Cornille's panorama of Istanbul is a lovely engraving despite its inaccuracies. Haghia Sophia, for instance, is given a commanding hilltop position overlooking the rest of the city.

Kinglake, who visited Istanbul in 1834, writes, "Perhaps as you make your difficult way through a steep and narrow alley... you meet one of those coffin-shaped bundles of white linen that implies an Ottoman lady. Painfully struggling against the obstacles to progression interposed by the many folds of her clumsy drapery, by her big mud boots and especially by her two pairs of slippers, she works her way on full awkwardly enough... closely followed by her women slaves."

Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke, who drew a map and plan of Istanbul in 1835, gives a striking description of his first impression of the city as, "a forest of minarets, masts and cypresses" rising out of the sea. He soon discovered to his dismay that even the worst water was more expensive than wine in Beyoglu, home to the European communities. While on the subject he reports that the largely teetotaling Turks were connoisseur of water:

"Just as wine experts can identify the vineyard and vintage of a wine by its taste, so the Turks can name the spring from which any water comes merely by a sip; whether it be Kestane, Camlýca or Bulgurlu."

Moltke notes that the construction of the city's houses is conducive to the spread of fire, and relates the distressing results of a plague epidemic. People ate with tbeir hands, although spoons were provided for dishes such as stewed fruit in wealthy homes. While in Istanbul he was received by Sultan Mahmud II and Hüsrev Pasha but we hear plenty plenty about more mundane aspects of daily life, such as the pigeons at Bayezid Mosque, street dogs, cemeteries, ox-drawn carriages used by women, water system, the new bridge over the Golden Horn whose construction began that year and which measured 637 feet in length and 25 feet in width, and the compulsory purchases of property to make way for the bridge. In Tophane Moltke saw "a Turkish scribe with a sheet of paper on his knee, a reed pen in his hand, listening to the explanations accompanied by gestures of the women dressed in feraje and yellow boots, their faces covered completely apart from their eyes, who stood before him."

The French poet Nerval who spent three months in Istanbul from 23 July to 28 October 1843 moved from his hotel in Taksim to a traditional han in Bayezit in order to observe the Turkish Ramazan at close quarters. His fellow guests at the han were Persian and Armenian travellers.The inhabitants spent the daytime asleep, and after breaking their fast at the sundown meal of iftar went out into the brightly illuminated streets. Although Istanbul proper was cheaper than Beyoglu, it was impossible to obtain any alcohol there. Nerval saw the watchmen distribute soup to the stray dogs as a Ramazan treat, and oisited a dervish tekke where "the name of God moves the dervishes to ecstasy in whichever language it might be spoken. When they hear the sound of the ney (a kind of reed flute) they begin to revolve, without obliging anyone to follow their example."

Flaubert, the celebrated French novelist, visited every corner of Istanbul, beginning with the Galata Tower.He departed on 14 December from the city with vivid impressions which he later related. The sultan's procession to Friday prayers, the imperial barges, lively koçek dancing in the coffee houses of Galata, the Jewish quater, summer residences at Tarabya, the Göksu river and meadows, Belgrade Forest, Topkapi Palace and mosques are all described in his memoirs. He wandered the "dark and deep" streets of Galata and listened to the sounds of the violin and ud from windows overlooking courtyards in the narrow, squalid alleyways. He describes the "whores in Greek headdresses and European costume who everywhere reenact the sad romances of Heloises and Abelards like crude engraving".

Theophile Gautier, writer for Paris La Presse newspaper, arrived on the SS Leonidas on 23 June 1852 to write a series of fascinating reports about Istanbul. Here is his description of the Greek district of Fener:

"The wealthy Greek families inhabit this district, which is a kind of West End on the fringe of slums. The stone buildings display a sound architecture. With their overhanging upper storeys supported by stone brackets they resemble fortified mediaeval dwellings. At the windows are armoured iron shutters, and some of the windows have iron grilles. All these are precautions against fire. Old Byzantium has taken refuge in Phanar. The descendants of the Comnenes, Dukas and Paleologians still live here, their footmen treating them like emperors. Houses which appear humble from the outside conceal phenomenal fortunes and treasures. From Phanar you enter the Turkish Muslim streets on the shore of the Golden Horn where the crowd bustles like ants. At every step you encounter porters carrying their loads on poles. The practice of carrying goods on planks tied between two donkeys makes negatiating the narrow streets almost impossible. When the creatures become lodged fast at a turning, passersby on horseback and on foot, women, children and even dogs are crushed together."

Gautier is another of the travellers who remarks that one match would be enough to set the Turkish houses within the city walls ablaze.

In his two-volume book, Constantinople, about his visit to the city in 1874, Edmondo d'Amicis presents a vivid picture of nineteenth century Istanbul life. Like so many other writers of the time he devotes a long section to the subject of Turkish women. Those of the upper classes, "spend hours at a time watching the movements of the ships on the Bosphorus or Sea of Marmara from the small round windows of their elevatedapartments; or weave interminable romances of love and liberty and riches as they watch the smoke from their cigarettes curl upward in blue wreaths. Tired of their cigarettes, they betake themselves to the chibuk (a long pipe) and... then a cup of Syrian coffee and a few sweetmeats, or some fruit or an ice, which they can spend half an hour in eating; then comes a little more smoking... and after it a piece of mastic gum, which they suck to get rid of the taste of the smoke." Looking at Istanbul in 1880 through the eyes of an economist, Lavelye's account has a different emphasis from the often romantic descriptions of poets and novelists:

"The city is impoverished, its antiquities nearly in ruins. The houses are derelict and the people dying of hunger. Both provinces and capital are in complete devastation. Thousands of homeless people are living in cisterns, and the basins of fountains. They have made doors and windows of scraps of junk, like swallows' nests. Their children are naked. Even the Fountain of Sultan Ahmed has dried up and its dome has collapsed... There is not enough water to drink, to wash with, nor to extinguish fires." To conclude here are some observations by Eudel, who visited Istan- bul in 1885;

"We boarded a caique bearing an Arabic number at the stem, its hull tarred and beautifully varnished within, and crossed the Bosphorus to Kadiköy. The small craft sped rapidly before the current from the Black Sea. The dark complexioned boatman, with his long moustaches and great paunch, was a character worthy of notice. Our caique passed a Turkish fishing boat. As we left the palace behind and made towards Selimiye, we passed by the barracks. In Kadiköy we sat on the tree shaded terrace of a pleasant coffee house called Belle Vue, overlooking the Bosphorus and Marmara Sea. Although just fifteen feet above sea level we could see everything: St.Sophia, the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed, and the Galata Tower. The panorama of Istanbul behind the flocks of gulls flying towards the palace was truly exceptional. While we watched the city, they served us with Turkish coffee and cherry syrup. We returned on a steam ferry plying its way between Kadiköy and Tophane.

"If you wonder about the source of the howling and barking you hear while strolling through the streets, it is the skirmishing of the street dogs...When you leave the hotel you are assaulted by itinerant vendors trying to sell small carpets bearing the sultan's monogram and scarves of Bursa silk.The hotel menu is the same every day: steak served with tea by the menservants. Apart from the slave girls in the sultan's harem, none but men serve as waiters in all Istanbul."