The Bosphorus - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 442

Hall, with its ceiling decorated in gold leaf; other splendid chambers
being the Hall of Mother-of-Pearl and the Yellow Parlour. The Şale
was used principally as a residence for distinguished guests, one of the
most notable being Kaiser Wilhelm II, who in his visit with Abdül
Hamit II in 1895 formed an alliance between Germany and the
Ottoman Empire. The Şale has been restored in recent years and is
now open to the public as a museum.
TÜRBE OF YAHYA EFENDİ
A few yards beyond the entrance to Yıldız Park a steep but short street
leads to the very picturesque türbe of Yahya Efendi, a foster-brother
of Süleyman the Magnificent, whom his mother nursed as an infant.
The little külliye, consisting of a türbe and a medrese built by Sinan
presumably shortly before Yahya's death in 1570, is now enveloped by
various wooden structures of the nineteenth century, and it is hard to
see either or even to ascertain what is left of the medrese; its dershane
at least appears to be intact. The türbe communicates by a large grilled
opening to a small wooden mosque with a baroque wooden dome.
The various buildings themselves are picturesque, but even more so
are their surroundings, where topsy-turvy tombstones lie scattered
among a lovely copse of trees, through which one catches occasional
glimpses of the Bosphorus. The appearance of this place seems not to
have changed across the centuries, for Evliya describes it as being “in
a deep shaded recess of the hills, luxuriant with plane, cypress, willow,
fir, and nut-trees.” Evliya goes on to say that “Yahya Efendi is buried
on the top of a hill overlooking the sea; the four walls of his türbe
are covered with the inscriptions of a hundred thousand divine lovers
breathing out their feelings in verse. Even now he converses every
Friday night with Hızır Ilyas, taking from him lessons in mysticism.”
The place is evidently very holy and is always thronged with pious
people at their devotions.
ORTAKÖY
The next village on the European shore of the Bosphorus is Ortaköy,
the Middle Village; one is not sure between what: it is very far from the
middle of the Bosphorus. There was a Byzantine church of St. Phocas