2-969-993 - /Heritage Images

A Street at Schumla, 1856. Turkey, Crimean War: 'The streets and market-places...are at all times filled with soldiers, and a busy mass devoted to the satisfying of soldiers' wants...Streams of busy people of every denomination choke the narrow spaces between the low and ricketty and ill-built houses; there is no passing through the bazaar, where Jews and Greeks lazily loll before their wares, supremely careless whether they sell or not; and the market-place is a rendezvous for countless followers of every pursuit. In one corner a knife-grinder from the Turkish villages plies a wheel and sharpens everything from a yataghan to a toothpick; near him squats a vender of sweets and drinks.... Another group surrounds a vender of tobacco; a third, the maker of pancakes; whilst, in their immediate vicinity, Bashibozouks and horse-dealers are wrangling over the price of a charger...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.