The Argosy — page 229: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~ Remembrances of Constantinople. 215 of examining anything, he retired out of sight with our dragoman, to arrange “backsheesh,” another word for a bribe. We could not learn that any duty was claimed, but the grand object for which official Turks exist seems to be “ backsheesh,” and no fish is too small for their net. Indeed, in this misgoverned land, the universal maxim seems “ chacun pour soi,” and nobody for the profit, credit, and honour of the nation. Any romantic idea one may have formed of the city when looking at it from the water ; any notion of its having been fairy built ; vanishes before the too sensible reality of its dirty, uneven streets. Houses, old and new, large and small, red, green, brown, blue, and white, cast amidst mud and stones on very uneven ground, form the dirty, crooked, narrow lanes, not streets, of the city of the Eastern Kaiser. It may be truly asserted of curiosity that it increases by exercise, and becomes more voracious the more it is fed. However absorbing * the interest with which we enjoy a new scene, there is ever a desire to penetrate beyond what we see, a wish to become familiar with what we are compelled to pass unexplored. So, on our way from the landing-place to the hotel, the very strangeness of everything that met our eyes tempted us sorely to stop for closer examination. I wanted to inspect every stall at the fruit market through which we passed; to make for the little neglected cemetery, whose dilapidated tombs and prowling dogs were close at hand; to ask some of the solemn “¢ Arabian Nights” looking Turks, who were seated on boards at their shop-doors, if they had lately seen “the three calenders, all sons of kings,” pass that way ; to peer under the “ yashmaks,” or veils, of the ladies, who in coloured wrappers, loose and long-sleeved, went sliding and waddling along, gracelessly endeavouring to keep their heelless slippers on their feet. But no; for to-day, at least, our curiosity must be kept within bounds. En avant—our dragoman is a despot—and we must submit to be taken without further delay to the Hotel d’Angle- terre, introduced to fame by the pen of the author of Eothen. THE PASSAGE OF THE GOLDEN HORN. When Ibrahim, the portly, civil, imperturbable dragoman, an- nounced that a carriage was ready to convey us to Stamboul, we were amazed to find, before the door of the hotel, not a native vehicle drawn by oxen or mules, and tinkling with bells, but a sadly worn-out ramshackle of a britzska, with heavy cart wheels and rope harness.- The horses were gaunt and bareboned. . The driver, a variegated and decidedly dirty Turk, sat on a small board close to the tails of the. horses; whence, by some marvel, he directed our course. The ordinary box seat was wanting, | comlicbooks.com-