#Turkish Imperial Caiques of Sultans

[lifebgstyle]

Seraglio Point to Zindan Kapouss

The attack upon Constantinople in 1208-1204 by the Fourth Crusade, at the instigation of the Doge Henrico Dandolo, was essentially a piratical expedition to capture the commerce of the East for the benefit of the merchants of Venice. In the course of time the foreign traders in Constantinople were allowed by the Byzantine emperors to occupy the territory extending along the southern shore of the Golden Horn from the Seraglio Point to Zindan Kapouss. They were grouped according to their nationality, and placed beside one another in the following order, Saracens, Genoese, Pisans, traders from Amalfi, Venetians.

After 1261, the Genoese were settled in Galata, where they have left a monument of their occupation in the strong and massive Tower of Galata, that formed their watch-tower and citadel, and where they established, at the very gates of the capital, so strong a rival, that, as Gibbon observes, “The Roman Empire might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the Republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power.” These foreign communities were allowed to be self- governing, so far as the Byzantine Government was concerned. They had their own courts of justice, and their own places of worship, even the Saracens being allowed to possess a mosque.

A certain number of houses, a certain extent of territory, and particular piers at which their ships could moor for discharging or receiving cargo, were assigned to them, and, as a rule, they paid lower duties than native merchants did. Sometimes, it seems they were liable to render military service, as though feudal vassals, but to all intents and purposes they enjoyed under the Byzantine emperors very much the position which foreigners in Turkey now occupy, in virtue of the Capitulations granted by Sultans to European residents. The original copies of several of the commercial treaties between the Empire and the Italian States are preserved in the archives of Venice, Genoa, and other cities of Italy, and furnish an interesting chapter in the history of diplomacy and commerce.

The most picturesque portion of the Golden Horn is that which lies between the two bridges. Along the Galata shore, a large flotilla of gaunt native barges, with short masts and long oblique yards, is generally moored, waiting to be employed in the transhipment of the cargoes that leave or reach the port Here also a mass of native shipping is laid up for the winter tour packages balkan, after the fashion of the early days of navigation. It is a dense forest of bare masts and poles involved in a network of cordage, with the steep hill, upon which the stone houses of Galata and Pera are built as a rocky background. After a night of rain, the scene changes. Then from every yard and mast heavy, damp sails are spread in the warm, misty, morning air, and you seem to look upon a flock of great sea-birds opening their wings to bask in the sunshine.

Mosque of Sultan Suleiman

Along the opposite shore, surmounted by the domes and minarets of the Mosque of Sultan Suleiman, the bank is fringed with native craft, laden with fruit or oil from the islands of the Mgean Sea, or bringing planks and beams to the timber-yards at Odoun Kapan from the lands beside the Danube. Timber has been stored at that point ever since the days of Justinian the Great, if not ever since the city was founded. Caiques flit to and fro, as if shuttles weaving the sundered parts of the city together.

While companies of fearless sea-gulls spread grey wings and white breasts over the blue waters, and dance around in every graceful form that motion can assume. It is the portion of the harbour in which the world of the East is still most clearly reflected. The reach of the Golden Horn beyond the Inner Bridge is specially devoted to the service of the Turkish navy, and there may be seen such modern things as ironclads, torpedo boats, and torpedo destroyers. The time was when the Ottoman fleet which gathered here formed an imposing display of naval strength. The Admiralty, Naval Hospital, and Dockyard are situated on the northern bank. On the hill above the Dockyard is the Ok- meidan, the field to which the Sultans whose strong arms built up the Ottoman Power came to exercise themselves in the use of the bow. It is studded with pillars commemorating the long shots made by the imperial archers.

[lifestylesea]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[ottomanladies]

On this day, 14 June, in Ottoman history

14 June 1768 - birth of Hatice Sultan: daugter of Mustafa III and Adilşah Kadın, Hatice was Beyhan Sultan’s elder sister. Celebrations in honour of her birth lasted for four days, and Rashid Efendi (author of Çeşmizade Tarihi) composed a poem to celebrate the birth. Her father died when she was six, so Hatice Sultan, her mother and her younger sister Beyhan settled in the Old Palace. According to her mother, the princess developed depression because of the close environment where she was supposed to live. On 3 November 1786, at eighteen years old, Hatice married Vezir Seyyid Ahmed Paşa. She was widowed in 1798, at thirty years old, and never remarried. During the reign of her half-brother Selim III, the dynasty took an interest in modernising the palaces; to achieve this, the sultan called German-born French painter and architect Anton Ignaz Melling from the Danish court. Hatice met him in 1790 and asked him to design a new mansion for her, which was completed in 1793. It was so different from the usual Turkish style that even Selim III was interested in it and would often ride there and be a guest of his sister’s. Hatice Sultan was enthralled by Melling and even allowed him to enter the palace harem to get inspiration for his paintings and designs. The architect used to design clothes for his patroness, fournish the sultan’s rooms, design furniture pieces and jewelry. She used to call him “Melling Kalfa” in her letters, written in French until the architect managed to teach himself Ottoman Turkish, which he wrote using the latin alphabet– 130 years before the official adoption of the new Turkish alphabet. At the height of Melling’s popularity, Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Egypt, creating tensions between the empire and France. Melling’s pension was cut off and he was forbidden to come to court. Nevertheless, by summer of 1802 Melling and Hatice Sultan had started to exchange letters again. It is not known the nature of their relationship in details but it’s clear from their letters that the two shared a love for the city of Istanbul. Hatice Sultan died at the age of forty-four on 17 July 1822, and was buried in the mausoleum of her step-mother Mihrişah Sultan.

14 June 1826 - last insurrection of the janissaries: barely two weeks after Mahmud II had announced his reforms, the janissaries revolted. “On the night of 14 June small bands of janissaries began to gather at their parade ground; some among them roamed the streets of Istanbul, firing guns and starting fires and looking for their commander-in-chief whom they felt had sold them out. He managed to evade them,85 but at dawn the many hundreds by now assembled at the parade ground – one eyewitness dubbed them ‘prattling curs’86 – overturned their cauldrons in the traditional gesture of defiance. Again they surged through the city, looting as they went; one group sacked Grand Vezir Selim Mehmed Pasha’s mansion, and the women of his household escaped only by hiding in an underground cavern in the garden.87 The Sultan was at his palace in Beşiktaş when the insurrection broke out. Some of his predecessors, apt to hide at the first sign of a janissary mutiny, would have stayed where they were, but Mahmud  took a caique down the Bosporus to Topkapı Palace. So inevitable had been a janissary uprising against the reforms, and such pains had the Sultan taken to ensure that they succeeded, that a contingency plan had already been prepared. […] The Sultan made a stirring speech on his arrival there, and following the Sheikhulislam’s juridical opinion to the effect that Islamic law permitted such an uprising to be put down with force, Mahmud went into the treasury and brought out the sacred standard of the Prophet. The standard was duly taken from the palace and hung up on the pulpit in the mosque of Sultan Ahmed on the Hippodrome. It worked its magic, and as criers went around the city calling all true Muslims to assemble beneath it, the populace hurried to do so. Officers of state who gathered in the mosque to discuss how to proceed decided to reject negotiation. A body of loyal troops – artillerymen, sappers and bombardiers – made for the janissary barracks, but the gates were shut fast against them as the rebel janissaries barricaded themselves inside. The imperial cannoneers opened fire, and the barracks were soon ablaze; those who could, fled, to engage in hand-to-hand battle with the loyal troops waiting outside – the rest burned inside. Mahmud had not intended to wipe the janissaries off the face of the earth in such a violent manner, but both his care in preparing for the introduction of his reform of the corps, and the realism that demanded a contingency plan should matters go awry, meant that when he found himself with no other option, he could resolutely bring the operation to its grisly conclusion.” – Caroline Finkel, Osman’s dream: the History of the Ottoman Empire

[lifestyleturkey]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[thefishbread]

Great Elchi

Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair feces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “ Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

Turkish population alone

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “k la Franca.”

Again, what a change has come over the style of building in the place. The palaces of the Sultan are ‘on European models.

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon- trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caique, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.

[highslis]

Great Elchi

Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair feces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “ Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

Turkish population alone

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “k la Franca.”

Again, what a change has come over the style of building in the place. The palaces of the Sultan are ‘on European models.

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon- trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caique, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.

[lifestival]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[dreamfoodbg]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[taksimhookah]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[lifestylebiljina]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[technostyle]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[lifestylelalka]

Great Elchi

Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair feces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “ Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

Turkish population alone

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “k la Franca.”

Again, what a change has come over the style of building in the place. The palaces of the Sultan are ‘on European models.

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon- trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caique, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.

[allhealthly]

Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

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Great Elchi

Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair feces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “ Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

Turkish population alone

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “k la Franca.”

Again, what a change has come over the style of building in the place. The palaces of the Sultan are ‘on European models.

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon- trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caique, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.

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Tattered stragglers of generations of men

She is almost a European lady, thinly disguised. And where are the men who moved about, crowned with turbans, and attired in long, coloured, flowing robes? You meet them occasionally on the street, or see them gathered about the mosques, weary and tattered stragglers of generations of men, whose mien and gait were the look and motion of princes. Some one has said that the Turks committed a great mistake when they adopted the European dress; for the change makes you suppose that they have ceased to be Orientals, and are to be judged by European standards in all respects. Too much is therefore expected of them. Certainly the change has not improved their appearance. It has robbed them of that quiet dignity and commanding air which imposed immediate respect. The eagle is shorn of his plumes.

Glittering saddle cloth

The Turkish pasha, for instance, is now a shadow of his former self. What a master of men he looked when seated on a fine Arab horse and glittering saddle-cloth, he rode slowly through the streets, accompanied by a retinue of servants on foot, the crowd making way for him to pass as though a king went by. What an incarnation of gnat he was when he floated on the Bosporus in a caique of five pairs of oars, two servants squatting in front of him, with folded hands, in the bottom of the boat; his pipe-bearer, behind on the poop, ready to present him with a long-stemmed pipe of cherry or jasmine wood, surmounted by an amber mouthpiece, adorned with diamonds. With the disappearance of such things, there has been a sensible weakening of the awe which the ruling race excited in the rest of the population. If any one wishes to experience the fall, so to speak, in the temperature of the feeling of awe produced by the change from an Oriental to a European garb let him visit the Museum of the Janissary Costumes.

What terror those costumes must have inspired! Or let him visit the Imperial Treasury in the Seraglio, and walk down the line of lay-figures attired in the costumes worn by successive Sultans. The eye pays instant homage to every master of the Ottoman Empire clad in native appareL But when the figure of Mahomet the Reformer, who swept away the janissaries and other old institutions, is seen dressed in European clothes (except for the red fez), one reads there the sign that the glory of the House of Othman was on the wane. The dread and majesty by which the Turk was formerly hedged round have vanished.

[socialifestyle]

Great Elchi

Within the memory of men still living, eunuchs carried swords to chastise indiscreet admirers of Oriental beauties, and did not hesitate to slash a European guilty of casting long, lingering looks upon the fair feces. It was forbidden, within days that one recalls, to pass the imperial palace on horseback or with an umbrella opened. So strictly was the rule enforced, that even the “ Great Elchi,” Sir Stratford Canning, riding by the palace, was once compelled to dismount from his horse. This proved too much for the great man. Furious at the indignity, he sent instantly for his dragoman, demanded an immediate audience of the Sultan, and obtained the order which put an end to the humiliating custom.

Turkish population alone

It is not, however, among the Turkish population alone that a marked change in dress has occurred. Within the memory of living persons, Armenian and Jewish women appeared in public wearing distinctive veils. Baggy trousers, head-kerchiefs, striking colours, embroidered jackets, turbans, were in vogue among the non-Moslem inhabitants, making the scenes in the streets kaleidoscopic, and furnishing also a ready means whereby to identify the nationalities that seemed inextricably mingled together. It is surprising how a resident of Constantinople can recognise the nationality of the peoples he meets, even since a common style of dress has come into fashion. But in days not very remote, every native wore his country upon his sleeve. His costume was the badge of his race and people. Now, the order of the day is “k la Franca.”

Again, what a change has come over the style of building in the place. The palaces of the Sultan are ‘on European models.

The day has vanished, when to go up or down the Bosporus was to move through a scene in which the charms of nature were heightened by the fascinating primitiveness and fancifulness of the Orient The large old-fashioned Turkish house, almost nothing but stories of windows, painted deep red, or left to assume the natural grey of the wood, with broad eaves under which small attic windows, filled with little diamond-shaped panes of glass nestled, have disappeared, or are fast falling into decay. Venetian shutters are replacing the latticed screens, which invested a Turkish home with so much mystery; conservatories have taken the room of the old green-houses of orange-trees and lemon- trees. And, worst of all, boats of European form are supplanting the caique, so light, so graceful, floating upon the water like a seabird, and making the Bosporus seem a stream in fairyland.