man would be in Broadway who should break out
with an Italian bravura. Ten to one, while you are
examining his goods, the bearded trader creeps
through the hole leading to his kennel of a dormitory
in the rear, washes himself and returns to his counter,
where, spreading his sacred carpet in the direction
of Mecca, he goes through his prayers and prostrations,
perfectly unconscious of your presence, or that
of the passing crowd. No vocation interferes with
his religious duty. Five times a day, if he were running
from the plague, the mussulman would find time
for prayers.

The Frank purchaser attracts a great deal of curiosity.
As he points to an embroidered handkerchief,
or a rich shawl, or a pair of gold-worked slippers,
Turkish ladies of the first rank, gathering their yashmacks
securely over their faces, stop close to his side,
not minding if they push him a little to get nearer
the desired article. Feeling not the least timidity, except
for their faces, these true children of Eve examine
the goods in barter, watch the stranger's countenance,
and if he takes off his glove, or pulls out his
purse, take it up and look at it, without even saying
“by your leave.” Their curiosity often extends to
your dress, and they put out their little henna-stained
fingers and pass them over the sleeve of your coat
with a gurgling expression of admiration at its fineness,
or if you have rings or a watch-guard, they lift
your hand or pull out your watch with no kind of
scruple. I have met with several instances of this in
the course of my rambles. But a day or two ago I
found myself rather more than usual a subject of curiosity.
I was alone in the street of embroidered
handkerchiefs (every minute article has its peculiar
bazar), and wishing to look at some of uncommon
beauty, I called one of the many Jews always near a
stranger to turn a penny by interpreting for him, and
was soon up to the elbows in goods that would tempt
a female angel out of Paradise. As I was selecting
one for a purchase, a woman plumped down upon the
seat beside me, and fixed her great, black, unwinking
eyes upon my face, while an Abyssinian slave and another
white woman, both apparently her dependants,
stood respectfully at her back. A small turquoise
ring (the favorite color in Turkey), first attracted her
attention. She took up my hand, and turned it over
in her soft, fat fingers, and dropped it again without
saying a word. I looked at my interpreter, but he
seemed to think it nothing extraordinary, and I went
on with my bargain. Presently my fine-eyed friend
pulled me by the sleeve, and as I leaned toward her,
rubbed her forefinger very quickly over my cheek,
looking at me intently all the while. I was a little
disturbed with the lady's familiarity, and asked my Jew
what she wanted. I found that my rubicund complexion
was something uncommon among these dark-skinned
orientals, and she wished to satisfy herself
that I was not painted! I concluded my purchase,
and putting the parcel into my pocket, did my prettiest
at an oriental salaam, but to my mortification, the lady
only gathered up her yashmack, and looked surprised
out of her great eyes at my freedom. My Constantinople
friends inform me that I am to lay no “unction
to my soul” from her notice, such liberties being not
at all particular. The husband exacts from his half-dozen
wives only the concealment of their faces, and
they have no other idea of impropriety in public.

In the centre of the bazar, occupying about as
much space as the body of the City Hall in New
York, is what is called the bezestein. You descend
into it from four directions by massive gates, which
are shut, and all persons excluded, except between
seven and twelve of the forenoon. This is the core
of Constantinople — the soul and citadel of orientalism.
It is devoted to the sale of arms and to costly
articles only. The roof is loftier and the light more
dim than in the outer bazars, and the merchants who
occupy its stalls, are old and of established credit.
Here are subjects for the pencil! If you can take
your eye from those Damascus sabres, with their jewelled
hilts and costly scabbards, or from those gemmed
daggers and guns inlaid with silver and gold, cast a
glance along that dim avenue and see what a range
there is of glorious old gray beards, with their snowy
turbans! These are the Turks of the old regime, before
Sultan Mahmoud disfigured himself with a coat
like a “dog of a Christian,” and broke in upon the
customs of the orient. These are your opium-eaters,
who smoke even in their sleep, and would not touch
wine if it were handed them by houris! These are
your fatalists, who would scarce take the trouble to
get out of the way of a lion, and who are as certain
of the miracle of Mohammed's coffin as of the length
of the pipe, or of the quality of the tobacco of
Shiraz!

I have spent many an hour in the bezestein, steeping
my fancy in its rich orientalism, and sometimes
trying to make a purchase for myself or others. It is
curious to see with what perfect indifference these old
cross-legs attend to the wishes of a Christian. I was
idling round one day with an English traveller, whom
I had known in Italy, when a Persian robe of singular
beauty hanging on one of the stalls arrested my
companion's attention. He had with him his Turkish
dragoman, and as the old merchant was smoking
away and looking right at us, we pointed to the dress
over his head, and the interpreter asked to see it. The
mussulman smoked calmly on, taking no more notice
of us than of the white clouds curling through his
beard. He might have sat for Michael Angelo's Moses.
Thin, pale, calm, and of a statue-like repose of
countenance and posture, with a large old-fashioned
turban, and a curling beard half mingled with gray,
his neck bare, and his fine bust enveloped in the flowing
and bright colored drapery of the east — I had
never seen a more majestic figure. He evidently did
not wish to have anything to do with us. At last I
took out my snuff-box, and addressing him with “effendi!”
the Turkish title of courtesy, laid my hand
on my breast and offered him a pinch. Tobacco in
this unaccustomed shape is a luxury here, and the
amber mouth-piece emerged from his mustache, and
putting his three fingers into my box, he said “pekkhe!”
the Turkish ejaculation of approval. He then

made room for us on his carpet and with a cloth measure
took the robe from its nail, and spread it before
us. My friend bought it unhesitatingly for a dressing-gown,
and we spent an hour in looking at shawls, of
prices perfectly startling, arms, chalices for incense,
spotless amber for pipes, pearls, bracelets of the time
of Sultan Selim, and an endless variety of “things
rich and rare.” The closing of the bezestein gates
interrupted our agreeable employment, and our old
friend gave us the parting salaam very cordially for a
Turk. I have been there frequently since, and never
pass without offering my snuff-box, and taking a whiff
or two from his pipe, which I can not refuse, though it
is not out of his mouth, except when offered to a
friend, from sunrise till midnight.

One of the regular “lions” of Constantinople is a
kibaub shop, or Turkish restaurant. In a ramble with
our consul, the other day, in search of the newly-discovered
cistern of a “thousand and one columns,”
we found ourselves, at the hungry hour of twelve, opposite
a famous shop near the slave-market. I was
rather staggered at the first glance. A greasy fellow,
with his shirt rolled to his shoulders, stood near the
door, commending his shop to the world by slapping
on the flank a whole mutton that hung beside him,
while, as a customer came in, he dexterously whipped
out a slice, had it cut in a twinkling into bits as large
as a piece of chalk (I have stopped five minutes in
vain, to find a better comparison), strung upon a long
iron skewer, and laid on the coals. My friend is an
old Constantinopolitan, and had eaten kibaubs before.
He entered without hesitation, and the adroit butcher,
giving his big trowsers a fresh hitch, and tightening
his girdle, made a new cut for his “narrow legged”
customers, and wished us a good appetite (the Turks
look with great contempt on our tight pantaloons, and
distinguish us by this epithet). We got up on the
platform, crossed our legs under us as well as we
could, and I can not deny that the savory missives that
occasionally reached my nostrils, bred a gradual reconciliation
between my stomach and my eyes.

In some five minutes, a tin platter was set between
us, loaded with piping hot kibaubs, sprinkled with
salad, and mixed with bits of bread; our friend the
cook, by way of making the amiable, stirring it up
well with his fingers as he brought it along. As Modely
says in the play, “In love or mutton, I generally
fall to without ceremony,” but, spite of its agreeable
flavor, I shut my eyes, and selected a very small bit,
before I commenced upon the kibaubs. It was very
good eating, I soon found out, and, my fingers once
greased (for we are indulged with neither knife, fork,
nor skewer, in Turkey), I proved myself as good a
trencher-man as my friend.

The middle and lower classes of Constantinople live
between these shops and the cafés. A dish of kibaubs
serves them for dinner, and they drink coffee, which
they get for about half a cent a cup, from morning till
night. We paid for our mess (which was more than
any two men could eat at once, unless very hungry).
twelve cents.

We started again with fresh courage, in search of
the cistern. We soon found the old one, which is an
immense excavation, with a roof, supported by five
hundred granite columns, employed now as a place
for twisting silk, and escaping from its clamorous
denizens, who rushed up after us to the daylight, begging
paras, we took one of the boys for a guide, and
soon found the object of our search.

Knocking at the door of a half-ruined house, in one
of the loneliest streets of the city, an old, sore-eyed
Armenian, with a shabby calpack, and every mark of
extreme poverty, admitted us, pettishly demanding
our entrance money, before he let us pass the threshold.
Flights of steps, dangerously ruinous, led us
down, first into a garden, far below the level of the
street, and thence into a dark and damp cavern, the
bottom of which was covered with water. As the eye
became accustomed to the darkness, we could distinguish
tall and beautiful columns of marble and granite,
with superb corinthian capitals, perhaps thirty feet
in height, receding as far as the limits of our obscured
sight. The old man said there were a thousand of
them. The number was doubtless exaggerated, but
we saw enough to convince us, that here was covered
up, almost unknown, one of the mostly and magnificent
works of the Christian emperors of Constantinople