Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1889-12-21
TWO GREAT CITIES.
Squalor and Filth in Athens and Con-
stantinople.

able Features of Constantinople-Vie Of
an Old Traveller,
Nature has showered every blessing
on the capital of the Turk which she
had in her gift There is not a more
enhancing spot in the universe than
the Golden Horn and its shores, says a
writer in the Chicago Herald 1t is
not so with Athens. Approach the
present capital of little Greece from
whichever side you will, come up from
interior of Attica, the landscape in
which the city lies is desOlate, rock
strewed and unfertile. And the city
| itself-well, there are few tOlerably
handsome streets, there is fine build
ing serving as the royal palace, and
the pretty squares. But that is all.
The two principal streets are far from
attractive, and ninety-nine out of every
one hundred houses are unspeakably
| homely, with no attempt at architect
ure-small, bare and ramshackle.
| There are no sidewalks, most of the
streets are unpaved, and while it is
true that Athens is not as muddy and
| filthy as most oriental towns owing to
its rocky, dry soil and the favorable
climate, it is still much more filthy and
muddy than any town in this country.
Add to this the dust, binding and
singing, forever driven about before
the winds the whole under a broiling
sun and smell of rancid olive oil
from the open air cooking-peryading
the air and hanging over the town like
a pail, and you have just about a truth
full sketch of what Athens is like on Il
day like this"
But COnstantinople?'
''Ah, yes Well, if you conjure up
before your memory the picture of Chi,
cago just after the big fire, with smoke
begrimed ruins everywhere and an air
of general disorder, recklessness and
confusion, and if you add TO this about
800 per cent more of sticky mud and
100 times more of rotting refuse,
| garbage and filth than there ever was
at any time on our streets, not forget
ting to plump down in every block and
alley score each of ravenOus, grOwl-
! ing, fighting, woltish-lOOking ours,
which refuse to stir and let you pass,
you'll have faint idea of what Con-
stantinople is. The fact is, man can
not imagine what a GOd-forsaken place
Constantinople is until he sees it with
his own eyes. Dogs and mud These
are the two main features of it. Sewers
in the middle of the street, open and
with a greenish scum on the top of the
ill-smelling contents; no sidewalks in
the town; none of the streets paved
| with cobble stones, but most of them
having nothing but the original mud
knee-deep in places and ankle-deep
everywhere else; heaps of all sorts of
refuse lying in the street with every
little while horde Of the only scaven-
ger the town has, the world-famed
savage dogs, the NANCY ours of the size
of q timber wolf, hCwling by night aud
growing and lighting by day,
sleeping in the sun in the middle
of the roadway, and ob.iging all
foot passengers to turn out of their
way or step over them. Imagine a
labyrinth of narrow, winding lanes,
many not wide enough for four men to
walk abreast, and then imagine droves
Al, 81
slaughtered sheep strapped to their
backs, mules and donkeys with vast
burdens, all passing through them.
| All this will give you but faint notion
of Constantinople. Of course Stamboul,
the purely Turkish town, is the worst
in all these respects. The thorough
fares bear no names, and the only
means to find your way without guide
is to inquire from mosque to mosque
and from bazar to bazaar.
but are there not many fine build
ings in Stamboul?" asked the oriental
enthusiast.
mo, not many. There are a few,
probably a score of them altogether,
including the sultan's palaces. There
is the Top Kapu Serai, or the Old Serial,
a complex of buildings and grounds,
some of which are fine, but which was
partially destroyed by fire years ago,
and which at present is used mainly as
a last resort for supe ranuated harem
beauties.
Then there is the Sublime Porte.
Sublime Porte! Pshaw The Turks
call it Babi Ali gate OF Al) or Pasha
Kapussi door of the Pashas). 1t is
the building in which the offices of the
grand vizier and OF the ministers of the
interior and of foreign affairs are lOcat-
ed. 1t is building which is remarka
Bile for nothing but fine white marble
gate, with an impudent Turkish in
scription in gilt letters and for the
past associations with Turkish gram
deur.
By far the larger number of houses
are mere shanties, constructed in hap
hazard fashion out OF smoke-begrimed
stones or worm-eateu wood. The vas
sea of those ignoble houses is marked
by crooked lanes, and this monotony is
broken here and there by stretches OF
ruins, old and modern, many of them
still dating from the taking OF the city
by the Turkish conquerors in 1853, and
in those the shakeal and the owl dwell
peacefully together. In the narrow
streets the cooks are eternally at work
on their kabobs-broiled bits OF mutton