When two English travellers, William Wittman and D Clarke, arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of the 19th century they were disillusioned by the inside of the city. They considered that the streets were so narrow and so dirty that not even a breath of air could penetrate. In 1806 the famous French man of letters A de Chateaubriand stated that "there are three details that strike the eye in this extroardinary city." These were the fact that no women were to be seen in the streets, that there were no wheeled vehicles and the large number of stray dogs. The city was very silent. "It would seem that the shopping centres are followed by the graveyard. It is as if the Turks are entirely absorbed in buying goods, selling goods and dying. It is as if the graveyards, which are not bounded by any wall and resemble a graveful grove of cypress trees, extend to the very middle of the street. The wood pigeons nesting among their branches share in the peace of the dead." Although it was in keeping with his character, this atmosphere did not really suit the romantic man of letters and he immediately set out again in order to escape from a visit that was "stifling to the spirit". Another French ambassador, Comte Andreossy,wrote a book in 1812 about Istanbul and the Bosphorus which gave detailed information about the sea; this took place shortly after the departure of the famous Ottomanist J. von Hammer. Von Stiirmer, the ambassador who was the cause of von Hammer's departure, described Istanbul in 1816 as "a city enthroned on seven hills".

For Compte de Forbin, who was in Istanbul at about the same time, it was "a city that seems to have been built to give pleasure to the eyes". Charles Pertusier, another person who explored the city at about that time, wrote a long travelogue about it. According to Pertusier, "there is no need for all the animals and particularly the birds to pray to God to save them from the traps set by people here... and the birds make more noise than all its other inhabitants." The trees, roads and houses surrounded by gardens exercised a great attraction for this French artillery officer. Among Pertusier's accounts of life in Istanbul was an incident in which an inhabitant of Istanbul who had had the audacity to remark that 'a decree is a three-day wonder', encountered the wrath of the Grand Vizier - who was roaming the streets in disguise! In addition to Pertusier's three-volume travelogue, there is also an album containing engravings by the artist Preault. In this album the shipyard on the Golden Horn, Anadolu Hisari (fortress), the Gbksu and Bebek lodges, which reflected the old Turkish architectural style and were surrounded by thick groves of trees, were depicted with great realism. Vicomte de Marcellus describes his departure from Istanbul, to which he had come as an ambassador, one autumn day in 1820: "Upon reaching the highest part of the hills above Eyiib and turning round I bade a last farewell to the most beautiful city in the world, the ruins of Constantine's palace, the great city walls of the emperors. the gleaming domes of the mosques and the sea shimmering in the sunlight."

The Western travellers who arrived in Istanbul in the 19th century had began to experience the city's inimicable attractiveness in a more immediate way. As MacFarlane stated during his journey in 1828, travellers stay here "in order to breathe in an entirely different air". The French poet and man of letters Alphonse de Lamartine, for his part, had this to say about the city in which he first set foot one May morning in 1833. "One looks at the most beautiful view to be found anywhere on earth, one which was created by the joint efforts of God and man, art and nature." For Lamartine there could be no place more beautiful, because "it would be an insult to creativity to seek any resemblance whatsoever to this graceful integrity," and this statement is followed by pages of coloured pictures. Istanbul, which he saw in all the glory of spring, was, according to Lamartine, "the most perfect and pleasurable view the h~jman eye could possibly partake of at any hour of the day or night." The same pleasure was experienced in 1820 by Colonel Rottiers, who described it as " a dreamlike state that would be induced by partaking lightly of Iaudanum," and stated in all sincerity that he was "lost for words" as far as his feelings towards Istanbul were concerned. It is sufficient to browse through the pictures in two books published at about this time to gain an impression of the "dreamlike state" induced by these landscapes. The finest of these were the pictures executed for Walsh's book by Thomas Allom, in which steel engravings were used for the first time. The pictures drawn by W Bartlett for Miss Julia Pardoe's book about Istanbul are not of the same quality but they are works of pictorial merit. These books were in such demand at the time that editions were published in German, French and Italian. These engravings were then coloured, framed and hung in many people's homes as decoration. It is worth noting that Miss Pardoe, a sensitive and refined young Englishwoman, was very fond of Istanbul and described it in a separate two-volume book of travels.

A general view of Istanbul from Galata Tower, printed in colour by a different method,was produced in a workshop especially setup for the purpose by Baker, an Englishman. This large picture depicts in great detail the area around the Golden Horn. In the foreground we can see Galata and its old houses, the walls and towers of Galata, which were still intact at that time, the mosques and mesjids behind them, its graveyards and treasures and the layout and features of the streets - all of which are extremely realistic.The changes that were being made by Sultan Mahmud II also affected the appearance of the city. The Mekteb-iTibbiye-i ~ahane (Medical Faculty), which had been set up on Western lines, the MOhendishane-i Bern HOmayun (Technical University) and other such extablishments were the first products of this westernisation. In parallel with this, buildings constructed on Western principles changed the architectural fabric of the city.
The students of the Technical University drew an excellent plan of the city in 1848, showing the locations of Istanbul's

400 or so mosques and the street layout of the entire city. This was published as a lithograph. Shortly afterwards, the first photographs of Istanbul were taken between 1853 and 1855 during the Crimean War. These photographs, taken by Robertson, an Englishman who used time exposures, recorded for posterity the buildings of Istanbul, its people and their manner of dressing, the life of the city and the objective reality of that time.