Topkap Saray - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 78

guard room. On the left a door opens to a long passage leading down
to the gardens of the Saray, and another gives access to the mosque of
the Black Eunuchs; while on the right a door opens into the Divan
tower. We now enter the long, narrow, open Courtyard of the Black
Eunuchs, also revetted with tiles and with a colonnade on the left,
behind which are the rooms of the eunuchs. Both the guard room
and the courtyard have inscriptions dated A.H. 1079 (A.D. 1668-9),
showing that these areas were reconstructed or redecorated by Mehmet
IV after the great fire of 1665. The living quarters of the Black Eunuchs
are arranged around an inner covered courtyard in three storey with a
tall fireplace at one end. There are ten or twelve little rooms on each
floor, but even so they must have been very crowded since there were
several hundred of them; doubtless they served in watches and slept in
relays. Returning to the open courtyard, we pass on the left a staircase
that leads up to the Princes' Schoolrooms where the young sons of
the Sultan received their instruction; these are pretty rooms with good
tiles, but they are not now open to the public. Just beyond, a door leads
to the apartments of the Chief Black Eunuch or Kızlar Ağası (literally
Lord of the Girls); he was a most important and powerful official in the
Harem, but his apartments (also closed) are very small and gloomy.
At the far end of the open courtyard is the Cümle Kapısı, or Main
Gate, into the Harem proper. It leads into a second guard room,
from the left side of which a long, narrow corridor stretches to the
open Courtyard of the Cariyeler, or women slaves. This courtyard is
a pleasant one with a colonnade on one side; round the far end of it
stretch the dormitories of the slaves on two floors. On the right are
three suites of rooms for the chief women officials of the Harem;
the Kahya Kadın, or Head Stewardess, an important functionary
who under the Sultan's mother ruled over the Harem; the Harem
treasurer; and the Harem laundress. Their rooms are very attractive,
domed and tiled, and with a good view over the gardens, not at all
like the stufy rooms of the eunuchs. (One of these suites is open to
the public.) The long staircase just beyond the three suites leads down
to a large courtyard on a much lower level occupied by the Harem
hospital. It is very picturesque, but unfortunately it is not yet open
to the public.