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[Illustration: Girl of the Harem.]




  CONSTANTINOPLE.

  BY
  EDMONDO DE AMICIS,
  AUTHOR OF “HOLLAND,” “SPAIN AND THE SPANIARDS,” ETC.


  TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTEENTH ITALIAN EDITION BY

  MARIA HORNOR LANSDALE.


  ILLUSTRATED.


  IN TWO VOLUMES.

  VOL. II.


  PHILADELPHIA:
  HENRY T. COATES & CO.
  1896.




  COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
  HENRY T. COATES & CO.




CONTENTS.


                                                               PAGE
  TURKISH WOMEN                                                   7

  YANGHEN VAHR                                                   71

  THE WALLS                                                     101

  THE OLD SERAGLIO                                              141

  THE LAST DAYS                                                 213

  THE TURKS                                                     247

  THE BOSPHORUS                                                 269




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME II.

Photogravures by W. H. GILBO.


                                                               PAGE
  GIRL OF THE HAREM                           _Frontispiece._

  TURKISH LADY                                                   11

  LEMONADE-SELLER                                                19

  AN OUTING OF THE WOMEN OF THE HAREM                            21

  DANCING GIRLS                                                  45

  TURKISH FIREMEN                                                79

  WATER-SELLER                                                   85

  AQUEDUCT OF VALENS                                             96

  MOSQUE OF THE CHORA                                           110

  DERVISH                                                       120

  INTERIOR VIEW OF THE SEVEN TOWERS                             127

  VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE SEVEN TOWERS                          133

  PANORAMA OF THE SERAGLIO                                      147

  A TURKISH WOMAN                                               184

  GATEWAY OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE AT THE SWEET WATERS OF ASIA    194

  PANORAMA OF MOSQUE OF BAYEZID                                 218

  ANCIENT FOUNTAIN AT SKUTARI                                   223

  CEMETERY OF EYÛB AND VIEW OF THE GOLDEN HORN                  229

  TÜRBEH OF THE MOSQUE SHAZADEH                                 235

  TOMBS OF MAHMÛD II. AND OF HIS SON ABDUL-AZIZ                 237

  COFFEE-MAKERS                                                 245

  BOSPHORUS: VIEW OF SHORES OF ASIA AND EUROPE                  271

  MOSQUE OF VALIDÊH AT OK SERAI                                 275

  SWEET WATERS OF EUROPE                                        280

  ENTRANCE TO THE BLACK SEA                                     293




TURKISH WOMEN.


On arriving in Constantinople for the first time, one is much
surprised, after all he has heard of the thraldom of the Turkish women,
to see them, everywhere and at all hours of the day, coming and going
with apparently the same freedom as the women of any other city in
Europe. It seems as though all these imprisoned swallows must that
very day have been given their liberty, and a new era of freedom and
independence dawned for the fair sex among the Mussulmans. At first
the impression is very odd: one is in doubt whether all these females
enveloped in white veils and long, variously- mantles are nuns
or masqueraders or lunatics; and, as you never by any chance see one of
them accompanied by a man, they seem not to belong to any one, being
all, apparently, young girls or widows or inmates of some huge asylum
for the “unhappily married.” It is some time before you can realize
that all these Turkish men and women, who meet and jostle one another
in the streets without ever walking along together or interchanging
so much as a nod or look, can have anything in common, and you
constantly find yourself stopping to watch them and reflect upon this
singular custom. And these strange figures, you say to yourself--these
actually are those “subduers of hearts,” “fountains of peace,”
“little rose-leaves,” “early grapes,” “morning rays,” “life-givers”,
“sunrises”, and “shining moons” about whom thousands of poets have
written and sung? These are the “hanums” and mysterious slaves, reading
of whom in Victor Hugo’s ballads at the age of twenty, in a shady
garden, we imagined to be like beings of another world? These the
unfortunate beauties, hidden behind gratings, watched over by e