TURKISH COFFEE-HOUSES By H. G. Dwight

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

OR one who has ever walked reign the Syrian Shemsi made his little fort­ the streets of a Turkish une, took no notice of the agitation against town it is almost impossible the new drink. But succeeding sultans to imagine them without pursued those who indulged in it with un­ coffee-houses. Yet those heard-of severity. During the sixteenth resorts are of comparative •and seventeenth centuries coffee-drinkers recency among the Turks, and they were were persecuted in Constantinople more rig­ not acclimated without bitter opposition. orously than wine-bibbers have ever been While the properties of the coffee-berry are in England or America. Their most unre­ supposed to have been discovered or redis­ lenting enemy was the bloody Mourad IV, covered by an Arab dervish in the thirteenth who closed all the coffee-houses after the century, they were unknown in Constanti­ great fire of 1633 and forbade the use of nople until three hundred years later. The coffee or tobacco under pain of death. He, first coffee-house was opened there in 1554 and his nephew Mohammed IV after him, by one Shemsi, a native of Aleppo. He re­ used to patrol the city in disguise, a la Ha- turned to Syria three years later, taking roun-al-Rashid, in order to detect and pun­ with him five thousand ducats and little ish for themselves any violation of the law. imagination of what uproar his successful The latter sultan, nevertheless, was the enterprise was to cause. The beverage so means of extending the habit to Europe— quickly appreciated was as quickly looked which, for the rest, he doubtless considered upon by the orthodox as insidious to the its proper habitat. To be sure, it was public morals—partly because it seemed merely during his reign that the English to merit the recommendations of the Ko­ made their first acquaintance with our ran against intoxicants, partly because it after-dinner friend. It was brought back brought people together in places other from Smyrna in 1652 by a Mr. Edwards, than mosques. " The black enemy of sleep member of the Levant Company, whose and of love," as a poet styled the Arabian house was so besieged by those curious to berry, was variously denounced as one of taste the strange concoction that he set up the Four Elements of the World of Pleasure, his Greek servant in the first coffee-house one of the Four Pillars of the Tent of Lu­ in London. There too, however, coffee was bricity, one of the Four Cushions of the soon looked upon askance in high places. Couch of Voluptuousness, and one of the A personage no more straitlaced than Four Ministers of the Devil—the other Charles II caused a court to hand down the three being tobacco, opium, and wine. The following decision: "The retayling of Cof­ name of the drug may have had something fee may be an innocente Trayde; but as it to do with the hostiUty it encountered. is used'to nourishe Seddition, spreade Lyes, Kahveh, whence our coffee, is a slight mod­ and scandalize Create Menne, it may also ification of an Arabic word—literally mean­ be a common Nuisaunce." In the mean­ ing "that which takes away the appetite" time an envoy of Mohammed IV intro­ •—which is one of the names of wine. The duced coffee to the court of Louis XIV in stimulating effect of coffee, however, is more 1669. And Vienna acquired the habit four­ than a name. There is indeed a coffee hab­ teen years later, when that capital was be­ it, no less demoralizing than the abuse of sieged by the same sultan. After the rout any other stimulant, the victims of which, of the Turks by John Sobiesky a vast like opium-smokers, are called by the Turks quantity of the fragrant brown drug was teryaki. found among the besiegers' stores. Its use was made known to the Viennese by a Pole Suleiman the Magnificent, during whose 620

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who had been interpreter to the Austrian race is Mkeher to carry a tobacco-box than a Company of Commerce in Constantinople. handkerchief, while he partakes more freely For his bravery in traversing the Turkish of coffee than of any other aliment. With­ camp in order to carry messages during out those comforters he can take no ease, the siege he was given the right to establish coniplete no meal, pay no vi.sit, transact no the first coffee-house in Vienna. business. Would it have been the case if The history of tobacco in Turkey was he had not been so vigorously opposed in very much the same. It first appeared his first experiments with the two drugs? from the West in 1605, in the reign of Ah­ The answer might contribute something met I. Under Mourad IV a famous trea­ to the psychology of prohibition. At all tise was written against it by the chief of the events, it would not be difficult to show that Emirs, unconscious forerunner of modern­ the estabhshment of coffee-houses in Eu­ ity, who also advocated a medieval Postum rope marks a step toward democracy. made of beans. Snuff became known in The number of these institutions in Con­ 1642 as an attempt to elude the repressive stantinople, as in any Turkish town, is laws of Sultan Ibrahim. But the habit of quite fabulous. There are thoroughfares smoking, like the taste for coffee, gained that carry on almost no other form of traffic. such headway that no one could stop it. There is no quarter so miserable or so re­ Mahmoud I was the last sultan who at­ mote as to be without one or two. They are tempted to do so, when he closed the coffee­ the clubs of the poorer classes. Men of houses for political reasons in 1730. Since a street, a trade, a province, or a national­ then coffee and tobacco have become so ity—for a Turkish coffee-house may also completely naturalized in the Ottoman Em­ be Albanian, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, pire that a man who has never seen a Turk Kurd, almost anything you please—meet will draw him with a coffee-cup in one hand regularly when their work is done, at coffee­ and the tube of a water-pipe in the other. houses kept by their own people. So much And, as a matter of fact, a person of that are the humbler coffee-houses frequented VOL. LIII.—S6 621

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Fez presser in a coffee-house. by a fixed clientele that a student of types often be seen in the street, in a scrap of or dialects may realize for himself how shade or sunshine according to the season, truly they used to be called Schools of where a stool or two invite the passer-by to Knowledge. The police, too, find there a moment of contemplation. Larger es­ not a little material for their own line tablishments, though they are rarely very of research. During the old regime there large, are most often installed in a room flourished an association whose mem­ longer than it is wide, having as many win­ bers gained as honest a livelihood as they dows as possible at the street end and what might by setting houses on fire for people we would call the bar at the other. It is a who had enemies or required cash. They bar that always makes me regret I do not were accustomed to meet at a certain coffee­ etch, with its pleasing curves, its high lights house near the Galata Tower. I know not of brass and porcelain striking out of deep whether they were in understanding with shadow, and its usually picturesque kah- the watchmen who signal fires from that vehji. You do not stand at it. You sit ancient lookout. At all events, the insur­ on one of the benches running down the ance agents used to employ men to frequent sides of the room. They are more or less the cafe of the incendiaries, in order to get comfortably cushioned, though sometimes wind of coming fires or useful information higher and broader than a foreigner finds to as to past ones. I once had the honor of his taste. In that case you slip off your being escorted through the slums of Galata shoes, if you would do as the Romans do, by one of this gentry, a Greek wanted in and tuck your feet up under you. A table his own country for two murders. stands in front of you to hold your coffee— and often in summer an aromatic pot The arrangement of a Turkish coffee­ of basil to keep the flies away. Chairs or house is of the simplest. The essential is stools are scattered about. Decorative that the place should provide the beverage Arabic texts, sometimes wonderful prints, for which it exists and room for enjoying adorn the walls. There may even be hang- the same. A sketch of a coffee-shop may 622

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A sketch of a coffee-shop may often be seen in the street.—Page 622. ing rugs and china to entertain your eyes. Such courtesies take time. Then you And there you are. must wait for your coffee to be made. To The habit of the coffee-house is one that this end coffee, roasted fresh as required by requires a certain leisure. You must not turning in an iron cylinder over a fire of bolt coffee as you bolt the fire-waters of the sticks and ground to the fineness of powder West, without ceremony, in retreats with­ in a brass mill, is put into a small uncovered drawn from the public eye. Being a less brass pot with a long handle. There it is violent and a less shameful passion, I sup­ boiled to a froth three times on a charcoal pose, it is indulged in with more of the brazier, with or without sugar as you pre­ humanities. The etiquette of the coffee­ fer. But to desecrate it by the admixture house, of those coffee-houses which have of milk is an unheard-of sacrilege. Some not been too much infected by Europe, is kahvehjis replace the pot in the embers one of their most characteristic features. with a smart rap in order to settle the Something like it prevails in Italy, where grounds. You in the meanwhile smoke. you tip your hat on entering and leaving a That also takes time, particularly if you caffk In Turkey, however, I have seen a "drink" a narguileh, as the Turks say. new-comer salute one after another each This is familiar enough in the West to re­ person in a crowded coffee-room, once on quire no great description. It is a big entering the door and again after taking his carafe with a metal top for holding tobacco seat, and be so saluted in return—either by and a long coil of leather tube for inhaling putting the right hand to the heart and the water-cooled fumes thereof. The effect uttering the greeting Merhabah, or by mak­ is wonderfully soothing and innocent at ing the temennah, that triple sweep of the first, though wonderfully deadly in the end hand which is the most graceful of salutes. to the novice. The tobacco used is not I have also seen an entire company rise the ordinary weed, but a much coarser and upon the entrance of an old man, and yield stronger one called tunbeki, which comes him the corner of honor. from Persia. The same sort of tobacco

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PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Roasting coffee.—Page 623. used to be smoked a good deal in shallow often been surprised to be charged no more red earthenware pipes with long mouth­ than the tariij, although I gave a larger pieces. They are now chiefly seen in an­ piece to be changed and it was perfectly tiquity shops. evident that I was a foreigner. That is an When your coffee is ready it is poured into experience which rarely befalls a traveller an after-dinner coffee-cup or into a min­ among his own coreligionaries. It has even iature bowl, and brought to you on a tray happened to me, which is rarer still, to be with a glass of water. A foreigner can al­ charged nothing at all, nay, to be stead­ most always be spotted by the manner in fastly refused when I persisted in attempt­ which he iinally partakes of these refresh­ ing to pay, simply because I was a foreigner, ments. A Turk sips his water first, partly and therefore a guest. to prepare the way for the coffee, but also There is no reason, however, why you because he is a connoisseur of the former should go away when you have had your liquid as other men are of stronger ones. coffee—or your glass of tea—and your And he lifts his coffee-cup by the saucer, smoke. On the contrary, there are rea­ whether it possess a handle or no, manag­ sons why you should stay, particularly if ing the two together in a dexterous way of you happen into the coffee-house not too his own. The current price for all this, not long after sunset. Then coffee-houses of including the water-pipe, is ten paras—a the most local color are at their best. trifle over a cent—for which the kahvehji Earlier in the day their clients are likely to will cry you "Blessing." More pretentious be at work. Later they will have disap­ establishments charge twenty paras, while peared altogether. For Constantinople has a giddy few rise to a piaster—not quite not quite forgotten the habits of the tent. five cents—or a piaster and a half. That, Stamboul, except during the holy month of however, begins to look like extortion. And Ramazan, is a deserted city at night. But mark that you do not tip the waiter. I have just after dark it is full of a life which an 624

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED That also takes time, particularly if you "drink" a ? -Page 623, outsider is often content simply to watch acter monologue or dialogue. They col­ through the lighted windows of coffee- lect their pay at a crucial moment of the rooms. These are also barber-shops, where action, refusing to continue until the audi­ men have shaved not only their chins, ence has testified to the sincerity of its in­ but different parts of their heads according terest by some token more substantial. to their "countries." In them likewise Music is much more common. There checkers, the Persian backgammon, and are those, to be sure, who find no music in various games of long narrow cards are the sounds poured forth oftenest by a gram­ played. They say that Bridge came from ophone, often by a pair of gypsies with a Constantinople. Indeed, I believe a club flaring pipe and two small gourd drums, of Pera claims the honor of having com­ and sometimes by an orchestra so-called of municated that passion to the Western the fine lute—a company of musicians on a world. But I must confess that I have yet railed dais who sing long songs while they to see an open hand in a coffee-house of play on stringed instruments of strange the people. curves. For myself I know too little of One of the pleasantest forms of amuse­ music to tell what relation the recurrent ment to be obtained in coffee-houses is un­ cadences of those songs and their broken fortunately getting to be one of the rarest. rhythms may bear to the antique modes. It is that afforded by itinerant story-tellers, But I can listen, as long as musicians will who still carry on in the East the tradition perform, to those infinite repetitions, that of the troubadours. The stories they teU insistent sounding of the minor key. It are more or less on the order of the Arabian pleases me to fancy there a music come Nights, though perhaps even less suitable from far away—from unknown river gorges, for mixed companies—which for the rest are from camp-fires glimmering on great plains. never found in coffee-shops. These men Does not such darkness breathe through it, are sometimes wonderfully clever at char­ such melancholy, such haimting of elusive 62s

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They have a happy tact for locality.—Page 627. airs? There are flashes too of light, of Bai'ram. The Kurds, who carry the bur­ song, the playing of shepherd's pipes, the dens of Constantinople on their backs, are swoop of horsemen and sudden outcries of above all other men given to this form of savagery. But the note to which it all exercise—though the Lazzes, the boatmen, comes back is the monotone of a primitive vie with them. One of these dark tribes­ life, like the day-long beat of camel bells. men plays a little violin like a pochette, or And more than all, it is the mood of Asia, two of them perform on a pipe and a big so rarely penetrated, which is neither hght- drum, while the others dance round them ness nor despair. in a circle, sometimes till they drop from There are seasons in the year when these fatigue. The weird music and the pict­ various forms of entertainment abound uresque costumes and movements of the more than at others, as Ramazan and the dancers make the spectacle one to be re­ two Bairams. Throughout the month of membered. Christian coffee-houses also Ramazan the purely Turkish coffee-houses have their own festal seasons. These coin­ are closed in the daytime, since the pleas­ cide in general with the festivals of the ures which they minister may not then be church. But every quarter has its patron indulged in; but they are open all night. saint, the saint of the local church or of the It is during that one month of the year that local holy well, whose feast is celebrated by Karaghieuz, the Turkish shadow-show, a three-day panayiri. The street is dressed may be seen in a few of the larger coffee- with flags and strings of colored paper, shops. The Bairams are two festivals of tables and chairs line the sidewalk, and li­ three and four days respectively, the former bations are poured forth in honor of the of which celebrates the close of Ramazan, holy person commernorated. For this rea­ while the latter corresponds in certain re­ son, and because of the more volatile char­ spects to the Jewish Passover. Dancing is acter of the Greek, the general note of his a particular feature of the coffee-houses in merrymaking is louder than that of the 626

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Turk. One may even see the scandalous was never planted for its fruit. Vines al­ spectacle of men and women dancing to­ lowed to grow as those vines grow do not gether at a Greek panayfri. The instru­ bear very heavily, and they are too accessi­ ment which sets the key of these orgies is ble for their grapes;' to be guarded. They the lanterna, a species of hand-orgah'pecul- werg_, plan ted, like the traghetto vines in iar to Constantinople. It is a hand-piano'" v eriice, because they give shade and be­ rather, of a loud and cheerful voice, whose cause they are beautiful. Sometimes they Eurasian harmonies are enlivened by a fre­ are trained across the street, making of the quent clash of bells. public way an arbor that seduces the passer­ What first made coffee-houses suspicious by to stop and taste the taste of life. to those in authority, however, is their true Groves and high places are especially resource—the advantages they ofifer for dear to the Turks, as to the Canaanites of meeting one's kind, for social converse and old. So far as Constantinople is concerned, the contemplation of life. Hence it must the former exist in intention oftener than in be that they have so happy a tact for lo­ fact—witness the great plane-trees shading cality. They seek shade, pleasant cor­ so many edges of the Bosphorus and the ners, open squares, the prospect of water stone pines silhouetted on top of so many of or wide landscapes. In Constantinople its hills. Among high places one of the they enjoy an infinite choice of site, so huge most frequented is Chamlijah, the Place of is the extent of that city, so broken by hill Pines, near the summit of the slope on and sea, so varied in its spectacle of life. which Scutari amphitheatrically sprawls. The commonest type of city coiJee-room From the coffee-houses under the pines looks out upon the passing world from un­ you look out over the Marble Sea, that der a grape-vine or a climbing wistaria. lake of the Greco-Roman world about That grape-vine constitutes one of the most whose high coasts and fading islands so decorative elements of Turkish streets. It many famous towns have had their day. 627

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The most famous of them lifts its domes and Giant's Mountain derives its name from minarets in front of you, above the basin of a great person supposed to be buried there; toy ships where the Golden Horn meets the according to some Amycus, king of the Be- blue crack of the Bosphorus. It is a magnif- bryces, from whom the Argonauts received

That grape-vine constitutes one of the most decorative elements of Turkish streets.— Page 627. ^m icent view. But so is the one from Giant's so unkind a welcome; according to others Mountain, the height shutting out the Black a personage of the Pentateuch, namely, Sea from the lower part of the strait. Two Joshua, the son of Nun. The Turks views, indeed, dispute your admiration there. adhere to the latter view, calUng the moun­ One of them is the southward vista of the tain after him Yousha Dagh and preserv­ Bosphorus, shining like a river between its ing its legendary tomb with much rever­ gardened continents, with gray Stamboul ence. A monastery of dervishes has the faintly pricking the end of the crooked per­ custody of this place of pilgrimage, also spective. The other, wilder and strangely maintaining a coffee-house under the ad­ harder in atmosphere, overlooks bleak hills, joining trees. The grave, some twenty feet a ruined castle, the gateway of the Clashing long, is in an uncovered enclosure planted Rocks—guarded now by disappearing guns with rose-bushes and box. The branches —and the windy Euxine. are tied all over with bits of rag, left there

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED That castle was the first outpost of the Turks on the Bosphorus,—Page 630. by visitors with some wish to be fulfilled. who plucked it. Enormous plane-trees are Within the tekkeh, which occupies the site now the chief vegetation of this green of a church built by Justinian, an orna­ meadow, set out whether by Byzantine or mental tablet framed under glass bears the by Ottoman emperors I cannot say. Many following inscription: "Here hes Joshua, of them built villas here. The last, erected the son of Nun, who although not num­ to be sure by a viceroy of Egypt, still dom­ bered among the apostles may well be inates from its pile of terraces the central called a true prophet sent of God. He was basin of the Bosphorus. From its associa­ despatched by Moses (on whom be peace) tion with royalty this happy valley bears to fight the people of Rome. While the bat­ the grim name of Hunkiar Iskelessi—the tle was yet unfinished the sun set. Joshua Landing Place of the Manslayer. It is the caused the sun to rise again and the Ro­ sort of place that Turks most love, with its mans could not escape. This miracle con­ grass, its trees, the brook on one side of it, vinced them; and when Joshua invited and the shimmer of wider water at the end. them, after the battle, to accept the true The brook is the most dubious element of faith, they believed and accepted it. If this composition, being more in the nature any man doubts, let him look into the of a ditch. It affords, nevertheless, an ex­ sacred writings at the Holy Places of the cuse for a row of coffee-houses, which are Christians and he will be satisfied." most popular on Friday and Sunday after­ From Giant's Mountain a dehghtful noons of summer. Then stools and smok­ wood road winds down to a water-side val­ ers line the dark stream in silent contempla­ ley which legend makes the scene of the tion; then picnic parties spread rugs or combat between Pollux and King Amycus. matting on the grass, partaking of strange I have never found there any of the laurel meats while masters of pipe and drum en­ planted where the latter fell, the daphne chant their ear; then groups of Turkish mainomene that caused madness in those women in gay silks dot the sward hke 629

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The river is a favorite liaunt of pleasure boats. tulips; then itinerant vendors of fruit, of was the first outpost of the Turks on the sweets, of ice-cream, do hawk about their Bosphorus. It was built in 1394 by Baye- wares; then fortune-tellers, mountebanks, zid the Thunderbolt, who died a prisoner dancers, wrestlers. Punch and Judy actors of Tamerlane. The river that winds un­ may be seen—sometimes even players of der the picturesque ruin is a favorite haunt cricket or base-ball from embassy station- of pleasure boats, being after the Golden naires at Therapia. Horn the only navigable stream that flows A similar resort, perhaps better known into the strait. Coffee-houses abound upon because more accessible, is Ghieuk Sou, its banks, a theatre—with a partition cut­ or Sky Water, commonly called the Sweet ting the pit in two and the boxes on one Waters of Asia. Here two small rivers flow side latticed—gives performances during into the Bosphorus through a branching the summer, and on holiday afternoons valley which Turkish poets have named the boats pass and repass like carriages in Rot­ most beautiful spot in Asia. I am inclined ten Row. Most of the .ladies are in the to suspect that their knowledge of Asia did modern Turkish costume, made very much not go much farther than Ghieuk Sou. Still like a European dress except that the up­ I would be the last to decry a water-side per part falls from the head. The effect is amphitheatre provided with such various very graceful and Spanish. In these de­ charms. One of them is a little white pal­ generate days the black veil supposed to ace that looks like confectionery near by, cover the face is often thrown back. Un­ but that from a distance has a magic of set­ fortunately the boats also betray a change ting off the green about it and of catching of fashion, for there are three skiffs to one sunset light. Another is the beautiful foun­ caique. But great houses still maintain the tain in the meadow behind the palace. A most elegant craft in existence, a double or third is the castle of Anadolu Hissar, at triple oared caique. And sometimes a five- the mouth of the upper river. That castle oared embassy cacique will row down from 630

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Therapia, with some heraldic device at the but that the palaces might be destroyed! bow and a gaudy cavass sitting cross-legged They were, a hundred and twenty of them. at the stern. Of so much magnificence not one stone now The spectacle used to be seen in greater remains upon another, unless in a few ruins glory at the Sweet Waters of Europe, ac­ overgrown by the bushes of the hill-side. cording to the report of more than one trav­ There is, to be sure, a palace, built forty or eller. I hope their accounts are more ac­ fifty years ago by Abdul Aziz; but the huge curate than the name they have handed rooms are empty of furniture, and no one is down. The Turks call the place Kiat there to watch the river splash down its Haneh, Paper House, from a manufactory marble cascades except two sour custo­ that existed there long ago. It is the up­ dians, the gentle old imam of the adjoining per valley of the Golden Horn, watered by a mosque, a Greek who keeps almost the last river anciently known as the Barbysus. The coffee-house in the meadow, and such pleas­ splendor-loving Sultan Ahmet III tried to ure-seekers as venture so far from the or­ create there, early in the eighteenth cen­ dinary lines of communication. Among the tury, another Marly-le-Roi. He played more recent of the latter may be mentioned strange tricks with the river, laid out gar­ a Belgian baron, the first aviator to visit dens, built villas, and encouraged his cour­ Constantinople, who in the autumn of 1909 tiers to follow his example. It befell him, tumbled into the valley on his biplane. however, to be dethroned, whereupon a That strange intruder may have been the fanatical mob asked permission of his suc­ forerunner of gayer days for Kiat Haneh— cessor to burn the palaces of Kiat Haneh. and the Macedonian army that marched Mahmoud I replied that he would not per­ through it to victory in the preceding spring. mit the palaces to be burnt, lest other There is talk of race-courses, of I know not nations draw unfavorable conclusions with what other modernities, to be installed on regard to the inner harmony of the empire; the banks of the Barbysus. An old Turk- 631

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 632 Turkish Coffee-Houses ish usage makes any place where the Sultan graves cover the hill-side where a narrow has pitched his tent, like the valleys of paved street mounts between cypresses to which I have spoken, open ground there­ the coffee-house of which I speak. after to the end of time. So Kiat Haneh It commands, the coffee-house, from its will never be taken away from the people. high cemetery edge, the solemn assembly of But since the days of Sultan Ahmet the lettered stones under their black trees, the city has crept nearer and nearer; and it white mosque below, a procession of siege- may well be that under a new era the lost battered towers chmbing the slope beyond, splendors of the valley will bloom again. and the serrated mass of the city enclosing Farther down the river, a little below the a bright surface of water darkly overwrit by point where it joins the Cydaris to form the arabesques of shipping. And there are greater basin of the Golden Horn, is an­ many days in the year when Asiatic moun­ other coflfee-house. It has begun to enjoy, tains subtly remind you again what a meet­ alas, a notoriety which I fear is not des­ ing-place of nations is here. Any man who tined to diminish. Pierre Loti put it into looks down from a height on leagues of two of his novels, and guides conduct to it space and many habitations of his fellow- tourists with a little more time or senti­ creatures is forced into philosophy. Here, mentality than the common run of their however, you sip in with your coffee strange brotherhood. This is patent enough from things indeed as your eye is caught by the dogs and the urchins who besiege the Byzantine dome, Italian tower, or Turk­ chance wearer of a hat with a cringing per­ ish minaret. The minarets oftenest catch sistency uncommon to Turkish beggars. your eye. Those slender white towers are I have observed, however, that notorious what make the lofty outline of St-amboul places usually became so for a reason; and unique in the world—as the cypresses and the old man in charge of this one will never the painted stones beneath them are what be corrupted. For the rather too fat and give the nearer hill-side its own peculiar dapper young man who is destined to suc­ charm. They lead your thought from all ceed him I refuse to prophesy. Their mod­ the races that have met and fought, that est establishment, a stone room supple­ have lived and died, about that shining mented by a small flagged terrace and a water to the men in fez or turban who chardak—an arbor thatched with dried gravely sit beside you. How is it that these branches—stands sideways to a steep bluff who burst once out of the East with so above the Golden Horn. In front of it the much noise and terror, who battered their bluff descends less steeply to the village of way through those ancient walls and car­ Eyoub. Eyoub, anglice Job, was the name ried the green standard of the Prophet to of a companion of the Prophet who fell in the gates of Vienna, sit here now rolhng the Arab attack on Constantinople in 668. cigarettes and sipping little cups of coffee ? During his own siege of the city, eight hun­ Some have concluded that their course was dred years later. Sultan Mohammed II op­ run, while others have upbraided them for portunely discovered, opposite the point wasting so their time. For my part I hke where he launched into the Golden Horn to think that such extremes argue a com­ the eighty ships he dragged over the hills plexity of character for whose unfolding it from the Bosphorus, the burial-place of this would be wise to wait. And in the mean­ saintly warrior, in whose honor he subse­ time I am happy that all the people in the quently raised a mortuary mosque. It is world are not the same. It pleases me that the holiest in the city, so holy that until a some are content to sit in coffee-houses, to short time ago Christians were not allowed enjoy simple pleasures, to watch common even within its outer court. It is there that spectacles, to find that in life which every the Sultans go to be girded with the sword of one may possess—light, growing things, the empire, and many of their subjects choose movement of water, and an outlook upon to be buried in that sacred proximity. Their the ways of men.

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The Disturber

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