CHAPTER XIV.
Political Position of the Turks—Religion of the Osmanlis—Absence of Vice among the Lower Orders—Defect of Turkish Character—European Supineness—Policy of Russia—England and France—A Turkish Comment on England—The Government and the People—Common Virtue—Great Men—Turks of the Provinces—European Misconceptions.
The more I see of the Turks, the more I am led to regret their melancholy political position. Enabled, by the introductions which I had secured, to look more closely into their actual condition from the commencement of my sojourn among them, than falls to the lot of most travellers, I have been compelled from day to day to admit the justice of their indignation against those European powers, which, after deluding them with promises that they have failed to fulfil, and pledges that they have falsified, have reduced them to anchor their hopes, and to fasten their trust, upon a government whose interests can be served only by the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, and the subjugation of its liberties. Take them for all in all, there probably exist no people upon earth more worthy of national prosperity than the great mass of the Turkish population; nor better qualified, alike by nature and by social feeling, to earn it for themselves.
The Osmanli is unostentatiously religious. He makes the great principles of his belief the rule of his conduct, and refers every thing to a higher power than that of man. I am aware that it is the fashion to decry the creed of the Turk, and to place it almost on a level with paganism: but surely this is an error unworthy of the nineteenth century, and of the liberality of Englishmen. The practice of a religion which enforces the necessity of prayer and charity—which is tolerant of all opposing modes of worship—and which enjoins universal brotherhood, can scarcely be contemptible. And while the Christian, enlightened on the great truths that are hidden from the Mahomeddan, is compelled to pity the darkness of a faith which admits not the light of the Gospel, he must nevertheless admire the votary who, acting according to his ideas of duty, follows up the injunctions of his religion with a devout zeal, and an unwearied observance that influence all his social relations; and this is a merit which even their enemies have never, I believe, denied to the Turks.
From this great first principle emanates the philosophy both of feeling and action that distinguishes the Osmanli from the native of all other countries; and this philosophy renders him comparatively inaccessible to those petty, but myriad excitements of selfishness and political bigotry which keep the more active and ambitious spirit of European society for ever on the qui vive. I am by no means prepared to deny, that from this very quality arises the extreme intellectual and moral inertness which induces the Turks to rely more on extraneous assistance than on their own efforts, in all cases of emergency: I am merely endeavouring to prove that they possess within themselves the necessary elements of social order, and national prosperity.
The absence of all glaring vices, even among the lowest ranks of the community; save indeed such as they have inherited from their more civilized allies, and appropriated with the same awkwardness as they have done their costume, speaks volumes for the Turkish people. A Turk never games, never fights, never blasphemes; is guiltless of murder; is innocent of theft; and has yet to learn that poverty is a crime, or even a reproach; or that the rich man can shut his doors against the mendicant who asks to share his meal.
Were I desired to point out the most glaring defect of the Turkish character, I should unhesitatingly specify the want of sincerity and good faith. I am obliged to concede that the Turk is habitually false—that he sacrifices his truth to fine phrases, and to set terms—that he is profuse of promises, and magnificent in words. But it is nevertheless certain that he himself looks upon all these splendid pledges as mere compliment; and scarcely appears to reflect that a Frank may be induced to lend to them a more weighty meaning. I had not been long in the country ere I learnt to estimate all this hyperbole at its just value; and once having done so, I found reason to feel grateful for many unexpected and unsought courtesies. Profit by the first kindly impulses of a Turk, and you will be his debtor; but trust nothing to his memory, for he will fail you.
Let not individual bad faith, however, be too harshly blamed in a people who have suffered so severely as the Turks from the same vice, in their best and dearest interests; on the part, not only of individuals, but of nations—of those civilized and enlightened nations, to which they looked alike for precept and example; and which they have found wanting.
Naturally haughty and self-centered, the Osmanli placed his honour and his liberty in the hands of his European allies. They were pledged to preserve both—and it was not until the Banner of the Crescent was trailing in the dust; and a half-barbarous power bearding the Sultan in his very halls of state, that the unwelcome truth burst upon him that his trust had been misplaced. The discovery was made too late—made when he had no alternative—the supineness of the Turk was no match for the subtlety of the Russian; it was a combat unequal in all its bearings; and dangerous to the Osmanli in all its relations. The natural result followed: Turkey was bowed beneath a force too mighty for her to resist; the partial civilization of the North produced its effect on the comparative barbarism of the East; and the Turk, dazzled and deluded, bewildered by the speciousness of a policy that he could not fathom, and consequently did not suspect; abandoned by the European powers on whose assistance he had relied; and unable singly either to resist the covert threats, or to reject the proffered friendship of this voluntary ally, fell into the snare which had been laid for him, and betrayed his want of internal strength to his most dangerous enemy.
The policy of Russia has been as steady and consistent as it is ambitious. What a prophet was the Empress Catherine! How perfectly she foretold the fate of Turkey. While all the other nations have suffered their interest in the Ottoman Empire to evaporate in words, and have flaunted their oratory in the eye of day, Russia has never betrayed herself by studied phrases to the crowd; but like the giant in the fable, she has drawn on her seven-league boots, and strode silently over land and sea to her object. She has set all her engines to work; and they have wrought well. She has spared neither gold nor flattery. She has enlisted in her favour all the social feelings of the Turks. And the little presents of the Empress to the children of certain popular Pashas; and the embroidery said to have been wrought by her own Imperial hand, and sent to the ladies of their harems, are as efficacious in their way as the diamonds, the horses, and the carriages presented to the Sultan; or the pensions paid to half a dozen influential individuals of the court.
Alas for Turkey! Her relative position with her specious ally resembles that of a huge animal in the coil of a Boa Constrictor, which must be smoothed down gently and gradually, ere it can be safely gorged. Its fate is but protracted; the moment of ingurgitation will come at last; and when the serpent-folds are uncoiled, and the sated monster lies luxuriously down to digest its prey, those who have looked on, and pledged themselves to the impossibility of the feat, will find too late that it is not only perfectly practicable, but actually accomplished.
And yet France has her countless soldiery—and England her unrivalled navy—both eager to earn new glory. England and France, on whom the Osmanlis leaned with a perfect faith, and by both of whom they have been abandoned—Where is the chivalry of the one, and the philanthropy of the other?
A Turk of high rank and considerable abilities; who had an understanding to observe, and a heart to feel the position of his country, was one day conversing with me on her foreign political relations, when he exclaimed with a sudden burst of unaffected energy:—“France has failed us, it is true; but France has been at least comparatively honest in her supineness. She has never affected a wish to become the foster-mother of the world—But England—England, Madam, which has boasted of her universal philanthropy—which has knocked away the fetters of millions of the blacks—England, not contented while among her Nobles, in her House of Commons, and even at the very meetings of her lower classes, she was making a vaunt of her all-embracing love, and of her sympathy with the oppressed—not contented with seeing Poland weep tears of blood, and only cease to exist when the last nerves of her heart had been wrung asunder—Your own happy England; secure in her prosperity and in her power, is now standing tamely by, while the vast Ottoman Empire—the gorgeous East, which seems to have been made for glory and for greatness—is trampled by a power like Russia! She might have saved us—She might save us yet—Where is her gallant navy? Where are her floating fortresses? But, above all, where is the heart which has so many hands to work its will?—Is it the expence of a war from which she shrinks? Surely her policy is not so shallow; for she cannot require to be told how deeply her commercial interests must be compromised by the success of Russia.—But I will not pursue so painful a subject.—As individuals we respect the English; but their political character is lost in the East—we have no longer faith in England.”
These were not, at all events, the arguments of a “barbarian:” and the more closely and unprejudicedly that Europeans permit themselves to examine the Turkish character, the more they will find that justice has never yet been done to it; and that Turkey merits their support as fully by her moral attributes, as by her geographical position.
It is not by her Nobles, by her Ministers, nor by her Government, that she should be judged—Her court and her people are as distinct as though they were of two different nations. They have, however, one common virtue, which is carried to an extent that must be witnessed by the natives of the West, ere it can be understood. Every one who has visited Turkey will perceive at once that I allude to their unbounded hospitality. The table of the greatest man in Constantinople is open to the poorest, whenever he chooses to avail himself of it. As he salutes the master of the house on entering, he is received with the simple word Bouroum—You are welcome,—and he takes his place without further ceremony. In the villages the same beautiful principle remains unaltered; and it signifies not how little an individual may have to give, he always gives it cheerfully, and as a matter of course; without appearing conscious that he is exercising a virtue, practised scantily and reservedly in more civilized countries.
If a Turk wishes to shew a courtesy to his guest, or to a stranger with whom he may have accidentally come in contact, he does so in a manner which revolts the more refined ideas of a Frank; but which is nevertheless induced by this same feeling of brotherhood and fellowship. His chibouk is his greatest luxury; and when he is not engaged in an employment that renders the indulgence difficult or impossible, it is for ever between his lips: and his first act of friendliness is to withdraw it thence, and offer it to his companion.—He estimates its enjoyment, and he immediately wishes to communicate it. These are perhaps slight traits—details that appear unimportant—but human character is composed of details—fine shades, which however faint in themselves, are nevertheless necessary to the perfect effect of the whole. It is easy to seize a prominent object. Glaring vices and striking virtues force themselves upon the notice; and are consequently ever the ready subject of comment. And it is from this fact that the Turks have suffered in European estimation. They are singularly unobtrusive in their social relations: they do not seek to exhibit their moral attributes; and they practice daily those domestic virtues which grow out of the tolerance and kindliness of their nature without troubling themselves to consider whether they do so at moments when they may become subject of comment. Thus it is that they have never been supposed to feel, or feeling to encourage, those minute but multitudinous social courtesies, which, if each amount not in itself to a positive virtue, at least is part and parcel of one, and lends itself to the completion of an aggregate that well deserves the name.
Those who have only made an acquaintance with the Turkish character in the persons of the great men of the Capital, have not possessed the means of witnessing the daily practice of these endearing qualities. It is not among the haughty, the selfish, and the ambitious of any nation, that the bland and beautiful features of human nature can be contemplated. Nothing atrophises the heart like luxury—nothing deadens the feelings like the strife and struggle for power:—and in the East, where a man’s fortune is ever built up upon the ruin of his neighbour, and where he springs into his seat with his foot upon the neck of a worsted rival, it were worse than folly to expect that the social virtues can be encouraged and exhibited among the great. But the Turk of the provinces is a being of a different order: a creature of calm temperament, and philosophic content; who labours in his vocation with a placid brow and a quiet heart; who honours his mother, protects his wife, and idolizes his children; is just in his dealings, sober in his habits, and unpretendingly pious; and whose board and hearth are alike free to those who desire to share them.
Such, if I have read them aright, (and, above all, if I may rely on the judgment of unbiassed and impartial individuals, more competent than myself to form a correct estimate of their general character) are the great mass of the Turkish people. Their defective government is the incubus that weighs them down; while the luxurious habits of their nobles induce extortion which withers their exertions, and in a great degree negatives the benefit of their industry. But these are evils which are not beyond remedy; “the schoolmaster” who has been so long abroad in Europe, has already given hints of travelling to the far East; and there are now several individuals connected with the Ottoman Government who comprehend the vice of the system, and are anxious to eradicate the mischief. The outcry of corruption and venality has been raised, and the correctness of the implication has been admitted; while few have discovered that attempts are already making to overcome the long-standing reproach; and all must acknowledge that this Sisyphus-like task will require time and patience, and moreover opportunity and encouragement, to secure its completion.
It is not, I repeat, by the members of a government, driven to unworthy acts on the one hand, and deceived by smiling sophistries on the other, that the people of Turkey should be estimated; and it is comparatively unfortunate for them as a nation, that it is precisely upon these persons that the attention is first fixed. The natural consequence ensues, that, where Europeans, rather glancing at the country than seeing it, possess neither time, opportunity, nor it may be even inclination, to look deeper; they carry away with them an erroneous impression of the mass, as unjust as it is unfortunate; an impression which they propagate at home, and in which they become strengthened by the very repetition of their own assertions; nor is it difficult to account in this way for the very erroneous, contradictory, and absurd notions, entertained in Europe on the subject of the Turks. Individuals have been cited as examples of a body, with which they probably possessed not one common feature, save that of country; and the vices that were seared into the spirit of one degenerate Osmanli have, by the heedless chroniclers who may have suffered from his delinquencies, been branded on the brow of a whole nation; as though the stream which had polluted itself for an instant by its passage over some impure substance, had power to taint the source from whence it flowed.