Fireworks displays at Okmeydanı at the end of the first day

 

30a

 

29b

The sultan, accompanied by his chief black eunuch at his right and by two of his sons at his left, appears seated near the right edge of (29b) along with a double row of pages. The firework that they are watching is known as a çadır fişeği, a "tent-cartridge". The red-garbed figure standing before them is a Bostanji sergeant. In the lower right corner, three doormen stand outside the drapery screen and a sacker is headed determinedly to the left, oblivious to what is going on. The grand vizier is watching the show, seated at the left.

In (30a) we see a fıskiye ("fountain") firework at the right and five havan ("mortar") fireworks in the center foreground, one of which is in the process of being ignited. A Catherine wheel is spinning just right of center. A line of janissaries (white caps) and bostanjis (red caps) prevents the ordinary folk (shown in the upper left corner) from encroaching upon the field. In the background are the two floating ships that we saw in (10b). Three sackers are scurrying around and one of them, at the upper right, seems to be giving two bostanjis a hard time.

There are a number of discrepancies between this scene and Vehbi’s account. For example according to Vehbi, the sultan was not present at this show, having decided to spend the evening at the Ayanalıkavak mansion because strong winds blew up in the afternoon and so he left the festival ground early:

Just when the thunderbolts of the cannons spewed sparks like lightning and roared like thunder to announce that it was now mid afternoon, a fierce wind blew up and as this made His Majesty the Sultan, whose rosebush stature swayed like a lotus-tree ensconced on an inaccessible pinnacle of glory like a bird of paradise that builds its nest on the summits, inclined to proceed towards the Arsenal gardens. Thinking that the days’ events were sufficient, he therefore expressed a desire to return to his own abode and thus the source of light that illuminates the hearth of royal power withdrew into the secluded felicity of his mirrored palace.

Instead, İbrahim Pasha presided over the evening’s fireworks as the sultan’s deputy:

At night, when the tents of darkness were brilliant by the illuminating torch of the moon, His Excellency the Grand Vizier, who glorifies the office of grand vizier with his existence as a gleaming candle sheds light on a party, graced the assembly like an amulet wrapped in oilskin in his capacity as the sultan’s deputy. In the interval between the evening and night prayer-times, a firework was set off that rose over the festival-ground like a tent with cords of gold and whose bright sunbursts resembled bubbles over a sea of light. A firework called a "fountain-rocket" was released that resembled a fiery furnace that engulfed everything with its flood of spouted flames and showered sparks resembling the tousled yellow locks of fairy-faced beauties. A rapidly-spinning Catherine wheel shot out sparks in every direction for half an hour and from within each discharge countless celestial rockets took wing to the heavens like arrows shot into the air.

By the author

Like an arrow shot into the air, the sky-rocket was thrown up to the sky. Its fiery tip became bright stars.

A mortar-rocket blazed like a threshing-floor accidentally set afire pouring forth such an abundance of radiant gleanings that words fail to express it.

Furthermore, events did not proceed quite according to plan:

Meanwhile, a tent-rocket that had been invented by Ankad Agha, one of the domestic aghas of the grand vizier, had been set up to be shot off in the sultan’s presence. But as the brilliant moonlight of the sultan’s face remained hidden behind the cloud of seclusion that evening, it was decided that it should be dismantled and placed in its store-chest for use the following night. But instead, the firework was mistakenly ignited, though no order for this had been given. To be sure it created quite a sensation but this rocket’s untimely thunder also puts me to the trouble of having to relate not only the excitement it caused but its evil consequences as well.

The fire of the grand vizier’s rage flared and for good reason. It was not only the loss of a product of skillful endeavor as a result of the prideful commission of an action that had not been commanded or the causing of a loss by such presumptuous impetuosity: scores of fireworks set up on their frames had been stored beneath the wooden platform that had been prepared for the apparatus of the flying galleons (which were a new invention built at the Arsenal) awaiting the order to set them off. A hurtling rocket touched them and they all caught fire at once transforming the platform into a flaming brazier or perhaps the stokehole of a bathhouse’s fiery furnace. So many combustibles that had been produced with so much labor disappeared in a flash and, in addition, a large number of people who had been on the platform were greatly alarmed, having come to resemble fire-dwelling salamanders, while others, like a dove trapped helplessly in smoke, fell into the flames. Save us from the torment of that fire. Yet despite all the thunder and lightning and the pandemonium that was caused when it seemed as if the earth had been turned into a fireball and scattered blazing sparks as numerous as the stars all round, no one suffered any loss of property or life and no one was wounded. Indeed the incident caused as much excitement and enjoyment as it did fear and panic and caused the spectators to engage in a merry demonstration that lasted for an hour. In keeping with the dictum that "distance lends enchantment", those who were seated around the field so ignited the torch of amusement that expressing it would detonate the powder-keg of the mind making the attempt. Nevertheless since the sultan was not observing these evening festivities, the festival torches were extinguished after the night prayers, even though the night was still young, and this much sufficed for the first day.

Notes

1. Mirrored palace: A circumlocution for the Aynalıkavak (“Mirrored Poplar”) palace, whose ornate mirrors, which had been presented to Ahmed III as gifts by the Venetians upon the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, were reputedly "as tall as poplars".

2. Amulet wrapped in an oilskin: Amulets (frequently charms written on parchment) that were worn on the body were wrapped in oilskin to protect them from sweat, etc.

3. Save us from the torment of that fire: Qur'an 2:201.

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