CHAPTER XXVI.
Hospitality of the Armenians—An Impromptu Visit—The Bride—Costly Costume—Turkish Taste—Kind Reception—Domestic Etiquette of the Schismatic Armenians—Armenian Sarafs—The National Characteristics.
I cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of the hospitable feeling of the Armenians, than by relating a little adventure which happened to a friend and myself, a few weeks previously to my departure from the East.
We left home with the intention of paying a visit to the amiable sisters of Tingler-Oglou, at their residence on the Bosphorus; and, after a short walk, rang at a great gate which we imagined to be that of their grounds. The summons was immediately answered; and a lovely girl of about sixteen having followed the servant to the gate to ascertain the identity of the visitors, replied to our inquiry for the ladies we sought, by an invitation to enter. Supposing, from the extreme splendour of her dress, and the perfect ease of her manner, that she was some relative of the family whom we had not hitherto met, we at once obeyed her bidding, and found ourselves on a terrace overshadowed by lime trees, on which a party of ladies, entirely unknown to us, were whiling away the time, surrounded by a crowd of attendants.
Both the place and the persons being strange, we drew back, and apologised for our unintentional intrusion on the privacy of the family; when an elderly female, evidently the mistress of the house, motioned us to seat ourselves on the cushions beside her, telling us that she had been long desirous of making our acquaintance, and was rejoiced that her daughter-in-law had possessed wit enough to profit by the opportunity afforded by our mistake. Of course we availed ourselves of the courtesy; and the more readily as we immediately discovered that we were in the grounds of a wealthy Saraf, who was the neighbour of Tingler-Oglou; and who had lately built the magnificent mansion which lay below the terrace on the edge of the channel; and married the beautiful girl who stood beside us, smiling at the success of her harmless deceit.
She was the bride of a week; and, as I had never before had an opportunity of seeing the costume of a newly-married Armenian female, I looked at her with considerable curiosity. Her hair, which was perfectly black, and extremely luxuriant, hung in a number of glossy braids upon her shoulders, being bound back from her brow by a handkerchief of gold gauze, deeply fringed, and thickly covered with diamonds.
Between her eyebrows was affixed an ornament composed of small brilliants, and forming the word “bride” in Armenian characters. Her chemisette was of blue crape, fringed with silver; and her antery of Broussa silk, worked and edged with gold, bound about her waist with a costly cachemire. She wore trowsers of figured silk, of a pale blue; thread stockings, and slippers of pink kid. Her rings and bracelets were a little fortune in themselves; and, had she known how to adjust her costume with the intuitive taste of a Turkish woman, she would have been beautiful; but the Armenian lady is as inferior in elegance to the fair Osmanli, as the Perote to the European. They wear the same description of dress, and employ the same materials, but they may, nevertheless, be distinguished at a glance, from the mere manner of its adjustment. The one is almost a caricature of the other. I remained long enough in the East to think the yashmac the most coquettish and becoming of all head-dresses; but to be either the one or the other it must be arranged by the fair fingers of a gentle Turk; for when put on as the Armenians wear it, it is the greatest disfigurement in the world. The same may be said of the whole of their costume. The inmate of the Turkish harem is as willow-like and graceful as a swan—the Armenian lady, on the contrary, overloads herself with shawls and finery; and is, consequently, fettered in her movements.
Nothing could be more courteous than our reception by the family with which we had become so unexpectedly acquainted. The most delicate sweetmeats and the finest Mocha coffee were served to us by the fair hands of the bride herself, which were deeply stained with henna; and, as I have before remarked, blazing with jewels.
When the refreshments were removed, we made a tour of the grounds; and were laden by our new friends with tuberoses, orange-blossom, and green lemons. There was not a courtesy that they did not shew us; not a flattering epithet which they did not lavish on us; and, as they led us by the hand from terrace to terrace, they pointed out with intuitive taste every fine point of view as it opened upon them—lingered beneath each little garden pavilion wreathed with parasites, where the passion-flower blossomed beside the creeping rose, and the violet nestled at the root of the tiger lily—playfully sprinkled us with the limpid waters of each sparkling fountain, whose marble basin looked like a glistening lotus in the sunshine—seated us in the painted kiosks which overhung the water—and selected for us the most tempting produce of the orangeries.
When we at length reluctantly took our leave, the pretty bride kissed our hands with a graceful humility, perfectly charming; and we were followed to the gate by entreaties that we would renew our visit. To these I replied by an invitation which was instantly accepted; and on the morrow my room was a blaze of jewels and gold embroidery.
The etiquette of a Schismatic Armenian family is infinitely more rigid than that observed by the Turks. With the latter, the daughter or daughter-in-law, when in the harem, can seat herself unbidden; although not, indeed, where she pleases, for her proper place is assigned to her, and she is not permitted to intrude into those of her elders. But the young Armenian wife, who may have brought to her husband the dowry of a million of piastres, and the fair girl who is the heiress of her father’s house, must remain meekly standing, with folded hands and patient brow, until the lady-mother gives the gracious signal which authorises her to occupy a corner of the sofa or the cushion.
The Armenian Catholics do not enforce so rigorously this domestic slavery, although they also are fettered by a thousand inconvenient and inconsequent observances. It is the Schismatics who cling jealously to all the absurd ceremonials which render their existence as uncomfortable as they can contrive to make it. The eldest son can smoke before his father, it is true; but the chibouk is placed in such a position as to be invisible to the chief of the family, the smoker being obliged to turn his head backward to press the amber mouthpiece; and, moreover, to select for this fleeting enjoyment the brief moments when the eyes of his parent are averted.
The younger sons dare not produce a chibouk, nor even utter an opinion before either of these august personages—The mother alone, among the females of the family, has the privilege of occupying a place on the sofa, and appropriating a share of the conversation: the younger ladies only appear before their male relatives when they are summoned, or compelled to intrude in the performance of some household duty. On all other occasions they inhabit the harem, which is usually a noble apartment most luxuriously fitted up, where they knit, embroider, or idle, as best suits their inclination. Like the Turkish women, they are passionately fond of flowers, and cultivate them with great assiduity; their gardens being as remarkable for their neatness, as are the interior of their dwellings for that extraordinary cleanliness to which I have borne testimony elsewhere.
On the arrival of a male visiter, should any of the ladies be wandering amid the bright blossoms in which they so much delight, the alarm is instantly given; and they shuffle away to their pretty prison-room as fast as their heelless slippers will enable them to move. Perhaps the guest may be a suitor; but if so, the case is not altered one iota. The lady still runs away, without any attempt to indulge her curiosity by a peep at her destined lord; while the gentleman, on his side, takes his seat in the great saloon, and, after smoking a score of pipes, and making a thousand teminas to the father or brother of his bride elect, mounts his horse, or resumes his place in his caïque, and departs; in full possession of all the particulars of the lady’s property; and in contented ignorance of all that relates to her character or person.
“Will you take this woman, whether she be halt, or deaf, or humped, or blind?" asks the priest on the bridal day, as the happy bridegroom stands opposite to a mummy-like mass of gold threads and cachemire, with his own monstrous calpac tricked out in the same glittering finery, until he looks like a male Danaë; and with true stolid Armenian philosophy he answers: “Even so I will take her.”
The European young lady associates the idea of marriage with tenderness, and indulgence, and domestic enjoyment; emancipation from maternal authority, and comparative personal liberty. She smiles in the stillness of her own spirit at the fair visions of happiness that rise before her; and there is no bitterness in the tears with which she quits the home of her infancy. But the Armenian maiden only exchanges one tyranny for another—she is transported to the home of a stranger, whom a priest has told her that she is to love, and whom she has never seen—beneath the roof-tree of a man whom, henceforward, she is bound to honour, though her heart may loathe the mockery. To obey is her least difficult duty, for she has been reared in obedience; but yet she cannot escape the pang of feeling how much more easy was that blind submission to another’s will, when it was enforced by the mother who had laid her to sleep upon her bosom in her infancy, and on whose knee she had sported in her girlhood; than when she is suddenly called upon to bow meekly beneath the dictation of a new and strange task-mistress, knit to her by no tie, save that new and unaccustomed link which has just been riveted by the church; and by which she has become the slave not only of her husband, but of his parents also.
Has she fortune, beauty, rank, they avail her nothing; for two long years she must not speak before her step-mother, save to reply to some question that may be put to her; and, should she herself become a parent, she has yet a sterner and a more difficult task to learn; for she cannot even fondle her infant before witnesses; but must fly and hide herself in her own chamber when she would indulge the outpourings of maternal love.
How melancholy a contrast does this Armenian barbarism afford to the beautiful devotedness of every inmate of a Turkish harem to the comfort and happiness of infancy! There it is difficult to decide which is really the mother of the rosy, laughing, boisterous baby that is passed from one to the other; and welcome to the heart and arms of all. The little plump, spoilt, mischievous urchin, whose life is one long holyday of fun and frolic; and whose few fleeting tears throw all around him into commotion. An infant is common property in a Turkish harem—a toy and a treasure alike to each; whether it be the child of the stately Hanoum whose will is law, or of the slave whose duty is obedience; and, it is certain that, if children could really be “killed with kindness,” the Ottoman Empire, in as far as the Turks themselves are concerned, would soon be a waste.
There can, I think, be no doubt that the life of cold, monotonous, heart-shutting ceremony led by the Armenians among themselves, has been in a great degree the cause of the stolidity of character with which I have elsewhere reproached them. It would, perhaps, be difficult to find a finer race of men in the world, as far as their personal appearance is concerned: while it is certain that no where could they be exceeded in mental, or I should rather say, moral inertness. In all affairs of commerce, where the subject may be reduced by rule, and decided by calculation, they are competent alike to undertake and to comprehend it: but once endeavour to while them beyond the charmed circle of their money-bags; to detach their thoughts for a moment from their piastres; and they cannot utter three consecutive sentences to which it is not a waste of time to listen.
That they are a most valuable portion of the population admits of no dispute; their steady commercial habits, their unquestioning submission to “the powers that be;” their plodding, unambitious natures, fit them admirably for their position in Turkey. Had they more mental energy, more self-appreciation, and more moral development, they could not continue to be the tame listless imitators, and idolaters of their masters that they now are.
The Armenian holds the same position among the bipeds of the East as the buffalo among the quadrupeds. He bears his load, and performs his task with docility, without appearing conscious that he can be capable of any thing beyond this; and, even the Sarafs, or Bankers to the Pashas, a class of men in whom I expected to encounter, at least occasionally, an individual of general acquirements and information, as far as my own experience went, scarcely formed an exception to the rule. I knew many among them who were exceedingly amiable, and possessed of great shrewdness, but it was all professional subtlety; it extended not beyond the objects on which their personal interests were hinged. Not one in a score can speak five words of any European language, or be induced to exhibit the slightest wish to acquire one. In a word, I should say that the Armenians, as a nation, were worthy, well-meaning, and useful, but extremely uninteresting members of society; possessing neither the energy of the Greek, nor the strength of character so conspicuous in the Osmanli—A money-making, money-loving people, having a proper regard for the “purple and fine linen” of the world; and quite satisfied to bear the double yoke of the Sultan and the Priesthood.