CHAPTER XXIV.
The Fèz Manufactory—Singular Scene—A Turk at Prayers—Pretty Girls—Progress of Turkish Industry—Mustapha Effendi—Process of Manufactures—Omer Effendi and the Arabs—Avanis Aga, the Armenian—The Fraud Discovered—The Imperial Apartments— Departure for the Seraï-Bournou—The Outer Court—The Orta Kapoussi—The Pestle and Mortar of the Ulémas—The Garden of Delight—The Column of Theodosius—Arrival of the Sultan—Ancient Greek Inscriptions—Confused Inscription—The Diamond—Memories of Sultan Selim.
No traveller should leave Constantinople without paying a visit to the Fèz Manufactory of Eyoub, where all the caps for the Sultan’s armies are now made. The building, which is entirely modern, and admirably adapted to its purpose, stands in the port, near the palace of Azmè Sultane, on the site of an ancient Imperial residence. It is under the control of Omer Lufti Effendi, late Governor of Smyrna, a man of known probity and talent:[10] and its immediate superintendence has been intrusted to Mustapha Effendi; whose ready courtesy to strangers enables European travellers to form an accurate idea of the state and progress of the establishment.
After a delightful row from Galata, we landed at the celebrated pier of Eyoub; and, accompanied by a personal friend of Mustapha Effendi, proceeded to the manufactory, which we entered by the women’s door. As we passed the threshold a most curious scene presented itself. About five hundred females were collected together in a vast hall, awaiting the delivery of the wool which they were to knit; and a more extraordinary group could not perhaps be found in the world.
There was the Turkess with her yashmac folded closely over her face, and her dark feridjhe falling to the pavement: the Greek woman, with her large turban, and braided hair, covered loosely with a scarf of white muslin, her gay-coloured dress, and large shawl: the Armenian, with her dark bright eyes flashing from under the jealous screen of her carefully-arranged veil, and her red slipper peeping out under the long wrapping cloak: the Jewess, muffled in a coarse linen cloth, and standing a little apart, as though she feared to offend by more immediate contact; and among the crowd some of the loveliest girls imaginable.
At the moment of our arrival, Mustapha Effendi was at prayers; and we accordingly seated ourselves to await him in an inner apartment, well-carpeted, and occupied by half a dozen clerks, who were busily employed in recording the quantity of wool delivered to each applicant: their seats were divided from the women’s hall by a partition about breast-high; and I remarked that the prettiest girls were always those whose accounts were the most tedious.
On the other side of this spacious office was a wool-store, where a score of individuals were busily employed in weighing and delivering out the wool; and all were so active, and so earnest in their occupation, that the most sceptical European would have been compelled to admit, when looking on them, that the Turk is no longer the supine and spiritless individual which he has been so long considered.
Immediately that his prayer was completed, Mustapha Effendi invited us to pass into his private room; a pleasant apartment opening to the water, and most luxuriously cushioned. Here coffee and chibouks were served; after which a couple of the knitters were introduced, in order that we might see the different qualities of wool, necessary to the manufacture of the various kinds of fèz.
During their performance, Mustapha Effendi asked many questions relatively to Europe; and particularly how the English government were now disposed towards the Turks; and expressed his curiosity to learn the impression which the present state of the people had made upon ourselves. He appeared to have been piqued by some American travellers who had visited the establishment; for at the close of the conversation he said earnestly; “Europe begins to know us better; and the Franks to judge us more honestly—Inshallàh—I trust in God, that the day will yet come when we shall be able to convince even the Americans, that we are not wild beasts anxious to devour them.”
When we had passed an hour with the Superintendent, we proceeded to inspect the establishment, which is on a very extensive scale, three thousand workmen being constantly employed. The workshops are spacious, airy, and well-conducted; the wool, having been spread over a stone-paved room on the ground-floor, where it undergoes saturation with oil, is weighed out to the carders, and thence passes into the hands of the spinners, where it is worked into threads of greater or less size, according to the quality of fèz for which it is to be made available. The women then receive it in balls, each containing the quantity necessary for a cap; and these they take home by half a dozen or a dozen at a time, to their own houses, and on restoring them receive a shilling for each of the coarse; and seventeen pence for each of the fine ones.
The next process is the most inconvenient, although perhaps the most simple of the whole. As soon as spun, the caps are washed with cold water and soap; but, there being no rush of water sufficiently strong in the immediate vicinity of the capital, they are obliged to be sent to Smit, distant about ten leagues, where they are scoured and dried, and ultimately returned to Eyoub, in order to be completed. Each fèz then undergoes three different operations of clipping and pressing; and at the termination of the third has no longer the slightest appearance of knitted wool, but all the effect of a fine close cloth. The next process is that of dyeing the cap a rich deep crimson; and herein existed a difficulty which has been but lately overcome, and of which I shall give an account when I have sketched the whole routine of the manufacture.
Having been immersed during several hours in large coppers constantly stirred, and kept upon the boil, the caps are flung into a marble trough filled with running water, where they are trodden by a couple of men; and afterwards given to the blockers, who stretch them over earthen moulds to enable them to take a good shape. They are subsequently removed to the drying-room, where they are kept in a perpetual current of air until all the damp is removed; and thence delivered up to the head workmen, who raise the nap of the wool with the head of the bullrush, and then clip it away with huge shears; precisely as cloth is dressed in England. Pressing follows, and the fèz is ultimately carried to the marker, who works into the crown the private cypher of the manufacture, and affixes the short cord of crimson which is to secure the flock or tassel of purple silk, with its whimsical appendage of cut paper. The last operation is that of sewing on the tassels: and packing the caps into parcels containing half a dozen each, stamped with the Imperial seal.
The whole process is admirably conducted. The several branches of the establishment are perfectly distinct; and the greatest industry appears to prevail in every department. The manufactory was suggested and founded by Omer Lufti Effendi, in consequence of the extremely high price paid by the Sultan to the Tunisians, with whom this fabric originated, for the head-dress of his troops. Having induced a party of Arabian workmen from Tunis to accompany him to Constantinople, he established them in the old palace, which has since been replaced by the present noble building; and under their direction the knitting and shaping of the caps acquired some degree of perfection.
But the dye was a secret beyond their art; and the Turkish government, anxious to second the views of the energetic Omer Effendi, made a second importation of Tunisians with no better success, although they were chosen from among the most efficient workmen of their country. The caps, while they were equal both in form and texture to those of Tunis, were dingy and ill-coloured; and the Arabs declared that the failure of the dye was owing to the water in and about Constantinople, which was unfavourable to the drugs employed.
As a last hope, a trial was made at Smit, but with the same result; and the attempt to localise the manufacture was about to be abandoned, when Omer Effendi, suspecting the good faith of the Arabian workmen, disguised a clever Angorian Armenian, named Avanis Aga, as a Turk, whom he placed as a labourer in the dye-room. Being a good chemist and a shrewd observer, Avanis Aga, affecting a stupidity that removed all suspicion, soon made himself master of the secret which it so much imported his anxious patron to learn; and, abandoning the ignoble besom that he had wielded as the attendant of the Tunisian dyers, immediately that he discovered the fraud which, either in obedience to the secret orders of their Regent, or from an excess of patriotism, they had been practising ever since their arrival; he set himself to work in secret; and, with the water of Smit, dyed two caps, which, having dried, he presented to Omer Effendi, who was unable to distinguish them from those of Tunis.
Delighted at the successful issue of his experiment, Omer Effendi summoned the Arabs to his presence, and shewed them the fèz; when, instantly suspecting the masquerade that had betrayed them, they simultaneously turned towards the Armenian, and, throwing their turbans on the ground, and tearing their hair, they cried out: “Yaccoup! Yaccoup!” (Jacob! Jacob!)
The Superintendent having dismissed them, after causing them to be liberally remunerated for the time which they had spent at Constantinople, sent them back to Tunis; while Avanis Aga, elected Head Dyer of the Imperial Manufactory of Eyoub, now enjoys the high honour of deciding on the exact tint to be worn by Mahmoud the Powerful, the “Light of the Sun,” and “Shadow of the Universe.”
Fifteen thousand caps a month are produced at the fabric of Eyoub; and they are said to equal those of Tunis. The finest Russian and Spanish wools are employed, and no expense is spared in order to render them worthy of the distinguished patronage with which the Sultan has honoured them. The Imperial apartments at the manufactory are elegantly fitted up, and sufficiently spacious to accommodate a numerous suite; and, as the building faces the Arsenal, His Highness is a frequent visitor to the establishment of Omer Effendi, where he sometimes passes several consecutive hours.
When we had made the tour of the manufactory, we returned to the apartment of Mustapha Effendi, where we partook of coffee and sherbet; and after expressing the sincere gratification we had experienced in our survey, we took our leave; and once more nestling ourselves into the bottom of our caïque, we darted off to the Seraï Bournou, where an officer of the Sultan’s household was waiting to admit us, en cachette; the prevalence of plague having added to the jealousy with which His Highness ever forbids the ingress of strangers within its walls.
The first court of this celebrated seraglio does not convey any idea of regality to the visitor. It is rather an excrescence than an appendage to the Palace: containing on the right hand the infirmaries, the bakehouses, and the wood-stores; and on the left, the Greek church of St. Irene, now converted into an arsenal. On a line with this desecrated temple is the Mint, in which are lodged the Taraf-hanè, or Inspector, and the Chehir Encine, or Superintendent, of the Public Buildings.
Passing along beside a high wall, we arrived at the Orta Kapoussi, or Middle Gate, which is flanked by two towers forming a saillie; and close beside it the Dgillat Odossi, or Executioner’s Room, was pointed out to us, where the Viziers who are condemned to death or exile are generally arrested: hence the expression, “arrested between the two doors.”
Above the gateway is a line of spikes, on which the forfeited heads were exposed, to blacken in the sunshine. And here used formerly to be exhibited the pestle and mortar with which the Muftis and Ulemas were destroyed. Having themselves framed the laws by which the country was to be governed, and fearing to suffer sooner or later by their own agency, these “second Daniels” decided that their own body could not legally suffer death either by the bowstring, the sword, the bullet, water, or famine: thus destroying, as they believed, all power over their lives. But there were other spirits awake as wily as their own; and the pestle and mortar of the Orta Kapoussi were adopted, in which the unhappy wretches, taken in their own toils, were literally pounded to death! Whether these extraordinary and revolting instruments of torture are still in existence, I know not; but it is certain that they are no longer exhibited as objects of curiosity.
Within the middle gate commences the splendour of the Seraï. Elaborate gilding and curious arabesques are profusely lavished on its inner side; whence an avenue of beeches leads to the third door, opening into the kiosk-crowded “Garden of Delight,” wherein former Sultans were wont to receive the European Ambassadors.
Beyond the vast and golden-latticed building formerly appropriated to this purpose, the eye is bewildered by the confusion of many shaped and glittering pavilions scattered about on all sides; and I, unfortunately, had not time to examine them at my leisure; as I was requested previously to my survey to visit one of the officers of the household, who possessed the power of introducing me into the harem. Thither we accordingly went; and found the courteous Effendi smoking his chibouk in a sort of garden parlour, overlooking the enclosure in which stands the Column of Theodosius.
COLUMN OF THEODOSIUS.
As soon as we were seated, I requested permission to sketch this interesting monument, which he at first refused from a dread of being compromised by my entrance into the Seraï, but after a little reluctance he complied, and I hastily availed myself of his politeness. Well was it for me that I did so, for I had scarcely replaced my pencils, when an attendant, breathless with haste, entered the room, exclaiming, “Hide the lady! Hide the Franks!—The Sultan has just arrived in the second court!”
All was instantly confusion. We made a hasty retreat by another gate; and, passing along to the water’s edge, traced upon the mouldering walls several inscriptions in ancient Greek. One ran thus: “Theodosius, King by the grace of Christ;” another; “The Illustrious Theodosius, the great King by the Grace of Christ;” while numberless crosses and half-obliterated sentences still remain, which are beyond solution.
Altogether I brought away from the Seraï Bournou, a mere confused impression of gilding and splendour; of domes, and kiosks, and gardens; of lofty walls and gleaming lattices. On passing under what is called the Gate of Constantine, the spot was pointed out to me on which a boy, being a few months ago engaged in play with a party of children of his own age, had dug up a brilliant, weighing between twenty eight and thirty carats; since which period that narrow passage has also been closed against the public. As our caïque darted past the golden gate of the Imperial harem, I lost myself in reveries of all the guilt, and suffering, and despair, which had made the celebrated Palace of the Point the theme of story, and an object of undying interest to the curious. I seemed to see the quivering body of the unfortunate Selim—the Sardanapalus of the East—flung from the walls in mockery; and to hear the taunt of his murderers as they cast him forth—“Traitors and Rebels! there is your Sultan—Do with him as you will!”
This was the most recent tragedy of the Seraï Bournou, and perhaps one of the saddest; and, as I glanced around me, and remembered how many of his works had outlived him, I forgot my own disappointment in commiserating the fate of a Sovereign, who, sensual and supine though he was, yet possessed qualities both of the heart and the head, which should have arrested the weapons of his assassins, and secured to him the affections of his adherents.