Читать книгу Under the Turk in Constantinople: A record of Sir John Finch's Embassy, 1674-1681 онлайн

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On the other hand, there were the magnificent relics of Greco-Roman antiquity, brought into strong relief by their paltry surroundings: towers and arches, aqueducts and temples, that had defied the havoc of the ages. For such antiquarian treasures seventeenth-century Europeans had an eye, and they lavished upon the past all the enthusiasm which the Orient of their day failed to evoke in them. There were also the public buildings added by the Turks—superb mosques, vaulted baths, and bazaars resplendent with the fabrics and redolent of the spices of the East. Above all, there was the matchless beauty of the situation—a natural privilege which rendered the capital of the Sultans beyond comparison the most wonderful city on the face of the earth; and of all parts of that capital not the least advantageously situated were the suburbs of Galata and Pera in which the Franks had their residence, separated from Stambul by the harbour of the Golden Horn.

Galata, the business quarter, occupying the lower slopes of a hill, and Pera, where the Embassies stood, the higher, formed an amphitheatre which commanded a panoramic view of the circumjacent seas with all their bays and islands. Down below gleamed the Golden Horn: a scene of ceaseless animation: merchant ships of all nations riding at anchor; light caïcks flitting to and fro with the grace and the swiftness of swallows; enormous, heavily gilded galleys sailing in and out, some bound north for the Black Sea, others south for the Aegean. From behind this ever-moving panorama, the city of Stambul surged up in all its majesty; a sierra of seven hills broken by the massive domes and slender minarets of innumerable mosques, it glittered in the sunlight and moonlight of the East like a jewel in a silver setting. The most precious gem in this regal jewel was the Grand Signor’s Seraglio—a gorgeous assemblage of palaces, mosques, baths, and kiosks scattered amidst gardens and groves. It covered a walled space four miles in circumference, with the Golden Horn on one side, the Sea of Marmara on the other, while round the third side, blue and limpid as the sky itself, swept the rapid stream of the Bosphorus. Across the Bosphorus, on the coast of Asia, rose the bold promontory of Scutari, its slopes encrusted with kiosks and grottos, thickets and hanging gardens, its summit crowned with the domes and minarets of a stately mosque. And close by, in striking contrast, were seen the dark cypress-groves of Scutari—a procession of mourners watching over a city of the dead. In these congenially solemn groves the Turks loved to sleep their last sleep, permitting the infidels to plant their cemeteries with other trees, but reserving the cypress jealously to themselves. Hither, to the soil of Asia, whence he had come, the Turk loved to return at the last, as if he considered himself a stranger and a sojourner in Europe, as if he felt that here alone his remains would not be disturbed by the revengeful Giaour, when the day of reckoning dawned.