The high-hearted noble departed from the court, bearing with him the memory of his passion and of his wrong. The Seraskier sought to console the disappointed bridegroom by heaping upon him the most munificent gifts; and the Princess, in the solitude of her harem, yet wastes her hours in tears, gazing upon the portrait of her lost lover, and imploring of the Prophet an early deliverance from the anguish of a breaking heart.
Yenekeui—The Festival of Fire—Commemorative Observance—Fondness of the Orientals for Illumination—Frequency of Fires in Constantinople—Dangerous Customs—Fire Guard—The Seraskier’s Tower—Disagreeable Alarum—Namik Pasha—The Festival Localized—Veronica—Bonfires—Therapia and Buyukdèrè—Singular Effect of Light—The Armenian Heroine—A Wild Dream.
Shortly after our return from Broussa, we took possession of a house which we had rented for the summer at Yenekeui, and we had only been established there a few days when we had an opportunity of witnessing one of the most ancient of the Greek commemorative usages,—the “Festival of Fire”—instituted in memory of the second capture of Constantinople by the Cæsars.
Some years ago the Greek quarter of the city was illuminated on this anniversary, as well as the villages occupied principally by their nation: but the Turks no longer permit this demonstration of rejoicing, as well from jealousy of its subject, as from the danger attendant on all such manifestations in a city where fires are so frequent, and the nature of the buildings so unfortunately calculated to encourage the evil.
For my own part, after having passed a few nights in Constantinople, both in Turkish and Greek houses, I was only surprised that the frightful conflagrations which so frequently occur do not take place every week instead of ten or twelve times a-year. Like the husbandman who plants his vines, and sows his grain at the base of a volcano, apparently unconscious or careless that the next eruption may lay waste his lands, and negative his labour, the inhabitants of Stamboul appear never to reflect that fire is one of their deadliest enemies, but wander over their wooden dwellings with their lighted chibouks, or their unsnuffed candles; as heedlessly as though both were innoxious: while their attendants traverse carpeted and curtained apartments, carrying fragments of live coal between their iron pincers to supply the pipes.