Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  The streets of Hong Kong are the most enchanting night streets I have trod.… Avoiding harsh primary colours, the streets of Hong Kong are evidence that neon lighting need not be hideous, and the crowded Chinese ideograms in pale violet and pink and green with a plentiful use of white are entrancing not only for their colours but also because one does not know what drab messages and exhortations they spell out. The smell of the streets is seaclean with an occasional exciting dash of sandalwood from a joss-stick factory, frying onions and the scent of sweet perspiration that underlies Chinese cooking. The girls, thanks to the cheong sams they wear, have a deft and coltish prettiness which sends Western women into paroxysms of envy. The high, rather stiff collar of the cheong sam gives authority and poise to the head and shoulders, and the flirtatious slits from the hem of the dress upwards, as high as the beauty of the leg will allow, demonstrate that the sex appeal of the inside of a woman’s knee has apparently never occurred to Dior or Balmain. No doubt there are fat or dumpy Chinese women in Hong Kong, but I never saw one. Even the men, in their spotless white shirts and dark trousers, seem to have better, fitter figures than we in the West, and the children are a constant enchantment.…

  The Peking Restaurant was bright and clean.… Dick insisted that then, and on all future occasions when we were together, I should eat with chopsticks, and I pecked around with these graceful but ridiculous instruments with clumsy enthusiasm. To my surprise the meal, most elegantly presented and served, was in every respect delicious. All the tastes were new and elusive, but I was particularly struck with another aspect of Oriental cuisine – each dish had a quality of gaiety about it, assisted by discreet ornamentation, so that the basically unattractive process of shovelling food into one’s mouth achieved, whether one liked it or not, a kind of elegance. And the background to this, and to all my subsequent meals in the East, always had this quality of gaiety – people chattering happily and smiling with pleasure and encouragement.

  But by now it was late and the after-effects of jet travel – a dull headache and a bronchial breathlessness – had caught up with me, and we ended our evening with a walk along the thronged quays in search of a taxi and home. On the way I commented on the fact that there is not a single seagull in the whole vast expanse of Hong Kong harbour. Dick waved towards the dense flood of junks and sampans on which families of up to half a dozen spend the whole of their lives, mostly tied up in harbour. There hadn’t used to be any seagulls in Shanghai either, he said. Since the communists took over they have come back. The communists have put it about that they had come back because they no longer have to fight with the humans for the harbour refuse. It was probably the same thing in Hong Kong. It would [have] taken an awful lot of seagulls to compete for a living with three million Chinese. On this downbeat note I closed my first enchanted day.

  ISTANBUL

  (CONSTANTINOPLE)

  Istanbul, on the north coast of the Bosphorus strait linking the Mediterranean and Black seas, has always been one of the world’s great cities from its foundation in AD 330 as the capital of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire.

  A vast entrepôt for trade between the Mediterranean world and the East, Constantinople had a diverse population and was renowned for its wealth until the final centuries of the Byzantine Empire, when it had been diminished by assaults from Arabs, Turks and even Christian Crusaders, who took and looted the city in 1204.

  The expansion of the Ottoman Turks from the 11th century left Byzantium with little more than a small area around Constantinople by the mid-15th century. Nevertheless, the city remained iconic, and its fall to Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1453 was devastating.

  The Ottomans made Constantinople, which they often called Istanbul (the Great City), their capital although the old name continued to be used widely. The city’s great church, Hagia Sophia, built by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, was converted into a mosque. Istanbul remained a trading hub as well as a key strategic location in the politics of Eastern Europe and the Levant.

  In the early 20th century the Ottoman Empire was swept away by the nationalist revolution of Young Turks, losing its position as capital of Turkey to Ankara in 1923. It remains Turkey’s largest city.

  AD 950 CHIU T’ANG SHU

  The Chiu T’ang shu, the official history of China’s Tang dynasty (AD 618–907), was compiled in the mid-10th century, and included much of what was known of the world across Asia and the Middle East. The Chinese had long had trading contacts with the Roman Empire, which was known to the Chinese as Ta-ts’in.

  The country of Fu-lin also called Ta-ts’in, lies above the western sea. In the south-east it borders on Po-si [Persia].

  The walls of the capital are built of granite, and are of enormous height. The city contains in all over 100,000 households. In the south it faces the great sea. In the east of the city there is a large gate; it is covered with yellow gold and shines at a distance of several miles. Coming from outside to the royal residence there are three large gates beset with all kinds of precious stones.

  On the upper floor of the second gate they have placed a large golden scale, with twelve golden balls suspended from the scale-stick by which the twelve hours of the day are shown. A human figure has been made of gold, on whose side, one of the golden balls will drop whenever an hour has come; the sound makes known the divisions of the day without the slightest mistake.

  It is customary for men to have their hair cut and wear robes leaving the right arm bare. Women have no lapels on their dresses, and wear turbans of embroidered cloth. The possession of a great fortune confers superior rank on its owner. They drive in small carriages with white canopies; when going in or out they beat drums and hoist flags, banners and pennants. The country contains much gold, silver and rare gems, corals and amber; and all the valuable curiosities of the West are exported from this country.

  1170 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

  Benjamin of Tudela’s (see page 41) book, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, described the conditions for trade, though whether this or some other purpose inspired his travels is never fully clear from his text. The traders he encounters in the great entrepôt of Constantinople come from as diverse locations as central Europe to the Middle East and central Asia.

  All sorts of merchants come here, from Babylon, Shinar, Persia, Media, Egypt, Canaan and the empire of Russia, from Hungaria, Patzinakia, Khazaria, Lombardy and Sepharad. It is a busy city and there is none like it in the world except Baghdad.…

  Close to the palace is the Hippodrome, where every year on the anniversary of the birth of Jesus the king gives a great entertainment. Men from all over the world come before the king and queen with jugglery and without jugglery, and they introduce lions, leopards, bears and wild asses and engage them in combat with one another; and the same thing is done with birds.…

  They hire barbarian warriors to fight with the sultan Masud, king of the Seljuk Turks; for the natives of Constantinople themselves are not warlike but are as women who have no strength to fight.

  1332 IBN BATTUTA

  Ibn Battuta (see page 72) travelled from Astrakhan (now in southern Russia) to Constantinople with the wife of Uzbeg, khan of the Golden Horde (she was daughter of the Byzantine emperor) and a caravan of five thousand horsemen. He stayed five weeks, before returning to Astrakhan and resuming his journey to India and China.

  The city is vast, in two parts separated by a great tidal river. On the eastern bank of the river is the Great City; it contains the residence of the emperor, the nobles and the rest of the population. Its bazaars and streets are spacious and paved with flagstones; most of the artisans and sellers in them are women. The city lies at the foot of a hill which carries a small citadel and the emperor’s palace. The principal church is here.

  The second part, called Galata, is reserved to the Frankish Christians who dwell there. They are bound to pay taxes to the king of Constantinople, but often they revolt and he makes war on them until the Pope makes peace between them. They
are all men of commerce and their harbour is one of the largest in the world; I saw a hundred galleys and other large ships, and the small ships were too many to be counted. The bazaars here are good but filthy.

  The great church called Hagia Sophia was reputedly built by Asaph, the son of Berechiah, the cousin of King Solomon. It is one of the greatest churches of the Greeks, and is encircled by a wall so that it looks like a town. It is the custom of the king, the nobles and the rest of the people to come every morning to this church.

  The number of monks and priests in this church runs into thousands, some the descendants of the apostles, and inside is another church exclusively for women, containing more than a thousand virgins and a greater number of aged women who devote themselves to religious practices. Most of the population of the city are monks, ascetics and priests, and its churches are numberless. The soldiers and civilians all carry over their heads huge parasols, both in winter and summer, and the women wear large turbans.

  I was out one day with my Greek guide, when we met the former king Andronicos II who had become a monk. He was on foot, wearing haircloth garments and a bonnet of felt, and had a long white beard. His fine face bore signs of his austerities. When the Greek saw him he said to me, ‘Dismount, for this is the king’s father.’ When my guide saluted him the king asked about me. Then he took my hand and said to the Greek to translate his words, ‘I clasp this hand which has entered Jerusalem and this foot which has walked within the Dome of the Rock and the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Bethlehem.’ He then laid his hand upon my feet and passed it over his face. I was astonished at their good opinion of one who, though not of their religion, had entered these places. As I walked with him he asked me about Jerusalem and the Christians there.

  1437 PERO TAFUR

  Pero Tafur (c. 1410–1487), a Castilian aristocrat from Córdoba in southern Spain, travelled widely in Europe, Asia and North Africa in the 1430s, in part acting as ambassador for the king of Castile. He described his journeys in his Travels and Adventures (1454). His visit to Constantinople came in the final years of Byzantine rule.

  There is a great place where the people used to watch the games when they celebrated their holidays, and in the centre are two snakes entwined, made of gilded brass, and they say that wine once poured from the mouth of one and milk from the other. It seems to me that too much credit must not be attached to the story.

  In the centre of this square is a brass statue of a man. When merchants could not agree as to price they would go to this statue, which they called the Just, and whatever it signified as correct by shutting the hand, that was the true price of the goods, and both parties had to accept it. There was once a nobleman who valued his horse at 300 ducats, and a gentleman desired to buy it but they could not agree on the price. They went to the statue, and the purchaser took out some ducats and laid one in the hand of the statue, which thereupon shut its hand, meaning that the horse was not worth more. The purchaser took the horse and the seller the ducat, but the seller was so incensed that he took out his scimitar and cut off the statue’s hand, and after that it never judged again. When the buyer reached home the horse fell dead, and the hide and shoes fetched just one ducat.…

  The emperor’s palace must once have been magnificent, but now it is in such state that it, like the entire city, shows the evils which the people have suffered.… The emperor’s state is as splendid as ever, for nothing is omitted from the ancient ceremonies, but really he is like a bishop without a see. When he rides abroad all the imperial rites are strictly observed. The empress rides astride, with two stirrups, and when she desires to mount, two lords hold up a rich cloth while turning their backs upon her, so that when she throws her leg across the saddle no part of her person can be seen.…

  The city is sparsely populated. The inhabitants are sad and poor, showing the hardship of their lot which is, however, not so bad as they deserve, for they are a vicious people, steeped in sin.…

  During my stay the Grand Turk [Murad II] marched to a place on the Black Sea, and his road took him close to the walls of Constantinople. I had the good fortune to see him in the field, and I observed the manner in which he went to war, and his arms, horses and accoutrements. I am of opinion that if the Turks were to meet the armies of the West they could not overcome them, not because they are lacking in strength, but because they want many of the essentials of war.

  1547 JEAN CHESNEAU

  The Frenchman Jean Chesneau (fl. 1545–52) visited in 1547 as secretary to the French ambassador to the court of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), and accompanied him on an expedition in Persia. He describes the Ottoman city at its peak.

  We arrived in Constantinople on 14th May, 1547, and found lodgings not far from the port.

  The most distinguished building is the palace of the Great Lord, which is called the Seraglio. It is around three miles in circumference, surrounded with high walls and has 11 iron gates. The Seraglio is very fine, and decorated with marble of many colours, porphyry, columns and other marvellous items brought from all of Greece and Asia.

  It is permitted only to enter the great court and a few galleries and low rooms where audiences are held four times a week. But even the exterior view makes it plain that this is a magnificent edifice.

  There is also the seraglio of the Great Lord’s harem; the seraglio of the Janissaries, the palace of the patriarch, the partially ruined palace of the emperor Constantine, also the church of Santa Sophia, a marvellous construction built by Emperor Justinian with ancient columns and marbles of magnificent quality and size. Nearby the Great Lord has created his stables, as it is close to the Seraglio, while the church has been made into a mosque.

  Near it is a mosque built by Sultan Mehmet, which has a hospital for people of all states of life, law, faith or country, and where for three days they are given honey, rice, meat, bread and a room in which to sleep. This is why there are so few poor people or beggars.

  There are also other mosques, of Sultan Selim, Sultan Bajazet and other lords, and these are wonderfully beautiful and sumptuous. These show that they know well enough how to build in stone, yet they only use that material for their places of worship and palaces. All their other houses are low and made of earth or wood, and this is the case throughout Turkey.

  1834 ALEXANDER KINGLAKE

  Alexander Kinglake (1809–1891), a British travel writer and politician, published Eothen, or, Traces of Travel Brought Back from the East anonymously in 1844, describing a journey made in the Middle East ten years previously. His picturesque account of an ‘Oriental’ city suffering from the plague also prefigures the widely held image of late 19th-century Ottoman Turkey as the ‘sick man of Europe’.

  All the while that I stayed at Constantinople the plague was prevailing, but not with any degree of violence. Its presence, however, lent a mysterious and exciting, though not very pleasant, interest to my first knowledge of a great Oriental city; it gave tone and colour to all I saw, and all I felt – a tone and a colour sombre enough, but true, and well befitting the dreary monuments of past power and splendour.…

  The Europeans during the prevalence of the plague, if they are forced to venture into the streets, will carefully avoid the touch of every human being whom they pass. Their conduct in this respect shows them strongly in contrast with the ‘true believers’: the Moslem stalks on serenely, as though he were under the eye of his God, and were ‘equal to either fate’; the Franks go crouching and slinking from death, and some (those chiefly of French extraction) will fondly strive to fence out destiny with shining capes of oilskin!…

  As for me, I soon got ‘compromised’.… Faithfully promising to shun the touch of all imaginable substances, however enticing, I set off very cautiously, and held my way uncompromised till I reached the water’s edge; but before my caïque was quite ready some rueful-looking fellows came rapidly shambling down the steps with a plague-stricken corpse, which they were going to bury among the faithful on the other side of
the water. I contrived to be so much in the way of this brisk funeral, that I was not only touched by the men bearing the body, but also, I believe, by the foot of the dead man, as it hung lolling out of the bier. This accident gave me such a strong interest in denying the soundness of the contagion theory, that I did in fact deny and repudiate it altogether; and from that time, acting upon my own convenient view of the matter, I went wherever I chose, without taking any serious pains to avoid a touch.…

  Perhaps as you make your difficult way through a steep and narrow alley, shut in between blank walls, and little frequented by passers, you meet one of those coffin-shaped bundles of white linen that implies an Ottoman lady.… Of her very self you see nothing except the dark, luminous eyes that stare against your face, and the tips of the painted fingers depending like rosebuds from out of the blank bastions of the fortress. She turns, and turns again, and carefully glances around her on all sides, to see that she is safe from the eyes of Mussulmans, and then suddenly withdrawing the yashmak, she shines upon your heart and soul with all the pomp and might of her beauty.

  The Osmanlees speak well…. Even the treaties continually going on at the bazaar for the buying and selling of the merest trifles are carried on by speechifying rather than by mere colloquies, and the eternal uncertainty as to the market value of things in constant sale gives room enough for discussion. The seller is for ever demanding a price immensely beyond that for which he sells at last, and so occasions unspeakable disgust in many Englishmen, who cannot see why an honest dealer should ask more for his goods than he will really take!…