marble halls, of lofty and luxurious rooms filled with all the riches of the East, of kiosks and fountains of plashing water, of all the appurtenances of the Arabian Nights. The reality is very different from this, and very much more interesting. Far from being a succession of vast and symmetrical apartments, the Haremlik is a veritable rabbit-warren—a jumble of small courts, corridors, narrow staircases, and innumerable tiny rooms. The upper stories, overlooking the Seraglio gardens, are built of wood, and the walls of the rooms, too, are decorated with rooooo wood work panelling. The lower floors are of more solid construction. The stone walls are enormously thick, and the rooms lined with the most delightful of Persian and Kutahia tiles, the designs differing in every room, It is these tiles which are the most typical and pleasing feature of the Haremlik; they give to it an old-world Eastern atmosphere far truer than the pseudoorientalism suggested by pictures of gauze-olad odalisques eating sweetmeats on cushioned divans. Of furniture there is little left, and what remains is for the most part Louis XV. A few good specimens of the old Seutari velvets and Brussa brocades have been preserved, and cover sofas evidently made in France. The smallness of the rooms is a constant source of surprise. Even the sultan's famous Turkish bath, where Selim the Sot slipped and broke his skull when over-full of Cyprus wine, is no larger than the baths to be found in many a Turkish private house. The only really spacious room is the audience-chamber of the Haremlik, where at Bairam and on other great festivals the sultans received the ladies of the palace. At one end of the hall is a throne for the sultan, and above the throne a musicians' gallery. The room is surmounted by a lofty dome, and the walls are beautifully tiled. Close by are the school - rooms of the little princes and princesses, also tiled, but otherwise now bare of furniture and decoration. Here, too, is a semi-detached two-storied building, outwardly of great beauty but of sinister memories. It has a widely overhanging roof, no windows on the ground floor, and only a few, which are heavily barred, on the upper the upper floor. The outside of this building is faced with mellow Kutahia tiles from the ground to the overhanging roof, and externally it is perhaps the loveliest, as it is probably the leastknown part of the Haremlik, For this delight to the eye bears a forbidding name, the Qafes, which means "the cage,' "" and even now the interior is inaccessible. Here, in this gilded cage, the heirsapparent to the throne of Turkey were immured with the palace girls and pages set apart for their service, in all other respects rigidly secluded from contact with the world until released by the sultan's death. They then emerged, blinking, as it were, at the daylight and utterly ignorant of affairs; and from the seolusion of a narrow prison were abruptly transferred to the supreme power over a vast Empire. This vicious system persisted even to the present century. From his birth in 1844 to the year 1909, when he succeeded his brother 'Abdu'l Hamid, the late Sultan Reshad had lived in the striot confinement of his palace, to all intents and purposes a prisoner till, at the age of sixty-four, he ascended the throne of 'Osman. Vying in beauty and interest with the Qafes is the portion of the Haremlik which was formerly the official residence of the Chief of the Black Eunuchs. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Sultan Mahmud II., in the course of his reforms, swept away what was left of medieval Turkey, the Qizlar Aghasi (Master of the Girls) was one of the highest dignitaries of the Empire. He ranked next, in fact, to the Grand Vizier, was a pasha of three tails, and as his appanage administered the imperial mosques and the holy cities Mecca and Medina. His official dress, before Mahmud replaced turbans and flowing robes with fez and Stambuli frock-coat, was a white gown trimmed with sable, and a white cylindrical head-dress more than two feet high. His former quarters comprise a wing of the Haremlik near the Seraglio tower, consisting of four smallish rooms, two on the ground floor, and two up a short flight of steps. Here, again, tiles are the predominant feature, covering the walls and floors of rooms and passages; in the dining-room, not only the walls but also the ceiling are a harmony of olive green and turquoise blue, masterpieces of the craftsmen of Kutahia and Nicæa. We will now leave the Haremlik for the northernmost part of the palace, for that lofty plateau, dotted with sumptuous kiosks, which overlooks Seraglio Point. Here is the Khirqa-i-Sherif Odasi, a mosque-like pavilion faced with slabs of porphyry, where are preserved the relies of the Prophet, whose possession eonstitutes one of the Sultan's titles to the Khalifate. A terrace of gleaming marble, the setting for one of those delightful formal eastern ponds, connects the Khirqa-iSherif Odasi with the Baghdad Kiosk, which commemorates the capture of Baghdad by Sultan Murad IV. in 1638. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the Baghdad Kiosk represents the high-water mark of later Ottoman art. Aqshehir, in Sivas, and, above all, in Konia are the architeetural chefs d'œuvre of the Seljuq Turks, in Brussa those of the earlier Ottomans. This delicate little masterpiece on the heights of Stambul seems to have been the swan-seng of Turkish builders and decorators before the decadence set in and infected East and West alike. The interior, with its perfect proportions and exquisite decoration, is a harmonious blend of tiles, rare fabrics, and woodwork inlaid with ivory and tortoise-shell. Lovely within and without, the Baghdad Kiosk is a fragment of that gorgeous East In marble halls, of lofty and luxurious rooms filled with all the riches of the East, of kiosks and fountains of plashing water, of all the appurtenances of the Arabian Nights. The reality is very different from this, and very much more interesting. Far from being a succession of vast and symmetrical apartments, the Haremlik is a veritable rabbit-warren-a jumble of small courts, corridors, narrow staircases, and innumerable tiny rooms. The upper stories, overlooking the Seraglio gardens, are built of wood, and the walls of the rooms, too, are decorated with rooooo woodwork panelling. The lower floors are of more solid construction. The stone walls are enormously thick, and the rooms lined with the most delightful of Persian and Kutahia tiles, the designs differing in every room. It is these tiles which are the most typical and pleasing feature of the Haremlik; they give to it an old-world Eastern atmosphere far truer than the pseudoorientalism suggested by pictures of gauze-olad odalisques eating sweetmeats on cushioned divans. Of furniture there is little left, and what remains is for the most part Louis XV. A few good specimens of the old Seutari velvets and Brussa brocades have been preserved, and cover sofas evidently made in France. The smallness of the rooms is a constant source of surprise. Even the sultan's famous Turkish bath, where Selim the Sot slipped and broke his skull when over-full of Cyprus wine, is no larger than the baths to be found in many a Turkish private house. The only really spacious room is the audience-chamber of the Haremlik, where at Bairam and on other great festivals the sultans received the ladies of the palace. At one end of the hall is a throne for the sultan, and above the throne a musicians' gallery. The room is surmounted by a lofty dome, and the walls are beautifully tiled. Close by are the school - rooms of the little princes and princesses, also tiled, but otherwise now bare of furniture and decoration. Here, too, is a semi-detached two-storied building, outwardly of great beauty but of sinister memories. memories. It has a widely overhanging roof, no windows on the ground floor, and only & few, which are heavily barred, on the upper floor. The outside of this building is faced with mellow Kutahia tiles from the ground to the overhanging roof, and externally it is perhaps the loveliest, as it is probably the leastknown part of the Haremlik. For this delight to the eye bears a forbidding name, the Qafes, which means "the cage," and even now the interior is inaccessible. Here, in this gilded cage, the heirsapparent to the throne of Turkey were immured with the palace girls and pages set apart for their service, in all other respects rigidly secluded from contact with the world until released by the sultan's death. They then emerged, blinking, as it were, at the daylight and utterly ignorant of affairs; and from the seolusion of a narrow prison were abruptly transferred to the supreme power over a vast Empire. This vicious system persisted even to the present century. From his birth in 1844 to the year 1909, when he succeeded his brother 'Abdu'l Hamid, the late Sultan Reshad had lived in the strict confinement of his palace, to all intents and purposes a prisoner till, at the age of sixty-four, he ascended the throne of 'Osman. Vying in beauty and interest with the Qafes is the portion of the Haremlik which was formerly the official residence of the Chief of the Black Eunuchs. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Sultan Mahmud II., in the course of his reforms, swept away what was left of medieval Turkey, the Qizlar Aghasi (Master of the Girls) was one of the highest dignitaries of the Empire. He ranked next, in fact, to the Grand Vizier, was a pasha of three tails, and as his appanage administered the imperial mosques and the holy cities Meoca and Medina. His official dress, before Mahmud replaced turbans and flowing robes with fez and Stambuli frock-coat, was a white gown trimmed with sable, and a white oylindrical head-dress more than two feet high. His former quarters comprise a wing of the Haremlik near the Seraglio tower, consisting of four smallish rooms, two on the ground floor, and two up a short flight of steps. Here, again, tiles are the predominant feature, covering the walls and floors of rooms and passages; in the dining-room, not only the walls but also the ceiling are a harmony of olive green and turquoise blue, masterpieces of the craftsmen of Kutahia and Nioma. A We will now leave the Haremlik for the northernmost part of the palace, for that lofty plateau, dotted with sumptuous kiosks, which overlooks Seraglio Point. Here is the Khirqa-i-Sherif Odasi, a mosque - like pavilion faced with slabs of porphyry, where are preserved the relies of the Prophet, whose possession constitutes one of the Sultan's titles to the Khalifate. terrace of gleaming marble, the setting for one of those delightful formal eastern ponds, connects the Khirqa-iSherif Odasi with the Baghdad Kiosk, which commemorates the capture of Baghdad by Sultan Murad IV. in 1638. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the Baghdad Kiosk represents the high-water mark of later Ottoman art. Aqshehir, in Sivas, and, above all, in Konia are the architeetural chefs d'œuvre of the Seljuq Turks, in Brussa those of the earlier Ottomans. This delicate little masterpiece on the heights of Stambul seems to have been the swan-song of Turkish builders and decorators before the decadence set in and infected East and West alike. The interior, with its perfect proportions and exquisite decoration, is a harmonious blend of tiles, rare fabrics, and woodwork inlaid with ivory and tortoise-shell. Lovely within and without, the Baghdad Kiosk is a fragment of that gorgeous East In which is more often talked on the Asiatic shore of the about than seen. Bosphorus; and when that too disappears, the Seraglio will remain the sole repositery in the capital of a charming and vanished tradition. One last vestige of the old palace ceremonial survives in connection with the serving of coffee, which is offered in the Mejidieh Kiosk to those who visit the Seraglio. The coffee pot, which is of enamelled silver gilt, is carried by a palace servant in a sort rial. Another servant bears a tray with the oups and their holders (zarfs), the cups being of delicate egg-shell china, and the zarfs of gold, encrusted with rose diamonds. The tray is covered with a square of pace silk, gold embroidered, which, when the coffee is being poured out, is laid by a third servant on the tray-bearer's left shoulder. Two pavilions below the Baghdad Kiosk afford interesting examples of a Turkish interior of the eighteenth century. The first is the wooden kiosk of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, a relative by marriage of the Kiöprülüs, who for fifty years might almost have been called dynasty of hereditary Grand Viziers. The other is the little house that served as official residence for the Sul- of censer of the same matetan's Chief Physician. Here are preserved, as they were when last in use, the furniture and stock-in-trade of this important functionary. In one oorner is spread his divan, surmounted by a fine old Persian rug; in another lie his chibuqs, of enormous length; in a cupboard are his medicine bottles and the seals with which they were olosed to guard against the risk of poison. In a large case is the apparatus for the confection of the ma'jun-a sweetmeat which it was the Chief Physician's privilege to present to the Sultan and his Court at the festival of Nevruz, in return for substantial gifts of money. Owing to the almost universal use of wood as building material, and to the frequency of fires and earthquakes, few other specimens of old Turkish domestic architecture survive in Constantinople and its neighbourhood. Practically the only one of importance is the now decaying Kiosk of Husein Pasha near Anatoli Hissar, It is an inter esting little ceremony in its way, albeit a pale shadow of what the Seraglio has known in its days of glory. Gone are the picturesque functionaries of the most lavish Court in history, gone the thousands of Palace guards and pages, of Bostanjis and Paltajis and Chaushes and Solaqs, and heaven knows what beside. No more de the Chief Turbanwinder and the Aigrette-keeper adorn the Court, the Chief Nightingale - keeper and the Keeper of the Parrots attend to the welfare of their charges. The traditions of the pomp of centuries are in the hands of three servants in black frookcoats. |