Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847», sayfa 5
Renata stated, in her voluntary confession, that she had often at night been carried bodily to witch-Sabbaths; in one of which she was first presented to the Prince of Darkness, when she abjured God and the Virgin at the same time. Her name, with the alteration of Maria into Emma, was written in a black book, and she herself was stamped on the back as the Devil's property, in return for which she received the promise of seventy years of life, and all she might wish for. She stated that she had often, at night, gone into the cellar of the chateau and drank the best wine; in the shape of a swine had walked on the convent walls; on the bridge had milked the cows as they passed over; and several times had mingled with the actors in the theatre in London.
A question unavoidably presents itself—How came witchcraft to be in so great a degree the province of women? There existed sorcerers, no doubt, but they were comparatively few. Persons of either sex and of all ages indiscriminately interested themselves in the black art; but the professors and regular practitioners were almost exclusively women, and principally old women. The following seem to have been some of the causes. Women were confined to household toils; their minds had not adequate occupation: many young unmarried women, without duties, would lack objects of sufficient interest for their yearnings; many of the old ones, despised, ill treated probably, soured with the world, rendered spiteful and vindictive, took even more readily to a resource which roused and gave employment to their imaginations, and promised to gratify their wishes. It is evident, too, that the supposed sex of the Devil helped him here. The old women had an idea of making much of him, and of coaxing, and getting round the black gentleman. But beside all this, there lies in the physical temperament of the other sex a peculiar susceptibility of derangement of the nervous system, a predisposition to all the varieties of trance, with its prolific sources of mental illusion—all tending, it is to be observed, to advance the belief and enlarge the pretensions of witchcraft.
The form of trance which specially dominated in witchcraft was trance-sleep with visions. The graduates and candidates in the faculty sought to fall into trances, in the dreams of which they realised their waking aspirations. They entertained no doubt, however, that their visits to the Devil and their nocturnal exploits were genuine; and they seem to have wilfully shut their eyes to the possibility of their having never left their beds. For, with a skill that should have betrayed to them the truth, they were used to prepare a witch-broth to promote in some way their nightly expeditions. And this they composed not only of materials calculated to prick on the imagination, but of substantial narcotics, too—the medical effects of which they no doubt were acquainted with. They contemplated evidently producing a sort of stupor.
The professors of witchcraft had thus made the singular step of artificially producing a sort of trance, with the object of availing themselves of one of its attendant phenomena. The Thamans in Siberia do the like to this day to obtain the gift of prophecy. And it is more than probable that the Egyptian and Delphic priest habitually availed themselves of some analogous procedure. Modern mesmerism is in part an effort in the same direction.
Without at all comprehending the real character of the power called into play, mankind seems to have found out by a "mera palpatio," by instinctive experiment and lucky groping in the dark, that in the stupor of trance the mind occasionally stumbles upon odds and ends of strange knowledge and prescience. The phenomenon was never for an instant suspected of lying in the order of nature. It was construed, to suit the occasion and the times, either into divine inspiration or diabolic whisperings. But it was always supernatural. So the ignorant old lemon-seller in Zschokke's Selbstschau thought his "hidden wisdom" a mystical wonder; while the enlightened and accomplished narrator of their united stories, stands alone, in striking advance ever of his own day, when he unassumingly and diffidently puts forward his seer-gift as a simple contribution to psychical knowledge. And thus, my proposed task accomplished, my dear Archy, finally yours, &c.
Mac Davus.
THE HYMN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT
ALTERED FROM THE ICELANDIC
Swend, king of all,
In Olaf's hall
Now sits in state on high;
Whilst up in heaven
Amidst the shriven
Sits Olaf's majesty.
For not in cell
Does our hero dwell,
But in realms of light for ever:
As a ransom'd saint
To heal our plaint,
Be glory to thee, gold-giver!
Of raptures there
He has won his share,
All cleansed from taint of sin;
For on earth prepared,
No toil he spared
That holy place to win.
That he hath won
Near God's dear Son
Fast by the holy river—
Oh, such as thine
May the end be mine;
Be glory to thee, gold-giver!
His sacred form
Unscathed by worm,
And clear as the hour he died,
Lies at this day
Where good men pray
At morn and at eventide.
His nails and his hair
Are fresh and fair,
With his yellow locks still growing;
His cheek as red,
And his flesh not dead,
Though the blood hath ceased from flowing.
If you watch by night,
In the dim twilight
You may hear a requiem singing;
And the people hear
Above his bier
A small bell clearly ringing.
And if ye wait
Until midnight late,
You may hear the great bell toll:
But none can tell
Who tolls that bell
If it sounds for Olaf's soul.
With tapers clear,
Which Christ holds dear,
O'er the corpse so still reclining,
By day and night
Is the altar light
And the cross of the Saviour shining.
For our King did so,
And all men know
That washed from sin and shriven,
All free from taint,
A ransom'd saint,
He dwells with the saints in heaven.
And thousands come,
The deaf and the dumb,
To the tomb of our monarch here—
The sick and the blind
Of every kind
They throng to the holy bier.
With heads all bare
They breathe their prayer
As they kneel on the flinty ground:
God hears their sighs,
And the sick men rise
All whole, and healed, and sound.
Then to Olaf pray,
To spare thy day
From wrath, and wrong, and harm;
To save thy land
From the spoiler's hand,
And the fell invader's arm.
God's man is he,
To deal to thee
What is ask'd in a lowly spirit—
Let thy prayer not cease,
And wealth, and peace,
And a blessing thou shalt inherit.
For prayers are good,
If before the rood
Thy beads thou tellest praying;
If thou tellest on,
Forgetting none
Of the saints who with God are staying.
W. E. A.
FOUR SONNETS BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
TWO SKETCHES
I
The shadow of her face upon the wall
May take your memory to the perfect Greek;
But when you front her, you would call the cheek
Too full, sir, for your models, if withal
That bloom it wears could leave you critical,
And that smile reaching toward the rosy streak:—
For one who smiles so, has no need to speak,
To lead your thoughts along, as steed to stall!
A smile that turns the sunny side o' the heart
On all the world, as if herself did win
By what she lavished on an open mart:—
Let no man call the liberal sweetness, sin,—
While friends may whisper, as they stand apart,
"Methinks there's still some warmer place within."
II
Her azure eyes, dark lashes hold in fee:
Her fair superfluous ringlets, without check,
Drop after one another down her neck;
As many to each cheek as you might see
Green leaves to a wild rose! This sign, outwardly,
And a like woman-covering seems to deck
Her inner nature! For she will not fleck
World's sunshine with a finger. Sympathy
Must call her in Love's name! and then, I know,
She rises up, and brightens, as she should,
And lights her smile for comfort, and is slow
In nothing of high-hearted fortitude.
To smell this flower, come near it; such can grow
In that sole garden where Christ's brow dropped blood.
MOUNTAINEER AND POET
The simple goatherd who treads places high,
Beholding there his shadow (it is wist)
Dilated to a giant's on the mist,
Esteems not his own stature larger by
The apparent image; but more patiently
Strikes his staff down beneath his clenching fist—
While the snow-mountains lift their amethyst
And sapphire crowns of splendour, far and nigh,
Into the air around him. Learn from hence
Meek morals, all ye poets that pursue
Your way still onward up to eminence!
Ye are not great, because creation drew
Large revelations round your earliest sense,
Nor bright, because God's glory shines for you.
THE POET
The poet hath the child's sight in his breast,
And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed,
He views with the first glory. Fair and good
Pall never on him, at the fairest, best,
But stand before him, holy, and undressed
In week-day false conventions; such as would
Drag other men down from the altitude
Of primal types, too early dispossessed.
Why, God would tire of all his heavens as soon
As thou, O childlike, godlike poet! did'st
Of daily and nightly sights of sun and moon!
And therefore hath He set thee in the midst
Where men may hear thy wonder's ceaseless tune,
And praise His world for ever as thou bidst.
CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE DECLINING OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
(BEING A FEW PAGES FROM MY EASTERN DIARY)
-–At half-past seven in the evening, we left Smyrna by the Scamandre, a French government steamer, and were soon gliding over a sea smooth as glass. The soft tints of the twilight spread gradually around us, and to a beautiful day there succeeded one of those marvellous nights, during which one cannot bring one's-self to the determination of retiring to rest.
The dawn of day surprised me on deck. In the morning we neared the land, which presented to our view a desert plain, covered with dwarf oak. This was the site of ancient Troy; we were coasting near those famous fields, ubi Troja fuit; that stream which was throwing itself before our eyes into the sea, was formerly called the "Simois;" those two hillocks which we saw upon the coast, were the tombs of Hector and Patroclus; that huge blue mountain which in the distance raised towards the sky its three peaks covered with snow, was Ida; and behind us, from the midst of the sparkling waves, rose the island of Tenedos. All conversation between the passengers from many nations had long since ceased, and I contemplated in silence that grim desert, which, at Eton, I had dreamed of as full of movement and sound, and that calm sea which I had so often figured to myself as covered with the ships of Agamemnon, of Ulysses, and of Achilles the
"Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer."
At mid-day we entered the Dardanelles, and several hours afterwards, we cast anchor between Sestos and Abydos, before a small white town, containing no remarkable objects. Sestos and Abydos, which it must be owned would not be by any means celebrated, were it not for the enterprises which cost Leander his life and Lord Byron an ague, are two hamlets, which, like the greater portion of Turkish villages, offer in no shape whatever what it is the fashion to term the Oriental type. They are composed of an assemblage of rose-coloured houses, whose large red roofs, seen through the verdure and flowers, call to one's mind the description of a Chinese village.
Upon its arrival, the Scamandre was immediately surrounded by a multitude of caicks filled with bearded Turks, veiled women, and various coloured bales. Upon deck rose a deafening Babel of voices,—the sailors swore, the women screamed, and the porters fought, until at length quiet was restored, and one hundred and eighty-six new Mussulman passengers came on board the steamer. Amid the caicks ranged along the sides of the vessel, was one much more richly freighted than the rest; the traveller to whom it belonged was a young Arab, who, standing on a pile of bales, domineered over his boatmen by several feet. His white garments set off to advantage his dark complexion; and a cloak of black wool, profusely embroidered with gold lace, drew upon him the eyes of all. I had seldom, if ever, beheld a head more beautiful or more expressive than that of the young man. His large black eyes were full of intelligence, and in his bearing was a natural nobility and pride. As long as the confusion, described above, continued, he directed his boatmen to keep at a distance, but when all were embarked, and the Scamandre was ready to start, he hailed the vessel, and having mounted the side-ladders, gave his hand to six veiled women in succession, whose long white dominos prevented the spectators from even guessing at their age or beauty. The young man, once on board, conducted his odalisques to a fore-cabin, placed a hideous negro at the door as sentinel, and returned immediately to the deck, where another negro presented him with a narguileh (Turkish water-pipe).
Nothing can less resemble our regular fortifications than the fort of Gallipoli, (before which we soon after passed,) and the other castles of the Dardanelles, which ought to render Constantinople the most impregnable place in the world (from the sea.) The forts are large buildings of a dazzling white colour, perforated with port-holes, similar to those belonging to a ship of war, and mounted with old guns, the greater portion of which are without carriages, and served, ordinarily, by a single artillery-man, assisted in time of war by three or four peasants. In the present century, however, these batteries have shown their prowess, and against our own countrymen too. During the month of February 1807, the British government, justly irritated at the increasing influence that the French ambassador, Count Sebastiani, was obtaining at the Ottoman court, despatched Admiral Sir John Duckworth, in command of a squadron, with orders to bombard, if necessary, the Seraglio itself. Unfortunately, Sir John Duckworth's plan of acting was exactly contrary to what would have been our gallant Nelson's in the same position. After having passed without difficulty before the then disarmed castles of the Dardanelles, after having burned the Ottoman fleet off Gallipoli, while the crews were peaceably celebrating on shore the feast of Courban-Beiram, Sir John presented himself off Constantinople, and threatened to bombard that city, should the Sultan refuse to accept the conditions he offered, at the same time he allowed his Imperial Highness two days to consider the terms; Nelson would have allowed as many hours only. The folly of Admiral Duckworth's conduct fully shown in the sequel, for, at the conclusion of the forty-eight hours, the approaches to Stamboul and Galata were bristling—thanks to the delay accorded, and to the exertions of the French ambassador—with twelve hundred pieces of cannon; while, at the same time, orders having been sent to the castles of the Dardanelles to mount their batteries, the British squadron was hemmed in on all sides, as if by enchantment. The besieged now became the aggressors, and there soon remained to Admiral Duckworth no other resource than to weigh anchor and get away as fast as possible, which he accordingly did. The batteries of the Dardanelles were now, however, prepared for him. A most destructive fire was opened upon the ill-fated fleet: two corvettes were sunk off Gallipoli; the Admiral's flag-ship, the Royal George, lost her mainmast; a huge marble ball, weighing eight hundred pounds, swept away a quantity of hands from the lower deck of the Standard, while many officers and seamen wore severely wounded. It must be here observed, that the batteries of the Dardanelles owed much of the murderous effect of their cannonading to the skill of eight French engineer officers, whom Count Sebastiani, profiting by the delay accorded by Admiral Duckworth to the Sultan, had despatched to the castles.
These historical reminiscences did not prevent my thoughts occasionally reverting to the six odalisques, who formed the suite of the young Arab on board. Ever since their arrival, I had been reflecting that in all probability never would so excellent an opportunity offer itself of penetrating the secrets of a Mussulman harem, and of assuring myself of the vaunted beauty of the mysterious women of Asia. As soon as we were again in motion, I began to watch the black Argus to whose guard the fair houris were intrusted. For more than an hour I lurked without success about the fore-hatchway, for, faithful to his trust, the slave was lying at the threshold of the door that closed upon his young mistresses; and I was on the point of losing all patience, when I beheld him suddenly rise and mount rapidly on deck. He had no sooner disappeared than I glided into his place, and, having applied my eye to a large chink in the door, cast a most indiscreet glance into the cabin. In front of me two women were seated upon their heels, one of them had thrown aside her veil; and I was gazing in admiration upon a pale but beautiful face, set off by two immense black and brilliant eyes, when suddenly I heard behind me the sound of hurried steps. It was the negro returning to his post, who, on perceiving me, began to cry out most lustily. Having no desire to commence a contest with him, I proceeded to mount the hatchway and gain the deck.
The exasperated slave, however, followed me, and hurrying to his master, proceeded to inform him of my escapade, pointing at the same time to me. Two old Turks leaped immediately to their feet with fury depicted on their features; and one of them placed his hand upon the hilt of his cangiar, and pronounced in a voice half-choked with passion the word "Ghiaour," (infidel): in answer to which, I politely told him, (as I was a good Turkish scholar,) to mind his own business, and that I was rather inclined to consider him the greater infidel of the two. He looked both surprised and vexed at this, but did not attempt to retort. As to the young Arab, he proved himself to be a man of sense; for, contenting himself with smiling at his infuriated attendant, he descended to the cabin of his odalisques, from whence he did not emerge during the remainder of our voyage. I did not again see him, and never knew who was the Mussulman, so handsome and at the same time so little fanatical.
The strait through which we had navigated all day, gradually widened as we advanced; the shores as they receded were covered with opal tints; the vessel began to roll, and we entered the sea of Marmora. At sunset the Mussulmans with whom the deck was crowded collected in groups, and devoutly said their evening prayer. Their countenances were wrapped in deep devotion, and they appeared to take no notice of the satirical smiles, which the strangeness of their attitudes called forth from several unreflecting travellers, who, by wanting in respect for the usages of the countries through which they were passing, lowered themselves immensely in the estimation of the inhabitants. The irritation excited by the ill-timed railleries of such foolish persons, is no doubt one of the chief causes of the hatred in which Christians are held in Turkey. Surely nothing could be less calculated to excite mockery, than the sight of the Mussulman travellers at their evening devotions; besides, be it had in mind, that upon this Christian vessel, scarcely a Christian perhaps was thinking of his God, while not a single Mahometan was to be seen unengaged in prayer, as the sun sunk below the horizon.
The following morning I was early upon deck. The sun had not yet risen, and the air was fresh and invigorating; while upon the white, heavy, oily sea, was a slight fog, which the breeze was dispersing in flakes. Around us a quantity of porpoises were either splashing in the midst of the waves or floating like buoys upon the surface. The most profound silence reigned upon the deck of the steamer. Wet with the night-dews, the half-slumbering seamen of the watch were seated in a circle near the funnel; while numberless Turks, rolled up in their yellow coverlets striped with red, were sleeping forward beneath the netting: the steersman at the wheel and the man on the look-out were alone really wide awake. Suddenly, I perceived dawning in the east a greenish light, which became yellow as it ascended in the heavens; the low and flat shore appeared like a black line upon this luminous background, and by degrees the sea resumed its azure tint. An hour afterwards we were within cannon-shot of the Seraglio; but, alas! a thick fog covered the city. Constantinople was invisible—and I was deploring the mischance, which was depriving me of a long-anticipated pleasure, when suddenly the sun shone forth brightly, and the fog acquired as if by enchantment a wonderful transparency. The curtain was, as it were, torn to bits, and from all quarters at once there appeared to my dazzled eyes forests of minarets with gilded peaks, thousands of cupolas blazing in the light, hills covered with many-coloured houses, surrounded by verdure; an immense succession of palaces with grotesque windows, blue-roofed mosques, groves of cypress-trees and sycamores, gardens full of flowers, a port filled as far as the eye could discern with ships, masts, and flags; in a word, the whole of that enchanted city, which resembles less an immense capital than an endless succession of lovely kiosks, built in a boundless park, having lakes for docks, mountains for background, forests for thickets, fleets for boats,—in fine, an incomparable spot, and at the same time so grand and elegant, that it seems to have been designed by fairies, and executed by giants.
Several writers have compared the view of Constantinople to that of Naples. I cannot, however, agree with them. Any one can figure the latter capital, whilst, on the contrary, the City of the Sultan surpasses all that imagination can picture. Our enchantment, however, was of short duration: the vapours again became condensed, the view was gradually covered with a rosy haze, then became dim, and Constantinople disappeared from before us like a dream. The Scamandre, which had stopped for a few minutes, was again put in motion, and having rounded the Seraglio, cast anchor in the midst of the strait which separates Stamboul (the Turkish quarter) from Galata, (the European faubourg.) In a moment the deck of our vessel was one scene of confusion: the sailors were running to and fro, while the passengers were rushing one against another, vociferating after their baggage. Around the vessel there kept gliding two or three hundred black caicks, rowed by half-naked boatmen; and notwithstanding the orders to the contrary, a quantity of Maltese sailors, Turkish porters, and Levantine ciceroni came on board, and literally took us by storm, bawling out their offers of service, in almost every known language. Clouds of blue pigeons, and whitewinged albatros, flew about over our heads, uttering plaintive cries; add to these the stentorian voice of our French commander, the curiosity and impatience of the travellers demonstrated by their noisy exclamations, and one will have an idea of the spectacle offered by the deck of a steamer on its arrival at a Turkish port.
During the hauling of the vessel to the quay, I scarcely knew upon what to fix my eyes, attracted as they simultaneously were by a thousand different objects. Here was the Golden Horn with its numberless ships, the cypress-trees of Galata, and the seven hills of ancient Byzantium covered with mosques; there, the blue waves of the Propontis, and the glittering banks of Scutari. Giddy with enthusiasm, and intoxicated with admiration, I attempted, as our caick approached the landing-place, to be the first to leap upon the quay, when, just as I was in the act of springing, my foot slipped, and I fell headlong into a miry stream. Such was my entrance into Constantinople.
As soon as I gained footing, splashed with mud from head to foot, I remained a moment motionless, and almost petrified with astonishment. All was changed around me: the enchanted panorama had disappeared, and I found myself in a small filthy crossway, at the entrance of a labyrinth of narrow, damp, dark, muddy streets. The houses which surrounded me, built as they were of disjointed planks, had a miserable aspect; time and rain had diluted their primitive red colour into numberless nameless tints. One of those minarets which from afar appeared so slender and so beautiful, now that it was close to me proved to be merely a small column devoid of symmetry, while its covering of cracked plaster seemed on the point of falling to pieces. The Turkish promenaders whom from a distance I had taken for richly attired merchants, proved to be a set of miserable tatterdemalions with ragged turbans. Behind the porters who crowded to the landing-place, were butchers embowelling sheep in the open street; while the pavement was covered with bloody mire and smoking entrails, around which several score of hideous dogs, of a fallow colour, were growling and fighting. A fetid stench arose from the damp gutters, where neither air nor light have ever penetrated, where corruptions of all sorts amass, and where one is continually in danger of stepping upon a dead dog or rat. Such is without exaggeration the aspect of the greater part of the streets of Constantinople, and in particular those of Galata. This contrast between the misery of what surrounds you, and the incomparable beauty of the same spot when seen from a distance, has never yet been sufficiently remarked upon by travellers who seek to describe Constantinople. Perhaps they have been unwilling to cool the enthusiasm of their readers in dirtying with these hideous, but true details, their gold and silver-plated descriptions.
Perfectly disenchanted by this sudden change of scene, I followed the bearer of my baggage up a street, which was steep, badly paved, and so narrow that three men could scarcely have walked along it abreast. On the right and left hand were disgusting little shops, or rather booths, filled with green fruit and vegetables. Having proceeded onwards, we rounded the tower of Galata, which, from a near view resembles a handsome dove-cote, and shortly afterwards arrived at Pera, and proceeded to take up our quarters at a kind of hotel, kept by one Giusepine Vitali, where I immediately went to bed and was soon afterwards fast asleep.
At ten o'clock, a.m., I was awakened by my fellow-travellers, and accompanied them to the caravanserai of the Turning Dervishes. A somewhat lengthened residence in the northern provinces of Persia, where a Turkish idiom is spoken, had given me a tolerable fluency in that language, and I was thus enabled to act as interpreter to my friends. The cicerone of the hotel conducted us to a circular building situated in the midst of a small garden, whither was hurrying a crowd composed of Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. Having arrived at the vestibule, we took off our boots and confided them to the care of a man who kept a sort of depôt for slippers, of which he hired out to each of us a pair. We then entered a large circular hall, lighted from above, in the centre of which was an oaken floor, waxed and polished with the greatest care, and protected by a balustrade. Around this arena were seated a number of spectators of all ages, country, and costumes, and exhaling a strong odour of garlic. The ceremony was commenced: for to the music of a barbarous orchestra, composed of small timbals and squeaking fifes, accompanying some nasal voices, about twenty tall, bearded young men, clad in long white robes, were waltzing gravely round an old man in a blue pelisse. These men carried on their heads a thick beaver cap, similar in form to a flower-pot turned upside down. Their white robes, made of a heavy kind of woollen stuff, were so constantly bulged out with the air that they seemed made of wood. With their arms extended in the form of a cross, the left hand being somewhat more elevated than the right, and their looks fixed upon the ceiling with a stupid stare, these Dervishes continued to turn rapidly round upon their naked feet with such regularity and impassibility that they seemed like automatons put into motion by machinery.
Suddenly the music ceased, upon which the Dervishes threw themselves simultaneously upon their knees, inclining their heads at the same time to the ground. For several minutes they remained motionless in this position, while some attendants threw a large black cloak over each, upon which they again stood up and ranged themselves in a line. Upon this the old man in the blue pelisse, who had hitherto sat motionless upon his heels, began a plaintive nasal chant, to which his subordinates responded in a roaring chorus; this finished, the crowd began to disperse, and we returned to our hotel.
Besides the Turning Dervishes, there are also at Constantinople the Howling Dervishes, who, instead of waltzing until they fall from giddiness, continue to utter the most frightful shrieks, until they fall upon the ground exhausted and foaming at the mouth. Historians have accorded different origins to these singular and absurd exercises; for my part, I am inclined to consider them as remnants of the furious dances taught by the ancient people of Asia to the Corybantes.
The day after my arrival I embarked for Stamboul, the Turkish quarter, in one of those long caicks which are as it were the hackney coaches of Constantinople. The least oscillation is sufficient to upset these light barks, which are impelled with inconceivable rapidity by two or three fine light-looking Arnaouts, dressed in silken shirts. In two minutes, having traversed the Golden Horn, passing through an immense crowd of boats of every form, and ships of every nation, we disembarked upon a landing-place even more dangerous than the caick, on account of its slipperiness and the chances thereby of falling headlong into a receptacle of filth and mud. The streets of Stamboul are still more narrow, filthy, and fetid than those of Galata and Pera. Wooden hovels, badly constructed, and worse painted; a species of cages pierced with an infinite number of trellised windows, with one story projecting over the ground floor, flank on the right and on the left hand these passages, through which hurry a motley crowd with noiseless tread. The pavement, made of little stones placed in the dust, slip from under one's feet and expose one to continual falls. Upon the boards of the first shops one passes are piled heaps of large fish, whose scales glitter in the sun, in spite of the dust. Fawn-coloured dogs, in much greater numbers than at Galata, run between your legs—and wo to whosoever should disengage himself too energetically from these hideous brutes, which are protected by Mussulman bigotry! The habits of these animals, whose number amounts to above a hundred thousand, are exceedingly singular. They belong to no one, and have no habitation; they are born, they live and they die, in the open street; at every turn one may see a litter of puppies suckled by their mother. Upon what these quadrupeds feed it would be difficult to state. The Turkish government abandons to them the clearing of the streets, and the offal and every sort of filth, together with the dead bodies of their fellows, compose their apparently ordinary nourishment. At night they wander about in the burying grounds, howling in the most frightful manner. Whatever may be their means of existence, they multiply their species with the most surprising rapidity. Some years ago, the canine race had increased to such a degree at Constantinople that it became dangerous, when, to the pious horror of the Old Mussulmans, the Sultan Mahmood, among other reforms, caused twenty thousand of these animals to be, not poisoned, he would not have dared to so greatly offend against the prejudices of the inhabitants, but transported to the isles of Marmora. In a few days they had devoured every thing in the place of exile, after which, tormented by hunger, they made such a hideous row, and uttered such plaintive howls, that pity was taken upon them, and they were brought back in triumph to Constantinople. Fortunately hydrophobia is unknown in the Levant.
