Morris tribune., 1881-01-13
CoNsTANTINopLE PICTURES.
A City With One Hundred Thousand Dogs
The Sultan's Ladies Lacking in Personal
loneliness and Minus Carriers

City With One Hundred Thousand Dogs
The Sultan's Ladies Lacking in Personal
LONELINESS, and Minus Carriers.
Correspondence Baltimore American.
The population of Constantinople isprob-
ably between 500, 900 and 600, 900 inhabi-
tants, and its harbor is said to be the finest
in the world. The lands also around it,
both in Asiatic as well as European Turkey,
are of the most productive character; and to
the indolent, lazy Turk, who only scratches
the soil, it yields an abundant return. The
city is very irregular, with narrow, dirty
streets, and paved with such heavy powders
that in large majority of them it is impos-
sible for carriage to be driven. The first
place we went to see was the Seraglio, or
Palace of the Sultans. It is very simple in
its construction, and is said to occupy the
spot where was originally the Augustan Fo
rum. 1t has three gates, and of them called the
"Gate Of Salvation" We took carriage
also and visited the mosque of St. Sophia,
which is situated near the gate of the Sc
raglio, and said to have been built by Jua-
tinean, and distinguished by six green jas
per pillars, and eight of porphyry, brought
from Ephesus and Rome. When we enter
ed the mosque 1 declined to take off my
shoes, but little backshish made it all right,
This mosque is dedicated to the Eternal
Wisdom, and it was in the church on
this site where the golden mouthed"
Chrysotom delivered his renowned, faith
full and eloquent discourses. The mosque
of st. Sophia is really very beautiful on the
inside; and while there are probably more
than dozen others, yet when You see this
you will about have enough of mosques and
this, believe, is the only one that was left
standing at the time the city was captured
by the Turks. Not far from the st. Sophia
is very high building called the Fire
Tower, from which, when a fire breaks out,
signals are thrown out to indicate the local
lty of the fire. And l am told from this
tower also you can have magnificent view
of the city and its surroundings, including
Bosporus, the Golden Horn and the Sea of
Marmora. l have heard a great deal of the
numberless dogs roaming about the streets
of Constantinople, and in this in
stance it was not exaggerated. To speak
within bounds, should say there were at
least 100, 900 dogs in the city, and I have
seen as many as fourteen of them stretched
| out in the street at one place. They are so
| lazy-and the streets SO narrow-that when
they stretch themselves out, tail and
| all, it is almost impossible to pass along
with carriage without driving over their
tails, and when you do SO they set up such
yelping cry as to arouse the entire neigh
borhood. They seem to the stranger to be
horrible nuisance; but as the city has no
sanitary regulations, it is necessary, l sup
pose, to keep the dirty dogs to clear
away the filth of the more dirty
Turks. 1t is astonishing to see the
number of idle unproductives that
the city contains; and priests-why, to use
tha -hn1 NOR dc
full of them, mostly Mohammedans and
Greeks. was told by a gentleman that
there were not less than 10000 priests in
Constantinople. This may be an exagger-
alton, but 1t seems to me that every third
man you meet is a priest. The natives
here live in the plainest and most inexpen-
sive way; all they want is piece of coarse
brown bread and a small bunch of grapes
with cup of Turkish coffee, to last them
almost the entire day. Being in the city
on Friday, we took a carriage and drove
down to the Sultan's palace-or, rather, in
the neighborhood of the palace and near
the mosque where he resorts every Friday
for prayers. We were there quite early,
and consequently had to wait for some time
before his Highness made his appearance.
All great men have an idea that the longer
| they keep the populace in waiting on their
eAtO SlSheS1 appeal, dAu
| this poor creature being silly as well as
great, of course had to overdo
the thing. The soldiers long before
his appearance, had formed them
selves into line, several bands discoursed
national music, and then came the state car
riages, filled with yelled Circassian and
Turkish women, attended by the tall,
straight, beardless eunuchs from Nubia and
Upper Egypt; then the soldiers formed
| themselves in line from the palace gate to
the mosque and men attired in livery swept
and watered the streets, and at last the Sui
tan was announced by music and the shouts
of Long live the Sultan" had good OPP
portunity to observe the Sultan. He W,
rather below the ordinary height, and, al
though careworn and detected, he was quite
a good-looling man. He was dressed with
good deal of taste, and wore upon his head,
of course, the Turkish fez. 1 had also, from
the position of our carriage, being in front,
good opportunity to observe the women;
and, while few of them seemed rather goou
looking, the most of them were ugly, clumsy
creatures. They were not tidy, either; their
dresses We're loose and their shoes were
clumsy, and their stockings were not fasten-
ed with carriers, and having slipped down,
exposed their big ankles, and came to the
conclusion that there are very few of the
neat, trim thoroughbreds now left among
the Turkish women.