ABSTRACT
It was in the latter part of September 1889 that I left Paris by the new Orient express which, after leaving Pesth, runs viâ Belgrade, Sofia, and Adrianople to Constantinople. Through Servia, Bulgaria, and Turkey the pace was little better than a crawl, but nevertheless the terminus was reached in time. There can be no doubt that the journey, which now takes sixty-nine and a half hours, and which I have again made since under similarly irritating conditions, could without difficulty be accelerated by at least six or eight hours, a suggestion which it seems useless to commend to the directors of the lines concerned. The discomforts of arrival at Constantinople and departure therefrom are well known, and have tested the patience of many travellers. But the horrors of the boat-landing, which could be assuaged by bribes, are as nothing compared with those of the Customs examination, which is now pursued with a merciless incivility that only Turkish officials can display, at the newly opened railway station at Stambul. I was the bearer of a courier's passport and was met by an Embassy kavass at the station. But notwithstanding these evidences of respectability I was detained there for an hour and a quarter, my boxes were ruthlessly overhauled, my stores, accumulated and carefully packed for Persian travel, were broken into, and a box containing a few watches which I was taking out as small gifts in return for civilities in Persia, having been pounced upon, was hailed as triumphant evidence of a sinister disguise, and was immediately mulcted by a duty. If this system, or rather the manner in which it is enforced, be maintained, travellers are more likely to be repelled from Constantinople than attracted to it by the overland route.
Journey from Paris to Constantinople
