CHAPTER VII: CONSTANTINOPLE



When we arose at sunrise to see the famous entry to Constantinople,
we found, in the place of the city and the sun, a bright white fog,
which hid both from sight, and which only disappeared as the vessel
advanced towards the Golden Horn. There the fog cleared off as it
were by flakes, and as you see gauze curtains lifted away, one by
one, before a great fairy scene at the theatre. This will give
idea enough of the fog; the difficulty is to describe the scene
afterwards, which was in truth the great fairy scene, than which it
is impossible to conceive anything more brilliant and magnificent.
I can't go to any more romantic place than Drury Lane to draw my
similes from--Drury Lane, such as we used to see it in our youth,
when to our sight the grand last pictures of the melodrama or
pantomime were as magnificent as any objects of nature we have seen
with maturer eyes. Well, the view of Constantinople is as fine as
any of Stanfield's best theatrical pictures, seen at the best
period of youth, when fancy had all the bloom on her--when all the
heroines who danced before the scene appeared as ravishing
beauties, when there shone an unearthly splendour about Baker and
Diddear--and the sound of the bugles and fiddles, and the cheerful
clang of the cymbals, as the scene unrolled, and the gorgeous
procession meandered triumphantly through it--caused a thrill of
pleasure, and awakened an innocent fulness of sensual enjoyment
that is only given to boys.