these complimentary comments; and my companion and myself being much fatigued with the exertions that we had made during the day, we determined to retire to our apartment, without waiting to partake of the second repast, which is served up between two and three o’clock in the morning.
From this period the Turks remain smoking, and sipping their coffee, detailing news, and telling stories, an amusement to which they are extremely partial, until there is sufficient light to enable them to distinguish between a black thread and a white one, when the fast is scrupulously resumed. But it may be curious to remark, that, as not even a draught of water can be taken until the evening meal, and, (still greater privation to the Osmanli,) not a pipe can be smoked, they have adopted a singular expedient for appeasing the cravings of re-awakening appetite. They cause opium pills to be prepared, enveloped in one, two, and three coatings of gold leaf; and these they swallow at the last moment when food is permitted to be taken; under the impression that each will produce its intended effect at a given time, which is determined by the number of envelopes that have to disengage themselves from the drug before it can act.
The apartment wherein we passed the night was spacious and lofty; and the ceiling was lined with canvass, on which a large tree in full leaf was painted in oils; and, as this was the great ornament of the room, and, moreover, considered as a model of ingenious invention, one of the slaves did not fail to point out to us that the canvass, instead of being tightly stretched, was mounted loosely on a slight frame, which, when the air entered from the open windows, permitted an undulation intended to give to the tree the effect of reality. I do not think that I was ever more amused—for the branches resembled huge boa constrictors much more than any thing connected with the vegetable kingdom: and every leaf was as large and as black as the crown of a man’s hat.
Our beds were composed of mattresses laid one above the other upon the floor, and these were of the most costly description; mine being yellow satin brocaded with gold, and that of my companion violet-coloured velvet, richly fringed. A Turkish bed is arranged in an instant—the mattresses are covered with a sheet of silk gauze, or striped muslin, (my own on this occasion was of the former material)—half a dozen pillows of various forms and sizes are heaped up at the head, all in richly embroidered muslin cases, through which the satin containing the down is distinctly seen—and a couple of wadded coverlets are laid at the feet, carefully folded: no second sheet is considered necessary, as the coverlets are lined with fine white linen. Those which were provided for us were of pale blue silk, worked with rose-coloured flowers.
At the lower end of every Turkish room are large closets for the reception of the bedding; and the slaves no sooner ascertain that you have risen, than half a dozen of them enter the apartment, and in five minutes every vestige of your couch has disappeared—you hurry from the bed to the bath, whence you cannot possibly escape in less than two hours—and the business of the day is then generally terminated for a Turkish lady. All that remains to be done is to sit under the covering of the tandour, passing the beads of a perfumed chaplet rapidly through the fingers fingers—arranging and re-arranging the head-dress and ornaments—or to put on the yashmac and feridjhe, and sally forth, accompanied by two or three slaves, to pay visits to favourite friends; either on foot, in yellow boots reaching up to the swell of the leg, over which a slipper of the same colour is worn; or in an araba, or carriage of the country, all paint, gilding, and crimson cloth, nestled among cushions, and making more use of her eyes than any being on earth save a Turkish woman would, with the best inclination in the world, be able to accomplish; such finished coquetry I never before witnessed as that of the Turkish ladies in the street. As the araba moves slowly along, the feridjhe is flung back to display its white silk lining and bullion tassels; and, should a group of handsome men be clustered on the pathway, that instant is accidentally chosen for arranging the yashmac. The dark-eyed dames of Spain, accomplished as they are in the art, never made more use of the graceful veil than do the orientals of the jealous yashmac.
The taste for “shopping”—what an excellent essay might the “piquante and spirituelle” Lady Morgan write on this universal feminine mania!—is as great among the eastern ladies as with their fair European sisters; but it is indulged in a totally different manner. Constantinople boasts no commercial palace like those of Howell and James, or Storr and Mortimer; and still less a Maradan Carson: no carriage draws up at the door of an Ebers or a Sams for “the last new novel;” nor does a well-warmed and well-floored bazar tempt the satin-slippered dame to wander among avenues of glittering gewgaws and elaborated trifles: the carriage of the veiled Osmanli stops at the door of some merchant who has a handsome shopman; and the name of the latter, having been previously ascertained, Sadak or Mustapha, as the case may be, is ordered by the arabajhe, or coachman, to exhibit to his mistress some article of merchandize, which he brings accordingly, and, while the lady affects to examine its quality and to decide on its value, she enters into conversation with the youth, playing upon him meanwhile the whole artillery of her fine eyes. The questioning generally runs nearly thus:—“What is your name?”—“How old are you?”—“Are you married?”—“Were you ever in love?”—and similar misplaced and childish questions. Should the replies of the interrogated person amuse her, and his beauty appear as great on a nearer view as when seen from a distance, the merchandize is objected to, and the visit repeated frequently, ere the fastidious taste of the purchaser can be satisfied.
Nor are women of high rank exempt from this indelicate fancy, which can only be accounted for by the belief that, like caged birds occasionally set free, they do not know how to use their liberty: the Sultana Haybétoullah, sister to his Sublime Highness, the Light of the Ottoman Empire, is particularly attached to this extraordinary passe-temps.
The following morning we started on an exploring expedition, accompanied by the closely-veiled and heavily-draped “Juno,” and attended by her nurse and child, and her quaintly-habited footman; and, as the carriage could not approach the house by a considerable distance, owing to the narrowness and steepness of the streets in that quarter of the city, (which, built upon the crest and down the slope of one of the “seven hills,” overlooks the glittering and craft-clustered port), we were obliged to walk to it through the frozen snow, upon the same principle that, as the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet was compelled to go to the mountain.
Directly I cast my eyes on the carriage, I had an excellent idea of that which the fairy godmother of Cinderella created for her favourite out of a pumpkin. Its form was that of a small covered waggon; its exterior was all crimson cloth, blue silk fringe, and tassels; and its inside precisely resembled a cake of gilt gingerbread. Four round looking-glasses, just sufficiently large to reflect the features, were impannelled on either side of the doors; and in the place of windows we had gilt lattices, so closely made that our position was the very reverse of cheerful; and, as I found it, moreover, quite impossible to breathe freely, these lattices were flung back despite the cold, and this arrangement being made, I established myself very comfortably on the satin cushions, with my feet doubled under me à la Turque, amid the piled-up luxuries of duvet and embroidery.
Our first visit was to the charshees, or, as Europeans for some inexplicable reason have the habit of calling them, the “bazars”—the word bazar literally signifying market—and, as the carriage rattled under the heavy portal, my first feeling was that of extreme disappointment. The great attraction of these establishments is undeniably their vast extent, for in tenue and richness they are as inferior to our own miniature bazars in London as possible. Rudely paved—disagreeably dirty—plentifully furnished with égouts, of which both the sight and the scent are unpleasing—badly lighted—clumsily built—and so constructed as to afford no idea of the space they cover, until you have wandered through the whole of their mazes, your involuntary impression is one of wonder at the hyperboles which have been lavished on them by travellers, and the uncalled-for extacies of tour-writers.
The charshees are like a little commercial town, roofed in; each street being appropriated to one particular trade or calling; and presenting relative degrees of attraction and luxury, from the diamond-merchant’s counter to the cushions
