CHAPTER X.
Yenekeui—The Festival of Fire—Commemorative Observance—Fondness of the Orientals for Illumination—Frequency of Fires in Constantinople—Dangerous Customs—Fire Guard—The Seraskier’s Tower—Disagreeable Alarum—Namik Pasha—The Festival Localized—Veronica—Bonfires—Therapia and Buyukdèrè—Singular Effect of Light—The Armenian Heroine—A Wild Dream.
Shortly after our return from Broussa, we took possession of a house which we had rented for the summer at Yenekeui, and we had only been established there a few days when we had an opportunity of witnessing one of the most ancient of the Greek commemorative usages,—the “Festival of Fire”—instituted in memory of the second capture of Constantinople by the Cæsars.
Some years ago the Greek quarter of the city was illuminated on this anniversary, as well as the villages occupied principally by their nation: but the Turks no longer permit this demonstration of rejoicing, as well from jealousy of its subject, as from the danger attendant on all such manifestations in a city where fires are so frequent, and the nature of the buildings so unfortunately calculated to encourage the evil.
For my own part, after having passed a few nights in Constantinople, both in Turkish and Greek houses, I was only surprised that the frightful conflagrations which so frequently occur do not take place every week instead of ten or twelve times a-year. Like the husbandman who plants his vines, and sows his grain at the base of a volcano, apparently unconscious or careless that the next eruption may lay waste his lands, and negative his labour, the inhabitants of Stamboul appear never to reflect that fire is one of their deadliest enemies, but wander over their wooden dwellings with their lighted chibouks, or their unsnuffed candles; as heedlessly as though both were innoxious: while their attendants traverse carpeted and curtained apartments, carrying fragments of live coal between their iron pincers to supply the pipes.
Nor is this all. The Tandour is a fire-conductor of the first class: the wooden frame that covers the charcoal ashes is frequently very slight, and the silken draperies which veil it are generally lined with cotton, and not infrequently wadded with the same inflammable material. The effect of the Tandour is highly soporific; and it consequently occurs that persons who fall asleep under its influence, by some sudden movement overturn the frame-work, when their own clothes as well as the coverings of the Tandour come in contact with the hidden fire: the chintz-covered sofas are ready to feed the flame, and the natural consequence ensues.
Still more dangerous is the system of drying linen during the winter, which is universal throughout the city. A frame, formed of wooden laths, about three feet high, and shaped like a beehive, is placed above a small brazier, filled with heated charcoal; and the linen is flung over this frame, one garment above another, where it gradually dries. But should the laundress omit to remove the lower portions of it directly that they are free from damp, they ignite, and the whole becomes one burning mass.
That in a country where fires are so frequent, such reckless usages should be persisted in by individuals, or permitted by the authorities, appears incredible; while they account if not satisfactorily, at least fully, for the constant recurrence of the evil. Nor can you, even should you desire to do so, remain in ignorance of the calamity whenever it occurs; for you are constantly awakened in the night by the heavy strokes of an iron-pointed pike upon the rough pavement of the streets, and you hear the deep voice of the fire-guard announce the quarter where the flames have broken out.
As there is a regular sentinel, relieved every second hour, on the look-out for fires in the upper gallery of the Seraskier’s Tower, which is like a glass lantern, having windows on all sides; every conflagration, however unimportant, is instantly announced by the patroles appointed to the different quarters of the city; and thus a week rarely passes in which you are not startled by the boding cry of the guard—“Fire at Scutari—a—” “Fire at Galata—a”—Up go all the windows of the neighbourhood; and, when the locality of the accident is ascertained, those who have property or connexions in the quarter hasten to the scene of action: while those who have no individual interest in the misfortune, close their casements, and creep back to bed, rejoicing that they have escaped for the present the dreaded catastrophe.
All the Pashas resident in the Capital or its immediate neighbourhood are obliged to attend every fire that occurs, and to assist in its extinction; so that they frequently have a very busy time of it; and Namik Pasha—the fêted and favoured Namik Pasha—probably from personal experience of the dangers attendant on the employment, has, since his return to Turkey, cited, as his two most admirable memories of England, her Pantomimes and her Fire-men!
The Greek “Festival of Fire” has now, in consequence of the prohibition to which I have alluded, become local in its celebration: and the villages of Buyukdèrè, Therapia, and Yenekeui, have the exclusive honour of commemorating the conquest of the Cæsars.
We embarked on board our caïque at dusk, and having with some difficulty made our way through the floating crowd that thronged the stream, we landed, and proceeded to the house of Veronica, the heroine of Mac Farlane’s Novel of the “Armenians.” From the windows, which commanded the little bay where the rejoicings were to take place, we had a full view of the whole ceremony, and a most extraordinary exhibition it was.
Two artificial islands had been formed in the bay, and heaped with dried wood, and other inflammable materials, and on that which was furthest from the shore, the pile was surmounted by a caïque: another line of fires was prepared for a considerable distance along the coast; and in every direction men were flitting about with paper lanterns, conducting the different parties of visiters from their boats to the residences of their friends. Therapia was concealed behind a point of land; but Buyukdèrè was visible in the distance, like a line of fire hemming in the glittering waters which reflected afar off the unusual brilliancy. The flames, as they rose and fell, flashed and faded upon the casements of the houses that skirted the shore, with an effect quite magical: while the sombre coast of Asia, without one glimmering light to relieve its stately outline, cut in dusky magnificence along the cloudless sky.
At a sudden signal the fires were ignited: and the condemned caïque was soon one graceful mass of flame. But the most extraordinary portion of the spectacle was the crowd of men, dressed only in wide cotton drawers, their partially shaven heads bare, and their arms tossed high in the air, who were wading up to their necks in the sea, and feeding the fires with shrieks and yells worthy of a chorus of demons. At intervals, they all rushed out of the water, and sprang across the flames of the huge fires which were burning along the coast, looking like infernal spirits celebrating their unholy orgies; and then, plunging once more into the stream, they danced round the lesser island in a circle, to the wild chanting of the spectators on the shore.
The effect of the whole scene was thrilling. The bright-barrelled firelock of the Turkish sentinel, who was posted at the battery above the village, flashed as he trod his beat, in the fierce light which fell upon it. The line of heights behind the houses was covered with spectators: the women seated on mats and cushions, and the men standing in groups among them, all as distinctly visible as beneath a noon-day sun; while, in the opposite direction, the ripple of the Bosphorus ran shimmering along like liquid gold, and the caïques, wedged together as closely as though they had been one compact body, gleamed out gaily with their crimson rugs and gilded ornaments.
The same wild sports continued for two hours, gradually decreasing in violence, as the fatigue of the fierce and unremitted exertions of the actors made itself felt; when the Wallachian band, and an immense fire kindled beneath the windows of the house in which we were passing the evening, and which was formed of wicker baskets wedged one within the other, with a tall tree planted in the midst, that produced a very singular effect, gradually withdrew the crowd from the expiring glories of the coast; and as the last note of the Sultan’s March died away, the throng dispersed, and we were left to the undisturbed society of our friends.
Veronica could never have been handsome; the expression of her countenance is sweet and agreeable, but her features are neither regular nor fine; nor does she possess the low soft voice which is so great a charm in the Turkish women, and to which the coarse language of the Armenian nation does not lend itself. She is rather under the middle size, calm in her manner, and graceful in her carriage; and her sable dress and melancholy history invest her with an interest that mere beauty would fail to excite. As I conversed with the widowed wife, and saw her shrink beneath the night air like a withered flower, and fold her furred pelisse closer about her with her thin wasted hand, I could have wept over her faded youth and blighted feelings. It is painfully evident that the memory of her error and of her wrongs sits heavily upon her, and that it is a poisoned chain whose fetters can be flung off only in the grave. Even Time, the great physician of all moral ills, has no power over a grief like her’s.
Before we returned home, we rowed slowly towards Therapia; which, etched in fire, and loud with music, threw its bright shadow far along the waves. Caïques glided past us every instant with lights at their stern, whence the sounds of laughter or of song swept cheerily over the ripple; and more than once we narrowly escaped collision with a mirth-laden bark, whose conductors were pressing forward in all the heedless eagerness of hilarity.
It was near midnight ere we withdrew from the busy scene: and when I fell asleep, I dreamt that Veronica was the wife of one of the Cæsars; and that a young and dark-eyed Greek prince was leaping over the burning city of Constantinople, while a portly Armenian, who had been of the evening party, was filling his unwieldy calpac with water, as he stood breast-high in the Bosphorus, and handing it to a set of wild Indians who were howling and dancing amid the flames.
Truly my sleeping visions produced a second “Festival of Fire.”