Mr. Smith showed me two marvellously handsome snuff-boxes, set with diamonds, that had been given to him by the Sultan—one of them on the occasion of his finishing the Pera Theatre, the stage of which, he told me, was thirty-five feet across at the Proscenium. This is only five feet less than Drury Lane. I afterwards had the pleasure of dining with him. His house, at Pera, is the most thoroughly English, in point of comfort, that I saw in the East; and I could scarcely, at first, understand again feeling my feet on stair carpets. Looking at the elegant manner in which the entire house was furnished, I trembled to think of the loss, should one of the wretched Pera fires include it in the devastation. His amiable lady, who is a native of Barcelona, told me many interesting anecdotes connected with Turkish domestic life ; with the details of which she is very familiar, by visiting many of the native families. She had lately been to a wedding, where the bride was only ten years of age, and the bridegroom fourteen. The little lady had a star of diamonds stuck between her eyes, two on her cheeks, and one on her chin. She did not give the Turkish women in general a high character; but spoke of them as silly and very careless in their conversation, smearing themselves also with paint, and passing the whole day in dressing and undressing, for lack of other occupation. Some of the Turkish wives are, I believe, to a certain extent, educated; and indeed accomplished; but the greater part of them are lamentably ignorant.
At last, the day arrived for my departure. It was already getting cold towards evening—now and then bad weather made the streets all but impassable, and we had begun to dine, at six o’clock in the evening, by candlelight. Much ground, too, had yet to be traversed before I was again in England ; and so, in spite of many kind requests to prolong the visit, I was at length obliged to leave Constantinople, and T did so with real regret; for, looking back to the friendships I established there, I shall always remember my sojourn at Pera as one of the pleasantest portions of my life daily tours istanbul.
Daguerreotyped by an artist who lived at the top of a Pera
This day I was Daguerreotyped by an artist who lived at the top of a Pera building, in a hothouse of glass, where it was scarcely possible to breathe. The portrait has been copied with tolerable accuracy, and it may explain how it was that so few of my friends recognised me on my return. But the comfort of a beard, when travelling, to the abolition of shaving tackle, may be readily conceived.
Demetri had ordered two porters to come to the hotel for our luggage, but six arrived instead, upon which a great battle was fought in the street, before the door, and the final couple—apparently having “ fought the ties off”’ and remained the victors, carried our luggage down to the Golden Horn, on the 2oth of September. The Ferdinando Primo, one of the Austrian Lloyd’s boats, was getting her steam up, and at half-past four she started, just as the “ husband’s boat ” was leaving the bridge for Prinkipo, with the same class of passengers on board, quite ready to dress up again on the Sunday, and walk about as long as there were others to admire them or fireworks to show off their fashionable toilets.
Penka's World 