Close to Santa Sophia in the Seraglio grounds

Near Santa Sophia within the Seraglio grounds is the previous Byzantine Church of Saint Irene, now painted an unpleasant pink, and utilized by the Turks as an armory and museum. It accommodates many spoils taken by the Turks in battle, that are fastidiously organized upon tables and partitions. Nothing is disdained, nothing is taken into account too paltry for exhibition. I noticed there flags riddled with bullets; however I noticed additionally odd boots taken from Italian troopers in Tripoli; caps, belts, water-bottles, blood-stained tunics and cloaks, saddles, weapons, and buttons. Amongst relics from Yildiz Kiosk was a set of furnishings which as soon as belonged to Abdul Hamid, and which he’s stated to have set a lot retailer by. It exhibits a really distinctive, certainly a considerably unique style, being manufactured from purple plush and weapons. The legs of the tables and chairs are weapons and revolvers. As I seemed on the chairs I couldn’t assist questioning whether or not ambassadors have been invited to take a seat in them, after that they had been loaded to their muzzles, or whether or not they have been reserved for topics whom the ex-Sultan suspected of treachery. Close to them have been a number of of Abdul Hamid’s favourite walking-sticks containing revolvers, a cane with an electrical gentle let into the knob, his inkstand, the mother-of-pearl revolver which was present in his pocket, and the handkerchief which fell from his hand when he was taken prisoner by the Younger Turks, who’ve since introduced their nation to break.

In a sequence of galleries

In a sequence of galleries, beneath arches and ceilings of yellow and white, stands, sits, reclines, and squats, in Japanese style, a wierd inhabitants of puppets, dressed within the costumes of the bygone centuries throughout which Turkey has dominated in Europe. These fearful ex-Christians, the Janissaries, who have been scourges of Christianity, look very gentle now as they stand fatuously collectively, not both Christian or Mussulman however fatally Madame Tussaud. As soon as they tucked up their coats to battle for the “Father” who had ravished them away from their fathers in blood. Now, even the depraved man, who flees when nobody pursueth, may scarcely worry them. Close to them the chief eunuch, a plump and piteous gentleman, reclines absurdly upon his divan, holding his massive black pipe, and obsequiously at-tended by a bearded dwarf in purple, and by a skinny aide-de-camp in inexperienced. The Sheikh-ul-Islam bends beneath the coiled dignity of his monstrous turban; a very lifelike previous man, with a curved grey beard and a inexperienced and white turban, reads the Koran perpetually; and troopers with faces manufactured from some sub-stance that appears like plaster return blankly the gaze of the various actual troopers who go to this curious present.