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tall pulpit, but no one was occupying it at the time. St Sophia appeared to one a heavy ponderous construction in comparison with the other mosques not far off, the airy lightness of which I have already mentioned.
Another proceeding which was possible then but which no one could have done with impunity in ordinary times, was to stand at the crossings of the principal street of Pera when the carriages containing the Sultan's wives were passing, and look well at the females as they sat within. The veil which is worn by women in Constantinople is very thin, and the features can be observed through them with much distinctness. What struck me particularly in their features was their acquiline noses - they reminded me of a lot of Jewesses in fact, and I have often thought since that the original Jews were probably a race allied to the Georgians and Circassians, who had been enslaved by the Egyptians during one of their constant wars with the Assyrians or Persians. All of these women were said to be of pure Georgian or Circassian blood.
This palace occupied by the Sultan was a rather old one, quite near to the waters of the Bosphorus. A new one had lately been finished not far from it, and both in Pera. I went to see the new one and was admitted without difficulty. It was interesting to examine the interior and see all the mangements. There was of course an elaborate space devoted to the bath and the slate bed of the Sultan was very magnificent. The hall of audience was in a detached building which consisted of the hall alone. The ceiling was very high and the appearance of the interior very superb. - the floor being an inlaid one with an elaborate pattern. But the entire palace was a cheaply built concern with much of the exterior decoration consisting of stucco or some other form of plaster. It was curious to observe that this palace which of all the others was the only one that displayed anything approaching to oriental splendor, had been designed and decorated by Italians. And yet the Turkish architects had immortalised themselves by their designs for the different mosques.
Another sight of the city was the weekly exhibition of the whirling dervishes. There is not much to be said about them beyond the statement that they were a lot of long-robed men with caps on their heads which resembled an ordinary flower pot: They began their devotions with a slow whirling to the music of two instruments in the gallery of the building one of which is called a “tum-tum,” from a sound being produced corresponding to those two words. It was a kind of drum which was tapped with two sticks, and there was also a wind instrument like a flute, the two making a music that was not in any way musical to the civilized ear. There was also some singing near the musical performers, but the dervishes remained silent. After a while their whirling became more rapid, and the perspiration fell from their faces in large drops. By this time I began to feel that I had seen enough, and, being told that there would be no new feature in the performance, I made my exit while the whirl was at its height. The exhibition is a remarkable illustration of religious fanaticism.
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I was in Constantinople about ten days and employed my time as usefully as I could in visiting every point of interest. All of the English cavalry had been withdrawn from the Crimea and were quartered near the Hospital at Scutari for the winter. The day that I went to the hospital I also went into the cavalry barracks, which were low wooden sheds occupying four sides of a square. These contained the men alone, and we found them very busy shining the brasses of their accoutrements and whitening their belts with pipe clay. I noticed some officers horses outside which were being exercised. A thoroughbred galloped past us and the long lope was very different from the short gallop of the Arab horse, many perfect specimens of which are always to be seen at Constantinople, ridden by Turks who are government officials.
The weather of the previous winter on the plateau near Sebastopol where the sufferings of the English army especially had been intense, caused a great loss of life from exposure alone, and the horses had also died in large numbers. They were picketed to poles near the tents of the men, without any protection from the weather, and during the many storms that occurred and the severe cold it was impossible to check the mortality. The horses that had been sent from England to replace the lost ones were inferior, as could easily be seen upon examining those of the privates at Scutari.
Having seen as much of the English army as was possible at Constantinople, I then decided upon a walk of eight miles out of Pera to a French camp of reserve troops amounting to about 10.000 men at a place called Maslak. After having proceeded a part of the way I joined a private of the time, a pleasant little Frenchman, and we continued together to our destination. It is well known that a French soldier of the line receives as pocket money only one sou per day, and in time of war two sous. We chatted together the whole way and one of the questions I asked the little man was whether he did not consider two sous a day very little. Yes, he replied, but when every other man receives but the same amount there is no feeling of jealousy. He added too that many of the men received occasionally small sums from their families at home. My impression is that the stipend of the French soldier is paid him every fifth day. The road to Maslak was practicable for vehicles and fairly good for pedestrians. The country on each side was rolling but with no signs of cultivation, and there was scarcely a tree to be seen. The encampment was well laid out in a square, one side of which bordered on the road, all the tents for the privates being small A tents, capable of containing four men each. There were sentinels all around and no civilian was admitted within. I thought this singular, and asked an officer whether I could not crack through, but he replied that it was against orders. On the opposite side of the road were a number of wooden chanties occupied by sutters. I entered one and drank a glass of wine with a biscuit. They are indispensable to an army and are the places to which the sous gravitate. Many a nice little meal prepared with the skill for which the French are celebrated was doubtless enjoyed by the officers in these little houses when remittances arrived from home. With the impossibility of entering the encampment my curiosity was soon satisfied
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and I returned to the city.
It was important that I should take a trip up the Bosphorus before leaving and I did this by taking a small steamer starting in the afternoon for Buyukdéré, a summer resort on the European side, not far from the northern end of the straits. On each side of the Bosphorus were many summer houses where the hot weather is spent. None of them were in any way conspicuous for style or adornment and they all appeared to be of wood. Most of the foreign diplomats and consuls spend their summers at Buyukdéré, and I found a well built and substantial hotel there, but it was closed. I went farther however and was taken in at a French inn, where I fared well during the night. Upon landing from the steamer I walked in company with a young Englishman and accompanied him to a little shop where an old long bearded and turbaned man had a number of furred skins for sale which he was ready to sew to the inside of coats or greatcoats as the wish of customer might be. My companion was probably one of the numerous civil employe’s of the army who expected to be exposed to severely cold weather, and he wished to have the interior of his coat lined with sheepskin. As usual the old man asked three or four times as much as the work was worth. His customer was in a hurry and became provoked at the obstinacy of the old fellow in not being immediately willing to lower his figure. I was in a hurry too as night was coming in and I wished to be out of the reach of harm, so I left them in the midst of their wrangle. My evening at the hotel was pleasantly spent. The only other guest besides myself was an English naval officer who did not seem to be a commissioned one. We amused ourselves talking to and playing little round games with the family of the inn keeper. When I was returning in the same steamer the next morning, as we approached Constantinople I saw at some distance a very beautiful caique manned by about 16 or 18 oarsmen approaching the Sultan’s palace. I pointed to it and indicated to a bystander that I wished to know what it meant, and he who was a Greek said “Basideus”, which I understood to mean the Sultan or king. It was indeed the ruler Abdul Medjid who was returning from the Mosque, it being Friday, the Mahometan sabbath. When I reached the hotel that morning I looked into the dining room and saw friend Arrowsmith who had finished his breakfast but had not yet gone out. He asked where I had been, and when I explained, he said that I should have notified him of my intention as he would like to have gone. You Americans, he added, are an energetic people, and waste very little time in deliberating. Here I am, an Engishman, and I have not yet fixed upon a day for taking a trip up the Bosphorus, and yet my stay here is short and limited.
I did not have an opportunity to converse with any French officer while in Constantinople. They staid in different hotels from the English and the mutual ignorance of each other’s language made all intercourse between the two difficult. The management of the siege by the French had been vastly better than the same management by the English They had an unlimited supply of men, and it was considered that their army amounted in all to 200.000 men. There was great sacrifice of life as the French trenches
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The Sardinians did not participate in the actual siege operations to any extent. They occupied the extreme right and fought a successful battle with the Russians during the summer of the siege. What was accomplished for the little kingdom of Sardinia by the alliance with the western Powers was her having had her representations to sit at the Peace conferences in Paris on an equality with those of the great powers - Count Cavour was the able statesman who engineered this, and it was the starting point, as the world knows, of the unity of Italy under the then reigning king of Sardinia which was completely consummated in 1870.
With regard to the difficult task of England alone preventing the Russians from eventually reaching Constantinople and thus
being dangerously near to the highway to India, the opinion was frequently expressed in my hearing that the proper step for England to take was the occupying of Egypt, where with her fleet she could bid defiance to the rest of Europe. There was no pretext for the step then, but one has arizen since and the move has been successfully made.