The general view of Constantinople is superb. A bridge has been thrown across the "Golden Horn," connecting its shores; and from this the city, or rather the four cities, spread out in lengthened stateliness before the eye. From this point are seen, to the most striking advantage, the two mountainous elevations on which Constantinople and Pera are built, and other heights surrounding. A communication subsists across the "Golden Horn," not only by water and the bridge, but also by the road, which by the land is a distance of five or six miles. Viewing Constantinople as a whole, it strikes one as larger by far than Paris or London, but they are both larger. The reason of the deception being, that here the eye embraces a larger space.
The Turks never improve anything. The distinction between them and the Europeans is, that the latter think of conveniences, the former only of luxuries. The Turks, for example, build handsome pavilions, plant showy gardens, and erect marble fountains to cool them in marble halls. But they never mend a high-road--they never even make one. Now and then a bridge is forced on them by the necessity of having one, or being drowned; but they never repair that bridge, nor sweep away the accumulated abomination of their streets, nor do any thing that it is possible to leave undone.
Pera is the quarter in which all the Christians even of the highest rank live; the intercourse between it and Constantinople is, of course, perpetual, yet perhaps a stone has not been smoothed in the road since the siege of the city. From Pera were the most harassing trips down rugged declivities on horseback, besides the awkwardness of the passage in boats.
One extraordinary circumstance strikes the stranger, that but one sex seems to exist. The dress of the women gives no idea of the female form, and the whole population seems to be male.
The masses of people are dense, and among them the utmost silence in general prevails. About seven or eight at night the streets are cleared, and their only tenants are whole hosts of growling, hideous dogs; or a few Turks gliding about with paper lanterns; these, too, being the only lights in the streets, if streets they are to be called, which are only narrow passes, through which the vehicles can scarcely move.