The Turkish Admiralty, which is called here Tergana, is built along the shore of the Golden Horn, or pier. Selim-Y began to build fleets; under him, docks were built and everything needed for the ships was arranged. Now the Admiralty is vast and surrounded by high walls. It has shops and barracks for many workers and slaves. Here Kanitan Pasha enjoys unlimited power. When Hassan Pasha served this position under Sultan Abdul-Hamid, he strengthened the Fleet and significantly increased the number of ships. He did not know any sciences and did not understand anything about naval service65; but with the help of the French engineers, Leroy, and then Lebrun Sainte-Catherine, who subsequently transferred to our service, we tried to greatly improve this part. Now the Sultan has a lot of ships: it is impossible not to do justice to their beauty, neatness and harmony; the shine of bronze guns, the wide scarlet flags, all this can produce a wonderful effect. The beautiful shape of the ships, especially the 430-gun Mahmud, on which the Admiral General's Flag flies, amazes European naval officers. One corvette was built in America, but the best ships were built in Constantinople®, under the leadership of French, English and American engineers. I admit, I am surprised by this constant insistence of the Ottoman sovereigns to maintain the Fleet! And as always they found the means to do this! After the Battle of Lepanto, having burned their entire fleet near Chesma, finally eating four unfortunate expeditions against the Greeks and the complete extermination of the Navarino Fleet, with the disruption of Finance, a formidable armada arose again, bearing the Flags of three Admirals! This is, of course, a luxury, completely useless, and unnecessary for Tursha. Without sailors, without boatswains, without captains, since there were no sailors from Speshi and Hydra, what kind of fleet could there be! Now they are catching and forcibly driving all kinds of rabble from the streets of Constantinople onto ships, and keeping them in service until the campaign ends; then everyone returns to their activities. The ohitsers either know nothing, or know very little, and there is no practice at all: not a single sextant has ever been taken into hand! There is nothing to say about the Admirals: it is known that most of them are favored by the Sultan from among his courtiers; Most of them, before their appointment, ever boarded a ship. Add also that on each ship there is a double, and often triple, set of people, in case of the plague that almost ceaselessly sweeps through Fleet5, and from that confusion, confusion, impossibility of maneuvering; no one even knows their place. Such a Fleet, at the first meeting with an enemy, no matter how good the ships may be, must inevitably perish. More than once attempts were made to capture foreign officers; but the Turks did not terrifli the infidel teachers, and they did not even want to see the commanders. Now there is not a single foreigner left. The great friends of His Sultan Majesty can only wish that his Fleet would never engage in battle with the enemy.
Until the last days of my life in Constantinople, I put off exploring Galata, Nera, and visiting the Mevlevi dervishes, who also live in Pervo. Galata occupies that part of the city behind the pier, which in Roman times was called the fig or fig pier. 'Then there were more than 700 houses and many great stucco buildings, of which now not a trace is visible. Much later, Michael Paleologus, seeing that many foreign merchants and all kinds of strangers and vagabonds flooded Constantinople, decided, fearing unrest and rebellion from such unbridled bastards, to transfer them all to live in Galata. Mohammed PP, having occupied Galata, ordered to describe in detail what was left after 65 men, to keep it intact, and to give it to ten of them, who would return within three months. He also ordered the walls of Galata to be broken down and torn down, and left as a simple suburban settlement. Since that time, Galata has become the home of all foreign merchants: here they have shops and warehouses filled with goods from all European countries. In Galata there are also beautiful mosques, artillery shops, Topgana, and the glorious Buyuk-Kule tower, built by Emperor Anastasl: