midday
I have seen the towering turban of the Bashi-bazouk , and his long sword , and some softas in the domes on the great wall of Stamboul , and the beggar , and the street-merchant with large tray of water-melons , sweetmeats , raisins , sherbet , and the bear-shewer , and the Barbary organ , and the night-watchman who evermore cried ` Fire ! ' with his long lantern , two pistols , dirk , and wooden javelin . Strange how all that old life has come back to my fancy now , pretty vividly , and for the first time , though I have been here several times lately . I have gone out to those plains beyond the walls with their view of rather barren mountain-peaks , the city looking nothing but minarets shooting through black cypress-tops , and I seemed to see the wild muezzin at some summit , crying the midday prayer : ' _ Mohammed Resoul Allah ! _ ' -- the wild man ; and from that great avenue of cypresses which traverses the cemetery of Scutari , the walled city of Stamboul lay spread entire up to Phanar and Eyoub in their cypress-woods before me , the whole embowered now in trees , all that complexity of ways and dark alleys with overhanging balconies of old Byzantine houses , beneath which a rider had to stoop the head , where old Turks would lose their way in mazes of the picturesque ; and on the shaded Bosphorus coast , to Foundoucli and beyond , some peeping yali , snow-white palace , or old Armenian cot ; and the Seraglio by the sea , a town within a town ; and southward the Sea of Marmora , blue-and-white , and vast , and fresh as a sea just born , rejoicing at its birth and at the jovial sun , all brisk , alert , to the shadowy islands afar : and as I looked , I suddenly said aloud a wild , mad thing , my God , a wild and maniac thing , a shrieking maniac thing for Hell to laugh at : for something said with my tongue : ' _ This city is not quite dead . _ ' * * * * * * * * * * Three nights I slept in Stamboul itself at the palace of some sanjak-bey or emir , or rather dozed , with one slumbrous eye that would open to watch my visitors Sinbad , and Ali Baba , and old Haroun , to see how they slumbered and dozed : for it was in the small luxurious chamber where the bey received those speechless all-night visits of the Turks , long rosy hours of perfumed romance , and drunkenness of the fancy , and visionary languor , sinking toward morning into the yet deeper peace of dreamless sleep ; and there , still , were the white _ yatags _ for the guests to sit cross-legged on for the waking dream , and to fall upon for the final swoon , and the copper brazier still scenting of essence-of-rose , and the cushions , rugs , hangings , the monsters on the wall , the haschish-chibouques , narghiles , hookahs , and drugged pale cigarettes , and a secret-looking lattice beyond the door , painted with trees and birds ; and the air narcotic and grey with the pastilles which I had burned , and the scented smokes which I had smoked ; and I all drugged and mumbling , my left eye suspicious of Ali there , and Sinbad , and old Haroun , who dozed . And when I had slept , and rose to wash in a room near the overhanging latticed balcony of the façade , before me to the north lay old Galata in sunshine , and that steep large street mounting to Pera , once full at every night-fall of divans on which grave dervishes smoked narghiles , and there was no space for passage , for all was divans , lounges , almond-trees , heaven-high hum , chibouques in forests , the dervish , and the innumerable porter , the horse-hirer with his horse from Tophana , and arsenal-men from Kassim , and traders from Galata , and artillery-workmen from Tophana ; and on the other side of the house , the south end , a covered bridge led across a street , which consisted mostly of two immense blind walls , into a great tangled wilderness of flowers , which was the harem-garden , where I passed some hours ; and here I might have remained many days , many weeks perhaps , but that , dozing one fore-day with those fancied others , it was as if there occurred a laugh somewhere , and a thing said : ` But this city is not quite dead ! '