A French doctor by the name of A. Brayer visited Istanbul in 1815 and remained here on and off over a period of thirty years. He studied the plague epidemic and came to the conclusion that it was not infectious The first volume of his two-volume work contains a description of Istanbul and the second is devoted to his opinions about the plague. Brayer begins with complaints about the dirtiness and narrowness of the only main street in Beyo~lu and remarks that it is impossible to walk there at night without a lantern. After referring to the filthy state of the Kasimpa~a Creek Brayer goes on to describe in some detail the districts and neighbourhoods of Istanbul and settlements along the Bosphorus. Hisdescriptions of the commercial and shopping centres in these neighbourhoods and of their craftsmen are extremely interesting. For this reason it could be said that it is this French doctor who was able to provide the most accurate information about certain districts of Istanbul at the beginning of the 19th century. He mentions that between Yenikapi and Samatya there were little summerhouses built on piles driven into the sea bed that had a wonderful view of the Sea of Marmara and a number of cafes along the sea front. The thing he enjoyed most of all were boat trips on the Bosphorus in one of those light, clean, graceful craft with three pairs of oars. His description of the clean and well-dressed appearance of the oarsmen and the gracefulness of these caiques occupies many pages.

Many men of letters visited Istanbul during the 19th century. In the books that they wrote it is possible to detect reflections of a world that was unfortunately beginning to decline. One of these men was Gerard de Nerval (1805-1855). During his journey to the Middle Fast in 1843 he was able to explore Istanbul and decsribe it in a romantic manner. The first thing to attract his attention in Beyo~lu's main street was the fortress-like building of the Russian Embassy. The French Embassy, which cost millions to build, was under construction at that time. Further down on the left was the Italian Theatre and the Galatasaray School, which he referred to as the university, and beautiful houses with gardens lay between these two buildings. The picturesque, mysterious and cool park at the end of the street was in fact a graveyard. Nerval, who preferred to study the way of life of the city's Greeks and Armenians, gives a lengthy account of

a punch and judy show. He also visited the Sahilsarayi Palace which stood on the site of the present Beylerbeyi Palace and gives detailed information about all the European items inside it and mentions its internal layout. For Gerard de Nerval it was the 'green and mobile horizons, houses of many hues, lead-covered cupolas and slender minarets" that made Istanbul "such a magnificent city". Maxime du Camp, a less-known writer, stated that 'all creativity's works of art had been collected inside a semicircle, and in his book of travels he recounts an interesting incident that he witnessed in Istanbul in 1850. While he was boarding a ship on the Golden Horn, a French merchant dropped a purse into the sea containing twenty five thousand golden francs. A diver was sent down and a search made, but the gold coins were nowhere to be seen; however, about twenty bronze cannonballs were discovered. Sultan Abdulmecid presented the cannonballs to the Frenchman to console him for his loss.

During the years when Théophile Gautier, who had appreciated the beauty of Istanbul, was writing his book of travels (this coincided with the Crimean War), there was also a by no means small number of foreigners who did not like Istanbul at all. In the memories of a doctor named F. Maynard, which was published in 1855 by Alexandre Dumas (1803-1870), this perso vas said to have found Istanbul incredibly beautiful when viewed from the sea.

However, “Alas, alas~ ‘Twas a dream that was painfully destroye before I had taken a hundred steps along its narrow, rutted, muddy, dark, filthy streets that never saw sunlight or fresh air ... You begin to wonder if an evil genie has thrown a loathsome veil over this queen of cities, pearl of the east, the centre of beauty, dreams of which always appear in the misty skies of the north simply in order to deceive.” The writer, in these words, expresses the worry of not being able to find the Ottoman city of old. This is an important opinion. The tendency towards westernisation that began in the Tanzimat period had meant that the Ottomans of those times had, without questioning their suitability, adopted a number of Western ideas, expressed mainly in fashion but also including architecture, bureaucracy and many other things that had changed the face of Istanbul.