Portici fishermen

“All English gentlemen,” continued Demetri, “think they cut off heads every day in Stamboul, and put them, all of a row, on plates at the Seraglio Gate. And they think people are always being drowned in the Bosphorus. Not true. I know a fellow who is a dragoman, and shows that wooden shoot which conies from the wall of the Seraglio Point, as the placo they slide them down. It is only to get rid of the garden rubbish. Same with lots of other things.”

Demetri was right. To be completely disillusioned on certain points, one has but to journey with a determination to be only affected by things as they strike you. Swiss girls, St. Bernard dogs, Portici fishermen, the Rhine, Nile travelling, and other objects of popular rhapsodies, fearfully deteriorate upon practical acquaintance. Pew tourists have the courage to say that they have been “bored,” or at least disappointed, by some conventional lion. They find that Guide-books, Diaries, Notes, Journals, Ac. Ac., all copy one from the other in their enthusiasm about the same things; and they shrink from the charge of vulgarity, or lack of mind, did they dare to differ. Artists and writers trill study effect rather than graphic truth. The florid description of some modern book of travel is as different to the actual impressions of ninety- nine people out of a hundred — allowing all these to possess average education, perception, and intellect — when painting in their minds the same subject, as the artfully tinted lithograph, or picturesque engraving of the portfolio or annual, is to the faithful photograph.

“ That fellow’s a Dervish — clam’ rascal!” Demetri went on, pointing to the individual; “ we shall see him dance ou Friday; ho keeps a shop in the bazaar. That’s a man from Bokhara — dam’ fellow, too; all bad there. This is a Ilan.”

The Ilan, or, as we usually pronounce it, Khan, was a square surrounded by buildings, with galleries; with other occupants it could have been easily converted into a slave-market. A vague notion of it may be formed from an old borough inn — one story high, and built of stone. There was, however, a tree or two in the middle, and a fountain; in the corner was also an indifferent coffee-house.

Two hundred in Constantinople

These places, of which there are nearly two hundred in Constantinople, have been built, from time to time, by the sultans, and wealthy persons, for the accommodation of the merchants arriving, by caravan, from distant countries. No charge is made for their use; but the rooms are entirely unfurnished, so that the occupier must bring his mattress, little carpet, and such humble articles of cookery as he may require, with him. A key of his room is given to him, and he is at once master, for the time being, of the apartment. In the Ilan I visited, the occupants were chiefly Persians, in high black sheepskin caps, squatted, in the full enjoyment of Eastern indolence, upon their carpets, and smoking their narghillas, or “ hubble-bubbles.” Some of them came from a very road distance — Pamarcand, and the borders of Cabool, for instance; so that their love of repose, after the toil and incertitude of a caravan journey, was quite allowable.

Demetri next insisted that l should see the two vast subterraneous catkin, relics of great antiquity. One of these, the roof of which was supported by three or four hundred pillars, is dry, and used as a rope-walk, or silk-winding gallery. The other has water in it. You go through the court of a house, and then descend, over rubbish and broken steps, to a cellar, from which the reservoir extends, until lost in its gloomy immensity. The few bits of candle which the man lights to show it off, cannot send their rays very far from the spectator. It is more satisfactory to throw a stone, and hear it plash in the dark water at the end of its course, with a strange, hollow sound. Over this mighty tank are the houses and streets of Stamboul. The number of columns, which are of marble, is said to be about three hundred ; and the water, which you are expected to taste, is tolerably good private tour ephesus.

I`ve left the cistern, and traversed a few more lanes on our way to the bazaars. In these Eastern thoroughfares, narrow and crowded, one continually labors under the impression of being about to turn into a broad street or large square from a bye-way; but this never arrives. A man may walk for hours about Constantinople, and always appear to be in the back streets; although, in reality, they may be the great arteries of the city. Tortuous, and very much alike, Stamboul is also one large labyrinth, as regards its thoroughfares; the position of a stranger left by himself in the centre would be hopeless.