Cashmere shawls

Smyrna had, in some measure, prepared me for the general appearance of an oriental bazaar; but the vast extent of these markets at Constantinople created a still more vivid impression. To say that the covered rows of shops must, altogether, be miles in length — that vista after vista opens upon the gaze of the astonished stranger, lined with the costliest productions of the world, each collected in its proper district — that one may walk for an hour, without going over the same ground twice, amidst diamonds, gold, and ivory; Cashmere shawls, and Chinese silks; glittering arms, costly perfumes, embroidered slippers, and mirrors; rare brocades, ermines, Morocco leathers, Persian nick-nacks; amber mouth-pieces, and jewelled pipes —that, looking along the shortest avenue, every known tint and color meets the eye at once, in the wares and costumes, and that the noise, the motion, the novelty of this strange spectacle are at first perfectly bewildering — all the possibly gives the reader the notion of some kind of splendid mart fitted to supply the wants of the glittering personages who figure in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments; yet it can convey but a poor idea of the real interest which such a place calls forth, or the most extraordinary assemblage of treasures displayed there, amidst so much apparent shabbiness.

Elegant street

No spot in the world — neither the Parisian Boulevards, nor our own Elegant-street — can boast of such an accumulation of valuable wares from afar, as the great bazaar at Constantinople. Hundreds and thousands of miles of rocky road and sandy desert have been traversed by the moaning camels who have carried those silks and precious stones from Persia, with the caravan. From the wild regions of the mysterious central Africa, that ivory, so cunningly worked, in the next row, has been brought — the coal-black people only know how — until the Nile floated it down to Lower Egypt. Then those soft Cashmere shawls have made a long and treacherous journey to Trebizond, whence the fleet barks of the cold and stormy Euxine at last brought them up the fairy Bosphorus to the very water’s edge of the city. From the remote active America; from sturdy England ; from Cadiz, Marseilles, and all along the glowing shores of the Mediterranean, safely carried over the dark and leaping sea, by brave iron monsters that have fought the winds with their scalding breath, — these wares have come, to tempt the purchasers in the pleasant, calm, subdued light of the bazaars of Stamboul.

I have said that each article has its proper bazaar assigned to it. Tims, there L one row for muslins, another for slippers, another for fezzes, for shawls, for arms, for drugs, and so on. let there is no competition amongst the shopkeepers. No struggling to out-placard or out-ad verity each other, as would oeuvre with us in cool-headed, feverish, crafty, credulous London. You must not expect them to pull one thing down after another for yon to look at, until it appears hopeless to conceive that the counter will ever again be tidy, or everything returned to its place. The merchant will show you what you ask for, but no more. He imagines that when you came to buy at his store, you had made up your mind as to what you wanted; and that, not finding it, you will go elsewhere, and leave him to his pipe again.

He knows how to charge, though, but he is easily open to conviction that he has asked too high a price. For the way of dealing with him is as follows. Wanting one of the light scarfs with the fringed ends, which supersede the use of braces in the Levant, I inquired the price at a bazaar stall. The man told me fifty piastres, (half a sovereign.) I immediately offered him five-and- twenty. This he did not take, and I was walking away, when he called me back, and said I should have it. I told him, as he had tried to cheat me, I would not give him more than twenty, now; upon which, without any hesitation, he said it was mine. This plan I afterwards pursued, whenever I made a purchase at Constantinople, and I most generally found it answer. My merry friend at Smyrna had given me the first lesson in its practicability private tour ephesus.

I do not suppose that they ask these high prices, as the French do, because they suppose we are made of money; I believe, on the contrary, that they try to impose on their own countrymen in the same manner; for, to judge from the long haggling and solemn argument which takes place when they buy of each other, the same wide difference of opinion as to a fair value exists between the purchaser and vendor, under every circumstance.