Henrietta Liston's Travels: The Turkish Journals, 1812-1820 9781474467384

Citation preview

Henrietta Liston’s Travels The Turkish Journals, 1812–1820

Edited by Patrick Hart, Valerie Kennedy and Dora Petherbridge Associate Editor: F. Özden Mercan

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © selection, editorial matter and organisation, Patrick Hart, Valerie Kennedy and Dora Petherbridge, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 10.5/12.5 Times New Roman by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 6735 3 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 6736 0 (paperback) ISBN 978 1 4744 6738 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 6737 7 (epub) The right of Patrick Hart, Valerie Kennedy and Dora Petherbridge to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Map 1 Map 2

v vi viii ix

PART ONE  Critical Introduction The Eye of a Stranger (1) ‘Out of your world’: Liston’s Turkish Travels (2) Approaching Henrietta Liston: A Biographical Sketch (3) The Diplomatic Context (4) The Ottoman Social and Political Contexts (5) Encountering Liston’s Turkish Writings     Henrietta Liston and the Discourses of Travel Writing     Henrietta Liston and British–Ottoman Relations     Orientalism and the Picturesque (6)  Locating Liston: Women’s Travel Writing and the Ottoman Empire      Positions of Privilege      Thematic Continuities      Stylistic Continuities      Liston’s Distinctive Voice (7)  The Manuscripts: Composition, Revision, Dating, Readership

3 4 9 17 22 29 29 33 35 40 40 43 51 54 59

PART TWO  Liston’s Turkish Writings A Note on the Text

71

The Turkish Journal, 1812–14

73

Selected Further Writings 185 (1)  Letter from Henrietta Liston to Dick Ramage, 6 March 1813 185

Hart Print.indb 3

15/09/2020 07:55

iv

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

   (2)  Further Writings on Constantinople, 1814–15      The Fire at Pera      The Visit to the Harem of the Collector of the  Customs      The Funerals of the Turks, Greeks and Armenians      The Death of Doctor Lorenzo    (3)  Aegean Travels, 1815    (4)  The Return to Constantinople, 1817    (5)  Departure from Constantinople, 1820

192 192 194 196 198 203 207 217

Chronology of the Life and Times of Henrietta Liston 220 Bibliography 223 Index 235

Illustrations Maps and Figures Map 1 Map of the Listons’ voyage to Constantinople in 1812 viii Map 2 Map of places the Listons visited in Turkey, 1812–14 ix Fig. 1.1 Travelling firman for the Listons, 1815 7 Fig. 1.2 The Liston family arms 16 Fig. 1.3 Sir Robert Liston, after Sir David Wilkie, 1811 21 Fig. 1.4 Direction to make Turkish ink 61 Fig. 1.5 Henrietta Liston’s duplicated account of Tenedos, National Library of Scotland 65 Fig. 1.6 Henrietta Liston’s draft of ‘The Turkish Fast of the Ramazan’ 66 Fig. 2.1 I. Kauffer and Jean Baptiste Le Chevalier, ‘Carte de Constantinople’, 1814 124 Fig. 2.2 Robert Liston’s dispatch on death of Dr Lorenzo, 25 January 1815 197

Plates Situated at the beginning of Part Two  1 Thomas Butterworth, The ‘Argo’ with a Russian ship passing through the Straits, 1799   2  ‘Palace of the British Embassy, Pera’  3 Gilbert Stuart, Henrietta Liston (Mrs Robert Liston), 1800  4 Gilbert Stuart, Robert Liston, 1800   5 The first page of Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal, National Library of Scotland   6 Henrietta Liston’s Turkish Journal, National Library of Scotland   7 Francisco de Goya Luciente, The Marchioness of Santa Cruz, 1805   8 Henrietta Liston’s Turkish Journal, National Library of Scotland   9 Henrietta Liston’s letter to Dick Ramage, 1813, showing disinfection slits 10 Henrietta Liston’s letter to Dick Ramage, 1813, showing fumigation puncture 11  ‘Map of the Turkish, Persian and Russian Frontier in Asia’

Acknowledgements As editors we owe a great debt of gratitude to many individuals and institutions, without whom this project would never have been completed. Firstly, we would like to thank all those at the National Library of Scotland who have supported this publication, including the General Collections, Manuscripts and Archives, Imaging Services, and Collections Care teams. Special thanks go to Simona Cenci, Mary Garner, Claire Thomson, Graeme Hawley, Fredric Saunderson, Kenneth Dunn, Robin Smith, Lucy Clement, Trevor Thomson, Jennifer Higgins, Marta Ameijeiras Barros and Robert James for their invaluable support and expertise. We are particularly grateful to Christopher Fleet, Map Curator, for creating the maps in this volume. At Bilkent University in Ankara, Professor Stein Haugom Olsen provided encouragement, support and a stimulating working environment; Rachel Bruzzone offered generous scholarly assistance in tracking down classical references as well as enthusiastic discussion of classical texts; Mehmet Kalpaklı contributed initial enthusiasm and impetus; Heather Yeung and Sjoerd Levelt gave encouragement and advice regarding textual editing; Rabia Sönmez tracked down a misplaced page reference; and the students of the Department of English Language and Literature offered much-appreciated enthusiasm and excitement about the project. We would also like to thank all the staff at Bilkent University Library, especially Elsa Bitri, Füsun Yurdakul, Bilge Kat and Gülay Başkaya. The British Institute at Ankara (BIAA) and the American Patrons of the National Library and Galleries of Scotland (APNLGS) provided indispensable financial support, funding primary research in the Liston Papers and the colour illustrations included in this volume respectively. Without Walter Grant Scott’s generous assistance, the digitisation of Henrietta Liston’s journals would not have been possible. Thanks also to the library and herbarium staff at The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, to Dittany Ammo, and to the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America and to Columbia University Libraries. Gerald MacLean and Donna Landry provided essential information and gracious encouragement. Daren Hodson read the first draft of parts of the critical introduction, giving us the benefit of his wide-­



acknowledgements vii

ranging scholarship and knowledge. Nazlı Miraç Ümit provided assistance with Ottoman archives in Istanbul, and Anne Stocker and Sandrine Berges gave moral support and help with French language issues. Valerie Kennedy would like to thank Brent MacGregor and Lindy Furby for opening their beautiful Edinburgh home to her and offering generous and warm-spirited hospitality during the final stages of the manuscript preparation. Thanks also to Lois Wolffe, the earliest and most joyful champion of Henrietta Liston’s journals, to Celeste-Marie Bernier, Ruth Johnston, Jaimie Johansson and Kathleen Riley for their wisdom and expertise, and to Deniz Ortaçtepe for her patience and understanding. Finally, we would like to thank Nicola Ramsey, Kirsty Woods, Eddie Clark, Bekah Dey and all at Edinburgh University Press for their support, understanding, and invaluable assistance.

Map 1  Map of the Listons’ voyage to Constantinople, April to June 1812 (National Library of Scotland)

Map 2  Map of places the Listons visited in Turkey, 1812–14 (National Library of Scotland)

4

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

1. ‘Out of your world’: Liston’s Turkish Travels Patrick Hart On the 200th anniversary of Henrietta Liston’s final departure from Turkey, this volume presents for the first time in print the journal she kept of her first journey to Constantinople and of her experiences and further travels while residing there.1 It begins in March 1812 with her setting forth from London with her husband Robert, who had been called out of retirement to serve for a second time as British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Sailing from Portsmouth in the forty-four-gun Argo (see Plate 1), the Listons visited militarily and politically strategic locations such as Cádiz, Gibraltar, Palermo and Malta before passing through the Greek islands and mooring near the mouth of the Dardanelles (for a map of their route, see Map 1). Having explored the plains of Troy, they arrived in Constantinople in late June. They would not finally depart again for Britain and permanent retirement for another eight years.2 Written during the Napoleonic Wars, at a time of transition between the eighteenth century and the Victorian period, Liston’s journal reflects both this critical historical juncture and some of the continuities and changes in travel writing about the Ottoman Empire. It invites comparison with the famous Turkish Embassy letters of Liston’s predecessor of a century before, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, also wife to a British ambassador to the Sublime Porte.3 The experiences Liston documents offer parallels and contrasts with those Montagu described to luminaries such as Alexander Pope and the Princess of Wales. Like Montagu, she writes of witnessing dervishes and of her visits to Ottoman women and the harem; but she also writes of meeting the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet on board his ship, and At the time Liston was writing, Constantinople remained the name most commonly used for the city by the British, while Turks usually called it Istanbul. Here we have used the names interchangeably but have tended to prefer Constantinople when focusing upon Western sources or attitudes, and Istanbul when speaking of the Turkish. For fuller accounts of the city’s various names, see Kreiser 2009: 207–8 and Zambaur 1997: 224.  2 The Listons did, however, return to Britain on an extended period of official leave, from 12 October 1815 to 19 July 1817.  3 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the term Sublime Porte referred to the seat of the Ottoman government in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. From the 18th century, the term ‘Porte’ or ‘Bâb-ı Âli’ referred, strictly speaking, to the grand vizier’s residence, which housed all the offices of state and the imperial council chambers. In English, however, the term was often used more generally to refer to Constantinople and to the seat of the Ottoman government.  1



the eye of a stranger 5

of ambassadors’ audiences with the Kaimakam (the Deputy Grand Vizier), as well as of fire, plague and assassinations. Moreover, unlike Montagu, she travelled to Turkey by sea rather than by land, and both Liston’s time in Constantinople and the extent of her travels around it significantly exceeded Montagu’s (see Map 2 for the places Liston visited). Perhaps the most striking difference, however, is in their respective voices. Where Montagu’s letters (to which Liston repeatedly refers) are aristocratic, witty and addressed to some of the best-known figures of her time, Liston’s journal is phlegmatic, sharp-eyed and seems to have been intended only for the eyes of a few familiar readers. While Liston lacks Montagu’s wit, her writing is just as distinctive. She sometimes self-consciously echoes Montagu and deploys familiar Orientalist tropes, but she more often draws upon a human-centred version of the Romantic picturesque. Elsewhere, she demonstrates a level-headed matter-of-factness more readily associated with the Scottish Enlightenment, perhaps in deliberate contrast to what she describes in one letter as Montagu’s ‘high colouring’ (p. 187). In further contrast to Montagu’s letters, which she revised for publication and which achieved great fame when finally published after her death, Liston’s journal is virtually unknown. It represents one of those ‘lost historical voices’ of women’s travel writing whose recuperation remains pressing (Clark 1999: 24).4 Held among the family papers until purchased from the Liston-Foulis family by the National Library of Scotland in 1936, the journal now forms part of the Sir Robert Liston Papers, an archive that includes 177 volumes of personal and official documents pertaining to Robert’s long diplomatic career. In addition to Henrietta’s journal, the archive contains hundreds of manuscripts relating to the Listons’ time in Turkey, in many languages. Among the highlights are an elaborate diplomat’s cipher for encoding messages (NLS MS 5720 ff. 33–4); a map of the Turkish, Persian and Russian frontier in Asia (NLS MS 5719: see Plate 11); Henrietta’s meteorological diary (NLS MS 5658 ff. 180–6); some fascinating expenses accounts (listing, for example, 200 piastres to Wenzel the fiddler for music at an Two exceptions to the scholarly neglect of Liston’s Turkish writings are worth noting. Discussing and quoting extensively from the writings of Liston’s husband in Islam, Europe and Empire, Norman Daniel also quotes several extracts from Henrietta Liston’s journal, but offers only minimal commentary (1966: 94, 150, 213–14). In a brief chapter on Liston in Sarah Searight’s edited collection, Women Travellers in the Near East, Deborah Manley also gives some short extracts from the journal as part of a sometimes inaccurate account of Liston’s life. Her claim that Liston ‘had aspirations to become a latter-day Lady Mary [Wortley Montagu]’ (2005: 9) is not supported in her essay by any evidence and is almost certainly mistaken.

 4

6

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

embassy ball (NLS MS 5641 f. 7r)); and an Ottoman travelling firman (edict or decree) granting assistance and protection (NLS CH 5793: see Figure 1.1). The archive also contains other, shorter writings by Henrietta relating to her time in Turkey. Some of these are drafts or alternative versions of passages that appear in the journal (discussed in more detail below); others describe incidents and explorations not mentioned there, many dating from after June 1814, the date at which Liston’s main journal ends. A selection of these shorter writings is also published in this volume. These include accounts of a visit to the harem of the Collector of Customs; of the assassination of Doctor Lorenzo Noccrola, chief physician to the Seraglio; of the Listons’ Aegean t­ ravels in 1815; and of their final departure from Constantinople in 1820. Also included is one of Henrietta’s letters to Robert’s nephew, Dick Ramage, in which she describes the plague of 1812, a stay in Belgrade Forest and discussions of the Franco-Russian War. No printed edition can hope to do justice to the impact of these manuscripts as material artefacts, or to find satisfactory typographical equivalents for the subtle variations in Liston’s hand, her various forms of underlining and cancellation and her many marginal and interlineal insertions. Readers who want to know what a manuscript looks like are far better served by facsimiles.5 Alongside this edition, therefore, and as part of the same collaborative project, the National Library of Scotland is making freely available online a complete set of high-resolution digital facsimiles of all of Liston’s writings published in this volume. These facsimiles are accompanied online by full semi-­ diplomatic transcriptions, and can be accessed through the National Library’s Digital Gallery at . These online resources offer the most immediate access possible to Liston’s manuscripts, short of visiting the Library’s reading rooms. While readers should bear in mind that even facsimiles are more mediated representations than we sometimes realise (Black 2017: 106), in some ways the digital gallery makes possible an even deeper engagement with the manuscripts than does a library visit, thanks to tools As Michael Hunter has noted, even the most formidably scholarly attempts to translate every element of a manuscript onto the printed page fail to replicate all the significant features of the original, including ‘not only different handwritings and letter forms, but also ink blots, different methods of striking through words, or exact details of layout, for which only a pictorial facsimile suffices’ (2009: 75). Joseph Black has reached a similar conclusion, noting that modern readers interested in the mise en page of an early text are ‘far better served by facsimiles’, including digital facsimiles (2017: 106). Black’s primary concern is with early printed books, but the point applies equally to manuscripts such as Liston’s.

 5



the eye of a stranger 7

Figure 1.1  Firman with Mahmud II’s sultanic tuğra (monogram) permitting the Listons to travel in the dominions of the Ottoman Empire and granting them protection and assistance from Ottoman officials, October 1815, NLS CH 5793 (National Library of Scotland)

8

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

such as the digital zoom. Even with the aid of such tools, however, Liston’s handwriting presents some knotty paleographical challenges (see, for example, Plates 6 and 8). The transcriptions, too, can be difficult to parse, thanks to Liston’s sometimes ragged syntax and grammar, erratic spelling, and her many insertions and deletions. Both early nineteenth-century conventions and Liston’s own idiosyncrasies when it comes to punctuation, capitalisation and underlining can also be confusing or distracting to a twenty-first century reader. This volume has therefore been designed to complement the digital resources by making Liston’s journals as accessible as possible. Given the ready availability of those resources, we have had relatively few scruples about resolving Liston’s ambiguities of syntax and punctuation and modernising her spelling in order to produce a clear, readable text. In presenting here a modernised edition supported by comprehensive notes, we hope to afford even those scholars at ease among the archives a ‘better accommodation of their normal reading practices’ than might the digital gallery or Liston’s manuscripts themselves (Black 2017: 107). Ultimately, the enduring virtues of the technology of the codex remain the best justification for making Liston’s journal available in print rather than solely online. Amy Culley and Anna Fitzer, however, have pointed to an additional motivation: while digital editions have played an important role over the last thirty years in the recuperation of many women’s writings, physical editions of works by women have historically served as particularly ‘tangible signs of intrinsic significance’ and value and, they suggest, still continue to do so (Culley and Fitzer 2017: 14). Liston’s Turkish writings deserve a book. The critical introduction that follows establishes some of the key contexts out of which Liston’s journal emerged, and within which it might be read. Opening with a brief biographical sketch, it goes on to situate the journal in relation to the period’s international diplomatic tensions, and to events and developments within Ottoman society and politics. It then focuses more closely upon Liston’s writings, positioning them in relation to the dominant discourses of travel writing and of British imperialism at the time. Comparing Liston’s writing with that of other women who travelled to the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it demonstrates what makes Liston’s writing distinctive, and even remarkable. After a careful consideration of the material evidence of Liston’s manuscripts, which asks how and for whom Liston composed her Turkish journal, the introduction closes with a more detailed discussion of the volume’s editorial principles and practice.



the eye of a stranger 9

2. Approaching Henrietta Liston: A Biographical Sketch Dora Petherbridge From 1819, when Robert and Henrietta Liston were still in post at the British Embassy in Constantinople, Robert, then seventy-six years old, began to experience ‘almost daily visitations of spectral figures’ – figures in Turkish, Greek and ancient Roman clothing and in ‘the old-fashioned Scottish tartan’ worn in his youth (Craig 1836: 335). The visitations continued intermittently until his death at ninety-four in 1836; Robert’s last years were lived without Henrietta who died aged seventy-seven in 1828. A particularly remarkable illusion was recounted in The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal by his physician Dr James Craig.6 Robert had seen Henrietta, who had been dead for several years, floating around the room, beckoning for him to follow, and ultimately appearing to depart at the window. The hallucination was so vivid, that he followed, jumped out at the window [. . .] and fell upon the grass. He rose, walked into the garden and conservatory, her frequent resort, where he met his overseer, and exclaimed, ‘Did you see her? my own madame, my wife.’ (Ibid.: 343) Shadowy presences, briefly observed before slipping out of the documentary record, eighteenth-century women and their histories, biographies and inner lives remain under-represented in private and official archives and difficult to recover. Henrietta, however, becomes atypically visible to us through the Sir Robert Liston Papers – the extensive archive that bears her husband’s name. After the hallucinatory appearance of Henrietta, Dr Craig ventured to ask Robert about his visions. Robert answered only ‘magnifique, and sometimes not so brilliant’ (Ibid.: 344), an almost perfect description of the vision of Henrietta conjured by the Liston Papers. Our vision of ‘Ambasciatrice Liston’ is detailed and lucid. Hundreds of documents from her married life bear witness to her thoughts, choices and relationships as she travelled and worked with her husband. ‘Her Excellency’, later ‘Lady Liston’, emerges from the archive in m ­ agnificent clarity. Craig’s ‘History of a Case of Spectral Illusions with Subsequent Loss of Memory of Words and Names, with Appearances on Dissection’ is a detailed description of Robert Liston’s health in old age and the post-mortem. To give Robert anonymity, Craig referred to him only as ‘Mr N’.

 6

10

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Of Miss Marchant, however, the middle-class orphan from the British colony of Antigua, affectionately known as ‘Henny’, our view is indeed not so brilliant. A handful of her letters, a holograph will and a few childhood memories recalled in her 1801 West Indies travelogue are almost all the surviving traces of the first forty-five years of her life.7 A list of family births and deaths written on the verso of a title page torn from The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ includes Henrietta Marchant, ‘born the 19 day of December 1751 at eight o’clock in morning’ (NLS MS 5720 f. 35v). She was baptised at St Paul’s Church in Falmouth, Antigua on 17 March 1752. Henrietta’s extended family, on both her mother, Sarah Nanton, and her father, Nathaniel Marchant’s, sides, were planters on the island, who owned enslaved people.8 Sarah had eleven children, of whom five died in childhood: Henrietta was her parents’ only surviving daughter. Her early childhood was spent on Piccadilly, a sugar plantation rented by her father, where Henrietta would later recall there was ‘a jessamine hedge’ which she ‘delighted in as a child’ and a stream in which her ‘Negro maid used to assist [her] to catch shrimps’ (NLS MS 5704 p. 16).9 But these moments of happiness were short-lived: before she was eight years old she ‘had witnessed the funerals of both [. . .] parents’ (NLS MS 5704 p. 15), her mother’s in 1758 and her father’s in 1761.10 Under the instructions of her father’s will, Henrietta and her brothers were soon sent to guardians in Scotland – James Jackson, Postmaster of Glasgow, and his wife, their maternal aunt, Henrietta Nanton.11 In Antigua, as a child of the plantocracy, Henrietta witnessed the Liston’s ‘Journal from the United States to the West Indies’ (NLS MS 5704). Louise North’s 2014 edition of Liston’s North American travel writing ends at 1800, and thus does not include her West Indian travelogue.  8 Nantons, ‘a very small estate in the Parish of St Mary’s’ (Oliver 1896: I, 290), is shown as a cattle mill on maps of Antigua from the mid-eighteenth century (see Bowen 1747). From 1777 Nantons was owned by Sir William Young, husband of Margaret Nanton, and by 1789 in addition to pasturage, the plantation was producing forty hogshead of sugar and was worked by sixty-six enslaved people (see Legacies of British Slave-Ownership: 2020). Henrietta’s mother was born at Dimsdale plantation, once the property of her grandfather; by 1801 Dimsdale was ‘in the hands of’ Henrietta’s brother Nathaniel (NLS MS 5704 p. 43).  9 From the 1640s to 1760s Piccadilly was the Warner family estate (see Murphy 2020). 10 To the list of family births and deaths Nathaniel Marchant added: ‘My dear wife Sarah Marchant departed her life November the 24 1758 a Friday at one o’clock in afternoon and was buried the 26 of a Sunday forenoon and had a sermon preached for her’ (NLS MS 5720 f. 35v). 11 James Jackson (1725–1806) was known for his ‘ardent zeal in the discharge of the duties of his office’ and his ‘gentlemanlike behaviour in private life’ (The Scots Magazine 1806: 68, 238).  7



the eye of a stranger 11

chattel slavery of colonial plantations. In Glasgow she lived in a city financed by the transatlantic slave trade. She directly profited from slavery: her father’s will instructed, ‘to my daughter Henrieta Marchant [sic] £2000 c at 21 & 4 negros’ (Oliver 1896: I, 290). Our research into the Liston Papers and the wider archival record has so far revealed no references to the lives of the four enslaved people Henrietta inherited. Further work is needed to do justice to their history, of which Henrietta’s 1801 journal contains the merest trace. On returning to the Caribbean she wrote: ‘it was not one of my smallest gratifications in Antigua to see some of my father’s old negroes and my own [. . .] free and in good circumstances’ (NLS MS 5704 p. 16).12 In Glasgow, Henrietta lived under her uncle’s ‘uncommon care’ (NLS CH 5791), receiving an education that enabled her to read widely, speak French, understand some Italian, and to become a skilled botanist.13 From 1784, the Jacksons and Henrietta had lodgings on the newly built, fashionable Charlotte Street in the East End, the address from which the earliest of her surviving letters were written. Thinking of her future ‘independence’, on 11 December 1784, Henrietta confided in her closest friend, Miss Ann Polson, that ‘love and marriage’ were excluded from her ‘plan of happiness’: was the lap of Fortune held open to me, my choice should be, a comfortable house in a retired country, a fortune sufficient to keep free from debt, and assist in the immediate needs of my neighbours, a good library, dry and pleasant walks, and a friend now and then. (NLS MS 5542 f. 147r) It is not known when Henrietta and Robert met, but by 1786 a friendship had been established.14 Only one letter, perhaps the most intimate For a discussion of ways in which Liston’s 1801 travelogue ‘paints a romantic picture of the West Indies [. . .] that persistently obscures the poisonous realities of chattel slavery’, see McAuley’s ‘A Gardener’s “Paradise”: Henrietta Marchant Liston’s Caribbean Travel Diary’ (2017). 13 Liston’s reading can be explored through her writing. She refers to Homer, Sappho, Cervantes, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Edward Gibbon and William Falconer in her Turkish journals, and in her correspondence to Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon (1816), Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague (1769) and the works of Maria Edgeworth, among others. The manuscript, ‘List of Books in Box’, from the Listons’ time in Turkey includes Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, Eton’s A Survey of the Turkish Empire, Owen’s A New View of Society, and several dictionaries including the Nuovo Dizionario Italiano-Francese (NLS MS 5651 f. 179r). 14 Henrietta’s holograph will of 1786 states: ‘I give to and request that Robert Liston will be pleased to accept a ring with my hair, as a small memorial of friendship’ (NLS CH 5791). By 1786 Robert had been posted to Germany and had worked in 12

12

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

of Henrietta’s in the archive, written to Ann in 1794, reveals something of the history of their relationship and the impact of their first encounter: ‘I have never since I first saw him, met a man so interesting or so much to my taste, this attachment will now probably continue for my life’ (NLS MS 5574 f. 43v). The letter, full of delicate and urgent moral negotiations, takes up the gauntlet of a charged conversation. As Henrietta explains to Ann, ‘I do not, you say, yet know my own heart! and I have pleased you by what, you think a confession; I perfectly know the feelings of my heart at the time I speak them’ (Ibid.: f. 43r). She considers how she might check her ‘innocent regard’ for Robert were he to become ‘the husband of another’, and declares, finally, that ‘marrying in advanced life, except in very particular cases is capital in my list of follies’ (Ibid.: f. 44r). In November 1795 Robert returned to Scotland from his first ambassadorship to Constantinople. He was appointed British Minister to the United States.15 Some three months later on 26 February 1796, he and Henrietta (then forty-four years old) signed their marriage ­contract – a contract which allowed her to retain ‘full disposal’ of ‘her whole property, estate and effects of every kind, in any manner she shall think proper, without [the] consent’ of Robert who renounced jus mariti (NLS CH 5787).16 They wed the next morning and immediately set off for Philadelphia where Henrietta first ‘got into the vortex’ – as she described it to her uncle – of the role of diplomat’s wife (NLS MS 5590 f. 5r). On the American stage she played the role well, forging a politically and personally significant friendship with President George Washington, a friendship into which her North American journals give insight. It was also in Philadelphia that Henrietta was painted by Washington’s celebrated portraitist, Gilbert Stuart, as was Robert.17 For a time the pair of portraits hung at their home, Millburn Tower. Now, the only surviving image known to be of Henrietta hangs in Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art (Plates 3 and 4). After four years in the young republic, where the Listons’ impact on British–American relations was well regarded, they were posted to The Hague and then to Denmark. In 1804 they returned to their home Paris, where he knew the philosopher David Hume, the revolutionary Mirabeau, and became the object of the novelist and actress Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni’s love. 15 Robert was Ambassador Extraordinary to the Ottoman Empire from 1794 to 1795. 16 In Scots law, the right of property originally vested in the husband on marriage in all his wife’s moveables except her clothes, jewellery and personal effects (Dictionary of the Scots Language). 17 Henrietta described the paintings as ‘really pictures as well as portraits’ (NLS MS 5592 f. 100r).



the eye of a stranger 13

outside Edinburgh until, in March 1811, the Foreign Office called Robert out of his retiral and reappointed him British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Hearing the news, he dashed off a letter to his wife, saying, ‘Ma chère femme, my dearest Harriet! [. . .] I hope you will find the frolic agreeable. There are many things to be seen as we sail along, and I think with a large house, and a garden, we shall do very well’ (NLS MS 5624 f. 33). Robert knew, however, that this ‘frolic’ to the Ottoman Empire would be a serious undertaking for him, aged seventy, and for Henrietta, aged sixty-one. The Listons’ mature years and common birth attracted the caustic attention of the ‘Queen of the Desert’, Lady Hester Stanhope.18 Stanhope, feeling that Mrs Liston must be ‘detestable’, ‘a vulgar pedantic talking woman’, predicted: ‘finely she will be laughed at, at Constantinople I am sure, & particularly if Genl. Androise [sic] brings his charming wife with him. What a contrast!!!’ (Bruce 1951: 146). The wife of the French diplomat Andréossy, Marie-Stéphanie Florimond de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg, was the ambassadress Henrietta had never been – young and aristocratic.19 After dining at the British Embassy with the Listons, Lady Stanhope’s lover, Michael Bruce, sustained her snobbery, describing Henrietta as short and thick with the most orray features I ever saw and I should think not half so genteel as your Housekeeper Mrs Brown. She is forward in conversation. Has a dash of Scotch Cleaverness [sic] and a considerable one of Scotch vulgarity.20 (Ibid.: 234) To what degree Lady Stanhope’s prediction came true and Henrietta – class, age and nationality stacked against her – was an object of mirth for the diplomatic corps at Constantinople is unknown. Sir Robert Wilson, though, enjoyed one moment of humour at her expense. Lady Hester Stanhope (1776–1839), niece of William Pitt the Younger. In 1814 Stanhope and Michael Bruce (1787–1861) asked Robert Liston for assistance to execute Stanhope’s expedition to search for treasure at Ashkelon, then in the Ottoman Empire. Robert obliged (see Bruce 1951). 19 Marie-Stéphanie Florimond de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg’s (1790–1868) father was a Peer of France. Her brother, Just Pons Florimond de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg, was Chargé d’affaires to the French Embassy at Constantinople from 1808 to 1812. 20 Orray: Stanhope was probably using the insult in the straightforward sense given by the OED of ‘odd, different, strange’. Given the word’s use, mostly commonly of women, to mean ‘not attached, either as a married woman is to her husband or a servant to her employer; disengaged’, noted in the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue as particularly associated with central Scotland, Stanhope may also have intended a snide reference to Liston’s Scottishness and/or her having married late in life. 18

14

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Wilson, who also noted Henrietta’s ‘strong understanding and kind disposition’ in his Private Diary (1861: I, 29), detailed the moment thus: The principal Dragoman having stated this fact before Mrs Liston, she misunderstood him, and repeated ‘Four wives petulant!’ ‘Pregnant, madam!’ said the ambassador. ‘God bless me!’ shrieked her Excellency, ‘who could have thought that? I am sure petulant was a more reasonable supposition.’ – ‘Four wives pregnant!’ The phenomenon seemed to press upon her mind the whole evening. (Ibid.: I, 132) As she extended embassy hospitality, Henrietta provided amusement (and succour) to Grand Tourists, merchants, missionaries, archaeologists, artists and the diplomats of Pera.21 Embassy amusements for visitors included garden walks, music and Henrietta’s voltaic batteries. The batteries were put in order one evening in 1819 by the Quaker abolitionist and scientist William Allen, ‘fresh cementing the cells’ so that experiments could be made and charcoal ‘burnt with great splendour’ for the dinner guests (Allen 1846: I, 426–7). Robert observed that in Constantinople neither he nor Henrietta were ‘unhappy or idle’ (NLS MS 5661 f. 104r), she, while working for the ‘public good’, also had her own pursuits.22 Henrietta maintained a copious correspondence; as she told her nephew Dick Ramage in 1813: ‘I can and do [. . .] write more than I ever did in the same space of time’ (p. 187). This correspondence situated her in a distinctly Scottish cultural nexus, as well as in wider international diplomatic, social and intellectual circles. To Lady Haddington she wrote of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) and The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment (NLS MS 5640 f. 147r); to Captain John Macdonald Kinneir of the Congress of Vienna and to another friend she wrote of Madame de Staël and of Walter Scott’s Rokeby (1813): ‘it is not always that Mr Scott gives life to his heroines’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 74r).23 Notable among the many travellers the Listons entertained or assisted in the Ottoman Empire are Richard Keppel Craven and William Gell, William John Bankes, Robert Ker Porter, Henry William Hobhouse, Michael Bruce and Lady Hester Stanhope. 22 Expense accounts and letters in the Liston Papers reveal some of Liston’s daily activities. She acquired ‘the secret’ of dying cloth to scarlet; had her name engraved in Turkish; wanted a set of Turkish weighing scales, and purchased ‘petit-gris fur’ (squirrel fur) for her friends, and for herself, a tightly woven wool – a bottle-green angora shalloon. 23 Their correspondence reveals the Listons’ literary and cultural connections to have 21



the eye of a stranger 15

The embassy garden was the canvas for Liston’s horticultural talent. The Reverend Robert Walsh noted she had ‘brought exotics from all parts of the world’, ‘prolific woods about the Black Sea were searched for the most ornamental shrubs and trees’, and that ‘among these were some that had grown to such extraordinary size and beauty that they were described with admiration by foreign botanists’ (1836: I, 233). Inspired by both Ottoman gardens and the wild flora of Anatolia, Henrietta, described by Roberto de Visiani as ‘un’egregia coltivatrice della botanica’, an excellent cultivator of plants (1843: 42), collected native and non-native plants and hundreds of seeds from the region.24 Among those she sent home to nurseries and to fellow botanists were the common tulip (Tulipa gesneriana), Levant foxglove (Digitalis orientalis), Iberian coronilla (Coronilla iberica), musk hyacinth (Muscari), and a golden crocus (Crocus reticulatus).25 Henrietta was responsible for introducing from Turkey the seeds of ‘several rare and at that time new plants’ into Britain and Europe (Tan and Baytop 2010: 118). Indeed, she might be added to Angela Byrne’s list of the ‘dozens of nineteenth-century women’ who collected ‘new plant species’ (2019: 23). Liston’s plant specimens survive in the herbaria of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Kew and of the Musei Biblioteca Archivio Bassano del Grappa, Vicenza.26 With her collections she formed a kind of personal botanical journal, a correlative to the manuscripts, some varieties even bearing her name, such as the Acantholimon listoniae, an alpine evergreen. Little by little the Listons cultivated their place in Turkey. Their family arms, with the motto ‘Poco a Poco’ and its plough, gilly flowers and olive branches, reflects many aspects of their lives – their relationship with each other; their far-ranging travels; Robert’s ascent to the rank of ambassador and Henrietta’s increasing ease in the role of ambassadress (Figure 1.2). Yet despite Henrietta’s deepening been extensive, embracing figures such as Allan Ramsey, James Boswell, Henry Fielding, Anne Grant, Jane Porter, Elizabeth Hamilton and Sir Walter Scott. 24 Roberto de Visiani (1800–78), botanist and naturalist who named Sedum listoniae Vis. after Henrietta (Tan and Baytop 2010: 118). 25 Publications such as Curtis’s Botanical Magazine published contemporary reports of specimens Liston sent to Britain. See, for example, Digitalis orientalis in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1821: 48, 2253). Botanists with whom Liston corresponded or to whom seeds and specimens she collected were sent include Sir Joseph Banks, John Hawkins, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and William McNab, Curator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Some of the hundreds of seeds Liston sent to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were sown there by McNab (see RBGE Plant Receipt Registers). 26 In the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh there are sixty-one specimens collected by Liston (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbarium Catalogue: 2018).

16

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Figure 1.2  The Liston family arms, drawn by H. B. McCall and Geo. Bailey, in Hardy Bertram McCall, Some Old Families: A Contribution to the Genealogical History of Scotland, 1890 (National Library of Scotland)

r­elationship with Ottoman Turkey and her belief that she must not let her own ‘fancies or disgusts interfere’ with her public role (NLS MS 5641 f. 20r), her thoughts turned steadily towards Scotland, as did her husband’s.27 Five years into his ambassadorship, Robert, whose service had been recognised with a knighthood in 1816, confided to the Russian diplomat Italinski, ‘we do not mean to leave our bones Undated draft letter of Liston to a friend, filed with the Listons’ 1814 documents and possibly composed that year (NLS MS 5641 f. 20r).

27



the eye of a stranger 17

at Constantinople’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 143v). In 1820, after thirty-seven years in the diplomatic service, Robert finally resigned his post. The Listons were able to sail home. Bartolomeo Pisani, their esteemed first dragoman, communicated to Robert, ‘not only all the inhabitants, but even the very pavements on both sides of the city have felt sorry at your and Lady Liston’s leaving the country’ (NLS MS 5657 f. 177). After several years of retirement in Scotland at Millburn Tower, the Listons left their bones not even a mile away, in Gogar Kirkyard. Though the parish church is now disused, their tombstone still stands, but their most significant memorial lies in the Liston Papers, including Henrietta’s Turkish journals.

3. The Diplomatic Context Kenneth Weisbrode The period just after Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815 was not the most eventful in European diplomatic history. It is known today as a quiescent, conservative time. Even in the faraway United States, it is called the ‘Era of Good Feelings’. Although the American appellation referred mainly to internal politics, it could just as easily describe the period in international relations, so long as normal, peaceful relations among states are considered uneventful, while wars, revolutions and other conflicts generally are not. However, when Henrietta Liston arrived in Turkey with her husband Robert in 1812, Napoleon had not yet been finally defeated, so Britain was still at war; Britain and Turkey had been at peace only since 1809, and Russia had only just ended its own war with the Ottomans, also in 1812. The French had attempted to induce the Ottomans to extend the war with Russia, and British diplomacy under Robert Liston’s predecessor, Stratford Canning, had worked against that result, with success.28 The Listons arrived to an embassy and a country at peace. This peace, which presumably aided or at least allowed for the possibility for Henrietta’s travels and observations throughout the Empire, would last more or less until the Listons’ departure in 1820. The only significant conflict probably worth noting was an uprising in Serbia (to which Henrietta makes reference in the journals – see p. 181). An unfortunate casualty of the Treaty of Bucharest, which Canning had helped negotiate, was the dragoman Mourousi, who was designated the scapegoat for Turkish concessions in Bessarabia and was murdered at Topkapı Palace. The incident is described at some length in Liston’s journal (pp. 140–1): see also pp. 26–7 and pp. 47–8, below.

28



the eye of a stranger 17

at Constantinople’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 143v). In 1820, after thirty-seven years in the diplomatic service, Robert finally resigned his post. The Listons were able to sail home. Bartolomeo Pisani, their esteemed first dragoman, communicated to Robert, ‘not only all the inhabitants, but even the very pavements on both sides of the city have felt sorry at your and Lady Liston’s leaving the country’ (NLS MS 5657 f. 177). After several years of retirement in Scotland at Millburn Tower, the Listons left their bones not even a mile away, in Gogar Kirkyard. Though the parish church is now disused, their tombstone still stands, but their most significant memorial lies in the Liston Papers, including Henrietta’s Turkish journals.

3. The Diplomatic Context Kenneth Weisbrode The period just after Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815 was not the most eventful in European diplomatic history. It is known today as a quiescent, conservative time. Even in the faraway United States, it is called the ‘Era of Good Feelings’. Although the American appellation referred mainly to internal politics, it could just as easily describe the period in international relations, so long as normal, peaceful relations among states are considered uneventful, while wars, revolutions and other conflicts generally are not. However, when Henrietta Liston arrived in Turkey with her husband Robert in 1812, Napoleon had not yet been finally defeated, so Britain was still at war; Britain and Turkey had been at peace only since 1809, and Russia had only just ended its own war with the Ottomans, also in 1812. The French had attempted to induce the Ottomans to extend the war with Russia, and British diplomacy under Robert Liston’s predecessor, Stratford Canning, had worked against that result, with success.28 The Listons arrived to an embassy and a country at peace. This peace, which presumably aided or at least allowed for the possibility for Henrietta’s travels and observations throughout the Empire, would last more or less until the Listons’ departure in 1820. The only significant conflict probably worth noting was an uprising in Serbia (to which Henrietta makes reference in the journals – see p. 181). An unfortunate casualty of the Treaty of Bucharest, which Canning had helped negotiate, was the dragoman Mourousi, who was designated the scapegoat for Turkish concessions in Bessarabia and was murdered at Topkapı Palace. The incident is described at some length in Liston’s journal (pp. 140–1): see also pp. 26–7 and pp. 47–8, below.

28

18

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The awarding of a British protectorate over the Ionian Islands at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) occurred without great opposition at this time, and the Greek War of Independence, which involved the British in a major way, did not begin to happen in earnest until after their departure. Thus, the years Henrietta Liston spent in Turkey appear as a ‘somnolent interregnum’ (Cunningham 1993b: 8), in an otherwise volatile nineteenth century, whose first half culminated in a multinational conflict (the Crimean War, 1853–6) and the adoption by Britain of an important role as the healer or crutch of the ‘Sick Man of Europe’, that is, the Ottoman Empire. That role post-dated the Listons’ tenure in Turkey, although it is possible to see some early indications of it, perhaps, in Henrietta’s pages. For the time being, however, the Anglo-Russian relationship stood firm, which relegated British interests in the Ottoman Empire to a secondary position in the diplomacy of the period. The diplomatic context was as follows: British policy remained wedded, on the one hand, to maintaining a balance of power on the European continent and, on the other hand, to preserving dominance of the sea lanes necessary for the preservation and prosperity of the British Empire, that is, Pax Britannica. The first, rather abstract, attachment, later famously described by John Bright as a ‘foul idol’, was nonetheless a policy that prescribed Britain’s alliances and understandings, notably in this case with Russia, with which it sought to prevent the emergence of any rival European power. The latter attachment was more straightforward. Britain was the dominant naval force in the Mediterranean, which in turn required naval bases and a forward naval presence, notably in Gibraltar and Malta, and both were visited by the Listons on their way to Constantinople. These two British diplomatic aims – maintaining the European balance of power and dominating the seas – were occasionally inconsistent, both with each other and with the cause of peace, as during the Greek revolt and the Crimean War; but that was not the case during the Listons’ time in Turkey. Rather, as Robert noted in a draft letter of 1 November 1813, to a barrister, Thomas Macdonald: The Turks placed as they are in a state of peace and prosperity while other nations are exhausting their strength in the miseries of war – caressed and courted by all the Great Powers of Europe – are become more haughty and more difficult to manage than formerly. The other is that the price of living is at least trebled since I knew the country; so that it will be difficult to make the two ends



the eye of a stranger 19

meet even with all the care we can take. And this perpetual effort of ceremony, this endless struggle between splendour and poverty becomes ultimately tiresome (NLS MS 5658 f. 94v). The principal trend, or diplomatic fact, of the period was the so-called Eastern Question. It was in effect the underlying rationale for, as well as an extension of, the above-mentioned attachment of large powers, namely Britain, France and Russia, to the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. How they would compete or collaborate with one another to preserve or advance their interests there vis-à-vis the weakening Ottoman state was the Question. That is to say, the mental map British and other statesmen had of the Ottoman Empire went from that of a distant buffer zone to a ‘facilitating conduit by which Asia was penetrated’ (Cunningham 1993a: 55). This change is usually dated from the Greek War of Independence, but its origins may be plausibly traced back at least to the ministry of Pitt the Younger (Cunningham 1993a: 28–9). Most diplomatic ‘questions’ are almost never answered; they are managed, or mismanaged, as the case may be. In this instance, the principal aim of British diplomacy, if no longer to frustrate FrancoOttoman relations (something Liston had failed to achieve during his first posting), was now the even more complicated task of upholding Anglo-Russian cooperation while simultaneously forestalling if not obstructing the spread of Russian power throughout the Near East. Robert Liston noted as much when he heard the news of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. ‘But it is impossible’, he wrote to Castlereagh, then the Foreign Secretary, ‘that the Sublime Porte in her present predicament can look forward without alarm to the complete success of the Grand Alliance [which would allow the Russians] to turn a part of their veteran and victorious troops against her Dominions’ (quoted in Cunningham 1993a: 98). The British provided a co-optive restraint on the exercise of Russian power, as Britain became, once again, the guarantor of Russian interests in Europe, and, now, of the survival of the Ottoman state and, perhaps, of what was left of its empire. Put succinctly, the problem [for Russia] was how at one and the same time to exclude [its allies in the Near East] from its sphere and use them for Russian interests while retaining their cooperation in Europe. Russia carried off the tour de force easily with Britain, gaining assurances of British diplomatic support and possible military help in defending the Ottoman Empire and the Ionian Isles. (Schroeder 1994: 275)

20

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The basis of this policy became ‘the continued coexistence of Britain and Russia on fairly good but not intimate terms, neither close allies nor open enemies’ (Ibid.: 617). Where precisely this left Anglo-Ottoman relations from the perspective of an ambassador who presumably sought to do more than mark time, was not certain. Such was the diplomatic setting for Robert Liston’s second posting to Constantinople from 1812 to 1820, when he was nearing the end of his diplomatic career. ‘All I can do’, Liston wrote, to his Russian counterpart, Andrei Italinski, on 10 June 1817, with reference to Ottoman and British officialdom, is to preach – to both parties – peace, peace, peace! – which I of course will, with all my might. But what is there to give these words more power in my mouth than in that of another, unless indeed it be my grey hairs, and in that triste avantage I cannot say I feel much confidence. (NLS MS 5660 f. 142r–v) Perhaps not a lack of confidence but an outward humility is the impression one gleans from Liston’s correspondence and diplomatic record in Constantinople. He was what one would today call a meritocrat, neither born nor granted a diplomatic career for his name or family. He entered the diplomatic service through his friendships and his membership of the Scottish intelligentsia when such individuals were initially if cautiously welcomed in official circles (Cunningham 1993a: 52–4). He was probably also aided by his gift for languages: his doctor, James Craig, claimed that ‘he spoke ten and could read fourteen’ (1836: 334–5). Liston’s lack of aristocratic or diplomatic family origins may account for, on the one hand, his initial assignment to Constantinople when it had ‘counted for little’ and then, having acquired a wife and augmented a solid professional reputation in the United States and elsewhere, his return to a capital that counted for more but still was not quite at the centre of British statecraft (Cunningham 1993a: 54). Those particulars provide the mental context for Henrietta Liston’s various observations about other diplomats and the few, poignant things she records about international diplomacy in her journals.29 Generally one can assume that she was not privy to many of its details, at least to the extent that her husband may have been, but to cast her as a mere observer would be unfair and go against the grain of the most recent historiography on diplomacy. ‘New Diplomatic History’ places diplomatic society in the foreground of international relations Liston was more outspoken in some of her letters: see pp. 189–90, below.

29



the eye of a stranger 21

Figure 1.3  Sir Robert Liston, engraved by J. B. Obernetter, after Sir David Wilkie, 1811, in Hardy Bertram McCall, Some Old Families: A Contribution to the Genealogical History of Scotland, 1890 (National Library of Scotland)

rather than depicting it as an afterthought or by-product of high politics.30 Diplomatic society includes the companions, families, friends and other social relations of diplomats, who, strictly speaking, are not merely those with official credentials but also those with whom they interact closely and who also exercise one or more of the three primary diplomatic functions: reportage, mediation and representation. It is fair to say that Henrietta Liston by her own account partook in all three during her time in Turkey. To label her a diplomat, by present-day standards, is not far-fetched. Yet to place her diaries in diplomatic context requires more than a synopsis of the period’s high politics; it also requires an acknowledgement and, by way of her ­journals, an elaboration, of the conduct of informal diplomacy by both her and her husband outside the bounds of official negotiations and communication with ministers. Moreover, it was usually women, See Alloul and Auwers 2018.

30

22

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

namely diplomatic wives, who generally dominated and ultimately oversaw these nominally extramural, or ‘paradiplomatic’ activities – dinners, receptions, touristic visits, charitable works, ceremonies and so on – where much of diplomacy was and is conducted.31 Nearly all these activities take place collectively, with the diplomatic corps, broadly defined, moving and interacting together. Although they have only just recently become the subjects of systematic study by mainstream diplomatic historians, diplomatic wives and other women have been engaged in this activity for a long time.32 Henrietta Liston was no Madame de Staël: she did not have a famous lineage; she did not establish a salon of historical repute; she did not maintain as wide a correspondence with the leading thinkers and statesmen of her day. Yet her journals demonstrate an awareness of her position and role in the Anglo-Ottoman relationship and notably in its peaceful manifestations in a role that stood outside and perhaps beyond herself, one that was literally diplomatic in mediating between different cultures and that, in the context of her time, was not too different from what diplomatic spouses do today. Her notes and observations were recorded, if not for a contemporary readership, nonetheless with a self-conscious sense of this larger role. She accompanied her husband in name but in effect was a partner with him in representing Britain overseas and in conveying to posterity a range of observations, from a diplomatic perspective, of her experiences in the Ottoman Empire of her era.

4. The Ottoman Social and Political Contexts F. Özden Mercan In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Ottoman Empire went through a series of political crises, popular uprisings and significant transformations. Traditionally this period in Ottoman history has been understood as a narrative of ‘decline and breakdown’; recent studies however, present a more complex picture (Yaycioglu 2016: 9–15), and the examination of new archival sources such as Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journals affords new insights. The journals provide a glimpse into the early part of Sultan Mahmud II’s reign when the political crises See, for example, her description of an embassy reception, 20 January 1815, p. 198; and her remarks on the ‘Fete of St Louis’, 20 August 1817 (NLS MS 5650 f. 50v). 32 See, for example, Allen 2019; Sluga and James 2016; McCarthy 2014; Wood 2005; and Hickman 1999. 31

22

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

namely diplomatic wives, who generally dominated and ultimately oversaw these nominally extramural, or ‘paradiplomatic’ activities – dinners, receptions, touristic visits, charitable works, ceremonies and so on – where much of diplomacy was and is conducted.31 Nearly all these activities take place collectively, with the diplomatic corps, broadly defined, moving and interacting together. Although they have only just recently become the subjects of systematic study by mainstream diplomatic historians, diplomatic wives and other women have been engaged in this activity for a long time.32 Henrietta Liston was no Madame de Staël: she did not have a famous lineage; she did not establish a salon of historical repute; she did not maintain as wide a correspondence with the leading thinkers and statesmen of her day. Yet her journals demonstrate an awareness of her position and role in the Anglo-Ottoman relationship and notably in its peaceful manifestations in a role that stood outside and perhaps beyond herself, one that was literally diplomatic in mediating between different cultures and that, in the context of her time, was not too different from what diplomatic spouses do today. Her notes and observations were recorded, if not for a contemporary readership, nonetheless with a self-conscious sense of this larger role. She accompanied her husband in name but in effect was a partner with him in representing Britain overseas and in conveying to posterity a range of observations, from a diplomatic perspective, of her experiences in the Ottoman Empire of her era.

4. The Ottoman Social and Political Contexts F. Özden Mercan In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Ottoman Empire went through a series of political crises, popular uprisings and significant transformations. Traditionally this period in Ottoman history has been understood as a narrative of ‘decline and breakdown’; recent studies however, present a more complex picture (Yaycioglu 2016: 9–15), and the examination of new archival sources such as Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journals affords new insights. The journals provide a glimpse into the early part of Sultan Mahmud II’s reign when the political crises See, for example, her description of an embassy reception, 20 January 1815, p. 198; and her remarks on the ‘Fete of St Louis’, 20 August 1817 (NLS MS 5650 f. 50v). 32 See, for example, Allen 2019; Sluga and James 2016; McCarthy 2014; Wood 2005; and Hickman 1999. 31



the eye of a stranger 23

were largely settled but radical reforms had yet to be realised, a period which has been relatively neglected in recent scholarship. From the reign of Sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807) onwards, political and institutional change took place and new institutions, designed for the Nizâm-ı Cedîd, the New Order, were introduced. The main aim of Selim’s reforms was to ‘reorganize the empire’s military, administrative, and fiscal regime[s]’ (Yaycioglu 2018: 448). However, his attempt to restructure the army faced a janissary-led33 popular rebellion and he was dethroned in 1807. He was succeeded by Mustafa IV (r. 1807–8), but in order to restore Selim to the throne, Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha, the ayan or provincial governor of Rusçuk (now in Bulgaria), organised an armed coup. During the conflict, Selim was assassinated, Mustafa IV deposed, and as the sole male heir, Mahmud II, the youngest son of Abdülhamid I, ascended the throne on 28 July 1808. The chaotic conditions that led to Mahmud II’s accession to the throne continued in the early months of his reign. War with Russia (in 1806–12) and Britain (in 1807–9) had already put the Ottoman administration in a precarious position: central control over many provinces was significantly reduced, as local notables became more influential in the administration there. Moreover, in the imperial capital, the ulema (the Islamic scholarly class) and the janissaries became important political powers, significantly restricting the Sultan’s authority (Levy 1991: 58). A loyal supporter of Mahmud II, Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha was appointed as his Grand Vizier, and he brought the central and provincial forces together through the Sened-i I˙ttifak (Deed of Agreement) on 7 October 1808. This was intended to establish ‘a new imperial order based on mutual liability and the responsibility of provincial elites and members of the central administration’ (Yaycioglu 2018: 449), and it was considered a significant attempt towards constitutionalism. However, the janissary uprising of November 1808 interrupted the process of administrative reorganisation and curbed plans to restore Selim III’s New Order. Although this temporary crisis was overcome through Mahmud II’s determination, it also made him more cautious Established in the 1370s and originally serving as the guards of the sultan, the janissaries or yeniçeri (new soldiers) were the sultan’s elite infantry corps. In the late fourteenth century, with the introduction of the devşirme or child levy system, new soldiers were recruited primarily from the Balkans and converted to Islam, and the janissary army became the professional standing army of the Ottoman state. By Liston’s time the devşirme had been abandoned, opening the ranks to Muslim Turks, and the janissaries’ power had long been problematic. The corps’ existence continued until 1826, when it became such a serious threat for Sultan Mahmud II (1785–1839; r .1808–39) that he abolished the janissaries, an event known as the ‘Auspicious Incident’, and introduced a new, reformed army.

33

24

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

in ‘the timing and nature of his eventual reform efforts’ (Stephanov 2019: 14). By 1812 Mahmud had restored his authority by making the court the centre of government (Levy 1991: 58). The previous elaborate court ceremonials were abandoned, and the Sultan led a more modest life than his predecessors. Describing Mahmud as a ‘man of talents’ as well as a ‘bigot’ (p. 145), Liston provides sharp observations of his character and policies. Like Selim, Mahmud wanted to reform the janissaries, ‘yet’, she says, ‘he set out with more prudence and he possesses more vigour and energy of mind’ (p. 146). These qualities were to pay off: in June 1826 the janissaries rose up again in protest at Mahmud’s military reforms, and in response Mahmud suppressed the uprising and abolished the janissaries, establishing a new army called the Muallem Asâkir-i Mansûre-i Muhammediye (the Trained Victorious Troops of Muhammed). Liston considered Mahmud II more traditional and pious than Selim as he revived old principles and discarded lavish ceremonies (p. 146), details which indicate that she was well informed about recent events and developments. During the period between 1808 and 1826, Mahmud II was able to restore central authority over the provinces with the support of the ulema, the bureaucratic elites and some provincial notables loyal to the Sultan, appointing governors from Istanbul to replace other provincial notables. Although this proved successful, the brutal suppression of local notables became one of the factors that led to the emergence of the Serbian and Greek nationalist movements. The Serbs rebelled against the central authority from 1803 to 1814 and also in 1815 (Levy 1991: 58; Shaw 1977: 14). The period also saw increasing tensions in Albania and Greece, where conflict between the powerful notable Ali Pasha, the Governor of Ioannina, and the Sultan became the starting point for Greek uprisings. From 1787 until his dismissal in 1820 Ali Pasha increased his authority over an area which covered most of today’s Albania and large parts of northern Greece. He was at the height of his power during the Listons’ stay in Constantinople, acting as an independent ruler and establishing contacts with European powers (Beydilli 2011: 476–9). On the Listons’ voyage back to Constantinople in 1817 after a period of leave, Ali Pasha invited Robert Liston and Sir Thomas Maitland, the Governor of Malta, to visit him. The invitation was declined but Liston noted that she ‘rather regretted not seeing a man who has rendered himself remarkable’ (p. 210). Although Ali Pasha was executed in 1822, the Ottoman government was unable to suppress uprisings in the Peloponnese: as early as 1814 the Philiké Hetairia (Friendly Society) had been founded with the



the eye of a stranger 25

intention of establishing an independent Greek state (Fleming 1999: 25–32). In order to fight the Greek rebellion, the Sultan sought help from another provincial governor, Mehmed Ali Pasha (r. 1805–48), who had already aided the Sultan in recapturing Mecca and Medina from the Wahhabis in Arabia (1812–13). In a journal entry for July 1813, witnessing the Surre Alayı, the annual procession celebrating the dispatch from Istanbul of the cover for the Kaʿba, gifts and money to the holy cities, Liston refers to Mehmed Ali as ‘the Bey of Egypt’ and further observes that his ‘son, an ill-looking youth, has been feasted by the Grand Signor and his ministers, in all the gardens and fine meadows in the country’ (p. 162). The Greek uprising was brought under control; however, the intervention of Britain and France in the Ottoman–Greek conflict and their military support for the Greeks, together with Russian aggression against Ottoman provinces in both Europe and Asia, would finally force the Ottomans to accept the Treaty of Edirne (1829), whereby they had to recognise the autonomy of Serbia, Moldavia, Wallachia and Greece under Russian protection, and in 1832 Greece became independent (Shaw 1977: 29–32). Although during the Listons’ time in the Ottoman Empire the Greek rebellion had not yet come to the fore, Henrietta’s description of the Greeks as an ‘unfortunate’ and ‘unhappy race’ as well as a ‘degraded nation’ (p. 110; 136; 140) and her emphasis on the increasing ‘spite and hatred’ (p. 114) among the Greeks against the Ottoman administration, offers a prescient hint of the calls for Greek independence and autonomy in the following years. The Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state centred on the sultan and his dynasty. The ruling class, the askeri, constituted the sultan’s administrative and military retinue. Ottoman rulers tended to establish absolute rule: in order to prevent the emergence of any kind of aristocracy, they employed kuls (slaves) who were specifically trained for state service and who owed total obedience and allegiance to the sultan. After the sultan, the grand vizier, as head of the bureaucracy and the military establishment, was the highest-ranking state officer. However, during Selim III’s reign the grand vizier’s authority was reduced: ‘there was a tendency to share political power among the members of the bureaucracy, the palace [and], the ilmiye [religious] class’ (Yıldız 2017: 149–50). During his first mission to Constantinople (1794–5), Robert Liston interpreted this development as revealing Selim’s desire to reassert his own authority by reducing the grand vizier’s political power and functions (Yalçınkaya 1998: 200). The same policy continued under Mahmud II. During the early years of his reign the office of grand vizier changed hands frequently.

26

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

For instance, in 1809 Yusuf Ziya Pasha was appointed as Grand Vizier for a second time; he was dismissed in April 1811 and replaced by Laz Aziz Ahmed Pasha who remained in office only until September 1812, when Hurşid Ahmed Pasha replaced him until April 1815. The career of the grand vizier, like those of all other high-ranking officials, was fully dependent on the sultan. Liston provides interesting details concerning the arbitrary dismissal of Ottoman viziers, claiming that if a vizier was dismissed as a result of ‘momentary disgust’ or ‘some very trifling offence’, an officer would enter his room with a piece of cotton cloth and wipe his pen, which meant the vizier was deprived of his title and exiled. In the case of more serious offences, he would be executed (p. 145). Liston sees such events as examples of the ‘arbitrary act[s] of a despot’ (p. 145). Together with long enforced absences from the imperial capital in wartime due to his position as commander-in-chief, these frequent changes reduced the authority of the grand vizier and resulted in the transference of some responsibilities to his kaimakam (deputy), a position which would later become that of the Minister of the Interior. Indeed, in 1812 Robert Liston had his public audience with the Kaimakam Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha during the absence of Grand Vizier Laz Aziz Ahmed Pasha (p. 131). Besides the arbitrary deposition of viziers, Liston gives other examples of the ‘tyranny of a despotic government’ (p. 140), like the story of the Mourousi brothers. The Mourousis belonged to the Phanariots, the Greek elite who wielded considerable political and social influence in the Ottoman Empire from the seventeenth until the early nineteenth century (Philliou 2009: 457). During Mahmud II’s reign, several members of the Mourousi family were imperial translators and held princely thrones in Moldavia (now Moldova) and Wallachia (now part of Romania). Responsible for translating the speeches of foreign diplomats to the sultan or grand vizier and all official documents in foreign languages, the translator of the Imperial Council was ‘the most important official in the conduct of foreign affairs’ after the Reisülküttab (chief scribe) (Findley 1980: 77–8). Dealing with the most delicate and secret affairs of the state, his position in the office of the Divan-ı Hümayun Tercümanı was a central but also a particularly precarious one. In the reigns of both Selim III and Mahmud II, the precarity of the Phanariot interpreters’ position increased. Selim defined them as a ‘phanariot clique’, blaming them for ‘pursuing their own aims and spreading false rumors’ (Philliou 2011: 19). As Liston notes, their loyalty to Ottoman interests was seen as suspect during the RussoOttoman peace negotiations in 1812, when the Grand Dragoman of the Porte, Demetrious Mourousi, and later his brother Panagios, the



the eye of a stranger 27

Deputy Dragoman, were executed for being ‘Russian-aligned’ (Ibid.: 20; Richmond 2014: 127–8). Liston considers the Mourousis as ‘men of remarkable abilities’ and argues that the envy of some members of the Divan was also a factor in their destruction (p. 141). Another example Liston gives of Ottoman ‘despotism’ (p. 201) is the murder of Dr Lorenzo Noccrola in 1815. Lorenzo, who served a number of sultans as physician, including Mahmud II, was particularly influential during the reign of Selim, being both his physician and confidant. Liston offers a detailed account of Lorenzo’s death and suggests several reasons for it, including the envy of other Ottoman officials or rival factions, as with the Mourousis (pp. 199–202). She argues that Lorenzo must have been killed on the Sultan’s orders, claiming that when a sultan treated anybody more favourably than usual, it meant he would destroy him (p. 202). Liston’s writing on both Lorenzo and the Mourousis reveals not only her perception of the Sultan and the Ottoman government, but also her access to information and rumours in diplomatic circles in Constantinople. Liston seems to have regarded the Sultan’s absolute and arbitrary power as a significant threat to the state and to social stability. Her remarks on the conflict between the janissaries and the Sultan are particularly important. She sees the janissaries as providing an indispensable check on sultanic power (p. 145; see also Section 6: Thematic Continuities, below), and her views suggest one foreign perspective on Ottoman attempts at military and administrative reforms and indicate contemporary concern that Mahmud II might use these reforms to increase in his own authority. Liston’s accounts of Mahmud’s public participation in various state and religious ceremonies can also be interpreted as evidence of his efforts to restore sultanic authority in the eyes of his subjects and foreigners. Her description of Mahmud’s participation in the Surre Alayı procession (pp. 161–4) provides one example of this. Control of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina were cornerstones of the legitimacy of an Islamic ruler, and Liston’s detailed account reveals that the procession functioned not only to legitimate Mahmud as a ruler but also to establish him as a spiritual figure, a caliph, especially after the recovery of the holy cities from the Wahhabis. Furthermore, his ceremonial progress to the mosque on the first day of the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, his participation in the Feast of Sacrifice (p. 147) and his visit to Galatasaray, during which gifts from the foreign ambassadors were presented (pp. 151–2), can be interpreted as other projections of ­sultanic power aimed at restoring the sultanic image and authority which had been weakened by the deposition of Selim III in 1807.

28

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

This authority was also manifested through the ceremonial dimension of the reception of foreign diplomats. Mahmud II continued earlier traditions of Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial. When the Listons arrived at the Dardanelles, they were ceremonially received by Ottoman officials (pp. 103–4), but were refused permission to pass through the Dardanelles on a British warship and had to transfer to an Ottoman vessel (p. 110), primarily because the Ottomans wished to ensure the safety of the Dardanelles after the British occupation of the straits in 1807, which had caused panic and unrest in Istanbul (Yıldız 2017: 116). The Listons were assigned a mihmandar, an Ottoman officer, to accompany them to the imperial capital, their travel expenses being met by the Ottoman government (p. 110). In Istanbul Robert Liston and his retinue were received first by Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha and received hilat (pelisses or robes of honour) (p. 132). A fortnight later, Robert Liston had a public audience with Sultan Mahmud II. Henrietta’s account of the audience, presumably written according to Robert’s own description or those of others in his retinue, presents interesting information. For instance, traditionally an ambassador had his audience with the sultan on the day when the janissaries received their pay, so that the ambassador watched the whole ceremony and witnessed the military power and generosity of the Ottoman state (Talbot 2017: 153–5). But with Robert Liston, this ceremony was omitted and, after having had breakfast with the Grand Vizier, Robert and his retinue moved to the inner palace to be received by the Sultan. However, traditional practices such as the gentlemen resigning their swords and being held by the arms by Ottoman guards at the entrance were maintained (p. 133). While these acts were considered as ‘degrading’ by foreign diplomats, for the Ottomans they were symbolic, showing deference to the sultan. Although, as Robert Liston noted, some of these customs had been altered during the reign of Selim (Talbot 2017: 162; Yalçınkaya 1998: 193–4), Henrietta’s description of Robert’s reception by Mahmud indicates a return to some long-established traditions. This return was reinforced by the majestic and aloof figure of the Sultan during the audience, his refusal to engage in any direct contact with the foreign ambassador, and the richly decorated setting. Liston’s journals and letters give accounts of a variety of incidents and issues too numerous to cover adequately here but which invite further investigation and research. These include the dangers of plague and fire, comments on non-Muslim communities like the Greeks, the Armenians and the Jews, and Turkish hospitality and eating and travelling habits. The plague epidemic of 1812 prevented the Listons



the eye of a stranger 29

from leaving the embassy for several months (p. 123) and at its peak killed more than 2,000 people per day, according to the contemporary Ottoman historian, Câbî Ömer Efendi (2013: II, 898, 902). Some villages were totally depopulated, such as Rumelifeneri, which Liston found ‘entirely deserted’ when the Listons passed it on their way from Pera to Belgrade Forest (p. 139). Fires were endemic, despite eighteenth-century attempts to counter the danger by building watchtowers, organising night patrols and establishing a tulumba ocağı, a firefighting unit (Boyar and Fleet 2010: 81–4). In her vivid description of a fire which broke out near the British Embassy in 1814, Liston records her surprise that the fire engines were not operated until the Sultan or the Grand Vizier gave the janissaries money; she writes that ‘it has been often known that the women will abuse the sultan to his face, recapitulate his faults, ridicule his character, and censure his government in the grossest language’ (p. 194), suggesting that fires provided a rare moment when popular discontent could be expressed. Among the minorities which Liston comments on are the Armenians and the Jews, both of whom played significant roles in the financial and commercial life of Constantinople, the Armenians controlling the mint, and the Jews acting as the bankers for the janissaries (pp. 136–7). Other aspects of Ottoman life or, as Liston calls it, life ‘à la Turque’ that are touched upon include eating habits and menus (pp. 105–7; 169–70), the ceremonies attached to coffee-drinking and pipe-smoking (pp. 129–30), travelling in a Turkish carriage or araba (p. 136) and the nuisance of dogs in Constantinople (pp. 148–9). The Turkish harem had long fascinated the West, and while Liston never visited the imperial harem of the Sultan, she did visit that of the Kaimakam, the Gümrük Emini (Chief Customs Officer) and of a lady of standing in Bursa, and gives fascinating accounts of them which are discussed in more detail below (see Section 6: Liston’s Distinctive Voice).

5. Encountering Liston’s Turkish Journals Valerie Kennedy Henrietta Liston and the Discourses of Travel Writing Situating Liston’s journal in relation to critical frameworks derived from the explosion of scholarly interest in travel writing in the 1990s and 2000s is problematic, for several reasons. Firstly, much of this work (like many earlier discussions of travel writing) is based on models which presuppose the context of British imperialism or



the eye of a stranger 29

from leaving the embassy for several months (p. 123) and at its peak killed more than 2,000 people per day, according to the contemporary Ottoman historian, Câbî Ömer Efendi (2013: II, 898, 902). Some villages were totally depopulated, such as Rumelifeneri, which Liston found ‘entirely deserted’ when the Listons passed it on their way from Pera to Belgrade Forest (p. 139). Fires were endemic, despite eighteenth-century attempts to counter the danger by building watchtowers, organising night patrols and establishing a tulumba ocağı, a firefighting unit (Boyar and Fleet 2010: 81–4). In her vivid description of a fire which broke out near the British Embassy in 1814, Liston records her surprise that the fire engines were not operated until the Sultan or the Grand Vizier gave the janissaries money; she writes that ‘it has been often known that the women will abuse the sultan to his face, recapitulate his faults, ridicule his character, and censure his government in the grossest language’ (p. 194), suggesting that fires provided a rare moment when popular discontent could be expressed. Among the minorities which Liston comments on are the Armenians and the Jews, both of whom played significant roles in the financial and commercial life of Constantinople, the Armenians controlling the mint, and the Jews acting as the bankers for the janissaries (pp. 136–7). Other aspects of Ottoman life or, as Liston calls it, life ‘à la Turque’ that are touched upon include eating habits and menus (pp. 105–7; 169–70), the ceremonies attached to coffee-drinking and pipe-smoking (pp. 129–30), travelling in a Turkish carriage or araba (p. 136) and the nuisance of dogs in Constantinople (pp. 148–9). The Turkish harem had long fascinated the West, and while Liston never visited the imperial harem of the Sultan, she did visit that of the Kaimakam, the Gümrük Emini (Chief Customs Officer) and of a lady of standing in Bursa, and gives fascinating accounts of them which are discussed in more detail below (see Section 6: Liston’s Distinctive Voice).

5. Encountering Liston’s Turkish Journals Valerie Kennedy Henrietta Liston and the Discourses of Travel Writing Situating Liston’s journal in relation to critical frameworks derived from the explosion of scholarly interest in travel writing in the 1990s and 2000s is problematic, for several reasons. Firstly, much of this work (like many earlier discussions of travel writing) is based on models which presuppose the context of British imperialism or

30

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

c­ olonialism. Secondly, many of these studies have tended to use masculinist models to approach the travel-writing genre and are blind to gender issues (Lawrence 1994: 11). Often these first two limitations are found in tandem, as in Steve Clark’s collection, Travel Writing and Empire (1999). This devotes only two of thirteen chapters to women writers, and although Katherine Turner sees the collection as a ‘corrective’ to ‘the monolithic model of the imperial nation’ underlying many analyses of travel writing (2001: 6), much of Clark’s ‘Introduction’ is either too focused on the imperial context (1999: 7–10) and/or too masculinist (Ibid.: 19–21) to fit Liston or most other women travellers to Ottoman lands. Neither the masculine ‘romance conventions of heroic agency’, nor the idea of the traveller as adventurer, nor the ‘almost irresistible imperative to abandon home, wife, and children’ (Ibid.: 20, 21) applies straightforwardly to them. Those studies that circumvent one of these limitations frequently fall prey to the other. The usefulness of work on women’s travel writing is thus often limited by an unquestioning foregrounding of British imperial concerns. In Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (1993), Sara Mills criticises the masculinist approach to travel writing analysis, arguing that nineteenth-century women travel writers had to ‘struggle with the discourses of imperialism and femininity, neither of which they could wholeheartedly adopt’ (1993: 3). As a result, she argues, their writings are generally ‘informed by different discursive frameworks and pressures’ from men’s, although she also sees some shared ‘discursive elements’ (Ibid.: 3, 6). However, Mills’ argument that women’s texts provide ‘counter-hegemonic voices within colonial discourse’ (Ibid.: 22–3) cannot easily be brought to bear on Liston. Even if by the early nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire was the focus of competing European influences, it was not a British colony and the situation of travellers there was very different from their position in British colonies.34 Moreover, as the British Ambassador’s wife, Liston was perhaps unlikely to express ‘counter-hegemonic’ ideas. While Liston may have partaken of the ‘increasingly imperial sensibility’ Katherine Like Mills, Meyda Yeğenoğlu takes the imperial framework as given, referring to concepts such as ‘the imperialist gesture of subject constitution’ and ‘the complicity between Western imperialism and feminism’ (1999: 84–5), as does Shirley Foster (2004: 6–17). Carl Thompson acknowledges the scholarly neglect of women travellers (2011: 22, 171–2), but his work is mainly male-focused and often assumes colonial or imperialist contexts. See Zoë Kinsley (2016: 9 n. 28) for a list of other such analyses, and the works by Inderpal Grewal (1996) and Kristi Siegel (2004) in the Bibliography.

34



the eye of a stranger 31

Turner identifies in the second half of the eighteenth century in British women’s travel writing on Europe, its presence in her Turkish journal emerges only obliquely (Turner 2001: 132; see also 151, 155–6, 160). The Orientalist framework of Lisa Lowe’s Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (1991) might be expected to provide a more helpful approach to Liston, since there Lowe shows how ‘orientalist representations’ overlap ‘with rhetorics of gender and class’ (1991: 32). Like Mills, she insists on the discursive ‘heterogeneity’ of women’s texts (Ibid.: 34). However, Lowe also situates Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in terms of the eighteenth century’s ‘colonial preoccupation with land and empire’, describing one letter as ‘colonial allegory’ (Ibid.: 31, emphasis added; see also 43, 48–9, 50). This is highly misleading: Turkey was certainly foreign, and Montagu’s husband was concerned to defend British commercial interests, but the Ottoman Empire cannot be equated with a British colony.  A third issue is that there are relatively few books which analyse travel writing about the Ottoman Empire. Of those that do, many fall foul of one or both of the first two limitations, anachronistically approaching travel writing about the Ottoman Empire as if it were predominantly an expression of British colonial attitudes (as Lowe risks doing), or largely neglecting questions of gender and women’s writing. Many focus primarily on male travellers, such as Reinhold Schiffer’s Oriental Panorama: British Travellers in 19th Century Turkey (1999), and Gerald MacLean’s The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580–1720 (2004) and Looking East: English Writing and the Ottoman Empire before 1800 (2007). This is partly because before Montagu, ‘records by and about English women travelling into the Ottoman Empire are regrettably revealingly thin’ (MacLean 2004: xviii). Maclean’s short epilogue to The Rise of Oriental Travel asks, ‘What About the Women, Then?’ but answers the question only by presenting brief commentaries on two ambassadorial wives: Anne, Lady Glover, the first wife of a British ambassador to accompany her husband to Constantinople in 1606, and Lady Wych whose husband, Sir Peter, was British Ambassador from 1628 to 1639 (2004: 221–5). Where Looking East does deal with a woman’s travel writings, the aforementioned tendency to view them through the prism of British colonial concerns is again evident. Like others, MacLean sees Montagu as typical of a new and ‘distinctive form of neo-colonial occupation’ in which travel writers see their works as ‘agents [. . .] in the great game of European diplomacy’ and ‘part of history in the making’ (2007: 174). Montagu’s Letters rarely discuss contemporary politics directly, and although, as Daniel O’Quinn demonstrates, their

32

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

classical allusions ‘point to very subtle historical arguments about war and empire’, and specifically to the conflicts between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (2019: 181), they are not concerned with ‘neo-colonial occupation’ as MacLean has it (2007: 174). The almost total scholarly neglect of Liston’s journal to date (despite Norman Daniel’s highlighting of its existence as long ago as 1966) suggests the ongoing importance of engagement with the archives if we want to answer MacLean’s question about women travellers with any degree of seriousness, as well as the necessity of editions such as this one. What Elizabeth A. Fay says of travel writing from the late eighteenth century onwards, then – that ‘women’s contributions remain little theorised today’ (2016: 78) – is especially true of women’s travel writing about the Ottoman Empire. A number of more recent studies, however, have begun to address the theoretical issue, moving away in particular from the imperialist framework. Introducing their Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing (2019), Tim Youngs and Alasdair Pettinger look to broaden the parameters of travel writing analysis, noting that one effect of the association between travel and ‘empire and “race”’ since the 1970s has been to overlook ‘travel writing within and outside the West that does not have empire as its frame of reference’ (2019: 11). They argue that travel writing is not  ‘only or predominantly a record of colonial expansion and imperial rule’ but ‘narrates the whole spectrum of human journeys. It is a record of meetings, exchanges and movements towards the comprehension of oneself and others as much as it is a record of domination, exploitation and violence’ (Ibid.: 12). The beginning of the final sentence provides an excellent description of much of the material in Liston’s Turkish journal. Katrina O’Loughlin’s Women, Writing and Travel in the Eighteenth Century (2018) also moves away from the imperialist framework. Instead, O’Loughlin situates the writers discussed in relation to ‘sociability’, which she defines as ‘those historically specific forms of social competence that mediate between personal subjectivity and group identities’, and which she sees as typical of much eighteenth-century writing, ‘including the forms of romantic sociability characteristic of later ideals of sympathy and sensibility’ (2018: 4). This provides a more suggestive framework both for discussing Liston’s depictions of both elite and ordinary Ottomans, and for considering the narrative strategies of her writing, as we shall see.



the eye of a stranger 33

Henrietta Liston and British–Ottoman Relations While to read Liston’s journal as a straightforward expression of British colonial preoccupations is both limiting and distorting, her writing does call attention to certain key elements in British–Ottoman relations in the early nineteenth century. MacLean coins the helpful term ‘imperial envy’ to describe the complex set of British attitudes to the Ottomans before 1800 (2007: 20–3).35 The Ottoman Empire was the object of British envy, MacLean argues, because although it was, in religious terms, ‘the great enemy and the scourge of Christendom’, from a commercial point of view, ‘it was also the fabulously wealthy and magnificent court from which the sultan ruled over three continents with his great and powerful army’ (Ibid.: 21). One ‘spectacular’ exemplification of this envy quoted by Donna Landry in Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture (2009) is John Evelyn’s description of ‘“three Turkish or Asian horses, newly brought over” in St James’s Park in December 1684’; his long adulatory description of the horses, their treatment by their grooms, and their ‘Furniture’ ends by declaring ‘by which one may estimate how gallantly & those Infidels appeare in the fild [sic], for nothing could certainly be seen more glorious’ (quoted in Landry 2009: 97). Such ceremonial magnificence was still very much in evidence during the Listons’ time in Constantinople: examples abound in the journal, such as the description of Robert Liston’s audience with Sultan Mahmud II (NLS 5709 f. 41r–v). Imperial envy was rarely straightforward, and it easily mutated into negative representations. One transformation in British attitudes can be traced back to at least the seventeenth century when, as Leslie Peirce argues, ‘the prevalent image of the Ottoman sultanate’ began to be transformed ‘from that of a powerful enemy admired for the discipline it exacted from its subjects into the embodiment of depraved tyranny’ (1993: 115). By the time Liston was writing, however, these discourses were being complicated by a narrative of Ottoman decline. In 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League curtailed Turkish influence in central Eastern Europe, marking a ‘moment of transition, both historical and representational, in relations between the Ottoman world and Europe’ (O’Quinn 2019: 40). By the middle of the following century the ‘weak, feeble Condition of the Turkish Empire’, as Charles Perry put it in 1743, ‘was much remarked The term was in fact coined by Gerald MacLean in 2001 (personal communication from the author).

35

34

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

upon’ (Nussbaum 1995: 136). For Linda Colley, ‘Turkey’s disastrous wars with Russia, which began in 1768, encouraged Western Europeans increasingly (though still not invariably) to view the Ottoman empire as a rusting, antique titan’ (Colley 2003: 146). By the late eighteenth century, it was ‘losing much of its power to frighten’ (Ibid.: 146). The extent, pace and perception of this perceived decay, however, is much contested. Indeed for Daniel O’Quinn, ‘the “decline thesis” has been overwhelmingly disproved’, notwithstanding its ‘historiographical persistence’: the Ottoman Empire, he notes, ‘remained a significant territorial power for a further two hundred years’ after 1699 (2019: 417 n. 2, 40).36 Moreover, as Penelope Tuson argues, the British continued to regard the Ottoman Empire throughout the eighteenth century as a ‘potential ally in European diplomacy and a strategic bulwark in the beginnings of the “Great Game”’ (2014: 63). Some of Liston’s contemporaries also questioned the narrative of Ottoman decay. Byron’s travelling companion John Cam Hobhouse observed that ‘the decline of the Ottoman empire has by no means been so rapid, nor its disgraces so repeated and uninterrupted, as casual observers are apt to believe’ (2014 [1855]: II, 371). Liston was writing, then, at a time when British perceptions of the Ottoman Empire were in a state of significant flux. The narrative of decline, attractive as it was, could run up against the hard facts of still formidable Ottoman power. The Ottomans may have been seen by some as a backward people with an empire in decline and needing European technological and administrative know-how, but Turkey was still an imperial force. The growth of Britain’s own empire further complicated matters, while also offering new insights into Ottoman attitudes. The change is evident, perhaps, in the shift from the ‘certain guarded respect for Turkish ways’ that Norman Daniel illustrates with many passages from the writings of Robert Liston, to the tendency to see Turkey as ‘the grudging pupil of European schoolmasters’, which Daniel associates with Liston’s successor Stratford Canning, a man over forty years Liston’s junior (1966: 81, 161).37 If the pupil was grudging it was perhaps because (as Robert Liston shrewdly observed) just as the British in India considered their imperial subjects to be ‘an inferior For a substantial list of recent scholarship challenging the ‘decline thesis’, see O’Quinn 2019: 417 n. 2. 37 Stratford Canning, later 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe (1786–1880), was first secretary at Constantinople from 1808 and minister-plenipotentiary from 1810 to 1812. He later served as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1825 to 1829 and again from 1841 to 1858. 36



the eye of a stranger 35

race of men [. . .] and treat[ed] them accordingly’, so the ‘Mahometans of these Countries [. . .] entertain[ed] similar sentiments of their own superiority over all Christians’ (quoted in Daniel 1966: 149). Imperial attitudes on both sides perhaps suggest why, in 1812, Robert Liston found the Turks ‘more haughty and more difficult to manage’ than in his previous, briefer tour from 1794 to 1795 (quoted in Daniel 1966: 160; see also Section 3, above). With the development of imperial relations between Turkey and the European powers, Daniel argues that the British sense of imperial mission was ‘facilitated and supposedly justified’ by the need for better rule which ‘could be provided by states more advanced technologically and administratively’ (1966: 154, 94): that is, by Britain and France. However, Robert Liston did not share this incipient imperial attitude to Turkey: ‘Liston saw the Turkish point of view’, and unlike Canning, he was ‘not a man with a mission to improve the Turks, whom he evidently respected’ (Ibid.: 154, 358).  The context of Henrietta Liston’s Turkish writings, then, is this transitional period between relatively non-imperialist eighteenth-century views of Turkey and the ‘avuncular colonialism’ which Daniel identifies in the nineteenth century (1966: 161). Like her husband, Henrietta tended towards the former, but her views were not untouched by the latter.

Orientalism and the Picturesque Liston’s writings should also be situated in relation to Orientalist discourse and to the human-based version of the picturesque which Elizabeth Bohls (1996) sees as typical of many late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century women’s travelogues. In Liston’s period and in her writings and those of other women travellers, the discourses of Orientalism and those of the picturesque often overlapped. Liston’s journal deploys some Orientalist tropes which were well established by the beginning of the nineteenth century: the references to the Arabian Nights, to Oriental despotism, tyranny and arbitrariness, and the use of the picturesque, the sublime and/or the ‘romantic’ in descriptions of Constantinople. Just as many theorisations of travel writing are of limited usefulness in analysing Liston, Edward Said’s approach to the East in Orientalism is also problematic, partly because he pays relatively little attention to the Ottoman Empire, despite the book’s geographical focus on the Near and Middle East: some of his oppositions between East and West need modification or qualification. One example is his assertion that nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orientalism was dependent on ‘the

36

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures’ (1995: 7). By the early nineteenth century, while European states like Britain and France saw themselves and were seen as technologically and administratively more advanced than Turkey, the idea of any inherent European superiority was challenged by encounters with the Turks, since as Muslims they considered themselves superior to all Christians. Moreover, in the Ottoman Empire, European travellers were confronting another imperial power, albeit one seen as in decline, so the Orientalist idea of Westerners’ or Europeans’ ‘flexible positional superiority’ (Ibid.: 7) over others applies only partially to their relation to the Ottomans. Liston’s writings can, however, be related to other stereotypes identified by Said as part of the dominant ‘doctrine about the Orient’ in nineteenth-century discourse, notably those of ‘the Oriental character, Oriental despotism, [and] Oriental sensuality’ (Ibid.: 203). These stereotypes are especially evident in European travellers’ attitudes towards the Ottoman sultan and his harem, attitudes towards which Liston’s journal stands in a complex relation, as is discussed in more detail below. Similarly, Said’s identification of the ‘textual attitude’ to the Orient, that is, the tendency to describe an unfamiliar culture and its people in relation to ‘what one has read about it’ (Ibid.: 93) may be observed in Liston’s references to Homer (NLS NMS 5709 ff. 21v, 27r), to European travellers like Jean-Baptiste Le Chevalier (f.  23r), to the Arabian Nights (NLS MS 5640 f. 147r), to Cervantes’s Don Quixote (f. 63v) and to Edward Gibbon (NLS MS 5712 f. 20r). Finally, Said’s observation that European travellers tended to focus on ‘a lost, past classical Oriental grandeur’, or, more specifically, on what P. J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams call ‘traces of antiquity’ in the Near East rather than on the contemporary culture of the country, and to see the Oriental culture as unchanging and static (Said 1995: 79, 206–8; Marshall and Williams 1982: 10) are also germane.38 Like Montagu, Liston comments on the accuracy of Homer’s descriptions of specific locations and geographical features (in relation to the supposed site of Troy, for example) (p. 106). However, while Montagu uses allusions to classical writers like Homer and Theocritus to create ahistorical, pastoral and aesthetic images of contemporary Turkey (2013: 119, 118;  see also Campbell 1994: 74–5; Turner 2001: 161),39 many of Liston’s One example of antiquarian travel is Hobhouse’s two-volume Travels in Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in 1809 & 1810 (2014 [1855]), first published in 1813. Much of the first volume is taken up with descriptions of antiquities, such as those of Athens in Chapters 21 and 22. 39 O’Quinn, however, sees Montagu’s classical allusions as functioning as oblique com38



the eye of a stranger 37

allusions refer to recent historical or military events such as the recovery of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from the Wahhabis in 1812–13 (p. 162) or the Queen of Naples’s visit to Constantinople (p. 173). Another long-lasting Orientalist stereotype still operative in the early nineteenth century is that of Ottoman rulers ‘as voluptuaries or tyrants’, embodiments of ‘oriental despotism’ and the ‘cruelty, despotism, the will-to-power, religious hypocrisy, and imposture’ of the Ottoman court (Ballaster 2007: 48, 49, 61), qualities which are found in Liston’s descriptions of the deaths of Dr Lorenzo (pp. 198–203) and the Mourousi brothers (pp. 140–1).  Western notions of Oriental tyranny and imperial decay were frequently tied to simultaneously salacious and moralising tales of moral degeneration and sexual depravity. As Peirce notes, ‘the seductive and corrupting features of the harem figured prominently’ in such accounts (1993: 115; see also Cavaliero 2013: 4–5, 20–1).40 Ros Ballaster identifies the tendency to attribute the ‘collapse of oriental empire’ to ‘degeneracy in the seraglio, in the shape of sexual excess, the influence of favourites (especially eunuchs), and a retreat from political to domestic concerns’ (2007: 47). By the time Liston was writing, the harem had long been a staple of travellers’ accounts of the Ottoman Empire, and these accounts (along with those that came after Liston) have received a good deal of critical attention.41 Both male and female travellers commented on the harem, although as Montagu says satirically, the men described it without ever having seen it (2013: 148–9), which enabled the free expression of their fantasies (see Cavaliero 2013: 31; Kabbani 1994: 67–85; Lewis 1996: 162). By contrast Liston, like Montagu before her, had first-hand experience of the harem. The ideas that the sultan’s seraglio was the site of sexual excess and perversion and that the harem inmates were primarily sexual objects, indolent, ignorant and jealous of their companions as rivals, were very ments on contemporary geopolitical realities (2019: 180–201). The concept of the harem has often been misunderstood. The harem is defined in the OED, with particular reference to the Ottoman Empire, as ‘the separate, private part of a house reserved for the women of the household, and access to which is prohibited to all except family members and female servants’, but the word also means ‘the occupants of a harem [. . .] the female members of a Muslim family; esp. the wives (or concubines) collectively of a polygamous Muslim in the Ottoman Empire’. But, as Leslie Peirce demonstrates, from the late sixteenth century onwards the imperial harem was also transformed ‘into a division of the imperial palace’ and came to have considerable importance as a ‘training school’, which developed in a fashion similar to that of the training of ‘the staff of the privy chamber’ in the third court of the palace (1993: 133; see also Wheatcroft 1993: 35), a situation which was very similar when the Listons arrived in Constantinople in 1812. 41 See, among others, Kabbani 1994: 67–85; Lewis 1996: Melman 1995; Peirce 1993. 40

38

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

long lasting (see Melman 1995: 59–60), and they are to be found in Liston’s journal too (p. 170). But Liston’s accounts of her visits to the harems of the Chief Customs Officer, whom Liston calls the Collector of the Customs, and of Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha, the Kaimakam, show received Orientalist ideas rubbing up against direct experience. There she met a number of Turkish women and saw ‘enough of their characters and manners’ to form ‘some idea of their humour and mode of life’ (p. 170). Her descriptions are rich in details about the furnishings of the rooms, the women and children occupying them, their dress, their behaviour and their reactions to her and her apparel. But she also reports her conversation with the Kaimakam’s wife, which touches on the political relations between ‘the English’ and the Ottomans, before recounting her visit to the ‘apartments’ and the bath and the dinner she is given after having observed the Sultan in his council and been accompanied through the public rooms (ff. 60r–64v). Liston’s long and detailed account culminates in her comments on the women’s usual occupations and their apparent satisfaction with their lot. Her description, especially the conversation with the Kaimakam’s wife, reveals the accuracy of Peirce’s argument that in the early nineteenth century the harem was both a domestic space and a locus of power which cannot be properly understood unless ‘the paradigm of rigidly separate public/ male and private/female space is discarded’ (1993: 149). But Liston also falls back on earlier, Orientalist European tropes in these accounts, restating, for example, the dubious notion that female slaves in the sultan’s harem were frequently put into sacks and thrown into the sea in order to prevent an increase in the number of children (p. 171). There is a similar admixture of received tropes and intensely interested reportage in the way some of Liston’s Orientalising descriptions merge with a human-based version of the picturesque. Indeed, for Liston, as for later travellers, the trope of picturesque scenery or the panoramic view becomes merged with a vocabulary associated with that primordial Orientalist text, the Arabian Nights (see NLS MS 5640 f. 147r; NLS MS 5712 f. 20r).42 But her writing is also characterised by the discourses of natural history, the picturesque and landscape gardening identified by Bohls as part of eighteenth-century aesthetics and the ‘scenic tourism’ of the 1790s (1996: 67). As Bohls shows, for women travellers, the use of the picturesque is a paradox (1996: 100): the dominant image of the eighteenth-century ‘aesthetic subject’ is a ‘property-owning man’, a ‘gentleman’ (Ibid.: 8, Indira Ghose makes a similar observation about British women’s travelogues in colonial India (1998: 40–2).

42



the eye of a stranger 39

69, 9). A woman lacks the authority to take up this position and is more likely to be part of the ‘spectacle’ of a scene rather than the spectator of it. We see this with Montagu in the Turkish bath in Sofia (2013: 101–3) and with Liston too, as at one point on the journey overland to Constantinople (p. 112; see also Section 6: Liston’s Distinctive Voice, below). Moreover, Bohls suggests that eighteenth-century women writers often focus on the details of a scene rather than its general lines, thus contravening eighteenth-century aesthetic theory’s ‘denial of the particular’ (1996: 67). She also sees their language as inflected by the discourses of sensibility which entail emotional involvement in the scene depicted, as opposed to the distance of the ‘disinterested aesthetic subject’ posited by Immanuel Kant and by eighteenth-century male theorists like Joseph Addison and Lord Shaftesbury (Ibid.: 68–9). An example of emotional involvement in the scene described can be seen in Liston’s sympathy for the Turkish boatman waiting impatiently to break his fast in Ramadan (pp. 54–5). The scene also demonstrates the significant role often played by human beings in women travellers’ vision of the picturesque, in contrast to those of male writers and artists, like Gilpin, for example, where they are peripheral (Bohls 1996: 118). In eighteenth-century picturesque landscape painting, as Malcolm Andrews suggests, although the human figures may not necessarily be peripheral – they are sometimes central, as his illustrations reveal – they are always small, and dominated by ‘towering mountains’ and/or ‘ruined architecture’: ‘they occupy humble stations’ (1989: 63–4; see also Bohls 1996: 96–7). Conversely, in Liston, human figures in ‘humble stations’ are at times a significant part of the scene. In her journal, for example, there is the story told by the dragoman of the pious Ottoman who interprets the deaths of his three sons to his lack of faith in moving out of the centre of the city to escape the plague rather than trusting to the will of Allah (pp. 147–8), Liston’s description of the boatman mentioned above, and her glimpse of the inhabitants of the asylum in Constantinople (p. 144).43

We see something similar in Liston’s 1799 ‘Journal to the Falls of Niagara’, where there are extended descriptions of Native Americans and of the people in the inns in which the Listons stay (NLS MS 5701 pp. 23, 40–1).

43

40

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

6. Locating Liston: Women’s Travel Writing and the Ottoman Empire Valerie Kennedy Positions of Privilege The significance of Liston’s writings emerges very clearly when they are set in the context of travel writing about the Ottoman Empire by other British women in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, notably Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters (first published in 1763), Elizabeth Craven’s A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople (1789), Julia Pardoe’s The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1836 (1837) and The Beauties of the Bosphorus (1838), and Annie Jane Harvey’s Turkish Harems and Circassian Homes (1871). These texts offer a representative selection of views of Turkey as well as some instructive points of continuity and change. To varying extents, these five women writers should be described as foreign residents as well as travellers, since they all not only travelled to and within the Ottoman Empire but also lived there for varying periods of time: the Listons were there for several years between 1812 and 1820, Montagu stayed approximately one year, Pardoe and Harvey remained there for several months, and Craven spent about a month in Constantinople. Liston and Montagu’s longer residence meant that they were in a different situation from those of the others and potentially more affected by the need to make a second home in a foreign land, to adapt to it, and so on (see Section 3, above). Katherine Turner states that there were only two eighteenth-­century women’s travelogues published before 1770, Elizabeth Justice’s A Voyage to Russia in 1739 and Montagu’s Letters in 1763, while there were ‘around twenty’ travelogues by women among the ‘hundreds’ published between 1770 and 1800 (2001: 127, 3). Of these twenty, however, only one deals partly with Turkey, Craven’s Journey. In relation to the period from 1800 to 1830, Turner estimates that there were ‘probably over 50’ travel narratives published by women (2013: 48). However, as she says, it is ‘impossible to know how many [. . .] women [whose works were never published] were likewise invisibly engaged in travel writing’ (2001: 135). Liston may thus stand as an example of those women whose writings disappeared from literary history, and her account of Turkey and Constantinople places her at a time of transition in the history of travel accounts of the Ottoman Empire. Montagu, Craven, Liston, Pardoe and Harvey were all middle- or



the eye of a stranger 41

upper-class British women whose aristocratic status or links with the diplomatic world gave them access to parts of the Sultan’s entourage and to the upper echelons of Ottoman society which would otherwise have remained closed to them. Montagu and Craven were aristocrats, and although Liston was not, as an ambassadress she had a privileged position; Pardoe and her father had letters of introduction to ‘influential individuals’ (1837: I, ix), although it is not clear whether they used them, and Harvey had connections with the world of diplomacy and stayed in the British Ambassador’s residence in Therapia, today’s Tarabya (1871: 87). Thus, all five women had access to various Ottoman houses and harems which were otherwise difficult for Europeans to enter. However, the women’s position of relative privilege had its limits, and the issue of visiting the mosques of Constantinople reveals some of them. As Liston explains, the arrival of some visitors ‘wishing much to see the Mosques’ causes her husband to ask for the official permission [a firman] ‘to which every foreign minister thinks himself entitled once after his arrival’ to visit some of them (p. 153). They visit four, says Liston: the Hagia Sophia, ‘the Mosque of Sultan Mehmed’ (the Sultan Ahmet Mosque), the ‘Osmanic’ Mosque (the Nuruosmaniye) (pp. 154–5), and probably the Süleymaniye, although the last is not named. On an earlier visit to the part of Constantinople inhabited by Turks, as opposed to the European-dominated area of Pera, she has explained that while they tried to go ‘as much incognito as possible’, with ‘only our Bayraktar (principal janissary) and a dragoman [interpreter]’, they do not ‘attempt to assume the Turkish dress’ because ‘A Frank [a Westerner] is [. . .] so immediately distinguished [. . .] the very air and walk discovering the deception’ (p. 142). The accuracy of Liston’s statement about the difficulty of hiding one’s European identity is suggested by Montagu’s visit to the Selimiye mosque in Edirne: although she adopts Turkish dress to try to pass incognito, she realises from the ‘extreme officiousness of the door-keeper to show me every part’ of the mosque that she has been identified (Montagu 2013: 139).44 Craven has little good to say about mosques or Islam: in the Crimea she condemns the ‘holy men’ who sacrifice so many hours, and their persons to idle pain, in order to prove their devotion to Mahomet’ (1789: 173–4). In Constantinople, she finds ‘the dome of St Sophia [. . .] well worth seeing’ but criticises other aspects of the building (Ibid.: 217), and in relation to ‘several Turks and women kneeling and seemingly praying with great devotion’ she speculates that their ‘mode of Montagu also adopts Turkish dress to visit Istanbul (2013: 170–1).

44

42

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

worship’ may mean that they are plotting, since it permits whispering and disguise (Ibid.: 217–18). Liston’s statement about official permission to visit the mosques finds echoes in other writers. Craven states that her host, the French Ambassador, applies for permission on her behalf (Ibid.: 218). Pardoe has difficulty in obtaining a firman and so she resorts to ‘masquerading’ in the male Turkish dress of a ‘pelisse’ and a ‘fèz’ to visit the Hagia Sophia and the Sultan Ahmet mosques, although ‘detection would have meant instant destruction’, as she declares, rather hyperbolically (1837: I, 373, 374, 381). By the time Harvey is in the city in 1871, visiting the mosques by obtaining a firman has become easier, suggesting either that the procedure has become bureaucratised, that she had better connections than Pardoe, or both (Harvey 1871: 22). In the cases of Montagu and Liston, seemingly private exchanges or interactions also have a potential political or diplomatic dimension because of their position as ambassadors’ wives and the importance of the British ambassador as the protector of British commercial interests. Robert Liston describes his wife’s activities as those of a ‘good Diplomatick Consort’, ‘keeping up a friendly intercourse with all mankind’, that is, a woman who plays the traditional role of an ambassador’s wife (NLS MS 5661 f. 104r; cited in Daniel 1966: 151). Liston’s journal offers one example of her role in this ‘friendly intercourse’: she reports a conversation during her visit to the Kaimakam’s wife, who says ‘as she had probably been instructed, that her pasha, and many good Turks, thought the English the best allies Turkey could have’ because ‘they had always found them upright and honest, and not telling lies’ (p. 166). Liston replies: ‘that [she] believed it to be the wish of England that the Turks should continue great and independent’ (p. 166). Although she played no official role in the British diplomatic mission, in her letters Liston does at times refer to herself as ‘a diplomat’, using phrases such as ‘we diplomats’ when she writes to Madam de Freire, the wife of a Portuguese diplomat, for example (NLS MS 5650 f. 57r). Part of any European ambassador’s brief was to ensure that the Capitulations, the special trading privileges granted by the Porte to various European governments, were honoured. The British Ambassador also had to be the ‘peacemaker between, and judge under English law and moral chastiser of [the] members [of the British commercial community]’ (Berridge 2009: 32). Like Montagu before her (2013: 124–5), Liston says little about this aspect of her husband’s role, but Daniel quotes a letter from Robert Liston to an English merchant who had complained to the British office about his treatment by the



the eye of a stranger 43

Ottoman Governor of the island of Zante, telling him that although the Governor’s behaviour was ‘barbarous, savage, brutal, every thing you choose to call it’, ‘he was in the right as to the matter though not as to the manner’ (quoted in Daniel 1966: 148).45 Moreover, Liston’s accounts of the deaths of the Greek Mourousi brothers and of the Italian Dr Lorenzo suggest the danger for Europeans so close to the Porte or the Sultan’s harem as to be vulnerable to the arbitrary dictates of Ottoman power, despite any theoretical diplomatic protection. Liston states that ‘Lorenzo was a Frank, and under Austrian protection’, but he was nevertheless strangled, apparently on the orders of the Sultan, perhaps because of the ‘envy and jealousy, not only of the ignorant Turkish physicians, but of the members of the government’ (p. 201).

Thematic Continuities There are a number of thematic and stylistic continuities between the travel accounts of Montagu, Craven, Liston, Pardoe and Harvey: all criticise various aspects of Roman Catholicism and/or Islam and Ottoman religious practices as well as political intrigue, and most deplore the power of the janissaries and generally praise the attempts to control them. Most also offer snapshots of the different ethnic communities in Constantinople, and all except Harvey comment on the dangers of contagion from the plague and the precautions taken against it. The writers’ observations on these issues illustrate the ‘ethnographic or anthropological curiosity’ which O’Loughlin sees as typical of the eighteenth century (2018: 6) and which Fay notes as ‘a staple of the [travel] genre’ in the Romantic period also (2016: 74). But there is considerable variation in the women travellers’ observations, as there is in their political comments, in part due to their different historical contexts. Landry comments on the repetitiveness of ‘both the itineraries and the views of Anglo-American women travelers to Turkey [. . .] since Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’ and emphasises their ‘compulsion to repeat’, adding that sometimes travellers echo one of their predecessors ‘without acknowledging her as any kind of precedent’ (2000: 52, 55, 62) as with Harvey’s comments on the Armenians, which echo Montagu’s almost word for word. Liston, like Montagu before her and Pardoe after her, criticises G. R. Berridge also quotes a complaint from the Levant Company in 1820 about Robert Liston’s conduct in defending British merchants’ interests which it sees as ‘too mild’ (2009: 53).

45

44

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Roman Catholicism. Montagu mocks the Catholic belief in holy relics and the superstitious practices this gives rise to (2013: 51, 53, 70, among others). In Palermo, Liston declares that she was ‘confirmed’ in her long-held belief ‘that the Catholic religion encouraged idleness’, by ‘seeing the number of people, of the lower class, who were [in the cathedral] wasting their time’ and ‘numbers loitering about idle’ (p. 89). She also criticises the ‘Roman Catholic churches’ in Sicily as being, in general, ‘disguised if not disfigured by gilding and painting’ and ‘too much ornamented’ (p. 89), while Pardoe disapproves of the accumulation of wealth by Catholic monks and monasteries (1837: I, 41). Examples of the five writers’ attitudes to Islamic practices may be seen in their accounts of the Whirling Dervishes. Montagu finds them ‘ridiculous’ but also ‘touching’ (2013: 170). Liston describes them at much greater length, saying: ‘The scene altogether was ridiculous, but not laughable. There was a quiet solemnity in their movements, a sort of grace in their obeisances, a melancholy paleness in their looks, which rendered it, with their sweet-toned flute, interesting’ (p. 158). Pardoe praises them because, ‘unlike the monks of the Church of Rome’, dervishes are not allowed ‘to enrich either themselves or their convent’, and she also praises Ottoman tolerance of others’ religions (1837: I, 41, 50), and she disagrees with an unnamed ‘modern traveller’ who calls the dervishes’ ceremony ‘an absurdity’, although she admits that it is alien to her (Ibid.: I, 45–6). Harvey calls the ceremony of the ‘Dancing Dervishes’ ‘a curious though a somewhat humiliating spectacle’ accompanied by music from a ‘dismally dreadful’ flute, but she finds the ‘hideous howls and frantic actions’ of another sect of Dervishes ‘revolting’ and wonders how human beings can consider such ‘degrading’ behaviour a mode of worship (1871: 41, 43, 44–5). Related to these criticisms of Islam and some of its practices are the writers’ comments on Turkish and other superstitions. Liston gives the examples of ‘superstitious Turks’ who believe that the outbreak of plague in 1812 is ‘in consequence of the peace with Russia’ (p. 123). She also notes that ‘Storks and turtles, and the water fowls on the Bosphorus, are esteemed birds of good omen’, and that ‘Superstition, indeed, is carried so far in this country, that the Grand Signor has two astrologers attached to the Seraglio, who announce to him the fortunate or unfortunate days for signing treaties, declaring peace or war, etc.’, the words, ‘so far’ suggesting her critique of such superstitions in political decision-making (p. 149). Montagu gives the example of an otherwise sensible Turkish lady who is convinced of the efficacy of ‘enchantment’ or magic in inducing love (2013: 149–50). Craven criticises the ‘thousand superstitious ideas the Turks have relative to



the eye of a stranger 45

Franks [Westerners]’, such as the belief that they are all knowledgeable about medicine (1789: 230–1), Pardoe sees Turkish superstitions as obstructions to progress (1837: I, 84, 289), while Harvey compares the Turks’ superstitions to those of the Calabrians or of sailors (1871: 291, 301). Liston alone relates superstition to politics. Liston is typical of these women writers in her criticisms of the janissaries and her praise for the efforts of the various sultans to control or reform them, but she is distinctive in the precision of her analysis and in her perception of the janissaries’ role in maintaining a balance of power. She notes: ‘The suppression or rather complete reform of this very formidable body of his subjects is the wish of the present Grand Signor and has been that of many of his predecessors’ (p. 145). Unlike his predecessors, however, Mahmud II did abolish the janissary corps in 1826, that is, six years after the Listons had departed. Liston saw such potential reform as dangerous since the powers of the Sultan and the janissaries ‘check each other, and from thence proceeds the little moderation that exists’, ‘unless it was possible to limit the power of the monarch and of those to whom he devolves it’, such reform would, she says ‘be taking the chain from a tiger, and setting him loose on the country’ (p. 145), the image of the wild beast indicating her disapproval of the Sultan’s unlimited power.46 Montagu relates the story of the pasha in Belgrade who was murdered during the reign of Ahmed III (1703–30) by the garrison of janissaries who remained unpunished by the next pasha (2013: 96–7). She also sees the janissaries as ‘the actors of the revolution’ in the revolt which forced the ‘abdication’ of Mustafa II in 1703 (Ibid.: 105 n. 1). Craven does little more than repeat hearsay – that is, what ‘[she has] heard’ of the Sultan, Abdul Hamid I,47 of the janissaries who, she says rather vaguely, ‘sometimes make a revolt’ and of the ‘large party now murmuring loudly against the patience of the Porte’ (1789: 240). She also repeats the report that ‘at a fire some Janissaries not doing their duty properly [the Captain Pasha, that is, the chief admiral of the Ottoman fleet] had four of them flung into it’ (Ibid.: 209). Pardoe says little about such issues although she does identify a ‘large plane tree’ near the Sultan Ahmet Mosque as the place where ‘several of the principal Janissaries’ were hanged on the orders of Sultan Mahmud ‘during the destruction of that formidable The sultan’s power was at least theoretically restricted in various ways thanks to ‘palace politics and factionalism among imperial elites and in the military establishment’, as well as by Islamic law and the ulema or Islamic scholarly class (Yaycioglu 2016: 23; see also Cavaliero 2013: 21). 47 Craven’s Journey was published in 1789, but her travels took place during 1785–6. 46

46

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

body’  (1837: I, 395). Pardoe also refers to the janissaries (although she does not use the word) in reporting the events of the rebellion of the troops of Mustafa Pasha (or Scodra Pasha), in Albania in 1831 (Ibid.: I, 243–9).48 Like all the other women travellers, Liston sees the janissaries as a source of instability, although she emphasises their role in limiting sultanic power. Liston’s comments on Russia’s role in Turkey and on what she sees as the Ottoman tendency to tyranny and intrigue are echoed by other writers, although perspectives on the role of Russia in Ottoman politics vary a great deal due to the different historical contexts of the writings. Liston is diplomatically neutral in relation to Ottoman– Russian relations in her journals, not expanding on the contemporary relations between Russia, Britain and the Ottoman Empire, although she is more explicit and detailed in her letters to friends and family. For example, writing to her nephew, Dick Ramage, Liston says that ‘The Turks, besides their general contempt of all Christian powers, particularly hate the Russians, and fear the French’; she explains the machinations of the French to try to prevent the Ottoman–Russian peace treaty, commenting that she hopes the French Ambassador’s ‘conscience is clear’ in relation to the Mourousis’ executions, obviously implying that she does not think it should be (pp. 189, 190; see also NLS MS 5650 f. 57v). Early in Liston’s main Constantinople journal she mentions the presence of Sir Robert Wilson, a military officer ‘attached to the Embassy’, who would ‘be sent on to the armies on the Danube, should Mr Liston find it expedient to take measures to bring about a peace betwixt the Turks and Russians’ (p. 75). However, during the Listons’ visit to the presumed site of Troy, they learn that ‘peace has already been signed betwixt the Grand Vizier and the Russian plenipotentiaries, and that Count Italinski [the Russian Ambassador] is expected at Constantinople’ (p. 110). Liston describes the amicable meeting between her husband and the Chevalier Italinski, at Silivria (now Silivri), on the Sea of Marmara, as they all travel to Constantinople (pp. 120–1) and afterwards refers to dining with him in the diplomatic enclave of Büyükdere, now part of Sarıyer in Istanbul (p. 140). Montagu focuses mainly on events from Ottoman history; her pro-Turkish position is clear when, in meditating on the horrors of war at the site of the battle of Petrovaradin where Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Ottoman army in August 1716, she refers to ‘the defeat of Peterwaradin’ and ‘the loss of the battle’ (2013: 127; see also Scodra is presumably a corruption of İşkodralı (‘from Scutari’). Buşatlı Mustafa Paşa’s rebellion lasted from mid-March to 10 November 1831.

48



the eye of a stranger 47

85, 95 n. 1, 127 n. 2). Craven, again reporting hearsay, condemns the fact that ‘places are obtained at the Porte by intrigue’, asserting that ‘the vile low intrigues of the ministers here are not to be imagined’ (1789: 207, 209), but giving no specific examples. Craven is the only woman traveller who has an openly imperialist perspective, wishing ‘to see a colony of English families’ at Sevastopol (a Russian port from 1783 onwards) ‘establishing manufactures’ and ‘fair and free trade’ (Ibid.: 188). Unlike Liston, who takes a moderate position and Craven, who is generally pro-Russian, praising the cultivation of the Empress, Catherine the Great, and the many talents of Prince Potemkin (Ibid.: 128, 130–1), Pardoe openly and repeatedly condemns ‘Russian supremacy’, calling Russia ‘Turkey’s semi-barbarous ally’ and arguing that its influence makes the Sultan, Mahmud II, unpopular (1837: I, 62, 345, 93–5). She finds the Ottoman position very vulnerable because of ‘the community of religion between the Russian and the Greek’ and pleads for the Western European powers to aid Turkish military and naval forces to resist Russian involvement and influence (1837: I, 344; see also 344–6). Harvey, conversely, praises English–Russian friendship (1871: 129, 153) and the heroism of Russian soldiers and women in the Crimean War (Ibid.: 18–68), although she also criticises the Russian system as ‘very faulty’ and leading to ‘much oppression and veniality’ (Ibid.: 180). None of the women travellers offers detailed or careful analysis of the political context, but Liston and Montagu’s neutrality in relation to Russia as regards contemporary events contrasts with the more biased approaches of the other writers. Liston also criticises Oriental despotism or, as she calls it, ‘the tyranny of a despotic government’, mainly in the aforementioned accounts of the deaths of Dr Lorenzo, the physician to the Seraglio, and of the two Mourousi brothers,49 the Sultan’s interpreters, who were all summarily executed, evidence of the arbitrary and unpredictable nature of sultanic power (p. 140; see also Yaycioglu 2016: 25). The detailed account of Dr Lorenzo’s death occurs in a journal fragment of 1815 (pp. 198–203). The deaths of Demetrious and Panagios, or, in Liston’s words, ‘the execution of two of the Greek princes, Mourousi, supposed to be the first in rank of that unhappy race’, are recounted in detail in the main journal (pp. 140–1). Liston comments that ‘The place of dragoman of the Porte seems [. . .] to be the only public employment allowed to the Greek nation’ and that it ‘generally leads to a premature death or [. . .] to the principalities of Moldavia or Wallachia [the former now Daniel refers to them as the ‘Murusy’ family (1966: 85), and Liston’s spelling is erratic, as it often is with proper names: see pp. 71, 122.

49

48

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Moldova, the latter part of Romania]’ (p. 140). This parallels Craven’s observations that it is usually a Greek prince who ‘is named by the Porte to reign in Moldavia and Wallachia’, and that after acquiring a fortune and retiring to Constantinople they ‘are generally beheaded’ (1789: 238), although, as usual, Craven gives no specific names or details. Liston continues her more detailed account by recounting the Sultan’s order ‘to have Demetrious Mourousi cut in pieces’, the ‘surprise and horror of the public’, and the fate of Panagios, who was taken from his ‘handsome house on the banks of the Bosphorus’ to the Porte, ‘where without a word his head was cut off’ (p. 140). Her conclusion reports speculations about the cause of their deaths: ‘The display of their family consequence to their countrymen, and of their superior talents to some of the members of the Divan, it is conjectured, contributed equally with general envy to destroy them’ (p. 141). Liston suspected French involvement in these deaths, as she says to Dick Ramage (see p. 190), a suspicion echoed in Robert Liston’s dispatch to Lord Castlereagh of 26 March 1813, where he declares that they might be seen ‘as a sacrifice to the influence of France’ and as the result of ‘the enmity of certain Turkish ministers, to whom their superiority of talents as well as their haughtiness of manners had given unpardonable offence’ (NLS MS 5627 f. 91r).50 All the writers except Harvey comment on the situation of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. Liston takes individuals as representatives of the oppressed situation of the Greek nation. For example, during the journey to Constantinople from the coast, she feels sorry for ‘the poor Greek boy who conducted [her] car’, who suffers from the heat, and later she does ‘with the utmost difficulty [prevail] on the principal janissary to dismount one of the younger Turks and let him ride’, presenting this incident as ‘a specimen of the wretched slavish situation to which fortune has reduced these unfortunate Greeks’ (p. 110). Later Liston presents the determination of the Greeks rowing the Listons to out-row ‘the Turks of the Mihmandar’ (the official from the Porte conducting the Listons to Constantinople) as suggesting ‘the spite and even hatred with which the Greeks regard their haughty conquerors’ (p. 114). Robert Liston finally appeases their rowers by promising them ‘that if they would make less noise, and row less ardently he would allow them to out-row the Mihmandar’s Turks on the last day of the voyage’ (p. 114). Later, describing Belgrade village, Liston calls M. S. Anderson offers a different explanation for the executions, seeing them as due to ‘the part they [the Mourousis] had played in making peace with Russia (1966: 47 n. 1).

50



the eye of a stranger 49

the Greeks a ‘degraded nation’ (p. 136) and in comparing the Greeks and the Armenians she observes that the Armenians have for a long time past been the favoured nation, both of the sultans and of the government in general, and [she believes] deservedly, for the higher orders of them are better principled, less artful, and troublesome than the Greeks, and the lower class much more orderly and industrious. (p. 136) She also acknowledges the Greek priests who offer them hospitality or who act as their guides (for example pp. 114–15, 117, 119). Montagu is much more critical than Liston of some of the observances of Greek Orthodox priests, whom she accuses of ‘falsify[ing the Koran] with the extremity of malice’, asserting that ‘No body of men were ever more ignorant and more corrupt’ (2013: 106–7). As for Craven, she is horrified in Athens by ‘the abominable ignorance of the Turks’ in destroying Ancient Greek sculptures and she contrasts contemporary Turkish ignorance with Ancient Athenian ‘heros [sic] and sages’ (1789: 257–9, 265). Pardoe describes both the Greeks and Armenians as being involved in trade, the Armenians mainly as jewellers and ‘money-changers’: for her, the Armenians have ‘no soul’, are entirely obsessed with money, ‘heavy witted’ and ‘born to slavery’ (1837: I, 37, 365), but the Greeks are more ‘lively and quick-witted’, although also ‘keen, shrewd, and intriguing’ and more progressive than the Turks who cling to their ‘thousand old and cherished superstitions’ (Ibid.: I, 84–5, 158–9, 84). Like several of the other writers, Liston comments on the Armenians’ role in commerce and on the peculiarities of their marriage ceremonies. She comments: ‘the Armenians are now becoming so wealthy that it is said, the Sultan begins to cast an eye of desire upon their wealth, and I do not think them quite secure’ (p. 137). Towards the end of her main journal, Liston also relates a meeting with an unnamed Armenian woman who has been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and who wishes to present Liston with ‘hoops, rings, beads, and crosses, of coloured glass with soap and wax tapers’; but, Liston continues: ‘the greatest curiosity was her own arms, on which were the figures of the temples and etc. at Jerusalem, burnt into the flesh of her arms, and covering the greatest part of them’ (p. 183). Like Liston, Montagu describes the Armenians as industrious and as practising a particularly strict form of fasting (2013: 175–6), and she comments on what she sees as their outlandish marriage customs, which involve, among other things, the bride being invisible to the groom during the ceremony and the groom being asked

50

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

by the priest ‘whether he is contented to marry that woman, be she deaf, be she blind’ (Ibid.: 176), details which are repeated more or less verbatim by Harvey (1871: 52–3). Liston’s comments on the Jewish community in Constantinople focus on their financial role. Liston notes that they are ‘still very numerous and wealthy – and there is one great situation likely to always be in their hands, the bankers to the Aga of the janissaries’, and she continues: ‘I am told the arrangement of their pay is a matter so intricate, and has been so long confided entirely to the Jews, that no other nation could readily manage it’ (p. 137). She also says: ‘The tribe of Israelites has suffered dreadfully by the plague’ (p. 137), and in describing her visit to ‘the cells of the insane, in the form of cloisters’ near the Hippodrome in Constantinople, she notices a Jew who ‘was sad and sick’ but makes no further comment (p. 144). In 1717 Montagu had observed that ‘most of the rich tradesmen [are] Jews’ and that ‘that people are in incredible power in this country’ (2013: 136); Craven says nothing about the Armenians or the Jews in Turkey, although she notes in passing the presence of ‘dirty suburbs filled with Jews’ at the gates of Kraków (1789: 115), and Pardoe focuses on the poor Jews in Constantinople, referring to the ‘pauper barrack, redolent of filth’ of some of them (1837: I, 419). She also reports their ‘wretched and revolting superstition’, which she believes reveals their ‘abjectness’: that is, ‘when they are carrying a body to the grave that is met by a Christian or a Mahomedan who refuses to bend down and pass under the bier, [they] consider the corpse [. . .] contaminated [. . .] and [. . .] abandon it to the tender mercies of the local authorities’ (1837: I, 466), giving an eye-witness account of one such scene. Liston emerges as a far more tolerant observer than the later writers. The dangers of the plague and the precautions taken against it figure in all the writers, except Harvey. Montagu mistakenly downplays the danger (2013: 125), unlike Liston who gives a detailed account of the precautions taken against the disease. Some time after her arrival in Pera, Liston notes that she has ‘not stirred’ from the embassy in Pera, except to go by water to Büyükdere, because of the plague (p. 123). She describes in some detail the precautions taken by the Europeans of Pera: the Listons are ‘prisoners within [their] walls,’ and their ‘provisions handed in to the porter, and by him plunged in tubs of water’, while ‘Letters, papers, etc. are fumigated on a machine placed for the persons at the gate, and even visitors sometimes undergo this operation’ (p. 135). Craven refers in passing to the plague several times, on one occasion implying that Turks are especially prone to suffer from it and infect others (1789: 193; see also 219), as Alexander Kinglake does later in Eothen. However, Craven



the eye of a stranger 51

does not go as far as Kinglake, who identifies the Orient with the plague, devotes twenty-five pages to describing ‘Cairo and the Plague’ (1982 [1844]: 192–218), and mockingly reports on the ‘state of siege’ embodied in the precautions described by Liston thirty years earlier (Ibid.: 199). In the 1830s, Pardoe comments on the necessity to prevent contact with people when moving from Pera to Constantinople to prevent contamination through contact (1837: I, 406).

Stylistic Continuities Liston shares with all these writers, in varying degrees, certain stylistic features such as the descriptive convention of the picturesque, the sublime, or the romantic in relation to landscapes or seascapes and people(s) and what Said calls the ‘textual attitude’ (1995: 93), notably in references to previous writings on Turkey, to classical works and/or to works of literature and mythology. Liston and others praise the panorama of the various views of Constantinople, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, with their combination of natural and man-made features, often singling out the plane trees for particular comment and mingling adjectives like ‘picturesque’, ‘sublime’ and ‘romantic’, and merging Orientalist and picturesque descriptions. As Schiffer demonstrates, these become standard for both male and female nineteenth-century writers (1999: 135–50). By contrast, Montagu often uses the trope of the pastoral, as she notes herself (2013: 118). Liston uses the word, ‘picturesque’, to describe both buildings – a village near Cádiz, with its ‘flat roofs in the Asiatic, or rather Moorish taste’ has ‘a very picturesque effect’, for example, or a ‘picturesque cottage’ in Sicily – and natural features, such as the ‘picturesque nests’ of storks or the ‘picturesque’ ‘suburb called Scutari’ on the Bosphorus (pp. 78, 87, 105, 122–3). But she also sees a scene at sea near Gallipoli as ‘truly romantic’, points out the ‘Romantic spots’ on both the European and Asian sides of the Bosphorus on the boat journey to Büyükdere, and finds the ‘Asiatic Coast’ of Turkey ‘picturesque and wildly pretty’ (pp. 116, 139, 176). Craven describes the beauty of the trees in Constantinople, especially the plane trees, and she finds the grotto on the Greek island of Antiparos ‘a scene truly romantic’ (1789: 213, 219, 246). Harvey, as well as describing both places (often houses rather than landscapes) and people(s) as picturesque, uses the tropes of the sublime and the noble savage for the mountains of Circassia and their inhabitants, notably their military, political and spiritual leader, Schamyl (the Imam Shamil, 1797–1871), whom she describes as a Byronic hero (1871: 249, 239, 252–5).

52

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Liston’s initial description of the picturesque vista of the Bosphorus is accompanied by references to the ‘fairy palaces of the sultans’ and of ‘the sisters of the late unfortunate Sultan Selim’, thus linking the trope of picturesque scenery or the panorama with a vocabulary associated with Orientalism (pp. 125, 126). Similarly, for Pardoe and Harvey the same scenery calls up images of fairyland or magic (Pardoe 1837: I, 2, 8; Harvey 1871: 3). In a letter to Lady Haddington of 14 June 1813, Liston says: ‘I have found that the two most important books, to peruse on the spot are Gibbon’s and the Arabian Nights Entertainment [. . .] the Arabian tales are filled with real portraits of the manners, morals, and customs of the Mahometans – for these people, natives of Asia, retain everything Asiatic and adopt nothing European’ (NLS MS 5640 f.  147r). Elsewhere she calls the Nights ‘a true portrait’ of Constantinople (NLS MS 5712 f. 20r). Similarly, Montagu had assured her sister that ‘the Arabian tales’ ‘are a real representation of the manners here’ (2013: 158), and another British ambassadress, Lady Mary Elgin declares, after meeting Sultan Selim III, ‘You can conceive of nothing in the Arabian Nights equal to that room’ in its gem-encrusted splendour (quoted in Tuson 2014: 69). Pardoe’s The City of the Sultan refers to the Thousand and One Nights several times (1837: I, 288, 449, 35, 497) and at the beginning of The Beauties of the Bosphorus, she explains that although her anticipatory ‘visions’ of ‘adventures as numerous and as romantic as those of the “Thousand and One Nights”’ in ‘the picturesque capital of Turkey’ were not realised, ‘Constantinople needs no aid from the imagination to make it one of the brightest gems in the diadem of nature’ (1838: 3–4). As Daniel says, ‘travellers never forgot the Arabian Nights’ (1966: 48). Liston, like other writers, alludes to the works of previous travellers and to literary works, historical events, and so on. Many of Liston’s allusions refer to current or recent political or historical events, Montagu’s letters frequently evoke previous travellers and classical and contemporary authors, while Craven, Pardoe and Harvey make far fewer allusions, literary or otherwise. On the journey to Turkey, Liston refers to events in the Napoleonic Wars such as the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) and the Siege of Cádiz (1810–12) (pp. 80, 76). Like Montagu, she refers to Homeric events and characters and to his geographical accuracy, although she is more hesitant than Montagu about correcting other travellers, like Le Chevalier, who had claimed to identify the site of Troy, provoking the scorn of Hobhouse (2014 [1855]: II, 97 n. 10, 100–1). Liston says that she ‘will not pretend to dispute’ Le Chevalier’s statement that ‘Menderé [. . .] is supposed to be a corruption of the word Scamander’ (p. 105). She continues: ‘I



the eye of a stranger 53

do not pretend to correct travellers, or to follow Homer’, but she insists that ‘the situation of this citadel, the hills and rivers, precisely answered to his description of those of ancient Troy’ (p. 106). As Marshall and Williams say, however, ‘There was no agreement as to precisely where the city had been’ (1982: 11). Liston also refers to more recent accounts of Turkey and Constantinople, including that of the non-traveller, Edward Gibbon, who, she says, ‘gives the most correct and elegant description of Constantinople and its environs that ever was written, – and he never saw it’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 147; see also NLS MS 5712 f. 20r). Gibbon’s description of Constantinople is among the few allusions in Craven (1789: 198–9). In Pardoe also, allusions are uncommon, although Harvey refers to Charles Dickens, the Bible and Dante (Harvey 1871: 16, 26, 76), and she gives detailed descriptions of the sites of some of the key events of the Crimean War of 1853–6 (Ibid.: 121–6, 132–6, 138–56). In Liston, as in several of these writers, the textual attitude is linked to the trope of belatedness, identified by Ali Behdad as the desire for an Orient which is seen to be disappearing due to the rise of European colonialism and the degeneration of travel into tourism (1999: 66, 13–16). Belatedness often takes the form of the traveller’s sense that the country explored or visited has already been so often and so thoroughly described that there is nothing left to say. Most of the writers make this observation about Constantinople or its monuments. Liston, for example, says: ‘St Sophia has been so often and so well described, that [she has] only to say, it appears worthy of the expense and ­trouble bestowed upon it by the Greek emperors’ (p. 153), although she continues her description nonetheless, just as Harvey declares that it is ‘useless to describe’ Constantinople or its bazaars (1871: 3) and then does so. Hobhouse, writing in 1813, spends a full page explaining that Constantinople has been so often described that there is nothing more to say but then offers his own commentary (2014 [1855]: II, 206–7). Earlier, Montagu had refused to give the Countess of Bristol the history of Constantinople, an account of its mosques, or a list of ‘Turkish Emperors’, and she tells the Abbé Conti that she has not given him an account of the Turkish government or the court, because they have been extensively described already (2013: 171, 177–8). Craven refers her readers to ‘Books’ for description of the pictures of Venice and to Gibbon for the portrayal of Constantinople (1789: 97, 198–9), and although the textual trope is non-existent in Pardoe, it appears in Kinglake’s Eothen (1982 [1844]: 42–8), which also contains very early examples of the travel as escape from England motif analysed by Paul Fussell in relation to twentieth-century travel (1980: 15–23).

54

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Liston’s Distinctive Voice There are several aspects of Liston’s text which distinguish her writing from that of other travellers and which create her distinctive voice and perspective. These are: her deployment of the human-centred picturesque, the depictions of the life of the ordinary people in Constantinople and elsewhere (including their work, religious observances and dress), the description of diplomatic and other ceremonies, and criticisms of the ceremonial attached to her role as diplomatic consort. Linked to the last two of these are the several occasions where she reveals her comic or irritated awareness of herself as a spectacle rather than the spectator. Liston uses the tropes of the picturesque, the sublime and the romantic, as other travellers do. But in her Turkish journal as in her earlier North American writings she also gives more specific and detailed descriptions of species and varieties of trees and plants than any other writer, reflecting her interest and expertise in botany and horticulture (see, for example, her accounts of the flora of a convent in Gibraltar (p. 82), of the plants she obtained in Palermo (p. 90), and of the trees near Troy (p. 108) and around Büyükdere and Constantinople (pp. 125, 122). What Angela Byrne says about women and science applies to Liston’s botanising: ‘With the development of a more holistic view of what constituted “science” in the past [. . .] there is growing acknowledgment of women’s gathering, production and dissemination of scientific knowledge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ (2019: 25). For Liston, the picturesque is often human-centred: she is much more likely than her aristocratic predecessors to describe everyday events and ordinary people. She notes that ‘to the labouring poor the Ramazan is an affliction. Porters, sailors, boatmen, toiling in a burning sun from its rising to its setting, without permission to cool their parched lips, was a very cruel privation given by Master Mahomet’ (pp. 134–5), and follows up this general statement with a description of the sufferings of one of their boatmen: The janissary was a poor little withered old man, and appeared very anxious for drink. We all partook of his distress, and looked anxious for the decline of the sun. We announced eagerly the setting of the sun, but the Reis refused him permission (that is, denied that it had set) though the bottle of water was in his hand, urging that was the sun actually gone down, the minarets would be illuminated. [. . .] At length lights appeared in a small minaret on the banks of the channel. He still refused. I insisted, but



the eye of a stranger 55

he remained obstinate till the canon was fired from the Capitan Pasha’s fleet: and it was both painful and pleasing to see the eagerness with which these poor creatures passed the bottles of water from one to another, then began greedily on their olives, grapes, and bread. (p. 147)51 The carefully dramatised description with its elements of suspense – the Reis’s insistence that the minarets should be illuminated before the breaking of the fast, his further refusal, and finally his acceptance of the cannon firing as the sign that the janissary can eat and drink – as well as the four adjectives describing the janissary – ‘a poor little withered old man’, and the epithet, ‘these poor creatures’, offer a detailed portrait of the incident and reveal both Liston’s sensibility and her appeal to that of the reader. It might also be argued that Liston’s sympathy with the old man’s suffering outweighs her respect for correct Islamic religious observance and possibly her ignorance of the latter. In any case, the passage is an example of the way in which the ‘culture of sensibility’ made it possible for women to claim ‘the privilege of the aesthetic subject’ as observer, as Bohls says (1996: 100). Liston also uses the technique of making the unfamiliar familiar through analogies between Ottoman and British life, as Montagu does, although Liston’s comparisons are less socially elevated than Montagu’s: Montagu compares the behaviour of the women in the baths at Sophia favourably to that of ladies at any ‘European court’ (2013: 101), whereas Liston compares the dervishes’ whirling motion to ‘making cheeses’, a reference to a children’s game played by girls, during which they would inflate their petticoats and skirts by turning round and round (p. 157, see n. 3; and Gomme 1964: II, 311). Similarly, when describing one of their early meals in Turkey, Liston explains that ‘their dishes are generally placed upon a stool [. . .] upon a large round tin tray, resembling our girdle [griddle] in Scotland for baking cakes’ (p. 120). Liston at times becomes the spectacle rather than the spectator, something with which she is generally ill at ease. Several times she registers her awareness that she and her husband are an exotic and alien spectacle for the Turks, just as Montagu realised that her dressed self was a bizarre spectacle for the naked women in the Turkish bath in Sophia (2013: 101–3). Craven also occasionally presents herself as spectacle, but in so doing she is usually contemptuous of the s­ pectators, This passage in Liston’s journal seems to incorporate rewordings of some of Robert Liston’s marginal comments (see Section 7, below).

51

56

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

whether they are English or Turkish (1789: 79, 226–7). As ambassadress, Liston realises the inevitability of her role as spectacle but, unlike Montagu, who arguably ‘desires to be both the spectator and the spectacle’ (Beynon 2003: 32), she does not seek it or like it much. In Abydos (now Çanakkale, on the Gallipoli peninsula), says Liston, she and her husband seem to be regarded by the inhabitants ‘as a Chinese ambassador and his wife would be in an English village’ (p. 112), the Chinese here acting as an example of the alien and the exotic. The next morning, the Listons again become the spectacle and are described with a sense of both comedy and irony. Of their arrival at Gallipoli where they are ceremonially accompanied on their way to ‘the habitation of a Greek bishop’, she says: It was really amusing to see two poor creatures who had been cooped up in a small boat, dressing in the bed on which they slept and wetted by the waves occasioned by the wind and current, without time or quiet to dress and refresh themselves, thus made a show of, from the moment of setting their feet on land. But they whom the sultan chooses to honour, must be honoured. (p. 115) Liston appeals to the reader’s pity through the animal associations of the words ‘creatures’ and ‘cooped up in’ and through her presentation of herself and her husband as victims of natural forces in the passive verbs of ‘had been cooped up in’ and ‘wetted by’.52 There is also the comic assonance, alliteration and sibilance of ‘dress and refresh’, and the sentence culminates in the superbly ironic and ambiguous final clause: ‘But they whom the sultan chooses to honour, must be honoured’. As diplomats the Listons must be treated ceremonially and therefore feel themselves honoured, says Liston, at the same time making it abundantly clear that she could well have dispensed with the ceremony and that she regards the honour as spurious. Shortly afterwards, at Gallipoli (now Gelibolu), the Listons are treated to a ceremonial dinner of ‘forty dishes’ with ‘at least as many attendants as dishes’, and Liston explains that her husband’s interpreter, acting on his behalf, ‘distribute[s] above three hundred piastres to the amount of from fifteen to twenty pounds sterling’ (p. 116). She comments acerbically: ‘This is paying for honour for there is nothing of comfort in it, and I seldom make a hearty meal’ (p. 116). Liston’s irritation with such ceremony may be connected with her In her first North American journal (1796) Liston evokes the pleasure of sighting land after having been ‘cooped up in a Ship for many weeks’ (NLS MS 5696 p. 3).

52



the eye of a stranger 57

criticisms of the excessive etiquette she encounters in Turkey, criticisms which are shared to some extent by the other writers (see Montagu 2013: 111; Craven 1789: 205; Pardoe 1837: 111; Harvey 1871: 90), perhaps an indication of a generally developing demand for greater informality. One of Liston’s predecessors at the British Embassy, Lady Mary Elgin, the wife of Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin (best known for bringing the Elgin Marbles to Britain), who served from 1799 to 1803, exemplifies both the ceremonial and the increasing informality. Like Liston, Lady Mary was received by several women of the Ottoman elite, including the sister of ‘Hassan Bey’ the High Admiral of the Turkish fleet (Tuson 2014: 69) and the mother of the Sultan, Selim III, the Valide Sultan (Checkland 1988: 53). On the former occasion, however, unlike Henrietta, she introduced a note of greater informality: she ‘stayed for two nights, sent for her pianoforte and played a reel to which all the women danced’ (Tuson 2014: 69). She also accompanied her husband when he presented his credentials to the Kaimakam and the Sultan, when she wore male dress, was introduced as Lord Bruce and was presented with a sable pelisse (Checkland 1988: 37; Tuson 2014: 63). Unlike Liston again, Lady Mary ‘revelled in the high ceremonial of the Turkish court and the lavish giving and receiving of gifts’ (Checkland 1988: 37). In the account of Liston’s first few days in Turkey during the journey from the coast to Constantinople, there are several other comments on the ‘mob’ or ‘crowd’ of ‘gazers’ who surround her and whom she finds irritating (pp. 113, 117, 120, 123, 119). For example, after having described the Greek women’s ‘mode of salutation’, she declares that she is ‘already heartily tired of all this nonsense, particularly of the female visitors, for it is difficult to get rid of them’, although she does exempt from this criticism ‘those of a better class’ who leave immediately after drinking coffee (p.  115). Like Montagu, Liston distinguishes between the behaviour of different classes. For example, when Montagu asserts that Turks very rarely lie, she immediately qualifies the statement by insisting that she is not referring to ‘the lowest sort’ whom she describes as ignorant and therefore displaying ‘very little virtue’ (2013: 174–5). There are moments, however, when Liston seems more at ease when she is the object of others’ gaze. For example, in Bursa, prevented by the weather from an excursion to Mount Olympus, Liston, with Mademoiselle Arles, the daughter of a French silk merchant in the city, decides to return the visit of the ‘Turkish ladies’ who have previously visited her (p. 182). The ladies are very interested in what Liston is wearing and especially her ‘stays, and gloves’; she explains:

58

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

As the sleeves of my gown were short, they expressed some curiosity to know how I covered my arms with them. I put them on (for from politeness I had taken them off on entering) and the delicacy and elasticity of the French leather astonished them very much. (p. 182) This ‘mutual display of clothing’, as Reina Lewis says, is a ‘key element of women’s ethnographic reportage’ which ‘allowed them to depict themselves as the object of the Ottoman women’s gaze’ (2019: 174–5), as Liston does during this visit when she chooses a ‘gown and turban’ which were ‘embroidered with bugles, which I thought would be more a novelty to them, than anything else, and I found it was so. They particularly remarked the form which the corsets gave to the breast of my gown’ (p. 165). Liston’s remarks here show her to be, like Montagu, more tolerant of the polite curiosity of upper-class Ottoman women than of crowds of ‘gazers’ of a lower sort (p. 119). Despite her moments of irritation and class snobbery, Liston is much closer to Montagu than Craven or Pardoe in terms of cultural tolerance (see Turner 2001: 160). Although Billie Melman identifies both Montagu and Craven as ‘Augustan’ writers (1995: 19) and contrasts them with the Victorians, there is a world of difference between Montagu and Craven, and Liston is much closer to Montagu’s liberal, tolerant perspective on other cultures than to Craven’s chauvinistic proto-imperialist views. A significant example of these differences can be seen in the way in which Montagu, Craven and Liston use the trope of idleness. Both Liston and Craven disapprove of Turkish ‘idleness’, and Liston associates it with Catholics in Sicily (p. 89) as well as Muslims. But although Liston does criticise the ‘idle class of women’ who spend all day at the baths (p. 179), she is relatively open-minded compared to Craven who denounces the lengthy visits to the bath and the excessive use of cosmetics as ‘strange pastimes’, describing the women in the bath as fat and ugly, ‘a disgusting sight’ (1789: 226, 263). Both Liston and Craven move from an identification of ‘idleness’ as a facet of behaviour to cultural analysis. Liston views the Turkish penchant for immobility as the sign of a people who are ‘in general uneducated, and therefore have few resources’ (p. 131), a comment which parallels nineteenth-century European diplomats’ opinion that Turkey needed improvement and modernisation, as well as observations concerning Turkish women’s lack of education by Pardoe (1837: I, 102–3) and Harvey (1871: 91). Craven constantly refers to the idleness and ignorance of the Turks, and she gives this ‘idleness’ a political meaning by remarking that Europe is fortunate that ‘Turkish idleness’ or



the eye of a stranger 59

‘supineness’ creates ‘an immense wall or barrier’ between any European power and its ‘ambitious neighbour’ (1789: 325). In this respect both Craven and Liston contrast with Montagu, who declares, in her letter to the Abbé Conti of 19 May 1718, that she is ‘almost of opinion that [the Turks] have a right notion of life, while they consume it in music, garden, wine, and delicate eating’, as opposed to British concern such as ‘politics’ or ‘science’ (2013: 179). Montagu’s comments partly confirm the ‘sensual’ Oriental stereotype (Montagu 2013: 180 n. 1), and her reference to Turkish ‘ignorance’ smacks of Orientalist condescension, but her comments are much closer to Liston’s milder criticisms than to Craven’s vitriolic denunciations. The three writers’ varying deployments of the trope of idleness (recast as carpe diem by Montagu) reveal that Liston occupies a middle ground between Montagu’s aristocratic cultural tolerance, Craven’s chauvinist and proto-imperialist critique of Turkish apathy, and Pardoe and Harvey’s Victorian concern with propriety and morality. Although Harvey admits that the Turkish bath provides an experience of ‘pleasant idleness’, she criticises both the excessive indulgence in this experience which she thinks leads Turkish women to become ‘enervated in both mind and body’ and the ‘indolence’ which ‘does much to increase the tendency to undue corpulence’ spoiling Eastern women’s bodies (1871: 78, 81). Like other British women travellers to Turkey, Liston is in a privileged position. Her journal represents a response to the Ottoman Empire at a crucial historical period, towards and after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Liston’s acerbic humour, her relative cultural tolerance, her comparative approach to Ottoman culture, and her ability to see herself at times from the Other’s perspective create a distinctive voice.

7. The Manuscripts: Composition, Revision, Dating, Readership Patrick Hart Even among the riches contained within the Liston Papers, Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal stands out. A large quarto with a full leather tight-back binding in brown calfskin, it is a handsome volume, decorated with gold fillet tooling around the boards and across the spine panels, and with its title, ‘LISTON’S TRAVELS’, tooled in gold both on the front board and the spine.53 Within, marbled endpapers enclose An image of the cover of Liston’s journal can be seen alongside the facsimiles and

53



the eye of a stranger 59

‘supineness’ creates ‘an immense wall or barrier’ between any European power and its ‘ambitious neighbour’ (1789: 325). In this respect both Craven and Liston contrast with Montagu, who declares, in her letter to the Abbé Conti of 19 May 1718, that she is ‘almost of opinion that [the Turks] have a right notion of life, while they consume it in music, garden, wine, and delicate eating’, as opposed to British concern such as ‘politics’ or ‘science’ (2013: 179). Montagu’s comments partly confirm the ‘sensual’ Oriental stereotype (Montagu 2013: 180 n. 1), and her reference to Turkish ‘ignorance’ smacks of Orientalist condescension, but her comments are much closer to Liston’s milder criticisms than to Craven’s vitriolic denunciations. The three writers’ varying deployments of the trope of idleness (recast as carpe diem by Montagu) reveal that Liston occupies a middle ground between Montagu’s aristocratic cultural tolerance, Craven’s chauvinist and proto-imperialist critique of Turkish apathy, and Pardoe and Harvey’s Victorian concern with propriety and morality. Although Harvey admits that the Turkish bath provides an experience of ‘pleasant idleness’, she criticises both the excessive indulgence in this experience which she thinks leads Turkish women to become ‘enervated in both mind and body’ and the ‘indolence’ which ‘does much to increase the tendency to undue corpulence’ spoiling Eastern women’s bodies (1871: 78, 81). Like other British women travellers to Turkey, Liston is in a privileged position. Her journal represents a response to the Ottoman Empire at a crucial historical period, towards and after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Liston’s acerbic humour, her relative cultural tolerance, her comparative approach to Ottoman culture, and her ability to see herself at times from the Other’s perspective create a distinctive voice.

7. The Manuscripts: Composition, Revision, Dating, Readership Patrick Hart Even among the riches contained within the Liston Papers, Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal stands out. A large quarto with a full leather tight-back binding in brown calfskin, it is a handsome volume, decorated with gold fillet tooling around the boards and across the spine panels, and with its title, ‘LISTON’S TRAVELS’, tooled in gold both on the front board and the spine.53 Within, marbled endpapers enclose An image of the cover of Liston’s journal can be seen alongside the facsimiles and

53

60

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

a text block of cream wove paper with a ‘RUSSELL & Co 1810’ watermark. The ink Liston used throughout was of good quality and has proved very stable, and may have been made on site at the ambassadorial palace: the Liston Papers contain a handwritten ‘Direction to make Turkish ink’ (NLS MS 5720 f. 24r: see Figure 1.4).54 The journal is written throughout in Liston’s usually neat italic hand (see Plate 5), although the corrections and insertions found on almost every folio make some parts difficult to decipher (for an example, see Plate 6). Judging by the hand and the shade of ink, most of these revisions were carried out either at or close to the time of writing, but some, particularly in the earlier parts of the journal, are clearly Liston’s later modifications. Liston often inserts an alternative word or phrase above her first thought, usually crossing out the original but sometimes leaving both to stand. Occasionally she appears to have thought better of her revisions and has cancelled these out, leaving the original text in place. Usually when deleting Liston simply strikes a word or phrase through, but in several places there is evidence of attempts at scratching out the text, sometimes to then write over it, in others to scribble through a word or phrase with a series of spirals. The journal can be divided into two parts. The first, slightly longer half is written as a continuous narrative with no sub-headings and covers the three and a half months from the departure from London to the trip up the Bosphorus on 17 July 1812 (ff. 3r–39v). The second half (ff. 40r–73v) is composed of shorter, more episodic or diary-like entries, most beginning on a new folio. The earlier of these tend to have headings giving place (most commonly ‘Pera of Constantinople’) and full date. After initial entries for 27 July and 11 August, these are dated at roughly six-week intervals. The later entries tend to be longer, less frequent, and to cover longer periods, while their headings sometimes give only the month (often in abbreviated form) and the year, omitting place: the last three, headed in the manuscript ‘1813 August 17’, ‘1813 Dec.’, and ‘1814 June’, span over ten months between them. While the pattern is not uniform, there is a noticeable deterioration in the neatness and general presentation in the second half, visible in the hand (some later parts also appear to have been written with an inferior nib), in the tidiness of margins, in the positioning of headings, and above all in the making of corrections and additions. In the transcripts on the National Library of Scotland’s Digital Gallery at . 54 Tests carried out by the National Library of Scotland on Liston’s journal, while not conclusive, suggest that the ink she used is not iron gall but carbon based, and could therefore be a match for the Turkish recipe.



the eye of a stranger 61

Figure 1.4  Direction to make Turkish ink, NLS MS 5720 f. 24r (National Library of Scotland)

62

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

opening pages these are brief, relatively few in number, and for the most part neatly inserted, and the manuscript resembles something that might be intended as a presentation copy. Later, we tend to find longer, freer and more frequent amendments squeezed into margins and between lines, and the overall impression is of something much closer to a working document. It is tempting to speculate that Liston initially intended what is now NLS MS 5709 as a definitive version, perhaps to be shared with select guests back at Millburn Tower in Scotland, but that she at some point downgraded it more or less consciously to the status of a work-in-progress. As we shall see, however, to draw any firm conclusions from Liston’s manuscripts regarding her intentions or her methods of composition and revision is difficult, even hazardous. Nevertheless, ‘Liston’s Travels’ offers some intriguing hints as to how and when Liston might have drafted her journals, and who she intended to read them, especially when read alongside the wealth of Liston’s correspondence and further writings from her time in Constantinople contained within the archive. Questions of Liston’s intended and actual readership, her methods of composition and revision, and of the dating of her journal and her other Turkish writings, however, turn out all too often to be difficult or even impossible to disentangle from one another. ‘Were you disposed to write a book?’ asked Daniel McCormick, an American friend of the Listons, writing in May 1821 to congratulate Henrietta and her husband upon their safe return from Turkey: ‘I think you must have seen more of the world than the famous Lady Montagu’ (NLS MS 5664 f. 103r). Liston’s journal was never printed, and there is no indication in the archive that she ever intended it for publication. It was not, however, a purely private document.55 McCormick was not alone among Liston’s many correspondents in speculating about her intentions. ‘If I live to come home,’ Liston wrote in a draft of a letter from Constantinople to an unidentified female friend:

The dividing lines between public and private circulation and between scribal and print culture around the turn of the nineteenth century are easily overstated. Writing specifically of unpublished, handwritten travel accounts by women, Zoë Kinsley has warned that we need to reassess our long-standing assumptions that these were invariably private texts circulating solely in domestic contexts. Women’s travelogues in manuscript were often structured and presented like printed books and were sometimes read by wide and influential circles of readers (Kinsley 2008: 11–13, 38–46). Conversely, women’s travel writings were often printed for private circulation, and even those intended for a public readership tended to refer back to their status as manuscripts through such devices as dedications, typefaces imitative of script, and paratexts containing personal communications (Colbert 2017: 153–5).

55



the eye of a stranger 63

you shall see this and everything else that has been new to me I thought worth putting down more particularly detailed in a kind of journal I sometimes write. But I must correct an error you seem to have fallen into in a preceding letter: I do not write my journal to anyone, nor shall it ever be out of my own hands, but I have several times given abridgements of certain parts to my friends, and this is in fact an abridgement by one of those from memory, for yours and Madame de Freire’s amusement and as a reward for your kindness in telling me so much. (NLS MS 5640 f. 218v) Dated 26 September 1813, this letter suggests that Liston’s documenting of her experiences was more or less contemporaneous with events. Included with the letter is an account of Liston’s visit to the harem of the Kaimakam that closely parallels – but is not identical with – the account found in the journal dated 17 August 1813, just over a month earlier (pp. 164 ff.). The letters in the archive provide ample evidence that Liston’s journal served as a kind of master document, upon which she would draw for accounts to include in her correspondence, either integrating them into her letters or attaching them separately. Writing to novelist, poet and fellow travel writer Ellis Cornelia Knight on 9 January 1814, for example, Liston describes the visit of the Queen of Naples to Constantinople the previous October, in wording very close to that of her journal entry of December 1813, although the order in which she narrates the various aspects of the visit differs (see NLS MS 5641 ff. 18–19; pp. 173–5).56 Perhaps most intriguing in Liston’s account of her ‘abridgements’ (which rarely significantly shorten the extracted texts) is her revelation that she would rely upon her memory to create them, rather than simply using her journal as a copy-text. In the same draft letter of September 1813, she continues: ‘Copying is a horrid thing and I could not go through the labour, but you have the substance of almost the whole’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 218v). The close similarities between the accounts in the journal and in the letters, however, suggest that Liston didn’t entirely eschew copying: rather, she seems to have employed a mode of textual reproduction that blended copying, editorial revision and a partial reliance on memory, both of the events being re-recorded and of the copy-text itself, perhaps read or scanned just prior to its reproduction. This would seem to best account for the amalgam of identical phrasings, minor deviations in vocabulary and syntax, and Knight’s Dinarbus; a Tale (1790), a continuation of Johnson’s Rasselas, was followed by works in a number of genres, including her Description of Latium (1805).

56

64

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

significant textual variations that we find across her different accounts of identical events. If Liston was already keeping a journal by 1813 or earlier, and transferring modified extracts from it into her correspondence, there is evidence to suggest that it was not yet copied into the handsome volume that is NLS MS 5709. If ‘Liston’s Travels’ generated further texts that were sent out across Europe, to Britain, and to the Americas, it may also have had its own textual precursors. NLS MS 5707 consists of nineteen assorted loose or folded folios, containing variants of passages that appear in NLS MS 5709 between folios 34 and 58.57 It thus bridges the first and second halves of Liston’s journal as described above. These variants include a longer and more detailed version of the account of the journey from Pera to Belgrade Forest (ff. 7v–9r; compare p. 136) and an alternative description of the execution of the Mourousi brothers (ff. 9v–10v, ff. 14–16r; compare pp. 140–1), as well as two versions of the passage in Liston’s journal describing the Ramadan celebrations (f. 5r and ff. 17r–18r; compare pp. 134–5). These accounts look very much like working drafts: there is more blotting of the ink, the handwriting is less neat, insertions and deletions are more copious and, in several places, descriptions stop mid-sentence. It is tempting, then, to suppose that we have here first drafts that were worked up into the journal that survives as NLS MS 5709. This, however, raises issues of dating. The paper stock used throughout NLS MS 5707 is watermarked ‘FELLOWS 1814’, meaning these variants must almost certainly have been penned at least a year after many of the events they describe. This suggests that the journal as we have it was written up later than we might otherwise suppose, from drafts that were themselves written some time from the events they describe, or, that these drafts postdate NLS MS 5709, meaning that Liston was still energetically revising the accounts in the journal for inclusion in or alongside her letters, or for some other readership. Whatever the case, there is also evidence within ‘Liston’s Travels’ – though again inconclusive – to suggest that parts at least were written up from earlier drafts. One example occurs where Liston relates her party’s arrival on the island of Tenedos (ff. 21v–22r). In the manuscript we find an initial paragraph-long description, which is followed immediately by a close variant of the same paragraph. Most of this second paragraph has then been crossed through with a large ‘X’ (see Figure 1.5). The folios have also been confusingly misnumbered at a later date, and not in Liston’s hand.

57



the eye of a stranger 65

Figure 1.5  Henrietta Liston’s duplicated account of Tenedos, crossed out, National Library of Scotland MS 5709 f. 22r (National Library of Scotland)

This kind of repetition is usually a sign of scribal error, indicating mechanical copying from a source or draft. The variations here, though, are intriguing: the first sentence is almost identical in each version, differing in only two words, while the second sentence deviates more significantly in vocabulary, syntax and punctuation. This passage, then, would appear to support the view that Liston was working up her journal from either an earlier draft or notes which she had perhaps just read over or scanned, so that the first sentence was still held quite firmly within her memory, but the second sentence less so, resulting in the freer version. At this point the process seems to have become sufficiently mechanical, close enough to ‘horrid’ copying, for Liston to inadvertently have gone over once again the passage she had just written up, producing not quite a duplicate, but something close.58 Even here, though, the evidence is not straightforward: there are Occasional slippages in tense might also be read as evidence of Liston writing up the journal later from early drafts written more or less contemporaneously with events, as when she writes that the ‘islands in the archipelago now became so numerous that it is only those in some way remarkable, that can be named; we are always within sight of one two or three’ (p. 98). But this sort of slippage from past to present is quite typical of the grammatical inconsistencies that run throughout the journal, and is also an effective literary device, throwing us into the Argo alongside Liston, making the past immediate.

58

66

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Figure 1.6  Henrietta Liston’s draft of ‘The Turkish Fast of the Ramazan’, with Robert Liston’s additions, NLS MS 5641 f. 22v (National Library of Scotland)

i­ndications that Liston returned to the repeated paragraph later, intending to retain its final sentence.59 The archive tantalises us, then, with the promise of answers it has refused, as yet, to definitively yield up. Further analysis of Liston’s variant accounts might ascertain with more certainty their relation to each other and their order and date of composition. The provisional picture of Liston’s Turkish journal as it survives in NLS MS 5709, however, is of a work created at least in part out of earlier drafts, perhaps initially intended as a clean or master copy, out of which later texts, letters especially, were generated in turn. One last example of Liston’s processes of revision, which also suggests that ‘Liston’s Travels’ was worked up from earlier drafts, is worthy of note. This occurs in a short account in Liston’s hand of ‘The Turkish Fast of the Ramazan’, which has been marked up with suggested insertions and revisions by her husband Robert (NLS MS 5641 f. 22v – see Figure 1.6). While the tenor of these modifications seems to have been incorporated by Liston into her main journal, the precise wording is altered. For example, the phrase ‘that is, would not acknowledge that the sun was set’, added by Robert in the margin, A proper analysis of this passage would run to several pages: there is evidence of attempts to scratch out parts of the text, and words have been inserted at a later date in what appears an attempt to salvage the last sentence of the repeated paragraph, which Liston seems deliberately not to have crossed out.

59



the eye of a stranger 67

reappears in the journal in revised form: ‘We announced eagerly the setting of the sun, but the Reis refused him permission, (that is, denied that it had set) though the bottle of water was in his hand’ (p. 147). Again, Henrietta’s ­memory-driven redrafting would appear to be at work here, though her incorporation of the spirit rather than the letter of her husband’s suggestion, and its containment within parentheses, might also be read as mild expressions of authorial independence. But Robert’s involvement, while probably slight, was perhaps only the most intimate example of how the journal might have cemented social bonds. We have seen how Liston represented the reading of her journal as a social occasion to be looked forward to, and how reworked extracts included in her correspondence could serve as a form of social currency and circulation, fulfilling in their own fashion the three primary diplomatic functions of reportage, mediation and representation (see Section 3, above). But Liston also seems to have conceived of the journal’s very writing and revision as a collaborative act, and not only with Robert. Writing in November 1812 to her friend Agnes Freire, Liston notes, ‘I have written a journal and though I have read your third letter, I still hope and trust that I shall again have you and your lord at Millburn Tower, where we will read it together, criticise and enlarge upon it with all freedom’ (NLS MS 5639 f. 86v). Whether ‘it’ in fact refers to Agnes’ letter or – as seems far more likely here – to the journal itself, the dynamics of social reading and revision evoked are evident. Both an expression and a vehicle of the personal relations, informal diplomacy, and extra-mural, para-diplomatic activities to which the New Diplomatic History has turned our attention, Liston’s journal is perhaps ultimately best conceived of not merely as a single text, but as a series of socially specific forkings and reworkings, a distinctive manifestation of what has sometimes been termed Romantic sociability.60 In making the journal available in new forms 200 years after Liston left Turkey for the last time, we hope a new generation of readers will be able to hear and engage with Liston’s distinctive voice once again.

See, in particular, the discussion of Romantic sociability in Section 5: Henrietta Liston and the Discourses of Travel Writing, above, and Russell and Tuite’s edited collection on this subject (2002). The kind of sociability we find in Liston’s Turkish writings is of a sort distinct from any of those delineated in Russell and Tuite’s volume, but belongs alongside them.

60

Plate 1  Thomas Butterworth, The ‘Argo’ with a Russian ship passing through the Straits, 1799 (© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

Plate 2  ‘Palace of the British Embassy at Pera’, in Robert Walsh, A Residence at Constantinople, 1836 (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 3  Gilbert Stuart, Henrietta Marchant Liston (Mrs Robert Liston), 1800, Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art (Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington)

Plate 4  Gilbert Stuart, Robert Liston, 1800, Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art (Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington)

Plate 5  The first page of Henrietta Liston’s Turkish journal, National Library of Scotland MS 5709 f. 3r (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 6  Henrietta Liston’s Turkish Journal, National Library of Scotland MS 5709 f. 58r (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 7  Francisco de Goya Luciente, The Marchioness of Santa Cruz, 1805 (© Museo Nacional del Prado)

Plate 8  Henrietta Liston’s Turkish Journal, National Library of Scotland MS 5709 f. 41v (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 9  Henrietta Liston’s letter to Dick Ramage, 1813, with markers showing disinfection slits, NLS MS 5640 ff. 55–58 (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 10  Facsimile of Henrietta Liston’s letter to Dick Ramage, 1813, showing fumigation puncture (National Library of Scotland)

Plate 11  ‘Map of the Turkish, Persian and Russian Frontier in Asia’, in Ottoman Turkish and English, from the Listons’ papers, NLS MS 5719 (National Library of Scotland)

Part Two Liston’s Turkish Writings

A Note on the Text Part Two presents Liston’s Turkish journal and further writings from the time of her husband Robert’s embassy to Constantinople. We encourage readers to compare the texts presented here with the facsimiles and semi-diplomatic transcriptions in the National Library of Scotland’s Digital Gallery: . Folio markers in the margins (e.g. ‘f.27v’) indicate the corresponding folios (and verso or recto) in the manuscripts. These folio markers contain embedded hyperlinks: click on the markers to open the relevant digitised page of the manuscript and matching transcription in your browser. Obvious contractions have been expanded, and Liston’s spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have been modernised throughout. In most cases we have standardised Liston’s spellings of personal and place names, which are frequently idiosyncratic and often take various forms on a single folio. However, where Liston uses a variant form or spelling that was in common use among her contemporaries (for example, ‘Mandania’ for ‘Mudanya’) we have retained this, including an explanatory note. Footnotes identify points where modernisation raises particular issues or difficulties, and a more detailed discussion of the editorial principles behind this edition can be found in Section 1 of the Critical Introduction, above. Editorial insertions have been kept to a minimum and are enclosed in square brackets. Doubtful readings, where the manuscript is difficult to decipher, are given in italics within square brackets, usually with an accompanying note. Empty square brackets (also often accompanied by a note) signal that part of the text is missing due to damage to the manuscript or has proved impossible to decipher. Liston’s underlining merits special mention. Liston underlines copiously, with great variations of line and weight, and in ways that deviate significantly from modern expectations regarding the adding of emphasis. In her edition of Liston’s North American travel journals of 1796–1800, Louise North (2014) follows the long-standing convention according to which underlining indicates words that would appear in italics in print. There is no evidence, however, that Liston intended any of her writings in either her North American or Turkish journals for the press, and the effect of trying to reproduce Liston’s underlining,

72

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

whether through italics or through the regular, evenly weighted underling of print, is primarily to demonstrate the impossibility of finding satisfactory typographic equivalents for every element in a manuscript. The effect of Liston’s underlining becomes so distorted by its transition through the ‘manuscript-print threshold’ (Hunter 2009: 76) that we have almost wholly omitted it here: we would, however, encourage readers to examine Liston’s underlining via the facsimiles in the Digital Gallery. Where Liston’s Turkish writings presented in this volume are referenced in the notes, a simple page number is given (for example ‘p. 41’); where the reference is to another manuscript in the Sir Robert Liston Papers or elsewhere, full manuscript call number references are given (for example ‘NLS MS 5761 f. 3r’). Unless cited otherwise, descriptions of individuals, places, and events that appear in the notes have been drawn from a range of standard electronic and printed reference works, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictionary of the Scots Language, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Islam, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and the Cambridge History of Turkey.

The Turkish Journal, 1812–14 NLS MS 5709 1812 After a delay of near twelve months we quitted London on Tuesday the 31st of March, 1812, in order to proceed on Mr Liston’s embassy to Constantinople.1 Long as we had had to prepare yet, that spirit of procrastination which so often prevails rendered the last few weeks of our stay in the metropolis as hurried and bustling as had been the first fortnight after our arrival, a year before, when we expected our departure to take place every day.2 It was late in the evening when we set out for Portsmouth in a coach and four, our servants following in a post-chaise, and we wanted only the parrot, the monkey and the cold meat, to render it the cortege of Sir Francis Wronghead’s family.3 My parting from my friends in London, though less afflicting than 1

2

3

The first two folios of the manuscript are blank. The flyleaf of the bound manuscript bears the signature of Sir James Liston-Foulis (1847–95), son of the Listons’ grandniece and heir, Henrietta Ramage Liston-Foulis (d. 1850). Robert Liston had been appointed British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte in March 1811. Of the delay in receiving his instructions to depart for Constantinople he conjectured in January 1812: ‘were any decisive news to arrive respecting a peace between the Turks and Russians, I should have my order immediately [. . .] I have been kept back because it would be very awkward for me to present myself to the Ottoman government without being able to tell them what part this country meant to take in that business, at least what advice we chose to give the Porte; while on the other hand it would be foolish in us to urge them to a peace, at the hazard perhaps of losing our own popularity and influence at Constantinople, without the certainty of receiving either advantage or gratitude by our influence. The news I allude to may arrive every hour, and then I should not be surprised if I had my orders the next day’ (NLS MS 5658 f. 1). A character in The Provoked Husband (1728), a play begun by John Vanbrugh and finished by Colley Cibber. The reference to ‘the parrot, the monkey, and the cold meat’ seems to refer to Act 1, Scene 1, where John Moody, the Wrongheads’ confidential servant, describes to Lord Townly, Lady Grace and Mr Manly the Wrongheads’ overfilled carriage on its journey to London. However, although Moody refers to a ‘monkey’, a ‘fat lapdog’ and ‘cold boiled beef’ (ll. 538–58), there is no mention of a parrot in the printed text, though it is easy to suppose one added to the list of fashionable pets in performance. Liston was an admirer of the actor Sarah Siddons, who played the role of Lady Townly at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh in 1785 (see Liston’s letter to Ann Polson, NLS MS 5540 f. 191).

f. 3r

74

f. 3v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

that of the preceding year in Scotland, yet left that damp upon my spirits naturally resulting from the prospect of a long voyage, a distant clime and that uncertain period which, if lengthened, embitters your return by the various and melancholy changes which time has produced amongst your friends and connections. The tediousness of our voyage, it is true, was considerably done away in prospect from the secretary of state’s permission that Mr Liston should touch Cádiz, Gibraltar, Sicily, and Malta on his way to the archipelago, in order to carry with him, to that distant country, that latest and most important information.1 At Portsmouth we found Captain Warren of the Argo, a frigate of forty-four guns, destined to convey us to the Levant.2 We were immediately joined by our whole suite, which consisted of Mr Bartholomew Frere, Secretary of Embassy;3 Mr Terrick Hamilton, Turkish Secretary;4 Mr Turner from the Foreign Office;5 and Robert

1

2

3

4

5

The ‘secretary of state’ Liston refers to is Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822), who served as Foreign Secretary from 1812 until his suicide in 1822. All four locations Liston mentions were key sites for British military forces. An important port on the western coast of Spain, Cádiz was blockaded by the British in 1797; during the Peninsular War (1808–14), it was one of the few cities to hold out against the French. After the loss of the American colonies in 1776, Gibraltar had become the first port of call for British merchant shipping to India and the East. It was also a strategic naval outpost. Sicily, from 1806 to 1815 the residence of the Bourbon kings during the Napoleonic Wars, was strategically important, playing a key role in keeping the Mediterranean open for British naval operations against the French. Malta became a protectorate and part of the British Empire in 1800; it was a key military and naval base and provided harbours for merchant shipping. British rule over Malta was to be reconfirmed in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna. Captain Frederick Warren (1775–1848) had taken command of the Argo, a twodeck fifth-rate warship of the Roebuck class (not officially classed as a frigate by the Admiralty) in 1810. On the career of the Argo, see Winfield 2005: 179–80. Bartholomew Frere (1778–1851) was appointed Secretary of the British Embassy at Constantinople in March 1811, and took up his post in June 1812, along with Robert Liston. He served as Minister Plenipotentiary from 1815 to 1817 during Robert’s leave, and again after Robert’s departure, from 1820 to 1821. Terrick Hamilton (1781–1876) was a scholarly orientalist and translator: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘From the Arabic: An Imitation’ is in part a free translation or adaptation into verse of Hamilton’s Antar: A Bedoueen Romance (1819–20). Hamilton later served first as Oriental Secretary and then as Secretary at the British Embassy in Constantinople from 1820 to 1824. Hamilton was described as ‘a very worthy man, a considerable scholar, and the greatest bore then in existence’ by the prolific Scottish travel writer Charles MacFarlane (1917: 43), author of Constantinople in 1828 (1829) and Turkey and its Destiny (1850). William Turner (1792–1867) was attached to Robert Liston’s embassy to Constantinople in March 1811 by Foreign Secretary Richard Wellesley. His Journal of a Tour in the Levant (1820) describes the voyage to Constantinople with the Listons and his travels in the Ottoman Empire between 1813 and 1817.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 75

Elliott,1 the son of an old friend of mine, named after Mr Liston, together with Sir Robert Wilson, an officer of reputation attached to the Embassy, and intended to be sent on to the armies on the Danube, should Mr Liston find it expedient to take measures to bring about a peace betwixt the Turks and Russians.2 Contrary winds detained us a week at Portsmouth, living in a crowd of people and at a great expense; for publicans in such situations naturally take advantage of the unfortunate traveller that is wind-bound. On the 8th the wind becoming favourable we embarked immediately after breakfast, in the Admiral’s barge which he had kindly offered to convey us to the Argo, and at one o’clock we sailed. The wind favoured us through the Channel, which we passed in a day and a half, and carried us nearly through that horrid Bay of Biscay; it then became variable and we loitered several days, during which time I was very unwell and went little out of my cabin. The climate, however, soon softened, a fair wind sprung up, and all of us seemed to regain health and spirits. On Saturday the 18th we found ourselves sailing very pleasantly along the coast of Portugal, when we fell in with the Bristol, a ship of war from Lisbon bound to England.3 Our impatience to hear news was very great. The day was fine, and we were all assembled on the deck, where the questions betwixt the two ships – without the slightest stop or interruptions to our different courses – were asked and answered by means of Sir Home Popham’s improvement on the telegraph by flags.4 1

2

3 4

Robert Liston Elliot (1797–1862) was the son of Thomas and Agnes Elliot, the ‘old friend’ mentioned here. He first went to Constantinople with Robert Liston in 1812; sent home to complete his education, in 1817 he became Liston’s Oriental attaché and in 1820 took over as Oriental Secretary, serving in this role until 1828 (see Berridge 2009: 56–7). Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (1777–1849), then a brigadier general in the British army, was a personal friend of the Listons. He kept a journal of the voyage to Constantinople (which also comments on Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of 1812), and which was published posthumously as The Private Diary of Travels, Personal Services and Public Events, During Mission and Employment with the European Armies in the Campaigns of 1812, 1813, 1814 (1861). Wilson was originally charged with assisting Robert Liston in negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire that would end the Russo-Turkish War, but by the time the Listons arrived in Turkey the Treaty of Bucharest, which put an end to the war, had already been negotiated (see Section 3 of the Critical Introduction, above). Wilson was sent on a mission first to the Grand Vizier at Shumla (Shumen) in Bulgaria, then to the Russian admiral commanding the Danube Army Corps at Bucharest, and finally to the Tsar, Alexander I, in St Petersburg. He then proceeded to the Russian army near Moscow as British Commissioner. The Bristol was a third-rate sixty-four-gun ship originally named the Agincourt and purchased by the Royal Navy from the East India Company. In 1800 Captain Sir Home Popham developed a system of flag signalling made up

f. 4r

76

f. 4v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The different flags – which a person accustomed to these signs distinguished by a glass, as rapidly as they could be hoisted and lowered, and reported to the captain – denote numbers, which, by means of a book of explanation, are easily interpreted into words. The scene was amusing and interesting. We learned that Lord Wellington had taken Badajoz by storm, three thousand of the enemy prisoners, and our loss four thousand.1 A melancholy penalty, even for a place of such importance. Next morning, Sunday the 19th, we came within sight of Cape St Vincent.2 The wind dying away early next morning prevented our reaching Cádiz, and occasioned a general disappointment, but this was in a good measure compensated by the charming view we had in the afternoon, when pleasant light winds brought us within sight of Cádiz, though they did not enable us to cast anchor. Nothing can exceed the beautiful appearance this city makes from the bay. The charms of the climate, delicious without heat, the cheerfulness of the group collected on deck, the bustle of answering signals, firing for pilots, and all these little employments which animate and occupy, without fatiguing, rendered it truly pleasing. Cádiz, having been for two years, and still continuing to be, a besieged town, the neighbourhood is consequently very contracted – St Luci, Rota, St Maria, etc. being all in possession of the French, at this moment.3 We cast anchor in the bay about seven o’clock of the evening of the 20th. Mr Liston sent the King’s Messenger on shore with letters to the Ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, and to our old friend Mr Duff, the Consul, and breakfasting early on-board next day, the Captain’s barge landed us on shore by nine o’clock.4 The magnificence of the

1

2

3

4

of numbers denoting letters of the alphabet, words and phrases such as ‘she is laden with indigo’ and ‘the stranger is a Corsair’. Popham’s Telegraphic Signals; or Marine Vocabulary, first published in 1800, was expanded in 1803 and again in 1812, when it was officially adopted by the Admiralty (Wilson 1986: 81). The Siege of Badajoz was a notoriously costly battle. The Duke of Wellington commanded the Anglo-Portuguese forces and took Badajoz from the French on 6 April 1812. Liston’s report of the prisoners and casualties is broadly accurate. The most south-westerly point in mainland Europe, and the site of the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797 between the Royal Navy and the Spanish fleet, at which Nelson, then in charge of HMS Captain, distinguished himself, winning a knighthood. French forces unsuccessfully besieged Cádiz (held by the Spanish) from February 1810 to August 1812 during the Peninsular War (1808–14), during which the Spanish received assistance from British and Portuguese troops. St Lucie, Rota and El Puerta de Santa Maria were all small towns near Cádiz. There was a British military presence in Cádiz from 1810 to 1814. The King’s Messenger was Thomas Fisher (1763–c.1828). Henry Wellesley, first Baron Cowley (1773–1847) served as British Ambassador to Spain from 1811 to



the turkish journal, 1812–14 77

buildings, the number and variety of the turrets, and other ornaments of flat roofs – the general whiteness of the stones, the verandas, and latticed windows, formed altogether a picturesque and beautiful coup d’œil.1 Nor was this beauty diminished on a near approach. The ramparts, which almost surround the town, are broad and well paved, and a high parapet entirely conceals the deformities of timber-yards and ship-building, etc. Mr Duff’s house, in which we live, overlooks these ramparts and is near the Alameda, a public walk planted with trees. The houses are large and airy, but the open top of the courtyard or vestibule round which they are generally built must, in colder weather and in the rainy season, prove very disagreeable. The height of the houses was, likewise, to me very annoying, as the public apartments are all upon the second or third floor, with very steep steps. Cádiz is tolerably well fortified and, while the weaker parts of it are defended, as at present, by British ships, and the inhabitants continue true to themselves, it is likely to stand its ground against France.2 The great defect in the beauty of this city, to my eyes, is a deficiency of trees, for except the few in the Alameda, and what some convent gardens contain, there are no fine trees or green grass to break the continuity of buildings and of water, no little excursions to the country but to the Isla.3 Cádiz is joined to the continent of Spain by an isthmus of six or seven miles in length. The part of this near the city is pretty broad, and after you have passed the fortifications, or outworks, it is laid out into gardens fenced by low walls, or by hedges of aloe, which when in flower must have a fine effect: and they are separated by the great road leading into the country, and by public walks of considerable width.4 Further on, the neck of land becomes very narrow, and the waters of the ocean on one side, and those of the Bay of Cádiz on the other, seem to meet under a small bridge over which you pass, but it spreads out again to a considerable width as you approach the mainland. At the distance of about eight miles from Cádiz you find a large village or town, consisting of a number of houses extremely well built, with flat roofs in the Asiatic, or rather Moorish taste, diversified by a great many small

1 2 3 4

1821. Sir James Duff (1734–1815), an important sherry merchant, was British Consul at Cádiz from 1790 until his death and was known as ‘a devoted Spaniard, and the “Father of the City”’ of Cádiz (Wilson 1861: I, 14). French for view or perspective. Liston was correct: see p. 74, n. 1, above. Cádiz was the only city in continental Europe not to fall to the French. La Isla del Sur (the Island of the South) is a small peninsula in the Bay of Cádiz, and the site of the town of San Fernando, which Liston goes on to describe. These gardens were known as the Paseo de Perejil (or Parsley Walk) at the time.

f. 5r

f. 5v

78

f. 6r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

towers, and having, upon the whole, a very picturesque effect: and here is the additional beauty of orange, fig, and date trees intermixed. This place is called Isla because, beyond it, near the ninth mile from Cádiz, a narrow creek, named the Sancti Petri, crossing from the open sea to the bay cuts off a portion of the continent and gives the place, on which the village stands, the shape of an island. It was formerly inhabited by a number of genteel people, principally belonging to the naval establishments, which were placed in this neighbourhood. On the banks of the Sancti Petri are erected, at certain distances, batteries to prevent the nearer approach of the French, and a number of troops, both Spanish and English, are at present quartered in this place. There are seven or eight convents at Cádiz, three of them female, but their orders are so strict that even the Consul’s arguments (who is the most popular man in the country) would not gain me admission into the interior of any. Two females conversed cheerfully with us at the parlour-grating of one of them. We next visited that of the Carmelite monks: three or four fat comely men of the brotherhood showed us their chapel, and would willingly have displayed their paraphernalia, which I observe all the Catholic priesthood are fond of showing, but as I could not be admitted to see their cells, I was satisfied with their public rooms, without seeing their finery.1 There are in this city several laudable public institutions, one a handsome building for widows, erected by an individual, a merchant of Aleppo. Another, upon a more magnificent plan, for sick females: the neatness, comfort and regularity of this last, I very much admired; it is supported at the public expense.2 I saw in this hospital the preparations for the great ceremony that was to take place on St George’s Day, when a sermon was to be preached, and a dinner given to a new corps (raised by the subscriptions of a certain number of ladies at Cádiz).3 In a very beautiful court belonging to the hospital, the Virgin and Child were placed, as large as life, upon a throne or rather a pedestal. She was magnif1

2

3

In her Turkish Embassy Letters, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu also frequently (and more caustically) criticises Roman Catholics’ fondness for ‘finery’ as well as their belief in religious relics (Montagu 2013: 53; see also 51, 70). Established in 1754, the House of Widows (La Casa de las Viudas) was funded by the wealthy Syrian merchant Juan Clat Secanichi (1696–1756), also known as ‘Fragela’. The Women’s Hospital (Hospital de Mujeres), a fine Baroque building, was built between 1736 and 1749. The hospital’s main chapel houses El Greco’s The Ecstasy of St Francis (c.1580). St George’s Day, 23 April, is celebrated in Spain, St George being the patron saint of Catalonia and of the former Crown of Aragon.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 79

icent with gold and silver, a crown was on her head, the child in her arms, and a number of little angels peeping out from the folds of her drapery. We were also conducted by Mr Duff to an unfinished church, roofed only over one altar, which was highly and very beautifully finished with coloured marbles and gilding. This melancholy fabric, decaying before its completion, was begun so far back as to make one of the articles mentioned in the Treaty of Utrecht.1 The theatre in Cádiz is large and rather handsome, though the boxes were laid out in a form I was not accustomed to see. The performers seemed to be good, and I was much pleased with Spanish dancing, particularly the national dance of the fandango. Never having been in Spain before, every novelty proved amusing for the two or three first days: the men’s large cloaks, in the heat of the sun, the women’s black petticoats and black mantillas, the latter covering the head and shoulders but exposing the face to the weather, notwithstanding which they are in general pretty, fine black eyes and hair, with handsome legs and feet. There is a natural civility in the lower class with which I was very much struck. Much is said and I fear with some truth of the general degeneracy of the Spanish nobility and gentry, but the great mass of the people remains the same independent, hardy race they ever were, familiar without impertinence, and obedient without servility. Mr Liston found at Cádiz many of the old friends he had formerly known in Madrid, some of them much altered in their fortunes.2 Amongst these was the old Duchess of Osuna, once one of the first women in Spain in fortune as well as rank, now living on a pittance and in obscurity at Cádiz.3 She presented to us two daughters, the eldest, the Countess of Santa Cruz, lovely and interesting, peculiarly so from having her husband still a prisoner in Savoy.4 This city seems to be the residence of a considerable number of fallen nobility. 1 2 3

4

The Treaty of Utrecht (in fact a series of treaties) resolved the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). Robert Liston went to Madrid as the British Chargé d’affaires in 1783; he was then named Minister Plenipotentiary and held the post until December 1788. María Josefa de la Soledad Alonso-Pimentel y Téllez-Girón, Duchess of Osuna, Countess of Benavente (1752–1834). According to the Spanish Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland the Duchess fled Madrid in 1808 when she learned that the French army under Napoleon was advancing toward Somosierra. Along with her children, grandchildren, and friends, she left ‘with no change of clothes. Her plate &c., &c., all left to the mercy of the enemy’ (Fox 1910: 261). Joaquina Téllez-Girón (1784–1851) married Jose Gabriel de Silva-Bazan y Waldstein (1782–1839), tenth Marquis of Santa Cruz, in 1801. A friend to poets and the literati, she was painted several times by Francisco Goya, most famously as Erato, the

f. 6v

80 f. 7r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Mr Liston found some old friends amongst the clergy: one, the brother of Admiral Gravina (with whom he had been intimate), the Pope’s Nuncio, who gave us letters to his relations in Sicily;1 another named Gil, who at Bonaparte’s invasion, by his oratory, collected near three thousand followers and led them to Seville.2 Mr Liston’s intention was to have stayed two days only at Cádiz, but a Levanter (as an east wind is called) detaining us six, we had the opportunity of meeting a number of Spanish gentlemen at dinner with the ambassador on Sunday, some members of the Cortez, and in the evening, that of mixing with an innumerable crowd on the Alameda.3 The bell of a large church very near us, tolling for vespers, gave a sudden check to the gaiety of the scene. All stood still, crossed themselves and said their prayers, the men taking off their hats. The wind appearing to change on the morning of the 27th we bade adieu to our worthy host, Mr Duff, to the Ambassador, to Admiral Legg, and to the rest of our friends, and went on board;4 but the sea running high the Captain did not think it safe to sail till early next morning, with the tide. While still within sight of the lighthouse at Cádiz, we reached the spot where the Battle of Trafalgar was fought, and where Nelson fell.5 Next day’s voyage was highly amusing. We saw at a distance the Pillars of Hercules, which are points of Africa, and of Europe, Apes Hill on the former, and on the latter, the Rock of Gibraltar.6 We now also had a very tolerable view of Tangiers, and in the afternoon we were sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, Africa and

1

2 3

4

5

6

muse of love poetry, in 1805: see Plate 7. Now shared between France, Italy and Switzerland, in 1812 Savoy was occupied by the French revolutionary forces. Admiral Don Federico Carlos Gravina y Nápoli (1756–1806), had died as a result of wounds sustained at Trafalgar in 1805. His brother was Pietro Gravina y Nápoli, the Papal Nuncio in Spain from 1803 to 1816. Padre Manuel Gil (1747–1815), Secretary General of the Junta of Seville, took a leading part in the insurrection after the French invasion of Spain in 1808. The Cortes of Cádiz was the first national assembly to claim Spanish sovereignty. It first met in 1810 and in 1812 passed the Spanish Constitution, which established a constitutional monarchy. Sir Arthur Kaye Legge (1766–1835) was the naval officer in command of the defence of Cádiz against the French from the spring of 1811 to September 1812. In 1807 he had fought in the unsuccessful British attack on the Dardanelles, an attempt to pressure the Ottomans into allowing passage to British ships through the strait. The Battle of Trafalgar was fought between the French and Spanish fleets and the British off Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. While the British won the battle, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson was fatally wounded by a shot from a French ship, the Redoubtable. The Pillars of Hercules was the classical name for the promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar; Apes Hill (now Abyla) is on the Moroccan side of the Straits.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 81

Europe on each side. We passed very near to Tarifa and could distinctly see the damage done to the houses, in the late vain attack made by the French under General Victor.1 The Rock of Gibraltar then came full in sight, towering on a point. We expected to have landed in the afternoon of the 28th, but the wind failing us, we amused ourselves by viewing Gibraltar, in Spain, near to us on one side; and Ceuta in Africa, almost near to us on the other side.2 Commodore Penrose (commanding his Majesty’s ships of war on this station) was so obliging as [to] send his barge before we had cast anchor;3 at the same time I received a letter from my friend Miss Johnson, inviting us to her brother-in-law Governor Campbell’s house, where she said beds had been prepared for us near a twelve-month.4 It was too late to avail ourselves of this kindness that night, as we did not anchor till near nine, but we set out at eight o’clock in the morning of the 29th and found the Governor’s carriage waiting us at the landing place. Few views can exceed the very singular one that Gibraltar offers from the sea. Towns, villas, and gardens skirting the bottom of the Rock, displayed quite an opera scene and though beautiful, appeared more artificial than natural. The verandas, the terraces, the different colours of the houses, and their various situations, gave a peculiar oddity to the scene altogether. The government house was formerly a convent of monks, and is still called the Convent.5 It is a large, wild, but pretty-looking mansion, partly conventual [in] its arcades and cloisters and partly modernised 1

2 3

4

5

Marshal Claude Victor-Perrin (1764–1841) led the unsuccessful siege of Cádiz against the British from 1810 to 1812. As part of this campaign the French unsuccessfully besieged Tarifa, a town in the province of Cádiz, from December 1811 to January 1812. Ceuta is an enclave in Morocco on the North African mainland, still an autonomous Spanish city today. Admiral Sir Charles Vinicombe Penrose (1759–1830) was appointed to command the Mediterranean station in 1810 when the British established a flotilla at Gibraltar to defend Cádiz against the French. He commanded the station until 1813, and again from 1816 to 1819. Julia Johnson (b. 1771?) was the daughter of Mary (d. 1775) and Colonel Guy Johnson (c.1740–88), the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in North America. The Listons knew the Johnson family during their time in North America. Julia’s elder sister Mary was married to Sir Colin Campbell (1754–1814), a Scottish-American army officer who had fought in the American War of Independence and was Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar from 1810 to 1814. A former Franciscan monastery occupied by the Governor of Gibraltar from 1711 and later extensively modified. In Spanish monasterio and convento are used interchangeably for buildings housing male or female religious communities.

f. 7v

f. 8r

82

f. 8v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

for the conveniency of the Governor and his family. We were received by my old friends with the utmost kindness and conducted to the drawing-room, to which adjoined a veranda, leading by a stair to the convent garden. This is filled with beautiful trees and flowers, the imperial palm, fig, orange, mulberry, etc; with acacias, oleanders and other beautiful flowering shrubs; the hedges formed of geraniums, and the  walls and stairs covered with jessamine and creepers of various kinds, in great luxuriance. The scarcity of ground obliges the inhabitants of Gibraltar to intermix vegetables with their trees and flowers. In front of the garden is a terrace charmingly paved, overlooking a battery which commands a very fine view of the bay. After a comfortable breakfast we set out, accompanied by Miss Johnson, the Commodore, and three of our secretaries, to mount the Rock. On our way we visited the Commissioner’s romantic cottage, gardens and pleasure grounds.1 The house was covered with jessamines, Dolichos,2 geraniums, etc., and the grounds ornamented by fig, almond, magnolia, and a variety of fine trees, while the declivity of the Rock from which you looked down was decorated by small but very pretty houses and gardens. Thanks to the late General O’Hara’s attention, a road has been made winding round the upper part of the Rock and leading to its summit, where he had erected a tower and two apartments: the former, from the error of placing a piece of iron to support a spy-glass, and not at the same time giving a conductor, was some time ago struck with lightning; and the latter have been allowed to go to ruin.3 The various views, the sublimity of the Rock, the wild flowers shooting from every crevice, the goats, kids, apes, etc., skipping about formed, all together, a most fanciful scene, with great beauty and picturesque effect. As the Governor’s carriage could convey us but a short way in the ascent, and Miss Johnson was in the habit, she said, of taking this walk very often, a donkey, with a Spanish saddle – new to me – was provided for me, and I was led up, in this easy position, by a servant, the lady and gentlemen keeping pace with me. On approaching the top the road ceased, and was supplied by stone steps to the amount of a thousand, called the Mediterranean Steps. In the course of this circular route we had distant views both of the 1 2 3

Possibly the naval Commissioner Captain Percy Fraser, who moved from Malta to Gibraltar in 1811. A genus of climbing flowering plant with white or purple flowers. Charles O’Hara (c.1740–1802), Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar from 1792 until his death in 1802. A signal tower, originally called St George’s Tower, was erected near Europa Point by O’Hara. It came to be known as ‘O’Hara’s Folly’.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 83

coast of Spain, and of Africa: on the former Algisinas, St Rock, etc., and a more distant one of the hills of Granada; on the latter, Ceuta and a long line of coast.1 On the coast of Spain and very near to us, the Commodore pointed out Carteia, which he has lately explored,  and found coins, parts of statues, cameos, and other remains of antiquity, many with the word Carteia upon them.2 This is a remarkable circumstance as the situation of this ancient town had not before been ascertained.3 I wished to have crossed to Africa, but as a fair wind was not only necessary to carry us there but to bring us back, and our time was limited, we could not venture. Next day we were conducted in the same procession, I on my donkey, followed by Miss Johnson and the gentlemen, with the addition of Sir Charles Holloway, to see the excavations in the Rock, at a different point of it from our yesterday’s excursion.4 Sir Charles was the superintendent of this work, as well as of the excellent winding road leading to it. What I have termed the excavations are in fact batteries hollowed out in the rock, with subterranean galleries to the extent of four or five hundred feet, with openings at certain distances for placing canon. These galleries are sufficiently high and spacious to allow the tallest man to walk upright, and even to let carriages pass; we pursued them to a more enlarged excavation, formed in a projection of the rock, with six openings on the side for cannonry.5 This spot is called St George’s Hall: the floor being perfectly smooth, and the ceiling of a fine height, parties are frequently made to dine here. It was immediately below this part of the Rock that General Ballesteros, with a number of Spanish peasants, male and female, as well as his troops, took shelter last year when retreating from the French, and here they made holes in the sand on the beach, and slept.6 1 2 3

4

5

6

Algisinas: the city of Algeciras. St Rock is Saint Roque, in the province of Cádiz. An archaeological site near the southern coast of Spain. Carteia was a Phoenician and Roman town near Saint Roque, halfway between Algeciras and Gibraltar. Listo seems mistaken: Carteia had been rediscovered by John Conduitt when he was serving as commissary in the British Army in Gibraltar 1713 to 1717; he presented a paper on his discoveries to the Royal Society in London on 20 June 1717. Sir Charles Holloway (1749–1827) served in Gibraltar as Commanding Royal Engineer (CRE) from 1807 to 1817, having previously been a British military adviser to the Ottomans and having played a leading role during the Ottoman’s defeat of the French in Egypt in 1801. These artillery emplacements and tunnels in the Rock of Gibraltar were constructed during the Great Siege of 1779–83 when Gibraltar was besieged unsuccessfully by the French and the Spanish. In the Battle of Bornos (1811) in the Peninsular War, a small Spanish army led by General Francisco Ballesteros (1770–1832) and transported to Algeciras by the British attacked the French.

f. 9r

84

f. 9v

f. 10r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Their lines still remained. The enemy durst venture very little beyond St Roque. On our way to this day’s excursion we passed a Moorish tower still in very good preservation. With a high wall extending from the bottom of the hill up to the more abrupt part of the Rock, it is plain that this tower must have proved a very strong fortification to the Moors when they invaded Gibraltar.1 Along one side of the wall it is disfigured by the temporary wooden houses the English have lately re-erected to serve as barracks. I could have been amused at Gibraltar and its neighbourhood for some time, but the Argo having taken in water we were obliged to part with our kind friends and proceed on our voyage on the first day of May. We made little way that day, but a fair wind spring[ing] up the three succeeding ones brought us within a distant view of Sardinia. We wished to have made for Cagliari to have spent a few hours with Mr Hill, the British Minister now there, but the Captain saying it would retard our arrival at Sicily, perhaps three days, and Mr Liston being anxious to proceed on his voyage he contented himself with writing to that gentleman.2 It was well we had given up the idea of landing at Sardinia, and had taken advantage of the wind while it lasted: it soon became calm, then was against us, and we did not reach Palermo till Wednesday the 13th May. We hovered on the north coast of Sicily three or four days. The softness of the climate, the calmness of the sea, and the serenity of the sky were charming, while the slowness of our movements gave us the opportunity of viewing, at leisure, the beautifully indented hills and varieties of the coast. We were for some time within sight of Maritimo, Favignana, etc., mountainous islands to which the discontented nobles of Sicily were banished.3 On turning into the Bay of Palermo, that city appeared in great beauty: the magnificence of the buildings and that of the surrounding hills were very imposing. 1 2

3

Liston refers here to the Tower of Homage, part of the Moorish Castle complex. William Noel Hill, third Baron Berwick of Attingham (1773–1842), served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Sardinian court from 1807 to 1824. Lord Byron said of him that he was ‘the only one of the diplomatists whom I ever knew who really is excellent’ (1980: 197). Hill was briefly engaged to Lady Hester Stanhope. Favignana, Levanzo and Marettimo are three small islands off the north western tip of Sicily. The Sicilian nobles who were banished there were discontented with the rule of the Bourbon kings, who usually resided in Naples but who lived in exile themselves in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, between 1806 and 1815 (during the Napoleonic Wars).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 85

Lord William Bentinck (Minister and Commander-in-Chief at Sicily) sent his carriage to meet us at the landing-place, with a message, that not having apartments for us in his house, he had procured lodgings for us at the best hotel; with an invitation to pass all our time with him and Lady William, which we were well disposed to do, for the pleasure of their society, as well as for the beauty of their dwelling, though our hotel in the Piazza Marina was cheerfully situated.1 Before going to dinner with Lord and Lady William Bentinck, we bent our steps to the marina or public walk, which was very near us. It consists of a broad and excellent pavement of considerable extent along the beach, rendered cool by an almost constant breeze from the sea. Parallel to this pavement, a broad road allows room for the number of carriages which are here collected in the summer evenings. Towards the centre, there is a pretty temple which serves as an orchestra for music, and near the termination of the road is one of the handsomest public gardens I ever saw: the entrance is by a gateway which may almost be styled magnificent; the walks are handsomely laid out – fine trees and arbours, with fountains, temples, etc. forming, from its extent and variety, a charming resource in this hot climate for the inhabitants of Palermo.2 The marina is overlooked by some splendid houses facing the sea, particularly that of the Prince Butera.3 Lord Bentinck has, likewise, an agreeable though not so large a mansion in this fine position. We were particularly unfortunate in our weather at Palermo – so much rain had scarcely ever been known so late in the season; but we did not experience any of that heat I had so much dreaded to meet in the Mediterranean. Our stay was, by contrary winds, prolonged from two days, which Mr Liston had intended, to six, which, had the weather been favour­able, 1

2

3

From 1811, Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (1774–1839) served concurrently as Commander-in-Chief of the British military forces in the Mediterranean and as Envoy to the court of the Two Sicilies. He was referred to by Queen Maria Caroline of Naples as a bestia feroce (ferocious beast). Bentinck was married to Lady Mary Acheson (‘Lady William’: 1778–1843), who was painted twice by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Sir Robert Wilson described her as ‘Lady Patroness of Prince Belmonte and a Sicilian revolution’ (1861: I, 62). Construction of Villa Giulia, Italy’s first public garden, began in 1777. The villa, also known as ‘La Flora’, was square in layout with a central rotunda, and gardens planted with poplars, elms and citrus fruit trees (Pirrone 1996: 260–3). The main entrance to the garden was built in 1788 by the architect Vincenzo di Martino, in a grandiose classical style (Chirco 1992: 158). Ercole Michele Branciforte e Pignatelli, Prince Butera (1750–1814), whose title derived from the town and district of Butera in the province of Caltanissetta in Sicily. At the time of the Listons’ visit it was Sicily’s main feudal title, as Liston indicates by calling the Prince ‘the first Baron in Sicily’.

f. 10v

86

f. 11r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

would have afforded us the opportunity of seeing a great deal more of the vicinity. We had fixed a day with Lady William Bentinck to see a district of country to the east of Palermo called the Bagaria, where several noblemen have country houses, and we were to have dined at one o’clock with Prince Butera, the first Baron in Sicily, but the continued rain obliged us to send an express with our excuse. We went, however, to look at his town house on the marina, which may, both from its size and the magnificence of the rooms, be called a palace, and its view into the marina is from the largest and the finest veranda, or rather covered terrace, I ever saw.1 The furniture corresponds with the grandeur of the apartments. It is worthy of remark, that all the rich furniture, in short every article in this house, or for his use, is made by artists within his own domains, glass excepted, and we thought a gilded lustre of his own fabric infinitely handsomer than any of the numerous glass ones, with which his rooms were ornamented.2 A fortune of upwards of seventy thousand pounds a year enables him to bring models from every country. In one apartment we observed two portraits of his daughters, one a pretty woman but of the other, the face only was seen (which was handsome), the figure being concealed by a thicket, from which she appeared to be looking out.3 The servant observed that her figure was so over-grown they thought it best to hide it. The servants showed us a gold cup, in the form of a conch-shell, set in the richest manner with every variety of precious stone. This has been handed down through many generations and each, as appeared from the inscription (shown along with it), had added something to its magnificence. We found an hour of fair weather to carry us to Prince Belmónte’s country residence, it being in the immediate vicinity.4 It is finished with great taste and from its high situation above the bay commands an extensive and fine prospect. This is a place of his own creation: of course, the building is modern. As he accompanied us himself every1

2

3 4

Sicilian architect Giacomo Amato (1643–1732) was commissioned to draw up plans for Palazzo Butera in 1701. Prince Butera launched a hot-air balloon from the impressive terrace Liston mentions, which was built in 1750. The palace’s Rococo interiors were developed in the 1760s. The ‘gilded lustre’ Liston describes is a chandelier, perhaps made of rock crystal rather than glass; in a letter to her sister, Lady Mar, describing the apartments of ‘the greatest ladies, and [. . .] the ministers of state’ in Vienna, Montagu refers to ‘large lustres of rock crystal’ (2013: 56). Prince Butera’s daughters were Maria Caterina and Anna Maria. Giuseppe Ventimiglia e Cottone, Prince of Belmónte (1766–1814), was made Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1812 but forced to resign in 1813 and emigrated to Paris. The Villa Belmónte at Acquasanta on Mount Pellegrino was designed by the architect Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia (1729–1814), who also built Prince Belmónte’s residence in Palermo.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 87

thing was shown to the best advantage. He has a small but very choice collection of pictures by the first masters. His floors are also very handsome, some composed of all the fine marbles of the country beautifully arranged, others of the fine stones of Sicily, neatly joined, and a few were of composition.1 His walks and shrubberies, winding prettily through amongst the rocks, have been made at great expense. I observe that where the chairs in those countries are not of silk, they are clumsy and uneasy, and the old-fashioned floors of painted tiles are coarse though showy. Carpets of course are very little known in these warm climates. We were likewise fortunate enough to find a very good day to see Monreale. We drove in an open carriage of Lord William Bentinck’s (accompanied by his Lordship’s aide-de-camp, Captain Mills) five miles. Part of the way was a gradual ascent, zig-zag to the summit of the hill. This road has been made with great taste and judgement, is adorned with fountains and bordered with beautiful shrubs, hedges of oleanders, aloes, Indian figs, etc., and the merit of all this is due to the late Bishop of Monreale.2 The valley at the foot of the hill is, for several miles, one continued garden of orange, lemon, fig, mulberry and walnut trees; with here and there a picturesque cottage, the habitations of the gardeners. The view from the hill, including this charming valley, is varied and extensive, and the town of Palermo, though fine, is not the only striking object. At the very top of the hill there is a town and convent of monks and, a few months since, there existed a church, ranking in size and magnificence next to the cathedral in Palermo. The remains of the beautiful mosaic with which it was incrusted, and the fine marble and porphyry monuments of the first kings of Sicily render one almost ashamed to tell the foolish accident by which it was burnt.3 A boy wanting to steal oil from the church entered it for this purpose, but hearing, as he thought, some person approaching, and fearing detection, put the lighted taper he had taken from one of 1

2

3

By ‘composition’ Liston may mean mosaics, as she does in her description of the repairs to the Cappella Palatina, below (see p. 88, n. 3), or pavimento alla Veneziana (Venetian pavement), a flooring composite of marble fragments. Mercurio Maria Teresi (1742–1805) was Archbishop of Monreale from 1802 until his death. He was credited with having persuaded King Ferdinand I (1751–1825) to readmit the Jesuits into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whence they had been expelled in 1767. Ferdinand became King of Spain in 1759, succeeding his father as King of Naples and Sicily. The twelfth-century Cathedral of Monreale, erected by William II of Sicily, was badly damaged by a fire in 1811. The mosaics Liston mentions are Byzantine. The Monastery of Monreale, a significant Benedictine monastery, is adjacent to the cathedral.

f. 11v

f. 12r

88

f. 12v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

the altars and held in his hand beneath a wooden bench and ran off. It remained unsuspected, as the boy did not venture to return, and next morning this fine edifice was destroyed. Nor does there appear at present any intention to rebuild it, for we found very clumsy but strong-built walls put up to divide those parts of which any use can still be made. Monte Pellegrino is a very steep hill overlooking the bay: on its summit is the Temple of St Rosalia. From this height she is brought when the feast to her memory takes place, which is early in July.1 As the weather was unfavourable and the road to the mountain, though very good, very steep and fatiguing, we did not attempt the ascent though the prospect must be very fine. The audience chamber of the king’s palace in Palermo is remarkable for some very pretty tapestry, representing several scenes in Don Quixote, and here are placed two of the brazen rams once the property of Dionysius the Tyrant of Syracuse.2 There were originally four of these but Charles the Fifth carried two of them to Spain. It is said that at Syracuse these rams were so placed as to denote, by their baaing, the different quarters from which the wind blew. The chiesa del palazzo or church belonging to the palace is entirely encrusted with mosaic: roof, floor, walls, pictures all consist of mosaic.3 We were conducted where the outside of one part of this royal chapel was under repair, in order to view the tedious manner of doing the mosaic, which consists of composition out into very small pieces and fixed upon cement. The poor man who was at work said that he could not do a face in less than six weeks of hard labour, adding, with a look of wildness, that the generality of people of his employment died mad. 1

2

3

Saint Rosalia (1120–66) is the patron saint of Palermo; although the official feast day of the saint is 4 September, in Palermo its celebration or festino is held on 14 July and is still a major social and religious event. The ‘temple’ Liston mentions is the Santuario di Santa Rosalia (the Sanctuary of St Rosalia), a shrine within a deep cave in the rock. Dionysius I of Syracuse (c.430–367 bc) was one of the most powerful rulers of Sicily, the head of a Greek empire which was in effect a monarchy. He introduced innovations in siege warfare like battering rams, two of which may be what Liston refers to as ‘the brazen rams’. Charles V (1500–58), the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, inherited (among other titles) the Crown of Aragon, which included the Kingdom of Sicily, but Liston’s statement that he took two of Dionysius’s rams to Spain seems unfounded. The Cappella Palatina (Palatine Chapel) was begun in 1130 when Roger II was crowned King of Italy. The chapel was intended for the private use of the ruling family and its construction lasted for thirteen years. It is famous for its Arabian-style decorative details and magnificent mosaics.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 89

The Cathedral – or Madre Chiesa – is a beautiful building without, of mixed architecture, chiefly Gothic.1 In the inside, which is modern, there is a plain simplicity very rare in Roman Catholic churches which I think are, in general, disguised if not disfigured by gilding and painting. This church is supported by eighty columns of oriental granite, and divided into a number of little chapels, some of them very highly ornamented, particularly that of Saint Rosalia the patroness of Palermo, whose feast I am sorry we are too early to witness. The most striking and interesting ornaments of this cathedral consist in four or five monuments of the Norman Kings of Sicily, several of whom are actually buried here.2 They are all of beautiful porphyry, and some of them near eight hundred years old. Opposite to these is a tabernacle of lapis lazuli and some of the finest specimens of marble. I never was more confirmed in the idea I had always entertained, that the Catholic religion encouraged idleness, than in seeing the number of people, of the lower class, who were here wasting their time. A few were at the altars, where there were one or two priests, some at confession, some kneeling in attitudes of devotion, and numbers loitering about idle. Some of the squares and streets of Palermo are open and handsome: the two principal of these streets intersect each other in the centre of the city, and from this point you see four truly fine ones.3 In walking before breakfast, which we did several times, our laquais de place4 conducted us to several handsome churches, particularly that of St Joseph, supported by fine columns of granite;5 but on the whole the churches in Palermo, which are handsome and numerous, are too much ornamented. I did not admire the dress of the lower class in Sicily: the men’s white night caps, and the women’s white scarves, which covered the head as well as shoulders, was not at all an attractive costume. One of the greatest annoyances in walking the streets was the innumerable 1

2

3

4

5

Madre Chiesa: Mother Church or Cathedral. Dedicated to Mary of the Assumption, its construction began in 1172. As Liston says, it presents a mixture of Byzantine, Arab and Norman styles with later Gothic additions. Among the Norman tombs are those of William II, Frederick II and his wife Constance of Aragon, Constance of Sicily, and Roger II, who was crowned King of Sicily in the cathedral in 1130. Liston is referring to the Quattro Canti, the intersection of the Via Maqueda and Corso Vittorio Emanuele (formerly Cassaro or Via Toledo), built in the early seventeenth century. A laquais was a servant or lackey (the English word deriving from the French), a laquais de place a servant or guide hired in situ by travellers. T. S. Norgate wrote in The Monthly Magazine of ‘that necessary evil the laquais-de-place’ (1802: 200). The church of San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini, built in 1612, a significant example of early Baroque architecture in Sicily.

f. 13r

90

f. 13v

f. 14r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

­ uantity of beggars, and their appearance so wretched as to excite q horror. It was in vain to give money: we once attempted it and in two seconds found ourselves surrounded by at least twenty or thirty, who became so clamorous that the shopkeepers came out to aid our laquais and to rescue us. Lady William Bentinck accompanied me one day to what is called the Botanic Garden, but I saw nothing that struck me though in this climate anything might, with pains, be produced.1 I procured with some difficulty, by means of friends, some plants of the yellow carnation, and one pot of the red and yellow, called here Pacifico.2 Carnations and, indeed, all the rarer flowers are raised here from seed by the monks, who have little else to do. The prolongation of our stay at Palermo gave us the opportunity of accepting invitations to two great Sicilian dinners; and one of these was at Prince Paterno’s (the second Baron in Sicily).3 Prince Paterno’s house was large and the number of servants that lined the antechambers immense. The table was very long, [and] handsomely ornamented, particularly with flowers; the company numerous, the dinner magnificent and very tedious. One dish struck me: it was shells filled with innumerable oysters each not larger than a pea, and very delicious. There was another small shell-fish resembling a mussel, always presented at dinners and much admired. The charm of a Sicilian dinner to me was the dessert: their confectionery is particularly fine and their ices the best and the most varied I ever tasted. I was surprised to find strawberries everywhere, and more so to hear that they have them, of one kind or another, almost every month in the year. Our next dinner was at Prince Belmónte’s town-house. The company was less numerous than at Prince Paterno’s, but the dinner, plate, etc. equally splendid; the table was round, containing betwixt twenty and thirty persons. In the middle was a very handsome circular plateau, in the centre of which an elegant temple of white alabaster, with appropriate figures of the same material around, had a pretty effect. The present critical position of Sicilian politics places Prince Belmónte in a very conspicuous point of view. He was one of the five 1 2

3

The Orto Botanico (Botanic Garden) was founded in 1785. The Duke and Duchess of Orléans gave these carnations to Liston, who wrote to thank them for the ‘very two carnations she wished to possess’ (NLS MS 5638 f. 30). They also sent her a third carnation, explaining in the accompanying letter, it ‘is very common, but as it is now in bloom it may be agreeable in the cabin at sea.’ (NLS MS 5638 f. 31) The Royal Horticultural Society lists Dianthus ‘Pacifico’ as a ‘tentatively accepted name’. Vincenzo Paterno-Castello, 6th Prince of Biscari (1743–1813).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 91

noblemen lately banished by the Queen’s party, and soon after released by the prevalence of the English interest.1 Belmónte is a man of talents and of great political activity and firmness, in his manners more the vivacity and politesse of a Frenchman than of an Italian. He is at this moment the great support of the British party in Sicily. He is Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and apparently on good terms with the Prince Royal who has been at the head of government since the forced abdication of the King, or rather of the Queen, who was certainly the active agent.2 The King and Queen have removed thirty miles from Palermo, to one of their country residences, otherwise Mr Liston and I would have had some curiosity to have seen and conversed with them. Mr Liston paid his respects to the Prince Royal. We renewed our acquaintance with the Duke of Orléans, whom we had known in America. He is married to a daughter of the Queen’s.3 She appears to be gentle and amiable. The Duke at present joins the English party. In the evening of the day that we dined at Prince Paterno’s we accompanied Lady William Bentinck home, it being her ladyship’s weekly conversazione4 – which was literally so, for there were no cards, his lordship’s band played in an adjoining room, and conversation was the sole amusement. There is it seems a sort of public conversazione in an apartment near the opera room, but it did not sound respectable and there, I am told, gaming is serious. The women in Palermo are many of them very pretty, affable and well bred, but I found that the old custom of cicisbeos still prevails in 1

2 3

4

In 1810, the Prince of Belmónte was one of the barons in the Sicilian parliament who opposed the imposition of new taxes and the demand for an annual payment of £235,000 a year by the Bourbon King Ferdinand. The king subsequently ordered their arrest and exile, but the British Minister Plenipotentiary and Commander of the 17,000 British troops on the island, Lord Bentinck, intervened, and the barons were set free; in June 1812 they called the new Sicilian parliament together. The Listons’ stay in Sicily from 14 to 18 May 1812 therefore coincided, as Liston says, with a ‘critical position’ in Sicilian politics. The British had occupied the island since 1806. The reference is to the Prince Royal, Francis (1777–1830) who in 1825 was to become Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies. Louis Philippe (1773–1850), became the Duke of Orléans in 1785 and was later known as the ‘citizen king’. He was proclaimed King of France in August 1830 and abdicated in 1848. He travelled in the United States in 1796 and stayed for a time in Philadelphia, then the seat of government, where he met the Listons while Robert Liston was serving as British Minister to the United States from 1796 to 1800. In 1809 Louis Philippe married Maria Amalia Teresa of Naples (1782–1866), daughter of Ferdinand IV/III of Naples and Sicily and Maria Carolina of Austria (1752–1814), the ‘Queen’ referred to by Liston. An Italian word used in Italy from the middle of the eighteenth century meaning an evening assembly for conversation and amusement. Introduced into England in the later part of the century as an ‘at-home’.

f. 14v

92

f. 15r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

full force.1 The society is much liked by all strangers residing in this city, and it is certainly an advantage that the higher class of them mix with the Sicilians of the first rank, while the number of British officers serves as an agreeable variety to the natives. The opera in Palermo is thought very good. One female performer was as remarkable for the gracefulness of her movements, as the powers of her voice.2 The house is large, but ill lighted, except upon extraordinary occasions. We experienced two great disappointments in our visit to Sicily. Had we reached Palermo three or four days sooner we should have seen the entry (and it was attended with much ceremony) of four hundred slaves, which by a late treaty betwixt our government and the Bey of Tunis, were redeemed from slavery.3 It was observed how much the apparent joy in their countenances increased the interest of the scene. I should much fear that this expression may wear off when, upon returning to their native countries, after having grown old in slavery, they find themselves without friends and without money. Lord William Bentinck was kindly supplying them with as much of the last, as would suffice to take them home. The other and greatest of our mortifications was that the French being in possession of the coast of Calabria prevented the possibility of our venturing in a ship of war to pass the Straits of Messina, by doing which we should have not only seen that city – the second in Sicily – but have passed Syracuse, and perhaps even visited Mount Etna. And our time did not admit of attempting it by land. The French make it a rule to fire upon every large ship of war, and even if the ship and crew had escaped, an accident might have driven us into the gulf so celebrated by the Ancients, betwixt Scylla and Charybdis.4 It would, 1

2

3

4

A married woman’s male companion or lover, with the knowledge and consent of the husband; a common custom in many Italian cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Wilson’s Private Diary records that the party saw the three-act opera The Horatii and Curiatii (Domenico Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e i Curiazi (1796)). Like Liston, Wilson also remarked on a particular female performer, ‘La Caldonada’, saying ‘she is one of the most powerful actresses I ever saw – all grace, all nature, all soul’ (1861: I, 48–9). The Bey of Tunis in 1812 was Hammuda Pasha (1759–1814), head of the Husainid dynasty which had ruled Tunisia since 1705. The 1812 treaty between the Kingdom of Sicily (under British auspices) and the Bey of Tunis defined the conditions for the ransoming of the captives (Moalla 2004: 63–4). Liston seems to be partly mistaken in her description of the British government’s role. However, there was a treaty of November 1813 to similar effect between the British government and the Dey of Algiers. In Greek mythology Scylla and Charybdis are the two monsters on either side of the narrow Strait of Messina: see Book 12 of Homer’s Odyssey and Books 13 and 14 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 93

to be sure, have been a remarkable and interesting mode of following in their footsteps, but Mr Liston and the Captain objected strongly to hazarding so glorious an end and, as every person we consulted agreed in opinion that there was danger from the enemy on the coast, I was obliged to give it up, and Mr Liston did not fail to remind me what an indulgence it was, our being permitted to stop at such variety of places, and I certainly feel the amusement it affords. We re-embarked on Monday evening the 18th and it was not without regret that I quitted Sicily. We slowly turned the point of the bay the following day and had a near view of our old acquaintance Marettimo, and on Wednesday the 20th came within sight of Eryx, now St Juliana, on the top of a mountain.1 This was formerly the island of Venus, where a beautiful temple was erected to her, and from whence she assumed the surname of Eryeina. The next day we passed Marsala: the town of that name is situated at the bottom of a hill – it is from this part of Sicily that the famous wine, so called, is produced. We also saw the island of Mazzarò.2 To my infinite regret, the wind beginning to blow from the land we passed Girgenti without even seeing it; otherwise, although there is no proper anchorage, we should certainly have been tempted to land with a boat, as it is the spot in Sicily, perhaps in the world, where are the greatest number of beautiful remains of antiquity and in the best preservation.3 On the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd May we came within sight of Malta. About seven in the evening we got into the harbour, and landed at Valletta, the principal town and named after the Grand Master who built it.4 The secretary of the government, Mr Laing, an old and valued friend of ours, came on board, before our landing, with an invitation from General Oakes (who is both Civil and Military Governor) to take up our quarters in the Palace.5 1 2

3

4

5

Marettimo is one of the Aegadian Islands north-west of Sicily. Mount Eryx is the main mountain on Marettimo. Near Taormina on the west coast of Sicily, Mazzarò is not an island. Liston may be confusing it with the islet of Isola Bella, later owned by conservationist and gardener Florence Trevelyan (1852–1907). Girgenti is the Sicilian name for Agrigento, a hilltop city on Sicily’s southern coast. The allusion to the ‘beautiful remains of antiquity’ refers to the Valley of the Temples, one of the largest archaeological sites in the world. Valletta is named after Jean de la Valette, the Grand Master who defeated the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta of 1565: he reputedly laid the foundation stone but did not live to see the city completed before his death in 1568. The Reverend Francis Laing (1773–1861) served as Private Secretary to the Governor of Malta from 1803 to 1814, quickly becoming Secretary to the Governor of Malta. He was married to Mary Dorothea Whitmore Laing (1781–1872), mentioned below

f. 15v

94

f. 16r

f. 16v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Malta offers to the eye the most noble and singular collection of buildings to be seen anywhere. Part of these are fortifications, but mixed with so much taste as to add considerably to the magnificence of the scene, and I do believe that the mixture of the clerical and military character could alone have accomplished this so well. The cavaliers rising above the other erections, by the open manner in which they are built, give a lightness and elegance to the whole.1 The palace, formerly the residence of the Grand Master of the Knights of St John, is an abode worthy a sovereign.2 The rooms are of immense size, and the whole forms a very fine square; the galleries are spacious and everything highly finished. The library and armoury are noble apartments. In the former there is a large collection of valuable books. In the armoury are a number of figures of the knights in armour, some of them richly ornamented, and thirty thousand stand of arms, etc. One of the singularities of this palace is the steps by which you ascend: they are about two inches and a half in depth, very broad and of course very numerous, but afford the possibility of riding up. This plan of a stair was supposed to suit the advanced age of some of the Brotherhood, for here as in many other warm countries the principal apartments are high. The entrance to this fine square is noble and there are cloisters around. There is likewise a chapel adjoining to the cloisters, in which divine service is performed very regularly. It is a plain modern building, but there still remains in the palace one very highly finished, now divided and converted into offices for public business. The Church of St John is one of the largest and most beautifully decorated Catholic churches I ever saw.3 The pavement consists of the tombstones of the knights, of various coloured marbles, displaying the arms of each, and these so neatly joined as to form the handsomest floor imaginable. A space of about ten or fifteen feet remain unoccupied. At the back of a large aisle and over the altar is a very fine painting of the decapitation of St John the Baptist, with the daughter of Herodias and her mother ready to receive the head in a charger. The expres-

1 2 3

(see p. 97) as Mrs Laing. Sir Hildebrand Oakes (1754–1822) was British Civil and Military Commissioner of Malta from 1810 to 1813. The Grand Master’s Palace where the Listons stayed was built from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and became the governor’s residence in 1800, when the British occupied Malta. A cavalier is a fortification built within a larger fortification and rising above it. The Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, a Catholic military order founded in the eleventh century. Properly the Co-Cathedral of St John.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 95

sion of John’s countenance (for the stroke is only about to be given) is inimitable.1 This remarkable work was painted by Michelangelo Caravaggio, and the anecdote which gave it to Malta is singular. Michelangelo had a quarrel in Italy and challenged his adversary, who refused to fight him because an artist was not acknowledged as a gentleman. [Michel]angelo set out for Malta, where he had interest sufficient to obtain the honour of knighthood, and permission to wear the Cross of Malta, par grâce. As a recompense for this kindness he painted the fine picture in question for their Church of St John. He returned to Italy and, as the story says, again challenged and fought his proud opponent.2 Our limited time and the badness of the roads prevented our visiting all the lions at Malta: for instance we did not see the famous catacombs, which are nine or ten miles off.3 We did not attempt to go to the supposed lately discovered tomb of Hannibal, nor did we view the spot where St Paul was shipwrecked, nor where the Maltese say he first said mass.4 But as General Oakes dines in summer at three o’clock, in order to enjoy the evenings, we went one afternoon to a very pretty country villa of his called Floriana near town, with gardens which his indulgence renders public. They were prettily laid out – the terraces, little orangeries, etc., making part of the fortifications, and near these a larger garden, made at a considerable expense by the late Sir Alexander Ball (a worthy friend of ours), late Governor of Malta, as a botanic garden, which if carefully attended to, ought to be of some importance, but this is not the case.5 The house belonging to these gardens, and in 1

2

3 4

5

The painting is Caravaggio’s The Beheading of St John the Baptist (1608). Restoration work in the 1950s revealed that contrary to Liston’s description, the Baptist’s throat has already been cut, and the artist’s signature is written in the prophet’s blood (Hammill 2000: 96). Liston’s version of Caravaggio’s arrival in Malta in 1606 is contradicted by recent accounts. Historians seem to agree that he killed a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni, either after an argument about gambling or tennis, or possibly after trying to castrate him because of a dispute over a woman called Fillide Melandroni. Caravaggio was made a Knight of St John but was later expelled after a brawl with another Knight; he was imprisoned, but escaped, leaving Malta in 1608 (see Graham-Dixon: 2010). ‘Par grâce’: by special permission or as a special favour. In the early nineteenth century, a ‘lion’ was a famous or popular person or place. An article in The Examiner, 17 November 1811, declares that Sir W. Drummond claimed to have discovered the tomb of Hannibal in the district of Ben Ghisa in Malta. The claim seems uncorroborated. St Paul is traditionally believed to have been shipwrecked off St Paul’s Island (also known as Selmunett) off the north-east coast of Malta. See Acts 27.27–8. Sir Alexander John Ball (1756–1809), a rear admiral and close friend of Nelson’s, directed the blockade of Malta (1798–1800), was made Minister Plenipotentiary of Malta in 1802 and was Civil Commissioner and de facto governor from 1803 until his death. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was his public secretary in Malta in 1805 and

f. 17r

96

f. 17v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

which General Oakes passes some of the hot months, is light and pretty looking, but not cheerful. Another afternoon we went to St Antonio, a country residence of the governor’s upon a larger scale, and at the distance of four miles from town.1 Here the house is larger and the gardens extensive, a very fine myrtle hedge with fountains and ornaments innumerable, and here occasionally his Excellency gives a fete when the whole is illuminated. We found a number of people strolling about the walks, as this garden is also accessible to the public. The island of Malta is rocky and apparently barren but not really so, for from these rocks a very good soil is formed, but the frequent sharp winds oblige the inhabitants to erect high walls to screen their vegetation, and these in some degree conceal the surface. At the same time it is certain that much of their vegetables are brought from the neighbouring island of Gozo (supposed to have been the abode of Calypso).2 Malta is remarkable for two kinds of oranges peculiar to herself, the blood-orange (falsely supposed to be grafted from the pomegranate), [and] the other called the mandarin very small and highly flavoured. They have also the common orange of southern climates, with pomegranates, figs, olives, etc. The rocks of Malta are generally white, and must be very disagreeable to the eyes in summer. Valletta is built of a beautiful coloured stone, the appearance of which is rather improved than injured by the constant white dust with which the streets are filled. The houses in general are handsome, and upon a large scale, and several of the hotels are good. The best of them were possessed by the different classes, or tongues of the Knights, who joined the military and ecclesiastic association, and who built to themselves fine houses after their own taste, and these still retain the names of the country or province.3

1

2 3

­eulogised him in The Friend (see especially Coleridge’s eulogy (296–300) and ‘Sketches and Fragments of the Life and Character of the Late Admiral Sir Alexander Ball’, published across numbers 21, 22, 26 and 27 of The Friend (1810: 340–67, 417–18)). Built in the seventeenth century as a country residence for Fra Antoine de Paule, a Knight of the Order of St John, San Anton Palace (Il-Palazz Sant’Anton) in Attard became the British Governor’s residence in 1800. The palace gardens, first opened to the public by Sir Alexander Ball, were noted for their beauty and quality. As Liston says, local tradition on Gozo claims that it is Ogygia, the island home of Calypso described by Homer in Book 5 of The Odyssey. Liston here mixes two different types of classification in the organisation of the Order of the Knights of St John: there are three orders or classes, the Military, the Ecumenical and the Hospitaller. The grouping of different tongues or langues is an administrative division of the Knights Hospitaller, according to ethnological/­ geographical criteria. Each langue is subdivided into Priories, Grand Priories, and so on, and each has its own auberge or inn, three of which survive today: one in Rhodes, and the two others, Birgo and Valletta, in Malta.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 97

Malta is at this moment the emporium of the Mediterranean. The ships in the bay appeared like a wood, and the trade is immense; but it being a free port very little profit arises to the British government except, that it is a source of prosperity to her subjects. The society here differs from that of Palermo: it seemed to be entirely English, few of the Maltese mixing familiarly with them. The lower class of the men in general wear red caps, with the ends hanging down the back. Amongst the women of the country the Spanish black petticoat is almost universal, but instead of the mantilla they throw round the shoulders what may almost be called the half of a black petticoat. Bringing the gathers upon the breast, this is much less graceful than the Spanish mantilla. The native language of the Maltese is Arabic (this island once making part of Africa) mixed with bad Italian.1 The Maltese are less noisy in the streets than their neighbours the Sicilians, who are perpetually talking with their hands and bodies, as well as with their tongues (indeed, it appeared wonderful to me that they were so noisy in Sicily when it is considered how many words they can express by the movement of fingers, head, and body.) The politics of Malta seems tranquilised by dismissing a turbulent Englishman who occasioned and then fomented the discontents. On the evening of Tuesday 26th, the Argo having taken in her supplies, we went on board, parting very reluctantly with General Oakes, Mr [and] Mrs Laing, and the rest of our agreeable society at the palace. The wind, which had been fair for several days, was now against us. We, however, established ourselves in our comfortable little cabin and, after writing letters for the packet, which was just about to sail, we returned to the palace to dinner, re-embarked in the evening, and by daylight next morning, the 29th, we were under sail with a fair wind for the archipelago.2 On Sunday the 31st we came within sight of Greece. The first point that presented itself was the Morea (formerly Peloponnesus) in which we were struck with the mountains of Arcadia, part of them covered with snow. In this peninsula are situated Argos, Sparta, Achaia, etc., which were amongst the most famous parts of Greece, and the first signalised in the annals of fame. 1

2

Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, but has little relation to either Standard or Classical Arabic. Its vocabulary draws heavily on Italian, Sicilian and English: hence, perhaps, Liston’s derogatory comment on ‘bad Italian’. A packet was a ship chartered by the government to carry mail and dispatches to and from British embassies, outposts and colonies. Such ships often also carried passengers.

f. 18r

f. 18v

98

f. 19r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Next day, the first of June, we saw the island of Cerigo on one side, and on the other the smaller island of Cerigotto, with a distant view of the island of Candia, or Crete, its mountains tinged with snow.1 Cerigo was the ancient Cythera or island of Venus in which the Phoenicians built a temple to that goddess. We passed near enough to discern, with a glass, a considerable town in a valley, and a tower or citadel on the rising ground adjoining. Tuesday the 2nd we found ourselves approaching to Milo, formerly Milos, and on the 3rd we cast anchor there, not only to procure pilots, but to avoid a contrary wind. On the day preceding we had passed the desert island of Falkonera, mentioned by Falconer in his poem of the shipwreck.2 We also passed Antimilos. The islands in the archipelago now became so numerous that it is only those in some way remarkable that can be named: we are always within sight of one, two or three, either on the Asiatic or Grecian side. On the 3rd we cast anchor at Milo. The bay or harbour of this island is large and fine, sixty miles in circumference and, to judge from the first view, not much cultivated. The Vice Consul (who is at the head of the pilots, and thinks it a duty to conduct diplomatic people in person) came off in a boat bearing the British flag, and invited us to his house next day at a town called Kastro, which was one of the first objects seen from the sea, and made a very strange appearance, built around a pyramidal or sugar-loaf hill.3 We landed on the 4th, and the Consul having sent jack-asses to meet us on the shore, we ascended to Kastro, one continued steep of rocks and rough ground till, reaching near the top, we were obliged to dismount, and with great difficulty I scrambled up what served as streets, 1

2

3

Cerigo was the name given to the island of Cythera (or Kythira) by the Venetians when they conquered it in 1717. The ruins of a temple dedicated to Aphrodite Palaeokastra (or Venus) still exist today. Cerigotto (which Liston spells here ‘Corigota’) was the Venetian name for the island of Antikythera. Turner records that from the Argo the party could see ‘Cretan Mount Ida’ (1820: I, 31). The island of Milo is now once again Milos; in Liston’s time it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Falkonera, now known as Gerakoulia, is still uninhabited. The poem by the Scottish sailor and lexicographer, William Falconer (bapt. 1732–70) is The Shipwreck. A Sentimental and Descriptive Poem, first published in 1762 and based on his own experience as one of only three survivors of the wreck of a trading ship sailing from Alexandria to Venice. Liston spells the name of the island ‘Falconera’ here, foregrounding the similarity to the name of the poet. She returned to both place and poem in a later journal entry, on 20 October 1815 (see p. 207). Antonio Michelis, Vice Consul of Milos. Calling him ‘Michili’, Turner recorded that ‘He spoke very good English, and held the post (without salary) of English Vice-Consul in the island’ (1820, I: 31). Milos was known for its pilots, who worked from Kastro and Pláka (see McGilchrist 2010: 209). Kastro, originally built in the thirteenth century, lies just north of the current capital of Milos, Pláka.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 99

and were so called, but it was the rocks without even an attempt to form steps of them, and what rendered this walk worse was the custom of throwing everything into the streets, so that but for the height, and the facility with which the rain can wash all away, the stench would be insupportable. Yet the houses within were tolerably clean and well furnished: everything of clothing white from the circumstance of cotton being the principal produce of the island; and this they spin and weave themselves.1 Consequently their dress as well as furniture all consist of that article. Their costume was singular but not ungraceful; very short white petticoats – often bordered in colours – each petticoat shorter than the other, with a kind of loose white drapery covering the shoulders, and hanging down as low as the upper petticoat behind, and depending2 in front from the shoulders; the breast of the under-­garment low, and a handkerchief modestly put on within the gown, the sleeves wide and loose, and rolled-up from the wrist to the elbow. The  hair is entirely concealed by a kind of cotton cloth put tight across  the forehead, then a large piece of the same cloth, brought – sometimes – below the chin, always appearing full and handsome towards the top of the head. The chief ornaments of the women were part of a broad embroidered velvet belt or girdle in front of the waist, [and] fine shoes or slippers – for common wear, made of yellow leather, and for dress, velvet of different colours embroidered with gold and silver. Those women whom we found weeding cotton in the fields had likewise this dress of white cotton cloth, with this difference, that the longest petticoat assumed the form of wide drawers, and the drapery on the head was drawn over their faces to save them from the sun: notwithstanding which this class of females had very dark complexions. These Greeks are a fine-looking race of people, and those women whose situations kept them within doors, were many of them very fair and handsome – some might have sat for Madonnas or St Cecilias.3 The architecture of their houses was as singular as their dress: square buildings of stone, flat-roofed and in general not more than ten or twelve feet high, with small windows. In ascending the hill we passed many such erections but lower, and invisible windows. Some differed from others by having a rising in the middle resembling an oven. These, our conductor informed us, had been chapels, and almost every family 1

2 3

Cotton is still one of the main crops of Milos, along with vines and barley; the other main source of income is tourism. Liston mentions the vineyards later in her account of the island. Hanging down. The patron saint of musicians.

f. 19v

f. 20r

100

f. 20v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

had his own.1 He pointed out one as having belonged to his grandfather – but these seem to have fallen into disuse, and a large church is now built near the town, with the regular cupola of the Greek churches.2 From Kastro we were conducted to the remains of an old town, upon a lower hill, and nearer to the shore. Some marbles still remain to indicate its former greatness. This city, our guide informed us, had been destroyed by the Athenians, when that nation revenged itself so bitterly upon the inhabitants of Milo, for refusing to join in the Peloponnesian War, the island having been originally peopled by the Lacedaemonians.3 About six miles from Kastro, and two from the beach, is situated the town called Milo – formerly the capital and of considerable size, it is in a very ruinous state though still inhabited.4 It has regular streets, and seems to have been built of hewn stone. In the best house now remaining we visited the first man in the island, in point of rank, and here, as at Kastro, we were entertained with wine, figs and almonds. The man himself seemed sick and sulky. His wife was extremely civil, and his eldest daughter very handsome. There is a natural civility and even grace about these people, and particularly the women. In going to Kastro – where our coming had been expected – we found the streets and doors crowded to see us, and as in all crowds, the females bore the greater proportion. They saluted us as we passed, and an elderly woman advancing presented me with a bunch of flowers, which she took from her breast. It seems, indeed, to be the custom that after you are seated in any of their houses someone of the family offer flowers to each person. Certain flowers are said to be the mode of acceptance or denial – on the part of the lady – in courtship. Another odd custom prevails: when the first daughter is married the father gives her the house in which he lives as her marriage portion. Two convents still remain inhabited by priests (but no monks): hospitality is a virtue enjoined by them and always practised. The language of the inhabitants is, of course, modern Greek. A few of them speak a little Italian, and fewer still, a little English, which they 1 2 3

4

Family chapels were common on the Greek islands among Aegean seafaring communities. Probably the Church of Panagia Thalassitra, built in 1738. Liston is referring to the ancient city of Melos, attacked by the Athenians in 416 bc for not taking sides in the Peloponnesian War. The slaughter of its inhabitants is considered an example of tyranny. In the Melian Dialogue in his History of the Peloponnesian War (5.85–113), Thucydides analyses the conflicting demands of ethics and power in international politics. Liston’s reference is unclear here: she may be referring to the nearby ancient city of Melos.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 101

pick up from their intercourse as pilots with the British ships. Besides cotton, the island of Milos is pretty well provided with vineyards, and produces two kinds of wine: one white, a little sweet and very good; the other red, [and] rather inferior. With an appearance of barrenness it furnishes to its inhabitants abundance of vegetables, and certain fruits, almonds, figs, olives, etc. I observed several plants which were, at least, varieties, but I had no sort of convenience for preserving them.1 The oleander grows spontaneously and in great beauty, and as we trod the fields and banks the fragrance of the sweet herbs was almost too strong for me.2 Amongst the curiosities of this island may be reckoned the hot salt springs. Those in the fields were dried up, but we found one on the beach so hot that I could not bear my hand in it, yet it would not boil an egg; but the egg being put into the sand immediately around it, is easily boiled.3 Another curiosity is the catacombs. I only saw them at a distance as caverns in the rocks: the entrances now approach so near to the sea that I could not venture in, but some of the gentlemen belonging to the Argo, who penetrated these receptacles for the dead, say they are more remarkable than those they saw at Malta.4 A number of antiquities are still dug up near them, and marbles, coins, etc. are to be found in other parts of the island. A contrary wind detained us in the harbour of Milo till Sunday the 7th and then, indeed, we worked out against the wind, but Monday was more favourable. We passed on that day and on Tuesday a number of islands, amongst others, Paros, from whence the ancients received their beautiful white marble.5 The quarries are now become so deep that it is said to be difficult to obtain it; but nearly the same quality is to be procured from the neighbouring island of Tinos. The island of Nicaria was one of those we observed: there appeared to be a considerable quantity of trees but no houses. Our Greek pilots (for we had two on board) said that instead of houses the inhabitants live chiefly in caves. 1 2 3 4

5

Throughout her time in the Ottoman Empire Liston collected plant specimens and sent them to fellow botanists: see Section 2 of the Critical Introduction, above. Nerium Oleander, an evergreen shrub with fragrant flowers. There are still hot mineral springs on Milos; one, near the main port of Adámas, was mentioned by Herodotus and Hippocrates as a cure for skin diseases. The catacombs on Milos are near Trypití, near the site of the ancient city of Melos and are open to the public today; on Malta there are many catacombs in the neighbourhood of Mdina (also known as Città Vecchia), the old capital of the island, including those known as St Paul’s Catacombs. Paros, Tinos, Nicaria (or Ikaria) and Siros (or Syros) are all islands in the Cyclades; as Liston says, Parian marble was famous; it is estimated that 70 per cent of the sculptures in the islands are made of Parian marble.

f. 21r

102

f. 21v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

One of the most conspicuous of these numerous islands presented itself on Tuesday afternoon – Chios, which was not only apparently well cultivated, but we could see towns and buildings proving a thick population.1 It is said to have lately become a mart for goods betwixt Asia and Europe, and it is here that the tributes exacted by the Turks from the other Greek islands in the archipelago is paid.2 Nothing can equal the charms of this climate, the beauty of the sky, without heat to oppress, and quite sufficient for comfort and for pleasure. The passage of the archipelago, or Aegean Sea, sailing betwixt the continents of Greece and Asia, with one or more islands always in view, was indeed a fairy scene. The small island of Psara appeared better peopled than many of the others.3 We saw cultivation, and towns, with a considerable number of vessels in the harbour. An almost dead calm detained us near two days betwixt Psara and Chios: during this nothing could exceed the sweetness of the long evenings of June. The glassy surface of the water, the unclouded sky and the rosy tinges of the setting sun, were worthy the pencil of Claude Lorrain.4 On Thursday the 11th we came in sight of Mitylene, formerly the island of Lesbos, famous as the birthplace of several great characters, and particularly of Sappho.5 It is large and on the coast of Asia. The town of Mitylene was on the contrary side to that on which we coasted. On the 12th we reached the island of Tenedos, remarkable for its wine, and to the lovers of Homer for having been the place of concealment of the Greeks when they wished to persuade the Trojans that they had withdrawn themselves from the war.6 Beyond Tenedos we saw 1

2

3

4 5 6

Chios, which Liston spells variously in her journals as ‘Seio’, ‘Shio’ or ‘Chio’ is one of the largest Greek islands in the Aegean near the coast of Anatolia. Historically the island functioned as an important trading post between Anatolia and the West. From the fourteenth century onwards the Genoese settled, colonised and governed the island, until 1566 when it was taken by the Ottomans. It was famous for its dried fruits, olives, wine and mastic, the last of which is still an important export. Liston returned to Chios again in 1815: see p. 206. The islands in the archipelago (such as Naxos, Syros and Milos) had a tribute-paying status: in return they retained internal autonomy and were granted commercial, legal and fiscal privileges and freedom of religious worship: see de Groot 2003: 575–604. Psara island, fourteen miles from the north-western point of the island of Chios. As it had a good harbour on the east coast it was frequented by ships passing to and from Constantinople, and it was rich in corn and other provisions. In the manuscript Liston spells Psara ‘Ispera’. Claude Lorrain (1600–82), painter, draughtsman and etcher. Sappho (630–570 bc) came from Lesbos; much of her poetry has not survived, but she is considered the most significant and influential woman poet of Ancient Greece. Tenedos (or Bozcaada), still known for its wines, is one of the Aegean Islands and is now part of Turkey. In The Aeneid (2:21–5), after leaving the Trojan horse in front of Troy, the Greeks hide their ships on the far side of Tenedos so that the Trojans think they have left.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 103

Mount Ida rising with its head covered with snow. Tenedos is small but apparently fertile. As there was little or nothing to be seen, and our business now lay in the Dardanelles, it was agreed that we should proceed, and sailing betwixt Tenedos and the coast of Asia, anchor at the mouth of the Dardanelles. That part of Asia within our view was beautifully broken and thickly wooded.1 About the middle of the day we moored opposite to the village of Jenisheri, or Yenizeri (called by seamen Cape Janissary), supposed to be situated on the Sigean promontory, and where that part of the Grecian fleet, commanded by Agamemnon lay.2 The Captain sent a lieutenant with one of our Greek pilots as interpreter to the governor of the fort called Kium-Kali – or Kum-Kali3 – on the Asiatic side of the mouth of the Dardanelles; and about a mile to the left of Jenisheri to acquaint him of the arrival of the Argo with the Ambassador, and to ask his permission that the people and the passengers might land if necessary. He received the officer and pilot civilly, invited them into his house on the outside of the fortification, treated them with snuff and coffee and granted everything requested; only prohibiting any person from the ship attempting to enter the fort. About twelve o’clock on the same night the Secretary of the Governor General of the Dardanelles, residing at Abydos,4 about eighteen miles off, at the entrance of the narrower part of the straits, came on board with the compliments of the Governor (who had heard of the approach of the frigate, from the master of a Greek vessel) with an offer of any service in his power. The Secretary added that his 1

2

3

4

At this point in the manuscript there are seven and a half lines offering a variant of the preceding paragraph, which Liston has crossed through with a large ‘X’ (see Figure 1.5; for further discussion of this passage see Section 7 of the Critical Introduction, above). At the end of the crossed-out section, the following sentence, a variant of the end of the preceding paragraph, appears, undeleted: ‘We accordingly sailed through the narrow passage betwixt that island and the coast of Asia, and anchored at the wider mouth of the Dardanelles, as near as possible to the Plain of Troy.’ The village of Yenişehir on Cape Yenişehir (Yenişehir Burnu), also known as Cape Janissary. The cape is identified by Hobhouse as lying ‘a mile and a half to the north’ of the town of ‘Yeni-Keui’, or Yeniköy (2014 [1855]: II, 102). The Sigeion promontory (referred to by both Liston and Hobhouse as ‘the Sigean promontory’) is the site of the ancient town of Sigeion in the Troad region of Anatolia, now in Çanakkale province. Sigeion is mentioned in The Aeneid and Hobhouse states that ‘all ancient accounts’ place ‘the supposed station of Agamemnon’s fleet, between the Sigean and Rhoetean promontories’ (2014 [1855]: II, 139). Today the village of Kumkale, in the province of Çanakkale, within the Historical National Park of Troy. The Ottoman fort of Kumkale (Sand Fort, as Liston notes below) was built in the mid-seventeenth century to defend the entrance to the Dardanelles. Abydos was an ancient town on the narrowest point of the Hellespont. It was near modern Çanakkale on the eastern shore of the Dardanelles.

f. 22r

f. 22v

104

f. 23r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

master had orders to send an express to the Turkish government the moment of our arrival. We were not displeased at finding that we must remain in this interesting situation till Mr Liston could receive an answer to a request made, through Mr Canning, the Minister at Constantinople, to permit the frigate to proceed to the Porte.1 The King’s Messenger was dispatched to the British Consul at Abydos,2 by whose means he was to be forwarded to Constantinople, and we availed ourselves of this delay to visit the Plain of Troy and Alexandria Troas.3 On Tuesday the 16th we set out, with two of our party, for this purpose, accompanied by a Jew, an excellent fellow (brother to the consul at Abydos) as interpreter, and landed near the fort, at a small village of the same name (Kum-Kali, that is, Sand-Fort).4 We found here that the Governor General, having heard, through the Consul, of our intention, had sent six horses to meet us – the one for Mr Liston was finely caparisoned – together with several janissaries to attend us. A little car, drawn by two buffaloes, was likewise provided for me (not being able to use a Turkish saddle)5 and we proceeded on our journey being – properly speaking – already on the Plain of Troy, which commences at the shore and extends to the ridge of mountains attached to Mount Ida. On leaving the village we forded a wide shallow river with a gravelly bottom now called Menderé, which is supposed to be a corruption of the word Scamander.6 According to the system of M. Chevalier and the other 1 2

3

4 5

6

On Mr Canning, see p. 34, n. 37. The King’s Messenger was Thomas Fisher (1763–c.1828); Israel Ben Shabetay Taragano (also spelled Tarragona, Terragano, Tarigano and Taregano; b. c.1765) was dragoman and British Vice Consul to the Dardanelles from 1789 to 1817. Robert Liston knew Israel from his first embassy to Constantinople, telling Castlereagh in July 1812 that he ‘has a very large family’ and that ‘his salary is paid by the Levant Company’ (NLS MS 5627 f. 5). The ancient city of Alexandria Troas on the coast of Troas was founded by Antigonus I in 310 bc as Antigoneia. After Antigonus’s death it was renamed Alexandria in honour of Alexander the Great. The ‘excellent fellow’ was Solomon Taragano, a dragoman for the Levant Company from 1806 to 1812, the brother of Israel. Later in her travels, Liston would mount a ‘Turkish saddle’ (see p. 182), which typically had a broader seat, a high pommel and a cantle behind. Other female British travel writers in Ottoman lands made much of the effects of their riding side-saddle upon the local populace. In a ‘colonial allegory’ (Lowe 1991: 50), Montagu ‘figures herself as having astonished everyone at Adrianpole with her sidesaddle’, which, she reports, was ‘gazed at with as much wonder as the ship of Columbus was in America’ (Landry 2000: 65; Montagu 2013: 128). On the cultural history of the Turkish saddle, see Tekiner and Keleştimur 2015; on the cultural politics of British women riding side-saddle in Turkey, see Lowe 1991 and Landry 2000. The Karamenderes River.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 105

modern travellers I have met with (which I will not pretend to dispute), this name was given to the united waters of the Sinois and the Scamander, which Homer tells us met in the middle of the plain.1 After travelling a little further we passed the place of their ancient junction, which does not now take place, unless in case of a flood, as the water of the Scamander is turned aside by means of a dam – constructed at a considerable distance above – and carried along an artificial canal to drive some Turkish mills situated farther down the sea-coast. The road was level and the plain well cultivated: here and there we perceived detached pieces of broken columns and other fragments of marble, sculptured; several Turkish burial-grounds, the stones, according to their custom, placed on end and some of them crowned with turbans, indicating the rank of the deceased; likewise the small remains of a Greek church, to which the poor people repair on certain holidays, and perform their devotions in the open air. A number of storks paced the plain. This is a bird held sacred by the Turks, and happy the houses on the chimneys of which they build their picturesque nests. At the distance of ten miles – that is to say three hours’ and a half travel (for this is their manner of counting) – we reached Bunarbashi, a village on a rising ground supposed to be near the site of ancient Troy.2 Here we were received by an aga with much civility.3 He is the manager of the farm belonging to the Governor of the Dardanelles. The house was new and in good order. We were conducted into a large apartment set round with Turkish sofas, very low. A number of windows but without glass rendered it cool and pleasant. A breakfast was presented to us consisting of milk dressed in three or four different ways, some like Devonshire clotted cream, eggs also dressed with butter, and, probably as a mark of attention to us, we had spoons of painted wood, but there did not seem to be any idea of separate plates. At last our interpreter procured something like small dishes. We were offered 1

2 3

Jean-Baptiste Le Chevalier (1752–1836), French traveller and archaeologist; he was Secretary to the French Ambassador in Constantinople from 1785 to 1787. He published Voyage dans la Troade, ou tableau de la plaine de Troie dans son état actuel in 1794. By referring to his ‘system’ Liston may mean his identification of various elements of the supposed site of Troy. John Cam Hobhouse lists various features of the site identified by Le Chevalier but adds that by the time of his own visit the accuracy of these identifications was debated (2014 [1855]: II, 100–1). The river Sinois (or Simoeis, or Simois) is today known as the Dümrek. Bunarbashi is Liston’s transliteration of Pınarbaşı. Ağa was a title or part of a title used for a civilian or for a military or administrative officer. Literally meaning master or chief, it could apply to landholders and heads of organisations.

f. 23v

106

f. 24r

f. 24v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

coffee, but the milk and eggs were so extremely well dressed that we were satisfied. After it was finished a Greek came to each of us, holding in one hand a pewter basin, in which was placed a grating, with a little elevation in the centre, where a piece of soap was put; in the other he held a pewter ewer with a long spout, and kneeling on one knee poured the water on our hands. This is a Turkish delicacy, to prevent your repeatedly dipping your hands in the same water. After breakfast an ass was provided for me, with carpeting instead of a saddle, in order to ascend the hills forming a portion of Ida. On one of the risings, which is the tomb said to be that of Hector, a considerable mound is raised by means of stones, and it appears to have been opened at least once.1 On another part of this hill, a little higher, is the tomb of Antenor.2 We then ascended another elevation still higher, called Pergama, where stood, as is supposed, the citadel of Troy, commanding towards the coast an extensive view over the plain, and encircled on three sides by the beautiful Simois.3 This river is in summer dry, perhaps, but in June we found it a large and pleasant stream. The valleys and meadows on its banks were well cultivated and finely enlivened by trees. The hills were covered with brushwood almost to their termination on the snowy tops of Ida. I do not pretend to correct travellers, or to follow Homer, yet I could not help remarking that the situation of this citadel, the hills and rivers, precisely answered to his description of those of ancient Troy. After passing four hours in a spot certainly worth travelling a great way to see, even had Homer never existed, we descended the hills and saw in an old quarry, as we passed, the finest wild fig tree. At the aga’s house in Bunarbashi we found a dinner prepared à la Turque – one dish at a time – to the amount, including milk and preserves, of twelve.4 The first was to me the most singular: a whole 1

2

3 4

As Liston notes, the tomb she sees is supposedly ‘that of Hector’, though in antiquity Hector was reputedly buried in the ancient Greek city of Ophryneion in the northern part of the Troad and later moved to Thebes after it was rebuilt in 316 bc. Antenor is a minor character in The Iliad. Too old to fight, he is left in Troy when the young men go battle. In Iliad 3.147 he is one of those who complain about the war and think that Helen should simply be returned to Greece. He repeats the suggestion publicly in 7.346–50. The citadel of Troy was known as Pergama. Liston uses the phrase in relation to a mode of eating, sitting, and riding a horse. Turquerie was an eighteenth-century ‘European vision of the Ottoman Turkish world’ taking many different forms, a ‘fanciful realm detached from both Europe and the Orient’, which faded with the French Revolution but saw a brief resurgence at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it was replaced by other, more imperialistic, visions (Williams 2014: 7, 8, 11). The phrase ‘à la Turque’ suggests Liston’s position between eighteenth-century exoticism and nineteenth-century imperialism (see Section 5: Henrietta Liston and British–Ottoman Relations, above).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 107

lamb roasted, or rather baked, and stuffed with rice. This I am told is a favourite morsel with the Turks. No knives or forks are used, as the meat is torn off with fingers, which have been washed just before dinner and immediately after. We happened to have some of our own knives and forks, as likewise wine and porter, and their water was excellent, as well as the sherbet – rich lemonade. After the meal was finished, the Greek again appeared on one knee with the water for washing. Coffee  and pipes were offered. Mr Liston was very soon visited by another aga of Bunarbashi, who accepted of both. He came to pay his respects and invited us to breakfast with him next morning at sunrise, in his garden near the bottom of the rising ground where we were, and which garden is supposed to have been that of Priam.1 The two agas sat on the low sofa by us. The rest of the Turks squatted down upon their hams on the floor, as did our interpreter, and some Greek women who chose to remain in the room till near time of our laying ourselves along the sofas to sleep. As neither of the agas had wives I saw no Turkish women, except a few we had passed at first setting out that were veiled. The aga came very soon after the sun to conduct us to breakfast, to which our host accompanied us; the distance was very short. We were introduced into this former garden of King Priam’s, and found mats laid and carpets spread over a raised seat beneath a grape arbour. A small table was set before us with coffee, several different dishes of milk – all ­excellent – [and] a dish composed of cheese and honey baked (which I thought disagreeable), together with a pair of cold roasted fowls, and cherries fresh pulled, made the breakfast. Another Turkish delicacy appeared: over the shoulder of each of us (for the Turks did not eat with, but waited upon us) was thrown a long towel of coarse cotton cloth embroidered with silk to wipe the mouth, while a plain white one was laid in the lap to wipe the fingers. The garden was extensive and well filled, though not in good order. After our entertainment and that our janissaries had seized the fowls which they intended should serve us to dinner, we entered a tuft of trees at the back of the garden, and there saw the first fountain of Scamander.2 Round it was a pavement of flat stones, and in the 1

2

King of Troy. In The Iliad, Achilles encounters one of Priam’s sons in Priam’s garden, cutting branches for chariot wheels (21.34–9). Liston’s identification of the place where they breakfast as Priam’s garden, like all the identifications of places in The Iliad, is speculative. Not to be confused with the ‘Scamander’ or Karamenderes river. Hobhouse notes that ‘the springs and the pools of water unite their streams [. . .] and partly flow

f. 25r

108

f. 25v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

middle the water bubbled up; and here the Greek women, as did the Trojan ones of old, wash their linen. The water was not hot, yet this is the fountain from which, in winter, smoke issues. In Mr Liston’s former visit to the Plain of Troy he found it smoking in the month of October; but it is probable that the volcano, from whence the heat must proceed, may diminish and be in time extinguished. Higher up the rising ground we were conducted to three or four of these sources, all gushing beautifully from the rocks, but to my feelings of the same temperature. In the circuit we made of this hill to meet our horses we passed near where the Scaean Gate of Homer is placed, and not far from his hill of wild figs.1 We quitted this truly charming plain, and proceeded to Alexandria Troas, at the distance of eighteen miles or, according to our guides, six hours. This journey in the heat of the day was severe, and particularly on the poor Greek boy who conducted my car. We saw at a distance on our right hand the mound called the tomb of Aesyete, the largest of all those that exist, and from whence is an extensive view of the plain and from which a son of Priam’s is said to have reviewed the Greek fleet.2 The country was finely wooded and increased in beauty as we advanced. We passed several rich vineyards, where the grapes wandering over the hedges covered all the neighbouring trees with their fine foliage. A considerable part of the wood consisted of the Valonia oak, valuable as a dye, a great deal of smaller oak called gall oak, likewise a dye, and some of the smallest-leaved evergreen oak I ever saw.3 We stopped once on our way at a very small village, where the horses rested, and where our conductors drank coffee and lighted their pipes. Indeed for this last operation no stop was necessary: the long pipe was never out of their mouths, and was drawn from their

1

2

3

into the Bournabashi rivulet, and the whole fountain is called Saranda Ochia’ (2014 [1855]: II, 188–9). The Scaean Gate: the main gate of Homer’s Troy. In ‘An Essay on Homer’s Battles’ in The Iliad of Homer, Alexander Pope listed the ‘hill of wild fig-trees’ as one of the places about Troy particularly mentioned by Homer (1996: 222). The Iliad mentions the wild fig tree outside the walls of Troy three times (6.433; 11.166–8; 22.145 ff.): Strabo’s suggestion that Homer here refers to Erineus, an area of rising ground ‘that is rugged and full of wild fig trees’ (Geography 13.35) was influential and still widely accepted at the time Liston was writing. Aesyete was a Trojan hero. In The Iliad 2.792–93, Polites, one of the sons of Priam, used to sit on Aesyete’s grave and observe the Greek army, an example of the trope of teichoscopeia or ‘viewing from on the walls’ common in ancient Greek literature. The Valonia oak or Quercus ithaburensis is native to southern Europe and western Asia. During the nineteenth century British firms imported thousands of tons of its acorn cups from Turkey for tanning and dyeing. The gall oak or Quercus lusitanica is also known as Lusitanian oak or dyer’s oak: as Liston notes, it is also used in dyeing.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 109

pockets. Within a few miles of Alexandria we reached the warm baths, one equal to boiling water, the other not so hot. They proceed from a mineral spring, [and] are situated low, with each a room built over it, and near to the River Ujuleli.1 These are modern, for in the neighbourhood we found, apparently, the remains of very magnificent ones which in former times must have been supplied from a mineral spring of the same nature, though now almost dried up. After travelling for a mile or two through a waving country beautifully wooded – the finest trees being still of the Valonia oak – we came to the few remains which that destroyer time has left of the ancient buildings of the city of Alexandria Troas which truly indicate its former greatness. Its position, on the shore of the Aegean Sea, added to the fine harbour it is said to have possessed in ancient times, seem to justify Alexander in his choice of it as a place of trade, though in the sequel it appears to have sunk under the superior advantages of the position of Constantinople.2 Remains of the noble aqueduct are still visible. What has been called the palace is nearly demolished, though on Mr Liston’s former visit to this, the walls were entire; it is said indeed to have been injured by an earthquake two years ago. The stones of which the walls were built are enormous. Advancing nearer towards the shore, we could trace what was formerly the theatre, with vestiges of squares and paved streets; an immense foundation still exists with a certain height of wall of a building, which one is at a loss to name. It is circular, of very large and very fine stones, and there are subterranean apartments below, which seem to have been receptacles for corn, otherwise you would have pronounced it a very large temple. We had not time to go to the extent of the city towards the shore. The great space of ground it occupies, its noble situation, and the imposing air which, even in decay, it still maintains renders it surprising that so little is in general said of it by strangers. Both Caesar and Augustus formerly as well as Constantine3 in later times wished, as descendants from the Trojans, to have fixed the seat of government on the Hellespont and here was a fine city making part of the ancient Troad ready prepared. We dined beneath some trees adjoining to a portion of the walls of 1 2 3

Liston is referring to Ilıca Creek (Ilıca Deresi), very close to the Kestanbol thermal springs and baths. Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 bc). Constantine I (c. ad 285–337, r. ad 306–37), the Roman Emperor, also known as Constantine the Great, who reunited the Roman Empire, established the imperial capital at Constantinople and made Christianity its principal religion.

f. 26r

f. 26v

110

f. 27r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Alexandria, upon the provision our janissaries had prepared, excellent cold fish and cold fowls, with bread, and the remains of our wine. The Turks, sitting squat upon the ground as usual, smoked their pipes and took all the food we could spare them, but confined their drink to water, yet in the afternoon their spirits seemed exhilarated – from smoking, I believe. As the night drew on – for our guides had wasted time by twice losing their way – we became very tired, though the evening, like all we have experienced in this charming climate, was quite delicious, and we had an advanced moon. I was particularly interested for my miserable Greek, who was knocked-up with his long walk, and it was with the utmost difficulty we prevailed on the principal janissary to dismount one of the younger Turks and let him ride.1 Indeed we saw on occasion of this boy a specimen of the wretched slavish situation to which fortune has reduced these unfortunate Greeks. It was near three in the morning when we reached the Argo, where we found a gentleman waiting, who had arrived some hours before from Constantinople, bringing the disagreeable information that the Grand Signor would not permit any ship of war, of any nation, to come up the Dardanelles;2 but offering that a mihmandar should be sent immediately to provide everything for our journey, whether we chose to come by land or by water.3 This person also brought dispatches from Mr Canning to the British government, by which Mr Liston found that peace has already been signed betwixt the Grand Vizier and the Russian plenipotentiaries, and that Count Italinski, the chief manager of the negotiation, was expected at Constantinople.4 Mr Liston forwarded the gentleman and the dispatches by Captain Hope, who had been for some days laying near us in the Salsette, to Malta, from thence to proceed with all dispatch for England.5 1 2

3

4

5

On the janissaries, see p. 23, n. 33, above. ‘Grand Signor’, a term commonly used by Europeans to refer to the Ottoman sultan, had no equivalent in Ottoman protocol and is not derived from Ottoman usage. The Sultan at this time, Mahmud II, introduced a series of social and administrative reforms, including the abolition of the janissaries. For more on Mahmud’s reign, see Section 4 of the Critical Introduction, above; on foreign ships of war not being allowed in the Dardanelles, see pp. 28, 173, 209, 212. A mihmandar (or mehmandar) was a high-ranking official appointed by the Porte to receive and entertain foreign dignitaries: one accompanied the Listons ceremonially to Constantinople, as Liston explains. Liston is referring to the Treaty of Bucharest signed between the Russians and the Ottomans on 28 May 1812 which ended the Russo-Turkish War that had begun in 1806. The HMS Salsette was a thirty-six-gun British frigate, commanded from 1811 to 1812



the turkish journal, 1812–14 111

The letters from Constantinople pressing Mr Liston’s immediate departure, we fixed Monday the 22nd for it, sending our friend Mr Taragano, our interpreter, to the Dardanelles, for small craft for that purpose. Had we even obtained leave for the Argo, Mr Liston could not have delayed going on in some more expeditious mode himself, as the Eastern or Etesian winds having set on, a ship depending on wind cannot hope to get up the Dardanelles under several weeks; but, either by row-boats or by land on the European side, one week may accomplish it.1 The charms of the climate during the ten days we passed at anchor sometimes tempted us to go on shore for an hour in the evenings, as we were placed immediately opposite to the village of Jeni-cher, and within sight of the tomb of Achilles.2 This, which was once a very large mound of earth, is now very much reduced. A French minister some years since erected on the top a temporary room or shed, to conceal from the Turks that he was employed in digging.3 It is said that he found an urn, and a figure of Minerva. A Turkish hermit afterwards lived and died in this hut, and is buried there, the stone and turban still remaining.4 The tomb of Patroclus is very near it, but greatly smaller.5 From the ship, in this clear atmosphere, we can plainly discern Mount Athos at seventy miles distant to the west-southwest, and we have a distant view of the Island of Lemnos, to the south of that. We were very soon obliged to resign these tranquil pleasures and to prepare for busier scenes. On Sunday night, the 21st, Mr Pisani, the nephew of the principal of the dragomans to the British Mission, arrived at the Argo to say that the Mihmandar (a man of consid-

1 2

3

4 5

by Sir Henry Hope (1787–1863): in 1810 Lord Byron and his travelling companion, Hobhouse, had sailed in it from Smyrna to Constantinople. The Etesian winds or meltemi are the annual summer winds blowing over the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean which impede northward navigation. Achilles is one of the most important Greek heroes in Homer’s Iliad. As with Liston’s earlier comment on the tomb of Hector, this identification is purely speculative. The village Liston refers to is again Yenişehir. The French minister in question was Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, the French Ambassador in Constantinople from 1784 to 1791 and an antiquarian who travelled in Greece and Turkey from 1776 to 1777, and whose Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce appeared in 1782. In the Ottoman Empire turbans denoted status and rank or profession both in life and on tombstones. In Homer’s Iliad, Patroclus is the bosom companion of Achilles. In Book 24, after Hector kills Patroclus, Achilles takes revenge by killing Hector and dragging his body three times around Patroclus’s tomb.

f. 27v

112

f. 28r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

erable rank and consequence) had reached Abydos to accompany us to the Porte; and that he was sent by his uncle as interpreter.1 This fixed us to Monday, our small craft having arrived by degrees, and on Monday the 22nd our baggage was put on board, and we took up our quarters, about eight in the evening, in a little rowboat, where we passed a miserable night and arrived by daylight at Abydos, famous from the romantic account so often told of Leander and Hero; and if the Dardanelles in their time had the same violent current as at this period, it was a bold adventure in Leander to attempt passing, and I should suppose he was lost at the first crossing, [it] being more than a mile of a very strong current.2 The present town of Sestos looks very pretty and Abydos is likewise so: both these are new towns, but the old ones, which we passed in the evening, [are] a very little way further up the Dardanelles, where the passage was rather narrower and more in favour of the lover’s crossing. On our arrival at Abydos on Tuesday morning, the 23rd, we found a large house prepared for us, and the whole town in that sort of confusion which idle people like, when they are to be rewarded by seeing any thing, to which they are not accustomed; and we were regarded as a Chinese ambassador and his wife would be in an English village. Many of the inhabitants of Abydos are Jews, and as the British Consul and his brother (one of the interpreters) are of that nation, their numerous families made a holiday of it. The Mihmandar, a man of considerable consequence at the Porte, as is usual on these occasions called on Mr Liston with his attendants, all very fine. He immediately after sent us a present of things prepared, as he said, in the Seraglio.3 It consisted of two packets, each containing 1

2

3

Dragomans were translators, guides and interpreters between the cultures and the languages of the Ottoman Empire and European embassies, consulates, trading posts and travellers. The principal dragoman of the British Embassy was Bartolomeo Pisani and his nephew was Frédéric Pisani (1780–1870). A common saying about Turkey among Western travellers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was that ‘Pera has three things to curse: plague, fire and interpreters’ (McGowan 1994: II, 651). Unusually, Liston seems not to regard interpreters as a curse: see p. 128, below. A Greco-Roman myth telling the story of Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite in Sestos, and her lover, Leander (spelled ‘Leandro’ in Liston’s manuscript). Hero lived on one side of the Hellespont (the modern Dardanelles), where she lit a lamp every night for Leander, who swam across the Hellespont from Abydos, until one night the lamp was extinguished by high winds. Leander lost his way and was drowned, and Hero threw herself out of her tower to join him in death. The story is the subject of poems by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Hood and has inspired many other works. Here the Seraglio probably refers to the Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı), the main



the turkish journal, 1812–14 113

a very fine embroidered handkerchief; a little ivory box filled with a sort of rose-pomatum; some papers of roundish pastilles of the size of peas and gilded, to burn as incense; and a pretty large box of the finest sweetmeats.1 This grandee however let Mr Liston feel of what consequence his – Mr Liston’s – arrival must be to the Turkish government, when a man of his dignity was sent to facilitate it. Mr Liston and the few persons we now had with us, for the greatest part of our suite had taken different routes, were invited to dinner, together with the Mihmandar, to the Governor of the Dardanelles’ house, or rather garden.2 An offer was made to invite me as a very particular compliment, ladies not mixing in society with Turkish men. I declined the distinction, and having been confined to a very narrow company in the boat, was glad to be alone and at my ease: but my situation was not so tranquil as I had wished. The wife of the Governor chose to send me a dinner that might, both in show and substance, have served an entertainment for half a dozen persons, and I had not less than a dozen attendants – Turks, Greeks and Jews. This Governor, the same who had been so kind in ordering our entertainment at the Plain of Troy, now made a present to Mr Liston of the fine blood horse which he had sent him to ride on upon that occasion. He had before sent us, while on board the Argo, two bullocks [and] six sheep, with hampers of fruit, vegetables, etc. The Mihmandar fixed eight in the evening for embarkation and the mob at the waterside were much gratified, first by a sight of him and his train, who filled one bark, navigated by ten Turkish rowers – then of us, with my maids in one, [and] our young men and our men-servants accommodated in two others, each with ten Greek rowers.3 The custom of these people at this season is to set out in the evening, to row till near morning, then lie by and sleep a few hours, taking to their oars again about daylight, at the signal of the helmsman. We were under an awning upon mattresses, laid on a very small deck at the poop of the boat, and my two maids very indifferently accommodated at the bottom of it at our feet. It was with difficulty our Greeks, whose spirits sometimes seemed to 1 2

3

residence of the sultan. Pomatum: an ointment for the skin or hair. Wilson’s Private Diary records that Bartholomew Frere, Captain Warren and Mr W Rose took an excursion to Mitilini, Lesbos on the HMS Salsette before rejoining the Listons at Şarköy (1861: I, 94). Though the sense is plain enough, Liston’s syntax (lightly revised here) in the manuscript at this point is a little unclear, partly because of an interlineated insertion and some crossing out. Interested readers should check the manuscript facsimile and transcription online at .

f. 28v

114 f. 29r

f. 29v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

border on madness, could be restrained from out-rowing the Turks of the Mihmandar. We however forced them to give up the contest, but it served to confirm our opinion of the spite and even hatred with which the Greeks regard their haughty conquerors.1 This restraint on them was the more necessary as the Mihmandar wished to be always an hour or two before us, to make preparations. Indeed, on this occasion we allowed him to get four or five hours the start of us, for we gratified our people by letting them stop sometimes near the shore, and at the same time gratified ourselves by sitting and admiring the coast of the Dardanelles, which both on the Asiatic and European side was pretty and enlivening. We reached Gallipoli early on the morning of Wednesday 24th.2 It is a considerable town near the end of the Dardanelles, of course not far from the entrance into the Sea of Marmara. At landing we found the beach lined with the multitude, and one or two summer houses filled with persons of superior rank. In the midst of this crowd was the Mihmandar, mounted on horseback, finely accoutred, and with his attendants. For us – the house assigned us being at a distance – a carriage was provided, very fine but very odd. It was the body of a very small coach, gilded on all sides, without glass or seats, but with carpets and flat cushions at the bottom, on which Mr Liston and I were placed, there being horses prepared for the young men. Thus we passed through an immense and continued crowd, a great part of which consisted of Turkish women, veiled (these veils differ from those of other nations: a white handkerchief, or piece of cloth bound across the forehead, touching the eyebrows, then crossing, and one end brought over the lower part of the face, so that the eyes and nose are exposed; the rest of the visage entirely concealed). We were conducted in this parade to the habitation of a Greek bishop, given up to us for the time of our stay, and at the carriage door were met by two Greek priests bearing pots with burnt incense, one of which was held to Mr Liston’s and the other approached my nose. The priests preceded us with their censors to the apartments allotted to us, a Turk holding me by the arm as a mark of attention. It was really amusing to see two poor creatures who had been cooped up in a small boat, dressing in the bed on which they slept and wetted by the waves occasioned by the wind and current, without time or 1 2

Greece was still a part of the Ottoman Empire in 1812, only becoming independent in 1832. Below, Liston refers to the Greeks as ‘that degraded nation’ (p. 136). Now Gelibolu.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 115

quiet to dress and refresh themselves, thus made a show of, from the moment of setting their feet on land. But they whom the sultan chooses to honour, must be honoured. The Governor in Gallipoli, soon after breakfast, sent two packets, in green cloth, one to Mr Liston, the other to me. Each contained a shirt or a shift, a pair of drawers, a girdle of coarse cotton with embroidered ends and a small embroidered muslin handkerchief. The shirts and drawers are [of] the fabric of the country, very coarse but very odd. Besides, one person came with fruit, another with fish, a third with vegetables, and one appeared with a ball of snow to cool our sherbet and other liquors; and the Governor added a very beautiful little gazelle as a pet. The house was all the morning crowded with Greek women. Their mode of salutation was lifting my hand to the lips and then to the forehead. I am already heartily tired of all this nonsense, particularly of the female visitors, for it is difficult to get rid of them, unless those of a better class: for these calling for coffee will have the effect, as immediately after drinking it they take their leave. The weather was too hot to admit of my viewing the town, unless from the windows, when, not to speak of the fine prospect towards the water, the fields appeared beautiful and well cultivated, and all still green and vivid, and the houses prettily intermixed with trees. Several handsome minarets ornament this place, but there are no other buildings remarkable for beauty or grandeur. As we travel at the expense of the Grand Signor the Mihmandar orders that all is proper, meets us at our landing and points out the house prepared for us.1 He then repairs to the one he is to occupy, and we see no more of him till the moment of embarkation in the evening, unless when he and Mr Liston have anything to say to each other: then the interpreter arranges a meeting. How he lives I know not, but for our present family and the interpreter, making five, we had at Gallipoli forty dishes, first one of soup (to which the Turks are not much accustomed, making it always of rice and always bad), then fish, meat and pastry in succession, the interpreter explaining to us what they were, and in what esteem each was held by the Turks. Except the first dish of fish I could but barely taste them, and in doing that I was almost sick, but it was necessary. 1

On 23 August 1812, Bell’s Weekly Messenger reported: ‘Mr Liston arrived at the Dardanelles on the 12th of June, and it is reported that he had the honour of being conveyed to Constantinople in one of the Grand Seignor’s barges; which was considered a particular mark of favour, and only conferred on the representatives of the most favoured nations’.

f. 30r

116 f. 30v

f. 31r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

During this operation we had at least as many attendants as dishes, and [to] these people, together with those who brought presents and children with innumerable flowers, Mr Liston distributed (at least his interpreter for him) above three hundred piastres, to the amount of from fifteen to twenty pounds sterling. This is paying for honour, for there is nothing of comfort in it, and I seldom make a hearty meal. Their water, lemonade and dishes made of milk are excellent, as is the coffee, which we drink with every visitor. Their confectionery is in general good, though some of it spoilt by rose water, some by honey. In the evening our little flotilla set out, and we admired the picturesque appearance of the lighthouse and its vicinity, where some warm baths, a few houses, a minaret, the green banks and beautifully rocky shore attracted us so much, that we scarcely observed that the swell and strength of the current, together with a contrary wind, was tossing our little bark at a tremendous rate; finding however that we had a pretty sharp point to turn, and the sailors acknowledging that the difficulty would be much increased in effecting this, I expressed some apprehension; and they then proposed to take shelter in a small bay formed by the steep bank till midnight, when in all probability the wind and sea would both be fallen. The Mihmandar, who it seemed is very timid at sea, I dare say thought himself much obliged to me. The whole flotilla followed us, and the scene became truly romantic. On the bank above encamped some parties of soldiers on their way from Asia to the army, together with several shepherds, their huts and flocks of goats. The presence of the Mihmandar commanded safety for us from the Turkish soldiery, and silence amongst our vivacious Greeks. A fire was kindled for lighting pipes, the gentlemen and sailors stepped occasionally on shore, and all passed with a silence and tranquillity to which the moon, now at its full, gave a sort of strange and picturesque effect. We all enjoyed it for an hour or two, then availed ourselves of the quiet for a few hours’ sleep. About midnight we set out and at ten o’clock of Thursday 25th, we reached Sart-Keoy, or Peristasi, to breakfast.1 The banks of the Dardanelles are everywhere verdant, and pretty generally cultivated, though not equal to the expectations formed from the descriptions of travellers;2 and the north side of the Sea of Marmara, which we have for near a day been coasting, is nearly the 1 2

Liston is referring to Şarköy, a village in Tekirdağ province, on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmara, also known as Peristasi in Greek. Liston refers several times to ‘travellers’ who cannot be identified, although she does mention both Montagu and Le Chevalier by name.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 117

same, and in such a climate it is truly delicious to see them green. On the south side of this sea we have a distant view of the islands of Marmara which seems to be of considerable extent. We found the Mihmandar awaiting us as usual on the beach with a great crowd, as the little village of Sart-Keoy could afford, and we were conducted to the house prepared, where the Greek priest met us at the door with two men, as at Gallipoli, bearing censers. Here we found an excellent breakfast of coffee and of different dishes made of milk. I was told after breakfast that a levy of Greek women waited, and wishing to avoid the interruptions I had everywhere met by their crowding into my apartment during the forenoon, I begged to see them at once in the room where we were. A number entered, some of them very old and respectable-looking. Two or three were extremely handsome: two in particular I remarked, delicately fair, but their hair, as well as that of some of the children who accompanied them, dyed a very bright auburn. This is done with a stone which is common in this part of the world, and mixed with water gives that beautiful colour particularly successful in disguising red hair, but the operation must be repeated every fortnight or three weeks.1 After breakfast the Mihmandar paid us a visit. I was present for the first time, and was amused, but should soon become tired of a repetition of the same ceremony. I could have been glad, however, to have had some of my English friends present at this scene. The Mihmandar [is] a great overgrown old man, finely attired, in a sort of cassae2 of muslin, with coloured sprigs, fastened round the waist with a beautiful small shawl; a robe or loose gown of fine scarlet, laced or embroidered at the edge, with a very large cap of black or dark blue cloth bound round the edge with a white turban; a long beard, which the heat obliged him very often to wipe carefully; [and] the loose sleeves of his shirt appearing below those of the under-garment. He had three or four attendants who stood near him, amongst them a black very fine. After bowing to Mr Liston and me and making, through the interpreter, many polite enquiries after my health, and how I bore the inconveniencies of the journey, coffee and pipes were called for, as is customary. The coffee was brought in very small china cups, placed in a kind of sous-cup3 – sometimes of silver, at others gilded filigree – 1 2 3

Liston presumably means henna (or kına), which is a dye made not from a stone but from the plant, Lawsonia inermis, the henna tree. Liston is describing a garment tied around the waist by a shawl used as a belt or girdle. Cassae comes from the Portuguese, cassa, meaning a fine muslin cloth. From the French, soucoupe, for saucer: in the manuscript this is inserted above and in place of the words ‘half cup’.

f. 31v

118

f. 32r

f. 32v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

which serve as saucers, while the black brought in the pipe, presenting it with a bended knee. Soon after the judge and governor of the place were introduced. They were men equally overgrown but less richly dressed. These three great men, placed upon the low Turkish sofas (with which every room is surrounded) with their legs under them, their thighs concealed by their long robes, were precisely the figures one sees represented of the Indian pagods.1 Coffee and pipes were brought to the new visitors, and the conversation was as lively as it could be, by means of interpreters. Our conductor asked what dishes we chose for dinner. Mr Liston said, one of fish and one of meat was sufficient, and begged we might not have such a dinner as that we had at Gallipoli. He replied that we might select what dishes we wished to eat, but that the same kind of dinner must be prepared, as it was by the order of the government. The journey was then talked of, and though at first the Mihmandar talked of travelling by land, he seems now inclined to proceed by water. Before dinner two boats with the Captain of the Argo, some of his officers, Mr W. Rose and Mr Frere arrived, so that our thirty-five or forty dishes did not appear quite so extravagant, and I found that upon such public occasions, the remainder of the dinner is given to the poor.2 It was nine o’clock in the evening before we got into our barks, as the dinner was dressed at the Governor’s, which was at the other end of the village, and was brought late to our lodgings. The Mihmandar, the Judge and Governor met and bade us adieu; the Mihmandar indeed generally sees us in our boat before he gets into his own. Our Greeks, from our being so late, had had time to drink hard. They were all merry, and two of them absolutely tipsy: their expressions, however, were all of attachment to the English, and Mr Liston promised, that if they would make less noise, and row less ardently, he would allow them to out-row the Mihmandar’s Turks on the last day of the voyage. We then asked them to sing rather than bawl: four of them did so and sung some love songs extremely well, though it seemed remarkable that they gave only the first part of the tune, and paused long between the verses.3 About six on Friday morning the 1

2 3

A pagod in South and South East Asia is an image or carving of a god: in the Turkish Embassy Letters, Montagu describes Roman Catholic processions in Vienna as ‘a pageantry as offensive and apparently contradictory to common sense as the Pagods of China’ (2013: 70). Bartholomew Frere, the Secretary at the British Embassy in Constantinople: see p. 74, above. In a letter to a friend, Liston says of the singing: ‘Their song was much in the style of



the turkish journal, 1812–14 119

26th, having passed some very pretty banks on our way, we reached Rodosto, a pretty large town, having a picturesque appearance from its being chiefly built on the face of a curved hill.1 On landing we were met by our conductor, a number of Turkish attendants and Greek priests. The incense still preceded us, and we were led to the residence of the bishop and his canons, near to the landing place, so that though the gazers were pretty numerous we were less annoyed than usual. To this convent, as it may be called, we passed through respectable arcades or cloisters, and beneath a grape arbour to an airy apartment, where the  Mihmandar, with his train, immediately entered to talk with Mr Liston concerning our journey. The wind being then fair we wished much to have returned to our barks after breakfast, being then within seventy miles of Constantinople, but this did not agree with his arrangements. Being obliged to give his government notice of our approach, he could not be prevailed upon to let us hurry on. It was at last settled that we should have another of those enormous dinners, and breakfast at Silivria, early enough to enable us to reach Constantinople in the course of the day.2 In this conference the Mihmandar, in order to promote dispatch, consented that next morning we should pass directly to Silivria without stopping at a village halfway betwixt Rodosto and that place, which is generally made a stage by people travelling in the formal way we do. But, that this complaisance might not cost him too great a sacrifice, he sent on an express (as we were privately informed) to the village in question, to read the Imperial firman3 with which he is provided, specifying the quantity of provisions and other articles that are to be furnished by the inhabitants of every place, for the use of our caravan, the messenger having instructions, as our informant hinted, to bargain for a contribution to his master, to be paid by those poor villagers in consideration of the saving that would accrue from his having contrived to make us avoid troubling them with our presence.

1 2 3

those of the Highland shearers – one sung and all joined in the chorus but we were a good deal surprised to find they never gave a second part and the repetition of the first would have come very tiresome had not the tune been melodious and the voices of the singers very sweet’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 74v). Today known as Tekirdağ, in the Marmara region of Turkey, the area known historically as Eastern Thrace. Silivria, now Silivri, is located in the area known historically as Eastern Thrace and is a city and district in the province of Istanbul, on the Sea of Marmara. An imperial firman (see Figure 1.1) was a sultanic decree, an official authorisation used for various purposes, here for specifying the amounts of food to be provided for official visitors.

f. 33r

120

f. 33v

f. 34r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

After everything concerning the journey was fixed, the Mihmandar left us, and we went into a long hall to breakfast. At one end of this the table was placed, upon a part of the floor higher raised than the rest of the room, the Bishop and his chapter sitting on benches looking very attentively at us, and showing the utmost inclination to please us. I derived some advantage from being in a kind of male convent: I was not plagued with a crowd of women, and children with flowers. The Governor sent a great present of fruit and confectionery in the forenoon: the best fruit is cherries, now in season and in great perfection. The dinner was equally splendid and better cooked and served earlier than usual (one dish of these dinners seems invariably to be their favourite one of a lamb baked whole and stuffed with rice; it is always good of its kind). We had in the hall, during dinner, besides the chapter of priests and attendants innumerable, a band of Greek music, which at first I thought very harsh; but whether they improved, or our ears became accustomed to it, I can’t say, but it was at last very tolerable. There were two violins, two guitars and a small instrument resembling the ancient lyre, as it is represented in statuary. We have always wine at these dinners, as an indulgence to Christians; and great trouble I see is taken to provide a table and chairs, for their dishes are generally placed upon a sort of stool, in front of their sofas, upon a large round tin tray, resembling our girdle in Scotland for baking cakes;1 and the Turks indeed sometimes have their dishes upon their knees as they sit on carpets on the floor, so that when we appear all the tables, chairs, knives, and forks in the village are put in requisition. We quitted Rodosto with the usual ceremonies early in the afternoon, and we reached Silivria on Saturday the 27th about six in the morning. The same show of Turks, Greeks, priests, and incense took place. The Mihmandar met us in the lodgings that were prepared for us, and looked so fatigued, that notwithstanding Mr Liston’s anxiety to proceed to Constantinople, Mr Canning having urged him strongly to hasten his journey, he could not resist consenting to remain till the evening; and it proved agreeable that he had done so, for about twelve o’clock a messenger reached the village to notify the near approach of the Chevalier Italinski, on his way to Constantinople by land from the army. This gentleman comes as Minister from the Emperor Alexander

1

‘Girdle’ is the Scottish form of ‘griddle’: a circular iron plate upon which cakes are baked and used as a grill for cooking.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 121

to the Ottoman Porte.1 He had heard, previous to his coming, of Mr Liston’s being then at Silivria, and immediately after his arrival he came and called. Mr Liston, knowing him well from reputation, was happy to make the acquaintance. It was a singular concurrence of circumstances, that the Russian and English ambassadors should meet at the last stage, before entering Constantinople, and at a moment so critical for their respective countries.2 The Count Chevalier was so fatigued by his journey, in great heat through bad roads, that he determined not to proceed till Monday. We, on the contrary, hastened on that evening, [and] stopped next day only to breakfast at a village called Stephano,3 where Mr Liston was anxious to see an old acquaintance, a Dr Lorenzo, physician to the Seraglio.4 He was in attendance there, unfortunately, but his family very kindly gave us breakfast and did everything that was obliging. Our Mihmandar had consented to this arrangement, as he had a Turkish friend in the same village who he wished to see. Being now within two hours’ rowing of the Porte and the day very fine, we set out in great spirits, in the wake of our conductor, on Sunday forenoon the 28th of June. The approach to Constantinople by water is very fine. The first striking object was the Seven Towers.5 Their form differs from that of other public buildings and would render them very remarkable did they all exist, but so little use seems to have been lately made of them (as the prison for foreign ministers) that four only are now standing, and the whole place, which is pretty large, appears to be in a state of decay, 1 2

3 4

5

Emperor Alexander I of Russia (r. 1801–25). As Liston says, June 1812 was a critical moment for both Great Britain and Russia in relation to the Ottoman Empire because the Treaty of Bucharest which put an end to the Russo-Turkish War of 1806 to 1812 had been signed in May. It was approved by Alexander I of Russia on 11 June, just thirteen days before the beginning of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. The treaty established Russia as a new power in the lower Danube area, giving it an advantage in its competition with Great Britain, France and Austria for influence over the Ottoman Empire. Stephano or San Stephano is a neighbourhood in the district of Istanbul known as Yeşilköy, on the Sea of Marmara. Dr Lorenzo Noccrola (d. 1815), described by Robert Liston as ‘principal physician to the seraglio for fifty-four years’, had been Selim III’s physician when Robert was first in Turkey (NLS MS 5630 f. 7). Lorenzo’s assassination is described by Henrietta elsewhere: see pp. 198–203. The Fortress of the Seven Towers, Yedikule, is situated in the neighbourhood of Fatih in Istanbul. Built in 1458 on the orders of Mehmed II, it was frequently used as a state prison, notably for ambassadors of states at war with the Ottomans, as Liston notes. In 1768, when the Porte declared war on Russia, the Russian Ambassador and all the embassy staff were incarcerated. Despite Liston’s statement about the prison’s lack of recent use, during the Napoleonic Wars many French prisoners were imprisoned there. A variant of this passage in Liston’s hand can be found at NLS MS 5707 f. 2.

f. 34v

122

f. 35r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

though still enlivened by the intermixture of gardens and fine trees, as all the Turkish situations are. As we advanced, Constantinople itself opened to us, regularly ascending a range of high grounds, or hills, with a number of fine mosques and elegant minarets overtopping the tall cypresses with which they are delightfully mixed. Mosques are almost the only public buildings that appear. Near them are always placed one or two more minarets, and to these buildings, with the great quantity of trees, particularly cypresses, Constantinople and its adjoining suburbs chiefly owe their beauty; for otherwise the houses, notwithstanding their fine situation, would appear poor. In its present state, however, it presents a coup d’œil altogether unique.1 The Seraglio – or as it is pronounced, sarallio – forms a point upwards of a mile, projecting into the sea, its buildings gracefully rising from the water:2 it is embellished by the superb mosque of Santa Sophia and its four minarets, which almost touch the walls, and to which the sultan generally goes on Fridays (the Sunday of the Turks). This mosque was originally a Christian church built by the Emperor Constantine, and converted into a mosque by Mahomet the Second at his conquest of Constantinople.3 We sailed a considerable way along the walls of the Seraglio, the dullness of which is relieved and enlivened by the number of pretty latticed summer-houses which break their continuity, [and] also by the stately trees that rise above them. On turning the Seraglio Point a different view of Constantinople was presented, and a fine one of Galata, and Pera, climbing up still higher ground, with the same ornamental mosques, etc.4 On the Asiatic side was another considerable suburb called Scutari (the ancient Chrysopolis), perhaps the most picturesque as well as the largest.5 1 2

3

4

5

Coup d’œil, a scenic view or perspective. Here Liston is describing the promontory of Seraglio Point (Sarayburnu) on the Golden Horn, the seat of the Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı), the sultan’s residence and the administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire. The Hagia Sophia, or Church of the Holy Wisdom (Ayasofya) was completed in 537 on the orders of Justinian I. Barring a fifty-seven-year period following its desecration in 1204 as a result of the Fourth Crusade, it served as the seat of the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople until 1453, when after the fall of Constantinople Mehmed II (‘Mahomet’ in Liston’s spelling here, which has been retained) transformed it into a mosque, as Liston says. In 1934 the building became the Ayasofya Museum. In July 2020 President Erdoğan turned the museum back into a mosque. Galata, also known today as Karaköy, is in the Istanbul district of Beyoğlu, on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. In Liston’s time Pera, also part of today’s Beyoğlu, was where Europeans lived and had their embassies, as she observes (see Figure 2.1). Scutari, a district on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus, now known as Üsküdar. Chrysopolis, meaning ‘golden city’, was the ancient Greek name.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 123

Pera (where all the foreign ministers dwell) and these form the suburbs of Constantinople, but in fact each is of itself a large town. Pera on the summit of the hill is divided from Galata by a range of wall, now going into decay. On one part of this ancient wall is the Tower of Galata, still making a good feature in the picture, and affording, from the top, an extensive prospect (from this tower one of the panoramas was taken).1 These towns are all of singular beauty, and as we entered the harbour we had a view of the entrance into the Bosphorus, a channel which unites the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea, the whole presenting to the eye of a stranger a very singular and beautiful combination of land and water and foliage. We landed at Tophane as near as possible, and as the Mihmandar had announced our approach a great crowd, male and female, of Turks, Greeks, Jews, and Christians, were assembled on the shore.2 Horses for the gentlemen, and a sedan chair for me were in waiting. I was carried by four men through a number of narrow streets up a very steep hill, and set down at a large handsome house belonging to the Embassy, and termed the British Palace,3 from whence, except going by water up the Bosphorus to Buyukderé, I have not stirred. The principal reason has been a prevalent report of the plague.4 This dreadful malady has not been in this country, at least so as to be talked of (for there are people who say it is never quite extinguished here), these five years or more. Superstitious Turks give as a reason, that they must in the country have either pestilence or war, so that the return of the plague is a thing of course, in consequence of the peace with Russia.5 The malady 1

2 3

4

5

The Tower of Galata was built by the Genoese in 1348 on the highest and northernmost point of Galata, a medieval citadel and a Genoese settlement from 1267 to 1453. Liston may be referring here to the panorama of the Scottish painter, Henry Aston Barker, which was taken from Galata Tower in 1799 and put on show in London in 1801 or 1802. Tophane, now part of Beyoğlu, was the oldest industrial area of Istanbul: its name is derived from the cannons (toplar) which were manufactured there. The British Palace in Pera was designed and built by Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, British Ambassador to the Porte from 1799 to 1803 (see Plate 2). The palace was not finished until 1818; it was damaged by fire in 1810 and destroyed in another fire in 1831. The plague was widespread throughout the Ottoman Empire from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, and periodic epidemics resulted in high mortality rates. In the eighteenth century the disease caused great problems for a weakening Ottoman Empire. The Listons’ residency coincided with one of the worst plague epidemics suffered by the city in the nineteenth century, lasting from 1812 to 1819. For an account of the plague in the Ottoman Empire from 1700 to 1850, see Panzac 2010. Peace had been brought about by the Treaty of Bucharest, which in 1812 ended the Russo-Turkish War begun in 1806: see Section 3 of the Critical Introduction, above.

f. 35v

Figure 2.1  I. Kauffer and Jean Baptiste Le Chevalier, ‘Carte de Constantinople’, 1814, in Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, Edward Daniel Clarke (National Library of Scotland)



the turkish journal, 1812–14 125

seems at present to have come from Smyrna, where it has been raging for some time.1 This is supposed to be of a more gentle kind than that brought from Egypt, and what is singular [is that] it broke out, not as usual amongst the Turks at Constantinople or Scutari, but amongst the Greeks and Franks at Pera and Galata. This confinement induced us the sooner to make an excursion to Buyukderé and return the visits of our diplomatic brethren, who all at present reside there.2 On the 17th July, Mr Liston having business with the Russian Minister,3 we set out very early in the morning, in our own barge: a very showy one rowed by seven Greeks (two oars each) with their shaved heads and their little scarlet scull-caps with blue tassels at the top, a chemise of a very thin substance and loose trousers forming their summer barge dress.4 A superior man, a Turk with the appellation of Reis [was] at the helm, under whose charge the boat remains.5 We were attended to the harbour of Constantinople, or the Golden Horn, by a dragoman and three janissaries (of which we have a dozen in a small guard-house at the gate). The dragoman and the chief of our janissaries, who is called Bayraktar,6 with two footmen accompanied us, and we embarked opposite the point of the Seraglio. Buyukderé is at the distance of twelve miles, and near the head of the Bosphorus. Perhaps there is not in the world such a tract of water, presenting a scene so gay, beautiful and interesting as this channel; it is from one to two miles broad, and so formed as to appear, almost to its end, a succession of fine lakes. The European and the Asiatic side [are] equally ornamented by a variety of fairy palaces of the sultans, gardens, and arbours, formed by the spreading branches of magnificent trees (amongst which the Platanus orientalis holds almost the first rank and under the shade of which the Turks delight to sit) and the view [is] terminated by wooded hills.7 This fine picture is ornamented by several kiosks 1 2

3 4

5 6

7

Smyrna, now Izmir, is on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Büyükdere is located on the European side of the Bosphorus, between Sarıyer and Kefeliköy. A favourite resort of foreigners from the 1750s onwards, it was the location of the summer residences of many foreign embassies and wealthy merchants. Italinski, the Russian Ambassador. ‘Scull-cap’ was still a common spelling of ‘skull-cap’ in the early nineteenth century. Given the nautical context, Liston’s spelling suggests a pun, deliberate or unintended, and has therefore been retained. A reis was a foreman, superior officer or head; here the captain of the ship. The word bayraktar (spelled Bairack-dar in the manuscript here) usually means ensign or standard-bearer; here, as Liston indicates, it refers to the officer in charge of the janissaries. Also known as the Oriental plane or Old World sycamore, the Platanus orientalis was common in the Ottoman Mediterranean.

f. 36r

126

f. 36v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

or summer houses belonging to the sultan, gilded and painted in the gayest manner. The houses are generally of one storey from the ground floor, except where a centre building dignifies the rest by being raised another storey; and they are of considerable length, as nearly the half is appropriated to the women, whose apartments are distinguished by the latticed windows. These lattices are very close and painted white or gilded. The gardens behind appeared (some of the doors being occasionally opened) to be very beautiful: besides trees and flowers there were temples, pavilions, and all the gay decorations common to this country. The sisters of the late unfortunate Sultan Selim have also their fairy palaces on these banks, and it is worthy of remark, that however wanton and cruel these people occasionally are to their sovereigns (as well as to inferior officers) the females of the sultans’ families are always held sacred, nor is there ever any diminution in their rank or establishment.1 Amongst the numerous ornaments of the banks of the Bosphorus may be reckoned their burial-grounds, both public and private.2 The former are rendered picturesque by fine cypresses thickly planted, the coloured turbans and inscriptions on the tombstones rendering them rather gay than melancholy in appearance. Private burial-grounds are generally placed in the garden or courtyard encircled by a fine painted and gilded railing, and always as much in sight of the family as of strangers. At Buyukderé and on the banks of this stream – as forming the Montpellier of this country – all wealthy people have their villas and as near to the water as possible.3 A few are placed near the summit of the hills. On the Asiatic side particularly, besides the sultan’s kiosks, many rich Armenian merchants have pleasant dwellings. Near to 1

2 3

On Sultan Selim III and his fate, see Section 4 of the Critical Introduction, above. Selim’s sisters Beyhan Sultan (1766–1824) and Hadice Sultan the Younger (1768– 1822) both ‘ultimately died bankrupt’ (Artan 2011: 127; see also 127–37) because of their palaces. Artan describes Hadice as an Ottoman Madame de Pompadour, taking an enthusiastic interest in every detail of palatial decoration. She employed the architect and designer Antoine-Ignace Melling (1763–1831), with whom she was later rumoured to have had intimate relations. In 1819 Melling published his engravings of views and panoramas of the Bosphorus, including several of the palaces, in Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore. Liston gives a longer description of these cemeteries in her letter to her nephew, Dick Ramage; see p. 186, below. Liston repeats this comparison of Büyükdere with Montpellier again below: see p. 137. In her North American journals she says that Germantown is ‘esteemed the Montpelier of Pennsylvania’ and refers to Rhode Island as ‘the Montpelier of North America’ (NLS MS 5696 p. 17; NLS MS 5699 p. 17). It is not altogether clear how Liston is using the comparison: in the Constantinople journal (and possibly also in the North American journals) she seems to be referring to the pleasant situation and the function of the locations as resorts.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 127

Buyukderé, on the European side, we passed a small village situated very near the water called Terapia,1 and at the end of the last of these beautiful windings we reached Buyukderé, a handsome quay with a row of neat houses, each a garden at the back, some of them climbing up the fine wooded hills which terminated the view. On the right hand appeared the entrance into the Black Sea, near the mouth of which lay the Turkish fleet commanded by the Capitan Pasha Hüsrev Mehmed, consisting of about a dozen large and small ships.2 On the left was a view of what is called the Meadow of Buyukderé, a very beautiful flat in a valley with a knot of trees in the centre, consisting of the most magnificent Platanuses possible, and in the background the view of a fine aqueduct, the foundation Greek, but repaired by the Turks.3 The foreign ministers have generally houses and gardens here.4 One of the finest gardens belongs to the Russian Mission, with several terraces climbing up the hill. We breakfasted with Count Ludolph the Sicilian Minister,5 and spent a part of the morning in returning the visits I had received in town, accompanied by the Spanish Minister M. Jabat and his lady,6 till one o’clock, which was the hour appointed 1 2

3

4

5

6

Terapia (also spelt Therapia) is now Tarabya, in the district of Istanbul now known as Sarıyer. The Capitan Pasha (or, more properly, the Kapudan Pasha), was the Grand Admiral of the Turkish fleet. From 1811 to 1818, and again from 1822 to 1827, the post was held by Koca Hüsrev Mehmed (d. 1855). As Liston notes, he had previously fought alongside the British against the French during the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt (1800–1) and was appointed Governor of Egypt in 1801 (see Çelik 2013: 16–22). It is hard to be sure how exactly Liston has spelled his name here in the manuscript. This aqueduct, which runs from Bahçeköy to Büyükdere, was completed in the reign of Sultan Mahmud I. It is known as the Bahçeköy Aqueduct (Bahçeköy Su Kemeri) or the Aqueduct of Sultan Mahmud I (Sultan Mahmud Su Kemeri). In the manuscript Liston has first described the aqueduct as ‘Roman’, and then inserted the word ‘Greek’ above, without however deleting the former word. The Listons rented a house in Büyükdere ‘with a coach-house, stables, cistern, two ovens, a garden’ from 2 July 1812 to the end of April 1813 from ‘Apostolo Pappa’ for 400 ducats, or 4,800 Turkish piastres (NLS MS 5638 f. 81r). Count Guillaume Constantin Ludolf (1759–1839), Ambassador for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte from 1793 to 1817. After the union of the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816 under the House of Bourbon, Ludolf continued to act as Ambassador for the King of Naples at the Ottoman Empire from 1818 to 1830. The Ludolf family had a grand family residence in the foreign diplomatic enclave of Büyükdere. Juan Gabriel de Jabat y Aztal (1768–1825), Spanish Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Porte from 1809 to 1819. He was married to María Guadalupe Hernández de Alba. Robert Liston described him as ‘an enthusiastic patriot, and manly and honourable in his conduct’, noting that he ‘originally undertook, at a period of public distress, to perform the duties of office without salary’, and ‘at length succeeded in reestablishing the Spanish Mission at the Porte on a footing of respectability and improvement’ (NLS MS 5635 f. 42).

f. 37r

128

f. 37v

f. 38r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

by the Capitan Pasha to receive us on board his ship. This Turk (whose name is Hüsrev Mehmed) in rank follows the Grand Vizier. He is High Admiral of the Turkish fleet and has the absolute power of life and death over a pretty large district around Pera and Galata, and from the moment his fleet loses sight of the Seraglio, he possesses the same power over every part of the Turkish possessions. I am pleased to find that though his discipline is strict (for from its perfect silence and tranquillity no Englishman could suspect Buyukderé to be at this moment a sea-port) he exercises his deadly power with justice and moderation. He is supposed to be partial to the English, having lived much with them (as second to the then Capitan Pasha) in Egypt, and on our arrival he had immediately sent his dragoman with his compliments and gratulations to Mr Liston. This being the first opportunity Mr Liston had had to return the compliment he sent his dragoman to enquire after him, and to offer a visit, if he found that it would be agreeable; but the Capitan Pasha expressed a hope to see him before the dragoman could make the proposal, and what was not a little singular, in a Turk, he requested to see me with him. I was very agreeably surprised and very willing to avail myself of the invitation. On approaching his ship – which carries 100 guns – we found his magnificent barge, fully manned, laying at its side. We ascended by an accommodation ladder, clean and spacious, and were received by his Captain, a good-natured-looking fellow who shook hands with us. He had been in Egypt and paid his compliments in French (it is not very common for Turks to know any language but their own). We were conducted by the Captain under a very extensive awning, through two rows of sailors, down an excellent stair into a superb cabin. Here the Capitan Pasha met us with frankness and apparent pleasure. He is a good-looking man betwixt forty and fifty, dressed in a large green gown (a colour Turks do not like to see worn but by themselves, [it] being the favourite one of the Prophet), plain but handsome and which completely concealed the rest of his dress, and round his head was wrapped an elegant Indian shawl of gay colours. He placed himself on a large sofa, at the head of the cabin, inviting us to sit by him. A piece of fine carpeting was brought in and laid on the floor upon which our dragoman sat on his hams. The Pasha paid his compliments to us both in the polite terms usual to Turks, and while he and Mr Liston entered, by means of the interpreter, into a cheerful conversation (for I have been surprised to observe upon several occasions how very lively these conversations are by means of interpreters, who often enter into the humour of them) I employed myself in examining the furniture of the apartment. There were three large sofas, one on each side, besides that



the turkish journal, 1812–14 129

at the top of the room, next to the gallery, on which we sat. They were low and all broad enough to allow of the Turkish manner of sitting, with their legs below them. The whole – couches, cushions, and pillows – were covered with fine shawls. The ends of the pillows were embroidered with gold, silver and coloured foil. There were besides (for he imitates European fashions) eight or ten armed chairs, one half of them covered with crimson velvet, the other with yellow satin, the frames of all richly gilded. Opposite to us was a large cabinet apparently of inlaid gold. On each side of the door at which we had entered was a beautiful table of fine marble, the frames and feet gilded, and above each was festooned a silk curtain of all the colours of the rainbow. The windows behind us looking into the gallery (of one pane of plate glass each) were fastened to the roof on account of heat, and their places were occupied by festooned curtains of thin yellow silk bordered with red and ornamented with fringe and tassels of various colours. The roof was gilded in compartments, and there hung from it two gilded lamps in the form of crowns. There were no cannons or side windows, as in our ships, but the walls were almost concealed by the quantity of beautiful ornaments which hung round, consisting chiefly of rich arms, military purses, and accoutrements, etc. In the middle of the floor stood a compass placed in a showy glass frame, and on each side of the cabin, near the entrance, were small apartments, apparently bed-chambers. The doors were open: the whole decorations were of red and white striped silk. The numerous attendants that accompanied us into the cabin kept their situations till coffee and sweetmeats were brought. The sweetmeats consisted of fine honey, in gilded saucers, and in others a very pleasant confectionery, much in use here, made of rose leaves.1 The coffee was presented to us on a superb silver salver, [in] a rich coffee pot and sugar basin of matted silver, with cups and saucers of Dresden china, while his own coffee was served in the small china cup of the country, placed within the zarf or sous-coupe of gold. The apparatus presented to us was intended as European (for Constantinople, though in Europe, is entirely Asiatic). Preceding the introduction of these refreshments, the servants spread on each of our laps a square piece of rich gold and silver brocaded silk, made and fringed like napkins. Pipes were then presented, after which the attendants retired, and the conversation was carried on for more than half an hour with much spirit and good humour. The Pasha talked highly of the English and enquired after several of the officers he had seen in Egypt. 1

The confectionery described here may be gül lokumu, rose petals covered with Turkish delight.

f. 38v

130

f. 39r

f. 39v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Before our departure four attendants again appeared, each carrying a beautiful gilded cup of lemonade, and over his arm a white napkin richly embroidered with gold. This was to wipe our mouths. I remarked that the one given to the dragoman was embroidered with coloured silks. The lemonade was perfumed with rose water and not unpleasant. We then rose to take our leave. He thanked Mr Liston in the politest terms for his visit and for bringing me, at the same time presenting me with what Mr Liston very reluctantly and after much pressing allowed me to accept: a flat gold box hanging by a gold chain, the lid richly set with rose diamonds. We departed with the same ceremonies we had entered, the attendant of our dragoman having, as usual, distributed money to the sailors. We returned home to dinner, and found the scenery on the banks of the Bosphorus fully finer than in going up. We had a more distinct view of the ancient castles and fortifications, which are placed both on the European and Asiatic sides, about half way up the channel: and Constantinople, particularly the Seraglio Point and the Tower of Leander (very improperly so called, a ruin placed in the middle of the harbour) were seen to greater advantage.1 We now found parties of Turks, in the heat of the day, and even Greeks and Armenians, sitting beneath the shade of the Platanus, often near a fountain, smoking and looking at the water, without appearing to have any further idea than that of passing time. Here and there were groups of ladies, apart from the Men, placed near the water under the shade of lofty trees, their negresses standing behind them. Coffee houses were frequent on the banks as they are in the streets and everywhere. They are amongst the lightest and most pleasant buildings one sees at this season. They are open all round, the air blowing through, and in some a fountain playing in the middle, in others vases of flowers on the floor, and in these coffees the Turks seem to feel their greatest enjoyment, supplied with sherbet, coffee, and pipes, and sitting cross-legged in silent repose.2 One would conclude, from seeing them thus for many hours together, that these people were either a contemplative or a melancholy race of mortals. They are neither; but they are in general uneducated, and therefore 1

2

The fortifications are Rumeli Hisarı and Anadolu Hisarı, the European Fortress and the Anatolian Fortress. The Tower of Leander is better known today as the Kız Kulesi, or Maiden’s Tower. Hobhouse observed in 1810 that ‘it is now a lighthouse, not a place of defence’ (2014 [1855]: II, 260). More than ‘8 percent of coffeehouses in Istanbul were reportedly owned by the janissary affiliates in 1792’; they ‘became loci of opposition in times of crisis’ (Yaycioglu 2016: 33).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 131

have few resources. They are not boisterous, like other nations, or even like their subjects the Greeks, because their religion forbids the use of wine, and if opium, which it is supposed they often substitute, is carried to excess, it becomes disgraceful. Without the aid of liquor, however, their women appear to be boisterous enough at home. Some of them live very near our garden and we are very much surprised at the violent and long scoldings that often take place, at this season distinctly heard through their lattices.

Pera of Constantinople, 27th July 1812 Mr Liston had this day his public audience of the Kaimakam or Grand Vizier – who in the absence of the Grand Vizier (still at the camp) fills his place.1 The gentlemen of the British factory, all English strangers, with the dragomans and giovane de lingua – young men studying Eastern languages, particularly the Turkish – were invited to join the embassy at the audience, and afterwards to dinner.2 By eleven o’clock our drawing rooms were filled. The Mihmandar, who had accompanied us in our journey from the Dardanelles with his large suite, added to the number. The hall and antechambers were crowded with Turks, Greeks, etc. Our own servants in gala suits of brown and gold, together with our ordinary guard of janissaries, and the remainder of the company to which they belonged, forming the guard of honour, joined the cavalcade. Several horses were sent to the Ambassador by the Porte, that for his own riding was superbly caparisoned: a housing embroidered and richly embossed with gold, silver and coloured foil, the accoutrements finely gilded, the saddle of fine blue cloth plaited and rendered soft, having the high gilded back and front used by the Turks: but the stirrups was the most singular article; they were of silver gilt, as large as 1

2

The Kaimakam was deputy to the Grand Vizier (hence Liston’s confusing reference to him as the ‘Grand Vizier’ here). The Grand Vizier, Laz Aziz Ahmed Pasha (r.  1811–12), was away commanding the Ottoman army against the Russians in Eastern Europe. A ‘factory’ was a trading centre for British or other merchants. Many of the British merchants would have been associated with the Levant Company, a joint-stock company established in 1581 as a result of Queen Elizabeth I’s diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire and which held the monopoly of the trade between England and the eastern Mediterranean until its dissolution in 1825. The term giovani di lingua refers to a group of interpreters and students learning Turkish. In 1551 the Venetians established a school in Constantinople to train young Venetian citizens in Turkish and other Oriental languages to end Venetian dependence on Ottoman dragomans. Later the school became a model for those of other European embassies in Constantinople.

f. 40r

132

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

f. 40v

fire shovels, and in much the same form. (It is said that the mother of a sultan built a mosque of her stirrups, which retains her name.) About eleven o’clock the procession set out, the gentlemen on horseback, the attendants on foot, and at one they returned with the addition of some Turks in office and some very miserable Turkish musicians. I find this is not the land of harmony, for this was the sultan’s own band.1 The ambassador wore, over his full-dress embroidered coat, a most superb pelisse, the outside of brocaded silk lined with fine sable.2 This audience took place at the Porte (where all the public offices are situated). Mr Liston was placed opposite to the Kaimakam. His letter from the Prince Regent to the Grand Vizier was delivered by the secretary of embassy.3 The Ambassador then made a short speech (through the interpreter of the Porte) and received an answer not much longer. Coffee and pipes were then brought in, and the pelisses were afterwards distributed to those who had a title to them.

f. 41r

Pera of Constantinople, 11th August 1812 At the distance of a fortnight, Mr Liston’s audience of the Grand Signor, Mahmud, took place, with the same ceremonies as that to the Vizier, except that it was at the Seraglio, and at a very early hour in the morning.4 Previously to seeing the sultan, the ambassador and his suite are conducted to the Hall of the Divan, where a great crowd is assembled.5 The Grand Vizier and the Ambassador are placed at a small table, where they eat a breakfast, or rather dinner, together – à la Turque – with their fingers. The rest of the company are seated at different tables provided for the purpose. Often this ceremony is much prolonged by the janissaries receiving their pay, and scrambling for pilau.6 Upon this occasion the amusement was omitted, much to 1

2

3 4 5 6

The last sentence of this paragraph has been inserted in the left-hand margin by Liston and is perhaps intended as a marginal comment, not as part of the main body of the text. The reference is to a mehter (military) band, which was made up of large numbers of musicians playing loud instruments such as trumpets, large drums and shawms. Mehter music was performed for state ceremonies and in battles and came to symbolise the Ottoman state. The distribution of pelisses, luxurious robes of honour (known as hilat), to foreign ambassadors and selected members of their retinues during audiences with the sultan or other dignitaries was common practice in Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial. The Prince Regent, later George IV (r. 1820–30), acted as regent from 1811 to 1820, during the period in which his father, George III, was unfit to rule. Sultan Mahmud II: on Mahmud and his reign, see Section 3 of the Critical Introduction, above. The Hall of the Divan: the Imperial Council. The janissary corps were paid their salaries (ulufe) in a special ceremony every three



the turkish journal, 1812–14 133

Mr Liston’s satisfaction, as he had seen and been fatigued by it on his former mission in Selim’s time.1 The Grand Signor, agreeably to ancient custom, views this scene from a small latticed window opening to an adjoining apartment. The ambassador (having, as well as all his suite, resigned their swords at the entrance and been all clothed in pelisses) is afterwards conducted to a small chamber where the sultan appears, seated under a canopy, or rather on a small bed, the curtains of which are richly embroidered in pearls and precious stones. The sultan (never turning his eyes or taking notice of anything) seems to listen to a speech from the ambassador translated into Turkish. The short answer is given by the dragoman in French. The smallness of the  apartment limits the number of attendants, none entering who have not received pelisses.2 Resigning the ambassador’s sword at the entrance of the Grand Signor’s apartment, and the circumstance of his being supported by two persons, each holding an arm, have been regarded by foreigners as degrading, and a French ambassador once refused to give up his sword.3 Circumstances may formerly have rendered both these usages necessary, and the custom continues because these people are not accustomed to changes. But there is a ceremony exacted at these presentations which is really felt by foreign ministers as an insult, though less talked of. The cavalcade quit the palace in Pera on horseback, the guards, domestics, etc., on foot. On reaching the harbour, or Golden Horn, which divides Pera and Galata from Constantinople, they find boats prepared, and on the other side horses to conduct them to the Seraglio. When near the entrance of this Turkish palace, the ambassador and his suite, whether it be fair or foul, must stop and wait till

1 2

3

months. On the day when a newly arrived ambassador was to have an audience with the sultan, this ceremony was more elaborate: the Imperial Council assembled, and soup, rice (pilaw) and rice pudding coloured and flavoured with saffron (zerde) were placed before the sultan’s court. On a signal from the chamberlain, the janissaries waiting at the Middle Gate rushed to eat the food, after which they retreated to the Middle Gate, where they received their wages in leather purses and then left. Robert Liston had first been the British ambassador to the Porte from 1794 to 1795, during the reign of Sultan Selim III. Liston’s sense in the second half of this paragraph is difficult to decipher, due to a substantial and syntactically fragmented insertion in the margin. The text given here is conjectural: interested readers should consult the online digital facsimile and transcription at . The ambassador’s resigning his sword and being held down by Ottoman officials to prostrate himself before the sultan were part of Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial and considered signs of respect to the sultan. Charles de Ferriol, French Ambassador from 1692 to 1711, refused to give up his sword: upon this, his gifts to the sultan were returned to him, the hilat (pelisses) bestowed upon him were taken back, and he was dismissed (see Talbot 2016: 121).

f. 41v

134

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

the grand vizier (or his deputy the Kaimakam), the Reis Effendi, and all the other ministers of state pass, sometimes without even inclining their heads or seeming to see the ambassador and his followers.1 On returning from the audience, the ambassador and his suite are again obliged to wait till they are again passed by these great Turks.2 [The] person supporting the ambassador (and his secretary of embassy) was originally produced by a dread that if unrestrained he might assassinate the sultan or that his excellency’s obeisance might not be low enough if not aided by his conductors. I am of opinion the support is a mark of honour, for I observed on our journey that our conductor – a man of rank – was always treated in that manner when he visited us, and that the same was done to Mr Liston and to me by the Greek priests. After the procession returned to the palace, another present of horses (to the amount of five) and superb accoutrements were sent as presents to Mr Liston: he also wore another sable pelisse, equally costly.

20th September 1812

f. 42r

On Tuesday the 8th of this month, when the new moon became visible, the Ramazan, the fast of the Mahometans, began.3 This fast is very rigidly performed by all good Mussulmen. From the rising to the setting sun no particle of food or drink enters their lips, nor can they enjoy during that time even the luxury of a pipe, and this severity is observed from the sovereign to the lowest orders of the people. At sunset, for which happy moment each person waits anxiously, a cup of cold water is swallowed: then follows prayers, and then the feast commences, which, with the great and the wealthy, lasts till within two hours of the rising sun, for they can sleep till it again sets. And indeed this class of persons rise very late in the day. But to the labouring poor the Ramazan is an affliction. Porters, sailors, boatmen, toiling in a burning sun from its rising to its setting, without permission to cool their parched lips, was a very cruel privation given by Master Mahomet, and these rules last till the appearance of the succeeding moon. Then 1

2

3

Liston is referring to the Reisülküttab, the Head of the Chancery and Record Offices of the Imperial Council. From the early eighteenth century onwards, he was also responsible for foreign affairs. Liston here deploys a distinctive mark, consisting of a circle or ‘O’ surrounded by dots, to signal an insertion (which might also be read as a footnote). The rest of this paragraph appears at the bottom of the folio (see Plate 8). The fast (oruç) in Ramadan (Ramazan) was and is one of the five pillars of Islam, the others being faith (kelime-i şehadet), prayer (namaz), charity (zekat), and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hac).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 135

begins the Bairam, which may be called the Feast of the Mahometans. Idleness and pleasure are the orders of the day for three days, but at a certain distance another Bairam of three days more succeeds.1 The plague which has raged with progressive violence for two months past must have been still augmented during the Ramazan by the free and constant intercourse of the Turks in eating and drinking through the night, as well as at prayers through the day, and the Bairam will complete its horrors. Our gate has been doubled, and long since shut, and we prisoners within our walls, with no farther exercise than the garden. Our Pourvoyeur2 lives betwixt the two gates: the provisions are handed to the porter, and by him plunged in tubs of water, which are always in readiness. Letters, papers, etc. are fumigated on a machine placed for the persons at the gate, and even visitors sometimes undergo this operation, which is called perfuming, being done with a sort of coarse incense.3 The guard-house of our janissaries opens into the street, and we are attended by five or six, while walking to the harbour to take our barge for a visit to Buyukderé, and this is the only recreation we ever take. All this presents but a melancholy scene to strangers, though the precautions taken by Europeans almost amount to security. These visits to Buyukderé to our diplomatic brethren are attended with some risk. We must pass through a crowded street or through a b ­ urying-ground (into which the back gate of our garden opens) attended by our guard of janissaries.4 The burial grounds of this country are without limits or end, and are amongst the objects of a stranger’s curiosity, forming very pleasant walks except during a malignant plague (as this seems to be) for as the Turks are interred without coffins and very little beneath the surface, they must in the end of the malady become both unpleasant and dangerous.

1

2 3

4

Liston is referring to the Şeker Bayramı (or Ramazan Bayramı or Eid-ul-Fitr), the Sugar Feast, which occurs at the end of Ramadan, and the Kurban Bayramı (or Eid-ul Adha), the Feast of Sacrifice, which occurs about seventy days later. The purveyor of the embassy, in charge of provisions for the household. Very similar precautions are described (and mocked) by Alexander William Kinglake in Eothen (1982 [1844]: 194). Fuels used along with straw to create smoke to disinfect letters – ‘perfuming’ – would have included incense, juniper berries, fragrant gums and resins and benzoin (Mayer 1962: 22). Liston’s letter to Dick Ramage, printed below (see p. 185), seems to have undergone just such a process of fumigation. Nineteenth-century maps show that Le Petit Champ des Morts, or little burying ground of Pera, bordered the British Embassy.

f. 42v

136

Belgrade, 30th October 1812

f. 43r

f. 43v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

On the 26th of the month, finding our confinement in town very irksome, we repaired to a small house hired from Pisani, our first dragoman, and beautifully situated at this place.1 The road by land having been represented as very bad, and wishing to see our diplomatic brethren at Buyukderé, we went there by water, and proceeded to Belgrade in an araba (the carriage of the country) – five miles. This machine is in form of a wagon, except that the edges are scalloped and often painted of gay colours, sometimes covered at top with canvas or cloth, but open all round. Mattresses or cushions are placed within, where you must sit à la turque2 – or, as we did, sit on the edge near the horses with the legs hanging down. They are drawn by two or by four oxen or buffaloes, conducted by a peasant, who leads them, walking before, while another peasant, with a long stick pointed with iron, goads them on. It is astonishing with what perfect safety these animals drag such strange machines through the most execrable roads; their movements of course are very slow. The village of Belgrade is the Elysian fields of Lady Wortley Montagu.3 It is much scattered, or rather separated into two hamlets. The house we inhabit is on a rising ground nearly in the centre betwixt them, and commanding the finest view the place affords. In one of these hamlets several foreign ministers and opulent merchants formerly resided, in good houses now fast going to decay – one or two of them are now rebuilding4 by rich Armenians. This is a Greek village, and the church is Greek, but there appears to be no person here of any consequence belonging to that degraded nation. The Armenians indeed, who now form a large portion of the subjects of Turkey, have for a long time past been the favoured nation, both of the sultans and of the government in general, and I believe deservedly, for the higher orders of them are 1

2 3

4

Belgrade Forest, to the north-west of Istanbul, named after the thousands of Serbs transferred to Istanbul after the Siege of Belgrade in 1521. Bartolomeo Pisani (d. 1826) was Principal Dragoman to the British Embassy from 1800 to 1824. Robert Liston writes that Bartolomeo ‘stands high in ability, foremost in zeal, and in what may even be termed patriotism: for his family have known no country but England one may almost say from time immemorial’ (NLS MS 5627 f. 75). A list of ‘Expenses on His Excellency Mr Liston’s private account’, records a rent of 200 piastres paid to Mrs Cecilia Pisani for the house (NLS MS 5640 f. 9v). With legs crossed. In The Turkish Embassy Letters, writing to Alexander Pope, Montagu declares that Belgrade village ‘perfectly answers the description of the Elysian Fields’, adding that ‘’tis very necessary to make a perfect Elysium that there should be a river Lethe’ (2013: 147, 148). Being rebuilt.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 137

better principled, less artful, and troublesome than the Greeks, and the lower class much more orderly and industrious. But the Armenians are now becoming so wealthy that it is said the Sultan begins to cast an eye of desire upon their wealth, and I do not think them quite secure. Many of the offices formerly held by the Jews are now in the hands of these people. They alone have charge of the mint – and the Sultan’s banker is an Armenian.1 The Jews however are still very numerous and wealthy – and there is one great situation likely to always be in their hands, the bankers to the Aga of the janissaries.2 I am told the arrangement of their pay is a matter so intricate, and has been so long confided entirely to the Jews, that no other nation could readily manage it. The tribe of Israelites has suffered dreadfully by the plague, which continues its ravages, and as there is not heat enough here – as at Smyrna and in Egypt – to check or stop its progress, the commencement of cold weather can alone put an end to it for the season. In Lady Wortley Montagu’s time, near a century ago, Belgrade village, though always subject to fever and ague in the months of July, August, and September, was yet, for the other summer months, the favourite residence of the inhabitants of Pera.3 The village of Buyukderé, near the head of the Bosphorus, was not then a place of note, though now the successful rival of Belgrade – not only from its being a complete and safe summer residence, but esteemed the Montpellier of this country,4 and convenient from its easy access by water, instead of traversing thirteen miles of very wretched road from Pera to Belgrade, or one not much better from Buyukderé thence to Belgrade – half the distance. This last road is through a very beautiful country, passing by the meadow of Buyukderé, and at the distance of two miles you pass beneath a very handsome aqueduct.5 These aqueducts (for there are several) are of Turkish workmanship, and very well constructed. Some of them are on or near the foundations of those erected with yet greater skill by the Greek emperors.6 All the reservoirs 1

2 3

4 5 6

The Armenian Duzian family’s members had held the position of superintendent of the mint since the 1750s. The Sultan’s Armenian banker was Harutyun Bezciyan (1771–1834) also known as Kazaz Artin. He was Director of the Ottoman Mint from 1819 to 1832. A member of the wealthy Armenian elite, he became a close companion of Sultan Mahmud II. The Ağa was the commander of the janissary corps, appointed by the sultan. Montagu praises ‘the refreshment of cool breezes [from the Black Sea] that makes us insensible of the heat of the summer’ (2013: 146). Pera was the name of the European quarter of Constantinople, today’s Beyoğlu. Liston here repeats a comparison made earlier in her journal: see p. 126. On the aqueduct, see p. 127, n. 3. The most famous example is Uzunkemer (Göktürk Kemeri), built by the Ottoman architect, Sinan, on the ruins of the Roman aqueducts. Liston here has first written

f. 44r

138

f. 44v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

are in the ­neighbourhood of Belgrade, one or two of them upon a very magnificent scale, though from neglect going to ruin. The waving country, the smiling vineyard, beautiful fountain, and deep green verdure, so well described by Lady Wortley Montagu, still exist, which with one of the finest forests in the world and an ample supply of excellent water, renders this village with all its disadvantages a more agreeable residence than Buyukderé, which, consisting of a row of houses, or more properly a quay, can afford no retirement. Here, the house we inhabit is almost isolated. We can vary our walks over hill and dale, through woods and deep glens, without touching the two hamlets, while the wild mountainous woods, contrasted with the enamelled meadows and numerous small rivulets, afford an endless variety. Lady Wortley Montagu was right that the woods consist greatly in fruit trees – the cherries of Belgrade are particularly fine – and the vineyards are numerous, but the greater part of the woods now consist of sweet chestnuts, a sort of fern-leaved oak and hornbeam Carpinus.1 The tops of the hills are crowned with fine shrubs of considerable growth, amongst which the Arbutus bears the greatest proportion (indeed in this country it is considered as entirely a mountain shrub). The undergrowth of the woods, and the covering of uncultivated fields, consist of the Cistus (both red and white), of Hypericums, of Tamarisk, with a variety of heaths.2 The Rhamnus Christi form the hedges and cover the trees to an immense length, and there is a beautiful wild grape, which is peculiarly ornamental from its red colour in autumn, as well as the Canadian grape, which, though not indigenous, is luxuriant on walls.3 In coming to Belgrade we passed two days with our diplomatic brethren at Buyukderé, who all reside there, except M. Palin the Swedish Minister and ourselves.4 And being almost at the entrance to the Black

1

2

3

4

‘Roman Emperors’, and then written ‘Greek’ above the word ‘Roman’, without, however, crossing out the latter word. Where Montagu simply mentions ‘fruit trees’, Liston names the different species of trees and flowering plants she observes, reflecting her keen interest in horticulture and botany. The Cistus, or rock rose, is a shrub found throughout southern Europe. The Hypericum genus includes various types of St John’s Wort, among other plants. Tamarisk (Tamarix) is a deciduous small tree or shrub. ‘Heaths’ refers to low evergreen shrubs, like the arbutus, belonging to the family Ericaceae. Rhamnus Christi is another name for the Ziziphus spina-christi, an evergreen tree or plant native to the Levant. The ‘Canadian grape’ Liston refers to may be a plant in the Menispermaceae family, possibly Canada Moonseed, very similar to the wild grape. Nils Gustaf Palin (1765–1842) was Chargé d’affaires of the Swedish Embassy at the Porte from 1805 to 1814. He wrote works on hieroglyphics including De l’étude des Hieroglyphs (1812). Palin married Claire Lucie Mouradgea d’Ohsson (1776–1861), daughter of Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson (1740–1807), diplomat and author of the



the turkish journal, 1812–14 139

Sea, we took our barge on the 25th of the month and, accompanied by M. and Mme Jabat, the Spanish Minister, determined to row into that formidable sea, however short a way. We passed some Romantic spots, both on the European and Asiatic sides. At certain distances towers are judiciously placed, amongst them one on each coast erected under the auspices of Baron de Tott, who thought the Turks had placed theirs too high.1 His are on the beach near the narrow mouth which opens to the Euxine.2 We passed a village called, I believe, Fanaraqua, which we found entirely deserted, nearly half its inhabitants having been swept off by the plague: the remainder had emigrated.3 On the European point is an island on which there appeared the remains of a small building, called improperly Pompey’s Pillar,4 and reaching the extreme points of Asia and Europe we found on entering the Black Sea that the swell, in one of the delightful days of autumn, was so great as to give us some idea how formidable the Euxine must be even to the moderns in bad weather, with the additional danger of the entrance being narrow, for betwixt these two points, in this delicious calm, the water gushed impetuously. The Bosphorus and the Euxine offer various interesting points. We passed the Cyanean island so formidable to the Argonauts, now apparently insignificant rocks with a greenish cast. Also the spot of bank, where the pilot Tiphys cut a new anchor.5 Indeed, the voyage of the ship Argo is easily traced, from the island of Lemnos to Colchos, every spot being marked.

1

2

3 4

5

Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman (1787–1820). Liston wrote of Claire, she ‘is a sensible excellent creature but we are less together as she has not such good health has a large family’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 20). Baron François de Tott (1733–93) first went to Constantinople as Secretary to his uncle, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, the French Ambassador, and was later involved in the reform of the Ottoman military; he was charged with defending the Dardanelles against the Russian fleet in the late 1760s and early 1770s and later with building fortifications along the Bosphorus. His Memoirs of his journeys and his life in the Ottoman Empire were published in 1784–5. A classical name for the Black Sea, from the Greek Pontos Euxeinos, literally ‘the hospitable sea’, an ironical inversion of pontos axeinos, ‘the inhospitable sea’ (see Ovid’s Tristia 4.4.55). The village is Rumelifeneri. Hobhouse calls it Faranaki or ‘Roumeli-Fener, the European lighthouse’ (2014 [1855]: II, 248). Hobhouse identifies Pompey’s Pillar as an ‘Augustan column,’ but says that all that is visible is ‘the original base, a fragment of white marble, a little more than five feet high, and nine feet and a half in circumference’ (2014 [1855]: II, 248). The Cyanean Rocks, also known as the Symplegades or Clashing Rocks, are located where the Bosphorus and the Black Sea meet. The Greek hero, Jason, and the Argonauts undertook a voyage to bring back the Golden Fleece and regain the Kingdom of Iolcos in Thessaly. The story of Tiphys, helmsman of the Argo, who guided the ship through the Clashing Rocks, is told in Appollonius’s epic poem, Argonautica.

f. 45r

140

f. 45v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

After rowing some hours we returned and dined with the Chevalier d’Italinski, the Russian Minister, and the following day proceeded to our retirement at Belgrade. During our residence here, we have had a melancholy proof of the tyranny of a despotic government in the execution of two of the Greek princes Mourousi, supposed to be the first in rank of that unhappy race.1 The former masters of Constantinople have long furnished interpreters to their Turkish conquerors. Indeed, the place of dragoman of the Porte seems – except sometimes foreign missions – to be the only public employment allowed to the Greek nation. One of this family of Mourousi had been the dragoman of Sultan Selim, and after his murder was supposed to have been poisoned. The situation of dragoman of the Porte generally leads to a premature death or to the principalities of Moldavia or Wallachia.2 After the fate of the eldest brother, another, named Demetrious, was named interpreter to the present Sultan, and attended the Grand Vizier to Bucharest to assist at the negotiation of the peace with Russia, with which the Turkish government is now so discontent. To be sure, had that peace been delayed till the war now existing betwixt France and Russia had broken out, the treaty, which the repeated defeats of the Turks rendered so unfavourable for them, must have been granted by Russia upon more advantageous terms – and as it is, the Russians have not fulfilled the articles of it. The family of Mourousis has been supposed attached to Russia (indeed all Greeks are less or more so, from religious principles) and the ­enemies of the Mourousis, amongst who were some of those very Greek princes, insinuated his having influenced the Vizier in the terms of the treaty. Without much deliberation the Sultan sent orders to the Vizier to have Demetrious Mourousi cut in pieces. It was done immediately, at Shumla in Asia.3 His brother Panagios, who had, during his brother’s absence at the camp, been appointed Dragoman of the Porte (and who had, in that character, been sent to complement Mr Liston after our arrival) had been discharged from his office by the interest of the French Ambassador (who arrived some little time after us) upon his declaring, that as France was at war with Russia, he could not treat with the Turkish government through the channel of an inter1

2 3

The Mourousi family (spelled variously as Murusy, Morusy, Moruzzi) were Phanariote Greeks of Constantinople who served the Ottoman government as dragomans for many years. Constantine Mourousi was Prince of Moldovia (present-day Moldova) and also Grand Dragoman of the Ottoman Empire. Wallachia is now part of Romania. Shumla (Shumen) was a fortified Ottoman town in Bulgaria.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 141

preter attached to the interest of Russia, and another dragoman was appointed.1 When the death of Demetrious Mourousi took place – to the surprise and horror of the public – poor Panagios lived retired in a handsome house on the banks of the Bosphorus with all his family. Two boats filled with chauses (the guards of the Sultan, and the executioners of his fatal orders) carried the poor man from his children, sisters, and remaining brother to the Porte, where without a word his head was cut off.2 This was done so suddenly and unexpectedly that no remonstrances could be attempted. The Mourousis were men of remarkable abilities. The display of their family consequence to their countrymen, and of their superior talents to some of the members of the Divan, it is conjectured, contributed equally with general envy to destroy them.3

Belgrade, 8th December 1812 After six weeks of charming weather, this day has produced a fall of snow, so like to England that one can scarcely believe themselves in the fine climate of Constantinople. We submit cheerfully, as it may put an end to the dreadful ravages of plague.

Pera, 30 December 1812 Finding a winter more than usually severe fairly begun we quitted Belgrade on the 23rd, in a covered araba [with] four of the finest buffaloes I ever saw. Two peasants and one of our own footmen assisting on foot with some difficulty got us safely to Buyukderé, through the most execrable road in the world. We remained two days there in the house of Count Ludolf – Sicilian Minister – and came to town in our barge on Christmas day. We found the plague considerably diminished. The general calculation is – that4

1

2 3 4

Count Antoine-François Andréossy (1761–1828) was French Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte from 1812 to 1814. He had been Ambassador to Great Britain from 1803 to 1805 and to the Austrian Empire from 1808 to 1809. Panagios (d. 1812), the younger brother of Demetrious Mourousi; he served as Dragoman of the Imperial Fleet between 1803 and 1806 and was the Deputy Dragoman of the Porte between 1809 and 1812. ‘chauses’: Liston’s transliteration of the plural of çavuş, a guard. The Divan: the Ottoman Imperial Council. The manuscript stops abruptly mid-sentence here, leaving space at the foot of the page. Liston’s account resumes on the verso of the same folio.

f. 46r

142

Constantinople, January 1813

f. 46v

f. 47r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

About the 5th of this month the weather completely changed and justified Lady Wortley Montagu’s fifth of January, for it became the climate of the month of May.1 The plague, though not gone, had so greatly diminished that we ventured on one of these fine days to go for the first time to the city of Constantinople as much incognito as possible. A Frank is so immediately distinguished that we did not attempt to assume the Turkish dress, the very air and walk discovering the deception.2 To attract as little attention as possible we had only our Bayraktar (principal janissary) and a dragoman and we crossed the harbour in a hired boat. The boats of this country are extremely pretty: long, narrow and beautifully carved. Even the most common superior ones have the addition of gilding and painting. Those of the Grand Signor and Capitan Pasha are covered and fitted up with scarlet and gold cloth, while rowers each man two oars. We found the streets of Constantinople narrow, dirty, and crowded, many of them serving for markets. The buildings [are] mostly of wood and very wretched in general, but the eye is often relieved by a mosque, a minaret, or a public edifice.3 The first of these that we passed was a turbeh or sepulchral chapel, of the Sultan Abdülhamid, with large windows and iron lattices, through which we distinctly saw a vast number of biers or coffins – one in the centre of a large size, covered with a magnificent pall.4 At the head was placed the imperial turban, at the feet silver candlesticks of four or five feet, with a circle of lamps above. This contains the body of the sultan, the smaller ones around those of his family. What particularly attracted my attention was, that each of these biers was covered with a superb shawl – all differing in pattern and colour so as to appear almost a magazine5 of fine shawls. We passed part of the walls of the Seraglio. A gate was opened for the entrance of a domestic, 1

2 3 4

5

Since there is no letter dated 5 January in the Turkish Embassy Letters, Liston is presumably referring to Montagu’s letter of 4 January 1718 to Mrs Thistlethwayte, where she says: ‘The climate is delightful in the extremist degree. I am now sitting, this present 4th of January, with the windows open, enjoying the warm shine of the sun, while you are freezing over a sad sea-coal fire’ (2013: 152–3). A ‘Frank’: that is, a Westerner. Liston here has scored out ‘build’ and written after it a word difficult to decipher: ‘edifice’ is conjectural. The sepulchre of Sultan Abdülhamid I was built in 1776–7 and is located in the Eminönü district of Istanbul, where there are also the sepulchres of his sons and daughters. Liston spells the Sultan’s name here ‘Abdal Hamet’. A storehouse, shop or depository.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 143

and we could observe evergreens intermixed with gilded temples, but our interpreter assured us that there was no admittance for strangers. At some distance we reached the Atmeidan – the largest open space in Constantinople.1 This was, in the time of the Greek emperors, the scene of public spectacles and athletic exercises, where the famous leaders of the green and blue habits displayed their talents and their petulance, their factions and disputes, not only shaking the Hippodrome, but often endangering the Empire. The area is now no more than 250 paces long and 50 wide, the magnificent mosque of Sultan Ahmet occupying one side. At the one end a considerable space is filled by a building appropriated to insane persons, and where it is said Justinian’s Palace stood.2 In the centre are three remains of ancient architecture. The famous obelisk [is] composed [of] a single piece of granite sixty feet high, and in perfect preservation. The colour is a mixed red, and on the four sides [are] Egyptian hieroglyphs in complete order. This obelisk was brought from Thebes (in Egypt) by Theodosius the Elder, and put up by means of machinery distinctly represented, amongst other sculptures, on the outside of the base of the column, in bas-relief.3 The pedestal is seven feet high, but from the inequality of the ground a considerable portion must be below ground. The sculptures on the four sides offer different representations, but in each the Emperor appears in his box (sometimes accompanied by the Empress) presiding at the games, and his guards and attendants. On one side are musicians, an organ and several kinds of flutes, and rewards appear to be distributed to the victors. The inscriptions are all buried in the accumulation of earth. Around the circus are said to have been many fine columns and statues: of these there remains only the Serpentine Column. This is supposed to have supported the Tripod of Delphos, which stood in the Forum of Arcadius, and was brought by Constantine to his new city.4 Nothing even of this column remains but the three entwisted bodies of the serpents, being composed of brass now rendered green by the 1

2

3

4

Built in ad 203 by Emperor Septimus Severus, the atmeidan or Hippodrome was at the heart of the city’s social and sporting life. The blue and green factions Liston mentions were opposing political groups whose disputes often spilled over into violence. Liston is referring to Sultan Ahmed Darüşşifası, one of three mental asylums in Istanbul at the time and part of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque complex. Justinian’s palace was located between the Hippodrome and the Hagia Sophia. The Obelisk of Theodosius, as it is now known, was the obelisk of the Egyptian Pharoah Thutmore III and is made of red granite; originally thirty metres tall, today it measures only eighteen and a half metres. The Serpentine Column represented three intertwined serpents, whose heads originally supported a golden tripod. As Liston notes, it was brought from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine.

f. 47v

144

f. 48r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

air. One of the heads was broken off by Mehmed the Second (after his conquest of Constantinople) by one stroke of his scimitar, in order to prove how much greater was his strength than his taste. The other two heads were taken off, no one knows how.1 At a little distance stands the stone work of the Brazen Column, ninety-four feet high, and marks the farther goal of the Hippodrome. It was in former times covered with plates of gilded bronze, which have been all torn off, and with so much violence as to injure the structure, and it now threatens a speedy fall.2 We went into the area around which are the cells of the insane, in the form of cloisters. We saw each through his grated window, and though I believe little care is taken of them (none at all in the medical way, the mad and silly being supposed peculiarly favoured by heaven) I was pleased to see they had each their little mangal of fire, coals, and a pipe:3 one was merry, a Jew was sad and sick, several lying down on mattresses, a Dervish apparently happy and playing upon a very long reed, in form of a flute, from which he drew notes wild and not inharmonious.4 I did not, during our walk, see a Greek or a Frank woman: all were Turks. While we were examining the granite column, five or six of these collected round me. I became alarmed, for women and children often insult strangers. The dragoman encouraged me by assurances that they were in good humour. Their intention was to look at my dress and to know how I could be veiled so different from them. I lifted up the muslin which covered my face (for it is held indecent to expose the face entirely) at which they laughed, nodded and went off, seeming to think me very good-natured. I was amused with the endless variety of turbans I saw. Not only different offices and professions are indicated by the form of the turban, but the cooks, bakers, etc. of the Seraglio are distinguished thus. Of the women I only remarked some in black masks reaching the upper lip, with a large piece of white cotton covering the head and body, who I was told were from Egypt. 1

2 3 4

The legend of the decapitation of the snake is recounted by Edward Gibbon, who describes how Mehmed ‘shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under jaw of one of these monsters, which in the eyes of the Turks were the idols or talismans of the city’ (1994 [1788]: 967–8). In 1718 Montagu described ‘a brazen column of three serpents twisted together, with their mouths gaping’ (2013: 167). One of the heads is now displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Liston seems to be referring to the Column of Constantine, sometimes known as the Burnt Column because of the marks left by a fire in 1779. A mangal is a traditional charcoal burner, used for heating and cooking. A dervish was a particular type of Sufi mystic (see p. 156, n. 2 and 3). Liston discusses the dervishes in more detail later in her journal, and describes witnessing a performance of the dervishes of Pera: see pp. 156–7. For a comparison of Liston’s account of the dervishes with those of other Western travellers, see the Critical Introduction, p. 44.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 145

The Arabs from Baghdad wear a sort of mantle wrapped round them, resembling check, and half veils, but of these strangers no one took notice except myself. This is certainly a very strange government. The most arbitrary act that a despot can be guilty of is here performed with a promptitude and silence quite astonishing. If a vizier is to be dismissed, whether from momentary disgust, or some very trifling offence, the ceremony is that an officer enters his office bureau holding in his hand a bit of cotton, with which he wipes the vizier’s pen. The vizier upon this walks out and disposes of himself as he pleases, provided he quits Constantinople. But if the fault merits either banishment or death, instead of wiping the pen, he is led by the officer into a small apartment of the Seraglio, where he waits in trembling his doom (and it is said that there have been instances of some men losing their senses, during this hour or half hour of suspense – but these have not been rigid Mussulmans or Predestinarians).1 If the sentence is death, he is led to a dungeon in the Seraglio and his head struck off, or the bow strings applied, without a word. If banishment, he is conducted to the waterside, put into a boat, and knows the place of his destination by arriving at it. This rigour of punishment extends equally to the janissaries individually, though as a body the sultan trembles for them. A janissary must not be beheaded, except when the sultan wishes to show contempt.2 It is their privilege to be strangled (the sultan himself is a janissary, receives his pay, and when put to death it must be in that manner). The suppression or rather complete reform of this very formidable body of his subjects is the wish of the present Grand Signor and has been that of many of his predecessors. But unless it was possible to limit the power of the monarch and of those to whom he devolves it, the suppression or even a strong reform of the janissaries would I think be taking the chain from a tiger, and setting him loose on the country, for these two powers check each other, and from thence perhaps proceeds the little moderation that exists. The real character and disposition of the present Grand Signor Mahmud is not exactly known.3 He is certainly a man of talents, and what is more rare, in a Turk, a man of business [who] knows and assists at all the transactions of the Empire. 1 2

3

Below, Liston recounts a story demonstrating one Muslim’s belief that he was punished after having tried to act independently of God’s will (see pp. 147–8). Liston is mistaken: royal family members, including sultans and high-ranking officials in the administration, were killed by being strangled, but this was not generally the case for janissaries. Sultan Mahmud II: on Mahmud’s character, career, and death, and on his predecessors, Selim III and Mustafa IV, see Section 4 of the Critical Introduction, above.

f. 48v

f. 49r

146

f. 49v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

He is a bigot or affects it, and a man of blood, which [he] spills, if not with pleasure, at least without remorse. To this man’s elder brother poor Sultan Selim owed his death (to whom he was cousin-german and the natural heir of the throne).1 The present sultan was confined in the Seraglio with Selim for near a year. On his liberation, when Selim was murdered, it was deemed safe by his party that his brother, then sultan, should be put to death. It was done, and he succeeded to the dangerous seat. He is the last of his race, and that circumstance is in favour of his living, as he has few sons, and those infants, though there can be little doubt of his having a reform of the janissaries as much at heart as Sultan Selim, who fell a victim to the attempt had. Yet he set out with more prudence, and he possesses more vigour and energy of mind. He gradually but steadily persists in introducing European tactics, and he may in time prevail, as his weapons are death and bribery, without the smallest deviation from Mahometan prejudices. Selim, on the contrary, partly from error, and partly from taste, endeavoured to introduce this much wished-for reform by a gradual relaxation of Turkish principles and ceremonies. These have all been revived by Mahmud with rigour. The Seraglio is under a degree of discipline not known for many years, [and] strangers are denied many indulgences, to which the last reigner had accustomed them. The Sultan’s eyes and ears are everywhere, and he renders himself interesting, to good Mussulmen, by a very strict discharge of the ceremonies of religion, particularly in the severe fast of the Ramazan. We were obliged, though reluctantly, to go sometimes to Buyukderé during this fast, for though our not employing boatmen would have been no favour to them, as they were obliged to labour for their bread, yet we found it very disagreeable to see them toiling in heat under such restrictions, and Turks of all ranks are in bad humour during this severe moon. The first time we made this excursion in Ramazan I felt myself peculiarly interested in our return. We had with us, as usual, our Bayraktar (a standard in our guard of honour), our Reis – also a Turk – who guides the helm, and takes charge of the barge, etc., and seven Turkish boatmen. Our Bayraktar, who had carried his bit of carpet, and had prayed in all the various attitudes possible during the day, entered the barge with us half an hour before sunset, with his bundle of provisions, his water, and his pipe, awaiting the happy moment for using them; but that it appeared could not be done without a signal from the Reis. The janissary was a poor little withered old man, and appeared very anxious for drink. We all partook of his distress, and looked anxious 1

A cousin-german is a first cousin, a child of a sibling of either of one’s parents.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 147

for the decline of the sun. We announced eagerly the setting of the sun, but the Reis refused him permission (that is, denied that it had set) though the bottle of water was in his hand, urging that was the sun actually gone down, the minarets would be illuminated, for there is a general illumination of all the minarets during the fast. At length lights appeared in a small minaret on the banks of the channel. He still refused. I insisted, but he remained obstinate till the canon was fired from the Capitan Pasha’s fleet: and it was both painful and pleasing to see the eagerness with which these poor creatures passed the bottles of water from one to another, then began greedily on their olives, grapes, and bread. The Ramazan ends with the moon, and on the succeeding moon becoming visible begins the feast of the Bairam. This lasts three days only. Again every Mussulman smiles; again you see them seated, their pipes in their mouths, beneath the shade of the Platanus on the banks of the Bosphorus. The coffee houses resume their gay appearance, every spot is decked with branches and flowers, the shops dressed with their different coloured flags, and the minarets display their bright flames (the illumination of minarets is made by two or three circles of coloured lamps exhibiting frequently different figures: the great numbers of these become very beautiful). The Grand Signor goes in procession on the first day of the Bairam to a mosque, attended by all his officers, guards, etc., and a black throws in the streets a great quantity of the current coin (new ones) called paras.1 At the end of thirty days a second Bairam is celebrated in commemoration, I believe, of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son Isaac, and every person rich enough to fatten a sheep or lamb sacrifices it with his own hand and treats his family with the carcass or gives it to the poor.2 The Grand Signor himself goes through this ceremony in the court of the mosque, and in the presence of a great number of Turkish subjects, but no profane Christian eye can view this singular performance. A dragoman told at our table one day an incident said to have occurred the summer of our arrival. A Turk, who had the plague in his family, was fortunate enough to have a child and some of his dependents recover from it. He immediately went to a small house he had on 1 2

A para was a small coin; there were forty paras to a piastre. As Liston says, the Kurban Bayramı or Eid ul-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice) commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and God’s provision of a lamb as a substitute. Families still traditionally sacrifice an animal, with one third of the animal being given to the poor, one third to the family and one third to friends and relatives.

f. 50r

f. 50v

148

f. 51r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

the banks of the Bosphorus with his family, consisting of a wife and three children: a boy about nine or ten, another five, and an infant in arms. The father sacrificed a lamb from thankfulness for the mercies he had received (a practice very common amongst Mahometans). After slaughtering the lamb in [the] presence of his family, he went to town on business. The mother was walking at the side of the water with her infant in her arms, and the two boys were in a chamber upstairs. The elder boy, having been much amused by seeing his father kill the lamb in the courtyard, proposed a repetition of the scene to his brother, as an amusement. The poor little boy consented, and allowed his brother to place him in the same attitude the father had done the lamb. Then taking a knife, which happened to be in the chamber, he in the same manner cut the throat of the child, whose screams drew a servant into the apartment. The horror expressed by the servant, and the threats of what his parents would do to him, seemed to recall the recollection of the young executioner, and at the same time caused a momentary delirium. The servant ran down to acquaint the mother, who in the hurry of distraction threw down the infant on the grass, and ran upstairs. The boy, hearing her approach, was so terrified that he suddenly jumped out the window and was killed on the spot. The afflicted mother was soon called from the horror above stairs, to an accumulated one below. The infant, forgotten on the brink of the water, had rolled itself in, and floated dead on its surface. When the father returned to this scene of woe, his reflection was one natural for a good Mussulman. All his misery, he said, proceeded from his own misconduct. He fled from Constantinople that his family might be secure from further attacks of the plague. A true Mahometan should have remained there, and trusted in the Prophet. Amongst the nuisances in this country are birds of prey and dogs. You cannot walk during the day without taking infinite pains to avoid trampling on sleeping dogs and litters of puppies. They lie thickly strewed in your path, and seldom bark through the day, but for that forbearance they take amply vengeances during the night. A dog is never found in the house of a Turk, by whom he is held as unclean, and cannot be admitted or caressed, but as an animal he must not be destroyed, and though the liberty of knocking them in the head is often slyly taken at Pera, and at Galata, no one durst do it in the city of Constantinople.1 These poor wretches not being sufficiently 1

There is nothing in the Koran which asserts that dogs are unclean; hunting dogs are mentioned with approval (5:4) and the dog which was with the Companions of the Cave is also praised (18:18, 22). There is no definitive answer in the Hadith (a collec-



the turkish journal, 1812–14 149

provided for by begging and stealing, it is not uncommon to find them running off with kittens and chickens (though there are instances of Turks leaving them certain donations in their wills).1 Many of these miserable animals die of hunger, and in winter numbers of cold, [and] also of plague: otherwise they might, in time, drive out the inhabitants. They are almost all of the same breed, extremely ugly, but though a little resembling, in appearance, the wolf, they are not at all ferocious, and there has rarely been an instance of canine madness. The numerous birds of prey, though most destructive to small birds and young chickens, are useful by clearing the streets of filth, the only mode ever adopted of cleaning the streets in this country. Storks and turtles2 and the water fowls on the Bosphorus, are esteemed birds of good omen by the Turks, and as such [are] very carefully preserved. Superstition, indeed, is carried so far in this country, that the Grand Signor has two astrologers attached to the Seraglio who announce to him the fortunate or unfortunate days for signing treaties, declaring peace or war, etc.

February 1813 The storm of frost and snow has continued (with the intermission of a week last month, when a south wind produced a short summer) since the 8th of December, and with a violence scarcely ever seen before in this country, but as nothing less could have effectually destroyed the plague, we must not repine. And we particularly have no reason as in our noble mansion each apartment has a chimney, but the inhabitants of the country must suffer seriously. Their houses are almost all of wood, slightly built and filled with windows like a bird-cage: very seldom a stove, and no chimney except in the kitchen. They are warmed by machines called tondeurs and mangals.3 The former is a square or round table covered with a cloth: conforming to the rank or wealth of the owners, sometimes cloth, silk, or satin or velvet richly embroidered. It hangs down all round, is placed near the sofas, and beneath it a pan of burnt charcoal. There is often an

1

2 3

tion of sayings traditionally regarded as the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), or the Islamic legal and religious corpus regarding the purity or impurity of dogs (see Mikhail 2013: 69–77). There is evidence from the late nineteenth century that some rich citizens of Constantinople did leave provision for dogs in their wills (see Boyar and Fleet 2010: 274). Turtle doves. Tondeurs is Liston’s transliteration of tandır, a means of indoor cooking and heating, which she goes on to describe.

f. 51v

f. 52r

150

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

appearance of magnificence in the decoration of the tondeur, but the figures around them present a strange picture. Their feet are placed beneath the drapery, but in order to be warmed it is necessary to [also] place the hands and arms, which often leaves the head only above the mangal. The only resource of the middling and poor is simply a large pan of charcoal upon feet, or a stand with a cover to be put on at night, or in absence. To be sure no people in a moderate climate were ever so clothed in furs and warm habits as the people of all nations in this country, a few Franks excepted. Respecting the climate you may say there are two seasons: a north and a south wind. The former cools and refreshes the warmest day and the latter softens the coldest in winter. The breezes from the Black Sea are often severe.

23rd February 1813

f. 52v

The violence of the plague and the severity of the season have been against my excursions to Constantinople, for both have disappeared slowly. Yesterday I went, accompanied by a dragoman, to see a flower market, open every Monday. It is a street filled with trees, shrubs and flowers in pots, and containing shops where seeds and bulbs are sold. In the immediate neighbourhood I entered the first bazaar I had seen and I believe the most singular.1 It is covered like Exeter ’Change2 but of greater extent, and filled with drugs, dyes, etc., all from Egypt which gives its name to this bazaar: Egyptian sugar, gums, in short everything useful from this country, and beautifully arranged, both in substance and colour. On each side, the vendors, sitting in the attitude of tailors, each at the back of the articles exposed. Here you buy the ingredients for dying the hair and eyebrows, for staining the nails, roots for washing embroidery, etc. On our way home we met a Turk magnificently dressed and mounted with his attendants and several officers of justice, some of whom carried scales, others the instruments for giving the bastinado.3 This gentleman was the Stambol-Effendi, an officer of rank, who two or three times a week parades thus, in order 1 2

3

The bazaar is the Mısır Çarşısı or Egyptian Market, also known as the Spice Bazaar. The flower market Liston mentions was and is next to the Spice Bazaar. Exeter Exchange on the Strand in London, built in 1676. A covered shopping arcade, from about 1773, it also housed a menagerie. After a visit to the menagerie in 1813 Byron wrote, ‘the sight of the camel made me pine again for Asia Minor’ (Moore 1932: 200). The bastinado was a form of punishment which involved caning the soles of the offender’s feet.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 151

to weigh bread, and punish the culprits.1 At the distance of every three or four yards the procession stopped, and the trembling bakers brought their bread to the scales – not always of justice, for those officers who weigh it often take their revenge of an enemy, and a piece of money sometimes balances the scales, for the great man on horseback saw no more than I did: he must take the word of his servants.2 For the first default, it seems the baker’s boy receives the bastinado on the spot. If the fault is repeated the master is hanged. Sometimes the punishment is nailing the ear to the door.3 The same severity is exercised against butchers, more unreasonably I think, for their heads are cut off for taking a para more than the regulated price. This regulation of prices extends to everything and as the Grand Signor often makes monopolies no efforts are made by this oppressed people to bring in anything, as they cannot have their money. Of course it often happens that we cannot get soap to wash our linen or oil to light our lamps. Oil, indeed, is a serious grievance, as the lower and, at certain periods, the better class of people live upon it. The Catholics are bad enough, but there is no end either to the fasts or the feasts of the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, at which times all live on caviar and oil in summer and on melons gourds, and cucumbers, together with grapes, olives, etc. On the 9th of this month we were advertised publicly that the Grand Signor was to go to Galata Saray.4 This is a handsome building situated near us, which forms an academy or college for the Turkish youth, and where they receive, I believe, the best education that the country affords. This seminary is visited once in two or three years by the Grand Signor, and it is customary that the dessert offered to him on this occasion is chiefly furnished by presents from the foreign Ministers, who often vie with each other in the superb temple or

1

2 3

4

Here ‘Stambol-Effendi’ refers to a muhtesib, a market inspector, an Ottoman government official responsible for inspecting markets and shops and controlling the pricing and the quality of goods. In 1794 Robert Liston had also noted ‘the weight of tradition in acts of severity [. . .] against bakers who had been giving short weight’ (Daniel 1966: 164). Reinhold Schiffer gives examples of all of these types of punishment from several late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century travellers, stating: ‘As late as 1815 an offender might still lose his head’, although later the penalty was reduced to the bastinado or ‘nailing, by the ears, to the doorpost’ (1999: 329). An educational institution founded by Sultan Bayezid II in 1481 to train pages for the sultan’s service. It was closed in 1675 but reopened during the rule of Ahmed III (1703–30).

f. 53r

152

f. 53v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

epergne,1 or any ornamental figures containing sweet meats,2 accompanied with confectionery, which are carried by the domestics of the respective ministers, in their gala dresses, attended by a suitable number of janissaries and a dragoman. We assembled in the house of the Spanish Minister, whose windows looked into a street through which the Sultan was to pass.3 His embarcation at the harbour was announced by firing of cannon, and the streets were crowded. The Sultan was preceded by a dozen led horses richly caparisoned, followed by his officers magnificently habited. Ten janissaries appeared on each side of the street, carrying turbans superbly ornamented with diamonds, pearls, etc., and these turbans made obeisance, by the persons who carried them occasionally inclining them to one side, while the janissaries that lined the sides of the streets inclined their heads in reply to the salutation. The Sultan himself appeared mounted on a very fine black horse, [with] splendid furniture embossed with gold and precious stones.4 He was dressed in a pelisse of fine green cloth ornamented with sable; on his head a dark purple turban surrounded with a quantity of white muslin, a large diamond egret, and a plume of white feathers in front. Sultan Mahmud appears older than twenty-eight, and as far as the figure of a Turk (always enveloped in pelisses) can be judged of, is a graceful man. His features are regular, his complexion pale, almost to lividness, his eyes large and black, his beard and eyebrows so dark as to create suspicion that he follows the common practice of the country and dyes them. There is a melancholy in the expression of his countenance which would be truly interesting, did we not know his sanguinary disposition. He never moves his head, but throws his eyes (particularly to the windows) about with much curiosity. He was followed by the Kislar Aga – [the] principal black eunuch, superbly dressed, and the most hideous creature I ever saw, black or white.5 1 2

3 4 5

A central ornamental dish for a dinner table. By ‘superb temple’ Liston presumably means a luxurious container for sweetmeats in the form of a temple. The ‘Account for disbursements made on His Majesty’s service at Constantinople’ for January to June 1813 describes Robert Listons’s gift on 9 March costing 3,000 piastres: ‘an elegant crystal dessert and sweetmeats presented to the Grand Signor Sultan Mahmud II on occasion of his visit to Galata Saray, according to ancient custom, and to what is practised by the other foreign ministers resident here’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 2v). Juan Gabriel de Jabat y Aztal, Spanish Envoy to the Porte (see p. 127, n. 6). Horse ‘furniture’ refers to the trappings such as the saddle, the bridle, the housings or the caparison. Liston is referring to the Kızlar Ağası or Dârüssaâde Ağası, the Chief Black Eunuch responsible for supervising the Imperial Harem. He was third in the state hierarchy after the Grand Vizier and the Sheikh al-Islam, the head of the religious establish-



the turkish journal, 1812–14 153

Several other eunuchs, of both colours, followed glittering in gold and silver, and the hem of their garments were repeatedly kissed and by men of condition. Indeed few officers possess more influence than the Kislar Aga and his followers.

29th March 1813 The weather appearing a little settled (after the third storm of snow since 8th of December) and some English strangers wishing much to see the mosques, Mr Liston asked for the permission, to which every foreign minister thinks himself entitled once after his arrival;1 and we set out about eight in the morning, that we might view the principal ones before twelve o’clock, when the Mahometans assemble to prayers. Besides strangers, we were accompanied by those gentlemen of the Factory2 who had not seen the mosques; the family of the Spanish minister; likewise our English servants, together with a dozen janissaries and a dragoman. We crossed the harbour in the beautiful little boats of the country and after landing had a very long walk to St Sophia, with which it is usual to begin.3 It is situated very near the Seraglio and its outward beauty much obscured by houses crowded about it, but the immediate entrance is clear and noble. It is a building of immense size, with long galleries and though not kept in such good [condition] as those built by the Turks on its model, it retains a degree of magnificence possessed by no other mosque in Turkey. St Sophia has been so often and so well described that I have only to say, it appears worthy of the expense and trouble bestowed upon it by the Greek emperors – having been, from various accidents, three times rebuilt by them, and each time at considerable additional expense. The dome is noble and much of the mosaic and other ancient decorations remain. The columns are chiefly of verd-antique, some of fine porphyry.4 This mosque is perfectly well lighted and yet, there is a

1

2 3 4

ment. With easy access to the sultan and his family, he was very influential in the imperial palace and the state administration, as Liston notes. Robert Liston obtained a firman, or decree from the sultan, in order to visit the mosques. An ‘Account for disbursements made on His Majesty’s service at Constantinople’ records the ‘fees and gratuities’ paid on the 28 March 1813 ‘for their Excellencies and company visiting the mosques at Constantinople by virtue of a ferman solicited by His Excellency at the Porte’ as 391 piastres and thirty-five paras (NLS MS 5640 f. 8v). The British trading centre, probably that of the Levant Company (see p. 131, n. 2). On the Hagia Sophia, see p. 122, n. 3. Some of the monolithic columns of the Hagia Sophia are made of purple porphyry, some of verd-antique, a mottled green ornamental marble.

f. 54r

154

f. 54v

f. 55r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

sombre magnificence, a chastened elegance, which agreeably recalled to recollection its former greatness, when it constituted the principal ornament of the second city in the world. Though the Turks have not despoiled this only remaining perfect Greek structure of the Greek emperors yet, they have lessened its beauty by adding what was necessary to a Mahometan place of worship: a gilded latticed box for the sultan and a seat at the top of a long flight of steps for the mufti;1 also the ornamented niche, pointing to Mecca, towards which all eyes are turned during prayers; the square building upon pilasters, on the top of which stand the muezzins (men who by a song call to prayers five times a day, and supply the place of bells); and the beautiful pavement of the Greeks is concealed by carpets and matting, as all must fall or kneel on the ground to prayers, there being no seats but the above two.2 There is likewise a kind of pulpit, chiefly for the master, who examines the scholars in passages from the Koran, from which many are written on the walls, some by the sultans.3 Near the door we were shown a very deep well, concealed by the pavement. The principal Turkish officer that attended us opened it, and we tasted some excellent water. From St Sophia we were conducted to the mosque of Sultan Mehmed, built on part of the ancient hippodrome.4 This mosque is distinguished by six minarets and much outward show, as well as by an immense court very handsomely finished, and enclosing thirty small cupolas. The minarets are at the angles. The stair and entry are magnificent. This mosque was finished at great expense, chiefly with white marble and porphyry and granite columns. The windows [are] of painted glass, which obscures the light considerably. From thence we proceeded to the Osmanic.5 This is the lightest and gayest of all we saw. The Osmanic is rather upon a smaller scale than many others, but the perfect proportions, with the mixture of white marble and gilding, gave an air of Oriental elegance. The carpeting 1 2 3

4

5

The mufti is an expert on matters of shari’a and jurisdiction and officially recognised as an authority to issue fatwa. The muezzin issues the Muslim call to prayer and oversees the prayer service. By ‘master’ Liston may mean the imam who provides religious guidance or, more probably, the mullah (molla in Turkish) who is responsible for teaching in a madrasa or Islamic religious school (Bayerle 1997: 119). This is the mosque of Sultan Ahmed, not Sultan Mehmed. The Sultanahmet Camii, also known as the Blue Mosque because of the colour of its tile work, was designed by the royal architect Mehmed Ağa, who worked on it from 1609 to 1616 in the reign of Ahmed I (1603–17), the design being based on that of the Hagia Sophia and on those of Mehmed Ağa’s master, the famous Ottoman architect, Sinan. The Nuruosmaniye Mosque in Çemberlitaş, the first mosque to be built in the baroque style. Construction started in 1748 and was completed in 1755 during the reign of Sultan Osman III (r. 1754–7).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 155

was in pieces of different patterns, extremely well united, and the windows lightly painted. The last of the mosques we chose to visit (for they are without number) was the Suleymanic, built with perfect regularity and of great strength.1 One of the Turkish officers assured us it would last till doomsday. The porphyry columns are of immense size and of one stone each, the windows superbly painted, but the light much shut out. Several Turkish officers had met us at landing, by orders of the Porte, conducting us through the streets and through the mosques. This not only protected our large party from anything like insult, but the officers behaved with perfect politeness and good humour, answering our numerous questions cheerfully and pleasantly. In the course of our walk we passed a piece of antiquity called the Burnt Pillar;2 likewise a very large building enclosed by a high wall, of near a mile. This is called the Old Seraglio, where reside the ladies of former sultans in everlasting retirement.3 This seraglio is said to be placed upon one of the seven hills. But it is difficult to distinguish any of the hills on which Constantine erected his city. We also passed the Janissaries’ Tower, a showy building in the form of barracks, with a handsome tower in the centre.4 The Aga of the janissaries inhabits it, and is obliged to ascend the tower when the guard – always kept there – gives the alarm of fire, that he may ascertain where it is, and to give notice to the sultan and his officers who always attend a fire.5 Not far from the mosque of the Osmanic is part 1

2 3

4

5

The Süleymaniye Mosque, designed by Mimar Sinan and constructed between 1550 and 1558 on the orders of Sultan Suleiman I (1494/95–1566), known as Suleiman the Magnificent or in Turkish as Kanuni Sultan Süleymani (or the Lawgiver). Both the Sultan and the architect are buried in this mosque complex. Otherwise known as the Column of Constantine, mentioned above by Liston: see p. 144. The Eski Saray or Old Palace, also known as the Saray-ı Atik, was the first palace built by Mehmed II after the conquest of Constantinople. Until the reign of Suleiman I (r. 1520–66), the harem of the reigning sultan was in the Old Palace; it began to be incorporated in the New Palace (now known as the Topkapı Sarayı) when Hürrem Sultan took up residence there (Peirce 1993: 119), and it was completely transferred to the New Palace in the reign of Murad III (1574–95), and the Old Palace was inhabited, as Liston says, by the wives, concubines and other female relations of previous sultans. There were two sets of barracks for the janissaries in Istanbul, one in Beyazıt and the other near the Şehzadebaşı Mosque. Liston must be referring to the Beyazıt barracks, which had a watchtower known as the Beyazıt Tower or the Serasker Tower, from the name of the Ottoman Ministry of War. The first wooden watchtower in Beyazıt was built in 1749 but destroyed in the fire of Cibali in 1756. It was replaced by another wooden tower which is the one Liston would have seen. The Ağa of the janissaries was their commander. Fires were endemic to Constantinople largely because many buildings were made of wood. Records reveal hundreds if not thousands of fires from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards. In the eight-

f. 55v

156

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

of a sarcophagus ten feet by six, and eight feet deep, of one solid black of porphyry highly polished, said, traditionally, to have contained the body of Constantine. The cover is lost and it was filled with water. The statue of Apollo was originally placed upon it, but was afterwards converted into that of Constantine by his son: repeated conflagrations have effaced all its ornaments.1 We returned very much fatigued, after having seen only four of the mosques. Early in April we visited a meeting of dervishes.2 These are the monks of the Mussulmans. There are several distinct orders, some more strict – or, as a Christian would express it, more extravagant – than others. At Scutari there are sects that hold fire in their mouths and put swords down their throats, turning and whorling round with such constancy and velocity as often to fall into fits of insensibility.3 This is by the faithful conceived to be similar to those ecstasies into which the Prophet Mahomet sometimes occasionally fell:4 but with this difference, that his were artificial, at the effects of policy, whereas those of the poor dervishes proceed from weakness and violent exercise. We contented ourselves with the most moderate of them and established at Pera. The building is enclosed in a neat, cheerful-­looking court, with trees, a fountain and a kiosk, the usual appendages of Turkish buildings. Our dragoman procured us seats in a gallery, latticed for the sultan, who occasionally visits them, or for the use of strangers in his absence.5 We looked down upon a very pretty circular apartment, the middle railed in for the performance of the dervishes. The Turks, who formed the congrega-

1

2

3

4 5

eenth century the fires of 1729, 1741, 1752, 1756 and 1782 were the most extensive and destructive. During Liston’s stay there was a fire in Pera in 1814, which she describes elsewhere: see pp. 192–4. There seems to be no firm evidence that the sarcophagus of black porphyry near the Nuruosmaniye Mosque once contained the body of the Emperor Constantine. In 1810 Hobhouse identified a sarcophagus made of porphyry near the Nuruosmaniye Mosque, which he describes as Liston does, but he doubts that it housed Constantine (2014 [1855]: II, 343). Dervish refers to a particular type of Sufi mystic. As Liston says, there are several different orders of dervishes. The order whose performance Liston witnesses is commonly known as the Whirling Dervishes after the spinning appearance of their ceremony. Based in the city of Konya, they were founded by the followers of Mevlana, or Rumi, a thirteenth-century poet and religious figure who lived and is buried in Konya. The ‘Howling Dervishes’ are members of the Rifa’iyah order of Sufis, an offshoot of the Quadiriyah order founded in Basra, Iraq in 1187. Members link arms to form a circle and throw the upper part of their bodies backwards and forwards until ecstasy is achieved, then fall onto dangerous objects such as snakes or swords. The order was outlawed in Turkey in 1925. This belief seems to have no foundation. ‘Strangers’: foreigners.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 157

tion and joined in the prayers, were on the outside. The chief of this sect of dervishes, dressed in a green pelisse, his high-crowned cap surround[ed] with silk of the same colour, sat upon a bit of carpet at one side, within  the railing. The dervishes, after a great deal of ceremony, [were] sometimes sitting squat, at others falling on their faces, then rising suddenly, in order to fall down again, which is the whole ceremony of Mahometan praying; and this continued for a tedious length of time. At last a kind of nasal prayer (the tune was a sing-song in which the words were lost, to every ear); during this, the most devout of those without the railing repeatedly fell, and rose again, others sitting quiet. After this scene, which lasted near twenty minutes, a sort of music concert was performed by a band of people, placed beneath the gallery.1 It consisted of strange singing, cymbals, and guitars, accompanied by a hurdy-gurdy, and all much softened by a species of flute very long and rustic in its appearance, but which produced much melody.2 Prayers ended, the chief arose and walked slowly round and round the room, followed by the dervishes, who as often as they passed approached the bit of carpet, upon which he had sat, and had prayed. They made obeisance to it, then turning dexterously made another obeisance on the other side, and this most of them performed very gracefully. Their dress was a high-crowned brown cap and pelisses of different colours. After appearing pretty well tired of their walk, the chief returned to his carpet. The rest of the dervishes retiring for a moment threw off their pelisses and appeared in short jackets and very long full petticoats: each making an obeisance to the chief began to wheel round, extending their arms and making by means of their wide petticoats what children call making cheeses.3 At intervals they stopped, crossed their arms on their bosoms (for I fancy the greatest fatigue was their extension of the arms), and after a little rest recommenced whorling. The scene altogether was ridiculous, but not laughable. There was a quiet solemnity in their movements, a sort of grace in their obeisances, a melancholy paleness in their looks, which rendered it, with their sweet-toned flute, interesting. 1 2 3

The word ‘concert’ is inserted above ‘music’ here, possibly as an alternative. In a draft letter of 26 February 1814 Liston says the ‘flutes’ are ‘formed something like a shepherd’s pipe’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 75r). Liston is probably referring to a children’s game played by girls ‘who walk or dance up and down, turning’ while reciting the rhyme ‘Green cheeses, yellow laces, / Up and down the market-places, / Turn, cheeses, Turn!’ (Halliwell-Phillips 1843: 149). The girls would inflate their petticoats and skirts by turning round and round (Gomme 1964: II, 311).

f. 56r

f. 56v

158

f. 57r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

About the middle of May, and before the heats came on, we went for the first time to Scutari, attended by a dragoman and janissary. The distance from the harbour of Tophane in Galata where we took our boat, is from a mile and [a] half to two miles.1 The first place we visited on landing was the manufacture of printed and painted muslins. We stopped in the lower part of the building to see the weaving of velvet. I mean that which is in common use in this country for sofas. It consists of silk and cotton, the patterns showy and the colours rich, but it is a coarse, heavy fabric. The muslins are printed by children overlooked by old persons, consisting indifferently of Turks, Greeks, and Armenians. The wooden stamps are neatly made, and their colours are excellent. The painting was principally performed by boys, who were anxious to exhibit their work. These colours were very brilliant and wash well, having in the course of the process been often dipped in the sea, which is their mode of fixing their colours both in painting and in prints. There is also an Egyptian plant, sold in the bazaar, for washing, which, used instead of soap, is successful.2 Scutari, which may properly be called the Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople, is a considerable well-built town, the streets wide and many of the houses commanding a fine view, with numerous gardens and vineyards [which] render it, to appearance, a more pleasant residence than the European side. Scutari extends along the Bosphorus to its junction with the Sea of Marmara, and to the ancient Calcedonia, which forms a point nearly opposite to that of the Seraglio.3 After having ascended in an araba a height which commanded a view of the channel, as far north as Buyukderé, and admired an immense fine house and kiosk, which is now building by the Valide Sultana as a present to her son the Grand Signor, we turned and proceeded south to the point of Calcedonia.4 Passing through wide roads with good vineyards but poor crops of corn, magnificent trees, and the hedges covered with yellow jasmine, we reached Calcedon, still a village of some consequence, and were conducted to an ancient Greek chapel, part of which is even now in use. Our conductor (a Greek priest) assured us it was that in which the famous Synod of Caledon was

1 2 3 4

Tophane, in today’s Beyoğlu, on the European side. Possibly soapwort or saponaria officinalis, a member of the Saponaria genus. ‘Calcedonia’, the ancient city of Calcedon and present-day Kadıköy. The Valide Sultan, the mother of Mahmud II, was Nakşidil Sultan (d. 1817). Liston is probably referring to the kiosk on the site of the Cihan bağı Kasrı at Çamlıca, first built by Sultan Murad IV and restored by Sultan Mehmed IV. The new kiosk was in fact built in 1812 by Sultan Mahmud II for his mother rather than the reverse.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 159

formerly held.1 The royal chair was shown, and the priest was at pains to convince us it was built three hundred years prior to St Sophia.2 I wished to have traced the situation of that elegant palace, erected by the infamous and abandoned queen of Justinian, Theodosus;3 also that in which, at a later period, poor Maurice and his family suffered, but no idea is by any one retained of either.4 We found ourselves at this point very near to [the] Princes Islands5 in the Sea of Marmara, and within view of the entrance to the Gulf of Nicomedia, but there we should with equal difficulty have endeavoured to discover the still earlier palace of Diocletian.6 The largest and most beautiful Turkish burying ground is at Scutari, filled with magnificent cypresses, and here all the Great Turks are, from choice, interred, that when the Empire should again be in Asia, they may be found there.7

1813 About the middle of June we returned to Belgrade, for the short time that its unhealthy situation allowed us to remain. We set out by land, partly from conveniency and partly from curiosity. Our araba was attended by our Bayraktar, a footman and two peasants. The road and country immediately near Pera was bare and wild, but we g­ radually 1

2

3

4

5 6

7

The ‘Synod of Caledon’ Liston refers to is better known as the Council of Chalcedon (ad 451), the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian church. The Council approved the creeds of Nicaea (ad 325) and of Constantinople (ad 381). Liston is probably referring to the Church of St Euphemia in Kadıköy. It was destroyed around 626 during the Persian invasions, and in the late seventeenth century a new church was erected over the ruins. The Emperor Justinian’s wife was Theodora, infamous because, according to Procopius, she was an actress and a prostitute and mother of an illegitimate child. Justinian married her in 525, and when he became emperor in 527 she was proclaimed Augusta. The ‘elegant palace’ referred to by Liston was the Hieron, which included a church, a port and baths: it was located in what is now the Fenerbahçe district of Kadıköy. Maurice, Byzantine Emperor from 582 to 602. During a campaign against the Avars, Maurice sent his troops to winter across the Danube but as he could not pay them, they rioted under the leadership of the army commander, Phocas. As Maurice’s authority in Constantinople was weakened, Phocas, with the support of the army and the senate, usurped the throne and slew Maurice and his sons, who were beheaded, and their heads displayed in Constantinople. The Princes Islands are nine islands of various sizes in the Sea of Marmara. The Gulf of Nicomedia is known today as the Gulf of İzmit. Nicomedia was the ancient name for İzmit, and it was the eastern capital of the Roman Empire between 284 and 324 during the Tetrarchy, or rule of four emperors, introduced by Diocletian (ad 244–311). The Karacaahmet Cemetery at Üsküdar.

f. 57v

160

f. 58r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

approached woods and hedges covered with wild grapes and flowers. We stopped about half way to refresh our oxen and attendants, beneath a clump of fine trees at the side of a fountain, where we found a peasant and his two sons sitting at a small fire made of sticks, which enabled them to supply passengers with coffee and a pipe; all that the people of this country require. The boys procured us good brown bread and fresh eggs from a village in the neighbourhood, and the coffee-pot completed our breakfast. The road, always bad, became worse at each step, but the scenery improved, and in five hours we reached our habitation at Belgrade. The following day being cool, we walked nearly two miles to the top of one of the beautiful surrounding hills, in order to procure a peep, for it was no more, of the Black Sea. Business calling Mr Liston to town a few days after, we took the opportunity of going by the aqueducts. The first part of our road was prettily wooded and led us beneath one very handsome aqueduct, and nearly halfway to Pera we reached a tolerable village called Burgas, on one side of which is the aqueduct of that name; and the largest on the other side of Burgas, and amongst wooded hills, is a singular aqueduct with three rows of arches.1 And at the distance of some miles we reached, in a beautiful meadow and uniting two hills, the aqueduct called Justinian’s, an elegant structure though not so large as that of Burgas.2 The junction of the Turkish work upon the Grecian foundation is visible. In this journey we met a drove of camels loaded with charcoal. As our stay at Belgrade was to be very short, immediately on our return from Pera, we set out for the coast of the Black Sea. The first part of the journey was through some of the fine forest of Belgrade.3 Our chief view in the journey was the coal on the banks of the coast which, from the constant accumulation of sand, is scarcely visible.4 We proceeded seven miles through a wild country to reach the ocean; we then rode long on the coast before we could collect some flakes of the coal (which is put to no use on account of its very bad smell), passing a village and fortification on a height above the sea from which we 1

2 3 4

Burgas is today known as Kemerburgaz. Liston is referring to Güzelce Kemer, Uzun Kemer (the largest aqueduct) and Eğri (Kovuk) Kemer, which has three tiers of arches. All three include elements of earlier Roman or Byzantine architecture and were rebuilt by Mimar Sinan in the 1560s. The Mağlova Aqueduct: although Liston calls it the aqueduct ‘called Justinian’s’, it is an Ottoman structure built by Mimar Sinan in the 1560s. In the manuscript this sentence continues, ‘passing through a little dirty Greek town’, but these words have been crossed out twice and scribbled through. Coal has been extracted in the Yedikumlar area near Kilyos on the Black Sea since the reign of Selim III.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 161

made a long detour, in coming home, to see a beautiful and extensive valley. We reached a hill on which is situated what is called Ovid’s Tower.1 Indeed the whole of this tract of country, though very thinly inhabited, presented a beautiful and fruitful scenery, diversified by hills, dales, and streams and producing the best crops of grain we had seen. Ovid’s Tower (why thus named I know not) is finely situated at the verge of a wood, and commanding a view of the Black Sea, and it is capable of being rendered a delicious residence. We propose finally to quit this beautiful village on the 31st; we feel all its charms, but we likewise experience all its inconveniences. Our palace at Pera is so noble, so healthy, and the garden becoming so interesting to me, that we shall be contented to remain in it during our stay in Turkey.2 I was not displeased while at Belgrade to witness a Greek marriage, in which we took some interest as the bridegroom was the guardian of our house when not inhabited, and the marriage had been delayed for our arrival. I made the bride a present of ornaments, and Mr Liston gave them a sum of money. The ceremony was singular to us, by differing from anything of the kind we had seen. Much of the ancient Greek form is retained, I believe.

1813 On the 11th of July our first dragoman, M. Pisani, hired a shop for us near to the sultan’s kiosks on the Bosphorus, from which we could at our ease view the first setting out of the Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca. That is when the chief or leader receives from the sultan the present of fine ornaments for the Holy Shrine and passes over to Scutari, there to encamp and collect the pilgrims, previous to his final departure four or five days after.3 As it is now several years since a pilgrimage took place, the crowd was immense on the joyful renewal of this act of devotion, and the circumstance was peculiarly pleasing to the sultan, from his having 1

2

3

The name ‘Ovid’s Tower’ derives from a mistaken belief that Ovid lived there. Mary Georgina Emma Dawson Damer, passing the tower in 1839, noted: ‘it is said to have been inhabited by the poet during the period of his long exile’ (1841: I, 185). As Jane Taylor observes, however, ‘At the most Ovid might have glimpsed this spot as his boat passed by’ (1998: 224). Plant Receipt Registers kept at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh indicate the extent of Liston’s work on the embassy garden and record some of what she chose to cultivate there; seeds from plants she grew in her conservatory were planted in Edinburgh (see Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Plant Receipt Registers, 1810–20). Liston is describing the traditional ceremony of Surre-i Hümâyûn (the Caravan of Royal Gifts), whereby the sultan sends gifts to Mecca and Medina.

f. 58v

162

f. 59r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

within these five or six months only, recovered the two cities necessary to his Caliphate – Mecca, and Medina, having both been in possession of the Wahabees during several years.1 They were reconquered by the Bey of Egypt, whose son – an ill-looking youth – has been feasted by the Grand Signor and his ministers, in all the gardens and fine meadows in the country.2 This conquest indeed is of real and important advantage to the Grand Signor, for without the possession of these two cities of the Prophet, he could not justly be styled Caliph of the true believers.3 The tribe of Arabs in question are a sort of Unitarians to the Mahometan faith – they allow Jesus Christ and Mahomet to have been prophets – but not intercessors.4 They used little ceremony with the shrine of the Prophet, stripping it of everything, except the tomb itself, which they did not seem to think was worth taking away – had it been practicable. The presents and money sent by the Sultan upon this occasion have been therefore considerably increased. The procession consisted of a great many tawdry arabys5 entirely filled, a number of horsemen well mounted (chiefly those who had already made the pilgrimage), and a great deal of bad music. The most remarkable objects were two camels magnificently accoutred and heavily loaded with the Sultan’s gifts, but as these animals cannot easily be prevailed on to enter a boat, their loads were conveyed by water, and they returned undressed.6 The old Turk at the head of this undertaking was the first Turkish Ambassador to England.7 He has been reluctantly placed in his present situation, but he had done things (such as building and furnishing fine houses)8 which indicated riches, and this decided the Sultan’s choice, 1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

The Holy Cities of Medina and Mecca were controlled by the Wahhabis from 1803 to 1812 and 1813 respectively, when they were recaptured by Egyptian-Albanian forces fighting on behalf of the Sultan. From 1362 to 1875 the Ottoman sultan was widely seen as the leader and the representative of the Muslim world, a view strengthened when Selim I (r. 1512–20) became the defender of the Holy Cities. Reigning from 1805 to 1848, the Bey of Egypt in 1812 was Kavalalı Mehmed Ali Pasha, the first of the Muhammad Ali dynasty. His son, Ibrahim Pasha, reigned only from 20 July to 10 November 1848. Caliph of the true believers, or Halife-i Müslimîn, was a title used for the Ottoman sultans as the political leaders of the Muslim community. It originated with Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92), who proposed a return to the principles of Islam as practised by its early forebears. Liston’s misspelling or Anglicisation of araba (carriage). These lavishly ornamented camels carried the Mahmil-i Şerif (Noble or Sacred Litter) in which was placed the sultan’s money and gifts to Mecca and Medina. Liston is presumably referring to the first Turkish Ambassador to Britain, Yusuf Agah Efendi (1744–1824), who served from 1793 to 1797. Liston’s manuscript reads ‘A fine houses’, leaving it unclear whether the Turkish Ambassador had built one or more.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 163

for it is calculated that this expedition cannot cost him less than from 20,000 to 30,000 pounds. The pilgrims it is expected will be numerous and many of them very poor. The maintenance of 3,000 or 4,000 persons, in the journey to Mecca, and back, not less than six months, cannot with his own expenses cost less. In eight or ten days the chief had made his preparations and assembled his followers, and the day for his departure was finally fixed – from Scutari, and to stop at Damascus, where the far greater number of pilgrims join the caravan. A day or two previous to his departure, Mr Liston paid him a visit in his tent, which was pitched with many others on a large plain at Scutari. On the subject of his journey he observed, that every man who could afford it, ought to perform this duty before his death.1 On the day of his departure we crossed the harbour early in the forenoon, and reached the spot just before the tents were struck. I was disappointed in several points, but particularly as to the remaining number of pilgrims, for it seems they begun by daylight to go off in small parties in their journey, without parade. A number of Arabs, who had been driven from Mecca and Medina by the Wahabees, availed themselves of this occasion to return. The company was chiefly mounted on mules – the camels don’t join till they reach Damascus, as the Great Desert, where this animal is most necessary, is betwixt Damascus and Mecca.2 The only addition to the former procession that I remarked at Scutari was two very finely ornamented carriages, much resembling the palanquins used in India, but instead of men they were drawn by two mules, one behind, the other before. One of them was to convey the chief, the other his son who accompanied him. There were likewise five or six very odd-looking machines: carried on the back of a horse or mule they were formed like cages, or rather boxes.3 Handsomely covered and contained within (for the ends were latticed) in a reclining posture, [were] some times two females – others a female and one or two children. These were the wives of the chief and of his son. The crowd was very great, and the procession proceeded and was followed to a beautiful meadow at the distance of near a mile, where prayers were said – and here it seems, they were joined by the Sultan in disguise, who galloped off as soon as the devotional part was ended. The pilgrims took leave of their relations and friends 1 2 3

The pilgrimage to Mecca was and remains one of the five duties of Muslim believers. The Arabian Desert which occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula. The ‘machines’ were a type of litter covered with valuable textiles ornamented with gold, silver and precious stones. The chief referred to here is Yusuf Agah Effendi, described earlier as the ‘the chief or leader’ of the pilgrims’ caravan: see p. 162, above.

f. 59v

164

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

with much apparent affection, and then finally departed in very sultry weather.

17th August 1813

f. 60r

f. 60v

Yesterday I visited a Turkish Lady. The Kaimakam – who, in the absence of the Grand Vizier (not yet returned from the camp) fills his office and occupies his palace – he had said to Mr Liston that if I wished to see the palace, or even his harem, I had only to signify my intention the day preceding.1 M. Pisani, the first dragoman, gave notice of this visit and arranged everything for it. I was invited for half past eight in the morning. I went accompanied by Madame Chabert, wife to one of our dragomans, as interpretess.2 After crossing the harbour, I found we had a very fatiguing walk to the Grand Vizier’s seraglio. At the entrance to the women’s apartments, Pisani and my other male attendants quitted me. Two black eunuchs conducted us up stairs on which were a number of female slaves, and at the landing we were met by six or seven well dressed women, the greater part of them young. They led me into a very handsome apartment, like all Turkish ones, with a number of windows on every side, sofas all round, and as high as English ones, though considerably broader. Thin cushions, or rather mattresses, chiefly covered with embroidered satin, were placed on the ground in front of the sofas. The younger part of these females, I found, were the concubines of his Excellency. One of them standing at the door appeared very young and held a fine child in her arms. My interpretess, at my request, asked one of the older females if the child was the pasha’s and if it was the mother who held it. She replied in the affirmative to both questions, but, pointing to a tall, fair young woman with diamonds in her bandeau, that, said she, is the pasha’s present favourite. I glanced my eyes on her but perceived no change of countenance. One very fat comely creature, big with child, was pointed out to me by this communicative person, as not being one of the pasha’s ladies but wife to his chancellor and her daughter-in-law.3 They all appeared gay and delighted to see company. They apologised that the 1

2 3

The Grand Vizier at the time was Hurşid Ahmed Pasha (d. 1822), who occupied the position from July 1812 to 30 March 1815. The Kaimakam, his deputy, was Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha (d. 1822) who was appointed in 1812 and served until 1814. The Grand Vizier’s palace was the Bâb-ı Âli; it housed his harem as well as all the offices of state. Beatrice Chabert (1784–1848), daughter of Stefano Pisani, Dragoman to the British Embassy, and the wife of François Chabert. The Chancellor was probably Mehmed Said Hâlet Efendi (1760–1822), appointed as the Nisancı (Head Secretary of the Imperial Council) in 1811.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 165

lady of the house had not yet finished her toilette, but they ordered sweetmeats and coffee, stood round and admired my dress. My gown and turban were linen embroidered with bugles, which I thought would be more a novelty to them, than anything else, and I found it was so. They particularly remarked the form which the corsets gave to the breast of my gown, and very freely regretted that their mode of dress, entirely without corsets or any substitutes, spoilt their shapes. The lady at last appeared, supported by two slaves, and followed by a very respectable and indeed handsome-looking old woman. The pasha’s wife shook off her embroidered slippers and seated herself on the sofa, getting into the middle of it, her feet, which were bare (for stockings are little used and gloves never by Turks) placed beneath her, her back and sides supported by cushions. She then bowed her head respectfully to me, smiled and pointed for me to sit near her. I observed that the old female attendant, though no way distinguished from the other women in dress, placed herself upon another sofa, not far from us, and took part in the conversation while the other women were seated upon the small mattresses at the other end of the apartment. My interpretess sat upon her knees on a mattress at our feet. This Turkish lady was certainly not the descendant of Lady Wortley Montagu’s Fatima – she was neither young, nor handsome – but she was superbly dressed.1 Her drawers, which are the petticoats of Turkish women (and may [as] well be so, as they are – though a little divided in the middle – made to reach the feet, and are not drawn at bottom) were of embroidered muslin. Her [ ]2 was of a beautiful cream-coloured stuff with large spots of gold, and handsomely scalloped with gold lace. This is I think the handsomest part of the dress: it is open at the bosom, meeting tight below the breasts, and displays a fine gauze shift, supplying the place of a handkerchief, and the skirt is loosely wrapped over, occasionally opening to show the drawers. The sleeves of the shift come out full about the arm, resembling the old-fashioned court ruffles, the sleeves of the benysh or upper garment pressing them into that form while this, though long, is slashed, so as to display a great part of the arm.3 This 1

2 3

‘Montagu’s Fatima’ was the wife of the kehaya (the palace steward). In Letter 34 of The Turkish Embassy Letters, Montagu describes Fatima’s beauty fulsomely and sensuously: ‘I was so struck with admiration that I could not for some time speak to her, being wholly taken up in gazing. That surprising harmony of features! that lovely bloom of complexion unsullied by art! the unutterable enchantment of her smile!’ (Montagu 2013: 133). The word Liston has written here is difficult to decipher. A benysh was described by Lady Hester Stanhope as ‘a large mantle, reaching to the ground, ample and folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging considerably below the tips of the fingers. When worn it leaves nothing seen but the head and face’ (1845: II,

f. 61r

166

f. 61v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

benysh was of pale purple, made of the Angora camlet; richly bordered with gold, and laced down the seams with the same. The form of this resembled court trains, except the sleeves. On her head was the same round cloth cap called fases,1 which the Greeks’ ladies wear, but it was richly embroidered, and the bandeau round it was of diamonds. Necklaces and earrings are not worn, but the most brilliant part of her decoration was her bracelets. They were very broad, as all the bracelets of the country are, and magnificently set with rose diamonds, and fastened by wreathed clasps of fine brilliants. Her fingers were loaded with a variety of precious rings. I particularly remarked a very large emerald one. This lady had not even the traces of former beauty, except fine eyes and, what was probably artificial, the blackest eyelashes. But the large black arch which formed the eyebrows, divided in the middle by a white spot, was hideous, and this I find a very common fashion, even with the young and handsome. The next refreshment offered me was a pipe, which when I declined she asked if I would take snuff: to this I consented and a box, ornamented with diamonds, was handed to her by a slave. She seemed pleased when I drew off my gloves and expressed her surprise how I could support the constraint of them. I was both pleased and surprised at the frankness and kindness of her behaviour. She took occasion to say, as she had probably been instructed, that her pasha, and many good Turks, thought the English the best allies Turkey could have; they had always found them upright and honest, and not telling lies. I replied that I believed it to be the wish of England that the Turks should continue great and independent. She seemed anxious that I should ask for anything I wanted, and particularly apprehended that I did not sit at my ease, as my legs hung down. I laughing assured her, that I should be very ill at ease placed as she was. In the course of conversation I invited her to come and see my English palace. She replied that she seldom went abroad; that she was very unhappy, having had seven children and lost them all; but requested I should visit her often, and that she would always send her carriage to the harbour for me. She, as well as her attendant on the sofa (for the seat marks the rank) talked freely, asked a great many questions, and answered mine without reserve. They told me, in answer to my enquiries, that the Grand Signor’s harem contained slaves chosen by him entirely for their beauty, and that the only respectable woman

1

384). Angora camlet was a woollen fabric made from the fine hair of the Angora goat. Possibly from Liston’s transliteration of the Turkish word fes (in English, fez). As a woman’s head covering it was often decorated with coins or embroidery (see Davis 1986: 189).



the turkish journal, 1812–14 167

in the Seraglio was his mother, the Valide Sultana, who, though she occupied apartments there, had no sort of intercourse with her son’s harem; that if any of them lived to see her son sultan, she would then become of importance.1 She made an offer that her woman should show me the apartments and bath of the harem, after which she would attend me to the closet where the Grand Signor comes incognito on days of business, adding that the pasha had also ordered the public apartments opened for me.2 These apartments were numerous, and some of them handsome. The ceilings of Turkish houses are generally very much ornamented, their sofas covered with rich silks and embroideries or a kind of velvet composed of silk and cotton: but there is almost always a want of consistency in the character of their decorations. For example, the room in which I was received was richly gilded, the sofas embroidered, but the number of windows rendering curtains necessary, these were of common printed cotton, and in the rest of the house in the same taste. They have mirrors but no pictures, a great deal of painting on the walls, of trees, fountains, flowers, etc., but no human or living figures. I was shown very handsome baths: these are necessary luxuries in this country, and all persons of distinction have them in their houses. They consist of two apartments of marble, an outer and an inner one. I passed through the first, in which there was a fountain of cold water, but I could only look into the second, the heat was so violent. In the centre was a fountain of hot water; around the chamber marble seats, all heated. On rejoining the lady of the house she obligingly offered me the use of her baths, which I declined from my dislike to vapour baths, and she had never heard of any others. She then quitted her sofa, and putting on her fine slippers, led me through some very beautiful small rooms, elegantly furnished, in which the sultan passes his time while public business is transacting in the Hall of Justice.3 From these we entered a small cabinet with a sofa and a large latticed window at the back of it, looking down upon the hall. Upon this sofa she placed herself, legs and all, then looked at me with evident confusion and mortification. I soon learned from my interpretess that her distress was occasioned by not daring to place a Christian upon a seat appropriated to the successor of Mahomet. I relieved her by observing that from its breadth I was more disposed to lean than sit upon the sofa. This 1 2 3

The Valide Sultan was the mother of the reigning sultan, that is, Nakşıdil Sultan (d. 1817). The ‘public apartments’ were within the Bâb-ı Âli, which housed the chambers of the Imperial Council; the sultan was able to observe council meetings in secret. The Council of Justice at the Bâb-ı Âli.

f. 62r

f. 62v

168

f. 63r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

it seems is the window from which the sultan sees and hears, when he pleases, what passes at public trials, etc., and where he comes without observation when he pleases. The concubines, who had all attended us, each slipping her bare feet into her slippers and wrapping a shawl about her head and face, were now by a sign from their mistress ordered to silence, [or] at least confined to whispers, for a great deal of conversation went on. From this window, which commanded the whole of the Great Hall below, we saw a prodigious crowd pass and repass like ants. In the centre on one side was a sort of throne. Seats were placed in the middle, that is to say cushions, and on each side of the throne, and in the very centre, appeared a great quantity of gold rubies (the common coin of the country),1 for it was the day on which the janissaries were to receive their pay, and some little alarm was entertained (from this body, always formidable to the Turkish government) for as the Ramazan commences next week, it has been usual to give them two quarters’ pay at once, for fasting from sunrise to sunset it is necessary to have great feasts at each other’s houses at supper-time. The present sultan begins to refuse this. His bigotry, perhaps, does not see that feasts are necessary, or more probably he wishes to try, by degrees, the extent of his authority over the janissaries, and there was an expression of anxiety in the countenances of the men in office. Finding myself now fully satisfied, and a little fatigued, I proposed to my interpretess that I should take leave, but the Turkish lady pressed my stay with great earnestness; she wished me to see her pasha, and she had ordered a little dinner or collation to refresh me. My interpretess advised me not to disappoint her, and I reluctantly consented. Meanwhile one of the eunuchs had announced that my dragoman waited at the door to conduct me through the public rooms of the palace. The women accompanied me to their own door, concealing their faces in their shawls while it was opened. The halls of audience and of public entertainments had nothing in them perhaps so remarkable as that of two Christian women walking through them bare-faced and conducted by Turks, for a small circle of Turkish officers attended me, who were all extremely civil. On my return I was conducted into the chamber where I had been received in the morning; several small mattresses were placed around the sofa on which I sat, and in the centre was a large oval stool. The women seated themselves on the mattresses and the female slaves brought 1

Liston is referring to the rubieh, listed by Turner in his Journal of a Tour in the Levant (1820) as one of the denominations of Turkish currency. There were two and three-quarter piastres to the rubieh.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 169

in a very large brass tray and put [it] on the stool before me. It contained a plate of red and another of white watermelon, and several saucers, some with sweetmeats, others with olives in oil. The dinner was brought in, one dish at a time, and placed in the centre by the slaves, one seeming to have the privilege of putting the dish on the tray. There were neither knives nor forks, but each had an odd-looking spoon. To me they gave two. There was no table-cloth, but each person had a napkin embroidered. The dishes were extremely good in general. I merely tasted each, my interpretess apologising for me by saying that I dined late at home. One dish was soup, made of rice and very highly seasoned; a second was kebab, a favourite one with Turks of all ranks: it consists of little bits of meat, either beef or mutton, rolled up and fried or roasted, then mixed with vegetables, chiefly different species of gourds, and a rich sauce. I thought it excellent. Some of the dishes had such a mixture of oil that it was with difficulty that I could even taste them. I was astonished at the expedition with which the women eat with their fingers, taking up more at once, even of liquid, than I could with my spoon, and I was amused at their kindness: whenever I managed my spoon so awkwardly as to take up very little, they never failed to fill it for me with their fingers. As I recollected that the Turks always wash before as well as after dinner, I went through this finger-feast with little reluctance. Their spoons had been placed in compliment to me, for they seldom made use of them, and I had my spoonful of each dish before they would begin. The dishes were numerous, and removed with almost as much celerity as at Sancho’s government dinner.1 No vegetables appeared unmixed with meat, and properly speaking, almost all their dishes might have been called spoon-meat,2 except their pastry, which was abundant and very good, except sometimes too much sugar, and at others too much oil. Amongst the last things the pilau appeared. It was rice seasoned with spices and nutmeg over the top. Another dish was excellent jelly, made of sheep’s feet, and the dinner concluded with a large glass basin of sherbet, some sweet liquid with particular species of sour cherry at the bottom, and this was nearly the only dish to which they used their spoons. The division of anything so solid as fowl, etc., was dexterously done by placing the middle finger on the meat, while the bit was 1

2

Liston is alluding to the state dinner held in honour of Sancho Panza when he is made governor of the fictional island of Barataria, in Part II, Chapter 47 of Don Quixote. A plate of fruit is set before him, ‘but he had scarcely tasted it when [. . .] it was snatched away, and another containing meat instantly supplied its place. Yet, before Sancho could make a beginning, it vanished, like the former’ (Cervantes 2010: 344). Food that it is possible to drink or to be spoon-fed.

f. 63v

f. 64r

170

f. 64v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

torn off by the thumb and forefinger. Sherbets were served, and then water was poured upon my hands by a slave on her knees. I was afterwards reconducted to the sultan’s private closet, where though hot and unpleasant I could not refuse to gratify this Turkish lady by waiting the appearance of the pasha.1 I was glad when a bustle announced his entrance: indeed, the commotion seemed as great in the closet as in the hall. He is a respectable-looking old man, with a very handsome embroidered scarlet pelisse and a showy turban. He took his place on the raised seat at the foot of the throne, and all the best-dressed persons around him kissed the hem of his garment in turn. I had courage to stand the heat, and the pressure of the women, so long as to see the janissaries receive their pay, so took my leave, heartily tired, after near six hours. One of the women followed me with two packets, one to me, the other to my interpretess (who distributed money amongst the slaves). They consisted of coarse embroidered towels, stamped or painted handkerchiefs and a small box of incense. The araba was ordered to conduct us to the harbour: it was very finely gilded without; within were handsome cushions. Although this day’s entertainment had in no way answered my expectations as to splendour or female beauty, I was yet extremely pleased at having passed so many hours with a group of Turkish women, and to see enough of their characters and manners to enable me to form some idea of their humour and mode of life. I found them much more cheerful, happy, and good natured than I had expected. The visit of a foreigner was an amusement and the privilege of viewing the mob assembled in the Hall a treat, which together made a holiday, but I understand that they are pretty much occupied, the lower class in cooking and in making confectionery of which all the people of this country eat a great deal, and the upper ones in making their clothes and in embroidery, for all their dresses were more or less embroidered, as are the table-napkins, hand-towels, etc. All had not only the nails of their fingers dyed with the henna (the Lawsonia, a plant that abounds in Egypt: the leaves are dried and reduced to powder and sold in abundance in the Egyptian bazaar) but also their toenails. The rivalship that must naturally exist, where the favourite of the master could be publicly pointed out, must prove a considerable alloy to their comfort, but I felt no little surprise at seeing a respectable-­ looking woman, lawfully married – that is, by a contract – living familiarly in the circle of her husband’s mistresses, and appearing pleased with their society. These women became at last so familiarised to me, 1

Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha, the Kaimakam.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 171

that the younger ones could with difficulty refrain from romping and I perceived them laughing with the eunuchs. One of the slaves was so fair and pretty, that my interpretess predicted her speedy promotion. Several of the slaves were blacks. The term sultana does not seem to be generally ascertained.1 It is not given exclusively, as many persons used to say, to the first of the Grand Signor’s wives who produces a son; nor is it indiscriminately given to all the women in the sultan’s harem. When any of these females are with child they obtain a degree of rank and may be called sultanas because the child becomes, on its birth, a prince or princess: but should the woman miscarry, or the child immediately die, she is deprived of this rank, unless she happens to be peculiarly favoured by the sultan. This custom of all the children of the sultan becoming royal gives rise to a wise regulation, and to a barbarous practice. Since the period when the wives of Bayezid were dishonoured, after his defeat by Tamerlane, there has consisted a strict law against the marriage of an Ottoman emperor, but as this necessarily led to the sultan’s cohabitation with an unlimited number, and all their children were to be educated and portioned as royal, the expense was incalculable.2 It was then fixed that no greater number than seven should ever compose the harem of the Grand Signor (the present sultan confines himself to five) but should his inclinations wander to a beautiful slave, exclusively of the number allotted, means are taken by the physician to prevent her having a living child.3 To this, if she proves refractory, or in any other way conducts herself improperly, she is put into a sack and thrown into the sea:4 but I am inclined to fear that after the sultan’s family is large enough in males to secure succession, means are used to prevent the increase of children at all. 1 2

3 4

Liston is correct: the term sultana was used for the sultan’s mother, his sisters, his daughters and even his concubines. Liston’s assertion that after 1402 there was a law against the sultan’s marrying is generally correct, although there were exceptions, such as Sultan Suleiman I’s marriage to Hürrem Sultan. According to European accounts, this tradition dated back to the time of Bayezid I (1354–1403, r. 1389–1403). Bayezid’s wives and sons were enslaved after his defeat by Tamerlane (also known as Timur or Tamburlaine) at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, and Bayezid was humiliated by having to watch his Serbian wife Maria forced to perform menial tasks. This was considered one of the factors that led to his suicide in captivity (see Peirce 1993: 38). Liston is mistaken. There seems to have been no limit to the number of concubines; Mahmud II had nine consorts and four favourites. This is a very common trope in descriptions of the harem by Western visitors, but it does not reflect the real picture. The only known example is from the time of Sultan Murad III (r. 1574–95). After his death, seven female slaves carrying the Sultan’s offspring were put in sacks and thrown into the sea. Otherwise, there is no evidence in the Ottoman sources describing this as common practice (see Uluçay 2001: 59–60).

f. 65r

172 f. 65v

f. 66r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Should any woman in the Seraglio live to see her son upon the throne, she then becomes the first woman in Turkey, with the title of Valide Sultana. She has an immense income and splendid establishment, with sometimes much influence over her son, and in the Divan (which was the case with the mother of Sultan Selim, a woman of considerable talents), while wives of the deceased sultan whose children are alive, or who retain their rank, retire to what is called the Old Seraglio, where they are handsomely supported, but confined for life to fret at their happy rival.1 The poor slaves favoured in the affections of the deceased sultan are in the insurrection that follows, I believe, generally consigned to the sack and the sea. Strangers are never allowed to see the harem of the sultan. The ladies that compose it are sometimes seen en passant in the machines of the country when airing.2 The sultan has had seven or eight children since our arrival here, but most of them have been destroyed by care and perfumes (as the old physician of the Seraglio, Dr Lorenzo, told me)3 and he has been particularly unfortunate in sons – having at this moment only two – and this is a matter of some importance, for he is the last male of his race, and this circumstance I suspect aids to protect him from the resentment of the janissaries, for should he die without male heirs, the crown devolves to a Tartar prince distantly related. But he may have sons enough: his children come in batches, sometimes three or four in the same day. The daughters and sisters of the Grand Signors are disposed of in marriage to the viziers, and pashas, etc. These poor men are restrained from having harems.4 It is said that [at] the marriage of these sultanas with a subject, the Grand Signor presents to her a dagger set with diamonds, and liberty to use it, should her husband ever forget the honour he has received in obtaining her hand. The Turkish ceremony of marriage is chiefly a contract signed or witnessed by a public magistrate. In common life the husband, if he 1

2

3

4

Liston is referring to Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558). Known to Europeans as Roxelana, Hürrem was probably from the Ukraine. She became the concubine and later the legal wife of Sultan Suleiman I and mother of his five children, one of whom became Sultan Selim II, referred to by Liston as ‘Sultan Selim’. Hürrem became influential in state affairs, but as Suleiman’s wife, not as the Valide Sultan, as Liston mistakenly says. Liston may be confusing Hürrem Sultan with Kösem Sultan, the mother of Murad IV (r. 1623–40). By ‘machines of the country’ Liston presumably means the Turkish carriages, the araba: see p. 136, where Liston describes the Turkish carriage as a ‘machine [. . .] in form of a wagon’. ‘Care and perfumes’ is presumably a reference to the fumigation of people and objects, a precaution taken by many Ottomans and Europeans against the plague and described by Liston above (p. 135). Liston is correct in stating that the husbands of the sultan’s daughters were not allowed to have a harem.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 173

chooses to divorce his wife, is bound by it to pay her a certain sum, but divorces are not frequent amongst them.

December 1813 In the course of the October last the Queen of Naples arrived at Constantinople in her way to Vienna.1 The Turkish government scraplied to receive her at first, and it required all the interest of the Internuncio, aided by Mr Liston’s, to prevail on them to admit the  first crowned head that has visited this capital since its conquest by the  Turks, chiefly on account of the expense and the difficulty of arranging etiquette.2 This latter was obviated by her title of Countess. The Grand Signor and his ministers, however, behaved handsomely after her arrival (though they would neither admit the Sicilian ship of war in which she came, nor the English frigate that escorted her, to come farther than the Dardanelles). An offer was immediately made to the Queen of the [   ]:3 a purse a day, containing five hundred piastres. It is singular that the same sum was allowed to Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, during his long stay at Bender, near a hundred years ago.4 Her Majesty refused this offer, and afterwards very considerable presents were made her by the Porte of everything fine and curious in this country, and immediately preceding her departure, the Grand Signor sent her a bouquet in brilliants with – what is here esteemed a distinguished honour – his cipher in small brilliants at the bottom. Yet I could perceive that she was not a little mortified at his not seeing her, or her son Prince Leopold, who accompanied her.5 But 1

2

3 4

5

Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples and Sicily (1752–1814), who was in Constantinople on her way to Odessa and then Vienna, having first sailed from Sicily to the Greek island of Zante. One of Marie Antoinette’s sisters, she married Ferdinand IV of Sicily, III of Naples in 1768. ‘Scraplied’, which appears in neither the Oxford English Dictionary nor the Dictionary of the Scots Language, appears to be a Listonism for ‘scrupled’. The Internuncio mentioned here was the Austrian Internuncio Baron Ignaz Lorenz Freiherr von Stürmer (1750/2–1829), who, Robert Liston reports in one of his dispatches to Castlereagh, had ‘received orders from Vienna to render Her Majesty every service’ in his power (NLS MS 5627 f. 143). The Ottomans were reluctant to receive the Queen of Naples (daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor) because of the close relations between the Ottomans and other powers which were the enemies of Naples and/or the Holy Roman Empire. The manuscript is illegible at this point. Charles XII of Sweden took refuge in Bender (in present-day Moldova) in 1709–10 after his defeat at the battle of Poltava by Peter I of Russia and remained there for five years. Leopoldo Giovanni Giuseppe Michele (1790–1851), Prince of Salerno, the capital of Campania in south-west Italy.

f. 66v

174

f. 67r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Mahometan bigotry yields neither to gallantry nor to curiosity. The Queen and her large suite resided – from apprehensions of the plague – at Buyukderé. Her Majesty went one morning to Constantinople to see the Grand Signor pass in procession to the mosque, and one day, at her own invitation, she did us the honour of dining with us at Pera. Otherwise her apprehensions of the fatal disease of this country confined her at the village of Buyukderé, during a stay of nearly two months. Mr Liston and I had never seen the Queen of Naples before: when we were at Palermo on our way here, the situation of politics, between her Majesty and Lord William Bentinck, was such as to preclude the possibility of our paying her our compliments.1 Her face was pleasing but her figure much bent and unshapely. Her politeness, quickness and vivacity seemed to have suffered less from years and mortification. I often perceived in her a strong turn to ridicule, which frequently displayed itself in the sketches she occasionally gave us of her family. She was one day giving us an account of her grandchildren: she stopped, then added, ‘I have a great grandchild too – le petit marmot qu’on appelle le Roi de Rome, mais nous ne parlerons pas de celui la, c’est une infamie’.2 This led to an anecdote, that during the life of her daughter, the late Empress of Austria,3 the Queen was once present, when the Emperor4 in the freedom of conversation said, things were going on at such a rate in the world, that should Bonaparte ask his daughter, it would perhaps be prudent to give her.5 Upon which the Empress with much warmth replied, that should never happen while 1

2

3 4

5

William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, then serving as British Envoy to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Listons were unable to pay the Queen of Naples an official visit during their time in Sicily because of the diplomatic and personal tensions between Bentinck and the Queen of Naples who thought that Bentinck was overstepping his position. The larger issue was that of control of the Mediterranean. Napoleon François Charles Joseph, Napoleon II, Duke von Reichstadt (1811–32), the only child of Marie Louise of Austria and Napoleon I: at birth he was crowned the ‘Roi de Rome’. ‘Le petit marmot’ means the little brat. The Queen of Naples here goes on to say, ‘but we won’t talk about him: he’s infamous’. In 1816 Liston encountered the ‘young Bonaparte the former King of Rome’ at Schönbrunn Palace: ‘He walked betwixt two of the Emperor’s chamberlains and a footman behind him. The gentlemen took off their hats as we passed and the boy did the same and with peculiar grace. He is a lovely looking child about five or six years old with a quantity of the finest hair I ever saw hanging in curls upon his shoulders’ (NLS MS 5711 ff. 3v–4r). Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, Empress of Austria (1772–1807). Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (1768–1835; r. 1792–1806); Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria (hence Francis I) in 1804, nearly two years before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and was Francis I, Emperor of Austria from 1804 to 1835. That is, ask to marry her. Emperor Francis’s daughter by Maria Theresa was Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Franziska Therese Josepha Lucia (1791–1847), known as Marie Louise. She married Napoleon in 1810.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 175

she lived, and quitted the room greatly agitated. She died soon after, and the marriage was concluded. Nor did her Majesty omit, in her recital, a tour she once made through the different courts of Germany [and] Italy, to pick up husbands for her daughters: ‘and I succeeded in two,’ added she smiling (the Queen of Sardinia is one).1 She often displayed to me in her dress the beautiful needlework of her favourite child, the Duchess of Orléans, whom we had seen at Palermo, but she never failed, at these times, to give a slap to the Duke of Orléans, who she knew had been our acquaintance in North America, and whom she appeared to dislike.2 The Queen of Naples sailed in the month of November in a Russian merchant ship (her suite in English, Russian, etc.), by the Black Sea to go to Odessa, on her road to Vienna.3 I could not sometimes, when I saw this Princess struggling, and cheerfully, with all the little inconveniencies and traceries of common life, help saying to myself, and is this the only surviving child of the great Maria Theresa!4

June 1814 On Monday the 13th at six in the morning we set out in our own barge, attended by a M. Frederick Pisani, a dragoman, and two janissaries (one of our own, the other furnished by the Porte as a further security) for our long-projected journey to Bursa, in Asia Minor.5 The wind was favourable and the sun clouded, which was agreeable, as we had no awning, and our boat not being furnished with a sail we depended on the efforts of our rowers. We passed all the Princes Islands without touching. They are at the distance of twelve miles, all hilly, but several appeared to be extremely pretty: in two or three of them there are still Greek convents. It is supposed that they had all convents in the times of the Greek emperors, and served as religious retreats to the Greek princesses. We also passed the entry to the Gulf of Nicomedia, at the distance of

1 2

3 4

5

Maria Cristina Amelia Theresa (1779–1849) married Charles Felix (Carlo Felice), King of Sardinia (1765–1831). Maria Amalia Teresa of Naples and Sicily (1782–1866); she married Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans in 1809. On the Listons’ meeting with Louis Philippe in the United States, see p. 91, n. 3. Odessa is spelt ‘Adesso’ by Liston in the manuscript. Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (1717–80), Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (r. 1740–80), wife and Empress of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I (r. 1745–65), and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Frédéric Pisani, dragoman at the British Embassy.

f. 67v

f. 68r

176

f. 68v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

ten or twelve miles more.1 Our wish was to reach the cape which leads into the Gulf of Mandania, but as our men had rowed without intermission for four hours, we stopped on reaching Arnautle, or Arnout-keoy, and although the surf was very high we ventured to land.2 It appeared a poor dirty village. We were conducted by the priest, who was extremely civil, and a peasant, through shocking streets to a garden or rather orchard of white mulberries: our provisions were brought from our barge, and we made a good dinner. On our return to the bay we found both wind and surf considerably increased, and we were conveyed into the boat by men, as it was impossible it could approach the shore – and in this confusion of elements we broke our rudder. The wind was fair but so strong that it was with difficulty we doubled the cape. The whole of the Asiatic coast was picturesque and wildly pretty. The silk-worm appeared everywhere to be the principal culture. It was their time for feeding and sleeping, and all the inhabitants were occupied in cutting and carrying mulberry leaves.3 We were obliged, on account of the high wind and broken rudder, to put into a small creek and send the rudder to be mended at a ­pretty-looking village climbing up an adjacent hill. This detained us till six in the evening, and it becoming very cold our janissaries – they are all cowards on water – appeared anxious we should remain there all night, but it was an unhealthy spot overgrown with reeds and carrying fever and ague on its surface. Mr Liston therefore insisted on proceeding, at least, to [a] more open bay. We were sufficiently mortified that we could not reach Mandania,4 where the Greek priests were prepared to receive us in the Archbishop’s palace, he himself residing at Bursa. The wind and cold however formed a good excuse, with our tired boatmen and coward janissaries, and we stopped at a charming bay on the north side of the coast, and almost opposite to Mandania, which is on the south side. Though the bay was dry and pleasant, we sent to a neighbouring village to procure a house, but the accounts given of the road, dirt, and vermin induced us to spread our mattress in the barge, and take into it two of our attendants as guards. The woodcutters on the beach made us a good fire, and the dragoman, etc. lay on the sand 1 2 3 4

A bay at the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara, the Gulf of Nicomedia is today known as the Gulf of İzmit. The reference is to Armutlu, across the bay from Mudanya, a town and district on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. Bursa was and still is famous for the production and sale of silk. Mudanya, a town on the Gulf of Gemlik, an inlet on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 177

wrapped in their pelisses. It turned out, but this happily I did not learn till all was over, that this comfortable beach is the favourite haunt of one of those gangs of pirates that have for some time infested these seas. Our crew was ready by four o’clock next morning – you can never incommode a Turk by early rising – and we proceeded to Mandania. As we approached the shore we were regaled by the fragrance of yellow broom which covered the surrounding hills. We landed at Mandania, the ancient Myrlea Apamia, at six o’clock, and were received with much kindness by the priests.1 They gave us a breakfast of good coffee. We here found a Turkish coachee awaiting us accompanied by the kehaya of a Turk of some consequence at Bursa, to whom we had been recommended.2 Mandania is prettily situated, and a considerable town, partly climbing up wooded hills. The manufacture of silk and the product of their vineyards are considerable, and appear to be the staple of all this coast – and even of Bursa. After breakfast we set out with our strange cavalcade (our Reis and his nephew having requested to accompany us) and nothing can equal the strange appearance of janissaries, and, indeed, of all Turks, when habited for travelling. The beauty of the country and of the crops, which were seen on each side of the road, were quite remarkable at this season, on one hand climbing up the hills, on the other descending to the valleys, reaching to the head of the gulf which is terminated by a snug little town. The cultivation for three or four miles was peculiarly pleasing to an English eye – luxuriant orchards of olives, figs, vines, and mulberry, mixed occasionally with chestnuts, oaks, and other forest trees, while on the distant hills, above the gulf, there appeared a great deal of grain. This Eastern culture after a few miles gave place to very excellent crops of wheat, barley, and beer, etc. A relay of horses accompanied us, and we changed at a shed, as is usual in this country, where a fire and a coffee-pot are always ready to regale the traveller – though often with parched corn instead of coffee, but this, with a pipe at the side of a fountain, is esteemed enough.3 The road though bad was passable, the weather fine and the scene varied and pleasing. The approach to – or rather more properly the opening of – the plain of Bursa was superb. Mount Olympus, cloud-capped, commanded our first attention.4 At 1 2 3 4

Apamea Myrlea was an ancient Greek city, located to the south of Mudanya. A kehaya (or kahya, in Liston’s spelling) is a steward or butler. A ‘coachee’ is a lightweight horse-carriage. Liston’s ‘parched corn’ is presumably parched chickpeas, sometimes used as a substitute for coffee beans. In Ottoman times the mountain was called Keşiş Dağı; today it is known as Uludağ.

f. 69r

f. 69v

178

f. 70r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

its bottom the town of Bursa appeared wildly scattered and enlivened by mosques and minarets, combined with rocks, trees, and fields richly clothed. The prevailing culture was still the vineyard, and white mulberry. As we reached the baths, nearly two miles before entering the town, we stopped to view them. Some of these baths are of very remote antiquity, and still magnificent. The fondness that Turks have for bathing has kept them in constant repair. There are now six or seven: the most distant is upon an ascent, which commands a charming view of the plain beneath. The sources rise in hills considerably lower than Mount Olympus. Some of these baths are of considerable dimensions, particularly an old one called Eskilapigle1 which contains a spacious room with stages raised on each side, succeeded by two smaller apartments, one a sort of dressing room, the other with a dome and colonnade of white marble, and a circular basin more than twenty feet in diameter. The steam is suffocating and strong, vitriolic, and insupportable as confined in the baths. In the open air one of the sources is two degrees above boiling water. The rocks through which the sources flow, and where they have formed themselves a narrow channel, is petrified. I wished to break off a little bit but Mr Liston found it too hot. One of the janissaries persisted, and in a second his thumb and finger had lost the skin. Never having found it convenient to go to a public bath at Constantinople, I availed myself of this opportunity and entered one of those appropriated to the women. The female who kept the door hesitated a moment – I presented a piece of gold and gained ready attendance. Lady Wortley Montagu was right – they were all after the figure of Eve, and a scarf of cloth or silk around the waist, was the whole dress.2 I entered a large apartment in the centre of which played a jet d’eau of cold water;3 this was surrounded by a kind of high circular bench – and around the chamber were seats, and in little recesses, small sofas to lay upon. I found the bathers strolling, sitting and lolling in every corner. In buff.4 The second apartment contained, in the centre, a large marble bath. There were about half a dozen females, some were in it, 1 2

3 4

The reference is to the Eski Kaplıca Hamamı, one of the largest and oldest public bath houses in Turkey, also known as the Armutlu Hamamı. In Letter 27 of The Turkish Embassy Letters, whose recipient has not been identified, Montagu describes the women in the bath in Sophia as walking and moving ‘with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our General Mother’ (2013: 101–2). The reference is to Paradise Lost 4.304–18. An ornamental jet of water emitted from a fountain or pipe (OED). Montagu describes the women in the bath as ‘all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed’ (2013: 101). Liston’s ‘In buff’ is her version of the more usual ‘in the buff’.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 179

others reclined on its edge, and a painter might with great effect have taken their different attitudes, while the light was beautifully thrown in from the roof. One very lovely woman sat, busily employed in dying the hair of a young girl – this operation is always performed  in the bath – while another lay reclined in the act of bathing a beautiful infant. The scene was strange, but it was picturesque and fine. One object only displeased me – it was a handsome woman placed at the edge of the bath, encouraging, by hot water, an orifice on her instep to bleed, and this is also an operation performed there. In a third apartment smaller, and still warmer, I saw there were two or three females stretched in the water: my attendant urged me to enter but I was quite alone (and besides that I began to be suffocated by the hot vapour). My appearance had attracted [so] much attention that I was impatient to get out, with all my clothes upon my back. I had often been told that it was customary for Turkish women to pass whole days in the baths. I no longer wonder that an idle class of woman should do so. They are complete coffee-houses, and the prices very moderate.1 We reached the house of M. Arles, a French gentleman, in time for dinner, having traversed the whole length of the town.2 The interior of Bursa is not better than that of Constantinople, the streets narrow and ill paved. We were hospitably entertained by M. and Mme Arles and their amiable daughter. Being much fatigued they could only conduct us to the house of an Armenian very near them, where we saw a large apartment laid over with mulberry leaves and the silk-worms feeding, the season not being yet warm enough to allow of their mounting the branches of oak placed for them to spin upon. The mulberry leaves are renewed three times a day, and the calculation is that a horse-load of leaves produces only a drachm of silk.3 The worms fill and sleep three times, before they ascend the branches to work. Next morning we viewed the little that was to be seen in Bursa, which was founded by 1

2 3

The image of the baths as ‘complete coffee-houses’ repeats Montagu’s description of them as ‘the woman’s coffee-house, where all the news of the Town is told, scandal invented, etc.’ (2013: 102). In Liston’s time, as in Montagu’s, women could own and serve in English coffee houses but could not enter them as clients. In contrast to Montagu, however, Liston reveals her relative puritanism here in her comments on ‘an idle class of women’ spending ‘whole days in the bath’, and her middle-class concern with cost and value for money in her observation that the prices are ‘very moderate’. S. B. Arles was a French merchant, the agent for the British trading house of Lee & Sons (Lee & Fils), in Bursa (Vlami 2015: 231). He was married to Brigide Arles. A drachm (spelt ‘Dramh’ in the manuscript) was a small silver coin of the ancient Greeks, from which derives the figurative sense employed here by Liston of a very small quantity.

f. 70v

180

f. 71r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Prusias, King of Bithynia, the friend of Hannibal.1 They still pretend to show the spot where the citadel of Prusias was placed. The Turbeh, or mausoleum of Sultan Orhan, is at present the most remarkable thing shown to strangers, and that has lost something of its value, by a fire thirteen years ago which burnt amongst many precious things the Tocsin or great drum, that formerly attracted attention. This mosque was originally a Greek church, and still retains several stone crosses. The floor is entirely mosaic, and there were formerly some pilasters of verd-antique, but the fire destroyed these and spoilt indeed all the fine marbles. Near the tomb of Orhan is placed one of a son of Bayezid the First, whose defeat by Tamerlane has rendered him so remarkable.2 The ruins of a palace, built by Bayezid, commands a noble view of the plain of Bursa: the two principal gates are still decorated by bas-reliefs, though much effaced. Near it are the remains of a fortress, which communicated with the palace, and at some distance upon an ascent is a pretty little mosque, said to have been also built by Bayezid.3 In going through the town we went into a well-built bezesteen.4 I purchased a silk of the country, and a couple of the scarves the women put about their waists in the bath. These last are neither fine nor dear: after being washed in the sea, or in salt and water, they stand in the heat of the bath waters without fading. Silk is their principal manufacture at Bursa, and upon a large scale. The greatest part of the silks are mixed with cotton.5 Indeed this branch of traffic occasions the greatest defect in the beautiful scenery of Bursa, by the quantity of white mulberries cultivated to feed the silk-worm, for when these are stripped of their leaves the appearance must be very different. At this moment the trees are nearly in full leaf, and the sale, one of the greatest articles of traffic. In the afternoon I was visited by a Turkish lady. She possessed no other beauty than fine black eyes, but she was pleasant and intelligent. Three ladies and a Christian slave attended her. The great dis1

2

3

4 5

Bursa was the first capital of the Ottoman Empire after its capture from the Byzantines in 1386 and remained the most important administrative and commercial centre until 1453. Prusias I (243–182 bc) reigned from 228 to 182 bc. He captured the city of Cierus from the Heracleans and renamed it after himself; later Prusias became Bursa. Prusias gave sanctuary to Hannibal after his defeat by the Romans. Liston is referring to the Orhan Gazi Türbesi. Besides Orhan Gazi, Bayezid’s son Musa Çelebi was also buried here. On Tamerlane’s defeat of Bayezid, see p. 171, above. The reference is to the Yıldırım Bayezid complex, built on Bursa’s eastern edge. It included a mosque (the Yıldırım Bayezid Cami), a hospital, the royal palace, schools and Bayezid’s tomb. The Ulu Cami was also built during Bayezid I’s reign. An exchange, bazaar or market-place. Here Liston has inserted ‘cotton and gold’ above the word ‘cotton’. This has then been struck through twice, using a different ink.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 181

tinction that appeared betwixt the ladies and the slave was that she stood in the middle of the floor, while the ladies sat on the sofas. Mademoiselle Arles serving as interpretess (for though modern Greek is the family language at Pera, etc., I found Turkish was the common language of conversation at Bursa) it happened that in the course of conversation Mr Liston was named – or as the Turks call an ambassador, Elchebey.1 I proposed, laughing, that he should be admitted, as it would be something for to boast of in future. I durst not have proposed this at Constantinople. An immediate bustle and confusion took place, and I was nearly being refused when the Christian slave decided that he should be admitted, after she should have veiled the ladies, for their veils and feregees2 are so very uncomfortable, that the moment they enter a room they are taken off. The slave accordingly veiled them all, beginning with her mistress and ending with herself. Mlle Arles then conducted Mr Liston in. The conversation became much more spirited after his entrance, for Turkish women are far from being deficient in either wit or vivacity. When coffee was brought they were, to be sure, obliged to turn aside to sip it, that their faces might not be seen. The eyes and nose alone are visible. It was our intention to have gone a little way up Mount Olympus on Thursday but it rained, and the clouds, which had ever since our arrival enveloped its top, thickened. I then took the resolution to return the Turkish lady’s visit, accompanied by Mlle Arles. We found her in an airy back apartment sat at work upon a sofa: at her feet sat a lovely girl of about twelve, dressed precisely as her mother. The dresses of children do not differ either in form or materials from grown persons’. She presented two or three old ladies, as a mother-in-law, aunts, etc. Several slaves attended at the head of them. My acquaintance, the Christian, a very pretty girl, was pointed out as a late purchase, and [a] poor Serbian appeared, taken a short time since in the war now raging betwixt those poor oppressed people and the Grand Signor.3 This woman was fat and fair, with a gloomy cast of countenance, which had not lately been softened by a smile. She had a child at her breast, and two at her feet, and the Turkish lady told us that her language was unknown either to Turks, Greeks, or Armenians, [and] that she was conversed with by signs. (When I gave my purse to Mlle Arles to distribute to the slaves, I charged her not to forget the poor 1 2 3

Liston’s transliteration of Elçi bey, meaning ambassador. Probably Liston’s transliteration of ferace, meaning a long coat worn by Ottoman women. The date of the entry, June 1814, suggests that Liston is referring to the first Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire, from 1804 to 1813.

f. 71v

f. 72r

182

f. 72v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Serbian.) The Turks are in general extremely humane and kind to their slaves, who often acquire great power over them. Soon after our entrance three female visitors were announced, and to my great surprise the first in rank – and who immediately placed herself on the sofa with the mistress of the house – was black. My interpretess whispered to me that she was wife to one of the most wealthy Turks in Bursa. Her features were not African: on the contrary, they were high and handsome, and her figure and manners good. She had on a feregee very ill suited to her complexion, beautiful olive cloth, embroidered with gold, and as gloves make no part of a Turk’s dress, very fine bracelets were displayed, covering, as is usual, a great part of the arms. I expressed my admiration of them, upon which she rose to show me them. The lady of the house then called to a slave to show me a still finer pair of hers: so that vanity in dress is much the same in Turk or Christian. The next of the visitors that attracted my attention was a tall finemade handsome woman, [with] brilliant black eyes, but bad teeth. She was elegantly dressed in embroidered silk, and her clothes better put on than usual. When rose-water was poured on my hands after coffee and sweetmeats, and the incense held to my face, this lady performed the whole, then placed herself upon a low seat at my feet. Mlle Arles told me that this lady, who paid me so much attention, was a woman of loose manners: I expressed my surprise that there were those distinctions in the higher class. She replied that her manners and conversations, particularly at the baths, were often indecent and offensive to some Turkish ladies. They were all much attracted by my dress, particularly my stays and gloves. As the sleeves of my gown were short, they expressed some curiosity to know how I covered my arms with them. I put them on (for from politeness I had taken them off on entering) and the delicacy and elasticity of the French leather astonished them very much. I was sorry Mr Liston had determined to quit Bursa on Friday evening so as to reach Mandania that night, as I understood that all the Turkish women of any consequence were preparing to visit me, and amongst them some reputed very handsome. Having been disappointed by the weather on Wednesday and Thursday from seeing Mount Olympus, we determined to attempt it in the morning of Friday. As early, therefore, as we could prevail upon the slow-moving Turks to bring the horses, we set out. I found that to go with anything like ease or comfort I must mount à la Turque – that is to say, astride on a Turkish saddle, which rising very high before and behind, cannot be used in any other way. Nor do the women of this country ever ride otherwise than astride, though they are oftener placed upon a kind of p ­ acksaddle than a Turkish one.



the turkish journal, 1812–14 183

Mount Olympus had still its top enveloped in clouds – though as far as we went, the sun was clear and the view of the town and adjacent country superb. We could also distinctly see the sea. The ascent was steep [and] rough, and in many parts rocky, but it was wooded, and here and there [were] patches of cultivation. We did not quite accomplish the first of the three regions, and the difficulty, it seems, increases as you advance, the third being covered by eternal snows. We terminated our ride at the cell of a young dervish, who calls himself a hermit. He has the choice of a hollow tree on each side of the road, and changes his habitation as the wind sets. He had a fire and offered us coffee. He has charge of a small cultivated spot near him, but said he never descended to the plain, except in frost and snow. I was disappointed that we were a few weeks too early in the season for the Turcomans who quit their own parched residences in Syria and repair with their flocks and herds to Mount Olympus.1 They supply the inhabitants of Bursa with milk and cheese during the summer. The Turcomans have no settled dwellings, but roam about the mountains and plains of Syria and Asia Minor, as it suits them. Though not very strict Mahometans I believe they acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan. I found no plants on the mountain but the common Hypericums and Cistuses, which chiefly form the heaths of this country. There is a variety of trefoil: I saw a very beautiful species with large pale yellow flowers.2 On our return from Mount Olympus there was waiting for us at M. Arles’s a young Armenian woman. She wished to present me with some ornaments from Jerusalem, where she and her whole family had been on a pilgrimage. The gifts consisted of hoops, rings, beads, and crosses, of coloured glass with soap and wax tapers: but the greatest curiosity was her own arms, on which were the figures of the temples, etc. at Jerusalem, burnt into the flesh of her arms, and covering the greatest part of them.3 We took an early dinner with M. Arles and family and set out immediately after for Mandania. We were received by the Greek priests with much attention, supped, and afterwards slept comfortable on the Archbishop’s own sofas; except that we were now 1

2

3

Turkmen, a group of Turkic people, primarily made up of nomadic and pastoral tribes, living in what is now Turkmenistan and parts of Afghanistan and Iran, with smaller groups in Anatolia, Iraq and Syria. Among Liston’s plant specimens from Turkey in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is the Trifolium micranthum, the slender trefoil: see ‘Trifolium micranthum Viv.’ in Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbarium Catalogue (2018). It is likely that Liston encountered a quite common case of Holy Land and Christian pilgrimage tattooing and perhaps mistook it for branding (a poorly healed tattoo leaves a scar, which might be mistaken for a burn), or is here using ‘burnt’ as an adjective (Friedman 2000: 215–16).

f. 73r

184 f. 73v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

and then disturbed by the strange cry of a large drove of camels which we had passed on the road, and I found were to be our neighbours for the night. They started as early as we did; but our voyage was a little delayed by our barge having received some injury by dragging it into the water. We breakfasted on coffee, leaving what tea and wine we had carried with us to the kind priests, who would accept of no other recompense. The day was delicious, and on quitting Mandania and looking back we saw Mount Olympus, with its snowy top clearly and beautifully displayed. We dined on our provisions at a village nearly halfway, and stopped again for an hour at Antigonia, one of [the] Princes Islands, and reached Constantinople by eight in the evening.1 We had seen nothing more charming than the view (in this sweet and serene evening) now presented of the whole Asiatic coast and its neighbourhood, including the beautiful Point of Calcedonia.2 We returned much pleased that we had made this excursion, but as all travellers in Turkey must ever do, delighted to find ourselves again in our own comfortable habitation, and this will probably be proved even when that habitation is less pleasing than ours at Pera.3

1 2 3

Burgazada, then commonly known by its Greek name, Antigonia. A point on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus near Kadıköy. Liston’s journal of her tour to Virginia, North and South Carolina ends similarly: ‘We found ourselves at our own fireside, late in the forenoon of the 7th of February, 1798. Cold, hungry, and sleepy, I prayed never again to travel in an American stagecoach in the winter, pleased, on reflection, to have made this journey, but feeling that few things could tempt me to repeat it’ (NLS MS 5697 p. 46).

Selected Further Writings 1. Letter from Henrietta Liston to Dick Ramage, 6 March 1813 (NLS MS 5640 ff. 55–58) Dick Ramage of Scotston Park, West Lothian, was Robert Liston’s nephew. He looked after the Listons’ home, Millburn Tower, and their estate on their behalf while they were in Turkey. He died, aged t­hirty-eight, in Lisbon in December 1815. This, and the death of his brother Sandy (Alexander Liston Ramage) in 1814, may have contributed to the extended period of time the Listons were on leave from Constantinople (October 1815 to July 1817).1 Liston recorded that both ‘amiable young men’ died of consumption, adding that when she returned to Scotland, she ‘felt to be sure those blanks death had made’ (NLS MS 5711 f. 11). There are about twenty letters from Dick Ramage to the Listons (most addressed to Henrietta) during their Turkish embassy. They tend to cover news of his own and Sandy’s health, information about friends and neighbours, the Listons’ safety from the plague, the condition of Henrietta’s plants, improvements on the Listons’ estate, family finances, and politics. Liston drafted this letter, replying to Dick’s of 7 July 1812, on 25 February 1813. The draft is also in the Liston Papers (NLS MS 5640 ff. 43–46). The letter printed below is the one Liston actually sent. The fold marks are still evident, and it is addressed on the back of the final sheet to ‘Dick Ramage Esq | Scotston Park | near Queensferry’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 58v). The letter is also pierced through by a number of cuts or slits (see Plates 9 and 10). In a letter of this period such slits are often a sign that it has been secured, or ‘locked’ against unauthorised readers.2 While it is possible that the slits in Liston’s letter were for this purpose, the National Library of Scotland’s recreation of the letter in facsimile showed that it is more likely these cuts were made in order to fumigate or ‘perfume’ the letter against the plague, a process Liston herself describes in her journal (see p. 135, above). The discoloured 1

2

Dick Ramage (1777–1815), one of Robert Liston’s five nephews, was the son of Robert’s sister Henrietta and her husband Captain Alexander Ramage, Port of Leith. His brother Alexander Liston Ramage (1775–1814), known as Sandy, was Lyon Clerk Depute and was responsible for the administration of the Lyon Court, Scotland’s heraldic authority. For an introduction to letterlocking, see (accessed 26 March 2020).

186

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

and slightly stained paper further indicates that it was exposed to smoke. f. 55r

f. 55v

Pera of Constantinople 6th March 1813. My dear Dick, Your letter of July, which reached me I think in September or October, found us prisoners within our garden walls and in all the horrors of apprehension, the plague having by that time completely surrounded us.1 Our back gate opened into a burying ground in which the graves were so numerous and so fresh that it resembled a new ploughed field: by the bye, in time of health, these burying grounds are extremely interesting, but become serious evils during the plague.2 When I say burying grounds, I talk of every empty space in the towns and their neighbourhoods. Walks, roads, all pass through Turkish ones (the Christian ones are more retired and unornamented) which are amongst the most striking objects in the country. At each grave of any distinction, a stone is placed – on end – crowned with a turban which, from its form, denotes the rank of the deceased. The remainder is filled with inscription, generally passages from the Koran, and all is painted and gilded in the gayest manner. At the back of each stone there is a cypress, of a magnificence to astonish. These cypresses form beautiful groves which are, in summer, filled with turtle doves whose constant melancholy note accord so sweetly with the cypresses, while the scene is so singularly enlivened by the painting and gilding of the turbans and inscriptions. Private burying grounds make the ornaments of their gardens and pleasure grounds.3 During the plague all this beauty, for the time, disappears: the bodies – and they often died a thousand a day – are usually placed very little below the surface of the ground, and often without coffins.4 Sometimes 1

2

3 4

Liston is referring to Dick Ramage’s letter to her dated 7 July 1812 (NLS MS 5638 ff. 88–91). The last page of the letter appears to be missing and Ramage’s signature lost. Liston describes the measures taken by the British Embassy to counter the plague in her journal: see p. 135, above. The Embassy’s financial accounts detail a number of charitable donations to families of plague victims as well as payments to priests including, for example, twenty piastres to ‘Don Mario a priest attending the Plague Hospital at Pera’ in May 1813 (NLS MS 5640 f. 9r). Reverend Robert Walsh, a British Embassy chaplain, also remarked on a ‘Turkish cemetery of great extent, broken into various surfaces, and sloping down to the water’s edge’ next to the Embassy (Walsh 1836: I, 236). Liston gives a briefer description of these cemeteries in her main journal: see p. 135, above. Liston’s figure of 1,000 deaths a day from the plague are in line with contemporary estimates: William Turner, a British Embassy employee, noted that in September



selected further writings 187

the dogs (which form one of the nuisances of the country) dig them up, and at all times the heat occasions a smell worse than disagreeable, for it carries death along with it. From this shocking scene we retired late in October to the village of Belgrade, twelve miles from Pera, where we were detained later than we intended, by Mr Liston’s having a fever of cold, such as he had some years ago at Millburn. Belgrade is the Elysian fields of Lady Wortley Montagu.1 It is, allowing for her high colouring, a very charming Greek village, in the midst of an immense forest, beautifully diversified with green meadows, lakes, streams and fountains, and surrounded with wooded hills. But this paradise, which in summer never fails to give fever and ague, can be inhabited no later in the season than the middle or end of June, unless, like us, you choose to return in October. We intend to go there in April and quit it finally in June, for though the house is very charmingly situated, and the walks delightful, yet the roads are so execrable, and the necessity of removing twice a year so inconvenient, that we mean to take leave of it.2 This country certainly is the most beautiful in the world, but with a thousand inconveniences and at least an equal number of uglinesses. There is little society (during war) and that little not the best. Everyone dies of ennui, after the very brilliant outside is seen. Yet Mr Liston cannot find time to write to his friends, and I pass my hours pleasantly enough; but that is partly because, as I am not disturbed by morning visits, I can and do read or write more than I ever did in the same space of time. We scarcely ever dine with our family alone, and seldom drink tea without company. We walk when the weather allows it, and then often make calls, for we pay no other visits, except in summer to Buyukderé to the Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Sicilian ministers;

1

2

1812 2,000 died a day and that prayers for the cessation of the plague ‘were offered up at the mosques, which is never done till the deaths amount to 1,000 a day’. He also lists total figures of the dead divided by nationality or place of origin. The total number of dead is recorded as 320,955 and this, Turner writes ‘is certainly not exaggerated’ (Turner 1820: I, 74–5). Contemporary historians, however, treat these figures with caution: Bruce McGowan states that ‘In 1812, an estimated 300,000 persons (probably an exaggeration) in the greater Istanbul area died of the plague’ (McGowan 1994: 787). Belgrade Forest, to the north-west of Istanbul. In her letter of 17 June 1717 to Alexander Pope from Belgrade village, Lady Wortley Montagu writes: ‘the heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields’ (Montagu 2013: 146). See pp. 136–7 for Liston’s description in her journal of Belgrade Forest. Liston’s North American travel journals are full of references to the bad roads there. She describes the roads from Wilmington to Baltimore as ‘barely tolerable’ and of the route from Baltimore to Washington she says: ‘the first stage was amongst the worst pieces of road we had travelled’ (NLS MS 5697 pp. 1–2).

f. 56r

188

f. 56v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

from all the rest of the diplomatic corps and their friends the war excludes us.1 Our house is large and charming, our garden extensive, and we begin to dress it up. The view from the top of our house, even from the windows of our drawing rooms, is well worthy the pencil of an artist.2 We are out of your world it is true; but we are in the Oriental one. The posts from Persia, from Baghdad, from Smyrna, vessels from the Greek and the Mediterranean islands, all less or more interest us (we are now eating honey from Athens, the produce of Mount Hymettus – but alas! no butter) to say nothing of that from Vienna, which gives very early news from Paris.3 But the circumstance which has most interested and occupied us is the war betwixt Russia and France.4 Our information has been at least as early as yours. The Russian Minister here, Italinski, receives frequent couriers, and Mr Liston had them during the heat of the contest still oftener from Sir Robert Wilson, who had been sent by Mr Liston to Russia soon after our arrival here, on business.5 The couriers of military men are generally officers. It happened that three of Sir Robert’s couriers, who were here, prepared to return in the month of December. Two of them were military, the third a private gentleman of the name

1 2

3

4

5

Büyükdere on the European side of the Bosphorus was the location of the summer residences of many foreign embassies (see p. 137). The Embassy was surrounded by ‘two or three acres of ground’ which Robert Liston described as in a state of ‘perfect chaos’ on arriving in 1812. In 1813 Robert wrote of himself and Henrietta observing their ‘young plantations making rapid progress’ and ‘looking forward to the period of their full growth, when our successors, walking under the better of our green arbours, or enjoying the shade of our lofty grove, will bless the day that heaven sent us hither’ (NLS MS 5658 ff. 93v–94r). Robert Walsh described the embassy building as ‘surmounted on the roof by a lofty kiosk, or square cupola, which commands a most extensive view of the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmora, Constantinople, and the surrounding country’ (Walsh 1836: I, 232). Smyrna (now Izmir) is on the Aegean coast of Turkey. It was one of the most important ‘factories’ or trading centres of the Levant Company. Mount Hymettus, a mountain range in the Greek region of Attica, near Athens, is still famous for its thyme honey. Writing from Athens in 1815, Liston describes it as ‘covered with heath and herbs which feed, as in former times, an innumerable quantity of bees, and supplies with honey not only the city of Athens but Constantinople, where – from the kindness of our Consul – we eat it any day’ (NLS MS 5710 f. 6v). Liston is referring to the war between France and Russia (and their allies) after Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. This became known as the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813–May 1814). Andrej Jakovlevitch Italinski (1743–1827), Russian Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1802 to 1816. Sir Robert Wilson (1777–1849), a brigadier general in the British Army, was sent on a mission to Shumla (Shumen) in Bulgaria, then to Bucharest, and finally to Russia, charged with keeping both Lord Cathcart, the British Ambassador to Russia and the Military Commissioner, and Robert Liston informed.



selected further writings 189

of Levy.1 One of the officers Mr Liston sent by land. Levy, having three soldiers of Sir Robert’s that had been left here – and the finest fellows I ever saw – together with a great deal of baggage, insisted, contrary to Mr Liston’s opinion, on going with the other officer one day’s voyage by the Black Sea. He was obstinate and set out in bad weather but with a fair wind for Varna.2 There is no sea more formidable in winter than the Black Sea. Our suspense was long and painful. At length it was proved that, after incredible hardships, their little bark was wrecked on the coast of Asia, and no soul escaped except one poor sailor who saved himself on the rocks and was dreadfully bruised. I cannot tell you how much we were shocked and distressed, feeling ourselves the innocent cause of their sad fate.3 Bonaparte’s being fairly beat off the field, half his army having perished in their retreat from cold and hunger, he must now, it is probable, yield to the wish of the Emperor of Austria, whose advice is a general peace, and who stands in a position to enforce it. The escape of the King of Prussia won’t lessen Bonaparte’s difficulties.4 We are not without our political embarras here.5 The Turks, besides their general contempt of all Christian powers, particularly hate the Russians, and fear the French. England and Austria are the only governments they at all confide in. Andréossy arrived as Ambassador Extraordinary soon after us. He was sent as being a much nearer match to the British Ambassador than the young man we found here.6 Andréossy’s first orders were to prevent the peace. 1

2 3

4

5 6

Military couriers were responsible for communications between commanding officers and between military leaders and their men. On his way to Moscow in September 1812 Wilson sent Mr Levy, described as ‘an Englishman of high character’, as courier to Robert Liston in Constantinople with information to ‘prevent any machinations of Monsieur Andreossi’, the French Ambassador. (Wilson 1861: I, 166). Levy was a British soldier serving in the Russian army under Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration. Levy’s journal is in the Robert Wilson Papers at the British Library (Add. MS 30132). A port on the Black Sea coast in present-day Bulgaria. The Listons’ letters to Sir Robert Wilson about Mr Levy’s return journey and shipwreck are printed in Wilson’s Private Diary of Travels (1861). See also Robert Liston’s correspondence in Wilson’s Narrative of Events During the French Invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte (1860). Napoleon’s march on Moscow in June 1812 ended in disaster: Moscow was captured, but the campaign resulted in a decisive Russian victory. After the retreat of the French army, only an estimated 27,000 of 680,000 French and allied soldiers survived. The ‘escape of the King of Prussia’ refers to the escape of King Frederick William III (1770–1840, r. 1797–1840) from Berlin to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) on 22 January 1813, probably due to the threat of French occupation. Embarrassment: a borrowing from French, now rare (OED). Count Andréossy (1761–1828), French Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte from 1812 to 1814 (see p. 141, n. 1). The ‘young man’ Liston mentions was Just Pons Florimond

f. 57r

190

f. 57v

f. 58r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

For that he was as much too late as Mr Liston had been to make it. His most important step was to renew the war, and the Turks having in truth made a very disadvantageous peace it required some address to counteract him.1 Thus the summer was passed, in discontent, irritation, and ill humour. This was wound up by two most atrocious executions, of the Greek princes Mourousis, of all which I hope the French Ambassador’s conscience is clear, but I would not exchange consciences with him.2 Yet it must be confessed that this savage and despotic nation make less account of men’s heads than of anything else in their kingdom. The late wonderful successes of the Russians against the French, aided by Italinski and Mr Liston, begin to open the eyes of the Turkish government, and the ensuing summer must, I think, decide the fate of the world. If the French continue the war and conquer Russia, Turkey must fall of course (and this the Sultan knows perfectly), the favourite point of Bonaparte’s ambition being, to be crowned Emperor of the East on the throne of the great Constantine.3 It is likewise known, that he has sworn revenge against the Ottoman Porte for the malapropos peace they made, and against Austria for the weak assistance she gave.4 I hope the late successes have a little cleared your political atmosphere since your letter to me.5 Though I have not replied to you, I immediately did as you requested. I wrote to my poor friend Mrs Hamilton.6 I cannot express how much we are grieved. There is really something peculiarly hard in their fate: four charming young men in so short a time, who seem to

1

2

3 4 5

6

de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg (1781–1837) who served as Chargé d’affaires to the French Embassy from 1808 to 1812. The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest was, as Liston says, unfavourable to the Ottomans because Russia retained possession of the Eastern Black Sea coast and offered protection (as Russia saw it) to Serbs in Ottoman territory (see Ismail 1979: 163–92). Liston describes the assassinations of the Mourousi brothers, Demetrious and Panagios, in detail in her main journal: see see pp. 140–1, and Section 4 and Section 5: Orientalism and the Picturesque of the Critical Introduction, above. Constantine I (c. ad 285–337, r. ad 306–37), the Roman Emperor, also known as Constantine the Great (see p. 109, n. 3). Inopportune or inappropriate: another of Liston’s borrowings from French. Liston’s reference is not clear, although Dick’s letter does discuss the assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, on 11 May 1812, which, he says, ‘excited at the time much horror and much execration (and not a little hypocrisy)’ and ‘is already forgot in spite of the important change it has produced in our foreign and domestic policy’ (NLS MS 5638 f. 90v). Grizel Hamilton of Duddingston (bapt. 1749, d. 1822). In his letter of 7 July Dick told Liston that Mrs Hamilton’s son George died on 21 December 1811 at Java on board the Hussar (NLS MS 5638 f.90v). Mrs Hamilton had ten children with her husband John Hamilton Dundas of Duddingston, of whom four sons died.



selected further writings 191

have quitted their parents but to die. Pray tell me how they all are and whether my letter was received. Miss Beth Hopkirk mentioned to me that my friend Mrs Hamilton of Cockney had lost another daughter since we left England, and that her son was dangerously wounded.1 Mention them all to me when you write, for if there are any late letters for us they are locked up in the Dardanelles by a long contrary wind. Did you make out your jaunt to England? Are you again in your own house? And what is more important, how is your health? And how is Sandy? – for he says little of himself.2 I think you were quite right as to Mrs Patrick Ramage’s money. Apropos of money, I wish you would urge Sandy to give Mr Liston the satisfaction of knowing that the money is paid and the bond taken up for the two thousand five hundred pounds.3 Whenever your uncle has time to think of home and of future projects: that is his first wish, and Sandy has never even mentioned it. Mr Liston says he is determined to build nothing more at Millburn (though he is anxious to have the East Stables converted into bed chambers, and the barn fitted up) till he knows that the money in question is actually paid, and then he’ll go on cheerfully.4 He begs to be affectionately remembered to you all. I wrote to Sandy last week. Write soon and fully. Yours most affectionately Henrietta Liston

1

2 3

4

Elizabeth Hopkirk (b. 1754, d. c.1831), a correspondent of Henrietta’s, wrote to her on 6 October 1812 that she had read Lady Wortley Montagu’s Letters, ‘and fancy while I read them they come from you, for I believe Turkey has not kept pace in the changes that have taken place in the rest of the world, though there may not always be so fair a Fatima’ (NLS MS 5639 f. 9v). Eleanor Hamilton lived at Cochno House (or ‘Cockney’, as Liston’s letter has it), the Hamilton family seat. The Hamilton family had informed the Listons of the death of their daughter on 21 March 1812 (NLS MS 5637 f. 182r). Alexander Liston Ramage, known as Sandy. Elizabeth Ramage, née Fleming (b. 1770), married Captain Patrick Ramage (1767– 1807) of the East India Company, nephew of Robert Liston in 1798. The £2,500 Liston refers to is the sum which Robert Liston enabled his nephew Alexander to withdraw from his account to pay off the mortgage on ‘Liston Shiells’ (now Listonshiels), land which Robert purchased. See NLS MS 5658 ff. 84–85r. Millburn Tower was the Listons’ estate in the parish of Ratho on the western outskirts of the city of Edinburgh.

192

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

2. Further Writings on Constantinople, 1814–15 (NLS MS 5708 ff. 1–2 and ff. 4–10) The manuscripts grouped together as NLS MS 5708 are loose sheets of paper of different sizes, both quarto and folio, individually titled and in some cases paginated by Liston. The earliest is dated 5 October 1814 and describes a fire in Pera. One of the accounts in this group, ‘Of the term Sultana’ (NLS MS 5708 ff. 3–4r), dated 1814, appears to be a draft or version of passages dated August 1813 appearing in her main journal (NLS MS 5709 ff. 65r–66r), and is omitted here due to this similarity. The Fire at Pera Fire at Pera

f. 1r

British Palace – Pera of Constantinople, 5th October 1814

f. 1v

About four o’clock this morning one of my English maids came into our bed-chamber to say there was a fire near the palace.1 Mr Liston immediately got up, but as fires occur very frequently I remained a few minutes longer in bed – when the maid returned and asked if she should dress me, for that the house in which lived the wife and children of our maître d’hôtel was burnt to the ground.2 As I knew this to be on the outside of our walls I rose very quickly – and was astonished to find the house and garden illuminated by the surrounding flames. I ascended the gallery (commanding the extensive view described by Lady Wortley Montagu) and saw that a line of wooden houses on one side of our wall were in flames.3 The street immediately fronting our gate – which was filled with houses and shops – was likewise blazing and one house on the other range of wall had caught fire. I returned 1

2

3

Fires were endemic to Constantinople because of the large number of buildings made of wood. The British Palace in Pera had been damaged by a fire in 1810 and was totally destroyed in another in 1831 (see p. 123, n. 3, above). Liston travelled to Constantinople with two or three maids (Jones 1983: 51). A list of embassy staff for 1812 held among the Liston Papers details ‘3 femmes de chambre’ (NLS MS 5638 f. 45r), while Liston mentions her ‘two maids’ in her main journal (see p. 114, above). Writing to his wife on 26 March 1811 Robert Liston said: ‘It is not my intention, besides Morel and David, to take any more than one footman and if you can do without any other maid than Peggy, so much the better’ (NLS MS 5624 f. 33). The maître d’hôtel, or head butler, was responsible for the domestic staff and the smooth running of the embassy palace. In her first letter from Constantinople, Montagu writes: ‘One part of our house shows us the port, the city, and the Seraglio, and the distant hills of Asia, perhaps all together the most beautiful prospect in the world’ (2013: 143).



selected further writings 193

to my room, placed my jewel box and writing box, with money and papers, so as to be readily taken up. Then I joined the concourse of people collected in our garden and courtyard, for our premises not only served to protect the persons already burnt out, with what clothes and furniture they had been able to save, but the surrounding streets were so narrow that it was from within our walls only, that the engines and pipes could give assistance to the houses on the outside of them. As to the street fronting the gate, that was resigned to the devouring element, and when at last our large wooden gate took fire – from the heat alone for the flame did not touch it – I never saw a more tremendous, and I may add, sublime spectacle than was formed by the long line of flames in front, and the increasing blaze on each side. One means of checking fires in this country is by pulling down the adjacent houses which, as they are generally of wood and slightly built, is easy enough. This was attempted on one side of our wall but without effect – the carpenters had done more than usual justice to their work. During this, several fire engines stood idle in the court, attended by the bombardiers, distinguished by small metal caps on their crowns – but what was my surprise when, upon calling a dragoman to enquire of one fellow, who had his arms across, why the engines were not worked – I was answered that no money had yet been given.1 Nor do one of them ever put forward a hand till money is given. I could have seen them bastinaded with pleasure.2 The houses were burning like paper, and the miserable owners wringing their hands. Our own engine (on a much larger scale) had been broken by rough usage at the beginning, and our people, assisted by Mr Liston and the family, had employment enough in keeping wetted the only two of our offices still remaining of wood. These were a large shed used as a kitchen, and a magazine for charcoal, for the last great fire that approached the palace had consumed all the offices.3 Mr Liston fortunately rebuilt in stone since his arrival the porter’s lodge and the janissaries’ guard-house, on each side of the gate, and the only danger we were now in was from the falling of firebrands on those yet unrenewed.4 1

2 3

4

Liston mistakes tulumbacıs, the firefighting unit composed of janissaries, with humbaracıs who were known as Bombardiers. The Bombardiers, also known as the Corps of Humbaracı Ocağı, were responsible for producing, transporting, and using cannons. The bastinado was a form of punishment involving beating or whipping of the soles of the feet. On 21 April 1810 a large fire broke out in Pera, the diplomatic quarter of the city, which caused significant damage to the outbuildings of the British ambassadorial palace. An embassy account for 1812 lists the rebuilding of the porter’s lodge in October 1812, costing 2,104.4 piastres (NLS MS 5658 f. 47r).

f. 2r

f. 2v

194

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The Capitan Pasha had been in our garden at the first moment, to give orders, and sent his people to distribute money.1 The Sultan and the Grand Vizier were in the neighbourhood doing the same thing, without which distribution all their despotism could not make these firemen (who are generally janissaries) do their duty. It is worthy of remark that the Grand Signor’s power of immediate chastisement and death cannot be exercised upon these occasions. One may say that the Turks enjoy no liberty but during a fire and then they may brave their sovereign with impunity, and it has been often known that the women (particularly as sometimes happens when fires are purposely produced by discontent) will abuse the Sultan to his face, recapitulate his faults, ridicule his character, and censure his government in the grossest language.2 Instead therefore of bestowing money to the miserable wretches, who are ruined and often driven out naked, he and his ministers bestow sometimes to the amount of one or two hundred pounds upon these unfeeling fellows, in order to induce them to perform the work for which they receive a regular salary. The evils attending these fires are deplorable. Our palace was filled by beings who had no other place to lay their heads, or to lodge the little that some of them had been able to save – and a large sum could scarcely suffice to keep them alive. A few more such calamities would ruin the Embassy.

The Visit to the Harem of the Collector of the Customs f. 4r

The Visit to the Harem of the Collector of the Customs I one day accidentally visited the harem of this great man.3 As we were to dine at Buyukderé with M. and Mme de Jabat, we accepted an invitation to view the gardens of this gentleman, beautifully rising from the banks of the Bosphorus, and to see his fine house at the water’s edge.4 The dragoman with us asked me if I had any desire to visit the 1 2

3

4

Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha (d. 1855), the Grand Admiral of the Turkish fleet (see p. 127, n. 2, above). It is unclear whether or not Liston is accurate in her accounts of the political significance of fires and public reactions to them. However, Turner recorded, similarly, that during fires, ‘Turkish women who are assembled in crowds, choose this opportunity to reproach [the sultan] for the faults of his government, and frequently even launch out into violent personal abuse of him’ (1820: I, 83). Gümrükçü Osman Pasha (d. 1838) served as Chief Customs Officer, the Gümrük Emini, between 1811 and 1829. His yalı, a waterside mansion, north of Constantinople at Emirgan was particularly well known (Şehsuvaroğlu: 1950). Juan Gabriel de Jabat y Aztal, the Spanish Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and



selected further writings 195

ladies of the harem; I consented, and in a quarter of an hour I was invited to enter. Having no interpretess, I was introduced by a son of the Collector’s, a boy about fourteen – for till that age the sons are admitted, provided the mother be alive – but he could only introduce me, and leave us to converse by signs. I found here two wives, that was, two females appeared equally well dressed and attentive, and took their seats on the sofa – the slaves (or for ought I knew concubines) sitting on mats on the floor. One of these women had the remains of great beauty. She presented to me six or seven handsome children, all dressed like men and women in miniature, and this family – for she made me understand that this fine boy who conducted me was also her son – accounted for the early decay of her beauty, for she was still young and lovely. The other wife though less beautiful was much younger. They conducted me through a number of apartments all perfectly clean. The furniture of these rooms consists entirely in sofas, along the walls, and beneath the windows. Some of these sofas serve as beds – for they have no others. I then motioned to leave them – but they insisted, by signs, that I should see their garden. To this I had no objection – it consisted entirely of fruit trees and allées, with a few flowers.1 The wall, which was what I had most wished to see, had on the top a sort of curved parapet which effectually prevented the possibility of any person, not only from coming over, but even from looking into it. In spite of all the signs I could make they gathered a quantity of fruit, loaded several baskets and sent them, by the slaves, along with me to the barge. I gave money to the slaves and departed. The following day to my great surprise an officer appeared at the palace with a parcel for me from the ladies of the harem. It contained a beautiful, large and superb shawl of pistacia2 green, a pair of muslin drawers embroidered in coloured silk, a shift, two embroidered handkerchiefs, and two painted ones, in the fashion of the country. My husband, who disapproved of my receiving any valuable presents from the Turks, insisted I should send them some return, and I collected everything I had likely to please them.

1 2

his wife Maria Guadalupe (see p.127, n. 6, above). Considering her female friends and acquaintances in Turkey, Henrietta wrote of Madame Jabat, ‘she is the only woman with whom I can say I am at all intimate or shall probably be much with’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 20r). In formal gardens, allées are straight walks or pathways, especially in formal gardens. Liston’s spelling here reads ‘allies’. Pistachio green.

f. 4v

196

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The Funerals of the Turks, Greeks and Armenians Constantinople, 1815: Funerals of the Turks, Greeks and Armenians

f. 5r

f. 5v

The ceremony of a Turkish funeral is the most simple that is possible except in one point. The corpse is conveyed to the grave in a temporary coffin, or wooden box, taken out of this at the grave (and as it is placed in a sitting posture a stone being then put in the hand of the corpse) by the few followers that attend and interred very little beneath the surface of the ground. As soon as the grave is covered the followers disperse, all except the priest who then harangues over the grave upon which his eyes are intently fixed. I happened once to pass through Le Petit Champ des Morts, the small cemetery, during the performance of this ceremony accompanied by a Frank young woman, who had been with me as interpretess at the bazaars and who spoke Turkish perfectly.1 We stopped and as he spoke loud we could hear distinctly what he said. I asked an explanation: when she could cease from laughing she told me that he was instructing the dead man how to conduct himself when arrived at the gates of Paradise, at which he was to knock with the stone that had been placed in his hand for the purpose. Here followed, she added, further directions on his entering, but what appeared particularly to amuse my companion was a request of the priest’s that the defunct should give his – the Priest’s – kind remembrance to a brother of his, lately dead, and whom of course he would meet in Paradise, and to tell him all his family was in good health. The funerals of Greeks and Armenians differ little from each other, though essentially from those of the Mahometans. The corpse is placed upon a bier, the face left bare, but the body covered with shawls and other trappings, in proportion to the rank of the deceased. Flowers are strewed on the breast and the sides of the bier are ornamented with them. The corpse is carried upon men’s shoulders, attended by the relations and preceded by a certain number of priests who chant2 hymns till they reach the grave – there the ceremony is nearly that of the Catholics.3

1 2 3

Le Petit Champ des Morts, or little burying ground of Pera, bordered the British Embassy. In the manuscript this word is unclear. This account of funerals is followed in the manuscript by a blank folio (f. 6). The following account of the assassination of Dr Lorenzo follows directly on f. 7.



selected further writings 197

Figure 2.2  Robert Liston’s dispatch to Lord Castlereagh on the death of Dr Lorenzo, 25 January 1815. ‘My Lord, No incident that was not of a public and political nature has ever since I was acquainted with this country, occasioned so great a sensation in Constantinople as the violent death of Dr Lorenzo Nocciolo’, NLS MS 5630 f. 7r (National Library of Scotland)

198

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The Death of Doctor Lorenzo 20th January 1815: Death of Doctor Lorenzo

f. 7r

This winter has hitherto proved even milder than the last, and that was, compared to the first after our arrival, truly pleasant. Our garden has bloomed with flowers of various kinds, particularly with fine bulbs.1 I have been enabled to produce from the open air a bouquet of showy flowers, on the marble table of the drawing-room, every Tuesday – which is our public day.2 The day before yesterday – Wednesday – being the 18th, our Queen’s birthday, the weekly assembly was deferred for a day in honour of it and we gave a ball as usual.3 It differed in two respects from those of the two preceding years; the late happy peace having united all parties, and its being the first ball since the carnival commenced.4 Our large and numerous apartments were, for the first time, nearly filled. There were upwards of three hundred persons and, agreeably to the observation of our young chaplain Henry Lindsay, twenty different nations.5 It was, as all large meetings in this strange country must necessarily be, a mixture of very extraordinary figures and costumes – but it was likewise a very gay crowd, and there appeared no demunition of spirit and vivacity to its conclusion.6 The following evening (Thursday the 19th) witnessed a scene very different, indeed. Doctor Lorenzo – an old acquaintance of Mr Liston’s and physician to the Seraglio, at whose house at St Stephano, I ­formerly 1

2 3

4

5

6

Records of expenses show that Liston, described by her husband as ‘a very great florist’ (NLS MS 5658 f. 73r), often purchased plants, bulbs and seeds from Gabriel, an Armenian gardener. Among her purchases were pinks, a sickle, and ‘18 young cypress trees at 30 paras a piece’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 9v). The British Ambassador usually received visitors on Tuesdays. The official birthday of Queen Charlotte (1744–1818; full name Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), who married George III in 1761. Robert Liston’s private and official accounts often list expenses paid to ‘Wenzel the fiddler in Pera’ for music at the embassy, including at the balls given on the Queen’s birthday. In 1813 Wenzel and fellow musicians were paid 200 piastres and ‘the janissaries of the Palace’ were given 26 piastres ‘on the occasion of the Queen’s birthday to treat their comrades with a dinner’ (NLS MS 5640 f. 1v). The reference is to the peace between Britain and her allies and France of 30 May 1814, the first Treaty of Paris. During the war, which resumed after Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to once again lead the French army, diplomatic social activities of the British Embassy were much curtailed. Henry Lindsay (1789–1859). The date of Lindsay’s arrival in Constantinople is unknown, but he was serving as Chaplain of the British Embassy by September 1814. He remained as Embassy Chaplain until 1817 when he returned to Britain. Liston’s spelling of ‘diminution’, perhaps inflected by the French démuni.



selected further writings 199

mentioned having breakfasted on our voyage up the Dardanelles – was cruelly murdered.1 His body was found, by daylight on Friday morning, near the road ascending the hill from the Arsenal – but not in that line that would naturally, or that he usually did take to reach his own house.2 When the body was conveyed home, and examined by medical men, it was discovered that there was a slight wound in the neck, and several on the body. These could not have occasioned his death, nor had they even stained the ground on which he lay. Upon opening his head, in consequence of a circular mark round the throat, and his neck-cloth wanting (for it was remarkable that he always wore a neck-cloth which, with the long dress of his profession, was unusual) – it became evident that he had been scientifically strangled, and the wounds had been inflicted after death – to impose, if possible, on the populace.3 Dr Lorenzo had engaged company to dinner on the Thursday – amongst others our dragoman Chabert and his wife – and he was expected from the Seraglio, where he went every day, at his usual dinner hour – four o’clock.4 About that hour one of his boatmen appeared to say that he landed Dr Lorenzo at the Arsenal – where he was obliged to obey the summons of the Capitan Pasha – who was indisposed, his own physician being absent – but would be home in a short time.5 Dinner was delayed from hour to hour, till [at] eight o’clock his family in great anxiety sent a message to the Arsenal, of enquiry. The reply was that Dr Lorenzo had quitted the Capitan Pasha a long time since. They remained in a wretched state till the dawn of the following day, when his dead body was brought home. While his friends were assembling for his interment on Friday a Turkish officer appeared amongst them from the Sultan or the Capitan Pasha, asking many questions concerning the manner of the doctor’s death, almost as if ignorant of the event. The people of the country – the dragomans of the different nations in particular – were most 1

2 3

4

5

Liston mentions breakfasting with Dr Lorenzo and his family at St Stephano very soon after her arrival in Turkey in 1812: see p.121, above. For Robert Liston’s official dispatch to Lord Castlereagh on Dr Lorenzo’s death, dated 25 January 1815, see Figure 2.2. The Ottoman imperial arsenal was on the Haliç, the Golden Horn. Death by strangling (by means of the bowstring) was a traditional Ottoman form of capital punishment: ritual strangulation was the prerogative of members of the royal family and the elite (Schiffer 1999: 330). François Chabert, the third dragoman at the British Embassy. To Lord Castlereagh Robert Liston wrote of him, ‘I heartily join with my predecessors in bearing testimony to his distinguished merit’ (NLS MS 5627 ff. 7–8). François’ wife was Beatrice. Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha, Grand Admiral of the Turkish fleet.

f. 7v

f. 8r

200

f. 8v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

guarded and prudent in their answers to this commissioned enquirer. But the strangers who were there, talked openly of his having died by the bow-string, observing, that this was not the common mode of death inflicted by robbers. To be sure, his money (and he was in the habit of putting a certain sum in his pocket every day) his watch set with diamonds – a present from a Sultan – and the shawl round his waist, rings, etc., were missing: everyone knows these to be the prerequisites of the executioner. But his dress was entire, his yellow boots were clean – though the roads and streets were dirty – and his slippers, which are always thrown off on entering a house, did not appear. These circumstances, together with the character and long held situation of Dr Lorenzo, leaves no doubt on the mind of anyone, that he had been strangled at the house of the Capitan Pasha – by orders of the Sultan. Why or wherefore are left to conjectures and these are various. But as the Turks do not always keep their own secrets it may be known some time or other, what were the reasons which induced the Sultan to cut off, so barbarously, a respectable old man who had, for upwards of forty years, acted as first physician to the Seraglio under six successive monarchs, and been favoured by each of them.1 Lorenzo was by birth an Italian, a native of Florence. He came to this country a young, handsome, clever fellow and was very soon after – by what means I know not – introduced into the service of the then Sultan. In every changing scene he continued the friend of the successor though not always without danger. In the late revolution and murder of Selim – with whom Lorenzo was supposed to be in great favour – he very narrowly escaped following his master, and he was afterwards suspected of having aided the death of the successor of Selim, Mustapha – elder brother to the present monarch.2 But as the Sultan was conscious he had himself, in his own defence, murdered his brother, Lorenzo was of course acquitted in his mind, and soon by all the world. The natural manner, in such a country as this, of accounting for his death was his intrigues in court politics. It is not easy to conceive that a man of talents and address – for such he certainly was – could have, almost every day for forty years, attended 1

2

Lorenzo, according to Robert Liston was ‘a favourite with all the Sultanas’ and had ‘a greater portion of medical [. . .] knowledge and talent than [. . .] the majority of his brethren’, with ‘the most singularly mild and pleasing manners, with a spirit of generosity and hospitality’ (NLS MS 5630 f. 7). Liston refers to the murder of Sultan Selim III in her main journal (p. 126, above). Sultan Mustafa IV (r. 1807–8) overthrew the reforms of his cousin Sultan Selim III. He himself was deposed in 1808 and soon afterwards strangled on the orders of his brother Mahmud II.



selected further writings 201

the Ottoman court, be freely admitted, from his profession, to all the females of the Seraglio, and that he must not have rendered himself so useful to the different Sultanas Valide (mothers to the reigning Sultan) as well as the daughters, sisters and mistresses, as to possess, through their influence, as well as by his own familiar access to the Sovereign, great power, and to have been tempted to exert that power in favour of his friends and favourites – and against those persons he disliked, or who had offended him. Nor could this continued favour exist without having excited the envy and jealousy, not only of the ignorant Turkish physicians, but of the members of the government.1 Or, that he should not often have offended those unprincipled and intriguing Greek princes, who, by their insinuations, have so often fatally roused the passions of a barbarous master – who, though a man of talents, and what is more extraordinary in a Turk, a man of business, always acts from the impulse of the moment. Yet, in the first sickness of a child or a favourite mistress he will repent (and even confess that he does so) of having, in a fit of passion, put an end to the only medical man in whose professional talents he had any confidence. This event has excited many strong sensations – for Lorenzo was a Frank, and under Austrian protection.2 It was therefore a daring act rarely practised. But such is the despotism of this country that I was cautioned not to make it a subject of conversation, except to his own family; and indeed, at our next public evening I gently tried, but found everyone dumb, even the family of the Internuncio.3 Meanwhile the Sultan and Capitan Pasha are carrying on a farce of grief at the untimely fate of this old favourite. The latter shed tears to the dragoman, appointed always to do business at the Arsenal, the first time he had ever occasion to repair there after Lorenzo’s death, and it is said there are not fewer than fifty persons scattered about Pera to discover, as it is said, the assassins – but in reality to inform the government what are the conjectures concerning the Death of Lorenzo – in the course of which espionage some few heads may be struck off. Several are already in prison – and the Capitan Pasha – who is sovereign over Galata, Pera and all this side of the Bosphorus – immediately confined the guard, on pretext of negligence, and not deeming one guard-house sufficient for 1 2 3

Liston makes a similar comment about the cause of the Mourousis’ deaths in her journal: see p. 141, above. Lorenzo being ‘under Austrian protection’ meant that in theory he was protected by the Austrian Embassy and not subject to Ottoman law or punishment. Internuncio was the title of the Austrian ambassador at the Porte from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Baron Ignaz Lorenz Freiherr von Stürmer was the Austrian Internuncio in Constantinople from 1802 to 1818.

f. 9r

f. 9v

202

f. 10r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

that quarter, another is erected near the spot where Lorenzo was found and has, from the populace, acquired the name of Lorenzo’s Guard House. One conjecture seems to have arisen amongst the females of Lorenzo’s family – he had for some time past employed an Armenian (of whom they thought unfavourably) partly as a servant, partly as an assistant, and who had become a great favourite with his master. This man was in the habit of carrying medicines and occasionally messages to the ladies in the Seraglio. He was a handsome, forward, avaricious fellow – and there are doubts whether he had not aimed himself, or obeyed his master, in carrying on some of the political intrigues imputed to Lorenzo, through one of the females, and might not have been betrayed by some of the Arab attendants, as they had occasionally felt Lorenzo’s power. Or it may have been a love affair of his own – of these Lorenzo seems in his youth to have steered clear, knowing them to be always fatal amongst Mahometans, or to have conducted them with wonderful prudence. This Armenian attendant, whether guilty or not, fell a victim with his master. He undoubtedly entered the gates of the Arsenal with him, and was no more heard of. It is said that his dead body was seen in a stream called Sweetwaters.1 But no dead body dare be lifted from the water in this country, as that might betray important secrets. Should the stream (which seldom happens) throw a body on shore and it can be owned, the relations may purchase it from the water-men. Some enquiry was made amongst the acquaintances of Dr Lorenzo, whether he had been seen or spoken to, in the course of the morning. One person said that he had spoken to him on his coming out of the Seraglio, and in the common course of conversation asked – what news from the palace? He replied none, unless it be an apparent increase of my favour. The Sultan gave me a watch, and caressed me more than usual; even the Kislar-Aga (Chief of the Black Eunuchs) loaded me with attention. It is a trait of the great in Constantinople – and probably in most uncivilised countries – always to double their caresses when they mean to ruin or destroy the object. Another person was found who spoke to Lorenzo at the moment he quitted his boat to enter the gates of the Arsenal, and he mentioned to him that he had been sent for by the Capitan Pasha: his Armenian was with him; but from these gates they returned no more. 1

The ‘Sweet Waters of Asia’ was used by Western travellers to refer to the Göksu and the Küçüksu, streams flowing into the Bosphorus close to the Anadolu Hisarı (the Anatolian Fortress). The area was one of the favourite destinations for picnics and excursions of the inhabitants of Constantinople as well as a favoured tourist site (Schiffer 1999: 209–10).



selected further writings 203

Dr Lorenzo appears not to have been a mercenary man, for he died poor. He had never married. He had a nephew, and a large family resided in his house protected and supported by him – but he left little more than his house in town and property at St Stephano.

3. Aegean Travels, 1815 (NLS MS 5710 ff. 1–4r) ‘1815 – Journal from Constantinople to Naples’ is Liston’s own title for this manuscript of thirty-two folios. That year Robert Liston was granted temporary leave to go home to Scotland to attend to his affairs, and in October the Listons set out for Italy. This journal contains descriptions of Smyrna (now Izmir), Athens and Corinth; there is also an account of the Listons’ journey via Galaxidi, Trizonia, Patras, Zakynthos and Corfu, where they met the King of Sweden and his mistress. Passing Capri and Ischia, they reached Naples, stayed in Posillipo and visited Pompeii, the Palace of Caserta, Herculaneum and the Castel Sant’Elmo. The last entry of this journal is from Naples on 31 December 1815, the night before the Listons went to Rome. The extract here is taken from the first four folios, which describe the Liston’s departure, their brief stay in Smyrna, and their voyage on through the Aegean. Smyrna, 16th October 1815 We were so entirely engrossed by business, and by the painful duty of taking leave of our friends for some days previous to our quitting Constantinople for England, that we were at last obliged to depart precipitately, forgetting a thousand things, and leaving our friends Mr and Mrs Rich the guests of Mr Bartholomew Frere (become Minister Plenipotentiary in our absence).1 They had hurried their return to Turkey upon hearing in the Mediterranean of our intended departure, and they could not set out on their return to their dismal residence at Baghdad until the cold weather had fairly set in. 1

The Listons were officially absent on leave from Constantinople from 12 October 1815 to 19 July 1817. Claudius James Rich (1786–1821), who visited the Listons with his wife Mary (née Mackintosh, 1789–1876), was the British Resident in Baghdad from 1808 until his death in the cholera epidemic in Shiraz. A travel writer and scholar, he explored various regions of Iraq, including the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh. In a letter to Scottish author Elizabeth Hamilton, Henrietta explained that in Baghdad ‘Mr Rich found his health impaired’ and went to Constantinople to ‘recruit’ on Mr Liston’s invitation (NLS MS 5641 f. 40r). Bartholomew Frere (see p. 74, n. 3, above), Secretary of the British Embassy at Constantinople, was named Minister Plenipotentiary in Robert Liston’s absence.

f. 1r

204

f. 1v

f. 2r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

On Thursday afternoon the 12th we embarked in two small Spanish merchantmen, in order to reach the Phoenix, frigate off the island of Tenedos.1 These vessels were loaded with corn from the Black Sea, and had been detained a day or two for us by our good friend M. Jabat the Spanish Minister.2 Mr Liston and I went in the one which had the largest cabin, accompanied by two servants. In the other was Captain Austen of the Phoenix (who had kindly visited and remained with us a few weeks) and our chaplain Mr Henry Lindsay (who was desirous of seeing Smyrna and found this a good opportunity).3 Our other servants accompanied them. The wind though favourable was moderate, so that we were not much incommoded by the smallness of our vessels, and we reached the Dardanelles – a hundred and twenty miles – very pleasantly on Friday afternoon, in time to see and again to admire the beauty of its appearance, and that of the castles.4 Some trifling accident detained us at anchor all night, for it was absolutely necessary to cast anchor, as it is here that all ships give an account of themselves, and pay duty to the custom house, or rather to the Turkish governor established there, whose appointment it either pays, or ekes out. Early on Saturday forenoon we came within sight of the island of Tenedos, brown and apparently barren. This is the view which almost all the islands in the archipelago present to the eye, and yet there are excellent vineyards at Tenedos, and it was here our Spanish friends proposed to stop and take in wine for Mahon.5 The boats of the Phoenix came immediately for our baggage, and the captain’s barge for us. The frigate was manned to receive us, and every mark of attention paid us by our excellent captain. I had expressed

1 2 3

4

5

Tenedos is today Bozcaada (see p. 102, n. 6, above). Juan Gabriel de Jabat y Aztal (1768–1825), Spanish Envoy to the Porte (see p. 127, n. 6, above). Charles John Austen (1779–1852), younger brother of Jane Austen, commanded the HMS Phoenix until February 1816, when it was wrecked during a hurricane near Smyrna, one of the main centres for the trade of the Levant Company in the Ottoman Empire. The crew survived, and he went as second in command to the Jamaica station. In a letter to Henrietta dated 12 August 1816 he wrote, ‘From the drawing which you showed me on board the Phoenix I can quite bring you to my mind’s eye’ and added in a postscript, ‘Have you seen my sister’s last novel – Emma?’ (NLS MS 5641 f. 19r). Henry Lindsay (1789–1859) was Chaplain of the British Embassy: see p. 198, n. 5, above. The castles Liston refers to are probably Seddülbahir and Kumkale, situated at the entrance to the Dardanelles on the north and south coasts respectively, and Kilitbahir and Kale-i Sultaniye (also known as Çimenlik kalesi), which likewise face each other at the Dardanelles’ narrowest point. Mahon (or Mao) is the capital of the Spanish island of Menorca. The ‘archipelago’ Liston refers to is the Aegean Islands.



selected further writings 205

a wish to land upon Sappho’s island of Lesbos,1 but finding that on the following day we were sailing very slowly and very near it, that the side on which we were, exhibited no distinguishing trait except its great length, and retaining no remains of its ancient buildings, I declined giving so much trouble; and particularly as it seemed to be my husband’s maxim, still more than that of the Captain, to proceed expeditiously, the season being far advanced. Had it been possible to have discovered where Sappho lived and where she sung no trouble would have been too much.2 Early on Monday morning we entered the Bay of Smyrna. The town circling around it had a fine effect. The only striking feature is the ruins of a castle on a very steep hill.3 Otherwise Smyrna retains only its fame, as one of the seven cities that hast the honour of disputing the birthplace of Homer,4 and what in modern times is more essential, that it is one of the most commercial cities in the Turkish dominions. We were saluted by the ships in the harbour, and visited immediately by the English Consul Mr Werry, and were by him conducted to his comfortable house near the shore, attended by a band of Turkish music.5 The only English ship of war upon the station was the Garland: we found her commander, Captain Davies, a most agreeable man.6 Mr and Mrs Werry entertained us very kindly for the short time we could remain, and collected all the respectable inhabitants of the town to meet us. It was with regret we quitted an agreeable society on the afternoon of Tuesday the 17th, in order to proceed to Athens. The city of Smyrna, like most other places on the Asian coast, boasts a very fine climate. They have – as must always be the case while under the dominion of Mahometans, the plague annually, but it is hot enough to check the progress of the evil at a 1 2

3

4 5 6

Sappho (630–570 bc) came from Lesbos and is the most significant and influential woman poet of Ancient Greece. Montagu makes similar remarks about Lesbos on her return journey to England in 1718; writing to the Abbe Conti from Tunis on 31 July, 1718 she fantasises about how ‘agreeable’ the journey would have been ‘between two and three thousand years since’, when ‘after drinking a dish of tea with Sappho’, she ‘might have gone the same evening to visit the temple of Homer in Chios’ (Montagu 2013: 190). This is Kadifekale or Velvet Castle on the Pagos hills near Liston’s Smyrna. The name applies today both to the hill and to the ruins of the ancient castle. The castle was originally built by Lysimachos, one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Numerous towns and cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer, but none of these claims has been substantiated. Francis Werry (1745–1832), married to Elizabeth Werry (1762–1846), was British Consul at Smyrna from 1793 to 1829. Richard Plummer Davies, a British naval officer, commanded the 22-gun HMS Garland from 1812 to 1815.

f. 2v

f. 3r

206

f. 3v

f. 4r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

certain period of the summer. This is not the case in the more moderate climate of Constantinople. There it is the cold alone which stops it. On quitting Smyrna we sailed very near and along the very beautiful island of Chios, the best cultivated in the archipelago.1 We coasted on the east side, where the greatest number of towns and villages are situated. Chios is as remarkable for its fertility as for its beauty. It supplies Constantinople and the adjoining country with oranges, lemons, figs and every variety of fruit and vegetables, rose and orange flower water, and nothing could be more interesting than the mixture of towns and villages interspersed with trees along the coast.2 It is this island that produces the best mastic ([a] species of Pistacia), of which the Grand Signor has his unadulterated proportion, the ladies of the Seraglio chewing a great deal of it, as a sweetener of the breath.3 The weather was very fine, and we remained on deck the whole forenoon; indeed, we were so near, and our progress so slow, that we could observe the costume of the females, the flat roofs of the houses and all the variety of foliage, and the brown hills which terminated the prospect, contrasted by fertile valleys and deep ravines. The hills, often crowned by large monasteries, made all together a charming coup d’œil. The Turkish inhabitants bear a smaller proportion in Shio, than in many of the other islands. They appeared to be placed in a central part of the coast, with a citadel, and distinguished by a few mosques and minaret[s]. On one spot, near the beach, the pilot pointed out to us a rock called Homer’s Chair and School.4 Opposite to Chios on the mainland we saw the town of Shesmaé, where the important battle took place betwixt the Turks and Russians, and where the Turkish fleet was almost entirely destroyed.5 In the evening we passed the islands of Teno, and had a distant view of that of Samos.6 I regretted passing during the night the island of Delos, which is said still to contain some remnants of the Temple to Apollo. It might have been well perhaps, as a simple 1 2 3 4 5

6

Chios, which Liston writes variously as ‘Shio’ or ‘Chio’ in this manuscript, is another supposed location of Homer’s birthplace. In 1718 Montagu gives a very similar list of the products of Chios (2013: 188). Mastic (mastik, or Arabic gum) is a resin obtained from the Pistacia lentiscus. The rock, known as Homer’s Stone or Daskalopetra (teacher’s stone), is at Vrontados, north of Chios town. ‘Shesmaé’ is Liston’s transliteration of the Turkish place-name Çeşme. At the naval Battle of Çeşme, fought between 5 and 7 July 1770 (during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774), the Russians, destroying a great number of Turkish ships, claimed a decisive victory over the Ottoman fleet. Teno was an older form of the name of the island today known as Tinos, in the Cyclades archipelago. Samos is in the eastern Aegean.



selected further writings 207

traveller said to us the other day, to have had it to say that one had touched the birthplace of Apollo and of Diana.1

Phoenix frigate on the coast of Attica, 20th October 1815 After quitting the islands above mentioned, the wind blew so hard that we were well pleased to find ourselves in the snug harbour of Mandri.2 In the course of the forenoon we came within a very near view of Colonne, or Samium, the scene of Falconer’s beautiful poem, and as it makes generally a part of a seaman’s library, I was much pleased when one of the officers brought it to me, for I read it with peculiar pleasure and interest while on the very spot.3

4. The Return to Constantinople, 1817 (NLS MS 5711 ff. 12v–13r and ff. 24v–28r) Two extracts are presented here from this manuscript, which continues the narrative of the Listons’ leave from Constantinople begun in the journal from which the preceding extract was taken. That journal ends on the last day of 1815 in Naples, with the Listons about to depart for Rome. This manuscript takes up the story in March 1816, with the Listons in Germany, still on their way back to Britain. Its last entry for 1816 is dated 24 June, by which time they had been in London for almost two months. The journal, which Liston paginated herself, resumes on folio 12 on 8 May 1817.4 After five months in Scotland, the Listons had left their cottage ‘with infinite reluctance, uncertain when we should return to it’ (NLS MS 5711 f. 12r) and proceeded to London, to await instruction from Lord Castlereagh as to whether Robert was to resume his post. The news came in February 1817 that he was to do so, but they did not sail until nearly three months later. The first excerpt from this manuscript given below was written in Dover just prior to their departure. By 24 May the 1

2 3

4

The island of Delos, one of the Cyclades, was reputed to be the birthplace of both Apollo and Diana. Leto, Zeus’s lover, gave birth to them on Delos after the island was created by Poseidon as a refuge for her from the wrath of Hera, Zeus’s wife. The island was the site of three temples to Apollo, the most important being the Temple of the Delians. Attica is the region of Greece encompassing the city of Athens. The ‘harbour of Mandri’ is probably Port Mandri on the eastern coast of Attica. ‘Samium’ is Cape Sounion, the promontory at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, known to the Venetians as Capo Colonne. On Liston and Falconer’s poem The Shipwreck, see p. 98, n. 2. We have omitted Liston’s pagination here, instead referencing folio and recto or verso in the usual fashion.

208

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Listons were in Paris: they then travelled south to Marseilles, and by 20 June were in Malta, where our second extract commences. Liston ends this journal at the close of this second extract, with a description of the Listons’ return to Constantinople on 19 July, after an absence of twenty-one months. Small fragments of the manuscript are missing due to environmental damage and it has suffered significant discolouration, including signs of damp, mould, dirt and water damage. Dover, 8th May 1817

f. 12v

f. 13r

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Lord Castlereagh, seemed purposely to delay replying to the repetition of Sir Robert’s offer till the middle of February, when he acquainted him that it was thought best he should resume his situation at the Sublime Porte.1 The ostensible reason was the arrangement of the affairs of Parga with the Turks,2 and as an apprehension that the Russians began to wear a threatening aspect towards Turkey, and that the Turkish Ministry wished his return, but other reasons perhaps aided these.3 The opposition is ever disposed to find fault with everything done by the Ministry and the clamour was considerable. Sinecures and pensions were the subjects of the day, and it would have afforded another, to the many causes of reproach, had the Ministry at such a moment given an appointment to a new ambassador and a pension to the old. The ministers I was told were also rather embarrassed by the several applications for the mission, not exactly liking any, or wishing to offend any. Nor could Sir Robert have 1

2

3

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822), served as Foreign Secretary from 1812 to 1822 (see Section 3 of the Critical Introduction, and p. 74, above). In early February 1817, Robert Liston, then aged seventy-four, wrote to his nephew Robert Ramage: ‘I shall probably be sent abroad once more: not that that would be the case if I were to show the smallest disinclination to it, but I have not done so; on the contrary I have thought it my duty to say I am ready to return, and ready to retire, as it may suit the views of ministry’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 64v). The coastal town of Parga in Greece, a Venetian possession since 1401, fell to the French in 1797 along with the Ionian Islands, which were handed over to the British in 1815 after being ruled intermittently by the French, Ottomans and Russians. In 1819 Britain ceded Parga to Ali Pasha of Ioannina (see Section 4 of the Critical Introduction, above) and it fell once again under Ottoman rule. It is not clear why Liston refers to Russia as threatening Turkey in May 1817, except that throughout the Listons’ time in Constantinople Russia was seen as a potential threat to the continued independence and even the continued existence of the Ottoman Empire. In 1817 Robert Liston confided to Italinski, former Russian Ambassador to the Porte, ‘the Turkish Ministry have been writing repeatedly to the Chargé d’affaires in London to press my return to post, as if they thought I could do them some good. Now you know that I can do them none’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 142).



selected further writings 209

refused on any grounds but those of bad health, which thank God, did not exist. The Prince Regent and the Minister had cordially joined in affording him the red-riband Grand Cross of the Bath – unsolicited – which was created by the death of Sir Robert Gunning, and this was done soon after our arrival in Scotland in so handsome a manner as to enhance the favour very much.1 He therefore consented to return and though I could have wished it otherwise it was not my part to object, and after taking leave of the Queen on the day settled to celebrate her Majestic birthday, we prepared for departure and are thus far on our way.2 The journey will afford some variety. From Paris we shall proceed to Marseilles where a frigate will wait to convey us to the Dardanelles (probably taking Malta in our way), from whence we must do the best we can as there is no chance that the Grand Signor has changed anything of his determination as to ships of war.3 [ff. 13v–24r omitted]

Malta, 20th June 1817 We had a very pleasant and quick passage from Marseilles to Malta – precisely a week. Except one day of a high sea the weather was fine and no sickness but my French maid, which served to prove how useless if not troublesome a servant is on board a ship if subject to sea-­ sickness. We came within sight of this island early yesterday, having the first contrary wind, which afforded us the pleasure of viewing again and again with infinite delight the beautiful mass of buildings which compose the city of Valletta, and in the evening we found ourselves once more in its superb palace, now inhabited by the new governor, Sir Thomas Maitland, who received us with much kindness.4 Sir 1

2 3

4

Sir Robert Gunning (1731–1816), diplomat. The Prince Regent, later George IV (r.   1820–30), acted as regent from 1811 to 1820. Robert Liston was knighted at Carlton House in London on 21 October 1816. The Order of the Bath, founded in 1399, is an order of knighthood with three classes, of which the Knight of the Grand Cross (GCB) is the highest. Queen Charlotte’s official birthday was celebrated on 18 January. In 1812, when the Listons reached the Dardanelles on the Argo, the vessel was refused permission to sail to Constantinople: see p. 110, above. In 1813 Liston also remarked on the Sultan’s refusal to allow the ship carrying the Queen of Naples to Constantinople to voyage further than the Dardanelles: see p. 173, above. The Palace (also known as the Grandmaster’s Palace) in Valletta became the ­governor’s residence in 1800 when the British occupied Malta: see pp. 93–4, above. Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Maitland (1760–1824), Governor of Malta from 1813 to 1824. In December 1815 Maitland was appointed as Lord High Commissioner of

f. 24v

210

f. 25r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Thomas having the command of the Ionian islands as well as of Malta wished to converse with Sir Robert on various subjects.1 General Maitland had a letter for him from Ali Pasha at Ioannina, sent by a vessel expressly to invite Sir Robert and the General to visit him, and his messenger appeared much disappointed that the invitation was refused.2 I rather regretted not seeing a man who has rendered himself remarkable and to his invitation one to me was added, that he would send me [his] wife3 and all the ambassador’s harem in his carriages to Constantinople.

[  ]sday [  ]th June 1817 We are to quit Malta this evening for the Dardanelles, the General, with our fellow passengers General Adam and [   ],4 embarking at [the] same time for Corfu. During a week’s residence on this strange island I saw rather more of it than on our former visit.5 The General carried us one day to his private country residence, St Antonio, a very pleasant house and handsome gardens – indeed to an English eye luxuriantly beautiful – but the cultivation of this island is in general very extraordinary.6 The inequality of the ground and the high

1

2

3 4

5 6

the Ionian Islands (1815–23) and Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, excluding Gibraltar. In 1815 the Ionian Islands became a United Republic under British protection, being ceded to Greece in 1864. On 25 July 1817 Robert Liston wrote to Lord Castlereagh of meeting Maitland: ‘I was happy to have an opportunity of discussing matters relating to the Ionian Islands, and particularly of the affair of Parga: and I hope that, from the unreserved communication made to me by His Excellency of his sentiments respecting the present state of the negotiation of cession of this spot, I may be able to derive some advantage in treating the conclusion of the business at the Ottoman Porte’ (NLS MS 5631 f. 3r). Ali Pasha of Ioannina (Tepedelenli Ali Pasha, 1744–1822), the semi-autonomous military governor of Ioannina, known as the ‘Muslim Bonaparte’, remarkable for establishing a principality in Albania and Greece (see Section 4 of the Critical Introduction, above). Involved in the political and military affairs of Europe and allying himself with different European powers, Ali Pasha was made famous by writers such as Byron who visited his splendid court which he described in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812). During the Parga negotiations Ali was ‘treated with consideration by Castlereagh’ and Robert Liston ‘maintained a friendly and confidential correspondence with him’ (Webster 1934: 352). The manuscript is difficult to decipher here. Ali Pasha may have been proposing to send his second wife, Kyra Vassiliki, to visit Liston. Sir Frederick William Adam (1784–1853) commanded British troops stationed in the Mediterranean from 1817 to 1824. Both the full date of this entry and the name of a second fellow passenger are illegible due to damage to the manuscript. In May 1812 the Listons stopped at Malta for about four days on their voyage to Constantinople. Liston described the stay in her journal: see pp. 93–7, above. On San Anton Palace and its gardens, see p. 96, n. 1, above.



selected further writings 211

winds to which it is liable oblige them to enclose everything with stone walls, roughly enough executed, and which often appear like the very coarsest terraces, but within these the cultivation is very rich. Three crops yearly is common – [   ], cotton, grain and green crop or potatoes – and their orange trees, though apparently small, bear the finest fruit in the world.1 There is however a great want of trees to mix with the beautiful and picturesque buildings. The stone is a fine shade of yellow, easily worked, and was once profitable.2 We passed a day on board the Bellerophon with our friend Admiral Penrose and his family.3

Archipelago, on board the Tagus,4 2nd July 1817 On Thursday evening, 29th of June, we took leave of our military and naval friends, and all embarked, the General and his [   ] on board a sloop of war for Corfu, and we returned to the Tagus to proceed to the Dardanelles. 5 The wind was favourable [to] us, and not much against them. We got on with fine [   ] to the island of Milo by Monday the 30th, and procured a pilot.6 From him we learned that our scientific and excellent friend Baron Haller (who we had hoped to find there) had [lately] quitted the island in order to procure workmen to pursue a discovery recently made of an ancient amphitheatre.7 As a contrary wind detained us two days within sight of Milo we were much ­mortified by our disappointment in the departure of Baron Haller, and the work was not enough advanced to inspect it without the temptation of his 1

2 3

4 5 6 7

The first word in Liston’s list of crops is illegible. By ‘green crop’ Liston probably refers to crops used to fertilise and clean the soil, rotated with ‘white crop’. Green crops would have included potatoes, turnips, beans and clover (see Brodie 1799: 97–101). The limestone quarries of Malta contributed significantly to Malta’s economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Liston is mistaken about the name of the ship: the Bellerophon had been converted into a prison ship in England around a year earlier. Admiral Sir Charles Vinicombe Penrose (1759–1830) commanded the Mediterranean station from 1816 to 1819. HMS Tagus, a thirty-six-gun frigate, in Mediterranean service under Captain Dundas from 1815 to 1817. A sloop was a relatively small ship-of-war (OED). A small part of the text in this section of the manuscript is missing or illegible due to damage. The island of Milos was renowned for its pilots. Archaeologist Baron Johann Carl Christoph Wilhlem Haller von Hallerstein (1774– 1817), Bavarian architect and archaeologist, directed the excavation of the Roman theatre on Milos. He had also, with Charles Cockerell, excavated the sculptures of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, selling the pedimental sculptures to Ludwig I of Bavaria. They also excavated, plundered and sold sculptures from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae. Haller died in the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly where the Turkish government had commissioned him to build a bridge.

f. 25v

212

f. 26r

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

company; and a Levanter having formerly detained us five days we were glad to get away with the first breeze, Sir Robert being very impatient to reach Constantinople, where he finds there will be work enough to employ him.1 The resignation of Parga by the British government to the Turks will occupy both his time and that of Sir Thomas Maitland, as Ali Pasha is to become the immediate possessor and probably will very unwillingly pay the large compensation demanded for the inhabitants.2 We are a little anxious to make the island of Tenedos where we hope to meet some merchant ships and to procure a good one to carry us up the Dardanelles, the Grand Signor being as obstinate as ever against the approach of a ship of war.3

Tenedos, 10th July 1817 We anchored at this island some days ago and met an English brig which we think may answer our purpose, but hitherto the wind – when we had any – was against us.4 This is a most delicious climate and in a fine frigate at anchor nothing can be more agreeable, yet the comfort of our voyage up the Dardanelles and through the Sea of Marmara depends so much upon expedition that I am impatient to set out. We went on shore one day and viewed a new castle erected since our former voyage and which will be defended with the guns lost by the blowing up of the Ajax ship of war during Sir John Duckworth’s unfortunate and ill-executed expedition.5 They have been all taken up and with care 1

2

3 4 5

A levanter, a strong easterly wind in the Mediterranean, while detaining ships, could also force vessels ‘to tack within range of the Barbary pirate harbours on the African side’ (Arnold-Baker 2001: 793). On 25 September 1817 Robert Liston wrote to Lord Castlereagh, ‘the declared intention of emigration on the part of the mass of the inhabitants of Parga (offering as it does a striking proof of the general dread of Ottoman tyranny and intolerance) has been felt as a subject of deep mortification by the Sultan and that of his Ministers, shocked at the amount of the sum that would be required for compensation of the fugitives. [. . .] The Turkish Ministers appear to have laid their account with paying from a thousand to fifteen hundred purses’. Robert goes on to explain that John Cartwright, British Consul at Patras, thought the indemnities ‘would amount to above two hundred thousand pounds’ and that Ali Pasha had accepted ‘eventually to pay the expense of the acquisition whatever it may be’ (NLS MS 5631 f. 15). The Christian inhabitants of Parga fled in great numbers. On the Sultan’s refusal to allow foreign ships of war to pass beyond the Dardanelles, see p. 209, n. 3, above. A brig, or brigantine, was a small two-masted vessel. The Listons’ former voyage to Constantinople took place in the summer of 1812. The castle Liston refers to is Bozcaada Castle (Bozcaada Kalesi), partly rebuilt in 1815. In 1807 the Ajax was ‘burnt by accident off Tenedos in the Aegean, grounded on the island and blew up’ killing 250 (Winfield 2005: 39). This occurred at the beginning of the expedition Liston refers to: Sir John Duckworth (1748–1817) had been instructed



selected further writings 213

will be useful to the Turks, who of course claim them for their trouble. Near to this castle is one of those stony, parched and wretched-looking villages usual in these Greek islands. Few of them invite the passing traveller to enter: they are hilly and apparently barren yet betwixt the hills the cultivation is general, particularly their vines. The wine of Tenedos has always been remarkable.1 Immediately2 on our casting anchor Sir Robert sent [   ] express to our consul at the Dardanelles to be forward [   ] Mr Frere at Constantinople telling our arrival3 – the [   ] promises to move further up with the first breeze [   ] anchor at or near Cape Janizario where the Argo was stationed on our former voyage, which being near the Dardanelles gives us a better chance of running-up with the first fine breeze.4 But we are unfortunately near the season when the Etesian winds prevail and I look forward to a long stay or a tedious voyage equally bad.5

f. 26v

On board the brig Neptune, 15th July 1817 Captain Dundas was kind enough to advance with his frigate for our convenience pretty near to the spot he proposed close by our little brig.6 The current was so strong that while the wind continued northeast it was impossible to move. We had pressed the Captain, and Mrs Dundas, who was on board, to accompany us to Constantinople, but the journey was so inconvenient that they wisely declined it, and the wind appearing to shift yesterday, at the change of the moon we were encouraged, to relieve the impatience of our new Captain, to change our quarters, and with some difficulty we gained the brig. Our Captain had never been in the Levant before. We therefore availed ourselves of

1 2 3

4

5 6

to lead five British warships into the Dardanelles to impose British demands on the Ottoman Empire during the Anglo-Turkish War (1807–9). Selim III ignored Duckworth’s demands and Duckworth was forced to retreat (Forrest 2012: 9–13). Tenedos is still known for its wines (see p. 102, n. 6, above). This section of the manuscript is damaged, and some words are missing or illegible. Israel Taragano (b. c.1765) served as British Consul to the Dardanelles from 1789 to 1817. Bartholomew Frere (1776–1851) was appointed Secretary of the British Embassy at Constantinople in March 1811 and served as Minister Plenipotentiary from 1815 to 1817 while Robert Liston was on leave. Cape Yenişehir (Yenişehir Burnu), also known as Cape Janissary, where the Argo anchored in June 1812 on the Listons’ arrival in Turkey (see p. 103, n. 2, above). Liston’s spelling, ‘Janizario’, is similar to the Spanish janizaro (janissary). The Etesian winds or meltemi are the annual summer winds blowing in the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, which impede northward navigation. Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas (1785–1862), married to Janet Dundas (d. 1846), commanded the frigate Tagus in the Mediterranean from 1815 to 1819.

f. 27r

214

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Captain Dundas’s offers of assistance and took one of his two pilots, ostensibly to buy provisions, speaking Greek and Turkish as well as Italian for us, but really to assist in our navigation. We then tried to make ourselves comfortable. We had good provisions and attendance, good tea with a milk-goat from the frigate, which was to us, with lemons, sugar and good water, everything. The cabin, though small, is rendered cool by openings and we have it to ourselves. The wind is still against us and after reaching the defensive castles of the Turks we have been obliged to anchor by advice of our pilot close to the island of Imbros and hope the first good breeze may carry us to the Dardanelles.1 The Turkish fortification is rather a handsome object, while the Muslim calling to prayers from the mosque has recalled the almost forgotten forms of Mahometism. The Ramazan Turkish fast2 commenced last night at the first appearance of the new moon and Sir Robert is rather pleased to reach Constantinople during this fast, which lasts a moon, as the Turks dislike business at that time, and he may be a little settled before his labour begins.

Thursday 17th July 1817

f. 27v

Yesterday was a complete calm. The good humour of our captain was kept up by our sitting down contentedly beneath his awning on the deck, reading the voyages of discovery which his little library afforded. My French maid turns out a tolerable cook, with the assistance of the pilot to interpret for her Greek into Italian, and she is no longer sick: indeed the motion was very little and about ten o’clock, as the pilot had foretold, the wind became so favourable that it was with difficulty we could take in the provisions which the consul, during a visit he had paid us the preceding evening, had been requested to send us. The Dardanelles is a beautiful scene and the two castles of Europe and Asia add considerably to it.3 There is a gaiety in the whole quite charming.

1 2

3

Imbros is Gökçeada in present-day Turkey. On the fortifications of the Dardanelles, see p. 204, n. 4, above. The fast (oruç) in Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam (see p. 134, n. 3, above). ‘Turkish fast’ here is inserted above the word Ramazan: it is not clear whether Liston intended it to replace Ramazan, or complement it. These two castles, Rumeli Hisarı (the European fortress) and Anadolu Hisarı (the Anatolian fortress) were part of the defence system of the Dardanelles (see also p. 130, n. 1).



selected further writings 215

Saturday 19th July 1817 At last we are within sight of Constantinople. The Captain, agreeably to Sir Robert’s engagement with Mr Frere, had hoisted his flag at the fore. The wind having greatly varied we are obliged to work our way into the harbour with a flotilla of vessels, amongst them a very pretty one belonging to Lord Belmore, with his family on board.1

Constantinople, 22nd [July] Nothing could be more favourable than the view – or rather, variety of views – in which this beautiful city appeared, from our being obliged to work our way by frequent tacking. From St Stephano to the Seven Towers [and] thence to the Golden Horn was one continued scene of [enchantment] in such weather.2 On casting anchor our barge appeared with some of our friends and one of our sedan chairs waited on shore. Our family consisted only of Mr Frere and of Mr Terrick Hamilton the Oriental Secretary.3 We have had much reason to be flattered by the kind reception we have met with from our friends and indeed from everyone, yet I feel a depression of spirits, much augmented perhaps by the heat.4 Our palace appeared beautiful and Mr Frere’s attention had much beautified the garden.5 Nor is the society lessened: on the contrary, the diplomatic corps, though a little changed, is considerably increased. Chevalier d’Italinski is gone and his place of Russian Minister is filled by Baron de Stroganov.6 The Marquis de Rivière and 1

2

3 4

5 6

The Osprey, an American schooner purchased by Somerset Lowry-Corry, Second Earl Belmore (1774–1841) and furnished at considerable expense for a journey round the Mediterranean. In the summer of 1817 the Osprey toured the Ionian Islands and visited Constantinople before sailing to Egypt. Belmore visited Greece, Egypt and Syria from 1816 to 1820 collecting antiquities (Marson 2007: 122, 128). St Stephano (or San Stephano) is a neighbourhood in the district known today as Yeşilköy in Istanbul. Liston mentions stopping there to see Dr Lorenzo Noccrola in June 1812 (see p. 121, above). The Seven Towers, now called Yedikule, is a ­fifteenth-century fortress. The Golden Horn (Haliç) is a curved inlet of the Bosphorus dividing the northern and southern parts of the city. Terrick Hamilton (1781–1876) served first as Oriental Secretary and then as Secretary to the British Embassy in Constantinople (1820–4). The Embassy’s Principal Dragoman Bartolomeo Pisani wrote to Antonio Vondiziano, the British Consul on Cyprus, ‘On the 19th instant, thanks be to Heaven, the noble Mr. Liston and his Lady arrived here safely [. . .] All Constantinople is overjoyed at their return’ (Luke 1921: 153). The embassy, known as the ‘British Palace’, was designed by Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, British Ambassador to the Porte 1799–1803 (see p. 123, n. 3). Andrei Jakovlevitch Italinski (1743–1827), Russian Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1802 to 1816. Writing to Italinski in June 1817, Robert Liston said: ‘I shall find the Moscow Saray [the Russian ambassadorial palace] on the Bosphorus

f. 28r

216

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

his family are here: he is the ambassador from France.1 The Count Ludolf is gone but his place as Neapolitan Minister is supplied by his son and an amiable young woman, his Countess.2 Our old and valued friends the Jabats remain Spanish Minister, and our old friends Baron Stürmer and family as Austrian, and we may add to this an inundation of travellers.3 The mania which infects the English is as strong as ever and the numbers greater than when the Continent was shut and the Levant alone open to them.4

1

2

3

4

inhabited by a stranger. Where I used to meet with perpetual welcome, a never failing candour, a ready attention, perhaps a flattering partiality, it is possible I may now have to encounter distant ceremony, cold suspicion, or at the best, a total indifference’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 142v). Italinksi’s replacement, Count Grigorii-Alexandrovich Stroganov (1770–1857), served as Russian Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1816 to 1821. After the Listons’ return to Scotland in 1821, Robert Liston Elliot, then Oriental Secretary at the British Embassy, wrote to Henrietta about Stroganov’s relationship with the new ambassador, Percy Smythe (Lord Strangford): ‘Your Ladyship has been correct in your prophecy that Lord Strangford would not be long on good terms with Baron Stroganov; the latter has become very cool and reserved within these last six weeks, and from no apparent cause than that of jealousy and dislike which seems to be inherent in him of all that is English’ (NLS MS 5660 f. 166). Charles François de Riffardeau, marquis de Rivière, and then duc de Rivière (1763– 1828), French soldier, diplomat, politician and military officer. He was appointed as French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1815, took up the appointment in 1816 and retired in 1819. In 1811 he married Marie Louise de La Ferté-Meung. On 20 August 1817 Henrietta Liston wrote to a friend, ‘We are much charmed with the Ambassador de Rivière. [. . .] I found the great people in Paris rather prejudiced against the wife and mother-in-law of de Rivière, [. . .] I can’t say that I am much attracted by either, though I believe the wife to be an excellent woman’ (NLS MS 5650 f. 50v). Count Guillaume Constantin Ludolf (1759–1839), Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte from 1793 to 1817, was succeeded by his son Joseph Constantin Ludolf (1787–1875) as Ambassador for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1817. Joseph was married to Countess Thekla Weyssenhoff (1791?–1869). Juan Gabriel de Jabat y Aztal, Spanish Envoy to the Ottoman Porte (1809–19) and his wife María Guadalupe Hernández de Alba. Baron Ignaz Lorenz Freiherr von Stürmer (1750/2–1829) was the Austrian Internuncio at Constantinople from 1802 to 1818. He was married to Elisabetta Testa from the prominent Levantine Testa family of diplomats and dragomans. Baron Stürmer and Rudolf von Lützow (1779/80– 1858), who succeeded Stürmer as internuncio in 1818, corresponded frequently with Robert Liston during the last few years of his embassy. The French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, particularly ‘Bonaparte’s unprecedented arrests of British subjects’, prevented Grand Tourists from travelling to the continent (Arnold-Barker 2001: 592). Tourism resumed after Napoleon’s defeat. In 1815 Liston wrote of English travellers ‘flocking to the Continent where as a nation they are not loved and not always pleased, while they deprive the poor at home of the benefits of that money they expend amongst strangers’ (NLS MS 5710 f. 26r). Liston also observed, ‘a sort of coldness seems to prevail at Naples at this moment towards the English, who to say the truth are in such number in all the great towns of Europe that if not loved they must be hated’ (NLS MS 5710 f. 32v).



selected further writings 217

5. Departure from Constantinople, 1820 (NLS MS 5712 ff. 3r–4r) The letters of recall from Lord Castlereagh allowing Robert Liston to return to Britain are dated 11–13 April 1820 and were probably received in June (see NLS MS 5636 ff. 91–4). The first entry of this journal, given below, is dated 7 July 1820. The journal as a whole describes the Listons’ voyage from Constantinople to France via Genoa, where they were in quarantine in the lazaretto for a month. From Genoa the Listons went to Turin, then travelled through Switzerland, stopping at Lausanne and Bern among many other towns, meeting the Swiss naturalist, François Huber, and his wife, Marie-Aimée Lullin, and the Duke and Duchess of Württemberg. They made their way from Geneva to Lyon, and then through the south of France, making numerous stops including Valance, Orange, Aix-en-Provence and Nice. The journal ends (abruptly, midpage) with an entry dated 2 December 1820, when the Listons were in Toulon, soon to set out for Marseilles. One of the last sentences in the journal reads ‘we have still much to do [before] we complete our tour of the South of France’ (NLS MS 5712 f. 27v).  Constantinople, 7th July 1820 After much delay on the part of the Ottoman government, and this considerably augmented by the Ramazan or fast (when Mahometans do no business), Sir Robert a few days ago took leave of the Grand Vizier, Reis Effendi, and other great officers of the Porte, having, as well to please himself as the sultan, declined asking an audience of the sovereign (a thing always troublesome and expensive to both parties) upon this occasion.1 The ministers agreed to his last request, which was consenting to a treaty of commerce with the King of Sardinia, a point wished by the British government, and personally desired by Sir Robert; and having consented, they did the thing handsomely, stating it as a compliment to the King of Great Britain, to the King of Sardinia, and a personal compliment to the Ambassador Liston, as 1

The Grand Vizier was Ispartalı Seyyid Ali Pasha (d. 1827), in office from 5 January 1820 to 29 March 1821. Writing to Viscount Castlereagh on 6 July 1820, Robert described his last conversation with the Reis Effendi, who ‘even went so far as to make an (apparently sincere) apology for the heat and harshness with which he had sometimes carried on the discussions that had taken place between us. [. . .] he requested that we should reciprocally forgive and forget everything unpleasant that might have passed, a proposition to which I could not refuse my consent, though I felt that the advantage was principally on his side’ (NLS MS 5636 f. 113v).

f. 3r

218

f. 3v

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

they termed him.1 Before our departure the Sultan sent Sir Robert a box handsomely set with diamonds; and to me four very superb shawls of cashmere, as a mark – was the message by the dragoman imparted – of the Turkish government’s approbation of my husband’s conduct during his embassy.2 The frigate, Révolutionnaire, commanded by the Honourable Captain Fleetwood Pellew, waits for us at the Dardanelles, and we hope to set out this evening in a small English brig to meet it.3 Captain Pellew and his wife passed three weeks with us, and we had hoped to accompany them to the frigate; but it was impossible for Sir Robert to accomplish his business, and indeed, our last preparations are retarded even at this moment by the visits of mistaken kindness of our friends. The pleasure our approaching departure from this country ought to afford us is damped from various circumstance[s]. Floating reports of disturbances in France – probably not true; but it appears evident that the French nation is not prepared for the present happiness of their situation. Those born, and those particularly brought up during the Revolution, have their minds so distorted and depraved that the mild and liberal system of government adopted by Louis the Eighteenth irritates instead of calming their obstinate minds, and it is difficult to say what may, ultimately, be the result.4 The affairs of Spain also wear a rather formidable aspect,5 and the contagion of example has not been 1

2

3

4

5

Victor Emmanuel I (1759–1824), King of Sardinia (r. 1802–21). Robert Liston’s last dispatch, of 6 July 1820, to Viscount Castlereagh, the Foreign Secretary, concerned the ‘negotiations of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Sardinia and Turkey’ (NLS MS 5636 f. 115). Liston here has first written ‘English’ and then, without crossing it out, has inserted ‘British’ above it. This gift was widely reported by the British press, the Yorkshire Gazette of Saturday 9 September 1820 noting that on Robert Liston’s departure for home, ‘The Sultan presented him with a snuff box valued at 20,000 piastres, an extraordinary distinction.’ From 1818 to 1822 Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew (1789–1861) commanded the Révolutionnaire, a French prize taken by the British Navy in 1794. Pellew was married to Lady Harriet Frances Webster. Louis XVIII (1755–1824), King of France, became titular regent in 1795 and in 1814 declared himself king on the death of Louis XVII. He reigned until 1824, except for the period known as the Hundred Days when Napoleon returned from Elba. He spent the Hundred Days in exile, as he did the years of the French Revolution and the First French Empire (1791–1814), the latter period in Prussia, England and Russia. In 1814 Louis adopted the Charte Constitutionnelle (the Constitutional Charter), the ‘mild and liberal form of government’ to which Liston refers, and introduced a form of parliamentary government. However, Parliament was dissolved in September 1816. In Paris in April 1816 Liston records that she and Robert ‘went to Court, [and] paid our respects to Louis the 18th and to the Duchess d’Angoulême. The King is [gently] overgrown & unwieldy but has a fine countenance and fascinating manners. The Duchess is pleasing in her looks and in her address – with a very disagreeable voice – she talked condescendingly and questioned me concerning Constantinople’ (NLS MS 5711 f. 10v). The Spanish revolution of 1820 reinstated the liberal constitution of 1812 and brought



selected further writings 219

lost, even upon our happy country of Great Britain. The English pretend not to have enough of liberty; and the domestic unhappiness of our new king must increase the general agitation of men’s minds.1

On board the Révolutionnaire, 15th of July On Friday, late in the evening of the 7th, we with some hurry and difficulty made ready to quit our handsome palace at Pera (which we had inhabited eight years – with the intermission of the twenty-one months we were absent on leave) and to the last moment we were hurried even by business, particularly that of satisfying our numerous dependents and domestics.2 We were accompanied to the shore of the never to be forgotten beautiful Bosphorus, not only by our own family and mission, and the members of the British factory, but by almost all our friends and acquaintances then at Pera.3 The house had for some days been filled with our diplomatic friends, and there were many we regretted to quit. Sir Robert and I were sensibly affected at parting with our private secretary Robert Elliot, and our favourite, Hamilton, Campbell (and his artist Page) though I unhappily failed in prevailing with Campbell to quit Turkey.4 Also Mr Cartwright the Consul General.5 Mr Frere we had every probability of seeing, as he only waits the arrival of the new ambassador.6 But alas! For the others it must be chance alone that can present them, ever again, to our view and kindness. The house, the garden, every local object in and around our dwelling became interesting to me, by the painful idea of seeing them for the last time.

1

2 3 4

5 6

back to power the liberals who had been persecuted by Ferdinand VII (1784–1833). In 1820 Liston is presumably referring to the unhappy marriage between King George IV and his wife, Queen Caroline; both were having affairs, the Queen was excluded from the coronation the following year, and the King ordered her name to be omitted from the Book of Common Prayer and the liturgy of the Church of England. The Listons were officially absent on leave from 12 October 1815 to 19 July 1817. A list of embassy staff for 1812 is held among the Liston Papers (NLS MS 5638 f. 45r). A ‘factory’ was a trading centre for British or other merchants: see above, p. 131, n. 2. In July 1819 William Allen (1770–1843), a scientist and philanthropist, visited the Listons and recorded meeting ‘a fine young man named Page, who is a draughtsman, and accompanies an English gentleman of fortune on his travels’ (Allen 1846: II, 99). The ‘gentleman of fortune’ was William Campbell (1793–1821), accompanied by the watercolourist William Page (1794–1872), who painted topographical views, architecture and costume studies in Greece and Turkey. John Cartwright, British Consul General in the Levant from 1799 to 1830. Bartholomew Frere served as Minister Plenipotentiary after Robert’s departure. Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, Viscount Strangford (1780–1855), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Constantinople from 1821 to 1824, arrived in Constantinople on 20 February 1821 (Bindoff 1934: 168).

f. 4r

Chronology of the Life and Times of Henrietta Liston The Listons

History 1583, first English Embassy established at Constantinople

8 October 1742, Robert Liston born, Kirkliston, West Lothian 19 December 1751, Henrietta Marchant born, Antigua c.1762, Henrietta sent to Glasgow, Scotland to live with her guardians

1717–18, Sir Edward Wortley Montagu British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

1763, first publication of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s The Turkish Embassy Letters 1768, publication of Encyclopaedia Britannica begins in Edinburgh 1775, American War of Independence begins

1789, Selim III becomes Ottoman Sultan 1789, French Revolution begins 1793, Robert appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire, and arrives in Constantinople 19 May 1794. 27 February 1796, Henrietta and Robert marry in Glasgow

1706, first anonymous translation into English of The One Thousand and One Nights (from Gallard’s French translation from the Arabic)

c.1750, landlords in Scotland begin to evict tenants from their land in the Highland Clearances

1762, Robert becomes tutor to the sons of the politician Sir Gilbert Elliot 1774, Robert’s first diplomatic appointment – as Secretary to the Envoy Extraordinary, Germany

Culture

1793, first Ottoman Embassy established in London

1775, Isacc Bickerstaff, The Sultan, or a Peep into the Seraglio. A Farce in Two Acts. c.1778, Mozart, Ronda Alla Turca or The Turkish March

1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1795, Bulletin de Nouvelles, the first daily newspaper in the Ottoman Empire, published by the French Embassy, Constantinople c.1795–1800, the ‘Empire Line’ silhouette for women popularised by Lady Emma Hamilton and Joséphine Bonaparte

The Listons

chronology 221 History

Culture

1796–1800, Robert serves as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States. The Listons live in Philadelphia. 1802, the Listons travel to The Hague, May 1803, Britain declares Robert serves as Envoy war on France Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Batavian Republic From 1804 the British 1803–4, Robert is Envoy Ambassador’s salary to the Extraordinary and Minister Ottoman Empire paid by the Plenipotentiary on an British government rather Extraordinary Mission to than by the Levant Company Denmark 1804, First Serbian uprising 1804–11, the Listons in against the Ottoman Empire retirement from diplomacy begins

1803, Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (1799–1803), begins to ship the Parthenon Marbles to Britain

1806–12, Russo-Turkish War 1807, the British Slave Trade Act passed – the slave trade abolished in the British Empire 1807–9, Anglo-Turkish War 1808, Mahmud II becomes Ottoman Sultan

1810, Jane Porter, The Scottish Chiefs

March 1811, Robert appointed British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

28 June 1812, the Listons arrive in Constantinople

1813–14, Lord Byron, Turkish Tales: The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair and Lara

21 October 1816, Robert made a Knight of the Grand Cross of the Bath

1814–15, the Congress of Vienna

1820, accession of George IV 7 July 1820, the Listons after death of George III depart from Constantinople February 1821, Greek War of Independence begins

1814, Jean-AugusteDominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque 1818, Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian

222

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

The Listons

History July 1821, Russia and Turkey break off relations

6 October 1828, Henrietta dies, Millburn Tower 15 July 1836, Robert dies, Millburn Tower 1936, Sir Robert Liston Papers purchased by National Library of Scotland

Culture 1823, David Wilkie, The Gentle Shepherd, scene from Allan Ramsay’s pastoral verse, painted for Robert Liston

Bibliography Manuscripts Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland NLS CH 5787–57931 NLS MSS 5542–5661 NLS MSS 5696–5720

Edinburgh, Royal Botanic Garden RBGE Plant Receipt Register, Donations, Seeds 1810–17 RBGE Plant Receipt Register, Donations Book, Plants Received 1810–20

Printed Matter Allen, Gemma. 2019. ‘The Rise of the Ambassadress: English Ambassadorial Wives and Early Modern Diplomatic Culture’, The Historical Journal, 62.3: 617–38. Allen, William. 1846. Life of William Allen, with Selections from His Correspondence, 3 vols (London: Charles Gilpin). Alloul, Houssine and Michael Auwers. 2018. ‘What is (New in) New Diplomatic History?’ Journal of Belgian History, 48.4: 112–22. Anderson, M. S. 1966. The Eastern Question 1774–1923: A Study in International Relations (London: Macmillan). Andrews, Malcolm. 1989. The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape 1

As a large number of manuscripts from the Sir Robert Liston Papers are cited, we have simply given here the call number ranges, rather than list manuscripts individually. A small number of the manuscripts among the Papers have been paginated, in some cases by Liston herself, so the reader will occasionally come across references along the lines of ‘NLS MS 5704 p. 15’, rather than the more usual reference to folio numbers and recto or verso. In addition to the manuscripts of the texts printed here for the first time, the National Library of Scotland has digitised a number of the manuscripts that relate to the Listons’ earlier travels in North America and the Caribbean, dating from 1796 to 1801. All these digitised facsimiles, along with semi-diplomatic transcriptions, can be accessed online through the National Library’s Digital Gallery, at .

224

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Aldershot: Solar Press). Arnold-Baker, Charles. 2001. The Companion to British History (London: Routledge). Artan, Tülay. 2011. ‘Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Princesses as Collectors: Chinese and European Porcelains in the Topkapı Palace Museum’, Ars Orientalis, 39: 113–46. Ballaster, Ros. 2007. Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England 1662–1785 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Bayerle, Gustave. 1997. Pashas, Begs and Effendis: A Historical Dictionary of Titles and Terms in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: Isis Press). Behdad, Ali. 1999. Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 23 August 1812, p. 1, in The British Newspaper Archive (accessed 26 February 2020). Berridge, G. R. 2009. British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present: A Study in the Evolution of the Resident Embassy (Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff). Beydilli, Kemal. 2011. ‘Tepedelenli Ali Paşa,’ TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 40 (Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı), pp. 476–79. Beynon, John C. 2003. ‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Sapphic Vision’, in Imperial Desire: Dissident Sexualities and Colonial Literature, eds Philip Holden and Richard J. Ruppel (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press), pp. 21–43. Bindoff, S. T., E. F. Malcolm Smith, and C. K. Webster (eds). 1934. British Diplomatic Representatives 1789–1852 (London: The Royal Historical Society). Black, Joseph L. 2017. ‘Modernisation Versus Old-spelling for Early Modern Printed Prose’, in A Handbook of Editing Early Modern Texts, eds Claire Loffman and Harriet Phillips (London: Routledge), pp. 105–9. Bohls, Elizabeth A. 1996. Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bowen, Emanuel. 1747. ‘Antigua or Antego’, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (accessed 22 February 2020). Boyar, Ebru and Kate Fleet. 2010. A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Brennan, Michael G. 2019. ‘Editorial Matters’, in The Routledge



bibliography 225

Research Companion to Travel Writing, eds Alasdair Pettinger and Tim Youngs (Abingdon and New York: Routledge), pp. 321–32. Brodie, Patrick. 1799. ‘On Green Crops’, in Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: C. Stewart), pp. 96–125. Bruce, Ian (ed.). 1951. The Nun of Lebanon: The Love Affair of Lady Hester Stanhope and Michael Bruce (London: Collins). Byrne, Angela. 2019. ‘The Scientific Traveller’, in The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing, eds Alasdair Pettinger and Tim Youngs (Abingdon and New York: Routledge), pp. 17–29. Byron, George Gordon. 1980. Byron’s Letters and Journals, Volume X: ‘A heart for every fate,’ 1822–1823, ed. Leslie A. Marchand (London: John Murray). Câbî Ömer Efendi. 2013. Câbî Târihi: Târîh-i Sultan Selîm-i Sâlis ve Mahmûd-i Sânî: tahlil ve tenkidli metin, ed. Mehmet Ali Beyhan, 2 vols (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu). Campbell, Jill. 1994. ‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Historical Machinery of Female Identity’, in History, Gender and EighteenthCentury Literature, ed. Beth Fowkes Tobin (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), pp. 64–85. Cavaliero, Roderick. 2013. Ottomania: The Romantics and the Myth of the Islamic Orient (London: I. B. Tauris). Çelik, Yüksel. 2013. Şeyhü’l-Vüzerâ Koca Hüsrev Paşa: II. Mahmud Devrinin Perde Arkası. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. de Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. 2010. The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans. Charles Jarvis (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics). Checkland, S. G. 1988. The Elgins, 1766–1917: A Tale of Aristocrats, Proconsuls and Their Wives (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press). Chirco, Adriana. 1992. Palermo: Tremila anni tra storia e arte (Palermo: D. Flaccovio). Clark, Steve. 1999. ‘Introduction’, in Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit, ed. Steve Clark (London: Zed Books), pp. 1–28. Clarke, Edward Daniel. 1810–23. Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, 3 vols (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies). Colbert, Benjamin. 2017. ‘British Women’s Travel Writing, 1780–1840: Bibliographical Reflections’, Women’s Writing, 24.2: 151–69. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1810. The Friend: A Literary, Moral and Political Weekly Paper, Internet Archive (accessed 17 April 2020). Colley, Linda. 2003. ‘The Narrative of Elizabeth Marsh: Barbary, Sex, and Power’, in The Global Eighteenth Century, ed. Felicity

226

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

A. Nussbaum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 138–50. Craig, James. 1836. ‘History of a Case of Spectral Illusions with Subsequent Loss of Memory of Words and Names, with the Appearances on Dissection’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 46: 334–52. Craven, Elizabeth. 1789. A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson). Culley, Amy and Anna M. Fitzer. 2017. ‘Introduction: Editing Women’s Writing, 1670–1840’, in Editing Women’s Writing, 1670– 1840, eds Amy Culley and Anna M. Fitzer (London: Routledge), pp. 1–17. Cunningham, Allan. 1993a. Anglo-Ottoman Encounters in the Age of Revolution: Collected Essays, vol. 1, ed. Edward Ingram (London: Frank Cass). ——. 1993b. Eastern Questions in the Nineteenth Century: Collected Essays, vol. 2, ed. Edward Ingram (London: Frank Cass). Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. 1821, vol. 48 (London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones). Damer, Mary Georgina Emma Dawson. 1841. Diary of a Tour in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Holy Land, 3 vols (London: Henry Colburn). Daniel, Norman. 1966. Islam, Europe and Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). Davis, Fanny. 1986. The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918 (New York: Greenwood Press). The Examiner, 17 November 1811, p. 739, in The British Newspaper Archive, (acc­essed 26 February 2020). Fay, Elizabeth A. 2016. ‘Travel Writing’, in Women’s Writing in the Romantic Period, ed. Devoney Looser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 73–87. Findley, Carter V. 1980. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Fleming, Katherine E. 1999. The Muslim Bonaparte: Diplomacy and Orientalism in Ali Pasha’s Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Forrest, Michael. 2012. The Defence of the Dardanelles: From Bombards to Battleships (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Maritime). Foster, Shirley. 2004. ‘Colonialism and Gender in the East: Representations of the Harem in the Writings of Women Travellers’, The Yearbook of English Studies, 34: 6–17.



bibliography 227

Fox, Elizabeth. 1910. The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland, ed. Giles Fox-Strangways, Earl of Ilchester (London: Longmans, Green, & Co.). Friedman, Anna Felicity. 2015. The World Atlas of Tattoos (London: Thames & Hudson). Fussell, Paul. 1980. Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Ghose, Indira. 1998. Women Travellers in Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Gibbon, Edward. 1994 [1788]. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3, ed. David Womersley (London: Penguin). Gomme, Alice Bertha. 1964. The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland with Tunes, Singing-Rhymes, and Methods of Playing According to the Variants Extant and Recorded in Different Parts of the Kingdom, 2 vols (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.). Graham-Dixon, Andrew. 2010. Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (London: Allan Lane). Grewal, Inderpal. 1996. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (London: Leicester University Press). de Groot, Alexander H. 2003. ‘The Historical Development of the Capitulatory Regime in the Ottoman Middle East from the 15th to the 19th centuries’, Oriento Moderno, Nuovo Serie, 22 (83), n. 3: 575–604. Halliwell-Phillips, James Orchard. 1843. The Nursery Rhymes of England, Obtained Principally from Oral Tradition (London: John Russell Smith). Hamilton, Terrick. 1819–20. Antar: A Bedoueen Romance (London: J. Murray). Hammill, Graham L. 2000. Sexuality and Form: Caravaggio, Marlowe, and Bacon (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press). Harvey, Annie. 1871. Turkish Harems and Circassian Homes (London: Hurst and Blackett). Hickman, Katie. 1999. Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives (New York: HarperCollins). Hobhouse, John Cam. 2014 [1855]. Travels in Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in 1809 & 1810, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hunter, Michael. 2009. Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). ‘Interesting Notices, Anecdotes, &c.’, Yorkshire Gazette, 9 September

228

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

1820, p. 4, in The British Newspaper Archive, (accessed 26 February 2020). Ismail, F. 1979. ‘The Making of the Treaty of Bucharest, 1811–1812’, Middle Eastern Studies, 15.2: 163–92. Jones, Raymond A. 1983. The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press). Kabbani, Rana. 1994. Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient (London: HarperCollins). Kinglake, Alexander William. 1982 [1844]. Eothen (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kinsley, Zoë. 2016. Women Writing the Home Tour, 1682–1812 (London: Routledge). Kreiser, Klaus. 2009. ‘Istanbul’, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, ed. John L. Esposito (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 207–11. Landry, Donna. 2000. ‘Love Me, Love My Turkey Book: Letters and Turkish Travelogues in Early Modern England’, in Epistolary Histories: Letters, Fiction, Culture, eds Amanda Gilroy and W. M. Verhoeven (Charlotteville and London: University Press of Virginia), pp. 51–73. ——. 2009. Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press). Lawrence, Karen. 1994. Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Legacies of British Slave-ownership. 2020. UCL History Department, (accessed 25 February 2020). Lewis, Reina. 1996. Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation (London: Routledge). ——. 2019. ‘The Harem: Gendering Orientalism’, in Orientalism and Literature, ed. Geoffrey P. Nash (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 166–84. Levy, Avigdor. 1991. ‘Mahmud II’, Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition) (Leiden: Brill), pp. 58–61. Lowe, Lisa. 1991. Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Luke, Harry. 1921. Cyprus Under the Turks, 1571–1878 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). MacFarlane, Charles. 1917. Reminiscences of a Literary Life (New York: Charles Scribner). MacLean, Gerald. 2004. The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580–1720 (London: Palgrave Macmillan).



bibliography 229

——. 2007. Looking East: English Writing and the Ottoman Empire before 1800 (London: Palgrave Macmillan). Manley, Deborah. 2005. ‘Travelling to Post: Lady Liston, an Ambassadress in Constantinople’, in Women Travellers in the Near East, ed. Sarah Searight (Oxford: ASTENE and Oxbow Books), pp. 8–18. Marshall, John. 1824. Royal Naval Biography; or, Memoirs of the Services of all the Flag-Officers, Superannuated Rear-Admirals, Retired-Captains and Commanders, vol. 2 (London: Longman). Marshall P. J., and Glyndwr Williams. 1982. The Great Map of Mankind: Perceptions of New Worlds in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Marson, Peter. 2007. Belmore: The Lowry Corrys of Castle Coole, 1646–1913 (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation). Mayer, Karl Friedrich. 1962. Disinfected Mail: Historical Review and Tentative Listing of Cachets, Handstamp Markings, Wax Seals, Wafger Seals and Manuscript Certifications Alphabetically Arranged According to Countries (Holton, KS: Gossip Printery). McAuley, Louis Kirk. 2017. ‘A Gardener’s “Paradise”: Henrietta Marchant Liston’s Caribbean Travel Diary’, (accessed 16 December 2019). McCall, Hardy Bertram. 1890. Some Old Families: A Contribution to the Genealogical History of Scotland (Birmingham: Watson and Ball). McCarthy, Helen. 2014. Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat (London: Bloomsbury). McGilchrist, Nigel. 2010. McGilchrist’s Greek Islands: Western Cyclades, vol. 19 (London: Genius Loci Publications). McGowan, Bruce. 1994. ‘The Age of the Ayans, 1699–1812’, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, vol. 2, eds Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 637–758. Melling, Antoine-Ignace. 1819. Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz). Melman, Billie. 1995. Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work, 2nd edition (London: Macmillan). Mikhail, Alan. 2013. The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press). Mills, Sara. 1993. Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London: Routledge).

230

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Moalla, Asma. 2004. The Regency of Tunis and the Ottoman Porte, 1777–1814: Army and Government of a North-African Ottoman Eyālet at the End of the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge). Moore, Thomas. 1932. The Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (London: John Murray). Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. 2013 [1763]. The Turkish Embassy Letters, eds Teresa Heffernan and Daniel O’Quinn (London: Broadview). Murphy, Reg. 2020. ‘Plantation Archaeology’, ArchaeologyAntigua. Org, (accessed 24 February 2020). Norgate, T. S. 1802. ‘Letters Written during an Excursion through France to Geneva’, The Monthly Magazine, No. 82 (No. 3 of Vol. 13), April 1: 197–202. North, Louise V. 2014. The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston: North America and Lower Canada, 1796–1800 (London: Lexington Books). Nussbaum, Felicity A. 1995. Torrid Zones: Maternity, Sexuality, and Empire in Eighteenth-Century English Narratives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press). O’Byrne, William Richard. 1849. A Naval Biographical Dictionary: Comprising the Life and Services of Every Living Officer in Her Majesty’s Navy, from the Rank of Admiral of the Fleet to that of Lieutenant, etc. (London: John Murray). Oliver, Vere Langford. 1894–9. The History of the Island of Antigua, One of the Leeward Caribbees in the West Indies, From the First Settlement in 1635 to the Present Time, 3 vols (London: Mitchell and Hughes). O’Loughlin, Katrina. 2018. Women, Writing and Travel in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). O’Quinn, Daniel. 2019. Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Panzac, Daniel. 2010. ‘La peste dans l’Empire Ottoman 1700–1850. Épidémies, Démographie, Économies’, in Economic and Biological Interactions in Pre-Industrial Europe from the 13th to the 18th Centuries, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Firenze: Firenze University Press), pp. 245–55. Pardoe, Julia. 1837. The City of the Sultan and the Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1836, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn). ——. 1838. The Beauties of the Bosphorus (London: George Virtue). Peirce, Leslie P. 1993. The Imperial Harem: Women and



bibliography 231

Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Philliou, Christine. 2009. ‘Phanariots’, in Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, eds Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters (New York: Facts On File), pp. 457–8. ——. 2011. Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press). Pirrone, Gianni. 1996. ‘Sicilian Gardens’, in The Italian Garden: Art, Design, and Culture, ed. John Dixon Hunt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 250–73. Pope, Alexander. 1996. ‘An Essay on Homer’s Battles’, in The Iliad of Homer, ed. Steven Shankman (London: Penguin), pp. 213–23. Popham, Captain Sir Home. 1812. Telegraphic Signals; or Marine Vocabulary with Observations on Signal Flags and the Best Mode of Applying Them (London: Printed for T. Egerton, Military Library). Richmond, Steven. 2014. The Voice of England in the East: Stratford Canning and Diplomacy with the Ottoman Empire (London: I. B. Tauris). Rosetty y Pranz, Jose. 1878. Guia Oficial de Cádiz, su Provincia y Departamento (Cádiz: Imprenta de la Revista Médica). Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbarium Catalogue. 2018. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, (accessed 26 February 2020). Russell, Gillian and Clara Tuite (eds). 2002. Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Russell, Quentin and Eugenia Russell. 2017. Ali Pasha, Lion of Ioannina: The Remarkable Life of the Balkan Napoleon (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military). Said, Edward W. 1995. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Penguin). Schiffer, Reinhold. 1999. Oriental Panorama: British Travellers in 19th-Century Turkey (Amsterdam: Rodopi). Schroeder, Paul W. 1994. The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany. 1806, vol. 68 (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company). Şehsuvaroğlu, Haluk Yusuf. ‘Emirgan Yalıları’, Cumhuriyet, 30 Temmuz 1950, Taha Toros Arşivi, (accessed 10 February 2020). Shaw, Stanford and Ezel Kural Shaw. 1977. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Volume II: Reform, Revolution, and

232

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975 (New York: Cambridge University Press). Siegel, Kristi (ed.). 2004. Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing (New York: Peter Lang). Sluga, Glenda and Carolyn James (eds). 2016. Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500 (Abingdon: Routledge). Stanhope, Hester, Lady [and Charles Lewis Meryon]. 1845. Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, as Related by Herself in Conversations with her Physician; Comprising Her Opinions and Anecdotes of Some of the Most Remarkable Persons of Her Time, 3 vols (London: Henry Colburn). Stephanov, Darin N. 2019. Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire, 1808–1908 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). Stourton, James. 2017. British Embassies: Their Diplomatic and Architectural History (London: Frances Lincoln). Talbot, Michael. 2016. ‘Accessing the Shadow of God: Spatial and Performative Ceremonial at the Ottoman Court’, in The Key to Power?: The Culture of Access in Princely Courts, 1400–1750, eds Dries Racymackers and Sebastiaan Derks (Leiden: Brill), pp. 103–23. ——. 2017. British–Ottoman Relations, 1661–1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press). Tan, Kit and Asuman Baytop. 2010. ‘Scrophularia cryptophila (Scrophulariaceae) from Istanbul and Lady Lister’, Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia, 52: 117–20, (accessed 6 December 2019). Taylor, Jane. 1998. Imperial Istanbul: A Traveller’s Guide (London: I. B. Tauris). Tekiner, Halil and Fahrettin Keleştimur. 2015. ‘A Cultural History of the Turkish Saddle’, Turkish Studies, 10.5: 319–28. Thompson, Carl. 2011. Travel Writing (London: Routledge). Turner, Katherine. 2001. British Travel Writers in Europe 1750–1800: Authorship, Gender and National Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate). ——. 2013. ‘Women’s Travel Writing, 1750–1830’, in The History of British Women’s Writing 1750–1830, vol. 5, ed. J. M. Labbe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 47–60. Turner, William. 1820. Journal of a Tour in the Levant, 3 vols (London: John Murray). Tuson, Penelope. 2014. Western Women Travelling East 1716–1916 (Oxford: The Arcadian Library and Oxford University Press).



bibliography 233

Uluçay, Çağatay. 2001. Harem II (Ankara: TTK). Vanbrugh, John and Colley Cibber. 1975 [1728]. The Provoked Husband, ed. Peter Dixon (London: Arnold). de Visiani, Roberto. 1843. ‘Illustrazione di alcune piante della Grecia e dell’ Asia Minore’, in Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, vol. 1 (Venice: Antonelli), pp. 39–58. Vlami, Despina. 2015. Trading with the Ottomans: The Levant Company in the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris). Walsh, Robert. 1836. A Residence at Constantinople, 2 vols (London: F. Westley & A. H. Davis). Webster, C. K. 1934. The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1815–1822: Britain and the European Alliance (London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd). Wheatcroft, Andrew. 1993. The Ottomans (London: Viking). Wheeler-Holohan, V. 1935. The History of the King’s Messengers (London: Grayson & Grayson). Williams, Haydn. 2014. Turquerie: An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy (London: Thames & Hudson). Wilson, Sir Robert Thomas. 1860. Narrative of Events during the French Invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Retreat of the French Army 1812 (London: John Murray). ——. 1861. The Private Diary of Travels, Personal Services and Public Events, during Mission and Employment with the European Armies in the Campaigns of 1812, 1813, 1814, 2 vols (London: John Murray). Wilson, Timothy. 1986. Flags at Sea: A Guide to the Flags Flown at Sea by the British and Some Foreign Ships, from the 16th Century to the Present Day (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office). Winfield, Rif. 2005. British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (London: Chatham Publishing). Wood, Alfred C. 1935. A History of The Levant Company (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wood, Molly. 2005. ‘Diplomatic Wives: The Politics of Domesticity and “the Social Game” in the U.S. Foreign Service, 1905–1941’, Journal of Women’s History, 17.2: 142–65. Yalçınkaya, M. Alaaddin. 1998. ‘Sir Robert Liston’un İstanbul Büyükelçiliği (1794–1795) ve Osmanlı Devleti Hakkındaki Görüşleri’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları (The Journal of Ottoman Studies) 18: 187–216. Yaycioglu, Ali. 2016. Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).

234

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

——. 2018. ‘Global Transformations in the “Muslim World”: Connections, Crises, and Reforms’, in The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam, eds Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli, Babak Rahimi, M. Fariduddin Attar and Naznin Patel (Croydon: Wiley-Blackwell), pp. 435–58. Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. 1999. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Yıldız, Aysel. 2017. Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire: The Downfall of a Sultan in the Age of Revolution (London and New York: I. B. Tauris). Youngs, Tim and Alasdair Pettinger. 2019. ‘Introduction’, in The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing (Abingdon and New York: Routledge), pp. 1–14. Zambaur, E. V. 1997. ‘Istanbul’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, eds E. Van Donzel, B. Lewis and C. Pellat (Leiden: Brill).

Index Note: bold indicates illustrations Abdülhamid I, Sultan, 23, 45, 142 absolute rule, 25–7, 45 Abydos, 56, 103–4, 112 Adam, Sir Frederick William, 210–11 Addison, Joseph, 39 Aegean Sea, 6, 102, 109, 203–7 Aeneid (Virgil), 102n.6, 103n.2 aesthetics, 38–9 Agrigento see Girgenti Ahmed III, Sultan, 45, 151 n.4 Aix-en-Provence, 217 Ajax, 212 Albania, 24, 46, 210n.2 Alexander I of Russia, 121 Alexandria Troas, 104, 108–10 Algeciras, 83 Ali Pasha of Ioannina, 24, 210, 212 Allen, William, 14, 219n.4 ambassadors and diplomatic representatives audiences with the Kaimakam, 26, 131–2 audiences with the Sultan, 28, 33, 132–4 Austrian, 173, 201, 216 British, 31, 34–5, 42, 76, 80, 84, 85, 104, 121, 219; see also Canning, Stratford; Frere, Bartholomew; Liston, Robert French, 42, 46, 111, 133, 141, 189–90, 216; see also Andréossy, Count Antoine-François Russian, 46, 121, 125, 140, 187, 188, 215; see also Italinski, Andrei Sicilian, 127, 141, 187 Spanish, 127, 139, 152, 153, 187, 194, 204, 216; see also Jabat y Aztal, Juan Gabriel de Swedish, 138, 187 Turkish, 162–3, 208 Anadolu Hisarı, 130, 214 Andréossy, Count Antoine-François, 13, 141, 189–90

Andrews, Malcolm, 39 Antigonia, 184 Antigua, 10–11 Antimilos, 98 aqueducts, 109, 127, 137–8, 160 arabas (Turkish carriages), 29, 136, 141, 158, 159–60, 162, 170 Arabian Nights, 14, 35, 36, 38, 52 Arcadian mountains, 97 archaeological sites, 83, 93, 100, 101, 109, 143–4, 211–12 Argo (mythological ship of Jason), 139 Argo (ship on which the Listons travel), 4, 74–5, 84, 97, 103, 110–12, 118, 213, plate 1 Arles, Brigide, 179 Arles, Mademoiselle, 57, 181–2 Arles, S. B., 179, 183 Armenians, 28–9, 43, 49–50, 127, 130, 136–7, 151, 158, 179, 183, 196, 202 Armutlu, 176 art see paintings; sculpture assassinations, 5, 6, 45, 198–203; see also executions astrology, 44, 149 asylums, 39, 50, 143, 144 Athens, 203, 205 Atmeidan see Hippodrome Austen, Charles John, 204–5 Austen, Jane, 204n.3 Austria, 43, 189, 190, 201 Badajoz, siege of, 76 Baghdad, 145, 188, 203 Bairam, 135, 147–8 Ball, Sir Alexander, 95 Ballaster, Ros, 37 Ballesteros, Francisco, 83 balls, 6, 198 banking, 29, 50, 137 baths, 39, 55, 58, 59, 167, 178–9 Bayezid I, Sultan, 171, 180 Bayezid II, Sultan, 151n.4

236

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha, 23 bazaars, 53, 150–1, 170, 180 Beheading of St John the Baptist (Caravaggio), 94–5 Behdad, Ali, 53 belatedness, 53 Belgrade, 45, 48–9, 136–41, 159–61, 187 Belgrade Forest, 6, 29, 64, 136, 160–1, 187 Bellerophon, 211 Belmónte, Prince, 86–7, 90–91 Belmore, Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl, 215 Bender, 173 Bentinck, Lady William (Mary Acheson), 85, 86, 90–1 Bentinck, Lord William, 85, 92, 174 Bern, 217 Bessarabia, 17n.28 Beyoğlu see Tophane Bible, 53 birds of prey, 148–9 Black, Joseph, 6 Black Sea, 15, 123, 127, 138–9, 160, 161, 175, 189, 204 Bohls, Elizabeth, 35, 38–9, 55 Bornos, battle of, 83n.6 Bosphorus, 51–2, 60, 123, 125–6, 130, 139, 147, 149, 158, 194, 219 Botanic Garden, Palermo, 90 Bozcaada see Tenedos Bozcaada Castle, Tenedos, 212 Brazen Column see Column of Constantine Bright, John, 18 Bristol, 75 Britain colonialism, 30–2, 34–5 diplomatic policies, 18–20 diplomatic representatives, 31, 34–5, 42, 76, 80, 84, 85, 104, 121, 219; see also Canning, Stratford; Frere, Bartholomew; Liston, Robert and the Greek War of Independence, 18, 19, 25 Pax Britannica, 18 protectorship over Ionian Islands, 18 relations with France, 198n.4 relations with Ottoman Empire, 17–22, 33–5, 131n.2, 166, 189, 212

relations with Russia, 18, 19–20, 47, 121 relations with United States, 12 war with Ottoman Empire, 23 British Palace, Constantinople, 123, 187–8, 192–4, 219, plate 2 Bruce, Michael, 13 Bucharest, 140 Bunarbashi, 105–8 Burgas, 160 burial grounds, 105, 126, 135, 159, 186–7, 196; see also tombs Bursa, 29, 57–8, 175–83 Butera, Prince, 85, 86 Buyukderé, 46, 50, 51, 54, 123–8, 135–9, 146–7, 174, 187–8, 194 Byrne, Angela, 15, 54 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 34, 84n.2, 110n.5, 210n.2 Câbî Ömer Efendi, 29 Cádiz, 4, 51, 52, 74, 76–80 Cagliari, 84 Calcedon, 158–9, 184 Campbell, Sir Colin, 81–2 Campbell, Hamilton, 219 Çanakkale see Abydos Candia see Crete Canning, Stratford, 17, 34, 104, 110–11, 120 Cape Janissary, 103, 213 Cape St Vincent, 76 Cape Sounion see Samium Cape Yenişehir see Cape Janissary Capitulations, 42 Cappella Palatina, Palermo, 88 Capri, 203 Caravaggio, 95 Caravan of Royal Gifts see Surre Alayı procession Caroline, Queen, 219 Carteia, 83 Cartwright, John, 219 Castel Sant’Elmo, 203 Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Lord, 19, 48, 74n.1, 207, 208, 210n.1, 212n.2, 217 catacombs, 95, 101 Catholicism, 43–4, 58, 78, 89, 118n.1, 151, 196 cemeteries see burial grounds; tombs



index 237

ceremonial practices, 24, 27–8, 33, 54, 56–7, 114–15, 131–4, 151–3 Cerigo, 97–8 Cerigotto, 98 Cervantes, Miguel de, 36, 88 Ç󠅟eşme see Shesmaé Ceuta, 81, 83 Chabert, Beatrice, 164–71, 199 Chabert, François, 199 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 88 Charles XII of Sweden, 173 Charlotte, Queen, 198, 209 Chief Customs Officer, 6, 29, 38, 194–5 Chios, 101–2, 206 Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie-GabrielFlorent-Auguste de, 111 churches, 79, 87–9, 94–5, 100, 105, 136, 159, 180 Clark, Steve, 30 Claude Lorrain, 102 clothing ceremonial, 57, 132, 152 children’s, 181, 195 Europeans adopting Turkish dress, 41–2 in Greece, 99 lower classes, 89, 97 in Malta, 97 pelisses, 28, 57, 132, 133, 134, 152, 170 reactions to Liston’s, 38, 57–8, 144, 182 in Sicily, 89 in Spain, 79 in Turkey, 38, 57, 107, 114, 115, 117, 128, 132, 144–5, 150, 152, 157, 165–6, 181–2 veiling, 107, 114, 144–5, 181 women’s, 38, 57–8, 79, 89, 97, 99, 107, 114, 144–5, 165–6, 181–2 Co-Cathedral of St John, Valletta, 94–5 coffee, 29, 57, 106–8, 115–18, 129, 130, 132, 160, 165, 177, 181, 184 coffee houses, 130, 147, 179 Colchos, 139 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 95n.5 Colley, Linda, 34 colonialism, 30–2, 34–5, 53 Column of Constantine, Constantinople, 144, 155

concubines, 164, 168, 170–2, 195 confectionery, 90, 116, 120, 129, 151–2, 170 Congress of Vienna, 14, 18, 74n.1 Constantine I, 109, 122, 143, 156, 190 Constantinople Anadolu Hisarı, 130 asylums, 39, 50, 143, 144 bazaars, 53, 150–1 British Palace, 123, 187–8, 192–4, 219, plate 2 Column of Constantine, 144, 155 depictions in travel writing, 35, 41–2, 51–3 Eski Saray (Old Palace), 155, 172 Fortress of the Seven Towers, 121–2, 215 Hippodrome, 50, 143, 144, 154 Janissaries’ Tower, 155–6 the Listons’ departure from, 6, 217–19 the Listons’ journey to, 4, 18, 28, 48, 73–123 map, 124 mosques, 41–2, 53, 122, 142, 143, 153–5 Obelisk of Theodosius, 143 Queen of Naples’s visit, 37, 63, 173–5 Rumeli Hisarı, 130 Seraglio Point, 122, 125, 130 Serpentine Column, 143–4 Topkapı Palace, 4, 104n.1, 113, 122 Tower of Galata, 123 Tower of Leander, 130 trade, 109 convents, 44, 78, 81–2, 87, 100, 119, 175, 206 Corfu, 203, 210, 211 Corinth, 203 Council of Chalcedon, 159 Craig, James, 9, 20 Craven, Elizabeth, 40–59 Crete, 98 Crimean War, 18, 47, 53 Culley, Amy, 8 Cyanean rocks, 139 Cythera see Cerigo Damascus, 163 Daniel, Norman, 5, 32, 34, 42–3, 52 Dante, 53

238

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Dardanelles, 4, 28, 103–5, 110–17, 191, 199, 204, 209, 212, 213, 214, 218 Davies, Richard Plummer, 205 de La Tour-Maubourg, MarieStéphanie Florimond de Faÿ, 13 de Staël, Madame, 14 de Visiani, Roberto, 15 Deed of Agreement (Sened-i İttifak), 23 Delos, 207 Denmark, 12 dervishes, 4, 44, 55, 144, 156–8, 183 despotism, 26–7, 33, 35, 36, 37, 47–8, 126, 140–1, 145–6, 190, 194 Dickens, Charles, 53 Diocletian, 159 Dionysius I of Syracuse, 88 diplomats see ambassadors and diplomatic representatives Divan (Imperial Council), 26–7, 48, 132, 141, 172 divorce, 173 dogs, 29, 148–9, 187 Don Quixote (Cervantes), 36, 88, 169n.1 Dover, 208 dragomans, 17, 27, 41, 47–8, 104, 112, 125, 128–31, 133, 140–4, 147–8, 150, 152, 156, 158, 164, 168, 175, 194–5, 199–200, 218; see also interpreters dress see clothing Duckworth, Sir John, 212 Duff, Sir James, 76–7, 79, 80 Dundas, Sir James Whitley Deans, 213–14 Dundas, Janet, 213 education, 58, 131, 151–2 Egypt, 25, 125, 128, 129, 137, 143, 144, 150, 170 Elgin, Lady Mary, 52, 57 Elgin, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl, 57 Elizabeth I, 131n.2 Elliott, Robert, 74–5, 219 emigration, 139 Enlightenment, 5 envoys see ambassadors and diplomatic representatives Eski Saray (Old Palace), Constantinople, 155, 172 eunuchs, 37, 152–3, 164, 168, 171, 202 Evelyn, John, 33

executions, 17n.28, 26–7, 46, 47–8, 64, 140–1, 145, 190; see also assassinations Falconer, William, 98, 207 Falkonera, 98 Fanaraqua see Rumelifeneri fasting, 39, 49, 54–5, 134–5, 146–7, 168, 214, 217 Fay, Elizabeth A., 32, 43 Feast of Sacrifice, 27 Ferriol, Charles de, 133 fires, 5, 28–9, 45, 87–8, 155–6, 180, 192–4 firmans, 6, 7, 41, 42, 119, 153 Fisher, Thomas, 76, 104 Fitzer, Anna, 8 flag signalling, 75–6 food, 29, 55, 56, 90, 105–7, 110, 116, 117, 118, 120, 151–2, 160, 169–70 Fortress of the Seven Towers, Constantinople, 121–2, 215 France Constitutional Charter, 218 diplomatic representatives, 42, 46, 111, 133, 141, 189–90, 216; see also Andréossy, Count AntoineFrançois and the Greek War of Independence, 25 the Listons’ travel in, 208, 209, 217 relations with Britain, 198n.4 relations with Ottoman Empire, 17, 19, 46, 189–90 war with Russia, 6, 141, 188–90 Francis, Prince Royal of Sicily, 91 Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, 174, 189 Franco-Russian War, 6 Frederick William III, King of Prussia, 189 Freire, Agnes, 67 Frere, Bartholomew, 74, 118, 203, 213, 215, 219 funeral customs, 196 furnishings, 38, 86–7, 99, 128–9, 164, 167, 195 Fussell, Paul, 53 Galata, 122–5, 128, 148, 158, 201 Galata Saray, 27, 151–2 Galaxidi, 203



index 239

Gallipoli, 51, 56, 114–16 gardens, 15, 38, 77, 82, 85, 87, 90, 95–6, 107–8, 122, 125–7, 161, 188, 195, 198, 210, 219; see also horticulture Garland, 205 Gelibolu see Gallipoli Geneva, 217 Genoa, 217 George IV, 209, 219 Gerakoulia see Falkonera Germany, 175, 207 Gibbon, Edward, 14, 36, 52, 53, 144n.1 Gibraltar, 4, 18, 54, 74, 80–4 gifts, 25, 27, 49, 57, 113, 115, 116, 120, 130, 134, 151–2, 161–2, 173, 183, 195, 218 Gil, Manuel, 80 Gilpin, William, 39 Girgenti, 93 Glasgow, 10–11 Glover, Anne, Lady, 31 Gökçeada see Imbros Golden Horn, 51, 125, 133, 215 Goya, Francisco, 79n.4, plate 7 Gozo, 96 Granada, 83 Grand Master’s Palace, Valletta, 93–4, 209–10 Grand Signor see Mahmud II, Sultan; sultans Gravina y Nápoli, Federico Carlos, 80 Gravina y Nápoli, Pietro, 80 Greece, 18, 19, 20, 24–5, 49, 97–103, 114, 203 Greek Church see Orthodox Church Greek War of Independence, 18, 19, 24–5 Greeks, 26–8, 47–9, 110, 114, 118–19, 125, 130, 136–7, 140–1, 151, 158, 190, 196 Gulf of Mandania, 176–7 Gulf of Nicomedia, 159, 175–6 Gümrükçü Osman Pasha, 194–5 Gunning, Sir Robert, 209 Habsburg Empire, 32 Haddington, Lady, 14, 52 Hagia Sophia, 41, 42, 122, 153–4, 159 Hague, the, 12 Haller von Hallerstein, Baron Johann Carl Christoph Wilhelm, 211–12

Hamilton, Elizabeth, 14n.23, 203n.1 Hamilton, Grizel, 190–1 Hamilton, Terrick, 74, 215 Hammuda Pasha, Bey of Tunis, 92 Hannibal, 95, 180 harems at Bursa, 29, 181–2 of the Chief Customs Officer, 6, 29, 38, 194–5 depictions in travel writing, 37–8 of the Kaimakam, 29, 38, 63, 164–72 Liston’s visits to, 4, 6, 29, 38, 63, 164–72, 181–2, 194–5 of the sultans, 29, 36–8, 155, 171–2 Western perceptions of, 29, 36, 37–8, 171–2 Harvey, Annie Jane, 40–59 heating, 149–50 Herculaneum, 203 Hernández de Alba, Maria Guadalupe, 127, 139, 194, 216 Hill, William Noel, 84 Hippodrome, Constantinople, 50, 143, 144, 154 Hobhouse, John Cam, 34, 52, 53, 103n.2, 105n.1, 107n.2, 110n.5, 130n.3, 139n.3–4 Holloway, Sir Charles, 83 Homer, 36, 52–3, 102, 105, 106–8, 111, 205 Homer’s Stone, Chios, 206 Hope, Sir Henry, 111 Hopkirk, Elizabeth, 191 horticulture, 15, 54, 82, 90, 161, 188, 198; see also gardens hospitals, 78–9 Huber, François, 217 Hunter, Michael, 6 Hurşid Ahmed Pasha, 26 idleness, 44, 58–9, 89, 112, 135, 179 Ikaria see Nicaria Iliad (Homer), 106–8, 111 Imbros, 214 imperial envy, 33 India, 34–5, 118, 163 Internuncio, 173, 201, 216 interpreters, 26–7, 47–8, 104, 106, 112, 115–18, 140–1, 164–71, 181–2, 214; see also dragomans Ionian Islands, 18, 20, 210 Ischia, 203

240

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Isla del Sur, 77–8 Islam, 35, 36, 41–2, 43, 44, 134–5, 146–8, 156–8, 161–3, 214 Ispartalı Seyyid Ali Pasha, 217 Istanbul see Constantinople Italinski, Andrei, 16, 20, 46, 110–11, 120–1, 125, 140, 188, 208n.3, 215 Italy, 85n.2, 95, 175, 203, 217; see also Sicily Izmir see Smyrna Jabat y Aztal, Juan Gabriel de, 127, 139, 152, 194, 204, 216 Jackson, Henrietta (née Nanton), 10–11 Jackson, James, 10–11 janissaries abolition, 23n.33, 24, 45, 110n.2 attending the Listons, 107, 110, 125, 131, 135, 142, 158, 175, 176–7, 178 as check on sultanic power, 23, 27, 45–6, 145 payment, 28, 29, 133, 137, 168, 170, 194 political power, 23, 43, 45, 145 punishment, 145 rebellions and uprisings, 23–4, 45–6 reform, 23n.33, 24, 20n.29, 27, 45, 110n.2, 145, 146 role in fire-fighting, 29, 45, 155–6, 193–4 Janissaries’ Tower, Constantinople, 155–6 Jews, 29, 50, 104, 112, 137, 144, 151 Johnson, Julia, 81–3 Justice, Elizabeth, 40 Justinian I, 122n.3, 143, 153n.3, 159, 160 Kadifekale Castle, Smyrna, 205 Kaimakam, 5, 26, 38, 42, 57, 63, 131–2, 164, 170 Kant, Immanuel, 39 Karaköy see Galata Karamenderes River, 105 Kastro, 98–100 Kemerburgaz see Burgas Kinglake, Alexander, 50–1, 53, 135n.3 King’s Palace, Palermo, 88–9 Kinneir, John Macdonald, 14 Kislar Aga, 152–3, 202 Knight Ellis Cornelia, 63

Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller), 94, 95, 96 Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha, 127–30, 194, 199–202 Koran, 49, 148n.1, 154, 186 Kumkale, 103 Laing, Dorothea Whitmore, 97 Laing, Francis, 93, 97 Landry, Donna, 33, 43 landscape painting, 39, 102 Lausanne, 217 Laz Aziz Ahmed Pasha, 26, 131n.1 Le Chevalier, Jean-Baptiste, 36, 52–3, 105 Legg, Sir Arthur Kaye, 80 Lemnos, 112, 139 Leopold, Prince of Salerno, 173 Lesbos, 102, 205 Levant Company, 104n.2, 131n.2, 153n.2, 188n.3, 204n.3 Lewis, Reina, 58 Lindsay, Henry, 198, 204 Liston, Henrietta (née Marchant) birth, 10 childhood, 10–11 correspondence, 6, 11–12, 14, 20n.29, 42, 46, 48, 52, 62–4, 67, 185–91, 203n.1, plates 9–10 courtship and marriage, 11–12 death, 9 departure from Constantinople, 6, 217–19 education, 11 family background, 10 family coat of arms, 15, 16 harem visits, 4, 6, 29, 38, 63, 164–72, 181–2, 194–5 horticulture, 15, 54, 90, 161, 188, 198 inheritance, 11 journal see Liston journal journey to Constantinople, 4, 18, 28, 48, 73–123 meteorological diary, 5 North American journals, 10, 12, 56, 71, 126n.3, 184n.3, 187n.2 other short writings, 6, 192–219 portrait by Stuart, 12, plate 3 travels around the Aegean, 6, 203–7 travels around Turkey, 5, 29, 175–84 West Indies travelogue, 10



index 241

Liston, Sir Robert adds suggested revisions to Liston’s journal, 66, 66–7 appointed for second ambassadorship in Constantinople, 5, 20, 73 attitudes to Turkey, 34–5 as British Minister to the United States, 12 correspondence, 13, 18–20, 42–3, 48, 210n.1, 212n.2, 215n.6, 217n.1 courtship and marriage, 11–12 death, 9 departure from Constantinople, 6, 217–19 dispatch on death of Dr Lorenzo, 197, 199n.1 family background, 20 family coat of arms, 15, 16 first ambassadorship in Constantinople, 12, 19, 20, 25, 133 journey to Constantinople, 4, 18, 28, 48, 73–123 knighthood, 16, 209 linguistic skills, 20 as Minister Plenipotentiary to Madrid, 79 official leave from ambassadorship, 4n.2, 24, 185, 203, 219 papers see Sir Robert Liston Papers portrait after Wilkie, 21 portrait by Stuart, 12, plate 4 public audience with the Kaimakam, 26, 131–2 public audience with Mahmud II, 28, 33, 132–4 retirement, 17 spectral visitations, 9 Liston journal abridgements, 63 annotations and marginalia, 6, 60–2, 66, 66–7, 132n.1, 133n.3, 134n.2 binding, 59–60 composition, 62–7 damage to manuscript, 71, 208, 210n.4, 211n.6, 213n.2 dating, 62, 64 facsimiles, 6–8, 71, 72 handwriting, 6–8, 60, 64 insertions and deletions, 6, 8, 60–2, 64–6, 65, 103n.1, 113n.3, 133n.3 pictured, 61, 65, 66, plates 5–6, plate 8

readership, 5, 22, 62–3 style and voice, 5, 54–9 underlining, 6, 8, 71–2 London, 4, 60, 73, 207 Louis XVIII of France, 218 Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, 91, 175 Lowe, Lisa, 31 Ludolf, Count Guillaume Constantin, 127, 141, 216 Ludolf, Joseph Constantin, 216 Lullin, Marie-Aimée, 217 Lyon, 217 McCormick, Daniel, 62 Macdonald, Thomas, 18 McGowan, Bruce, 186n.4 MacLean, Gerald, 31–2, 33 Madrid, 79 Mahmud II, Sultan, 23–8, 33, 44, 45–7, 110, 132–4, 145–6, 147, 149, 151–3, 161–2, 166–7, 171, 172–4, 181, 194, 200–2, 206, 209, 212, 218 Maitland, Sir Thomas, 24, 209–10, 212 Malta, 4, 18, 74, 93–7, 208, 209–11 Mandania, 176–7, 182, 183–4 Mandri, 207 Manley, Deborah, 5 Marchant, Nathaniel, 10 Marchant, Sarah (née Nanton), 10 Marettimo, 93 Maria Amalia Teresa, Duchess of Orléans, 91, 175 Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, 37, 63, 173–5 Maria Cristina, Queen of Sardinia, 175 Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 174–5 Marmara, Sea of, 46, 114, 117, 123, 158, 159, 212 marriage customs, 49–50, 100, 161, 170–1, 172–3 Marsala, 93 Marseilles, 208, 209, 217 Marshall, P. J., 36, 53 Maurice, Emperor of Byzantium, 159 Mazzarò, 93 Mecca, 25, 27, 37, 161–3 Medina, 25, 27, 37, 162–3 Mehmed II, Sultan, 122, 144 Mehmed Ali Pasha, Bey of Egypt, 25, 162

242

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Melman, Billie, 58 Melos, 100 Messina, Strait of, 92 Michelis, Antonio, 98–9 mihmandars, 28, 48, 110, 112–23, 131 Millburn Tower, 12, 17, 62, 67, 185, 187, 191 Mills, Sara, 30 Milos, 98–101, 211–12 minarets, 54–5, 115, 116, 122, 142, 147, 154, 178, 206 Mitylene see Lesbos Moldavia, 25, 26, 47–8, 140 monasteries see convents Monreale, 87 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 4–5, 31–2, 36–7, 39–59, 136–8, 142, 165, 178–9, 187, 192 Morea, 97 mosques, 41–2, 53, 122, 142, 143, 153–5, 178, 180, 206, 214 Mount Athos, 112 Mount Ida, 102, 105, 106 Mount Olympus, 178, 181, 182–3, 184 Mount Pellegrino, 88 Mourousi brothers, 17n.28, 26–7, 37, 43, 46, 47–8, 64, 140–1, 190 Mudanya see Mandania Musa Çelebi, 180 music, 5–6, 14, 44, 57, 91, 119, 120, 132, 144, 157, 162, 198, 205 Mustafa IV, Sultan, 23, 45, 200 Mustafa Pasha, 46 Naples, 203, 207 Napoleon I, 17, 19, 174, 189, 190, 198n.4 Napoleon II, 174 Napoleonic Wars, 4, 19, 52, 59, 76, 216n.4 Nelson, Horatio, 80 Neptune, 213–14 Netherlands, 12 New Order (Nizâm-ı Cedîd), 23 Nicaria, 101 Nice, 217 Noccrola, Lorenzo, 6, 27, 37, 43, 47, 121, 172, 198–203 North, Louise, 71 Nuruosmaniye Mosque, 41, 154–5, 156

Oakes, Sir Hildebrand, 93, 95–6, 97 Obelisk of Theodosius, Constantinople, 143 Odessa, 175 O’Hara, Charles, 82 Old Palace see Eski Saray O’Loughlin, Katrina, 32, 43 opera, 92 opium, 131 O’Quinn, Daniel, 32, 34 Orange, 217 Orhan Gazi, Sultan, 180 Orientalism, 5, 31, 35–9, 51–2, 59 Orthodox Church, 49, 105, 114–15, 117, 119, 134, 159, 176, 183–4, 196 Osmanic Mosque see Nuruosmaniye Mosque Osprey, 215 Osuna, María Josefa, Duchess of, 79 Ottoman Empire absolute rule, 25–7, 45 administrative structures, 25–6 cedes autonomy of provinces, 25 court, 24, 37, 57, 200–1 decline, 22, 33–4 diplomatic representatives, 162–3, 208 and the Greek War of Independence, 24–5 Imperial Council (Divan), 26–7, 48, 132, 141, 172 institutional reforms, 23–4, 27, 145–6, 168 navy, 4, 45, 127–9 political reforms, 23–4 recovery of Mecca and Medina, 25, 27, 37, 162–3 relations with Britain, 17–22, 33–5, 131n.2, 166, 189 relations with France, 17, 19, 46, 189–90 relations with Russia, 26–7, 46–7, 73n.2, 75n.2, 110–11, 123, 189–90, 208, 212 trade, 42–3, 49, 109 travel writing about, 4, 31–2, 40–59 uprisings and coups, 23–4, 181, 200 war with Britain, 23 war with Russia, 17, 23, 25, 34 Ovid’s Tower, Belgrade Forest, 161



index 243

paintings, 12, 39, 86, 94–5, 167 Palace of Caserta, 203 Palermo, 4, 44, 54, 84–93, 174 Palermo Cathedral, 89 Palin, Nils Gustaf, 138 Pardoe, Julia, 40–59 Parga, 208, 212 Paris, 208, 209 Paros, 101 pastoral, 36, 51 Paterno, Prince, 90 Patras, 203 Pax Britannica, 18 Peirce, Leslie, 33, 37, 38 pelisses, 28, 57, 132, 133, 134, 152, 170 Pellew, Sir Fleetwood, 218 Peloponnese, 24, 97 Peloponnesian War, 100 Peninsular Wars, 74n.1, 76n.3, 83n.6 Penrose, Sir Charles Vinicombe, 81, 82, 83, 211 Pera, 14, 29, 41, 50, 122–5, 128, 133–4, 137, 148, 156, 160, 192–4, 201, 219 Peristasi see Sart-Keoy Perry, Charles, 33–4 Petrovaradin, battle of, 46 Pettinger, Alasdair, 32 Phanariots, 26–7 Philadelphia, 12 Philiké Hetairia (Friendly Society), 24–5 Phoenician civilization, 98 Phoenix, 204–5, 207 picturesque, 5, 35, 38–9, 51–2, 54, 77, 82, 87, 105, 116, 119, 126, 176, 179 pilgrimage, 161–3, 183 Pillars of Hercules, 80 Pınarbaşı see Bunarbashi pipe-smoking, 29, 107, 108–9, 110, 116, 118, 130, 132, 147, 160, 166, 177 pirates, 177 Pisani, Bartolomeo, 17, 112, 136, 161, 164 Pisani, Frédéric, 112, 175 Pitt, William, the Younger, 19 plague, 5, 6, 28–9, 43, 50–1, 123–5, 135, 137, 139, 141–2, 147–8, 150, 174, 185–7, 205–6 plantations, 10 Polson, Ann, 11–12 Pompeii, 203 Pompey’s Pillar, 139

Popham, Sir Home, 75 Portsmouth, 4, 73, 74–5 Posillipo, 203 prayer, 41–2, 80, 134, 135, 146, 153, 154, 157, 163, 214 Princes Islands, 159, 175, 184 Prusias I, King of Bithynia, 180 Psara, 102 punishments, 145, 150–1 Ramadan, 27, 39, 54–5, 64, 66–7, 134–5, 146–7, 168, 214, 217 Ramage, Dick, 6, 14, 46, 48, 185–91 Ramage, Elizabeth, 191 Ramage, Sandy, 185, 191 Révolutionnaire, 218–19 Rich, Claudius James, 203 Rich, Mary, 203 Rivière, Charles François de Riffardeau, marquis de, 215–16 Rodosto, 119–20 Rokeby (Scott), 14 Romanticism, 5, 43, 67 romanticism, 35, 51–2, 54, 82, 116, 139 Rome, 203, 207 Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 15, 183n.2 Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, 15 Royal Navy, 18 Rumeli Hisarı, 130, 214 Rumelifeneri, 29, 139 Rusçuk, 23 Rüşdi Mehmed Pasha, 26, 28, 38, 164, 170 Russia diplomatic representatives, 46, 121, 125, 140, 187, 188, 215; see also Italinski, Andrei relations with Britain, 18, 19–20, 47, 121 relations with Ottoman Empire, 26–7, 46–7, 73n.1, 75n.2, 110–11, 123, 189–90, 208 war with France, 6, 141, 188–90 war with Ottoman Empire, 17, 23, 25, 34 saddles, 82, 104, 131, 182–3 Said, Edward, 35–6, 51 Saint Roque, 83 Salsette, 111 Samium, 207

244

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Samos, 206 San Antonio, Malta, 96, 210–11 San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini church, Palermo, 89 San Stephano, 121, 198–9, 203, 215 Sanctuary of St Rosalia, Palermo, 88 Sappho, 102, 205 Saraybur nu see Seraglio Point Sardinia, 84, 218n.1 Sart-Keoy, 116–17 Schiffer, Reinhold, 31, 51, 151n.3 Scott, Walter, 14 Scottish Enlightenment, 5 sculpture, 49, 105, 143 Scutari, 51, 122–3, 156, 158–9, 161, 163 Selim III, Sultan, 23, 25, 26–7, 28, 52, 57, 126, 133, 140, 146, 172, 200 sensibility, 32, 39, 55 Seraglio Point, 122, 125, 130 Serbia, 17–18, 24, 25, 181 Serpentine Column, Constantinople, 143–4 Sestos, 112 Sevastopol, 47 Seville, 80 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord, 39 Shesmaé, 206 Shipwreck, The (Falconer), 98, 207 Sicily, 4, 44, 51, 58, 74, 84–93, 174 Sigeion promontory, 103 Silivri see Silivria Silivria, 46, 119, 120–1 silk manufacture, 176, 177, 179–80 Sir Robert Liston Papers, 5–6, 9, 72, 185, plate 11 slaves, 10–11, 25, 38, 92, 164, 166–7, 169, 170–2, 181–2, 195 Smyrna, 125, 137, 188, 203–6 snuff, 103, 166 social class, 13, 31, 40–1, 57–8, 89–90, 92, 97, 115, 134–5, 179 Spain, 4, 51, 52, 74, 76–80, 218–19 Stanhope, Lady Hester, 13 statues see sculpture stereotyping, 36–8, 59 Stroganov, Count GrigoriiAlexandrovich, 215 Stuart, Gilbert, 12 Stürmer, Baron Ignaz Lorenz Freiherr von, 173, 201, 216 sublimity, 51, 54, 82, 193

Sufism, 156–8; see also dervishes Süleymaniye Mosque, 41, 155 Sultan Ahmet Mosque, 41, 42, 45, 143, 154 sultans absolute rule, 25–7, 45 audiences with, 28, 33, 132–4 decrees of see firmans female relatives, 57, 126, 155, 158, 167, 171–2, 201 harems, 29, 36–8, 155, 171–2 janissaries as check on power of, 23, 27, 45–6, 145 palaces and gardens, 52, 125–6 as spiritual leaders, 27, 162 tombs and mausolea, 142, 180 see also Abdülhamid I, Sultan; Ahmed III, Sultan; Bayezid I, Sultan; Bayezid II, Sultan; Mahmud II, Sultan; Mehmed II, Sultan; Mustafa IV, Sultan; Orhan Gazi, Sultan; Selim III, Sultan superstition, 44–5, 123, 149 Surre Alayı procession, 25, 27, 161–3 Surre-i Hümâyûn see Surre Alayı procession Switzerland, 217 Syracuse, 92 Syria, 183 Tagus, 211 Tamerlane, 171, 180 Tangiers, 80 Tarabya see Terapia Taragano, Israel, 104, 111, 213n.3 Taragano, Soloman, 104 Tarifa, 81 Tekirdağ see Rodosto Téllez-Girón, Joaquina, 79, plate 7 Tenedos, 64–5, 102–3, 204, 212–13 Teno see Tinos Terapia, 127 Teresi, Mercurio Maria, Bishop of Monreale, 87 textual attitude, 36, 51, 52–3 theatre, 79 Theodora, 159 Theodosius the Elder, 143 Tinos, 101, 206 tombs, 142, 180; see also burial grounds



index 245

tondeurs, 149–50 Tophane, 123, 158 Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, 4, 17n.28, 113, 122 Tott, François, Baron de, 139 Toulon, 217 tourism, 38, 53, 216 Tower of Galata, Constantinople, 123 Tower of Homage, Gibraltar, 84 Tower of Leander, Constantinople, 130 trade, 42–3, 47, 49, 97, 102, 109 Trafalgar, battle of, 52, 80 Trained Victorious Troops of Muhammed (Muallem Asâkir-i Mansûre-i Muhammediye), 24 transport, 29, 104–5, 114, 123, 136, 141, 142, 159–60, 163 travel writing accounts of the harem, 37–8 and belatedness, 53 and colonialism, 30–2 and Orientalism, 31, 35–9, 51–2, 59 about the Ottoman Empire, 4, 31–2, 40–59 and the picturesque, 38–9, 51–2, 54 and the textual attitude, 36, 51, 52–3 by women, 5, 30–2, 35, 38–9, 40–59 Treaty of Bucharest, 17n.28, 111, 123n.5, 140, 190 Treaty of Edirne, 25 Treaty of Karlowitz, 33 Treaty of Paris, 198n.4 Treaty of Utrecht, 79 tribute payment, 102 Trizonia, 203 Troy, 4, 36, 46, 52–3, 54, 104–8 turbans, 105, 111, 117, 126, 142, 144, 152, 170, 186 Turcomans, 183 Turin, 217 Turkish baths, 39, 55, 58, 59, 167, 178–9 Turner, Katherine, 30, 31, 40 Turner, William, 74, 98n.1, 98n.3, 168n.1, 186n.4 Tuson, Penelope, 34 tyranny see despotism ulema (Islamic scholars), 23, 24 United States, 12, 17 Üsküdar see Scutari

Valance, 217 Valide Sultans, 57, 158, 167, 172, 201 Valletta, 93–6, 209–10 veiling, 107, 114, 144–5, 181 Victor Emmanuel I, King of Sardinia, 217–18 Victor-Perrin, Claude, 81 Vienna, 118n.1, 173, 175, 188 vineyards, 100–1, 138, 177–8, 204, 213 Wahhabis, 25, 27, 37, 162, 163 Wallachia, 25, 26, 47–8, 140 Walsh Robert, 15, 186n.2, 188n.2 Warren, Frederick, 74 Washington, George, 12 Waterloo, battle of, 19 Wellesley, Sir Henry, 76 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke, 76 Werry, Elizabeth, 205 Werry, Francis, 205 Weyssenhoff, Countess Thekla, 216 Williams, Glyndwr, 36, 53 Wilson, Sir Robert, 13–14, 46, 75, 188–9 wine, 59, 93, 100–1, 102, 110, 120, 131, 184, 204, 213 women clothing, 38, 57–8, 79, 89, 97, 99, 107, 114, 144–5, 165–6, 181–2 concubines, 164, 168, 170–2, 195 education, 58 female slaves, 38, 164, 166–7, 169, 170–2 Greek, 57, 99, 100, 107, 108, 115, 117 in harems see harems Maltese, 97 paradiplomatic activities, 22 relatives of sultans, 57, 126, 155, 158, 167, 171–2, 201 and science, 54 Sicilian, 89, 91–2 Spanish, 79 travel writing by, 5, 30–2, 35, 38–9, 40–59 Turkish, 107, 114, 131, 144, 164–72, 178–9, 181–3, 194–5 veiling, 107, 114, 144–5, 181 women’s baths, 55, 58, 59, 167, 178–9 Wych, Jane, Lady, 31

246 Yenişehir, 103, 111 Yeşilköy see San Stephano Youngs, Tim, 32

HENRIETTA LISTON’S TRAVELS

Yusuf Agah Efendi, 162–3 Yusuf Ziya Pasha, 26 Zakynthos, 203