LETTER XXXII.
In my last letters I endeavoured to give you an account of the Turkish Government, Laws, and Constitution in general, so far as I was able to collect information on the subject. I will now proceed to a description of those particular parts of that vast Empire through which I had occasion to travel.
During my stay at Aleppo, I experienced much politeness and hospitality from the European gentry resident there, and particularly from Mr. ——-, at whose house I entirely resided; and as the Franks live on a very good footing with each other, the time passed so agreeably, that were it not for “that within,” I should have been happy enough—We rode out occasionally, sometimes hunting, sometimes merely for the ride sake. Sometimes with an intelligent native whom I got to walk with me, or with some of the Franks, I walked about the town, in order to amuse away the time and see what was going forward, notwithstanding the cry of “Frangi Cucu!” or “Cuckold Frank!” which frequently followed us for the length of a street. Sometimes we went of evenings to some of the outlets, where preparation was made for our reception by servants, previously dispatched for the purpose, and there regaled with coffee, wine, fruits, &c.
The first day we went on a party of the last mentioned kind, Mrs. ——- did us the honour to accompany us: the place appointed was in a range of beautiful rural gardens that lie along the side of a river; where the well cultivated earth teeming with a vast abundance of the best esculent plants, flowers, flowering shrubs and fruit-trees, afforded a most delicious regale to the senses; and the plane, the willow, the ash, the pomegranate, and a variety of other trees, clustered together in almost impervious thickets, yielded a delightful shady retreat from the piercing rays of the Sun. It was on this occasion that I got the first specimen of Turkish illiberality, which, as I was entirely unprepared for it, confounded me, and nearly deprived me of temper and of prudence. As we walked along, I observed several Turks addressing themselves to Mrs. ——- and me, who walked arm in arm, and speaking with a loudness of voice, contortion of countenance, and violence of gesticulation, attended with a clapping of hands, which, though I did not understand their language, I could plainly perceive carried the appearance of menace or insult. I was at a loss what to think of it: Mrs. ——- blushed, and seemed much hurt: Mr. ——- and the other gentlemen were silent, and betrayed not the least mark of emotion or resentment. At length, when we got from them, I asked what it meant? and was told, that it was all aimed at Mrs. ——-, or at least occasioned by her: that, bigoted to the customs of their own country, and utterly ignorant of those of any other, they were affected with great indignation at her dress, occasional derangement of her veil, and, above all, at the shameless and unpardonably wicked circumstance of a woman walking so openly and familiarly in the company of men. Talking of this affair afterwards with Mr. ——-, the lady’s husband, he assured me, that there was not an opprobrious and infamous epithet which the vulgar ingenuity of the brightest quean in Billingsgate could think of, that they had not huddled upon us. I was beyond measure astonished at the coolness with which he bore it, and said, that if I had understood what they had said, I should most certainly have been unable to restrain myself, and would have knocked one of them down as an example to the rest. Had you done so, returned he, you would certainly have repented it: for, if you escaped being stoned, or put to death upon the spot, the legal punishment for an infidel striking a true believer, you could not escape; and probably we, and all the Franks in the city, would suffer for it: it would at all events cause a dreadful convulsion in the place, and you would yourself fall a sacrifice to it.
Not long since I was conversing on this subject with a gentleman of my acquaintance, and mentioned it with some asperity, as arising from a spirit of bigotry peculiar to Mahomedans.—“My good Sir,” said he, “let me undeceive you! the very same would be done in most parts of Spain. I was one day,” continued he, “walking in a town in Spain, in company with the wife of a gentleman who resided there, who were both well known, and bore the most unexceptionable character. Seeing me however walking with her, the populace, as we passed, held up two fingers significantly, and cried to her, What a cuckold is your husband! and concluded with ‘Todas las Inglesas son putas,’ or, ‘All English women are ——s.’”[——s.’”] He added, “that he was even in Cadiz, where commercial intercourse renders them rather more liberal than in other parts of that country, frequently accosted by little children themselves, with ‘Crees in Dios?’ Do you believe in God? and sometimes forming a cross with the thumb of the right hand and the forefinger, ‘Crees en este? Crees en este? No! No! Ah Judio! Moro! Barbaro! Bruto! Protestante! Puerco! Voia al los Infernos!!’ In English—Do you believe in this? Do you believe in this? No! No! Ah Jew! Moor! Barbarian! Protestant! Hog! Go to Hell!!”
So much for human beneficence and charity, under the fostering auspices of religion!
The house of Mr. ——-, where I was so hospitably lodged, was a magnificent edifice, built in all the fullness of Eastern grandeur and luxury, and furnished with all the splendour and state of Turkey, united with the taste and opulence of Great Britain. It was indeed a house in which voluptuousness itself might sit down with satisfaction—The most unaffected hospitality and generous benevolence invited and spread the board, and politeness and affability presided over all. Never shall I forget it—never shall I think of it without gratitude and esteem.
A gentleman of the opulence and consequence of Mr. ——-, with a house such as I have described, and a disposition to social enjoyment, was not, you will conclude, without a resort of company and friends; in truth, he had friends even among the better sort of Turks. Parties of pleasure had no intermission while I was there; and as the ladies of Europe or of European extraction in that country are highly accomplished, speak many languages, are indefatigable in their efforts to please, and receive strangers from Europe with a joy and satisfaction not to be described, Aleppo would have been to me an Elysium, if the pleasures of the place did not from the beginning suffer diminution from my own painful sensations, which were aggravated at last by an incident that arose from my intercourse there—of which more hereafter.
While I remained at Aleppo, I walked, as I before told you, frequently about the streets; and I think I never was witness to so many broils in all my life put together, as I was in my wanderings there—Not a time I went out that I did not observe one, two, three, and sometimes half a dozen or more. They have nothing terrible in them however, and, were it not extremely disgusting to see men scold, would be very entertaining; for I will venture to say that a street battle “à la Turque” is one of the most ludicrous exhibitions in the world. The parties approach to each other, and retreat mutually, as the action of the one gives hopes to the other of victory, lifting their hands, and flourishing them in the air, as if ready to strike every moment, grinning and gnashing their teeth, while their beard and whiskers besprent with the spume of their mouths, and wagging with the quick motion of their lips and ghastly contortions of their jaws, present the most ridiculous spectacle imaginable. They reminded me at the time of a verse in an old English Ballad:—
’Tis merry in the hall,
When beards wag all.
Nothing, in fact, can exceed the extravagance of their gesture: the vehement loudness of their voice, or the whimsical distortions of their countenances, in which are displayed sometimes the quickest vicissitudes of fear and fury, and sometimes the most laughable combination of both. All this time, however, not a single blow is actually struck; but they compensate for the want of bodily prowess by the exercise of the tongue, denouncing vengeance against each other, threatening instant demolition, lavishing every bitter reproach, every filthy epithet, and every horrible imprecation that they can think of, and both boasting occasionally of their patience and forbearance, which fortunately enabled them to refrain from annihilating their adversary. At last the fray gradually decays: exhausted with fatigue, and half choaked with dust and vociferation, they retreat gradually backwards to their own doors; where summing up all their malignity into a most horrid execration, they part for the time, and retire to vaunt in empty threat, and growl away their rage, in the recesses of their Haram.
Yet those people are found terrible in battle by the Christian troops that have from time to time been opposed to them: here, if proof be wanting of the effects of Religion on the human mind, is an incontrovertible one of its powerful operations. Under the influence of their faith, which tells them that they go to Paradise instantly if killed in battle with Infidels, they perform prodigies of valour fighting against Christians; while, forbidden by that faith to imbrue their hands in the blood of a true believer, their passions have been gradually brought under the dominion of their religion, till that which at first was faith at last becomes habit, and the appropriate energy and courage of the man has sunk into the degrading and emasculant efforts of the woman.
The practice of fighting, or personal conflicts between individuals of the same society, seems to have been condemned by the universal consent of all religions. The Gentoos, as well as all the other sects of the various parts of the East through which I have travelled, give vent to their passion in nearly the same manner as the Turks. The Christians too are most strictly forbidden to strike one another by the great Author of their faith: but it is their good fortune, that they not only have the best religion in the world for their guidance, but that they are the only people in the world who claim exemption from the penalties of that religion, and think themselves wronged and their personal rights infringed, if they are refused the privilege of breaking through its rules whenever those rules are at variance with their convenience.
Be it your care, my dear child! to fortify your mind with the spirit of true religion and sound morality, and let your practice in life be ever guided by their precepts.