“_Tulumbadgi_” (firemen), cried one of the bridge-guards, and we drew to one side and watched them as they rushed by, a horde of swarthy, half-naked savages with bare heads and hairy chests, streaming with perspiration, young and old, big and little, with faces of thieves and cutthroats, four of them bearing a small pump, that looked like a child’s bier, on their shoulders, while the rest were armed with long hooked poles, coils of rope, axes, and picks. On they rushed, uttering hoarse cries, panting for breath, with eyes dilated, streaming hair, grim, determined, their rags fluttering in the wind and poisoning the sweet morning air with the close, malodorous smell of wild beasts. Sweeping across the bridge, they finally disappeared in the Rue de Galata, whence fainter and fainter came the cry “Allah! Allah!” till at length profound silence reigned once more. It is impossible to convey the impression made upon my mind by this unexpected and tumultuous irruption in the midst of the solemn, impressive calm of the sleeping city. In an instant’s luminous flash I saw distinctly portrayed before me scenes of barbarian invasions, of pillage, murder, and rape, which until then I had never been able to picture to my mind as actual events, and I asked myself if that could be the city that I was familiar with--if this really were the same bridge across which European ambassadors, ladies dressed in Parisian costumes, and venders of French newspapers were wont to cross by day. A moment later and the silence of the Golden Horn was once more broken by the same far-away cry, and another fierce, unruly, panting mob rushed by like a whirlwind, accompanied by the same tumult of hoarse shouts and sinister laughter, again followed by the mournful prolonged cry of “Allah! Allah!” which, dying out, left us once more silent and alone. Not long after another mob, with all the now familiar accompaniments, poured by, and still another, then two more, and finally the madman of Pera, stark naked and half dead with cold, rending the air with his piercing shrieks, and followed, as usual, by a crowd of Turkish ragamuffins. They, like the firemen, were swallowed up in the dark openings of the streets on the Frankish shore, and again profound silence fell upon the mighty city, now gilded by the first rays of morning. Before long the sun rose, and simultaneously with it the muezzins appeared upon the various minarets; then the käiks started into life, the harbor awoke; people began to cross the bridge, and soon we could hear on all sides the dull roar of the city’s daily life as we slowly retraced our steps toward Pera. But so deep was the impression made upon us by that sight--the sleeping city, the whitening heavens, the savage hordes--that to this day we never meet without recalling it, and always with the selfsame thrill, half of wonder, half of fear, as though we had seen in a vision the Stambul of other days or dreamed it while under the mystic influence of _hascisc_.