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Alphonse de Lamartine

Travels in the Near East (Voyage en Orient, 1832-33)

Part XI

Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2026 All Rights Reserved

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Constantinople - Continued


June 20, 1833

I met a kind and distinguished man here, one of those men stronger than their misfortune, who use the very tide that seems determined to drown them to reach the shore. Monsieur Calosso (Giovanni Timoteo Calosso), a Piedmontese officer implicated, like many of his comrades, in the Piedmontese military revolution of 1820, and like the rest, an exile without refuge or sympathy anywhere, arrived in Turkey. He presented himself to the Sultan and offered to train his cavalry; he became his favourite and his military mentor. Upright, knowledgeable, and reserved, he himself tempered the effects of a perilous show of favour which might have rendered him a source of envy. His modesty and cordiality pleased the pashas of the court and the ministers of the Divan. He made friends everywhere and knew how to keep them through the merit that had earned them. The Sultan raised him to a high rank without asking him to renounce his nationality or his faith. He is now known to all the Turks as Rustem-Bey, and to the Franks, as a kind and obliging Frank. He sought me out here and offered me everything his familiarity with the Palace and the Seraglio could procure for me: access everywhere, the friendship of some of the principal officers of the court, and an opportunity to see and learn about everything, which no Christian traveller has ever been able to obtain before, not even the various ambassadors. I have prepared, with his assistance, a complete tour of the Seraglio, which no one has entered since Lady Wortley Montagu. Tomorrow we will attempt to explore that mysterious place together, which he himself knows little of, though happily he possesses connections there among the highest officials of the Palace.

We began by visiting Mehmed Namik Pasha, one of the Grand Seigneur’s young favourites, who had invited me to lunch at his barracks in Scutari and had placed his horses at my disposal for a tour of the mountains of Asia-Minor. Namik Pasha was on duty that day at the Sultan’s palace in Beylerbey, on the banks of the Bosphorus. We disembarked there. Thanks to Rustem Bey’s rank, and as a favour, we were allowed to pass through the gates and examine the surroundings of the Grand Seigneur’s residence. The Sultan was preparing to visit a small mosque in a European village on the other side of the Bosphorus, opposite Beylerbey. His superbly equipped caiques were moored along the quay bordering the palace, and his magnificent Arabian horses were kept ready in the courtyards by the sais, for the Sultan to mount after he had crossed his gardens. We entered a wing of the palace, separate from the main building, where the pashas, ​​the officers on duty, and the palace staff were located. We crossed vast halls where a crowd of soldiers, employees, and slaves circulated. All was in motion, as in a government ministry or a European palace on a day of ceremony. The interior of the palace lacked magnificent furnishings: divans and carpets, frescoed walls, and crystal chandeliers were its only decoration. The Oriental costumes — the turban, the fur coat, the wide trousers, the belt, the golden caftan — abandoned by the Turks for a miserable European costume, poorly cut and ridiculously worn, has changed the grave and solemn appearance of this people into a poor parody of the Franks. The diamond star that shines on the chests of the pashas and viziers is the only decoration that distinguishes them and recalls their former magnificence.

We were led through several crowded salons to a small room overlooking the outer gardens of the Grand Seigneur’s palace. There, Namik Pasha joined us, sat down beside us, had pipes and sherbet brought, and introduced us to several of the young pashas who, along with him, enjoyed the master’s favour. Colonels from the Nizam (the reformed military), or regular troops of the guard, joined us and took part in the conversation. Namik Pasha, recently returned from his embassy to St. Petersburg, spoke French with taste and fluency; his manners, studied by Russians, were those of an elegant European diplomat; he struck me as witty and refined. Halil Pasha (Damat Gürcü Halil Rifat Pasha), recently Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral), who has since married the Sultan’s daughter (Saliha, in 1832), also speaks French very well. Ahmed Fethi Pasha is also an elegant young Ottoman, with all the features of a European. Nothing in this palace was reminiscent of an Asian court, except for the Black African slaves, the eunuchs, the barred windows of the harem, the fine pools of shade, and the blue waters of the Bosphorus, upon which one’s gaze fell when it wandered to the gardens.

We spoke discreetly, but frankly, about the state of negotiations between Egypt, Europe, and Turkey; about the progress made and yet to be made by the Turks in tactics, legislation, and the policies of the various powers with regard to Turkey. Nothing in our conversation suggested that we were discussing what are termed ‘barbarisms with the barbarians’, or that the ear of the Grand Seigneur himself, that shadow of Allah, could be offended by our murmured discussion. It would have been no less intimate, no less profound, no less elegantly conducted, in a salon in London or Vienna. These young men, eager for knowledge and progress, spoke of their situation and of themselves with a noble and touching modesty. As the hour of prayer approached, we took our leave of our hosts; We postponed to another time the request for a direct presentation to the Sultan.

Namil Pasha entrusted us to a colonel of the Imperial Guard, whom he charged with leading us and ushering us into the courtyard of the mosque which the Sultan was visiting. We crossed the Bosphorus and were placed at the very entrance of the small mosque, on the steps leading up to it. A few minutes later, we heard the cannon-fire from the fleet and the forts, which every Friday announces to the capital that the Sultan is attending the mosque; and we saw the two imperial caiques detach themselves from the Asian coast and cross the Bosphorus like arrows. No luxury of horses and carriages could approach the Oriental luxury of these gilded caiques, whose prows soared, like golden eagles, twenty feet ahead of the caique’s hull, whose twenty-four oarsmen, simultaneously raising and lowering their long oars, imitated the beating of two vast wings, and each time lifted a veil of foam that enveloped the caique’s sides and, finally, the pavilion of silk, gold, and feathers, whose folded curtains revealed the Grand Seigneur seated on a cashmere covered throne, with his pashas and admirals at his feet. Touching the quay, he sprang ashore lightly, resting his hands on the shoulders of Ahmed and Namil Pasha. The band of his guard, lined up opposite us in the mosque square, burst into a fanfare; and he advanced swiftly between two lines of officers and spectators.

Sultan Mahmud is a man of forty-five, of medium height, with an elegant and noble bearing; his eyes are blue and gentle, his complexion ruddy and brown, his mouth graceful and intelligent; his beard, black and glossy as jet, cascaded in thick waves down his chest: it was the only vestige of the national costume he had retained; otherwise, were it not for his hat, one would have taken him for a European. He wore trousers and boots, a brown frock-coat with a diamond-embroidered collar, and a small red woollen cap, topped with a jewelled tassel. His gait was jerky, and his gaze anxious; something had shocked him, or deeply troubled him: he spoke energetically and turbulently to the pashas who accompanied him; He slowed his pace when he was near us, on the steps of the door, cast a benevolent glance at us, inclined his head slightly, gestured to Namil Pasha to take the hand that a veiled Turkish woman was offering him, and entered the mosque. He stayed there for only twenty minutes or so. The military band played opera pieces by Mozart and Rossini the whole time. He then came out with a more open and serene expression, bowed to the right and left, walked slowly towards the sea, and, laughing, jumped into his boat. In the blink of an eye, we saw him reach the coast of Asia and return to his gardens at Beylerbey.

It is impossible not to be struck by Mahmud’s countenance, and not to secretly wish for a prince whose features reveal a manly energy and a profound sensitivity. But, alas, the wish falls flat when one thinks of the dark future that awaits him. If he were a truly great man, he would forge his own destiny and overcome the fate that envelops him. There is still time: as long as a people is not dead, there is within them, within their religion and their nationality, a source of energy and renewal that a skilful and strong genius can cultivate, stir, and regenerate, leading to glorious transformation; but Mahmud is a great man only in his heart. Fearless as regards fighting and the prospect of death, the spring of his will weakens when it comes to acting and ruling. Whatever his fate, history will pity and honour him. He has attempted great things; he understands that his people are doomed without transformation; he has wielded the axe against the dead branches of the tree: but he lacks knowledge of how to give sap and life to what remains standing of that healthy and vigorous trunk. Is it his fault? I think so. What remains to be done seems nothing compared to the destruction of his Janissaries.

June 21, 1833.

At eleven o’clock we mounted the steps of the Old Seraglio and entered the streets surrounding it. I visited, in passing, the Divan of the Porte, a vast palace where the Grand Vizier resides and where the empire’s policies are debated. The impression left by the scenes that once unfolded there is nothing remarkable; nothing in the building’s character recalls the many blood-stained and dramatic acts. It is a large palace of painted wood, with an exterior staircase, covered by a soffit cut into festoons in the style of India or China. The rooms are bare, covered with mats. From there, we descended into the square where the dreaded Seraglio gate has so often opened to disgorge the bloody heads of viziers or even sultans. We passed through this gate without hindrance. The public enters the first courtyard of the Seraglio. This vast space, planted with groups of beautiful trees, slopes down to the left towards a magnificent Mint, a modern building, lacking Oriental character.

The Armenians, directors of the Mint, received us and opened the caskets where the jewels made for the Seraglio were kept. A shower of pearls and diamonds, paltry riches, which may ruin an empire! When a state becomes truly civilised, such idealised representations of wealth are exchanged for real, productive riches: land and credit. I did not linger; we were about to enter the inner courtyard of the Seraglio, inaccessible to everyone except the Seraglio’s employees, and ambassadors on days when they are received, and bordered by the several wings of palatial buildings and by kiosks, separated from one another; the quarters of the eunuchs, guards, and slaves. Fountains and trees provide coolness and shade. Arriving at the third gate, the soldiers guarding the archway stubbornly refused to let us enter. In vain, Rustem-Bey made himself known to the Turkish officer in command, who in turn cited his orders and told him that he would risk his life if he allowed me to enter. We were sadly turning back when we were approached by the kesnedar, or treasurer, who was returning from the Mint to the Seraglio, where he resides. A friend of Rustem-Bey, he approached the latter, and, having inquired about the cause of our predicament, told us to follow him, and led us without any difficulty into the Court of the Icoglanlar (the pages and servants of the Inner Palace). This courtyard, smaller than the first, is formed by several small palaces in the form of kiosks, with very low roofs that extend seven or eight feet beyond the walls and are supported by small Moorish columns or pillars of painted wood. The columns, pillars, walls, and roofs are also of carved and painted wood in various hues. The courtyards and gardens, formed by the gaps left between the kiosks, irregularly scattered throughout the space, are also irregularly planted with trees of great beauty and great age: their branches droop over the buildings and envelop the roofs and terraces. The right wing of these buildings is formed by the kitchens, immense living quarters whose numerous chimneys and exterior walls, blackened by smoke, announce their purpose.

One can gain an idea of ​​the grandeur of this edifice when one learns that the Sultan feeds all those attached to the court and the palace, and that this number of diners amounts to at least ten thousand a day. A little in front of the main kitchen building is a charming little palace, surrounded by a gallery or portico on the ground floor: this is the palace of the pages or icoglanlar of the Grand Seraglio. It is there that the Grand Seigneur provides for the sons of the families of his court to be raised and educated, or young slaves destined for positions in the Seraglio or the empire. This palace, which once served as a residence for the sultans themselves, is decorated inside and out with a profusion of carvings, sculptures, and gilded mouldings that do not detract from its refined style. The ceilings are as rich as those of the finest palaces in France or Italy; the floors are covered in mosaics. It is divided into several rooms, roughly of equal size: these rooms are enclosed on the right and left by niches and carved wooden stalls, much like the finest stalls in the choirs of our ancient cathedrals. Each of them forms the chamber of an icoglan: at the far end is a platform where he folds his cushions and rugs, and where his clothes are hung or stored in a gilded wooden chest. Above these stalls is a kind of tribune, also projecting, divided, adorned, and decorated, which contains as many stalls as the room below. The whole is lit by domes or small windows at the top of the building. The young icoglans, all former pupils of Rustem-Bey, received him with touching joy and displays of affection. A long-awaited father could not have been more tenderly welcomed. The excellent hearts of these young people moved him to tears; I was moved myself witnessing such spontaneous and frank signs of affection and recognition: they took his hands; they kissed the tails of his frock coat. ‘Rustem-Bey! Rustem-Bey!’ they cried to one another; and all rushed to meet their friend, trembling and blushing with emotion and pleasure. He could not escape their caresses: they spoke charming words to him: ‘Rustem-Bey, why have you abandoned us for so long? You were our father; we languish without you. Everything we know, we owe to you. Allah and the Sultan sent you to make men of us; we were nothing but slaves, sons of slaves. The name Ottoman was an insult, a mockery in Europe; now we will know how to defend and honour it. But tell the Sultan to return you to us; we no longer study; we wither away in boredom and sadness.’

Five or six of these young men, gentle, frank, intelligent, and admirable in appearance, took us by the hand and led us everywhere. Then they brought us back to their room for recreation: a kiosk surrounded by jets of running water that cascaded from the walls into marble bowls. Divans were arranged all around; a staircase, hidden within the thick walls, led to service areas, where numerous slaves, under the orders of the icoglans, constantly tending the fire for the pipe-smokers, and bringing coffee, sherbet, water, and ice. There were all sorts of games being played in this room; several people were playing chess. Sherbet and ice were served to us; and, reclining on the divan, we talked for a long time. They spoke eloquently of the progress of their studies, of European politics, and of the destiny of the empire; they trembled with indignation at the present state of affairs, and expressed their wishes for the success of the Sultan in his innovative projects.

I have never seen a more ardent desire for the regeneration of a country than that which burned in the eyes of, and was expressed in words by, these young people. Young Italians, when speaking of independence and the Enlightenment, pulsate with no greater fervour. Their faces shone brightly as we spoke to them. The oldest were perhaps between twenty and twenty-two years of age; the youngest, twelve to thirteen. Except at the naval orphanage in Greenwich, I have never seen more admirable faces than those of some of these young people. They did not wish us to leave and accompanied us insofar as they were allowed to, into all the surrounding gardens, courtyards, and kiosks. One or two had tears in their eyes as we left Rustem-Bey. The kesnedar, meanwhile, had ordered the eunuchs and guardians of the gardens and palaces to allow us to move about freely and to enter wherever we wished.

At the far end of the courtyard, a little beyond the palace of the icoglans, another large palace blocked our view and passage; this was the residence of the Sultans themselves. Like the kiosks, and the palaces, we had just visited, it was surrounded by a gallery formed by extensions of the roofs. The countless doors and windows of the apartments opened onto this gallery. The palace had only one floor. We entered the large halls that served as a vestibule and provided access to the various rooms. This vestibule is a regular labyrinth, formed by the pillars that support the roofs and ceilings, from which run vast circular corridors for the service of the apartments. The pillars, the ceilings, the walls, everything is of wood, painted and carved with Moorish ornamentation. The doors of the imperial chambers were open; we saw a great many of them, all more or less identical in the layout and decoration of their moulded and gilded ceilings. Wooden or marble cupolas, pierced with arabesque fretwork, through which the light filters softly, veiling the walls; wide, low divans around these walls; no furniture, no seats, only carpets, mats, and cushions; windows that begin half a foot from the floor, and open onto the courtyards, galleries, terraces, and gardens — that is all.

On the side of the palace opposite the one through which we had entered, there is a terraced platform, built of stone and paved with marble slabs. A handsome kiosk, where the Sultan sits when receiving ambassadors, is separated from the palace by a few yards, and raised by a few feet on this platform; it resembles a small Moorish chapel. A divan fills it; circular windows surround it: the view from there of Constantinople, the port, the Sea of ​​Marmara, and the Bosphorus is unobstructed and magnificent. Marble fountains flow and emit jets of water in the open gallery between this kiosk and the palace. It is a delightful promenade. The branches of the shrubs and rosebushes from the little gardens covering the lower terraces creep over the balustrades and trellises, perfuming the palace. Several paintings on marble and wood hang on the walls: they are views of Mecca and Medina. I examined them with curiosity. The paintings are like plans without perspective: they perfectly match Ali Bey’s account of Mecca, the Kaaba, and the layout of the various sacred monuments in the holy city (Ali Bey el Abbassi, the Spanish traveller Domingo Badia y Leblich, provided the first comprehensive nineteenth-century European account of Mecca after his visit in 1807, published as ‘Voyage en Afrique et en Asie’, 1814) They prove that he actually visited the sites. What he says about the circular gallery surrounding the area of ​​the different mosques is corroborated by these paintings. One sees the portico, reminiscent of that of St. Peter’s in Rome, depicted there.

Following the palace platform to the left, one arrives, via a narrow balcony supported by high terraces, at the harem, or palace of the Sultanas. It was closed; only a small number of odalisques remained (female slaves and attendants, sometimes concubines or favourites of the Sultan). We did not seek to approach this secret place further. We viewed only the barred windows and the delightful balconies, also surrounded by trellises and shutters interwoven with flowers, where the women spend their days contemplating the gardens, the city, and the sea. We gazed at a multitude of flowerbeds enclosed by marble walls, watered by fountains, and planted, with care and symmetry, with all kinds of fragrant flowers and shrubs. These gardens, which one descends by staircases and which connect to one another, sometimes also have elegant kiosks; This is where the women and children of the harem walk and enjoy Nature.

We had reached the slope of the Seraglio, which begins to descend from there towards the port and the Sea of ​​Marmara. It is the highest point of this unique site, from which the view encompasses all the hills and all the seas of Constantinople. We lingered there for a long time to enjoy it. It is the opposite of the view I described from the top of the Pera belvedere. While we were on this palace terrace, the mealtime bell rang, and we saw a great number of slaves passing by, carrying on their heads large tin platters containing the dinners of the officers, employees, eunuchs, and women of the Seraglio. We witnessed several of these dinners. They consisted of pilau, poultry, kibbeh (small dumplings of rice and minced meat roasted in vine leaves), flatbreads similar to wafers, and a vessel of water. Wherever the slave met his master, there the dinner was set out, sometimes in the corner of a palace room, sometimes on the terrace in the shade of the roof, sometimes in the gardens under a tree, near a fountain.

The kesnedar came to fetch us and led us to the kiosk where he resides, opposite the Seraglio treasury. This treasury, where so much incalculable wealth has been held since the empire’s founding, is a large stone building, fronted by a covered portico. The building is very low to the ground, the doors are low, and the chambers are underground. Large wooden chests painted red contain gold and silver coins. A certain number are removed each week for the service of the empire. There were several under the portico. We did not ask to enter; but it is said that, in addition to the gold and silver coins, the kesnedar holds heaps of pearls and diamonds there. This is likely, given the Sultans’ custom of depositing them all in the treasury, and only retrieving them in the most desperate circumstances. But since the value ​​of precious stones is variable, if the Grand Seigneur wished to realise his wealth by selling them, it would reduce their value if quantities were continually traded; so that this resource, which seems immense in financial terms, might not prove so.

The kesnedar, an open, cheerful, and witty man, showed me into his apartment. There, for the first time in Turkey, I found a touch of European luxury in the furnishings and comforts: the divans were high and covered with silk cushions; there were tables and wooden shelves around the room; on these shelves were ledgers, books, maps, and a globe. We were brought jams and sorbets. We discussed the state of the arts and sciences in Europe compared those known in the Ottoman Empire. The kesnedar seemed to me as learned and as free from prejudice as a European. He understood everything; he desired Mahmud’s every success in his attempts at improvement; but being old, and having spent his life in positions of trust in the Seraglio under four sultans, he seemed to have little hope and to have philosophically resigned himself to the future. He led a peaceful and solitary life in the depths of this abandoned Seraglio. He questioned me at length on everything: philosophy, religion, poetry, the popular beliefs of Europe, the systems of various states, whether monarchies or republics; politics, tactics; everything was reviewed by him, with a rectitude of mind, aptness, and sound judgment that clearly showed me I was dealing with one of the most distinguished men in the empire. He brought me a sphere, and his globe, and desired me to explain the movements of the planets, and name the continents and seas of the earth. He took notes on everything and seemed delighted. He begged me to join him for supper at his house, and to spend the night there. I found great difficulty in resisting his entreaties, and could only overcome them by telling him that my wife and friends, who knew I was at the Seraglio, would be in mortal anxiety if they did not see me reappear. ‘You are indeed,’ he said, ‘the first Frank who has ever entered there, and that is a reason for you to be treated as a friend. The Sultan is great, and Allah is over all!’

He accompanied us to the inner staircases that descend from the platform of the Sultan’s palace to the maze of little gardens of the harem, which I mentioned earlier, and entrusted us to the care of a head gardener, who led us from kiosk to kiosk, from flowerbed to flowerbed, all planted out and watered by gushing fountains, until we reached the gate of a high wall that separates the inner palace buildings of the Seraglio from the large outer lawns. There we found ourselves at the feet of enormous plane trees that rise to over a hundred feet high before the walls and beside the high balconies of the harem. These trees form a forest, of groves interspersed with green lawns; further on are fruit trees and large vegetable gardens cultivated by Black African slaves who have their huts beneath the trees. Streams water these irregular plantings. Not far from the harem is an old and magnificent pavilion (the ‘Conqueror’s Pavilion’, Fatih Kosku) built circa 1460 for Sultan Mehmed II, and used by Bayezid II, abandoned to ivy and night birds. It is made of stone and in admirable Arab style. It could easily be restored and would be worth the entire Seraglio in itself; but tradition holds that it is inhabited by evil spirits, and no Ottoman ever enters there.

Since we were alone, I entered one or two of the underground archways of this beautiful palace, cluttered with debris and stones; the walls and staircases I had time to glimpse appeared to me to be of the most elegant workmanship. Having arrived near one of the gates in the Seraglio walls, we retreated, still beneath a forest of plane trees, sycamores, and cypresses — the tallest I have ever seen — and circled the outer gardens. They led us back to the shores of the Sea of ​​Marmara, where there are two or three magnificent palaces inhabited by the Sultans during the summer. The apartments open onto the channel and are constantly refreshed by the breeze. Further on, grassy hills bear small mosques, kiosks, and pools of water surrounded by marble parapets and shaded by gigantic trees. We sat there, among the flowers and the murmuring fountains. The high walls of the Seraglio were behind us, and in front a grassy slope ending at the sea; between the sea and us rose a curtain of cypress and plane trees bordering the enclosure wall. Through this curtain of trees, we viewed the waves of the Sea of ​​Marmara, the Princes’ Islands, the sailing ships, whose masts slid by behind the trees, and Scutari reddened by the rays of the setting sun. The golden peaks of the Mount of the Giants (Yusa Tepesi), and the snowy peaks of the Phrygian mountains framed this divine scene.

Such, then, is the interior of this mysterious abode, the most beautiful of all abodes on earth; the scene of so many bloody dramas, where the Ottoman Empire was born and flourished, but where it refuses to die, even though since the massacre of the Janissaries, Sultan Mahmud no longer dwells there. A man of gentle ways and sensual pleasures, the bloodstained sites associated with his reign are repugnant to him. Perhaps he also feels unsafe amidst the fanatical population of Istanbul, and prefers to have one foot in Asia, amidst his thirty palaces along the Bosphorus, and the other on his flagship. The general character of these admirable dwellings is neither of grandeur, nor comfort, nor magnificence; they are pavilions of gilded wood, pierced with light. The character of these palaces displays the characteristics of the Turkish people: intelligence and love of Nature. This instinct for beautiful landscapes, for sparkling seas, for shade, for springs, for vast horizons framed by the snow-capped mountain peaks, is the predominant instinct of this people. One senses here the memories of a pastoral and agricultural race who cherish their origins, and whose tastes are simple and instinctive. A people who placed the palace of their masters, the capital of their imperial city, on the slope of the most beautiful hill in their empire and perhaps in the entire world.

This palace has neither the interior luxury nor the mysterious delights of a European palace; it has only vast gardens, where trees grow as freely and live as long as in virgin forest, where waters murmur, where doves coo; rooms pierced by numerous windows always open to the air; terraces overlooking the gardens and the sea, and kiosks with grilles where the sultans, seated behind their shutters, can enjoy both solitude and the enchanting aspect of the Bosphorus. It is the same everywhere in Turkey; the ruler and the people, great and small, have but one need, one sentiment, in the choice and arrangement of their dwellings: to enjoy the sight, the view, of a beautiful horizon. or, if the situation and the poverty of their home prevent it, at least of a tree, some birds, an ewe and doves, and the patch of land around their humble dwelling. And wherever there is a sublime, elevated, gracious corner of the landscape, a mosque, a saint’s tomb, a Turkish kiosk, will be placed there. There is not a site on the Bosphorus, a hillock beside a smiling gulf on the coast of Asia and Europe, where a pasha or a vizier has not built a villa and a garden. To be seated in the shade, facing a magnificent horizon, with beautiful foliage above one’s head, a fountain nearby, the countryside or the sea before one’s eyes, and to spend hours and days there, losing oneself in vague and inarticulate contemplation — such is the life of the Muslims: it explains the choice and arrangement of their dwellings; it also explains why this people remains inactive and silent, until passions stir them and restore the innate energy, dormant within them, which is never quite lost. The Turks are not loquacious like the Arabs; they care little for the idle pleasures of society; the pleasures of Nature suffice: they dream, meditate, and pray. This is a race of philosophers; deriving everything from Nature, attributing everything to God. Allah is constantly in their thoughts and on their lips; not as a sterile idea, but as a tangible, evident, and practical reality. The Muslims’ virtue is in perpetual adoration of the divine will; their dogma, fate. With this faith, one may conquer the world or lose it with the same ease, and with the same composure.

We exited through the gate which led to the port, and I entered the beautiful kiosk on the quay, in which the Sultan sits and views his fleet leaving or returning from an expedition and saluting its master.

June 22, 1833.

Two of my friends are leaving me (Amedee de Parseval and Jean-Vaast de Laroyère) and journeying to Europe. I will remain in Buyukdere, with only my wife and Ferdinand de Capmas.

June 25.

I spent two days in Belgrad Ormani (‘Belgrad Forest’, settled by Serbs deported to Constantinople from Belgrade in 1521, when it fell to the Ottomans) a village in the middle of the forest of the same name, fifteen miles or so from Constantinople: an immense oak forest covering hills situated between the Bosphorus and the Sea of ​​Marmara, equidistant from both, and extending almost uninterrupted to the Balkans. A site as wild and charming as any of England’s forests, with a beautiful Greek village built in a wide valley in its midst, Arcadian meadows, a river flowing beneath the trunks of the oaks, and magnificent artificial lakes formed in the basin of the high hills to capture and retain the water supplying the fountains of Constantinople.

We were hospitably received at the home of Monsieur and Madame Alyon (Jacques François Antoine Alléon, known as Jak Alyon, and his brothers, Antoine and Jean, became the most important and wealthiest bankers in Constantinople; he married Marie Marion. ‘As rich as Alyon’ became a proverbial phrase there), French bankers established from father to son in Constantinople, who own a delightful villa in Buyukdere and a hunting lodge in the village of Belgrad Osmani; a charming family, where elegance of manners, nobility of sentiment, and intellectual refinement are combined with the grace and amicable simplicity of the Orient. In Constantinople, I found another, entirely French, welcome in the society of Monsieur Jaques Salzani, brother of my banker in Smyrna, (and brother-in-law to the Alléon brothers, having married their sister Christine) a good man, a man of heart and mind, who treats us as compatriots and friends. In general, the Frankish society of Constantinople, composed of officers of embassies and consulates, the families of dragomans, and merchants from various European nations, is far superior to its reputation. Constituted like a small town, it has the faults of small towns, namely gossip and petty jealousies; but there is probity, education, elegance, and a gracious and cordial hospitality toward foreigners. They are as well-informed about Europe here as in Vienna or Paris; They participate strongly in the movements of life that stir the West. There are men of merit, and women of grace and noble virtues. I have seen salons in Pera, Therapia and Buyukdere, where one would have thought oneself in one of the most distinguished salons of our great cities of Europe, if one had not cast one’s eyes but now on the Bosphorus, or the Golden Horn sparkling at the foot of the garden, between the leaves.

June 29, 1833.

The Freshwater Streams of Europe are situated at the inner end of the port of Constantinople, where the hills of Eyup, and those of Pera and Galata, draw imperceptibly closer, leaving only a narrow strait between their shores; to the west lies the suburb of Eyup with its mosque (the Eyup Sultan Mosque), where the sultans, upon their accession to the throne, would gird the sword of Muhammad about them — a martial coronation, a consecration of power, within the Muslim religion, of their despotism. This pyramidal mosque rises gracefully above the painted houses of the suburb, and the tops of its minarets merge on the horizon with the high, ruined Greek walls of Constantinople. Along the channel, beautiful palaces of the Sultanas stretch along the water’s edge. The windows are at water level; the broad, leafy canopies of the garden trees tower above the roofs and are reflected in the sea. Beyond, the channel is no more than a river flowing between two lawns. Hills, gardens, and woods cover these beautiful slopes. A few Bulgarian shepherds play the bagpipes, seated on the rocks, tending flocks of horses and goats. Finally, the river is no more than a stream, its banks touched by the oars of the caiques, and the roots of magnificent elms growing along the banks obstructing navigation. A vast meadow, shaded by groups of plane trees, stretches to the east; to the west, rise the wooded and verdant hills; in the distance, the eye is lost among the green and irregular columns of trees that shade the stream and meander with it. Thus ends the beautiful port of Constantinople, thus ends the vast, beautiful, and stormy Mediterranean. You find yourself in a shaded cove, at the end of a green gulf, on a bank of grass and flowers, far from the noise and bustle of the sea and the city. Oh, how well a life would end that ended here! God grant such an end to the lives of my friends, who are glowing with health and busy today amidst the human melee! Silence after noise, a kind darkness after the bright day, rest after turmoil. A nest of shadow and solitude in which to reflect on one’s past life, and die in peace, in friendship with Nature and Humankind. I no longer ask such a thing for myself, I no longer seek it: my solitude can never now prove so sweet or so fair.

Having disembarked from the caique, I followed the banks of the stream to a gazebo that I saw gleaming white among the trees. At each trunk, I glimpsed a group of Turkish and Armenian women who, surrounded by beautiful children playing on the lawn, were eating their meals in the shade. Superbly harnessed saddle horses and ox-drawn arabas, carriages from Constantinople, were scattered across the meadow. The gazebo was fronted and surrounded by a canal and ponds where swans swam. The gardens were small, but the entire meadow was a garden. The present Sultan often came here in the past to spend the warmer seasons. He loved this delightful retreat because it pleased a favourite odalisque. Love had found a place in his heart after the massacres of Atmeidan; and, amidst the sensual pleasures of the harem, the beautiful odalisque died here. Since then, Mahmud has abandoned this beautiful place. He often visits the odalisque’s tomb it is said, and his presence alone consecrates the gardens of this abandoned palace. I spent a day deep in the valley, in the shade of the trees. I wrote a poem addressed to ‘V’ (Aymon de Virieu).

July 3.

I embarked this morning for Constantinople. I sailed up the Bosphorus, entered the Sea of ​​Marmara and, after following the outer walls that separate Istanbul from that sea for about two hours, disembarked at the foot of the Fortress of the Seven Towers (Yedikule). We had neither tezkere (official permit) nor guide. The Turkish soldiers, after much resistance, allowed us to enter the first courtyard of this bloodstained castle, where deposed Sultans were dragged by the mob to await death, which is never long delayed when the people are both judge and executioner. Half a dozen heads of decapitated emperors rolled down the steps of its staircase. Thousands of less regal heads covered the battlements of the entrance tower. The guard refused to allow us any further. While he went to ask the commander for orders, the door of a low, vaulted room in the eastern tower opened a crack. I took a few steps, heard a roar that shook the vault, and found myself face to face with a magnificent chained lion. The lion lunged at a fine greyhound that had been following me. The greyhound broke free and took refuge between my legs. The lion reared up on its hind legs, but its chain held it against the wall. I exited and closed the gate. The guard came to tell me that he would risk his head if I were allowed to enter further. I withdrew and left the city through a gate in the old wall that leads out into the countryside.

The walls of Constantinople originate at the Castle of the Seven Towers on the Sea of ​​Marmara and extend to the hilltops overlooking the suburb of Eyub, towards the far end of the harbour, and the Fresh Waters of Europe — thus encircling the entire ancient city of the Greek emperors, and the city of Istanbul of the Turkish emperors, along the side of the triangle not protected by the sea. On that side, nothing defends Constantinople but the gentle slopes of its hills, which fade to a beautiful cultivated plain. There, a triple line of walls was built against which so many assaults failed, and behind which the ill-fated Greek Eastern Empire believed itself imperishable for so long. These magnificent walls still stand; and they are, after the Parthenon and Baalbek, the most majestic ruins attesting to the power of empire. I walked along their outer bases this morning, which are stone terraces. The walls are fifty to sixty feet high, and occasionally fifteen to twenty feet wide, faced with dressed stones of a beautiful grey-white colour, often entirely white, as if fresh from the artisan’s chisel. They are separated from the terraces by ancient ditches, filled with debris and lush topsoil, where trees and wallflowers have taken root for centuries, forming an impenetrable glacis, a virgin forest thirty to forty yards wide, filled with birds’ nests, and teeming with reptiles. Sometimes this forest completely hides the sides of the walls and square towers that flank it, or reveals only their high battlements. Often the wall reappears at full height, reflecting the sun’s rays with a golden gleam. It is notched at the top by breaches of all shapes, from which the verdure slopes down as in mountain ravines to merge with the moat. Almost everywhere its summit is crowned with overflowing vegetation, forming a mound of plants, with capitals and volutes of vines and ivy. Here and there, from the heart of the towers filled with stones and dust, a plane tree or a cypress tree springs forth, its roots intertwining amidst the cracks in this pedestal. The weight of branches and leaves, and the gusts of wind with which these airy trees are constantly battered, cause their trunks to lean southward, and they hang like uprooted trees, their vast branches laden with the nests of a multitude of birds. Every three or four hundred yards, one encounters one of the paired towers, magnificently constructed, with the enormous vaults of a gateway or an ancient arch between them. Most of these gates are now walled up, and vegetation, which has overtaken everything — walls, gates, battlements, and turrets — achieves a most bizarre and beautiful union with the ruins and the works of mankind. There are patches of ivy that descend from the tops of the towers like the folds of immense cloaks; there are vines forming bridges of greenery fifty feet long, arching from one breach to another; there are beds of wallflowers, self-sown on perpendicular walls, plants that the wind constantly sways in flowery waves; thousands of shrubs form crenellations jagged with foliage in various colours. From all this, flocks of birds emerge when a pebble is thrown against the sides of the covered walls, or into the depths of the thickets at their base. We saw especially a large number of eagles which inhabit the towers and soar all day in the sun, above the areas where they feed their young.

July, 1833.

The same solitary life in Buyukdere. In the evenings, by the sea or in the Valley of Roses. Visits from Monsieur Truqui every week. Such kind hearts possess a virtue that consoles. God has given them the only remedy there is for incurable wounds of the heart: compassion.

Yesterday, Count Orloff, commander of the Russian fleet and army, and ambassador extraordinary of the Emperor of Russia to the Sublime Porte, celebrated his victory and departure with a military festival held for the Sultan on the Bosphorus. The gardens of the Russian embassy in Buyukdere occupy the wooded slopes of a mountain that closes off the gulf and whose base is lapped by the waves. From the palace terraces, one has a view of the Bosphorus in both directions, towards Constantinople and towards the Black Sea. All day long, the cannons of the Russian fleet, anchored at the foot of the gardens before our windows, resounded from minute to minute, the flag-bedecked masts blending with the greenery of the tall trees on both banks. From early morning, the sea was covered with small ships and caiques bringing between fifteen and twenty thousand spectators from Constantinople, who spread out among the kiosks, into the meadows, and onto the surrounding rocks. A large number remained in the caiques, which, filled with Jewish, Turkish, and Armenian women dressed in bright colours, floated like bouquets of flowers here and there on the sea. The Russian camp on the slopes of the Giant’s mountain, a mile or so from the fleet, stood out, with its white and blue tents, against the sombre greenery and scorched slopes. In the evening, the gardens of the Russian embassy were illuminated by thousands of lanterns suspended from all the tree-branches. The ships, with lights on every mast, yard, and section of rigging, resembled fire-ships whose conflagration in turn ignited the batteries. The ships’ sides spewed forth torrents of lightning, while the camp of the landing troops, lit by great flashes of fire on the headlands and hillocks of the Asian mountains, was mirrored in luminous trails on the sea, casting a fiery glow across the entire vast surface of the Bosphorus.

The Grand Seigneur arrived, in the midst of this dazzling night, on a steamship that drew alongside the terraces of the Russian palace, to enjoy the spectacle before him. He was seen on the ship’s bridge, surrounded by his vizier and his favourite pashas. He remained on board and sent the grand vizier to attend Count Orloff’s supper. Immense tables set up beneath the long avenues of plane trees, and other tables hidden in all the groves of the gardens, were covered in gold and silver threaded cloths that reflected the light from the illuminated trees. At the darkest hour of the night, shortly before moonrise, a firework display, borne on rafts across the waters in the middle of the Bosphorus, equidistant from its three shores, launched its rockets into the air, which raced over the waves, and cast a blood-red light upon the mountains, the fleet, and the countless crowd of spectators whose caiques covered the sea. Never could a more magnificent spectacle befall the human eye: it seemed as if the vault of night had torn open, revealing a corner of an enchanted world, with its elements, mountains, seas, and skies of unknown form and colour, and with thousands of vaporous, fleeting shadows floating across waves of light and fire.

Then all returned to silence and the night. The lanterns, extinguished as if by a breath of wind, vanished from every yardarm and gunport of the ships; and the moon, rising from a high valley between the crests of two mountains, spread its softer light over the sea, and silhouetted, against a pearl-coloured background, the enormous black masses, and the dissected spectres formed by the masts, yards, and shrouds, of the ships. The Sultan departed on his light steamship, whose column of smoke trailed across the sea, and vanished silently, like a shadow come to witness the ruination of an empire.

This was scarcely Sardanapalus illuminating the ruins of his fallen throne with the glow of his pyre, though. This was the murder of a tottering empire, forced to seek its enemies’ support and protection against a rebellious slave (Muhammad-Ali Pasha of Egypt), and bear witness to their glory, and its own humiliation. What would the old Ottomans have thought if they had seen the glow of the Christian barbarians’ camp, and the light of their fires from the sacred mountains of Asia-Minor, fall upon the domes of the mosques, and reverberate on even the walls of the old Seraglio? What was Mahmud himself thinking, behind the affected smile on his lips? What serpent was gnawing at his heart? Ah! There was something profoundly sad in play, something that, on his behalf, I found heart-breaking, and which, in my opinion, should have driven him to revive his heroism, simply through remorse.

July.

I dined today at Baron von Sturmer’s with the Crown Prince of Bavaria (the future Maximilian II), who has just returned from Greece and has halted for a few days in Constantinople. This young prince, eager for knowledge and wise enough to show no outward signs of reflecting on the throne that awaits him, seeks the company of men who have no interest in flattering him, and educates himself by listening to them. He is a marvellous conversationalist himself. ‘The King of Greece, my brother (Otto),’ he said, ‘is still hesitating over his choice of capital. I would like to have your opinion.’ ‘The capital of Greece,’ I replied, ‘must surely be dictated by the very nature of the events that have reconstituted Greece. Greece is resurrected. When one is resurrected, one must be reborn with one’s own form and name, one’s complete individuality. Athens, with its ruins and its memories, is the emblem of Greece. Greece must be reborn in Athens, or it will be nothing more than what it is today — an impoverished tribe scattered across the rocks of the Peloponnese and the islands.’

July.

The Russian fleet and army are departing. They know the way here, now; they have accustomed the eyes of the Turks to seeing them. The Bosphorus remains deserted and lifeless.

My Arabian horses arrived via Asia Minor. Tedmor, the most handsome and spirited of them all, perished at Magnesia, almost at the end of the journey. The local people mourned him, and still mourn as they remind me of his death. He had been admired in every city of Caramania he passed through. The others are so thin and so tired that they need a month’s rest to be fit enough to make the journey through European Turkey and Germany. I am selling the two finest to Count Boutenieff (Apollinary Petrovich Butenev, the Russian Ambassador) for the stud farms of the Emperor of Russia, and the other three to various people in Constantinople. I will forever miss Tedmor and Saide.

I have just made a deal with some Turks from Istanbul and the Eyoub suburb, owners of those carriages that carry women through the streets of Constantinople; they are renting me five arabas, each drawn by four horses, to transport my wife and I, Monsieur de Capmas, my servants, and our luggage to Belgrade a journey of twenty-five days duration. I am hiring two Tartars to lead the caravan; mule drivers to carry the beds, the kitchen utensils, the crates of books, etc.; and finally, six horses, to provide mounts for us, if the state of the roads prevents the use of the arabas. The price of all these horses and carriages is about four thousand francs. An excellent interpreter will accompany us on horseback. Our departure is set for July 26th.

July 26th, 1833.

We left Constantinople at two o’clock this morning; the horses and carriages were waiting for us in the suburb of Eyoub, in a small square not far from a fountain shaded by plane trees. A Turkish café is nearby. A crowd gathered to see us depart; but we experienced neither insult nor loss of any belongings. Probity is the virtue of the streets in Turkey; it is less common in palaces. The Turks sitting beneath the trees in front of the café, and the children passing by, came and helped us load our carriages and horses, and gathered up and returned to us any items that fell or that we forgot.

We set off at sunrise, all on horseback, climbing the long, lonely, hilly streets that lead from the Eyub suburb to the Greek walls of Istanbul. We emerged from the city onto a bare, deserted hillside dominated by a magnificent barracks. Two battalions of the Nisam Djedid, the regular troops, were training in front of the barracks. Monsieur Truqui and the young Greeks from his consulate wanted to accompany us. We parted there. We embraced this excellent man, who has been a godsend to us during these days of isolation. Amidst our despair, a two-month friendship felt like one of many years. May God reward and console the final years of this dispenser of consolation! Who knows if we will meet again here below? We departed on a long and perilous journey. He remains, sad and ill, far from his wife and his homeland. He tried in vain to hide his tears from us, and ours moistened his trembling hand.

We halted seven miles or so from Constantinople to allow the day’s heat to subside. We crossed a rolling landscape of hills overlooking the Sea of ​​Marmara; a few houses, scattered across the fields; no villages. We set off again at four; and, still following the low, broad, bare hills, we arrived at a small town where our Tartars, who were ahead of us, had a house prepared for us, which belongs to a charming Greek family: three graceful women with children of admirable beauty. They spread carpets and cushions on the firwood floor for the night. My cook managed to procure rice, chickens, and vegetables in abundance. Our caravan will be ready to leave at three in the morning. One of my Tartars will march for a few hours at the head of the group.

Adrianople (Edirne)

July 31st, 1833.

After our noon rest each day, which we took by a fountain or beneath some caravanserai roof, the Tartar would receive my orders, and gallop to the town or village where we were to spend the night. He carried my letters from the grand vizier, to the pasha, agha, or ayan (local official), or the lord of the village. These officials choose the best Greek, Armenian, or Jewish house in the place and inform the owner to prepare it for foreigners. They have fodder brought there for the thirty-two horses that make up our retinue, and often a supper for us. The ayan, accompanied by the leading citizens and some horsemen, if there were troops in the place, came to meet us at a certain distance along the road and escorted us to our lodgings. They dismounted with us, ushered us in, ordered the pipes and coffee brought, and after a while, retired to their own homes, where I would go to visit them soon afterward.

From Constantinople to Adrianople, there is nothing remarkable, nothing picturesque, except an immense series of plains devoid of dwellings and trees, each crossed, here and there, by some narrow, shallow river flowing beneath the arches of a ruined bridge. In the evening, one finds a small isolated village at the end of a valley and surrounded by orchards. The inhabitants are all Greeks, Armenians, or Bulgarians. The khans of these villages are hovels almost without roofs, where people and horses are crammed-in together. The road was like this for five days. We encountered no one; it resembled the roads in the Syrian desert. Only once did we find ourselves in the midst of thirty or forty Bulgarian peasants, in European dress, wearing black sheepskin caps. They were marching towards Constantinople to the sound of a pair of bagpipes. They shouted loudly when they saw us and rushed towards us, asking for a few piastres. These folk are the ‘Savoyards’ of European Turkey (Itinerant traders and seasonal workers from Savoy used to travel the roads of France, as book and print sellers, showmen, and pedlars, the lads often as chimney-sweeps, etc. journeying as far as Paris). They guard the horses of the Grand Seigneur and the pashas in the meadows of the Freshwater Streams of Asia, and of Buyukdere. They are also the gardeners of Istanbul.

On the morning of the sixth day, we caught sight of Adrianople, once the capital of the empire, at the edge of these plains, nestled in a beautiful basin between mountains. The city appeared immense, dominated by its magnificent mosque (the Selimiye Mosque), built by Selim II, which is the most beautiful religious monument in Turkey after Hagia Sophia. The fields, for five miles before reaching the city, were cultivated with wheat, vines, and fruit trees of every kind. The landscape resembled the area around Dijon or Lyon. Numerous streams meandered across the plain. We entered an extensive suburb, and crossed the city amidst a throng of Turkish men, women, and children who pressed forward to see us, but who, far from bothering us, showed us every kind of politeness and respect. The people who had come to meet us led us to the door of a beautiful house belonging to Pietro Vernazza, the Sardinian pro-consul in Adrianople.

We have spent two days in Adrianople, in the pro-consul’s delightful house. His family lives a few miles away, on the banks of the Maritsa River (the Hebrus of the ancients, also known as the Evros, or in Turkish as the Meric). We enjoyed a ravishing view of Adrianople in the evening, from Monsieur Vernazza’s terrace. The city, roughly the size of Lyon, is watered by three rivers: the Maritsa, the Arda, and the Tundzha; it is surrounded on all sides by woods and water; beautiful mountain ranges frame this fertile basin. We visited the mosque, a building similar to all mosques, but higher and vaster in size. Our arts have produced nothing bolder, more original or more effective than this monument and its minaret, a column pierced by openwork, rising to a height of over a hundred feet.

Philippopolis (Plovdiv)

6th August, 1833.

We departed Adrianople for Philippopolis (Plovdiv, Bulgaria); the road crossed defiles and wooded, pleasant, but deserted, basins between the high ranges of the Rhodope and Haemus mountains. A journey of three days. Beautiful villages. In the evening (of August 2nd), seven or eight miles from Philippopolis, I saw a swarm of Turkish, Armenian, and Greek horsemen galloping towards us over the plain. A handsome young man, mounted on a magnificent horse, arrived first and touched my garment with his finger; he halted beside me; he spoke Italian and explained that, having been the first to touch me, I must accept his hospitality, regardless of the other horsemen’s entreaties to host me elsewhere. The governor of Philippopolis’ attendant then arrived, welcomed me on behalf of his master, and told me that the governor had ordered a large and comfortable house, and supper, prepared for me, and that he wished to keep me in the city for a few days; but I persisted in nominating the house of the young Greek, Georgi Mavridi (the house is extant and known as the Lamartine/Mavridi House, at 19, Knyaz Tseretelev Street).

We entered Philippopolis with between sixty and eighty horsemen; people crowded the windows and the streets to see our procession; we were received by the sister and aunts of Monsieur Mavridi: his is a large and elegant house; a beautiful divan with twenty-four windows, furnished in the European style. The governor and the head of the various nationalities inhabiting the city came to welcome us, and take coffee. We have spent three days in Philippopolis, enjoying Monsieur Mavridi’s generous hospitality, travelling around the area, and receiving and returning visits from Turks, Greeks and Armenians.

Philippopolis is a city of thirty thousand souls, three days’ journey from Adrianople, eight days’ journey from Sofia, situated on the banks of a river, on a mountain of isolated rocks in the middle of a wide and fertile valley; it is one of the most beautiful natural city sites that one could imagine. The mount has twin peaks, their slopes both equally adorned with houses and gardens, and the streets descend in a circular, winding fashion, so as to more easily navigate the slopes, to the banks of the river, which itself flows at the foot of the town, and encloses it with a ‘moat’ of running water. The sight of the bridges, the gardens, the houses, the tall trees rising from the riverbanks, the wooded plain separating the river from the Macedonian mountains, and the mountains themselves, whose flanks are cut by torrents foaming white, and dotted with villages or large Greek monasteries, renders Monsieur Mavridi’s garden one of the most magnificent viewpoints in the world. The town is populated by roughly equal numbers of Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. The Greeks are generally educated and merchants; the most prominent among them send their children to be educated in Hungary. The oppression of the Turks only seems heavier to them thereafter, and they long for the independence of their brothers in the Morea. There I met three charming young Greeks, worthy, by their sentiments and their energy of spirit, of a different fate and a different homeland.

Pazardzhik

10th August, 1833.

We left Philippopolis, and arrived in two days at a pretty town, in a cultivated plain, called Tatar-Pazardzhik; along with the surrounding province, it belongs to one of those great Turkish feudal families, of which half a dozen branches in Asia and Europe were and are respected by the Sultan. The young prince who owns and governs Tatar-Pazardzhik is the son of the former vizier (Hussain Pasha Kavanoszade). He received us with chivalrous hospitality, and lodged us in a newly built house on the bank of the river Maritsa that flows past the town, a spacious, elegant, and comfortable house belonging to a wealthy Armenian. We had barely settled in when we saw between fifteen and twenty slaves arrive, each carrying a tin tray on his head. They placed on the floor at our feet a multitude of dishes of pilaf, pastries, game, and sweets of every kind, from the prince’s kitchens. Two fine horses were brought to me as a gift, which I refused, and calves and sheep to feed my entourage.

The next day, we saw the foothills of the Balkans before us: these beautiful mountains, wooded and interspersed with large villages and rich fields, are inhabited by Bulgarians. All day we followed the banks of the river that forms marshes in the plain; arriving at the foot of the Balkan Mountains, I found all the principal inhabitants of the Bulgarian village of Yenikoy (‘New Town’, likely Belovo; Golyamo Belovo being the old village) waiting for us. They took the reins of our horses and positioned themselves to the right and left of our carriages, supporting them with their hands and shoulders, sometimes even lifting them, to prevent the wheels from plunging into the ravines, and thus led us to the wretched village which my Tartars had reached before us; the houses were scattered on the slopes or ridges of two hills separated by a deep ravine, and surrounded by pretty orchards and meadows; all the mountains are cultivated at their base and covered with beautiful forests on their slopes; the peaks are rocky. These Bulgarian cottages are built of wattle and daub and covered with tree branches and leaves; we occupied seven or eight of them, and our soldiers, Tartars, and horsemen camped in the orchards; each house has only one room, and the bare earth serves as a floor.

1st September, 1833.

I caught a fever and suffered an inflammation, a consequence of grief and fatigue. I spent twenty days lying on a mat in a miserable, windowless cottage, between life and death. My wife’s admirable devotion for me has seen her spend a fortnight, night and day, without closing her eyes beside my straw bed; she sent men to the marshes in the plain to seek leeches; the Bulgarians finally found some; sixty leeches on my chest and temples have lessened the danger. I am aware of my condition; I think day and night of my wife, abandoned here should I die, two thousand miles from our home and any source of consolation, in the mountains of Macedonia: dreadful hours!

I summoned Monsieur de Capmas and issued my last instructions in case of my death. I begged him to have me buried under a tree by the roadside, which I saw on arriving, with a single word written on the stone, the word of supreme consolation: — God. On the sixth day of fever, the danger already past, we heard the sound of horses and weapons in the courtyard; several riders dismounted; it was the young and amiable Greek from Philippopolis, Georgi Mavridi, with a young Macedonian doctor, and several servants who were soon unloading horses laden with provisions, furniture, and medicine. A Tartar, who was crossing the Balkans to go to Adrianople, had stopped at the house in Philippopolis and spread the rumour that a Frankish traveller had fallen ill and was dying at Yenikoy. This rumour reached Monsieur Mavridi at ten in the evening. He presumed that this Frank was his recent guest. He sent for his friend the doctor, gathered his servants, had his horses loaded with everything his charitable foresight deemed necessary for a sick man, and set off in the middle of the night, riding without a pause, and arrived, two days’ journey away, to bring aid, remedies, and comfort to a stranger he was unlikely ever to see again. These are the kinds of acts that refresh the soul and show the generous nature of mankind, in all places and in all climates.

Monsieur Mavridi found me almost recovered; his business affairs called him back to Philippopolis. He departed the same day, leaving me the young Macedonian doctor, a man of talent and learning, who had studied medicine in Semlin, Hungary, and could speak Latin. His talent was of no use to us; my wife’s tenderness, presence of mind, and energy of resolve had achieved everything; but his company was pleasant to us during the twenty deathly days of our stay in Yenikoy, which were necessary for the illness to dissipate and for me to regain the strength to mount my horse.

The Prince of Pazardzhik, informed of my illness from its very beginning, showed me no less touching marks of interest and hospitality. He sent me sheep and calves daily for my people; and, throughout my stay in Yenikoy, five or six horsemen of his guard remained constantly in my courtyard with their horses bridled and ready to execute my every wish. During the last days of my convalescence, they accompanied me on horseback rides in the magnificent valley and on the mountains surrounding Yenikoy; the prince even had slaves offered to me; a detachment of his cavalrymen accompanying me from the outset to the borders of his province. There, within the very heart of their families, I was able to study the customs of the Bulgarians; they are those of our Swiss or Savoyard peasants. The men are simple, gentle, hard-working, full of respect for their priests and zeal for their religion, which is the Greek form. The priests are simple farmers, like themselves. The Bulgarians form a population of several million, which is constantly growing; they live in large villages and small towns separate from the Turks: one or two Turks, delegated by the pasha or the ayan, travel throughout the year between these villages to collect the taxes. Apart from that and a few chores, they live in peace and according to their own customs. Their clothing is that of German peasants; the women and girls have a costume roughly similar to that of the Swiss mountains; they are pretty, lively, and graceful.

Their customs seemed purely traditional to me, though the women no longer wear veils as in Turkey and freely associate with the men. I saw rustic dances among the Bulgarians, just as in our French villages; they despise and hate the Turks; they are perfectly ripe for independence and, together with their neighbours the Serbs, will form the basis of the future states comprising what is now European Turkey. The countryside they inhabit would soon be a delightful garden, if the blind and stupid oppression, not of the government, but of the Turkish administration, would allow them to cultivate the land with a greater modicum of security; they have a passion for the land.

I left Yenikoy and its kind-hearted people with regret: it is a delightful summer retreat; all the people of the village accompanied us some miles into the Balkan Mountains and showered us with good wishes and blessings; we crossed the first mountains in a single day, which are much like those of the Auvergne region, accessible and arable almost everywhere; five hundred workers could build the finest carriage road there in a single season. In three days, I arrived at Sofia, a large city on an inland plain, watered by rivers (mainly the Iskar). A Turkish pasha resided there; he sent his kahya (steward) to meet me and arranged for me to lodge in the house of a Greek merchant. I spent a day there; the pasha sent me calves and sheep but refused to accept any gifts. The city itself is unremarkable.

In four short days’ ride, sometimes through easily accessible mountains, sometimes through admirably fertile but uninhabited valleys and plains, I had arrived on the plain of Nis, the last Turkish town almost on the borders of Serbia (now Serbia’s third largest city). I was riding half an hour ahead of the caravan. The sun was scorching; about two miles or so from the town, I saw a large white tower rising in the middle of the plain, shining like Parian marble; the path led me there. I approached it, and, giving my horse to a Turkish child who was accompanying me, I sat down in the shade of the tower to sleep for a while: I had scarcely done so when, raising my eyes to the monument that lent me its shade, I saw that its walls, which had seemed to me to be built of marble or white stone, were in fact formed by regular courses of human skulls. These skulls and human faces, emaciated and bleached by rain and sun, cemented together with a little sand and lime, entirely formed the triumphal arch that sheltered me; there may have been fifteen to twenty thousand of them; on some, the hair still clung, and floated like lichen and moss in the breeze; the mountain breeze blew briskly and freshly, and, rushing into the countless cavities of the heads, faces, and skulls, made them emit plaintive and lamentable hissing sounds. I had no guide to explain this barbaric monument to me; the child who held the two horses by the bridle played with small pieces of the skulls that had fallen to dust at the foot of the tower. I was so overcome with fatigue, heat, and sleepiness that I fell asleep with my head resting against these walls of severed heads. When I awoke, I found myself surrounded by the caravan and a large number of Turkish horsemen, who had come from Nis to escort us into the city. They told me that these were the heads of the fifteen thousand Serbians killed by the pasha in the First Serbian Uprising in 1809 (The Skull Tower, Cele Kula in Nis, is a 15 foot high limestone structure built by Ottoman forces, to terrorise the Serbs following the Battle of Cegar in that year). The plain had been the battleground of these valiant insurgents, and the monument was their tomb. I saluted with my eyes and my heart the remains of these heroic men, whose severed heads had become a symbol of their homeland’s future independence.

Serbia, which we were about to enter, is now free, and it was a song of liberty and glory that the mountain wind made to arise from the tower of the Serbians who died for their country. Soon they will possess Nis itself. May they maintain this monument! It will teach their children the value of independence, by showing them the price their fathers paid for it.

Nis resembles Sofia and is without character. We spent a day there. After Nis, we entered the beautiful mountains and the ocean of forests of Serbia. These virgin forests stretch everywhere as far as the horizon, with only a wide road, recently laid out by Prince Milos (Milos Obrenovic I), the independent leader of Serbia, winding its way through them. We plunged into their magnificent and perpetual shade, with no other view in sight than endless colonnades of enormous, towering beech-trees, their waves of foliage swaying in the wind, and avenues of hills and mountains uniformly clothed in their ancient oaks.

At intervals of about fifteen miles or so, we would descend into a slightly wider valley where a river meandered, and large wooden villages appeared, with a few pretty, and new, white houses, emerging from the forests, with a small church and a presbytery beside a lovely river, amidst meadows and melon fields. The inhabitants, seated on wooden sofas in front of their shops, work at various trades. Their faces, though gentle and kind, have something northern, energetic, and proud about them, immediately suggesting a people already free, and worthy of being so entirely. Everywhere we were received with hospitality and respect; the most prominent house in the village was prepared for us; the priest came to speak with us. People are beginning to furnish their homes in the European manner; the women are no longer veiled. In the meadows and woods, groups of young men and women can be seen working the fields together, singing national songs reminiscent of the Ranz des Vaches (Swiss Alpine songs). The young women are dressed in a chemise, pleated with a thousand folds, that covers their shoulders and breasts, and a short skirt of brown or red wool; they resemble, in their freshness and cheerfulness and the clarity of their foreheads and eyes, the beautiful women of Bern, or of the mountains of Lucerne.

There, our faithful companions from all the konaks (Ottoman buildings) of Turkey abandoned us; we no longer saw those storks, whose large nests, like rush cradles, crown the tops of all the mosque domes in European Turkey and serve as roofs for the crumbling minarets. Every evening, upon arriving in the villages or deserted khans, we would see them wandering two by two around our tent or huts. The fledglings, raising their long necks out of the nest like a knot of snakes, hold out their beaks to the mother, who, half-suspended on her broad wings, shares with them the food she brings back from the nearby marshes; while the father, hovering motionless, high above the nest, seems to be enjoying the touching spectacle. These beautiful birds are by no means wild: they are the guardians of the roof as dogs are guardians of the hearth; they live in peace with the flocks of turtledoves that whiten the domes of the khans and mosques everywhere, and cause the swallows no fright. The Turks themselves live in peace with all of creation, animate and inanimate, trees, birds, and dogs, respecting all that God has made; they extend their charity to these poor creatures, abandoned or persecuted in our country. In every street, there are, at intervals, dishes full of water for the neighbourhood’s dogs, and sometimes, upon dying, the Turks establish pious foundations so that grain may be scattered to the turtledoves they fed during their lives.

Semlin (Zemun, Belgrade)

September 5th, 1833.

This morning, we emerged from the eternal forests of Serbia, which stretch down to the banks of the Danube. The point where one first glimpses this king of rivers is a knoll covered with magnificent oaks; after crossing it, one discovers at its foot a vast lake of clear blue water, nestled among woods and reeds, and dotted with green islands; as one rides on, one sees the river widen to right and left, first skirting the high, wooded cliffs of Serbia, and then disappearing, to the right, into the plains of Hungary. The final forested slopes that descend towards the river are some of the most beautiful places in the world. We spent the night on the banks of the Danube, in a small Serbian village.

The next day, we left the river again, and rode for four hours. The country, like all borderlands, is arid, uncultivated, and deserted. Around midday, we climbed some barren hills, from which we finally discovered Belgrade at our feet. Belgrade, so often damaged by bombs, sits on a high bank of the Danube. The roofs of its mosques are holed; the walls are torn apart; the abandoned suburbs are strewn with ruins and piles of rubble; the city, like all Turkish cities, descends in narrow, winding streets toward the river. Semlin (Zemun), the first city on the Hungarian side (now part of Belgrade), gleams, across the Danube, with all the magnificence of a European city, its bell towers rising opposite the minarets.

Upon arriving in Belgrade, while we were resting in a small inn — the first we had found in Turkey — Prince Milos sent some of his principal officers to invite me to spend a few days at the fortress where he resided, a few miles from Belgrade. I resisted their entreaties and instead ordered the boats for the crossing of the Danube. At four o’clock, we descended toward the river. Just as we were about to embark, I saw a group of horsemen, dressed almost in European style, hastening to ascend the riverbank. It was Prince Milos’ brother (Jevrem), the Commander of the Serbian Knights, who had come on behalf of his elder brother to renew the latter’s entreaty that I stay with him for a few days. I deeply regretted not being able to accept such kindly-offered hospitality; but my travelling companion, Monsieur de Capmas, had been gravely ill for several days. He could barely be supported on his horse. It was urgent for him to find the rest and resources that a European city and the care of doctors at a lazaretto (quarantine station) would offer. I talked for half an hour with the prince, who seemed to me to be a man as learned as he is affable and kind. I saluted in him and his noble people the imminent hope of an independent civilised nation, and I finally set foot on board the boat, which carried us to Zemun. The journey took an hour; the river, wide and deep, possesses waves like the sea. We then travelled beside the meadows and orchards that surround Zemun.

On the evening of the 3rd of September, I entered the lazaretto, where we were to remain for ten days. Each of us had a cell and a small courtyard planted with trees. I dismissed my Tartars, my grooms and muleteers, and my dragomans, who were returning to Constantinople: all of them kissed our hands sadly, and I myself could not leave those simple and upright men without feelings of tenderness and gratitude, those faithful and generous servants who had guided me, served me, guarded me, cared for me as brothers would a brother, and who had proven to me, during the countless vicissitudes of eighteen months of travel in a foreign land, that all religions have their divine morality, all civilisations their virtue, and all human beings ideals of justice, goodness, and beauty engraved on their hearts, albeit in different characters, by the hand of God.

Translator’s Postscript

After a ten-day quarantine at Zemun, Lamartine and his wife returned to France, via Vienna, reaching Mâcon on October 18th, 1833. Between the 25th of October and the 3rd November, Lamartine travelled to Marseille, returning with the remains of their daughter Julia, who was interred in the neo-gothic family vault which Lamartine had built at Saint-Point after the death of his mother (Françoise Alix de Lamartine, who had died in 1829). After arriving home, he wrote to his close friend and confidant Jean-Marie Dargaud: ‘I arrived, alone, yesterday evening, and have deposited the coffin of my only child above that of my mother: all my past, and all my future. I am broken in body and spirit. I can barely write.’

The End of Part XI, and of Lamartine’s ‘Voyage en Orient’