| Show THROUGH THE constantinople may 14 A trip trio through the is a joy und under any circumstances but when that ex cursione is made in the merry month of may constantinople may in in all ifa incomparable purity and freshness wi with the great turkish festival of bairam adding its quota of fluttering pennan pennants and waving flags from ever every put public building Luil tuil ding and bit of turkish shipping ipa n it takes on an added charm t that at reo ders it indescribably fascinating nor as is tb the e art prelude lude leading up to the sw swelling dimpson without its ac compary interest there is a grand clash 3 opening ening chords as we rumble ry ly through the egyptian darkness of ofte tunnel that takes us rushing down the steep incline from the heights of pera pen to low lyng galata then a staccato movement over that wonderful id ol 01 nations as we pick our way abro throng jews and greeks tartars and tur croats choats and gypsies w gentiles man and beast prince a anft beggar black and white bond and iree projecting iron spikes that catch aorl garments shifting iron braces th threaten our unwary feet and omin ominous cracks through which we catch taft gleam ot of the rushing waters bet below 0 lastly a tremolo as putting our burr fe few poor words of turkish together we struggle with turkish time tables w than inscriptions T ish time which changes daily wlter the setting sun turkish money has neither torm comeliness rio nor afi standard unit ot of value and a oj turkish newsboy who recognizing etaf loreign foreign extraction pursues us with WN ci ferous inglis daperl today toda ysl st til bits ver good without pre ing to challenge his assertions to w wl the ancient earmarks and vale tudin aspect of tidbits tid bits gives the lie and steeling g ourselves against the insistent appeals ot of a trio of small beggars who with one hand on their fat stomachs and the other stretched out in a melting appeal for charity compass us fore and att aft with an embarrassing richness of sala salaams ams and pianissimo of mada madame M madame madame we follow bollom I 1 the crowd we cross two steamers ay lying rig side by side until we reach the third floating beside the star and crescent a small green flag that assures us in our right and this is the steamer that runs up the european shore of the hit historic channel as lar jar as returning down the asiatic to we climb cheerfully to the upper deck noting as we pass the inscription that proves proff s the steamer ot of english extraction made on the thames tham 1 es ensconced on the long settees facing the european shore we refuse the glasses gasses of water brought us by the solicitous su ge ee who sell it at a para a ilass glass but suge invest in a bottle of lemon drops dreps which we find later bears the appetizing blauel la del glycerine colisch Po lisch berlin A brief study of cosmos and costumes ancient mediaeval media eval and modern i ecclesiastic tib and military and her aided by a series of earsplitting ear splitting whistles we push our way through the crowd of steamers plying variously to the Bo kadi kein and the princes islands and find ourselves a part of the great moving panorama that covers the bosom of this extraordinary channel on one side is a great steamer bound I 1 for the black sea a throng of white turbaned b ack gowned leaning over the rais rails giving it a funeral quite at variance variance with the a paea rance J i mr which is one fluttering mass of ag color 0 r aig in honor of the festival stival le the j boatmen of the round bottomed boats and caignet are visions ons of beauty in fresh white costumes sashes and scarlet fizzes fizzel as they shoot about lightly dip nine the oars first firs t with one hand and then n g the other the sun shines soft and warm touching with gold the fresh ereen me n 9 of the plane trees th lofty pray gray MISS mass ot of the mosque with its minarets mina and arabesques and the long T white point of the old seraglio which we rapidly leave behind on we pass through a tangle of shipping italian Au austman Aust nan french doumanian Rou manian and eng heh merchantmen merchant men last fastened ened to great red ba booye to while crossing our path an old turkish vessel bound for the dardan eales steams heavily puffing cottony billows in its wake big scows laden with haystacks of af generous onerous proportions ancient river crat craft boasting tattered ails but propelled by two muscular boatmen who grasping each an oar vise rise mount the seat sit and rise nse again at ad each recurring stroke their bare sinewy ewy legs at as untiring apparently as so ao many parts of a machine As w we e reach Ka batash we see on the T shore a gr group up of kurdish h in holiday attire dancing with as much grace as overnight one oner might night expect from a herd of cows with extended arms and hands resting each on the next mans shoulder the line hue follows the movements of its leader the end man who with waving handkerchief of generous proportions leads the mazes of this clumsy imitation of the ancient ionic dance here too we shudder over great scow loads of the cities garbage being unceremoniously Y dumped damped into the strait and send up a prayer of thanksgiving that the current is both swift gwilt and strong enough to bear it to the sea packs of mangy yellow curs the most important scavengers of the city rush frantically among the boats and along the shore and quarrel over each bit of bone or bread washed up by the waves amidst the trees a short distance behind Ka batash we see the much whitewashed anew new mosque ot of the sultan which is not so new after all as it was completed in 1665 by the mother of mohammed IV all along the mosque are numerous places tor for ablution which are filled by a nondescript array of good edans ans preparing themselves to enter the mosque alter after a A vigorous washing they stand in the sun to dry as the use of a towel bouw wouw necessitate another series of ablutions through the branches of the blooming locusts and horse chestnuts we catch the glitter of steel a vision of prancing steeds and serried ranks a flash of gold and scarlet and do not need the strains of martial music to tell us these are the imperial troops returning from that greatest spectacular performance the Sel amik A moment more and we are before the 9 great reat marble palace of that exquisite creation of an armenian architect here lived sultan abdul whose struggle to build up a liberal party among the interpreters of t the he koran proved unavailing in the face of his conservative pashas and whose death was said to have been caused by in melancholy elan choly brought on by the death of one of his wives to whom says a chronicler he is said ever to have borne himself as knight to lady this palace also witnessed the dethronement of sultan aziz when on the dark and rainy night of may aoth 1876 his general in chief hussein ami and grand vizier midhat pasha entered his room and told him he was no longer sultan and to prove it showed him his own ironclads iron with their guns turned against him although regal in its appo appointments ointments int ments its associations were too pa painful f U I 1 for sultan hamid II 11 who has never lived in it and only uses it at his bairam reception today solitary but imposing imposing it stretches along its quay of spotless marble flights ot of steps leading down to the blue waters when the palace was inhabited and the beauties of the harem haram sat behind the jealous lattices every steamer was i obliged to make a wide detour but now this regulation has been transferred to chirogan Chi ragan the palace just above where deposed sultan murad the mad murad walks up and down a royal r prisoner no visitor is ever ad admitted bitted here and no boat is allowed near the shore six guard houses are placed at regular intervals on the scala in front and detachments of blue uniformed brass buttoned and scarlet euzed guards patrol atrol before his windows night and say day through an open window he has been seen pacing restlessly back and forth like a caged lion beyond here the european shore presents a continuous line of palaces summer residences and villages whose streets run steeply down to the quay while in every available place open air cafes covered with growing vines or green branches show groups of red men enjoying their tiny cups of coffee or bubbling na the hills rising back of the shore sometimes broken in terraces wreathed in green and sometimes one continuous stretch of verdure seem to connect the blue of the sky with the blue of the water beneath sometimes a great pink patch catches the eye and shows the judas trees or pink horse chestnuts in flower at every stopping place the universal red fez or white curbans carbans of the massed together give the effect of a great tulip be bed while the glitter of the morning soldiery sold tery with their wealth of gold decorations and shining arms made one thick of brilliant dragon flies hovering near kear at armenian and greek villages village 5 there axe are open doors and windows with the women looking out while th L turkish villages or palaces present a front of closed windows and close barred lattices some of the palaces are built right over the water with no entrance in front save by while others have the scala before them nearly all the houses are gray or brown with reddish brown tiled roofs and stove pipes projecting from the windows all the lower windows are iron barred and the heavy doors sport brass knockers of antique appearance many of the turkish houses havle have inscriptions script ions over them while a greek house may be recognized by its wreath of withering b blossoms left there from may day perhaps the most picturesque spot on all the Bo is that at boumeli His sars where are the stupendous fortifications erected by mohammed II 11 in 1452 as the first step preparatory to the sie siege e of constantinople along the rocky sg sides des of a steep promontory are the winding walls built of alternate layers of stone and brick while three massive towers from which swaying vines flutter and creep tell a story equalled equal led by no romance biow masons 1000 lime burners and an army of laborers were set to build these walls two yards of which were assigned to each mason the castle is reported to have been completed in three months the walls being thirty feet thick ana and high in proportion the tower nearest the waters edge was armed with enormous guns which threw stone shot of more than loo weight while openings above the doors allowed for the throwing of hot pitch on any attacking party this tower still goes by the name of cutthroat cut throat castle an appellation well deserved as until the present century it was used for prisoners condemned to death out of it says tradition no man ever went alive today it is occupied by a bulgarian woman a refugee who doubtless knows nothing of its gruesome history at is base a turkish guardhouse holds its contingent of soldiery whose families have ensconced themselves in houses within the enclosure of the walls some of the enormous stone are ranged at intervals along the shore between bebek liebek and chissar on a magnificent plateau feet above the Bo stands the he pride of all americans the handsome e stone edifice known as robert college which has ex arc erased sed the most marked influence of tte the educational progress of turkey and bulgaria but the steamer still goes ori on and we see in turn the pretty palace presented by sultan aziz to his daughter fahimeh and in which were signed various important treaties the summer palace and charming gardens of the ex khedive of egypt as the palaces oi of some of lie he princesses at therapia one of the most frequented and beautiful of all the resorts on the Bo we find the summer homes of the ambassadors bass adors of great britain france germany and italy the british embassy is a biz big square structure immaculate in white paint and preen green blinds out Dut does not fit into the landscape la lawell atwell well as the french palace with its red 6 buildings uil dings and ivy covered walls As the french flag is flying we judge that the have already arrived this pada palace formerly belonged to the f assily but was taken by sel m III aey him to france in return for sem services semes es rendered the german palace is ls i tor for its beautiful park above here bere it comes anes beautiful bayuk dereh tre great V valley alley where ai e the residences of the russian fRus sian ambassador as well as many other notables the rides and walks about here are charming and possess special interest fur the readers of paul A little further and we are at karak where the width of the strait is about 1100 yards here on either side sid have been placed new batteries where where t twelve we ive krupp guns on both asiatic and european shores turn threatening mouths to russia should she dare enter without permission the wind blows fresh and pure from the black sea as we turn to retrace our course this time down the asiatic side great flocks ot halcyone halcyons halcy ons said to be the lost souls of the sultans wives who sleep beneath the waves skim by us never resting D d 1 ahins dash and play their broad backs slapping up and down in the water the fishers watchmen in their towers look closely into the depths ready to signal the watching boats to pull the seines and the giants mountain rises grandly before us here according to moslem tradition lies the grave of joshua which is n guarded ru added by dervishes and covered witt with flowers and shrubs As the grave is twenty feet long and correspondingly broad it affords a fine vantage point for rags and strings and patches of garments hung there by devout turks as a r votive offering supposed to ward off levers and other diseases in the bay at the toot foot ot of the mountain vessels bom the black sea are quarantined from here wide intervals of vegetation and tle the sweet waters of asia separate the villages ts of hunkiar Is kelesi where the celebrated treaty was signed in 1833 beikos the traditional scene of encounter pollux and amicus and the haunt harint of swordfish which are much sought after in august and september IGn kondili dili gruesome now from the recent massacres and Beyl erbey the most beautiful of all the palaces on the Bo aten with the sinking sun we turn our faces homeward EMMA PADDOCK TELFORD |
