A DRAMA OF THE BOSPHORUS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 50, 12 December 1891, Page 677

A DRAMA OF THE BOSPHORUS.

was my fortune to be a spectator, in — L ]■ somewhat peculiar circumstances, PT" I t * le * awt great drama enacted on ’ I the shores of the Bosphorus in the C |L early summer of 1876. I was if 'J r staying at the time in the house of ■ a wealthy Englishman in the neightY W bourhood of Constantinople. The x'd I i I house, which stood on the crown of su~ a hill, had been built originally as TBffj ~ one of the numerous kiosks or royal — S- pleasure ■ houses that jewel the -— ~ — shores and hills of the Bosphorus, *— -Jp I ——and had been bestowed as a gift by _jJ~ Sultan Abdul-Medjid upon his German head gardener — from whose

family it was leased by the host — and was known as the Bagtchevanbashinin Serai (Head Gardener’s Palace). The building and grounds, after the manner of all royal kiosks, were surrounded by a lofty wall, and were separated only by a narrow road and another great wall from the grounds of the Sultan’s favourite summer palace of Yildiz. So close were we, indeed, to our august neighbour’s garden that from our upper windows we could by day catch fleeting glimpses of birds of gorgeous plumage in the Sultan’s magnificent aviary—a model of the Sydenham Crystal Palace; while at night our rest was not infrequently broken by the roaring of the beasts in the imperial menagerie or the screams of the royal peafowl that perched upon our walls. On one side of us stretched a dreary desolate ravine strewn with rough stones that lay scattered in such chaotic confusion, such bleared irregular heaps, that hardly a spot of intervening ground showed between. This was the cemetery of the great Jew colony of Ortakeui Village, to whose landing-stage we daily journeyed down a rough broken road. Another road—a narrow stone-paved lane shut in by the towering walls, on the left of the Soft as Medresse, on the right of Yildiz Gardens —led down to the Mosque facing the great gates of Chiraghan Palace. Immediately below us, at the foot of the steep hill, stretched the radiant front of Chiraghan itself —the Sultan s favourite residence ; the dazzling whiteness of whose marble walls was lit up by bright gleams of colour from its crimson-curtained

On one side of Chiragban the tapering minarets of the Ortakeui Mosque pierced the sky. On the other side the huge structure of the Dolmabagtche Palace, ornate with every beautiful design that architect and sculptor might conceive, lay veiled from us on our hill by the towering cypresses and blossoming fruit trees of the Yildiz Gardens. All around my host’s house were scattered the dwellings of various functionaries whose duties kept them day and night in close proximity to the palace ; and here were, too, so many caracols, or guard-houses, at intervals all round the walls of Yildiz that we in our neighbouring kiosk were always surrounded by a cordon of soldiery. With all these good people however, great and small, the English family was on excellent terms. The general of division in command of the troops quartered round the palace habitually passed one or two evenings each week in my hostess’s draw-ing-rooms, where he would sit for hours, smoking incessantly and uttering perhaps one word per cigarette. When at length he withdrew, late in the night, we were wont to watch the dancing lanterns of his escort as the Pasha plunged and stumbled down the rugged roadway of the hill towards his quarters in Ortakeui. Another frequent guest we had, whose name has been much mentioned in the course of the present crisis. This gentleman speaks English like a native of Clapham ; where, indeed, he was educated with a number of other pashas’ sons, at a school kept by a gentleman named Balam—a fact which caused the Moslem boys to be known everywhere as Balaam’s asses. The friendliness of these powerful pashas made the sympathies of lesser fry easy to win. Their natural prejudices once overcome, the lower order of Turks are the most amiable of people, filled with kindliness and native courtesy that shows no study and has no formality. The children of the English house were speedily on terms of amity with beys and aghas, effendis and tchaouches, and with the gardeners, grooms, and keepers that thronged the palace precincts. It was on the night of the 29th of May, 1876, that the first act in this Bosphorus drama was played. Some few of the Englishmen then in Turkey, who were intimate friends of Midnat Pasha, had known that a movement was being organized to depose Abdul Aziz from the throne of the Caliphate. His removal had been decided by a secret council of Ministers, headed by Midhat and Hussein Avni ; and the fetvah of the Sheikh ul-Islam had been given, sanctioning the measure. But no one knew when the plan was to be carried out. Indeed, as we learned a few days later, no time had been fixed, nor any definite programme decided on, when it became imperative that whatever was to be done must be done at once. Hussein Avni, the War Minister, held the army in the hollow of his hand, and was, of course the head and front of the conspiracy. Then suddenly the Sultan, in a moment of sanity, became suspicious of Hussein Avni. He decided on the 28th of May to dismiss him, and summoned him to the palace for that purpose. This being so, the War Minister had but one thing to do. It was now a question not merely of saving the State but of saving himself, and the wings of his patriotism quivered with eagerness in the wind of his personal apprehensions.

With us in the house on the bill the evening of the 28th of May had passed in its usual slumbrous fashion. Our friend the Pasha had paid his customary visit, and we were not unduly astonished when, on taking leave, be announced an intention of visiting the guards around Yildiz before seeking his quarters. We had, indeed, all of us been long in l>ed before warning of the impending event was given us. At about two o’clock in the morning the household was aroused by a great outcry. Simoun, the kaponjee, or porter, rushed into the hall, shouting to us to get up, as the Turks had risen against the Chi istiansandsoldiers were marching on the house. There was, perhaps, some faint apology for this statement, as the prospect of such a rising had been for months a current topic. We all leaped from our beds, and in the quaint apparel warranted by the occasion, flocked into the hall to take counsel. There, Simoun and his son Christo, our Croat guardians—their waistbands bristling

with knives—were busy loading guns and pistols in eager anticipation of a fight. They were prepared to defend us against all comers, and even suggested opening one of the gates so as to get the better at the foe. When it became apparent that we were not attacked, their disappointment was keen, and their distress at being barred from shooting any one was evidently genuine. The courage of our other attendants shone with a more feeble flame. Evanthea, a cook-maid, plunged into wild hysterical invective against the enemy, which was not easily stifled by pillows and hartshorn. Antonio, the Maltese cook, fled to the cellars and, there locked in, emptied his revolver into the ceiling, until, overpowered by emotion, smoke, and sulphur, he fell fainting to the ground.

We left the hall and the women in charge of our valiant Croats and crept to a little summer-house, hidden in overhanging foliage, built half-way up the garden-wall, in which was a barred window. In truth, an army was marching past our gates. As we watched, column after column of in fantry tramped by over the uneven ground and down the narrow lane leading to Chiraghan. The men marched in absolute silence, broken only by the rattle of a cartridge box when a soldier stumbled among the deep ruts of the stony road. By-and-bye we opened a little door in the high wall of the garden and sought to ntingle with the troops. But we found our egress barred by a sentry—a friendly guard from the caiacol—who enjoined ns to keep within walls, as there was ‘ work to be done.’ There was nothing else to do ; so we followed this advice and mounted to the flat roof to watch thence, as we could, the progress of events. For some time we saw nothing but the occasional glimmer of the bayonets as they disappeared down the lane leading to Chiraghan. At last the onward flow of troops slackened and ceased. For a time there was silence. Then, after an interval that seemed endless, the black front of Chiraghan was suddenly spangled with twinkling lights that flashed from window to window, settling after a while here and there, until broad spaces were illuminated. Glimmering lights, too, flashed out over the silent waters of the Bosphorus : the plash of oars fell on our ears ; and at length, just as the first grey of dawn broke over Stamboul, a muffled murmur of many voices was borne to us across the water. Then, as in some fairy tale, the lights were extinguished, the palace-windows were blotted one by one from our view, the murmur of voices ceased, and calm and silence once more reigned around us.

Thesummer morning grew older and blushed into beauty, and Stamboul woke slowly to the life of another day. No one watching that peaceful awakening would have guessed that in the night just sped a mighty revolution had passed over the empire. Yet so it was. Not a shot had been fired ; but in those brief hours of darkness the destinies of Turkey had been roughly remoulded. Abdul Aziz had been hurled from his throne and lay a captive in his own harem. Poor feeble Mourad, his brother, had been dragged from his bed in Dolmabagtche by stern Hussein Avni, and, wild with fear, expecting instant death, had been thrust, half clad, into a state barge and conveyed to Stamboul, to be recognised and acclaimed by the assembled army The conspiracy was successful. The revolution was accomplished, and Turkey had a new master—whose name, was to be not Mourad V., but Hussein Avni Pasha. The events that so quickly followed on this night’s work need no recording here. The so-called suicide of the exSultan four days later, the sad fate of his favourite Circassian wife, and the wild attempt of her brother, Tcherkess Hassan, to avenge his master’s death and his sister’s wrongs are matters that must still be present in the minds of English people. It chanced, however, by an accident, that I was to witness the final scene of this tragedy. This was enacted on the 17th of June, two days after Tcherkess Hassan had murdered Hussein Avni and Raschid Pashas in the War Minister’s private house. It was soon after daybreak, and I was riding homeward across Stamboul from St Stephano, where I had passed the night—a quiet bath-ing-village on Marmora shore, soon to be celebrated as harbouring a Grand Duke’s army and giving a name to a treaty of peace. As I neared the old bridge I noticed that a great crowd was gathered on it. I was borne along by the throng until I neared the Galata shore, and here the crush was greatest and the crowd stood motionless. Soldiers were drawn up around the great gateway of the bridge, on which all eyes were turned in expectation. Soon there approached, and halted beneath the tall arch of the gate, a waggon surrounded by an escort ; and in it, stretched on a mattress, lay the emaciated and bloodstained body of a man. The soldiers lost no time over the work they had to do. The two ends of a rope, passed through a great ring in the keystone of the arch, dangled close at hand, and one of these was made fast about the neck of the recumbent figure. A few brisk pulls, hand over hand, on the slack of the rope : a deep groan from the multitude; and Tcherkess Hassan, not the meanest of all the actors in this great drama, swinging high above the heads of his countrymen, was left to play bis part as an example in the sight of all beholders. —Uy an English Ilcsident.