CHAPTER VII—CONSTANTINOPLE—THE CITY OF DOGS.
Human Camels—Canine Colors—The Dogs of Istamboul—Their Appearance and Moral Character—How the Turks regard them—“Inshallah”—Constantinopoli-tan Dogsologies—An Oriental Dog-fight—Sagacious Brutes—Cultivating Canine Society—“Standing Treat” among the Curs—Four-footed Campaigns—Dog-Districts—The Hostile Armies—A Brilliant Strategic Move—Charge of the Light (Dog) Brigade—Advance of the Chef de Garbage—The “Army of the West” in Retreat—The “Doubter’s” Mishap—Full Details of a Coat’s Detailing—An Israelite in whom there was Guile—No More Sandwiches for Me, Sir-r-r!
OUR baggage is on the backs of hamals or porters, and we follow it and them like mourners at a funeral.
The first objects to attract our attention are some ill-conditioned curs of low degree, full-blooded curs, with not a particle of respectability about them except in very rare cases. They are nearly all of the nondescript sort which the ruralist designates as “yaller dog,” without reference to his color. Yellow is the prevailing hue; but there are black, brown, white, and spotted dogs among them, and one of my friends avers that he has seen green, red, blue, and pink dogs over in Stamboul. But I fear he had tarried too long in a certain café there, and partaken of the cup which necessarily inebriates while it cheers.
There is a good deal of wolfishness about these dogs both in habits and appearance. They have no home, they live in the streets, and hunt for their living wherever there is a chance to find anything. You see them lying in the open street, on the pavement where men and horses are passing, or on the narrow strip of sidewalk, as if the place belonged to them. Under very favorable circumstances they crouch in doorways, but in so doing they render themselves liable to be kicked soundly whenever an occupant of the premises happens along. When they lie in the street men and horses generally step over or around them; I say generally, as neither men nor horses are very particular, and you not unfrequently hear a prolonged yelp or howl from some unfortunate cur whose leg, tail, or body, has received the impress of a human or equine foot. You see dogs with frightful wounds received from horse shoes, and others with huge scars where such wounds have been healed. In the Grand Rue de Pera and other streets where carriages can circulate, the sleeping dogs are occasionally run over and either wounded or killed.
I was one day an unwilling witness of one of these occurrences. Within a yard of where I stood a carriage-wheel passed over a dog, lacerating him in such a way that he died in a few minutes. But while he lived his howling was fearful to hear, and it rang in my ears long after the poor brute had ceased to breathe.
The Turks in general care little about the sufferings of the dogs, or in fact of any living thing. Now and then, one of them shows a little kindness to the animals, allows them to sleep in his doorway, and sometimes feeds them with any refuse food he has at hand. The Christian inhabitants of the place are more amiably disposed towards the brutes, and frequently kill them in order to end their misery. There have been several raids upon the dogs in the Pera quarter, but the animals are so numerous and the opposition of the Turks is so great, that the numbers are not much diminished. Though the Turks consider the dog an unclean beast and have no love for him, they have a great aversion to taking life on the principle I have before mentioned of non-interference with the will of God.
“If God wished the dogs to die,” said a Turk one day, in discussing the question, “he would sweep them off by a pestilence. Inshallah! they shall live.”
A practical reason for maintaining these dogs in Constantinople is that they are excellent scavengers. In this respect they are regarded exactly as are the buzzards that abound in some of our southern cities.
Wherever you see a fresh garbage heap in Constantinople there you will see a group of dogs. They are engaged in making a living, and they turn over all parts of the heap in search of something edible. Nothing comes amiss. A crust of bread, a bit of meat, a bone, fleshless or otherwise, is immediately seized and appropriated.
I used to watch the dogs when thus foraging, and was surprised to observe their apparent friendliness. When one found anything he ate it without being disturbed by his companions; but he never lingered long over it. Sometimes one would seize hold of a large bone and another would attach himself at the same moment to the opposite end. Then began a discussion of growls, snorts, and bites, and very often the whole party would go in and there would be a general scrimmage, in which the dogs would be in a struggling heap, doggedly clinging to the bone of contention.
One afternoon I happened to witness a fight of this sort in which half a dozen dogs were engaged. There was one little fellow in the lot, and while his big friends were quarreling at a lively rate he slipped in beneath the belly of the largest and came out in the same way, bringing the bone and making off with it.
So intent were they upon their unpleasantness that they did not observe the abstraction until little dog and big bone were out of sight around the corner. They looked around an instant with their noses in the air and then struck up another chorus of growls interrupted with bites and tussles. Then they appeared content and returned to their scientific investigations in the heap of garbage, pawing, scratching, and turning it over industriously for everything capable of mastication. To my mind a whole bundle of morals was bound up in the incident, but I forbear to thrust them upon my readers.
These dogs know and remember their friends as readily as do the members of the canine race in other parts of the globe, and numberless are the anecdotes of their sagacity related by old residents at Constantinople. A stranger walking the Grand Rue de Pera will frequently be accompanied a block or so by a stray dog who will wag his tail and look pleadingly in the stranger’s face as if to say “Please give me something to eat.” These demonstrations will be liveliest in the vicinity of an open-front cook-shop, such as are so common throughout the “city of dogs,” and if you stop and buy something for the poor brute he will manifest his gratitude in the various doggish ways with which we are all familiar. He will remember you and the next time you walk that street and block, he will be on hand to welcome you.
One day a couple of dogs thus pleaded for me to stand treat and I obliged them by stopping at a cook-shop and buying a few pennies worth of the pancaky productions of which the lower class of Turks are so fond. That evening I was calling on some friends at the Hotel de France and returned rather late to my quarters in the Hotel de Byzance. Two or three hundred yards from my destination two dogs came to my side and after a few demonstrations of welcome traveled along with a dignified air and did not leave me until I entered the doorway of the hotel. At that hour the cook-shops had long been closed and the manner of the brutes did not indicate that they expected to be paid for taking me home. Next day they met me again and were prompt to recognize me, and I returned their recognition by again standing treat at the cook shop. That night they were again on hand to escort me, and when a third dog approached they drove him away. In the day time they were suppliants but at night they were guardians, and I was told that if any man had ventured to attack me there was little doubt that they would have done good service with their teeth.
We kept up our acquaintance—the dogs and I—as long as I remained in Constantinople. I have always entertained great respect for the dog, and this experience increased rather than diminished it.
Have any of us ever lived, when we were boys, in a large city, and have we ever been “licked” by the boys of a neighboring street for the terrible crime of venturing out of our own territory? And furthermore have we ever joined in “licking” some other boy who had the audacity to venture from his street into ours.
Well, what boys do in American cities, the dogs do in Turkey. They divide Constantinople into districts, and they know their own districts as well as “the gal knew her dad.” Each group of dogs has its own territory and they are also on good terms with each other. But let a cur from the next dogship venture over the boundary he is in trouble at once. The whole crowd, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart and all the other big and little dogs go for him, and give it to him tooth and nail. He is rolled over in the mud and bitten and bruised, and if he gets back to his own ground with a whole skin he may thank his dog-stars.
I have frequently seen these discussions and observed how carefully the boundary is defined, and how common cause is made against the intruder. He is driven back to and over the frontier, and there the pursuit is supposed to end. But if the pursuers in the excess of their zeal venture across the line they are attacked by the combined forces of the district they have invaded, and a grand battle is occasionally the result. The vigor with which the dogs of the district assert their common rights, the patriotic zeal of even the most insignificant and contemptible curs when called upon to defend the common weal, and the aptitude which the dogs display for the discussion of diplomatic niceties and fine distinctions, call for the respectful consideration and study of the diplomats and scientists of the Western world.
One day I was sitting with a friend in front of a café which was situated on a street corner. The small street intersecting the larger one happened to be the boundary of two of the dog principalities, and we observed that the four-footed inhabitants of each realm frequently came down to the street, but did not venture into it, as it was a sort of neutral zone, which neither might occupy.
Let us call the principalities East and West for convenience in telling what happened.
Both armies had been gathered at the boundary and separated only by the narrow street. They snarled and growled and made reconnaissances in force, but neither ventured across.
The army of the East was the more numerous and contained larger and more healthy soldiers than that of the West; there was mischief in their eyes and mud on their feet, and they felt that they could “chaw up” the dogs of the West if they had a chance.
And how should they do it when it was contrary to their moral principles to invade a country with which they were nominally at peace?
The army of the East retired from the frontier and disappeared round the next corner where there was doubtless a camp of instruction—a sort of Chalons-sur-Marne. The army of the West also retired and moved toward its own interior; it stacked arms in the vicinity of a swill-box in front of a restaurant, and waited for somebody to overturn the box, on which their hopes and hunger were centered. Unconscious of danger, they did not preserve good order, and nearly half their forces straggled away where a baggy-breeched and dirty Turk had just deposited a basketful of kitchen garbage. With tail in air, mouth wide open, and thoughts intent upon their hurried banquet, for one fateful moment they lost sight of stratagems and only dwelt on spoils.
This was the military situation at 3.15 p.m. About 3.18 p.m. a cavalry regiment (one dog) debouched from the street leading to the fortified camp of the Army of the East.
Halting a moment to observe the situation,—it had only one eye to observe with—and its tail had been detailed to service elsewhere—it gave the order to advance and—obeyed it.
With no shout of defiance, without champ of bit or clank of saber, but “all in silence deep, unbroken,” it pressed forward at the pas de charge and crossed the frontier. Leaping the Rubicon—a narrow mud puddle—it was on the sacred soil of the West.
This gallant Light Brigade—noble six hundred ounces of dog-flesh—did not slacken speed for an instant, but pushed onward with head and stump of tail up, to within point blank range of the swill-box. It was not perceived by the Army of the West until it was within a couple of yards of the commissary depot; there a shot from a picket gave the alarm and the Army of the West fell into line at once.
The swill-box division made a bayonet charge at the audacious invader, who turned and with depending caudal stump legged it for his native land.
The reserve at the garbage heap advanced in double quick time and things looked rather lively for the invader.
Swift was the flight and swift the pursuit.
The pursuers halted not at the frontier, but in the impetuosity of youth and anger at the insolence of the enemy’s cavalry, they pushed straight on after the flying foe.
The cavalry sounded its trumpet as it jumped the Rubicon, and just as it reached the corner leading to the fortified camp, the whole army of the East came to its support. Wasn’t the army of the West up a tree about this time? The battle was short, sharp, and decisive. The army of the West was “licked” out of its boots, and with shattered battalions and wide gaps in its ranks it came limping and howling home, leaving the ground covered with a debris of ears and tails.
They made a brief halt at the frontier whither they were pursued, but only stopped long enough to intimate that they would get even sometime.
Whether they have ever done so history does not record. The despatches from our ambassador at the court of His Majesty, the Sultan, made no mention of the matter, and a similar remissness has been observed in the reports of Sir Henry Elliott to the British Government.
The dog in the Orient is considered an unclean and disreputable beast, and one of the worst epithets applicable to living things is the term “dog.” The Moslem was once accustomed to speak of “Christian dogs” whenever he had occasion to allude to people of the Occident, just as the Chinese are to this day in the habit of designating-them as “fankwei,” “foreign devils.” Sometimes a delicate allusion is made to the maternal descent from the canine race, where the speaker wishes to lay it on fine, and if he wants to be especially choice and emphatic, he would denounce an offending Occidental, as “Father of all dogs.”
Donkey drivers all through the Orient urge their beasts forward by shouting, “Empchy, ya kelb,” (go on you dog,) but the donkeys do not appear to mind it. I was repeatedly impressed with the similarity of Arab and Russian drivers, as the epithet Kelb which the former apply to their donkeys and camels, has exactly the meaning of “sabaka” which the Russian yemshik yells out to his horse. The dogs of Constantinople are so accustomed to the sight of people in European dress, that they do not pretend to attack them, for the simple reason that they would have a larger contract on hand than they could conveniently fill. But the case is different in places less frequented by foreigners. In Damascus, when our party made the tour of the walls, the dogs annoyed us greatly by hanging around and keeping up a very loud and angry barking.
They did not bite anybody, though they came very near, and certainly manifested a strong desire for dental practice.
They were knowing brutes, those Damascus dogs; one of our party afterward called them Damas-cussed dogs; but we reproved him and threatened expulsion if he ever did so again. The joke might have been allowed in Kit Burns’ dog-pit, but was quite out of place in a respectable party making the tour of the Holy Land. When they barked and howled around us, we made threatening demonstrations with our canes and umbrellas, but the animals didn’t scare worth a cent. They were particularly fascinated with the “Doubter,” but they soon knew the range of his umbrella, and how to keep out of its reach.
But when our guide picked up a stone and let it fly they fell back. Whenever they came too near, a stone would send them back and a volley would put their ranks in disorder. Even the motion to pick up a stone would start them; the Arabs around Damascus can hurl these missiles with great violence and are good shots, and the dogs know it. Several times our guide made splendid shots, taking the dogs fairly in the sides with stones the size of a respectable fist, or a more respectable piece of chalk, and sending the offenders off with a chorus of yelps that were a warning to their fellows.
One morning when we were starting out for a long forenoon’s walk, in Constantinople, the “Doubter” was sceptical about the possibility of getting anything to eat on the way, and so took the precaution to provide himself with a couple of ham sandwiches, which he stowed away in the rear pocket of his coat, and thereby hangs a tale.
In one place we passed a group of dogs that looked up inquiringly, but showed no fight or other ugliness. As we went by them the largest of the pack, a lank beast about the size of a full grown donkey, sniffed the morning air and the sandwiches in the “Doubter’s” coat-tails. With hair bristling on his back, and with tail and ears erect the Ponto of the Orient came up behind us, and I could see what he wanted. As the “Doubter” spoke nothing but English, I passed the word in French to the rest of the party to keep his attention fixed on something, while I encouraged the dog. They dropped at once to the joke, and became very busy in examining the dome of a mosque that loomed up before them.
Ponto or Ishmael, or whatever his canine name was, came bravely and hungrily forward. A ham sandwich was evidently a luxury the brute had not enjoyed for many a day, and his appetite was now fairly aroused. I pointed to the coat-tails where were enshrined the savory sandwiches, and intimated by signs that it was all right, and the best dog might win. Ponto’s nose came within two inches of the prize, and took a fresh and satisfying sniff and then—
There was a ripping and tearing of broadcloth; the “Doubter” fell backwards from the effect of the shock, and then—there was more ripping.
Ponto was hungry and the Infidel Christian had brought him something to eat.
A jump, a rip, a fall, an—
As the novelists say “all this passed quicker than I can write it.” other rip, and all was over.
I was so dumb-struck with astonishment that I couldn’t interfere till Ponto had detailed the “Doubter’s” coat. As he fled I raised a shout and a terrible outcry that made him run all the faster. Away he went like a pirate-ship in a fog, and in two minutes he was hull down among the sand hills.
“Stop him! stop him!” yelled the “Doubter,” but the brute couldn’t understand English, and evidently he was not a stop-watch dog.
“There’s a coat ruined,” continued the “Doubter,”
“I’ve only had it four years, and gave twenty dollars for it. What shall I do? what shall I do?”
“Cut off the other tail and make a jacket of it. Come to-morrow with sandwiches in the other pocket and the dog will do it for you.”
“Hire an Arab to hunt up the tail.”
“Cut off the dog’s tail and sew it on instead, look any worse than it did before.” "Tell the Consul about it, and have him demand satisfaction of the government.”
These and other irreverent remarks were let off in the pauses of our laughter, and I am bound to say that the “Doubter” didn’t enjoy any part of the joke. He was unhappy all day, and more unhappy when he visited next morning the clothing shop of an Israelite, in whom there was guile enough to set up a whole Tammany Ring, and have ten per cent, to spare. While he tried on a coat, and was dubious about the fit, the polite Jew declared: “Ah, mein Gott, zat coat, he fit you like ze skin on a dog; like, shoost like, ze skin on one big dog!”
And the “Doubter” again waxed wroth, and took in high dudgeon this apparently personal indignity.
When he paid his bill at the hotel he was again angry, for among the items was the following:
“Extra—two sandwiches, two francs.”
He vowed he would not pay, but we all insisted that the charge was just, and he finally paid, and was cross for a week afterward. But he never again took ham sandwiches for a lunch in Constantinople.
CHAPTER VIII—TURKISH CURIOSITY SHOPS—SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE BAZAARS.
Locomotion in Constantinople—Horses, Donkeys, Shank’s Mare and Sedan Chairs Turkish Street Cars—Women in Public—The Veiled Queens of Seraglios—The Drugs of the Orient—Henna and its Uses—Ottar of Roses, Musk and Bergamot—Shawls and Silks of price—The Treasures of Ormus and of lad—The Workers in Precious Metals—Vases of Gold and Platters of Silver—An Aureole of Gems—Loot for Soldiers and Swag for Burglars—The Weapons of Ancient Islam—Blades of Damascus and Swords of Mecca—A Wonderful Collection—Old Clothes and New Truck—A Seedy Moslem Swindler—An Exorbitant “Backsheesh”—What happened to the Judge—A Dispenser of Justice in the Lockup.
DOUBTLESS one of the most attractive features of Constantinople in the eyes of a stranger is a visit to the bazaars.
To reach there from Pera, where all the hotels are situated, it is necessary to descend the steep hill to Golata and cross the Golden Horn to Stamboul. You can go on foot, on horseback, in a carriage, or in a sedan chair; on foot is the least expensive and is the method employed by the majority of visitors as it furnishes an opportunity for a leisurely survey of the route which is always interesting, providing the rain is not falling and the sun is not pouring down an intense heat.
Saddle horses are to be found all over the city, and you can hire them by the day or hour or by the course from one place to another. A man accompanies the horses, and no matter how fast you may ride, he will keep close to the animal’s heels without apparent fatigue.
Carriages are a comparatively recent feature of Constantinople; they are decidedly expensive, and as they jolt along over the rough pavements you are shaken up in a way to make Dyspepsia turn pale in the face.
The sedan chair is borne by two men and is not an uncomfortable mode of locomotion; all things considered it is the most agreeable if one does not wish to go on foot, and has an aversion to a violent shaking up.
The sedan chair waiting at the door of the theatres near the conclusion of the performance presents a curious spectacle, and reminds you of the stories of London two hundred years ago when chairs and link boys were the mode.
Omnibusses and street cars are in use. The latter are divided into three compartments, first, second, and women’s. The first class has leather cushions on the seat, and are generally dirty; the second class has no cushions on the seats and are generally dirtier. In the women’s compartment no man is allowed to enter; the women sit there in silence and seclusion after the Turkish custom, and each wears the veil.
The veil of the Turkish women of fashion is of the thinnest gauze; it allows the full outline of the features to be distinctly seen, and if the wearer is pretty you are sure to know it. And between you and me many who are not altogether pretty are made so by the veil which softens the hard outlines and tempers any excess of color.
The street car dropped us at the point indicated by our guide, and we entered the bazaar through a gateway possessing an architectural feature worthy of notice. The first place we visited was the bazaar of drugs, and as we entered it a thousand peculiar odors saluted our nostrils; some of them possessing great pungency and power of penetration. For a minute or so the odor was almost intoxicating; it was much like that which we experience in America on entering a drug and perfumery establishment on a large scale.
The street or passage-way is quite narrow and on either side are small shops with open fronts. The floor of the shop is about three feet above the ground, and is so arranged that the merchant squatted within can use the front part of the floor as a counter for the display of his wares.
For storage purposes there were shelves, and the merchant could reach whatever was wanted without rising from his place. On the projecting platform at either side of the shop, there were sacks of henna—used for coloring a great many things, the eyebrows and finger-nails of women included—and there were other sacks containing dates and various kinds of nuts. Drugs of unknown names and quantities were exhibited, and in many respects each shop appeared very much like its neighbor.
Immediately on entering we find ourselves in the place set apart for perfumery, and if we wish to purchase ottar of rose, musk, essence of bergamot, oil of sandal wood, or any of that kind of goods, now is our chance. The merchants here seem to think that the chief end of foreign man and especially woman is to buy ottar of rose, and you are offered the article in all sorts of flasks and bottles They have a curious looking bottle, shaped like one’s finger but longer in proportion to its width, which holds only a few drops of the precious liquid.
Each man assures you that his is the only genuine article of the kind in the city, and that you will be cheated if you go elsewhere. You are allowed to smell of the merchandise, and by way of convincing you of the genuineness of what they offer, they show you a small bottle of the counterfeit with the assurance that they never sell it and only keep it to show.
There is more humbug and nonsense in the purchase and sale of ottar of rose than in anything else that is dealt in, in the Orient. Every guide can take you to the only merchant in the city who sells the genuine article, and no two guides take you to the same merchant.
You can buy the stuff anywhere from one to twenty dollars an ounce; the price you pay is only limited by your willingness to pay it, and the amount of money that your guide and the merchants (who are invariably “in cahoots”) think they can squeeze out of you. You can just as well buy for five dollars an ounce as for twenty; the genuine article, unadulterated in any way, is worth fifty dollars an ounce at the place of manufacture, and as the Orient demands large profits, you should expect to pay a hundred dollars for it in Constantinople.
You can set it down as a certainty that no stranger can possibly buy the genuine ottar of rose in the bazaars of Constantinople or Cairo.
Near these perfume bazaars are the shops where you can buy-all sorts of Oriental luxuries in the shape of shawls and silks, sandal and rosewood, Persian mirrors framed in fine paintings, articles of ivory, or ebony, or pearl, little odds and ends of filagree work; in fact, an endless variety of things of more or less value.
The merchants are not so ready to show their goods as those we have just passed, for the reason that the articles may be damaged by much handling, and customers are not very easy to obtain. If you show a disposition to trade, they will accommodate you; but they do not rush to strip their shelves at your approach.
We did not want to buy drugs, and so we went rather hastily through this bazaar to visit the “Grand Bazaar,” as it is generally known among foreigners as well as natives. Do not imagine that it is a single house; it is so in one sense, and in another is far from it. It is a sort of city within a city; it has streets, lanes, alleys, and squares, which are all roofed over, so that you might walk upon the housetops from one side of the bazaar to the other. Light is admitted through holes in the street roofs, some of them open and others covered with glass.
There is not light enough to go around and give a good supply to everybody, and sometimes you have to strain your eyes to see distinctly, and then you don’t. A good many of the shop-keepers in America are up to the same dodge; if you don’t believe it, just enter a ready-made clothing store in New York or Boston, and observe in what part of the establishment they endeavor to fit you.
Further on you find the shops where the silks of Broussa are sold, an article for which Constantinople has long been famous.
There are two kinds of Broussa goods, one entirely of silk and the other half silk and half linen; the latter is much the cheaper of the two, and greatly in demand for dresses after the European model. The merchants endeavor to tempt the masculine visitor with dressing-gown and wrappers of Broussa silks, and then with slippers and other articles which would make a sensation at home. There is a great supply of ready-made clothing of the Turkish pattern, especially for children; and you could rig out a small boy there in a very short time with garments that fit him exactly, from slippers up to head dress.
And so you go on. You can wander for hours in the bazaars, days will not exhaust their treasures, and I think I should be content to spend my odd moments there for at least half a year. The whole wealth of Ormus and of Ind seems to be stored there; and the eyes are frequently dazzled by some object of great value, whose existence is almost an enigma, and its uses still more so. You pass from the centre of one trade to that of another; now you are among the rows of shops where are sold the curiously-shaped shoes of the Orient. Thousands and thousands of shoes are exposed there, and you think if all Turkey should become by some miracle barefoot to-morrow morning, it could be newly shod before nightfall from this bazaar alone.
You enter the bazaar of the workers in gold and silver, and there you see enough of the precious metal to pay the national debt of any reasonably economical country, or at all events, to go far in that direction. You enter the bazaar of precious stones and see the light flashing and sparkling from thousands of diamonds of “purest ray serene,” and should you show a desire to purchase, they will bring forth from dusty and iron-bound coffers tens and hundreds of thousands of other diamonds, larger and more brilliant than those which hang or lie in the showcases. Collars, ear-drops, rings, and pins of diamonds and other precious stones are on exhibition, and many of them, in spite of their oriental mounting in semi-barbaric taste, are of great beauty.
The wealth stored here is something incredible. The loot of the place would make many and many a fortune, and enable the robbers to live comfortably and honestly for the rest of their days.
One of the most interesting places is the Arms Bazaar. It is not exactly what its name indicates, as it contains a great many things besides weapons of war or the chase. In the other bazaars you find an attempt now and then to conform to Occidental taste, but here everything is Oriental. You can find here every sort of weapon which the Orient has known in the past ten or twenty centuries. There are swords of Damascus, of a fineness unknown to the best steel of the present day, and which may have flashed in the hands of Saladin or Haroun-al-Raschid. There are knives and lances that are said to have pierced through coats of mail, and whose handles are crusted and covered with pearls and precious stones. There are spears, hatchets, lances, sabres, curious old match-locks, with barrels of immense length—all the weapons of the Islam of the past and going back to the time when Mohammed, at Mecca, believed himself commissioned from heaven to reform the world.
Saddles and housings, sparkling with precious stones, are placed where the light falling from the vaulted roof will show them to the best advantage; and as you look around you see thousands of objects covered with jewels and with barbaric pearl and gold. There are garments lined with costly furs, or embroidered in the most elaborate manner, and there are articles of furniture of fabulous value.
So great is the wealth contained in the Arms Bazaar that no fire is allowed there under any circumstances. Smoking is prohibited; the place where a Turk forbids himself to smoke must be sacred in the highest degree.
There are bazaars where they sell pipes of all kinds, and where you buy all kinds of tin-ware. There are book bazaars, seed bazaars, glass bazaars, and so on through a long list. And there is a second-hand bazaar, where you can buy anything from a set of false teeth to a suit of clothes. It is a wonderful mass of stuff, not altogether inviting; as you walk around, you have suspicions of plague, cholera, and other diseases of the Orient, and are not altogether sorry to get away. To most visitors to this place, the request “please not handle” would be quite superfluous, as they have no wish to form a very intimate acquaintance with the articles exposed for sale. But the Turk never puts up a notice of this sort, and seems quite indifferent on the subject.
We inquired for the slave bazaar, and were told it no longer existed.
A few years ago there was such a bazaar near the mosque of Mohammed II, where negro children were sold, and occasionally one could find an adult, man or woman, to be disposed of. The bazaar for white slaves is also gone, but the commerce is still carried on clandestinely. The business is conducted by Circassians established in the Pera quarter; they claim that the girls sold by them, come voluntarily to Constantinople, and the prices they demand is simply to cover the expense of importation. It was the month of Ramadan, or Ramazan, when I arrived at Constantinople. There may be some ignorant wretch who doesn’t know what Ramadan is.
Well, the Mohammedan year is divided into twelve months, composed alternately of twenty-nine and thirty days, or three hundred and fifty-four days in all. Consequently the year begins sometimes in the spring, sometimes in the summer, and so on, with a constant variation. This may seem absurd to our notions, but on second thought we see that it gives every month a fair show, and is really a very just system.
Suppose we had the same kind of year, we could have January begin, once in a while, in August, and March could have a chance to set up for September. May could not put on airs over November, because they would change places from time to time, and December could be in haying time, just as often as it is the period for skating. Think of planting potatoes in November and cutting ice in August, of eating your Christmas dinner and going a Maying in October! Mohammed had a level head after all.
Ramadan is the most sacred month in the year, and every Moslem is directed to fast every day during that month. From sunrise to sunset he must abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and smelling perfumes, and from all indulgence of a worldly character.
The Prophet neglected to prohibit his followers from taking presents or swindling their customers during this month; at all events, I found them entertaining the most extraordinary notions of the value of their services, and asking about four times the real worth of what they had to sell and what I wanted to buy.
The first afternoon we were in Constantinople we went to the Tower of Golata, which overlooks the city; there were six of us, and we went without a guide. We climbed the steps until we reached the platform, where the police authorities keep a detachment constantly on the lookout for fires, and I may here remark, by the way, that their vigilance is well rewarded, as they have more fires, and very destructive ones they are, in Constantinople than in any other city of its size on the face of the globe.
When we reached this platform a seedy Turk approached us and asked what we wanted. "Can we go to the top?” I asked in French, as he was more likely to understand that language than any other with which I was familiar.
The seedy Moslem extended his hand and uttered, “backsheesh!” in a very imperative tone.
I gave him a franc, and he then counted six on his fingers, and intimated that he wanted six francs for the party. I paid no more attention to him, and continued up the stairs to the top, calling on the rest to follow.
We remained there an hour or more studying the beautiful, or as the French would say, bizarre picture which included the whole of Constantinople, the Golden Horn, Scutari, with much of the Asiatic side and portions of the Bosphorus and Sea of Marmora. We watched the sun go down, and when his rays had ceased to gild the domes and minarets of Stamboul we were ready to descend.
The Judge had gone down before the sun, as he was not much on sight-seeing, and had spied a Greek beer-shop near the foot of the tower, and intimated that he would sit down in front of it and wait for us. When the rest of us went down our seedy Turk was on the lookout, and demanded more francs; he wanted five and I gave him one, and intimated that I would break his Osmanli skull if he didn’t shut up. We were more numerous than he, and he didn’t trouble us farther, except by howling “backsheesh” as long as we were within hearing.
And what do you suppose the Judge told us when we joined him?
That scoundrelly Oriental had locked the door on the Judge and refused to let him descend until he paid the five francs, which he afterward demanded of us, and the good-natured ex-dispenser of justice actually paid the fellow three francs, and then grew wrathy and threatened to break the door if it was not opened.
The Turk saw he meant business, and then unlocked the door, not without a final demand, which he repeated while our friend descended.
We learned at the hotel that half a franc would have been a sufficient “back sheesh” for the whole party. Had we paid that and no more when we entered, the fellow would have seen that we knew the price, and would have made no further demand. But my gift of a franc—double the proper fee—coupled with my question showed him that we were a lot of modest idiots who might be swindled. It was our first experience with the Moslem, and you can wager that we learned a good lesson from it.
Now, this happened in the month of Ramadan, and that Turk was keeping the fast with religious exactness. Yet we shouldn’t have been swindled any more by a Christian hackman in New York or Chicago, unless we had given the hackman an equal chance.
