Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van MillingenVan Millingen, Alexander
Philosophy
Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van Millingen
Van Millingen, Alexander
Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Istanbul (Turkey) -- History
Nowhere, perhaps, is the mark of change more evident than in respect to
the means of communication, whether in the city or on the straits. Long
lines of tramways run from the Galata Bridge to the Golden Gate and the
Gate of S. Romanus, from one end of Stamboul to the other. Along the
railway that forms the highway to Europe, there are five stations within
the city limits for the accommodation of the districts beside the track.
The sedan chairs in which ladies were usually carried, in making calls,
are now occasionally employed to convey them to and from evening
parties. The groups of horses standing at convenient points in the great
thoroughfares to carry you up a street of steps or to a distant quarter,
with the surudji, switch in hand, running beside you to urge the animal
onward and to take it back at the close of your ride, have given way to
cabstands, and to a tunnel that pierces the hill of Galata. A tramway
carries one through Galata and Pera as far out as the suburb of Chichli,
while another line runs close to the shore from the Inner Bridge to
Ortakeui. There are persons still living who remember the first steamer
that plied on the Bosporus, in the forties of last century. Its main
occupation was to tug ships up or down the straits; but once a day, in
summer, it conveyed passengers between the city and the villages of
Therapia and Buyukderé. A second steamer soon followed, and charged
eleven piasters for the trip each way. Owing, however, to the opposition
of the caïquedjis, the steamer could not moor at the quay, so that
passengers were obliged to embark and disembark at both ends of the
journey in caïques, at the rate of one piaster each way. Thus a return
trip, which now costs one shilling and eight pence, involved an expense
of four shillings and four pence.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE, TOP-KHANEH
Top-Khaneh is a continuation of Galata.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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